The Quiet Gun - Edge Series 1 (31 page)

But he survived yet another gunfight. The first in a very long time: and yet it was a showdown in which the cracking of gunshots, the feel of a weapon’s recoil in his hands, the arid stink of black powder smoke and the sight of the drifting vapour above the falling and slumped corpses seemed to be a normal event in his everyday life. Such was the startlingly vivid imagery of what was happening that became impressed into his brain: the entire experience powerful enough to obliterate the intervening years as if they were just days. Hours even . . .

‘You’ve killed every last one of them, damnit!’

Kitty Raine’s shrill voice wavered with horror as she rose to her feet, swayed and clutched a shoulder that was maybe broken from the fall, and at her agonised back. Turned her head one way and then the other to peer at the crumpled, blood run bodies transfixed in the total stillness of certain death. And perhaps she had failed to see the crouched, trembling forms of the other two surviving women amid the wreckage of the saloon.

‘No I haven’t, lady,’ Edge countered evenly.

The anguished redheaded widow from Dalton Springs misunderstood him and vented a choked cry. Ignored her pain and pushed out both splayed hands toward the man in the doorway. Like she attempted physically to ward off the terrifying idea his words had planted in her mind or even to shield herself from the bullets she was sure he was about to fire at her.

The other two women whimpered and sobbed and tried to huddle themselves into smaller targets.

‘I sure would like to, Mrs Raine.’ Edge spoke slowly and the words rasped from his lips as though they had an evil taste and the foulness that flavoured them could be sprayed into her contorted face.

‘You double dealing bitch, I’m gonna . . !’

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She snapped her head back to stare up at the man who snarled at her from above. And seemed rooted to the spot, as if the hatred directed at her by Edge and the man on the balcony had a palpable force strong enough to transfix her there. But Edge had given just a moment’s more attention to Kitty Raine after he was through talking to her. Raked his glittering eyed gazed around the room. Ignored the latest act of violence when the figure of John McCall plunged heavily off the balcony. And crashed hard onto the woman who was helpless to get out from under his plummeting form.

Her scream was ended by a choked cry that, in turn, was curtailed by the sharp sound of a snapped bone as the two of them collapsed into a heap. Then Edge whirled into a half turn. Threw the stock of the Winchester to his shoulder. Aimed at a spot near the far end of the bar counter where a small scraping sound of boot leather on floorboard had enabled him to pinpoint the hiding place of the missing man.

But he stayed his finger on the trigger as the short, rotund figure of Roy Strickland suddenly straightened into sight, wielding a double barrel shotgun in one hand and holding aloft his lawman’s star in the other.

Edge did not hold his fire on account of the prominently displayed badge. Instead because Bart Bannerman’s rifle began to explode a volley of shots toward the man behind the counter. To cut down his fellow saloonkeeper. Did not end the hail of fire into him until the repeater rattled empty.

After Strickland had staggered backwards then crumpled from sight below the level of the counter top, Edge continued to keep his Winchester aimed in the direction where he last saw the man, bleeding from many chest wounds but maybe still alive for a few more moments as he gripped the unfired shotgun.

‘Take it easy down there, Mr Edge.’ Bannerman sounded icily calm but did not look at ease with himself as he started to unsteadily descend the stairway. ‘I figure I made sure that sonofabitch of a crooked lawman won’t be getting up ever again.’

Edge replied evenly: ‘Okay, feller. No sweat.’

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Bannerman misunderstood the acknowledgement, thought it was an inquiry and countered: ‘Yeah, I’m fine. I figured for sure he’d go to that end of the bar. It’s where I’d have kept a weapon hid if the Town House was my place.’

Bannerman was talking for the sake of it as he reached the foot of the stairs, striving to keep a grip on himself. And Edge wondered fleetingly if this was the first time the big man had killed anybody. Then he devoted his attention to John McCall and Kitty Raine. Watched as the Dalton Spring’s lawman climbed wearily and painfully to his feet while the woman stayed where she lay, head twisted at an unnatural angle to her body: clearly beyond the reach of pain or any other living sensation. McCall’s craggy featured face was a mass of cuts and bruises, heavily stained by the discoloration of broken blood vessels and newly formed scabs. And from the way he staggered to the nearest chair that was still upright and lowered himself gingerly down into it before Edge or Bannerman could reach him to help, it was obvious the beating had not been confined to his head.

‘I killed her,’ he muttered distractedly, peering out from between puffed lids, shifting his glassy eyed gaze from the dead Kitty Raine to Edge, then to Bannerman. ‘Must’ve snapped her neck, I guess.’

‘I guess you did that sure enough, John,’ Bannerman said.

The beaten up man shrugged and winced. ‘Whatever, I killed the scheming bitch.’

Edge said: ‘Someone was sure to, some time.’

Bannerman halted alongside where McCall sat and agreed: ‘Yeah, John. That’s right. It was a way that woman was bound to go sooner or later. My God, what did they do to you?’

The pair of youngish, old before their time, over painted up whores who had survived the carnage in the saloon kept shifting the direction of their terror filled gazes among the three men.

Then Edge captured their attention when he suggested: ‘If you two ladies live here in the Town House, maybe you ought to get to where you bed down. If you don’t, best you beat it to where you lay your heads when you ain’t getting laid.’

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They looked anxiously at McCall and Bannerman and were ignored. Then at Kitty Raine. Next peered toward Chrissy Walters who, as the only woman with a revolver in her fist, had suffered the same fate as Shannon, Strange, Craig, Strickland and the unknown fifth man.

Finally they looked helplessly at each other, struggled clumsily to their feet then stumbled often as they hurried across the saloon and up the stairway. Just one door on the balcony was wrenched open and slammed shut.

McCall had regained his breath and composure and there seemed to be something akin to a wry smile on his punished face as he growled:

‘I sure did a whole lot of dumb things on account of that woman. Made a damn fool of myself, didn’t I?’

Bannerman took time to consider a response.

Edge drawled: ‘If you’re looking for an argument about that, I’m not about to give it to you, feller.’

Bannerman peered long and hard at McCall’s swollen and discoloured features, a grimace fixed to his own fatigue lined face.

‘John, we didn’t hear you hollering or anything,’ he blurted. ‘Had no idea they were doing anything like this to you. Ain’t that right, Mr Edge?’

If there really ever had been any kind of a smile on the lawman’s punished face a few moments ago, there was no sign of one now. His injuries added force to the sneer of contempt he showed as he answered:

‘I never gave them the satisfaction, Bart! Shannon used his fists to get even with me for locking him up! Spurred on by that . . . ‘

He made to jerk a thumb toward the corpse of Kitty Raine but even this small gesture caused him pain. He found it easier and maybe more gratifying to turn his head to the side and aim a stream of saliva in her direction. It fell short of the target.

‘But at least she saved my life, I guess. Told Shannon the longer I suffered the better she’d like it. More time I’d have to figure what a prize idiot she’d made out of me. The lines of the contemptuous expression deepened in the discoloured flesh of his face. ‘All she ever wanted from me was to get her out of Dalton Springs. Any man would 204

have served her purpose for as long as it took to reach Frisco or New Orleans or some other big city. But like a damn fool I elected myself. And cheated on a real good friend . . . For what?’

He stared at the corpse of Kitty Raine and seemed about to spit at her again. But then it was as if the intensity of his powerful emotion drained him of his final reserves of physical strength: he could not even summon what it took to raise bile flavoured saliva into his arid mouth.

‘Okay, John, it’s over now,’ Bannerman said hoarsely. ‘You paid her back for everything she did to you. And Shannon and his bunch are sure good and done for.’

‘She was dead drunk.’ McCall spoke in the same detached vein, as if he had not heard the concerned Bannerman’s attempt to empathise with him. ‘They had to wake her up to look at me after they dragged me into this place.’

‘Hell, you surely ain’t making excuses for her, John?’

McCall shook his head, grimaced and snorted.

Edge asked: ‘Do you know how it was she showed up here in Garfield City, feller?’

McCall shook his head again, pensively rather than as a negative gesture. ‘She told me about that. Said how she never had intended to go to Fort Reed. Tell the army what I told her to. Planned to keep on riding until she got some place she could meet up with another sucker like me. But she tied up with this guy on the trail . . . ‘

He squinted around the saloon, wincing when he needed to turn from the waist instead of just his head, to locate the corpse of the unknown man sprawled between the bodies of Strange and Craig.

‘Name of Ted Rose. Claimed to be a professional gambler from off the Mississippi River steamers. He was heading for Garfield City. Sold her some line about how high times could be had here at the Town House if the right crowd was around. And you know what?’

He looked for Edge, who had moved to the bar and stood near where the guitar leaned against the front of the counter as he took a drink of whiskey from an up-ended bottle.

Bannerman asked: ‘What, John?’

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‘I’d bet that almost as soon as she got here she knew she’d been sold a bill of goods by Rose. That when he’d had his fill of her she’d end up the same as those two whores. Working for Strickland.’

He nodded in emphatic agreement with himself and grunted before he went on:

‘Yeah, that’s the reason she got so damn drunk and was so happy to have Shannon beat up on me, it seems to me. Because she blamed me for how everything went wrong for her. Because I didn’t take her away from Dalton Springs before maybe?’

‘Could be, John,’ Bannerman said. ‘But best to let it lay for now, uh? What you need is to get some decent rest, I reckon.’

‘Later, Bart. What I need right now is to get a taste of some of that medicine Edge is having?’

Edge came away from the bar counter and extended the bottle of rye toward McCall. Who took it, tilted it carefully to his swollen lips and sucked from it. When he offered to return the half full bottle, Edge shook his head.

‘Keep it, feller. On the house, I guess?’

‘Much obliged. There’s something I want you two guys to know?

‘What’s that, John?’

Edge had started to roll a cigarette.

‘The reason I didn’t do any hollering while Shannon was working me over . . ? Sure it was partly because I didn’t want him and her and the rest of them to know how bad he was hurting me. But outside of that, I didn’t want you guys to be rushed into making your play. I sure acted like one prize idiot over her again, charging up the street the way I did.’

‘It was Edge’s idea to hold off, John.’

Edge lit the cigarette. ‘It was smart thinking on your part, sheriff.’

Bannerman said: ‘There’s just one thing I don’t understand?’

‘What’s that?’ McCall looked to be on the verge of passing out. Or slumping into a natural sleep. Before he took another slug of whiskey, perhaps thinking the liquor would heighten his awareness rather than dull it.

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‘Why they left you alone upstairs after the beating, John? Kitty Raine sleeping it off in another room or wherever?’ He gestured with an arm to encompass the saloon. ‘While they were all busy kicking over the traces down here?’

McCall leaned down and tried to set the bottle on the floor beside his chair. But it slipped from his grip, toppled over and spilled its contents.

‘It’s no use asking me, Bart. The last thing I remember is being down here. Feeling like every bone in my body was busted and blood was spurting out of me as fast as my heart could pump it. There was some crazy piano playing. And people were singing up a storm and laughing and having a high time.’

McCall had sucked no more than the equivalent of a couple of shots of rye from the bottle but even this much liquor coursing through his battered body seemed to make him drunk. He had begun to slur his words and was having trouble keeping his eyes open and his chin from sinking to his chest.

Edge said: ‘Shannon had a twisted way of thinking. Maybe he didn’t trust the Raine woman’s reason for wanting to make McCall’s punishment last. Figured maybe she wanted to keep him alive for long enough to help her get away from here? Especially if he’d realised she knew that Rose feller wasn’t going to help her?’

Bannerman thought about this for a moment, then nodded. ‘Why not? And if they tried to make a run for it, Shannon would be ready and waiting to stop them dead in their tracks?’

‘We won’t ever know for sure, Bart,’ McCall murmured, showing he still heard and understood the talk even though he had lost the struggle to keep his head from lolling forward. ‘But what the hell does it matter now?’