The Outrage - Edge Series 3 (21 page)

‘Me?’ He shook his head and showed an insecure smile. ‘No, I’m fine, sir.’ The pale grey suit was brand new or seldom worn, his shoes were polished to a high shine and his white shirt and red patterned necktie were neat and crisp. There was not a recently barbered blond hair out of place and he had shaved since he returned from the scene of the fire in Avery Valley Woods.

‘So, tell me what happened at the old mill?’

Colman’s unease increased and he swallowed hard and stared down into his beer glass before he asked: ‘How’s old Joe? Have you heard?’

‘Doc Sullivan gave him something to drink to make him sleep for a long time. And he’ll have something like an almighty hangover when he wakes up but he’ll be okay. The party at the old mill, kid?’

Colman sucked in a deep breath, pushed his beer away and nodded emphatically, like he had finally reached a hard to come to decision. ‘It was the night of the Founders Day Dance they hold in the meeting hall every year. Almost everybody in Springdale and Avery County goes.’ He looked down at himself. ‘I bought this suit and tie to wear that night.’

‘I heard the dance can be a pretty dull affair for young fellers of your age?’

‘Yeah, that sure is so, sir. That’s why this year some of us guys decided to duck out. And hold a party of our own at the old mill.’

‘How many of you?’

‘Ten maybe.’ He shrugged and expressed doubt. ‘Or a dozen, even a few more I guess.’

‘You and the Quinn girl and who else?’

Colman hurried to correct: ’Nancy wasn’t there, not at the start of it. Alvin Ivers and his buddy Hooper. Frank Parrish and Eddie Sawyer. Bob Jordan who lived at the old mill. And Scotty. Some guys who work on the Cassidy spread. I don’t remember who exactly.’

‘So you were there along with a whole bunch of other red blooded young fellers at the mill. Drinking and gambling and having a whole lot more fun that you would have at the dance back here in town?’

‘Right.’ He shook his head and lost the modicum of self-confidence he had begun to build up. ‘Well, to tell the truth I wasn’t having so much fun. On that particular night I’d much rather have been at the dance. With Nancy, the way we’d planned it. But she never showed up. And I only went out to the mill to be one of the guys.’ He chewed some more on his lip and glanced at Edge. ‘Like you’ve seen, I’m not much of a drinker. I can’t hold my liquor. And card playing bores me stiff.’

Edge prompted: ‘Then Nancy did show up. But that was out at the old mill instead of at the town dance?’

‘Right. Her and Blanche Mandrell. Nancy was a little drunk but not so bad as the time me and Scotty rescued her from those two guys about Christmas time.’ He met Edge’s steady gaze for longer now. ‘I guess it was Alvin Ivers who told you all this already, that right?’

‘When two or two hundred people see something, kid, there are likely to be two or two hundred different accounts of what happened to be told.’

‘I guess that can be so.’ He took another sip of his beer but was still not enjoying it.

‘Nancy said she wanted to go swimming in the pool up from the mill. Nobody else did and that made her get into one of her moods. She could pull a real terrible sulk if she didn’t get her own way sometimes. Especially when she’d had a drink or two. And that night she started to get really drunk.’

He clutched his beer glass in both hands without any intention of lifting it off the table and looked apprehensively around the saloon as he neared the part of his story he was most reluctant to tell. ‘Well, Nancy just got more and more mad. Especially so after Blanche got fed up with her crabby mood and started spooning with Scotty, who’s her beau. And she yelled at Bob Jordan to play something lively on his harmonica.’

Edge said: ‘I reckon you ought to quit squeezing that glass so tight, kid.’

Colman snatched his hands away and looked long and hard at the palms. One of which was scabbed from yesterday’s accident with another glass. ‘Yeah, well, Bob did like she wanted him to and she started in to dance. Sort of put on an act – like it’s said those saloon girls up in the Kansas cow towns do. And I just couldn’t stand to watch that so I got the hell out of the mill. Did some sulking of my own until I heard the guys begin hollering and cheering like crazy.’

‘Then you went back inside?’

‘That’s what I did, mister,’ he confirmed tautly, his expression hard set as he recalled a scene that had troubled him badly. ‘And saw them all yelling and stamping their feet and looking at what Nancy was doing. I couldn’t get through the crowd to see properly what was happening so I had to stand on a crate. And I saw her in the middle of the room. She was dancing and taking off her clothes. Dancing real fast but doing the rest of it kinda slow. Her skirt was already gone and she was unbuttoning her shirt when I saw her first.’

Colman looked toward Tolliver and the four customers at the bar, concerned that they were eavesdropping. But when he saw they continued to talk amongst themselves and none of them showed any overt interest in the table beside the archway he went on more confidently: ‘Well, I shouted at her to stop that. And yelled at the guys to quit egging her on like they were. But no one heard me above the racket they were all making. Nancy was down to just her chemise by then and there was a look on her face like . . . Well, she seemed really crazy. Not like Nancy at all. It was like Bob’s music and her wild dancing and the cheering had changed her into a different person. Does that make any sense?’

‘I reckon so, kid.’

‘Well, I pulled my gun and blasted a couple of shots into the ceiling. And that sure as hell stopped them from hollering and stomping their feet. And Nancy from dancing. Bob quit playing the harmonica and everyone stared at me like it was me had gone outta by head then. And I guess maybe I had a little.’

Edged took a sip of his beer and nodded in response to Colman’s implied plea for encouragement.

‘I sure enough felt strange in the head, standing up there on that crate with the smoking gun in my hand: and not pointing it at the ceiling anymore. Instead I was waving it around at them. And I remember yelling something about putting a bullet into anyone who got in my way.’ He gulped noisily and his deep blue eyes shone brightly as he relived vivid memories of what happened at the mill that night. ‘Well, nobody did get in my way. I climbed down off the crate and they all stepped aside to let me through to where Nancy was. It had gone quiet in there and she was looking scared and sick to her stomach by then. Like she was ashamed of herself.’

‘I can see how that would be,’ Edge said as he brought out the makings.

‘Blanche Mandrell was suddenly there with us. And she picked up the clothes Nancy had thrown all over the place. They went into a dark corner of the room and Blanche helped her to get dressed again. Then they went outside and I followed them without anyone trying to stop me.’

‘And that was the end of it?’

Colman shrugged. ‘More or less. Ed Scott came out right behind me and we held back while Nancy threw up. Then Scotty said how real sorry he as for being one of the crowd that cheered Nancy on. I said him and Blanche should go back inside where Bob was playing some sad music by then. And Nancy told them the same.’

Edge put away his tobacco sack and began to roll a cigarette while he continued to meet Colman’s mournful gaze with taciturn impassivity.

‘After Nancy and me started to ride back to town I asked her what was wrong. Why she’d acted so shameless the way she had. And she said she just felt rotten. Bored with everyone and everything. The same kind of feeling she had last year when she went off the rails so badly. Then I asked her if there was anything I could do and she told me to mind my own business.’

Edge lit the cigarette and said on a trickle of smoke: ‘I guess that didn’t sit too well with you, kid?’

‘Damn right!’ he snapped. ‘We’d been riding real slow and it seemed to be taking us forever to get to town. And I was pretty fed up with things myself by then. So when she said she wanted to go home by herself from there I didn’t give her any argument about it.’

‘And that was the last time you saw her?’

Colman nodded morosely and then his tone became embittered. ‘I don’t mind telling you, mister, I didn’t like being treated that way by a girl I thought so well of. Way I saw it I’d done her a big favour stopping that craziness back there.’ He shrugged. ‘Anyway, I thought I’d let her stew in her own juice for awhile because I wasn’t going to make no more tries to snap her out of her mood. So I went right on home and the next day she was . . . ‘ He grimaced then suddenly expressed near tearful grief as he completed: ‘Murdered.’

‘That’s all of it?’

‘It’s all I know, mister.’ There was a catch in his voice and he took a swig from his glass and frowned at the warmth and flatness of the beer.

Edge finished what was left in his glass with a single swallow.

‘Another one, Mr Edge?’

Fred Tolliver, who had not shown any sign he had been listening to the exchange at the distant table obviously heard the offer and moved along the bar. But Edge shook his head across the table and the watching bartender grimaced and backtracked to where he had started.

‘There’s nothing else you want to know?’ Colman was suddenly eager to leave.

‘Not that you can tell me, I guess.’

The neatly dressed youngster had trouble not showing undue haste as he rose and headed toward the batwings. Twice he looked over his shoulder as if he half expected Edge would call him back and both times showed relief he was being allowed to leave. Tolliver came to the table now, picked up Colman’s glass, gave the area where it had stood a token wipe with a rag and said in the manner of a man making idle conversation:

‘Yesterday after the funerals that boy was pretty upset. He seems better now?’

Edge nodded. ‘He ain’t at all cut up today.’

Tolliver failed to recognise any irony in the response and said: ‘Best all round when they hang the Ivers kid and we can all start forgetting about what happened, you ask me.’

‘I didn’t ask.’

Tolliver looked set to snarl an answer, irritable that his attempt to pick up some gossip had failed. But he managed to bring his temper under control as he wrung the cleaning rag tightly in both hands. Then there was a whine in his tone when he excused: ‘Hell, it’s only human nature that folks are gonna be curious after all that’s happened.’

‘By nature I’m not much of a talker.’ Edge rose and went toward the batwings. Then was aware as he pushed out between the doors and they flapped noisily behind him of an upsurge of talk within the saloon. Which triggered a grin as he dropped the part smoked cigarette and stepped on it.

‘Hey, here’s a man who looks like the cat that’s just lapped up all the cream!’ Sarah Farmer voiced the light toned comment as she came along the sidewalk with her sister. In close proximity to each other there was no clear to see family resemblance and this not just because Alice was perhaps ten years the elder and had blonde hair and blue eyes and was a head shorter and more heavily built than her red haired and green eyed sibling.

‘Edge, I think you know my sister Alice?’

Alice Cassidy thrust out a hand to be shaken and Edge clasped it briefly and offered a smile when the woman said: ‘We haven’t been formally introduced until now. Edge, that’s what they call you?’

‘Those that are being polite, lady.’

‘You have no given name?’

‘I was given two by my folks. But for a lot of years I’ve got by with just the one somebody else gave me, Mrs Cassidy.’

‘Alice, my dear,’ she said insistently. ‘To my friends I am Alice. And any friend of my sister as they say . . . I understand you and she have become quite close in such a short space of time?

Sarah gasped. ‘My God, the gossip that is traded in this town really does border on the slanderous sometimes!’ She either blushed or her cheeks coloured with righteous anger.

‘Yeah, I’ve noticed that,’ Edge said sardonically and raised a hand to the shirt pocket that was bulged by the two letters, one of them anonymous.

‘Well, I wish the two of you lots of luck. It’s about time Sarah found herself a – ‘

‘
Alice!
’ the younger sister reproved firmly and frowned apologetically at Edge. ‘We’ve passed the time of day on a few occasions is all. And in the event, I understand that Edge is not the kind of man who ever stays in one place for long enough to forge any kind of longstanding friendship with anyone.’

The older woman, again dressed in unflattering masculine garb for manual ranch work, looked Edge up and down appraisingly and said: ‘Well, my dear Sarah, I can understand why a single girl like you would regret that this gentleman will be moving on quite soon.’

She made a dismissive hand gesture that signalled she and Sarah, who wore a demure blue dress and becoming wide brimmed hat, needed to go about their business. But then held back and winked mischievously at Edge as she added: ‘Time was back in New Orleans that if the novelty of my dead sister’s charms had worn off for you I could have provided you with a whole range of beautiful alternative companions.’

She vented an unladylike lecherous laugh but when she tried with a sidelong glance to include Sarah in the private joke the redhead’s embarrassment expanded. And Sarah shot Edge a look that was almost mortified as both women turned away and stepped down off the sidewalk to head across the street toward the bakery that bore the family name.

‘That’s some kind of woman, ain’t it, mister?’ Tolliver said from the threshold of the saloon where he stood with both hands hooked over the tops of the batwings. ‘That Alice Cassidy, I mean.’