Return to Massacre Mesa - Edge Series 5 (39 page)

‘As an officer of the law, I won’t me able to claim a cent of any reward. Which was the way Sam knew it would be, I guess. And he couldn’t abide to think what he was missing out on, you reckon? All or nothing?’

Edge said: ‘Here.’

When the big man looked at him, he tossed him his Colt, but did not relax his watch on the deputy or ease his grip on the Winchester until after Goodrich had pushed the handgun back into his holster.

‘As a Comanche,’ Rose Bigheart said, ‘I do want it all. But I want it given freely: by the White Eyes government to my people - as it was intended all those many years ago.’

Crooked Eye looked down at the boxes in the cavity and muttered a comment in his own language.

270

‘I think you are right, boy,’ she agreed morosely then looked from Edge to Goodrich and back again. ‘We say the same as you White Eyes say in such circumstances, I think: fat chance!’

* * * *

It took something over an hour to secure the corpses, tightly wrapped in blankets, to horses and transfer the tarnished silver dollars and time aged bills to saddlebags that were evenly disturbed among all the other animals. Then they drank coffee brewed by the squaw on a fire that was again built by Crooked Eye and ate some jerked beef. And during this period talk was absent as they each reflected on their own thoughts. Although the gruelling business was all over except for the return trip to Lakewood, there were few overt signs of relief or satisfaction in the group that they had survived the arduous trek and found the money so many men had died for, recently and fifteen years ago. Only Lucy Russell seemed to experience a degree of private joy when she sometimes half smiled and more frequently vented the strangely girlish giggle. And Edge considered this was an expression of her good feeling at the successful ending of her personal quest to recover the remains of Lieutenant Glenn Montgomery. But he was wrong for as they completed their preparations to leave the derelict mission and start back she said from astride her pony:

‘You know what makes me happiest of all?’

‘You can prove that lieutenant of yours had nothing to do with – ‘ Goodrich began to respond indifferently.

‘That is truly wonderful,’ Lucy cut in on him. ‘But even better is how, in a way, Glenn had a part in stopping the money from being stolen again all these years later. Don’t you think that is rather wonderful, too?’

‘Sure, Miss Lucy,’ Goodrich allowed despondently, taking up the lead line of the horse carrying the corpse of Sam Tree.

Rose Bigheart said wearily: ‘I am glad you are so happy, Miss Lucy.’

271

Edge swung astride his gelding and heeled the animal forward, the pony with the dead John Dingle over it on a lead line close behind. And he murmured with a sardonic twist to his lips and a cold glitter in his narrowed eyes:

‘Yeah, lady, - the way the lieutenant was able to do that - I figure there’s only Sam Tree would say it stuck in his craw.’

THE END

• Return to Massacre Mesa
  
• Dedication
  
• Chap - 1
  
• Chap - 2
  
• Chap - 3
  
• Chap - 4
  
• Chap - 5
  
• Chap - 6
  
• Chap - 7
  
• Chap - 8
  
• Chap - 9
  
• Chap - 10
  
• Chap - 11
  
• Chap - 12
  
• Chap - 13
  
• Chap - 14
  
• Chap - 15
  
• Chap - 16
  
• Chap - 17
  
• Chap - 18
  
• Chap - 19
  
• Chap - 20
  
• Chap - 21
  
• Chap - 22
  
• Chap - 23
  
• Chap - 24
  
• THE END