The Quiet Gun - Edge Series 1 (32 page)

‘Right, John. All we need to do now is find where Shannon stashed the money he stole from the bank. And give it back to the folks it belongs to. Then all scores will have been settled, right?

‘Sounds about right to me,’ McCall croaked.

Edge said: ‘Something else?’

‘What’s that?’ Bannerman asked.

The lawman managed to bring up his head. ‘Reckon Edge is talking about me, Bart.’

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‘You figure I’ve earned the payment in kind that I need to start my freight business down in Dalton Springs, feller?’

‘You surely have, mister,’ McCall said and this time there was certainly some kind of a smile on his face.

‘Much obliged. The faster I can get back there and set things moving, the better I’ll like it. So I plan to get a night’s rest and leave at sun up.’

Bannerman frowned at McCall as he began anxiously: ‘But, John, I don’t reckon you’ll be able to ‘

‘I’m damn certain I won’t be in any fit state to travel for at least a couple of days,’

McCall broke in drowsily. ‘But if you want to ride with Edge, Bart, you go right ahead. I’ll stick around here and rest up for awhile. If the local folks will allow me to do that.’

Edge had moved to the doorway, intending to return to the livery stable and bed down the horses for the night. He swept his gaze across the night shrouded slopes on both sides of the street of derelict, abandoned buildings and saw that no lights showed and nothing had changed in the wake of the gun battle in the Town House. He said on a stream of exhaled tobacco smoke as he looked over his shoulder at McCall slumped in the chair and Bannerman standing at his side: ‘Sheriff, I’ve got a hunch you’ll get treated like some kind of hero by the local citizens.’

Bannerman nodded and worked an exhausted grin across his fleshy face. ‘I’ll stick around and take care of John. And maybe bask in the reflected glory?’

The grin was displaced by a frown. ‘Or just take care of him, in the event your hunch turns out to be wrong?’

Edge said: ‘No sweat. So I’ll tell the people back in Dalton Springs to expect the both of you when they see you?’

‘Sooner rather than later,’ McCall muttered.

‘And Edge!’ Bannerman called to the man who made to step out through the doorway.

‘Yeah?’

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‘I hope your business goes real well. And we see you around town for long enough so you can maybe get a taste for my beer?’ There was a broad, friendly grin on his features.

Edge showed the big saloonkeeper in the wrong saloon an easy smile. ‘Who knows, feller. Maybe if I don’t get mixed up in any more of the kind of trouble that’s happened here, there’s a chance I could live to be a hundred and eight.’

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CHAPTER • 24

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EDGE HAD a strong feeling he was being secretly watched by many intrigued eyes
as he rode out of Garfield City early the next morning. Moving slowly down the centre of the silent street then alongside the rusted railroad track that stretched into the steep sided canyon.

A moment before he was about to go out of sight of the small community he looked back and saw traces of movement among the shacks spread across the slopes. Which confirmed the townspeople were not all as deeply asleep as McCall. Bannerman and the two whores he had left in the Town House.

He watched as maybe a score of men, half that many women and a few children emerged from their spartan homes on the dirt farms and gold claims to step apprehensively out into the sunlight of a new day and began to converge toward the hotel on the hill crest end of the street.

As far as he could see over the distance as he rolled and lit a cigarette, none of the men carried a gun. Nor was there any aggression in the slow advance. And the presence of the children clinched it for him.

The people of Garfield City were daring to hope they had been given their town back from the lawless element and were setting out to see if this were true. This decided, Edge put his back to the peaceful scene and headed on into the canyon. Beyond, angled up the slope to the main trail between Tucson and Dalton Springs and made good time on his well rested and adequately fed horse as he rode south. Came within sight of the ill cared for Heaven’s Gate way station beside the conical hill in the twilight at the end of another hot day beginning to cool under a darkening sky. It had been his intention to ride on by, cover as many miles as possible through the night before he and the animal under him were tired out. But a combination of the weariness of being so long in the saddle on the outward and return journeys and the draining effects of events at Garfield City had crept up on his no longer young body and mind.

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He was not fully aware of this until he saw the way station with its promise of hot food, shelter against the night cold and a chance to rest up in relative comfort. And for such minor luxuries he was willing to endure the company of the deranged Grundy who would doubtless consider him to be no more than a wraith conjured up from the spirit world.

Or maybe Pete Grundy was not always so affected by the loneliness of his chosen line of work? Certainly as Edge reined in his horse out front of the way station and the slightly built man appeared at the doorway, silhouetted against the light that spilled out of the room behind him, the old timer looked normal enough as he adopted a welcoming attitude and spoke normally in amiable greeting.

‘Thought I heard a horse out on the trail. I’d like it if you’d stay awhile, mister?

Have a bite of supper with old Pete Grundy? He’d like it even better if you had a bottle of something to share with him?’

Edge swung down from the saddle. ‘Never carry liquor on the trail, feller.’

Grundy was briefly sullen, then shrugged his thin shoulders in resignation to the inevitable. ‘Well, it don’t make no real never mind. Means the next time I get to taste whiskey it’ll be even better for the longer wait. You come on in anyways.’

‘Be glad to, Mr Grundy. After I’ve taken care of my horse in the facilities you got here?’

‘What’s that?’ He had halted in a half turn on the threshold of the way station. And it seemed his never clear thinking mind was elsewhere so he had to force it back to the here and now.

Edge jerked a thumb at the travel wearied gelding. ‘My horse. He’s more in need of rest and feed than I am.’

‘Damnit, what the hell am I thinking of?’ The grizzled old man spun on his heels and stepped away from the door. ‘Taking care of horses is my line of work, mister. A man can rely on horses. Whole lot better than he can his own kind. You go ahead inside and I’ll look after your animal. While I’m doing that, you just make yourself to home, Mr . . ?’

‘Edge.’

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Once more the old man was pulled up short as a sudden frown came to his deeply lined, heavily bristled face,

‘Something wrong, feller?’

‘Edge . . . Edge . . ?’ He shook his head. ‘Seems to me I know that name. Somebody made mention of it just – ‘

‘A couple of hours ago, you crazy old coot!’ a man said from within the building that had been filled with silence until the harshly spoken words ended it. And now the setting down of a booted foot without need for furtiveness seemed disproportionately loud. The speaker stood on the threshold, in full view of the puzzled Grundy and impassive Edge: who instantly recognised the tall, broadly built, blond haired, dark eyed, fifty some years old Ezra Franklinn.

‘Well, don’t make no never mind,’ Grundy growled, took the reins of the gelding surrendered to him by Edge and began to lead the animal toward a corner of the building.

‘Seeing as how ain’t neither of you two real. When a man makes up things in his own mind, I guess it don’t matter he forgets about them so soon.’

‘That guy ain’t got the full fifty two cards to his deck,’ Franklinn said and shook his head, the movement almost imperceptible.

It seemed to be the only part of him that was not totally still. Certainly his right hand wrapped around the butt of a Colt .45, keeping the muzzle aimed at the centre of Edge’s chest, did not waver by a fraction of an inch.

If he blinked even, it was at the same instant as Edge.

‘But he’s happy. In his own way.’

‘Not so me, mister. Not in any way.’

‘I can see that.’

‘And I guess you understand why that is, uh?’

‘You’re out a bundle of bucks?’

Another almost imperceptible shake of his head. ‘There’s that. Heard in Dalton Springs about how a bunch of outlaws killed Fred Drayton and collected payment from the Mexicans. Which cut me right out of the deal.’

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‘So, what else, feller?’

‘Always knew my latest little business venture couldn’t last forever. So I made contingency provisions. Saved enough of the folding green from the good days to go north and live high off the hog for a long time. The only fly in the ointment is you.’

‘Likewise.’

‘Uh?’ For the first time there was a slight dent in the composure of the soft spoken, expressionless man.

The equally impassive Edge said: ‘I’m not about to start out in a new legitimate trade while the score between me and you isn’t evened. I could’ve been killed. Or ended up in jail for a lot of years. Because of how you set me up.’

A smile settled lightly on Franklinn’s regular featured face. ‘I had a good thing going. Supplying guns to whatever bunch of anti-government Mexicans could afford to pay me. Worked like a dream, how I was able to use simple minded and hard up guys like you to run my freight down to Drayton.’

‘But sometimes a dream can turn into a nightmare and you get woken up to what’s real.’

Franklinn shrugged. ‘There were five runs without any hitches. More than I expected at the beginning, I gotta say. Then when I heard it was over, I knew I had to head south and tie up the loose ends.’

‘Just me left then?’

‘It seems so. Heard in town about you riding off with the local sheriff and mayor in some half ass posse. Figured you were one of the three riders I saw for a moment or so from the stage?’

‘That was me, feller.’

‘Was told you’d be coming back to town to start up a new business. Decided this way station would be a better place to wait for you than Dalton Springs. Bonus for me, you coming alone and Grundy being off his head. Means I just have to kill you. You want to make some kind of peace with your God?’

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‘I don’t figure you’d have the patience to wait for as long as it would take me to even start to do that,’ Edge answered evenly. ‘And I guess it would be the same the other way around?’

‘I ain’t been no saint, like I just told you.’

‘So you’ll just have to save it until you get to see The Man personally?’

It was no more than an empty threat. Edge had proved to himself he was maybe almost as fast and accurate as he used to be. But the odds were impossibly high against a man with a.45 already in his hand, the hammer thumbed back, a decision to kill in his made-up mind.

But then Pete Grundy re-appeared at the corner of the building around which he had led the horse. The old man himself was silent. It was the sound of Bart Bannerman’s watch that momentarily distracted Ezra Franklinn.

And a moment was long enough.

In the time it took for the stolen watch to sound a single chime the eyes of the man in the doorway were drawn to the far sides of their sockets. And the Colt was clear of Edge’s holster. The hammer back. The barrel levelled. The trigger squeezed. The bullet fired.

The shot hit Franklinn in the inner elbow of the arm above the hand fisted around the revolver. Aimed at this precise target so his arm was forced back and down. To shift the muzzle of the gun away from Edge in the event a nervous spasm of Franklin’s trigger finger exploded a counter shot.

In the shortest time allowed by the action of the Colt, Edge got off a second round. And this bullet tunnelled into the centre of Franklinn’s forehead above his new expression of utter incredulity. Sent him staggering back into the way station, dead on his feet. Where he sprawled out spread eagled on his back with a dull thud. The clatter of his discarded Colt against the floor was louder. Edge showed an ice cold grin of satisfaction as he tilted his revolver and rotated the cylinder to tip out the spent shell cases from two of the chambers. He reloaded then pushed the Colt smoothly back into the holster.