Return to Massacre Mesa - Edge Series 5 (35 page)

‘You sure have, you damn fool!’ Goodrich snarled and drew as much irritable interest from Tree as from Dingle. And then both men began to express much the same degree of sheepish embarrassment when the obese liveryman moderated his tone to explain: ‘If Slade was one of them deserters who took the government money and knows where it’s hid, why the hell has he spent all these years driving himself crazy out here in the hills trying to find it?’

Tree’s bitterness was expressed with a deep groan and Dingle rasped a curse. Edge, his own horse attended to for the night, began to look after the needs of Rose’s pony and signalled that the squaw should continue caring for the gunshot man. Then the other three men began tending to their mounts: likewise Lucy Russell and Crooked Eye. There was no talk except for when Dingle occasionally cursed at his pony for not holding still: but his disgruntlement was probably caused less by the recalcitrant animal than a compelling need to comment on the entire situation. Afterwards, Edge fixed a pot of coffee while Lucy prepared the ingredients for a frugal supper. She had to do this in two skillets because the cooking pot Crooked Eye had taken off the evenly burning fire was still being used by Rose to bath Slade’s wound. The flames soon made their welcome warmth comfortingly felt as the brightly moon and starlit night closed in fully over the mountains and desert, the unmoving air chill enough to make them all thankful for the few blessings they had acquired courtesy of the army. Which included blankets wrapped around their shoulders as a foretaste of the luxury of sleeping in relative warmth compared with the discomforts of earlier nights.

Merciful unconsciousness continued to protect Slade from pain while the squaw cleaned and dressed his wound as best she was able. And later, while he lay close to the fire under a blanket that draped him from neck to feet, he occasionally moaned and once coughed and cried out: maybe in agony or perhaps at a nightmare. But if he ever came close to the surface of recovery, he was instantly deeply unconscious again. His eyes closed, barely breathing, the pallor of his sparsely fleshed face above the ragged 243

beard suggesting every drop of blood in his spare frame had seeped out through the bullet hole in his belly.

The other men, the two women and the boy who were huddled around the fire ate less voraciously than at the bivouac on the far side of the mesa. Not so hungry as they had been after going so long without food: and maybe some appetites were spoiled by the gratuitous shooting of Zane Slade and the knowledge that the sleeping man stretched out a few feet away from them was on the brink of death. Edge was through eating first, after giving the impression he had relished every mouthful of the food. And Lucy Russell said as he rattled his licked clean spoon down into his empty bowl:

‘I can be a pretty fine cook in ideal circumstances – and I mean at home, not in the kitchen of the Wild Dog - so I don’t make any claims about this.’ She scowled into her own bowl that was still half full of beef chilli. Edge grinned as he rose wearily to his feet and picked up his Winchester. ‘I enjoy fine food, lady. But I can eat the worst there is when I don’t know where the next meal’s coming from - good or bad.’ He ended the grin and massaged the ache at the small of his back as he raked his gaze over the people clustered around the fire: drew scowls or indifferent glances in response. ‘I’ll take the first watch. Tree, you can be next.’

The saloonkeeper a long way from his place of business grimaced and looked ready to snarl a reply that would maybe have expressed his resentment at Edge for assuming command again. But instead he growled bitterly: ‘Mind telling me just what the hell are we gonna be watching for, mister?’

‘Trouble, feller: which is something that if it doesn’t come, all you’ll lose will be a little sleep. Don’t watch for it tonight and if it does show up Slade could have some company on the way to whatever department of the afterlife he’s going to be headed for.’

Tree shrugged. ‘Okay, damnit! Wake me in a couple of hours. After that, I’ll roust you out of the sack, Brod.’

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Goodrich showed even less enthusiasm for sentry duty but sighed then scowled at Dingle: ‘And you’ll take your turn after me, mister.’

Dingle glared his ill feeling across the flames at where the two women and the boy were seated. ‘What about them?’

‘I am ready to do whatever I am asked,’ Crooked Eye said adamantly.

‘Lucy started: ‘And I’ll – ‘

‘You two ladies take turns at tending to Slade,’ Edge broke in. ‘Do what’s possible if he needs anything you can get for him. I need to borrow your watch again, feller?’

Dingle dug out his timepiece and handed it over to Edge as he growled: ‘And you women listen good in the event Slade says anything that’ll make it easier for us to find what we’re looking for out here!’ He glowered at Rose, then looked shamefaced at those who expressed scorn for him in the flickering light of the fire and blurted: ‘Well, a crazy old coot like him: maybe something could’ve happened way back that got blotted out of his memory! And getting gut shot tonight could have made him remember it all again, couldn’t it?’

Goodrich started to blurt excitedly: ‘You know Sam, that maybe just could have happened so that’s why the old guy’s been . . . ’

Edge did not hear the end of the liveryman’s opinion. Or the comments it drew after he moved away from the group at the fire and went to the right of the cave to climb the natural stairway to the ledge a few feet above its mouth. Up here he found adequate room where he would be able to hunker down and be reasonably comfortable while he kept watch over the broad sweep of desert to the north, east and west: likewise guard the only way down from the top of the mesa. And here he leaned his rifle against the rock face and made and lit a cigarette as he began his vigil while most of those below bedded down.

Crooked Eye first, the young buck seemingly asleep the moment he stretched out under his blanket with no tossing and turning to find a comfortable position. It was not so easy and took longer for the three men to sink into the kind of rest nobody had 245

enjoyed for many nights. The two women talked in subdued tones for a time, their voices never loud enough for the conversation to carry clearly up to where Edge stood, smoking the cigarette and making no attempt to eavesdrop. He was aware of the constant low crackle of the fire from close by and the distant howls of coyotes every now and then. Otherwise there was just silence in the moonlit night as he began to feel pleasantly warm under the blanket draped around his shoulders. Then he killed the cigarette and sat down on the ledge, his back resting against the unyielding face of the mesa. And it would have been tempting to doze and soon sink into a much deeper sleep. But if the number of his years was sufficient to make the need for a solid night’s rest more demanding than it had been in the past, many experiences during those years had primed him for the kind of situation he was now in. When it might be dangerous to sleep, he was able to resist the temptation. So at no time tonight did he allow his chin to sink down to his chest as he sat contentedly alone in the near silence: his belly full and his body warm, mentally and physically wearied by the eventful and often violent expedition from Lakewood to Mesa Desolado. And kept his mind active with reflections on what may happen tomorrow. First, would they find the stolen silver dollars and so get to divide the spoils that were the reason all but Lucy Russell was here? And then would he be content to keep just the two thousand dollars he considered was his due? Or insist on a full equal share

- if for no other reason than to stop the rest of them getting more than he did? More critically, would Tree and Goodrich, representing the law, permit any kind of division of the Government money to take place? Or if, by general agreement or strict enforcement of the law, all the money was returned to the government, no single member of the group would have a right to claim the reward as an individual. And whatever split of the money was made, Edge would certainly not get the full two thousand bucks he had travelled so far to recoup. But on the principle that something was better than nothing then that was maybe what he would have to settle for, damnit!

He ended this line of sardonic thinking when he heard an unfamiliar sound: not one of those that had unobtrusively disturbed the quiet night before. But since it came from below and to the left, he did not tightened his grip on the Winchester when he 246

straightened up. And swept his gaze over the terrain beyond the camp, to make maybe what he expected to be a final check before he was relieved of sentry duty. But even as he was about to delve for Dingle’s watch he saw that it was not Sam Tree who was climbing the rock stairway. Instead, Rose Bigheart, who raised a hand in a sign of wearily silent greeting.

When she reached the ledge the squaw betrayed a degree of exhaustion she had not shown before as she sank gratefully down on to her haunches. And for a few moments her head tilted back against the comfortless rock while she took several deep breaths and allowed the rigidity to drain out of her strangely frail looking frame. Then she announced: ‘The man called Zane Slade has just died, Mr Edge. So another life is lost in pursuit of that accursed money!’ Her voice was muted but there was rasping anger in its tone, the emotion clearly visible in her gaunt profile as she peered out across the desert to the north and made the sign of the cross at her chest.

‘You figured he wasn’t going to last long, lady,’ he reminded

‘I think it did not require a squaw who knows a little of Comanche medicine to see that?’ She sighed and looked quizzically at him, drew a nod of agreement, inclined her head and went on as she returned her gaze to the barren, softly moonlit vista spread before them. ‘But I think it is good we did all that we could to make a dying man comfortable?’

‘It’s good for anyone who needs a decent night’s sleep untroubled by bad conscience. Which you ought to be able to have now, lady?’

She shook her head without turning to look at him. ‘My conscience is not often untroubled, Mr Edge: because I have done so much during my life that is shameful. This is why for many years I have tried to live righteously: to help my fellow men if I was able - a Comanche among the White Eyes. But even if I live to be a thousand years old I don’t think that I could even then atone for the sin of deserting my innocent baby son and his fine father.’

‘Look, I’m not sure if I – ‘

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She broke in: ‘Yes, I understand, Edge. You are weary and surely you are much in need of the untroubled sleep of your own that you deserve. And there is no reason why you should have to listen to an old Comanche squaw talk of the sins she has committed. My regrets are of no concern to you or anyone else and tomorrow you and the others will get what you all desire, so - ’

She made to rise but Edge stopped her with a restraining hand: used the other one to take out Dingle’s watch and tilted it so moonlight showed what he had already suspected. Then he returned it to his pocket and tugged on the squaw’s shirtsleeve to signal her to remain seated. ‘I’ve got almost thirty minutes before I go wake Sam Tree, lady. And I’m willing to listen to you. As long as you don’t expect me to act like some kind of Papal priest taking your confession?’

She looked long and hard at him then reached gently forward to raise the brim of his Stetson a little: to see clearly in the moonlight the set of his heavily bristled, deeply lined, weather burnished face. After she withdrew the hand and settled fully back into the sitting opposition she continued to survey him as she said: ‘I knew that man Conners was wrong about you, Edge. You are of mixed blood that is certain - but I can tell no part of you is Indian.’

He told her: ‘My ma came from Europe and my pa was a Mexican: if it matters?’

She shook her head again and returned her doleful gaze to the terrain in the north. ‘No, it does not matter. It is just that I feel a . . . I do not know the word - I feel in sympathy with you. Much as I would with another Indian: be he a Comanche or an Apache or an Arapaho.’ She shrugged. ‘I think you are a man of some principle, Edge. Which does not mean that you are a good man. But you are not like those down there. So I am grateful that you will listen to what I intend to tell you.’

Edge dug into another shirt pocket, brought out the makings and said as he began to open the poke: ‘I figure you have a point, lady.’

‘I am glad you agree, Edge.’

‘And I’ll be glad when you start getting to it.’

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CHAPTER • 23

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ROSE BIGHEART was a Comanche who had survived for a lot of years exiled
from her tribe. And she was a squaw. Two circumstances that in Edge’s view combined to make her into a very strong willed individual. So with her mind set upon speaking her piece it was no surprise that she went right ahead and did it: and chose not to be diverted by his cynicism about how women of any heritage had a penchant for idle chatter.