Return to Massacre Mesa - Edge Series 5 (27 page)

The voice was louder because the intruder had moved closer to where Edge dropped into a half crouch. The Winchester angled up at where a grey haired, heavily bearded, scar faced, skinny-framed old man in ragged shirt and pants and a battered hat showed his head and shoulders beside the horse. He reached out a hand to grasp at the bridle but a moment later his attention was directed elsewhere – toward the fire and the people sleeping around it. ‘Well, I’ll be! If that ain’t a sight old Zane Slade don’t want to see, boy!’

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Edge thumbed back the hammer of the Winchester that he now aimed from the shoulder at the space between the widened eyes of the old man. Who was abruptly terrified as the metallic clicks of the rifle’s action captured his attention. Edge told him evenly: ‘I don’t know about old Zane Slade, but that horse is sure a sight I’ve been wanting to set eyes on all day.’

Slade seemed to be rooted to the spot. ‘Shit, is this your horse, mister? Did you lose him? I didn’t steal him, honest. I just found him wandering and since there wasn’t no one else around I figured it was finders-keepers. So if you really want him back . . . and I can understand why you’d want that, then – ‘

‘I’d be much obliged if you’d bring the animal down here, feller.’

‘What’s that? Why do you - ’

‘I need to have a close look at the horse, feller. Like to see if this morning the animal belonged to someone I know. One of them.’ Edge made a sideways movement of his head in the direction of the night camp and the man at the top of the bank peered toward the group still sleeping beside the dying fire.

‘Look, mister,’ Slade said eagerly and rubbed the heel of a hand at the livid scar on the right side of his forehead. ‘You take the horse and welcome to him. But I ain’t much for socialising with other folks. That’s the reason I live out here on my own. See I don’t get along too well with most people and so most of the time I keep myself to myself. Which saves me having to – ‘

Edge broke in: ‘Speaking of saving, are you a thrifty sort of feller, Mr Slade?’

‘Uh? Thrifty: hell no: I got no need of having money, mister. Living the way I do out here where there ain’t nothing for a man to spend it on.’

‘But you value what’s left of your existence, I guess?’

‘What are you getting at, mister?’ The old timer’s fear deepened again. ‘Course I value whatever time I’ve still got coming to me!’

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‘Then I think you should start to be thrifty, Mr Slade.’

‘You’re talking plumb crazy, mister!’

‘What you should do is bring that horse down here and save your life.’

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CHAPTER • 18

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THE GELDING that the anxiously muttering Zane Slade led gingerly down from
the top of the escarpment was the horse that had bolted through the ravine with the corpse of Frank Shaw lashed to its saddle. Events had been too dangerously frenetic back then for Edge to take enough notice of the gelding to recognise it for certain at first.

But while he negotiated the slope, one of his hands clutched to the reins and the other arm stretched out to the side to help him maintain his balance, the tremulous old timer with the unkempt grey hair and overgrown beard felt it necessary to offer a full explanation of how he acquired the animal.

‘The nag was all but done in, mister. From racing hell for leather and out-and-out terror, it seemed to me. And seeing as how there was this guy with his gizzard cut wide open tied on to him, I reckon you can understand why?’

Edge told him: ‘That means there ain’t any doubt but it’s one of our mounts, feller.’

‘Figured it would be,’ Slade grumbled morosely and shrugged. ‘Anyway, like I was about to say, the dead guy had gotten to be lop-sided from being bounced about and that made it hard for the nag to even walk after he was too winded to bolt no more. Which made it real easy for me to catch him. And he stood real still and quiet while I cut the dead guy loose.’ By then Slade had brought the horse close enough for Edge to see in the light of the moon that the bags hung limp and flat from either side of the saddle.

‘It seems you ate pretty good out of his supplies, feller?’ Edge was no longer aiming the rifle at the man, but he held the Winchester in such a way that he could swing it around fast to trigger a shot if Slade made a move to draw the ancient sixshooter that was jutting from his free hanging holster.

‘What?’ The old man needed to pause and take the time to organise his thoughts. 190

‘Oh, yeah: I surely did, mister. After I’d buried that poor guy and marked his grave decent with some rocks in the shape of a cross. After that I figured I was due a reward so I fixed myself up with a good square meal of salt beef and biscuits. And some rice. Coffee, too.’

Edge growled a mild curse.

‘I don’t figure I done wrong, mister,’ Slade countered defensively. ‘Out here in the mountains a man has to keep body and soul together by grabbing whatever chow he can get when he can get it. Course, I ain’t making no claim to the nag now. Be happy to hand him over to who ever he belongs to. So if you know . . .’

He peered anxiously toward the sleeping group at the fire and Edge gestured wearily for him to lead the horse in that direction. Then sighed out of the mood of irritable disappointment that he had felt since Slade listed the food he had appropriated from the saddlebags. Realised that if Slade had not helped himself to what he surely deserved in the circumstances, there would not have been enough to share adequately among the hungry people who were now startled awake by the approaching sounds of hooves and an equine snort.

Because of the extent of the exhaustion and the depth of the sleep they had been sunk in, it took all of them several ill-tempered moments to regain full awareness: recall where they were and the dangers of their situation. Then to realise that the group had been enlarged by the arrival of a man with a horse: which some of them perhaps recognised could turn out to be their salvation.

‘Hey, that’s one of my geldings from the livery back in Lakewood!’ Goodrich claimed huskily. ‘The one I rode out of town.’

Tree recalled laconically: ‘And it’s the horse that took Frank for his final ride, Brod.’

‘What’s happened, Edge?’ Conners demanded. ‘Who is this old guy?’

Edge gave a laconic account of what Slade had told him while the newcomer nodded several times in agreement. Then the gaunt faced, skinny, raggedly dressed 191

man who did not look so elderly close to the firelight, felt it necessary to stress again that he did not think he had done anything wrong in the kind of harsh terrain they were all in.

‘No sweat, feller,’ Edge allowed and said to Dingle as he handed the man back his watch: ‘It’s your turn for sentry duty.’

Dingle made a dismissive hand gesture then asked of Slade: ‘Have you seen anything of any Comanche around these parts, mister?’

‘Hell I see them all the time,’ Slade replied evenly and dropped into a crouch beside the fire that had begun to burn more brightly after Crooked Eye took it upon himself to add fresh fuel to the embers. Then he did a double take at the boy and blurted: ‘Hey, ain’t you Injun?’

The squint-eyed young buck defended: ‘I am with the whites now! My Comanche brothers say I am bad medicine.’

Edge had taken the horse to the far side of the fire and now used a length of the lariat rope that had been looped over the saddle horn to hobble the compliant animal.

‘Yeah and I reckon it could be it’s having you tag along that’s brought us all this lousy luck, Injun!’ Dingle muttered.

‘
All the time
?’ Conners’ tone was harshly demanding as he repeated what Slade had said a few moments ago.

Dingle immediately forgot about the pathetically contrite looking Crooked Eye and augmented: ‘Yeah, just what the hell did you mean when you said that, stranger?’

‘I forgot to make the introductions,’ Edge admitted from where he was taking off the saddle from the horse. ‘This feller’s name is Zane Slade. And if he gives a damn what any of us are called, I guess he’ll ask.’

Slade spread his arms wide to the sides as he swung one way then another to encompass the broad extent of the surrounding country he spoke of. ‘I’ve been prospecting in these hills and mountains for more years than I care much to remember 192

and I’ve seen Comanche all over them. I’m always seeing them: loners and small hunting parties or whole bunches of braves, squaws and papooses on the move from one place to a better one to set up their new village where the game’s more plentiful.’

Conners raged: ‘Damnit, man: I meant have you seen any Injuns today? A war party, I reckon they’d be called? A bunch of painted up savages with an old squaw?’

‘Not today, mister: not for a couple of weeks – three weeks maybe, as a matter of fact. Course, I’ve been moving up from the south: from down beyond the Mexican border. So I guess I ain’t been anywhere near where you folks have been travelling recently. I reckon it was the Comanche slit the gizzard of the guy tied on the nag, ain’t that right? And they stole your other mounts and supplies, I bet?’

‘That’s right.’ Lucy’s response drew the gaze of Zane Slade toward her, where it lingered with unconcealed lustful interest for much longer than she found comfortable while he scratched absently at his groin area. She pointedly clutched the modestly high neckline of her dress more tightly to her throat as the newcomer continued to gaze fixedly at her. ‘What about soldiers, Mr Slade? Did you see any soldiers?’

Edge stretched out on the hard packed ground close to the warmth of the fire, a hand curled over the frame of the Winchester at his side. He said from under the Stetson he placed over his face: ‘Be obliged if you people will remember I already took my turn at standing sentry duty.’

‘It’s you next, Dingle,’ Tree reminded sourly. ‘Then mine.’

‘Yeah, okay, I know! I’ll get to it!’ The ill-humoured man returned his attention to Slade. ‘Yeah, what about the army, mister: have you seen any soldiers? It’s the United States Cavalry I’m talking about - and I mean today?’

‘Army?’ Slade mused uneasily. ‘No, I sure ain’t seen no army. Are you saying that there’s some US cavalry patrolling the mountains this far out from Fort Chance?’

‘Yes, of course that must be true. The troopers were moving to the west of us!’

Lucy chided herself petulantly. ‘Mr Slade has said he came up from the south. And I don’t think American soldiers would encroach over the border into Mexico.’

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She was deeply uneasy again when the sound of her voice reminded Slade there was a woman in the company and he shifted his glinting-eyed gaze toward her. And began to finger the scar on his forehead now as he watched her in the lascivious manner of a man denied female company for a very long time and gazing upon a brazenly dressed dancehall girl instead of the mourning-clad woman.

‘Hell, whatever the guy saw or didn’t see don’t make no never mind!’

Conners

growled. ‘We sure enough saw the army heading west and they weren’t in no great rush. So I reckon that just one guy with a horse under him could catch up with them soldier boys real easy in quick time. And tell them about the fix we’re in and bring them back to take care of the Injuns.’

‘And then we can start heading back to Lakewood,’ Goodrich said eagerly with a heartfelt sigh.

Tree growled: ‘I’m not so sure about that anymore, Brod. If there really is a good chance of us finding the – ‘

‘Yeah, to hell with that idea, fat man!’ Conners cut in acidly. ‘We’ll get us resupplied courtesy of the US army and then after the Comanche are taken care of we’ll carry on from where we left off. Looking for the government money. We just have to be someplace close to where it’s hid by now is my opinion.’

Edge had raised his hat and seen in the light of the brightly burning fire the look that came for stretched seconds to Zane Slade’s heavily bearded, lividly scarred face when Conners spoke of the stolen money. An expression of mixed interest, intrigue and fear that lasted for perhaps five seconds before the man looked again with lust at Lucy Russell.

‘I wouldn’t like for that to happen.’ Edge’s drawled comment that implied a subtle threat drew all attention to him while he continued to lie on his back by the fire, his hat held up off his face by one hand as he surveyed the group on the other side of the flames.

‘Edge?’ Lucy said.

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He sat up now, put his Stetson on his head, lifted the Winchester briefly into plain sight and set it down again. ‘I wouldn’t like for anybody to take that horse and ride off alone in any direction.‘

Conners demanded: ‘Why the hell not?’

‘It sounds like a fine idea to me,’ Dingle agreed insistently. ‘So long as Chester heads west, which is where the army is. And since the Injuns are behind us to the east, west is the goddamn obvious way for him to ‘I need to take a leak,’ Tree announced suddenly and moved away from the fire.