The Deputy - Edge Series 2 (17 page)

‘I can help you, Sheriff George.’

‘Help me how?’

The eager to please man looked toward the bar as Carr reappeared behind it and greeted the newcomer:

‘Billy, how’re you doing?’

‘Mr Jake, I’m pretty good.’ He shifted his attention back to North. ‘A little thirsty, maybe?’

The lawman said wearily: ‘I know how it’s often that way for you, Billy.’

‘You know me as well as anyone.’

‘If you want me to buy you a drink as a down payment on the money you figure your information’s worth, I need to know something of what you want to talk to me about. And how it’s going to help me.’

Billy looked around the empty saloon, leaned dramatically across the table and said in a conspiratorial tone: ‘The Mexican lady who was taken away two nights ago?’ He glanced at Edge. ‘Taken from you and your new deputy?’

‘Isabella Gomez,’ North confirmed impassively.

‘That is her name. The lady who runs the store of her dead father on River Road.’

‘What about her?’ North’s lack of eagerness stressed that his opinion of the man’s untrustworthiness remained as firmly held as ever.

‘I can tell you where she is being kept, Sheriff George.’

North directed a world-weary glance at Edge who countered with a shrug as he dropped his cigarette to the floor and stepped on it.

‘Where would that be?’

The smile that appeared on the badly scarred face had a quality of slyness. ‘I know you will pay me what it is worth. I trust you to do this. But it will help me to overcome my fear of the consequences if I have a drink while I tell you what I know?’

He licked his lips and looked at the two empty glasses on the table, one drained of whiskey and the other of beer.

North breathed a soft sigh then called toward the bar: ‘A bottle of rye and two more shot glasses, Jake.’

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‘One more glass and a bowl of what I can smell cooking out back,’ Edge reminded the lawman.

North nodded to Edge then to Carr. The saloonkeeper yelled to Rose Riley to hurry up with the food and came out from behind the bar grasping a bottle and a glass.

‘This had better be on the level, Billy,’ North warned earnestly as he uncorked the bottle. He poured a full measure in the fresh glass and just a small one for himself.

‘Did I ever set out to let anyone down in this town, Sheriff George?’ Billy asked and mugged having hurt feelings as he reached for the drink. But he waited until he got the nod from North before he half finished the shot at one swallow then grinned his satisfaction with the gratifying effects of the whiskey.

‘Not ever when you’ve been sober, Billy,’ Carr qualified as he returned to the bar, passing the woman bringing a bowl of the fine smelling chilli with a spoon slanting from it. Rose said as she set the food down in front of Edge: ‘I cook real good but I don’t cook fancy, mister. Everything in one pot.’

Edge pressed a splayed hand against his belly that for some time now had not been as firm and flat as it once was and replied wryly: ‘No sweat, lady. It’s all going to end up in one pot.’

The unsmiling woman shrugged her indifference and Billy finished his drink with a second gulp, looked nervously toward the batwings and said to the impatiently waiting North:

‘I’m feeling better already. It gave me a real bad scare, running into that rich Mexican the way I did.’ He shook his head morosely. ‘How he looked at me after I got in his way. It was like he knew I was fixing to tell you something against him.’

He interlocked his fingers in front of his chest, as if he needed to do this to keep his hands from shaking while his nervous gaze shifted rapidly between the bottle and North’s impassive face. ‘He really spooked me, that’s for sure.’

North said to Edge who was eating the beef chilli with silent but obvious enjoyment:

‘Billy gets crazy drunk fast if one drink leads to another. Three times he’s disgraced himself after some of Jake’s customers bought him more shots of liquor than he could handle.’

‘Goddamn troublemakers,’ Carr muttered sourly. ‘Twice it was a bunch of hired hands working for Martinez. The other time a couple of passing through drummers bored by a quiet night here in the saloon who figured to liven things up with a drunken Injun.’

‘So the rule for Billy was made,’ North took up the account of Billy’s main failing again, his still patronising tone not implying unkindness toward the mix breed even though he continued to talk about the cruelly scarred man as if he were out of earshot. 98

‘So Billy don’t get to drink in the Dancing Horse these days unless it’s in the company of one of Jake’s more responsible customers.’

The good natured subject of the talk said defensively: ‘I don’t ever mean to cause no trouble, Sheriff George, Mr Jake.’

‘All right, Billy,’ North said. ‘Just one more before you have to start telling me what it is you know that can help me.’

With the prospect of an imminent shot of liquor, Billy was able to pour his drink with rock steady hands and filled the glass to the brim without a single drop being spilled. He was about to toss off the drink but held back when the batwings were thrust open and four grim faced men entered. Two dressed like store clerks and two looking like manual workers.

The biggest and oldest of the quartet who wore the stained apron of a dry goods store clerk growled: ‘Thought you’d have enough on your plate without buying drinks for Billy Injun, sheriff.’

‘Enough of what on my plate, Dan?’ North challenged sourly. The four men bellied up to the bar where Carr was already filling glasses with beer, confidently aware of what these regular customers required at this time of day. The dungaree-clad man who sported a bushy red beard half turned from the bar as he said: ‘Word is that unless you bring the Martinez boy to trial real soon, his old man is gonna bust the kid out of the jailhouse using some high priced gunslingers, George.’

‘And with Judge Miller dead and your star witness gone missing, it seems bad trouble could be coming to town,’ the second short and bespectacled store clerk suggested.

‘I was just talking with Eduardo Martinez a few minutes ago, Ira,’ North said. ‘And Ben, I’m taking steps to lessen the risk that’s got you men so worried.’

Dan said: ‘The whole town knows you and Martinez just had a heart to heart here in the saloon, George. So, now the talking’s done, what next?’

‘Martinez said some flattering things about how he’d heard the people around here held me in such high regard,’ North countered pointedly, obviously taking pains to control his irritation with the men’s questions.

They all looked sheepish as the fourth bald and heavily moustached member of the group said anxiously: ‘Martinez heard right, George. But the kind of trouble we’re worried about – hired gunslingers . . . We ain’t never been faced with that kind of violence in Bishopsburg before.’

North, still tense with controlled anger, finished his half measure of liquor, topped up the glass and announced tautly: ‘Edge, I’d like you to meet Dan Hicks, Ira Chipperfield, Ed 99

Grimley and Ben Younger. Four fine citizens of this town. Gentlemen, this here is my new deputy. Name of Edge, in case none of you have heard of him?’

All four of the men nodded curtly when Edge looked up from eating the chilli.

‘We’ve heard you helped out the sheriff a couple of times, mister,’ Hicks growled, unimpressed.

‘Well, now he’s hired on full time until this business is done with. Want you to know that if you and everyone else in Bishopsburg figure I can’t uphold law and order with the help of Ted Straker and Edge, then you better fire me. And elect yourselves a new man to the office of sheriff so he can take on whatever help he figures he needs.’

Younger started to protest: ‘Hell, George, we ain’t none of us saying – ‘

North broke in, his tone ice cold in the high heat of the saloon: ‘But as long as you don’t do that and I’m still the sheriff, I’ll uphold the laws of Bishopsburg town and the county, the state of Texas and the whole United States to the best of my ability in my own way. And who I buy drinks for while I’m doing it don’t concern nobody but me!’

There was a low key chorus of embarrassed talk, all of it protesting that nobody meant to criticise North’s credentials as a lawman or his judgment about who he hired on. But it quickly petered out as the men turned to the bar and concentrated on their drinks. North lowered his voice as he refilled Billy’s glass and told him: ‘You get to drink this one when I say you can, okay?’

‘Yessir, Sheriff George.’

‘So, I’ve fulfilled my part of the deal. Now it’s your turn.’

‘There was talk of money when we first – ‘

‘Don’t push your luck, damnit!’ North’s voice was soft but harsh toned and his face was set in a grimace as he redirected some of his pent-up anger with the quartet of townsmen toward the mix breed. ‘Whisky costs money and it’s as far as I’m going to go with you, Billy.’

Edge rattled down his spoon in the empty bowl, pursed his lips and shook his head when the scar-faced man looked at him.

‘I can keep the whole bottle, maybe?’

North sucked in a deep breath then let it out very slowly as he crowded his steel grey eyes with a hard look and trapped the other man’s disgruntled gaze. Billy hurried on: ‘Okay, okay! I tell you first. Then you decide if it is worth the whole bottle?’

Edge said: ‘I reckon you ought to just get on with it, feller.’

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‘Okay, that’s what I’ll do.’ He started to speak more quickly. ‘Last night I went out to the sacred burial mound of Navajo warriors. To commune with the great spirits. Because I was spooked by what I saw at the farm of the Bellamy family the night before, you understand?’

North told Edge: ‘He’s talking about a queer shaped hill ten miles south east of here. A kind of half sphere a couple of hundred feet high and a half mile or so around the base.’

‘It is a sacred place to the Navajo.’

‘Billy’s always said it’s sacred to him and the braves of his tribe. He goes there every now and then when the company of people around here gets to be too much for him. Feels he can be close to his own kind out there. Even though it’s a burial mound and all the Indians there have been dead for decades, maybe centuries.’

Billy listened impatiently, his unblinking eyes fixed upon the glass of rye.

‘Keep talking,’ North prompted.

‘When I had finished communing with the great spirits, I heard a noise in one of the chambers of the mound. And I found the Mexican lady there.’

The lawman was suddenly more attentively grim faced and leaned closer to Billy as the talk at the bar was abruptly curtailed.

Aware of the chord he had struck, Billy hurried on: ‘At first she was afraid of me. She thought I was a savage who would kill her or worse, I think. Until I talked with her and she realised I was Billy Injun who she knows from Bishopsburg.’

‘Was she with – ‘

Now it was the mix breed’s turn to be irritated with North for his interruption.

‘She was very hungry and very tired. I shared with her the food and water I took with me to the burial ground. Then she told me how afraid she was and that only Sheriff George North could protect her from what she feared.’

He left a pause and shifted his gaze from North’s face to the untouched glass of rye. The lawman told him: ‘Okay, but easy this time, Billy. Don’t throw it down in one. You don’t get any more until it’s all been told.’

Billy nodded his agreement and took a tentative sip of his drink. ‘I asked her if I should bring her here to Bishopsburg to you, Sheriff George. But she said she’d wait at the burial mound. She felt safe there. Because white eyes hardly ever go near to the place. And like me, she has no horse to ride.’

‘Did she give you a message for me, Billy?’

‘She said only to tell you where she is hiding.’

‘Are you sure that’s all she said?’

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‘That is all she said, Sheriff George. That is the truth.’

‘And you’re sure she was alone?’

The mixed breed said irritably. ‘I tell you so! This was why she was so scared of an Indian. Until she realised I was Billy Injun from the town where she lives! There was no one there to protect her.’

It seemed Billy had not had any whiskey in a long time and the three quick ones had gone straight to his head.

North finished his own drink at a single swallow and put the stopper back in the bottle. Grasped it around the neck, picked it up then rose and went to the bar. There was deep resentment in Billy’s dark eyes and this emphasised the menacing look on his scarred face as he stared fixedly at North while the lawman paid Jake Carr what he owed.

‘When was this, feller?’ Edge asked.

‘What?’ The pre-occupied man did not shift his glowering attention away from North.

‘How long ago did you leave Isabella Gomez at the Navajo burial ground?’

‘A little before dawn this morning.’ He scowled at Edge for a moment then returned his avid attention toward the bar. ‘While it was still dark night. I have no horse and it takes a long time to get back to town from the sacred place on foot.’

He suddenly smiled for he saw that the sheriff was returning to the table still carrying the bottle from which just four or five shots had been poured.

‘Okay, let’s go.’ North veered away from the table and headed toward the batwings. Billy rose hurriedly and scampered after him. While Edge moved with less haste and reached the doorway in time to see North hand the bottle to the mix breed and warn him:

‘Take it straight home to your shack and try not to drink it all at once, Billy. If you do drink it fast, don’t raise any hell. And keep this in mind: you’ll be in all kinds of trouble if I find out you’ve told anybody else what you’ve told me.’