Return to Massacre Mesa - Edge Series 5 (10 page)

‘About all it does do, you hard-hearted bastard!’ Devlin snarled as the woman eased the sheet off his naked upper body.

The nauseating smell got worse as the darkly stained pad of dressing covering him from navel to groin was exposed. It got worse as he groaned when she carefully peeled off the fabric to reveal the ugly bullet hole encircled by a large area of darkened 64

and swollen flesh. Much of the discoloration

was comprised of crusted blood and pus that began to diminish as the squaw gently bathed it with tepid water.

‘What can help me to handle this is to talk.’ Devlin squeezed his eyes tightly closed while his white knuckled hands gripped the top of the bed’s headboard. Edge offered evenly: ‘You talk money and I’ll be happy to hear you out.’

‘Money!’ He vented a harsh laugh that immediately deteriorated into a moan.

‘That’s why I came to Lakewood, Edge. I came here looking for twenty five thousand dollars.’

He screamed and beads of sweat stood out against the emaciated flesh of his gaunt, heavily bristled face. The squaw murmured words of comfort that didn’t comfort him. Then his pain eased when she removed the sodden wad and rinsed it in the already blood darkened water. He said through gritted teeth: ‘Silver dollars and treasury bills, Edge. Sent west by Washington after the Civil War ended. Intended to buy peace with the Indians.’

He was again forced to interrupt himself when the squaw once more began to bathe the putrefying wound. He gave vent to his pain with groans rather than screams now, then muttered: ‘The Indians never got the money. A group of cavalry officers who were supposed to deliver it were double-crossed by some of their own kind. It was stolen from them and they didn’t find out about it until it was too late.’

He vented a mirthless laugh. ‘They showed up in good faith at the meeting place with two crates, but there wasn’t any money inside: only sand. The bunch of officers weren’t armed so the poor bastards never had a chance. When the Indians didn’t get what they were expecting they slaughtered them like shooting fish in a barrel.’

Rose peered myopically over her bony shoulder at Edge and spoke with an anger that was directed elsewhere. ‘Some of my people are stupid hotheads.’She added cryptically: ‘They were then and they are still.’

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‘How’d you find out about all that, feller?’

Edge lit a cigarette and grimaced when the acrid taint of the struck match did little to mask the stink of the suffering man. Likewise the aroma of burning tobacco he discovered as he recalled how Goodrich had spoken about a fortune that was maybe hidden in the hills near Lakewood and of the men who came in search of it. Devlin scowled, moaned and coughed: then screamed when the squaw mopped his wound dry of water and droplets of the evil smelling fluid that oozed from the infested bullet hole. Eventually he said hoarsely: ‘I met up with a man in Omaha who was as down on his luck as me after a poker game. An ex-convict named Clyde Nagel, just released from the penitentiary. He said if we could get us to the town of Lakewood down in the Southwest territories he had a good idea where we might find a whole pile of money that was hidden in some high ground called the Cedar Mountains.’

Rose picked up the pan of discoloured water and the dirty rags and shuffled out of the room, muttering sourly in her native tongue.

Devlin obviously felt more comfortable now as he lay unmoving on the bed and did not need to clutch at the headboard anymore as he went on: ‘This Nagel guy told me about how the money was meant to be used to trade for peace with the Comanche. But it was stolen by some troopers.’

Edge told the man whose embittered face was now dry of sweat: ‘I don’t plan to wait until your next clean-up treatment to hear the point of this tale, feller.’

Devlin said bitterly: ‘Do you know what Rose’s second name is, Edge?’

‘I seem to remember she mentioned it, but I don’t recall what it is.’

‘It’s one that suits her real well. She’s called Rose Bigheart. I can think of some really fine names for you, but none of them are anything like that.’

‘Likewise me for you, feller,’ Edge countered. ‘But I figure plain and simple thief about sums it up.’

The squaw urged wearily: ‘I think it best you come out here and let him rest, 66

mister. He’s at his weakest after I’ve attended to the wound and I’m always afraid he’ll meet his end about then and I’ll blame myself for killing him.’

‘No!’ Devlin protested. ‘Edge, I want you to hear – ‘

Edge backed off the threshold and let the blanket fall across the archway. Just an incoherent mumbling sound from the dying man filtered out of the evil smelling room as the squaw jerked the knife from the chair, tossed it aside and sat down with a deep sigh in the rocker. She peered long and hard at Edge, her bright eyes blank of expression. But eventually she gave a determined nod that showed her mind had not been as empty as her expression had signalled: and then she reached a decision.

‘He has told me about you, Edge. And much more of what happened when he gave up being a poorly rewarded lawyer to become a . . . yes, you are right, a thief.’

‘Yeah,’ Edge said on a stream of cigarette smoke as he crossed to the open doorway of the adobe and tossed the butt out on to the dusty ground, far to the side of the cultivated patch.

‘When he was really sick and thought that he was going to die there and then he made a confession about the wrongs he had done in his life. Just as if I was some kind of White Eyes priest instead of a Comanche convert to Christianity. If you understand what I mean?’ She glanced pointedly at the crucifix on the table beside the archway.

‘I reckon I do, lady.’

‘But when he did not die he made me swear never to tell anyone what he had told me.’

There was another groan from the helpless man beyond the blanket-draped archway followed by some rapid, laboured breathing. When Edge looked at the squaw she glanced toward the sounds and shook her head as she reminded morosely:

‘I told you that always he is worse after I have attended to the wound. But it has to be done. He will settle soon, I hope.’

‘The stolen twenty five grand?’ Edge prompted.

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She began slowly to rock the chair and it creaked rhythmically as she spoke in much lower tones, peering fixedly into space. ‘He promised that as a reward for taking good care of him and listening to him confess his crimes and keeping silent about what he has done, he would make sure I’d be rich for the rest of my days. Just as soon as he was well, we’d go to get the stolen government dollars. But I know – have known for a long time – that sick man in there is not going to get well. So maybe you and I could make some kind of deal, mister?’

He had been looking out across the arid, gently rolling landscape spread southwards from the isolated adobe, toward the ragged horizon of the distant mountain range distorted by heat shimmer. Now he looked back at her as she abruptly ceased to rock the chair and he saw she was staring at the draped doorway beyond which Andrew Devlin could be heard breathing heavily at the same cadence as the chair had creaked until a few moments ago.

‘He is no longer so help – ‘ the suddenly frightened squaw started. Before she could complete the pronouncement that Devlin was up from the bed the doomed man took another step, drew another breath and violently swept aside the blanket. He needed to cling tightly to the blanket at one side of the archway to keep his emaciated body from collapsing: was totally naked after the dressing had fallen away from the ugly wound in his belly. His gaunt face was twisted by the effects of excruciating pain and boundless hatred and drools of saliva spilled from a corner of his hung open mouth as tears streamed down his bristled cheeks from his wide eyes. His free hand was fisted loosely around the butt of a long barrelled revolver. But Edge stayed an instinctive move to reach for his holstered Colt as the dying man’s attempt to level the weighty gun failed: his diminished physical strength unable to match his powerful desire to perform the deadly action.

‘Please don’t!’ the squaw begged, the plea seemingly directed toward both men. Devlin managed to rasp harshly from his constricted throat: ‘It’s our sworn secret that you’re betraying, woman!’

Then the depth of his emotion melded with the weakness of his pain-wracked

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body to drain the last remnants of life out of him. He dropped heavily on to his knees and the force of the impact with the hard packed dirt floor caused more evil coloured, foul smelling fluid to spurt from the poisoned bullet hole in his stomach. One dead hand released its grip on the big pistol as the other grasped the blanket more firmly: which tore it off its insecure fixings. Then he collapsed face down across the threshold and became totally inert in death while the fabric billowed and floated down to gently drape much of his nakedness.

Rose Bigheart crossed herself and murmured morosely: ‘

The poor creature’s

suffering is ended at last. He can pay no more in this world for the misdeeds he has committed here.’

Edge scowled at the corpse that was partially covered by the makeshift shroud and said bitterly: ‘Yeah, and he stayed a crooked lawyer to the end.’

The squaw queried: ‘I do not understand?’

Edge indicated the once naked, now shrouded body. ‘The sonofabitch made sure to cover his ass.’

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CHAPTER • 7

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ROSE BIGHEART demonstrated that she was much stronger than her slight
build suggested when she declined Edge’s offer to help lift and carry the dead man back into the bedroom. And there she arranged the corpse on the bed in a ritualistic posture and shrouded it with an unsullied blanket taken off her own bed. Edge refolded and slid the title deed of the Quinn and Son Eternity store back into the envelope and went outside to replace it in one of the saddlebags of the chestnut gelding as the squaw completed the laying-out chore. A few minutes later, at the entrance of the adobe, he experienced a moment of disquiet as Rose emerged from the archway and stooped to pick up the big old sixshooter. But she held the weapon tentatively by the barrel, carried it to the battered bureau, pulled open a drawer and dropped it inside.

She explained apologetically: ‘He kept it hidden under his pillow. For when you or somebody else he had cheated came looking for him. But I think he always knew he would not have been able to use it. Either he wasn’t strong enough to aim and fire it. Or he didn’t possess what is required to kill a fellow human being.’ She advanced on the doorway and he backed out ahead of her into the full sunlight of afternoon. Then she leaned against the front wall of the adobe and took deep breaths of the hot but clean air: needed several seconds to rid her nostrils of the stink of dying and death.

‘Do you mind if I ask you a question, mister?’

He eyed her expectantly: ‘As long as you know I could be minded not to answer it.’

‘If he had not died that way, would you have killed such a sick and helpless man?’

It seemed like Edge was pondering her question for stretched seconds and she expanded on it: ‘Because of the how he stole so much money from you? And had nothing left to pay anything back of what was due to you?’

Edge scowled then shrugged his resignation. ‘There was a time when revenge 70

used to be a last resort for me, lady. But I’ve learned some hard lessons. I figure that letting Devlin go on with that living death would have satisfied me.’

‘He suffered that way for a very long time, mister. So I guess you can feel you had some kind of revenge?’

Edge allowed: ‘Maybe.’

The squaw asked morosely: ‘If I tell you everything he told me about the stolen money . . ? If it is not enough, are you the kind of man who will try to beat out of me what I swear I do not know?’

Edge shrugged. ‘There was a time, maybe.’ He shook his head and scowled. ‘But even back then, never a woman like you, Rose.’ He accepted it as another not to be denied sign of advancing years that he could not recall if he was speaking the truth about one aspect of his violent past.

She sighed and said: ‘I am ready to tell you, if you have a mind to listen to me?’

‘What do I have to lose except a little time, lady?’

‘It could well be that you will surrender your peace of mind, mister.’ She grimaced. ‘Maybe it was just the evil greed of that particular man, but I am sure that knowing what he did and the burning need for gain this gave him, he never was totally at ease in his mind again.’

‘For a healthy share of twenty five grand, I’m willing to run that risk.’

‘There is one thing I need to ask you?’

‘You can ask.’

‘If you find what that man hoped to find, will you ensure that I get a little of it?’