Edge: Killer's Breed

"Jesus, will you look at those stupid bastards!" Hedges shouted at the top of his voice as he struggled to change the course of the team's flight, angling towards the road that led northwards all the way to Washington.

Forrest poked his head through the front of the wagon, ripping aside the remnants of canvas which had survived the race through the trees. The grin which reflected his enjoyment of his period as an artillery man was suddenly wiped from his features by an expression of incredulous shock.

"They're having a goddamn picnic," he yelled. The cruel-faced man was not coining a metaphor. The road to Washington was actually lined with hundreds of civilians in all manner of conveyances who were eating dainty sandwiches and drinking coffee from delicate china as they viewed the battle. Excited by newspaper accounts of the opening stages of the Civil War, many of Washington's citizenry had decided they wished to see what all the fuss was about. The warm weather and prospects of some fighting only about twenty miles south of the capital had provided an excellent opportunity to accomplish this. So carriages, wagons and buggies had been hurriedly laden with hampers and a civilian convoy had been hot on the heels of the military on the route south. As the battle commenced the civilians had spread themselves on the road and in the fields east of the Bull Run and delighted in the sights and sounds of war. Then, when the first signs of a rout appeared, it took these spectators longer than was safe to decide it was time to leave.

"They're waving at us like we was in a parade or something," the still incredulous Forrest exclaimed. "Run the lunkheads down."

The panicked horses of the wagon team smashed through between two buggies and skidded on to the road, swaying dangerously and cannoning off the stationery vehicles of the shocked civilians. Back down the road other army wagons and hundreds of infantrymen and cavalry troopers spilled on to the road.

"They're coming. They're coming. The rebs are coming."

"They're raping and killing."

"Mommy, I wanna go home."

"McDowell's dead."

"McDowell says head for the Potomac."

"Let's get out of here." An infantryman tripped over his own musket and sent a ballshot into the laughing face of a year-old baby.

An elderly man fell beneath the wheels of a rumbling wagon, crushing his skull.

Two soldiers gun-whipped a man and his wife and stole their buggy.

Carriages smashed into wagons and axles snapped.

A rumor spread that a crack Confederate cavalry unit was speeding in for the kill and a thousand soldiers dropped their weapons and scrambled through the snarl of tangled traffic and terrified civilians.

Hedges drove the wagon over a small bridge as a stray rebel shell arced in through the cooling evening air and overturned another wagon immediately behind, blocking the road.

A hundred pairs of trembling hands tore at the wreckage to clear a way through.

"Captain," Douglas called as he peered back through the gathering dusk, his vision further impaired by the billowing dust from the spinning wheels of the speeding wagon.

"You want something" Hal?" Forrest answered.

"They ain't following us. Rebs are staying where they are."

Hedges stopped whipping the horses and hauled on the reins as Forrest clamped on the wheel brakes.

"You sure?" Hedges asked as the wagon slewed to a halt and he peered back down the road to see for himself.

"Yeah, they ain't even shooting no more," Seward confirmed, his voice dejected. "I thought we was winning, and now we lost."

Hedges spat and clucked the team forward into an easy walk. "You ought to be dead, but you're alive," he said softly.

"Right!" Seward exclaimed after a moment for thought. "Hell, you're right Captain. We're all alive, ain't we? It sure is a great war."

Hedges recalled the men pitching forward out of his gun-sight, spilling blood; the face of the Confederate officer he had blinded; the light-headed enthusiasm of the charge towards the enemy line at the Storie Bridge. His face was suddenly carved into a humorless grin that narrowed the blue eyes to slits of ice cold blue and curled back his thin lips to reveal teeth that looked as dangerous as those of an enraged animal.

"It's got its moments," he agreed.

Forrest saw the expression and heard the tone. He recognized both and slapped Hedges hard on the back "Hey, Captain, you're one of us now."

Hedges fastened him with a hard stare and shook his head as he felt another facet of his new character hammered into place. "You aren't even in the same league," he hissed.

*****

THE sheriff was not a big man and his courage could also be measured on a scale that took no account of the more than average. His appointment was a relatively new one and he had no personal recollections of the Hedges family and the killings out on the farm. But he knew where to find the right poster among the file of wanted notices and it was with some trepidation that he unfurled it for Grace Hope to see.

This was a quiet town, unused to major trouble in recent times, which had been a prime reason for him accepting the appointment as peace officer. He did not, therefore, relish the prospect of going after a double killer whom legend had built up into a vicious animal.

"That's him!" Grace exclaimed as Sheriff Layton unfurled the poster across the desk top to reveal the image of a younger, healthier Josiah C. Hedges than the living one at present wracked by fever at the farm.

Layton was a man in middle years with a long face that lengthened even more as the girl made the identification.

"You're sure, Grace?" Billy West asked. He was the same age as Grace, as handsome as she was pretty. He put a hand on her waist and leaned close to her over the desk, experiencing a stirring from her nearness.

"Yes, Billy. That's the man at the farm." She straightened and pulled away from his embrace, ashamed because she had compared him unfavorably with Hedges.

Leyton sighed and folded up the poster, small enough to fit into his shirt pocket. "Better round up a posse," he told his deputy. "He's sick, but he's an animal. Sick animals can be the most vicious kind."

Billy nodded and smiled at Grace. "Don't worry," he said with great self-assurance, hoping to impart confidence to the girl. "We'll take care of him."

She forced a small smile to her lips, knowing it did not reach her eyes. "I know you will, Billy."

"Get moving," Layton said as he fished a key from a drawer of the desk and rose towards the rifle rack. "If Hedges wakes up he might not take too kindly to the Hopes moving in on his land."

Grace drew in her breath and put a delicate hand to her mouth. She had not previously considered that the man may have come back to claim his own land. She was suddenly stricken by a fearful anxiety for her mother's safety and she followed Billy out of the office and climbed hurriedly into the buggy.

Her departure spurred on Billy West to greater speed as he rounded up as many men as he could find to help bring in a murderer."

CHAPTER EIGHT

"How'd you find me in a country this big?" Hedges asked as the girl stepped out from the lobby of the hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, looking precisely as he had been visualizing her each time he read the short and now much tattered note she had written.

Jeannie Fisher's green eyes laughed and her soft lips came wide so that her teeth flashed in the sparse street lighting. "I knew the army had withdrawn to somewhere near Washington," she answered. "I just asked every officer I saw if they knew of a Lieutenant Hedges until I found one that did … or rather, Captain Hedges."

She was wearing a bright green dress to match her eyes, with a modest neckline but fitted snug enough to the waist to emphasize her body before it flared wide to the ankles. Hedges drank in the sight of her, as if he thought she was a mere mirage which, would vanish from his sight at any moment. They were in the center of the sidewalk and the crowd had to divide to go around them.

"I think we're causing an obstruction," she said and laughed again as she reached out and laid a hand gently on his arm.

He shook his head as if to clear it. "Sorry. I find it so hard to believe my luck."

They began to stroll with the crowd, she retaining her gentle hold on him.

"We came to Washington to get jobs," Jeannie explained. "My sister and I. Something to help in the war effort!" Again the laugh. "Our neighbors back in Parkersburg think it’s scandalous of us."

Hedges experienced an unreasoning stab of disappointment. When her message had reached him out at the camp, inviting him to visit her at the hotel, he had been certain she had come to the city especially to see him.

"I think it's fine," he told her.

They strolled in silence for a few moments. He couldn't think of anything to say—only to do. He struggled to erase from his mind the memory of her naked body in the alley back at her home town, which kept becoming confused with a mental picture of his men expending their lust on the blind girl. The mere contact of Jeannie's fingers on his arm seemed to generate a fire of want throughout his whole body.

"Has it been bad?" she asked softly.

He looked at her and saw she was concerned. "The war? I didn't really think about it sensibly before I joined the army. If I had, I could never have imagined it would be like it is."

"You're different from Parkersburg," she said.

He looked at her quizzically.

"Older," she amplified. "It's only been a few weeks, yet you aren't young anymore."

He nodded sadly. "I know what you mean. I don't feel young anymore."

"And you haven't smiled since I came out of the hotel." Her voice took on a mocking tone. "Aren't you pleased to see me, Captain?"

He looked down into her upturned face and tried to smile his pleasure at what he saw. But from the flicker of nervousness that crossed her features he knew that he was showing his killer's grin. He cleared his throat noisily. "Is it all right for a working girl to go into a saloon?" he asked, "I hear Washington's got some real plush places."

The tinkling laughter rippled from her full lips again. "A working girl can do almost anything she likes," Jeannie answered. "As long as it’s legal."

Hedges gave her a sidelong glance, suspecting, but not certain, that he had read a hidden meaning in her words. Then they turned on to Fourteenth Street and he escorted her into an elegantly appointed barroom with red velvet-covered seating, crystal chandeliers and tasteful oil paintings hung on the paneled walls. He had never been in a place like this before and it was obvious that the girl was also somewhat awed by the surroundings. But an obsequious waiter led them to a booth at the rear of the long room and took their order for a beer and a sarsaparilla.

In the shadows of the booth Hedges felt more at ease with the girl, but it was again she who had to lead the conversation.

"Will you be in Washington long, Captain?"

"Depends on General McClellan, Miss Fisher," he answered. "He's been appointed by Mister Lincoln to raise a new national army. Soon as it's ready I reckon we'll be on the move 'again."

"Not as fast as you came here, I'll be bound." The low-voiced comment came from the next booth, drawled in an accent of the Deep South. The waiter brought the drinks, accepted payment with a flourish and retired.

"I haven't congratulated you on your promotion," Jeannie said quickly, almost breathlessly, as she peered through the dim light into the hard lines of Hedges' face.

"Obliged," he said softly. "In the Union army you get promoted according to how fast you can run—away from the battle."

The voice was still pitched in a low key, but the laughter it produced from a woman was shrill.

"Ignore it," Jeannie pleaded, reaching out a hand to clasp Hedges' wrist.

"Sorry," he muttered and jerked free. He slid along the seat, came to his feet and turned to peer into the next booth. The woman gasped and drew in her breath sharply, emphasizing the swells of her powdered breasts as they threatened to burst clear of her low-cut dress. The middle-aged man sitting opposite her across the table top looked slightly drunk, but still able to take care of himself. He was broad across the shoulders and had the chest of a strutter. A necktie was held against the slope of his chest by a diamond studded pin.

"You a reb?" Hedges asked as the man grinned up at him arrogantly.

"My allegiance is my own affair," the man answered. "I was merely commenting, in a private conversation, upon the state of the war. I would now thank you, sir, to apologize for this interruption and then leave us."

Hedges reached down and plucked the pin from the necktie. The woman gasped and the man looked affronted. "A thief as well as a coward," he accused, a dangerous sneer spreading across his smoothly shaved and powdered face.

"But not small time," Hedges answered. "I don't usually take anything but a life."

"Henry," the woman; said nervously, sensing the evil lurking behind the impassive face of the Union captain.

Never noisy, the elegant barroom had suddenly become deathly quiet. Pale faces turned to look in the direction of the booth.

"No cause for alarm, my dear," the man murmured and began to slide towards the edge of the seat. "This won't take a minute."

"Less than that," Hedges corrected as he folded his fist around the pin and lashed his arm forward and down. A half inch of the needle-like point protruded from the heel of his hand. This sank into the flesh of the man's face just below his eye and slashed a bloody path down the cheek to the corner of his mouth.

"You beast!" the woman screamed as the man put a hand to his torn cheek and looked in horror at his blood-soaked fingers.

"You stuck me," he gasped. He had been drinking brandy from a snifter and smoking a large cigar. As he continued to sit, held thereby the horror of what had happened to him, Hedges lifted the glass and threw its contents into his face.

"Help to stop infection," he said softly.

The man roared all the alcohol seared into the wound, and started to come up out of the seat. Hedges dropped the pin and curled his forefinger inside the wide open lips. He jerked his hand and the flesh tore an inch along the line inscribed by the pin. The lower section of the wound flapped open. The man screamed and crumpled to the floor as his hands nursed the lacerated flesh.

"Now folks can see you've got a big mouth," Hedges muttered as he turned and found Jeannie staring at him with wide eyed shock. The woman in the booth began to wail and Hedges leaned over to the ashtray, picked up the smoking cigar and crushed it down between her ample breasts. Her wails became a shriek of pain.

"Let's go, Miss Fisher," he said, "It's too noisy in here."

The girl was like an automaton as she allowed herself to be ushered ahead of Hedges between the tables and the pale-faced patrons who sat at them.

"That was vicious," she whispered as they emerged into the warm Washington night.

"He did the talking and she thought it was funny," he said softly. "They had to pay for it."

"But so cruelly?"

He sighed. "Would you have cared what 1 did to that drunken soldier back in Parkersburg?"

"That was different," she protested.

"Because your honor was at stake?"

She flushed and the deep color added to her prettiness. "If you want to put it like that," she said softly, dropping her gaze.

"That loudmouth was questioning my honor," Hedges told her and began to walk away from the front of the saloon, heading back towards Pennsylvania Avenue.

She ran to catch up to him and they walked apart for a few yards. Then her hand found his arm again. Their silence lengthened and was emphasized by the bustle in the street around them.

"Where are we going?" she asked suddenly.

"Hotel."

"It's early," she protested.

"It's overdue," he answered.

"I heard about it and I've seen it. About time I tried it."

She halted abruptly and her grip on his arm pulled him up short. Her green eyes flashed angrily as he looked into them. "If you mean what I think you mean, Captain, you've come to the wrong girl."

"You came to me, Miss Fisher," he pointed out.

"I hardly know you."

"Don't see what that's got to do with it."

"A girl likes to be courted," Jeannie said, her tone softening, and a coy smile turning up the corners of her I slightly pouted mouth.

Hedges bent forward suddenly, swept her into his arms and crushed his lips against hers. The kiss lasted several long moments and the passing crowds laughed at the couple. But neither of them were aware of any existence except their own as they pressed against each other.

"There's not much time for courting in a war," Hedges said as he eased his embrace and looked steadily into her eyes which showed an expression he had never seen there before. "Figure that takes care of it. Can we get on with the humping now?"

"Captain!" the girl exclaimed.

"Yes, Miss Fisher?" he asked evenly.

"That is no way for a gentleman to talk."

"All officers ain't gentlemen, Miss Fisher."

She fluttered her long eyelashes and found something of intense interest in the area of his chest. "I haven't ever ... before," she whispered.

He began to walk towards the hotel and she fell in beside him. "But you thought about it?" he asked.

"Yes," she caught her breath. "What it would be like when I was married."

"I'm not the marrying kind, Miss Fisher."

"I know you're not, Captain." Her tone spoke volumes of regret. It was awkward and unsuccessful at first in the small bedroom on the first floor of the hotel. Their naked bodies, her's soft and yielding, his hard and demanding, became bathed with sweat as they attempted, to attain congress. Each time she cried, aloud her pain he withdrew from her, desperately wanting release from the ache of desire but afraid to hurt her.

She would not look up at him and pressed the side of her head hard into the pillow, shutting her eyes tight as she spread her legs and arms wide in submission.

"You gotta help me, Miss Fisher," he gasped.

Her hands reached for him and the gentle touch of her fingers was almost painful in the jolt of pleasure it sent through him. The hardness of her erect nipples pressed through the hair of his chest as he lowered his weight on to her and the squeal of pain that burst from her lips became a sigh as he pierced into her.

"Captain," she murmured, locking her hands at his neck to press her face into her shoulder. "Captain, there's an earthquake." She began to move her body in concert with his. His teeth sank into the soft firmness of her flesh as he sucked upon the saltiness of her. The tempo mounted and Hedges wanted to cry aloud his exhilaration. But his lungs were near to bursting and his throat was filled with an emotion which he did not understand. This is what it must be like to die, he thought, and gave himself up to whatever was possessing him, driving into the girl relentlessly.

"That was wonderful, Captain," she sighed as he finally lay still.

He raised his face from her shoulder, licking her blood from his lips. "Beats kissing," he said. "Obliged, Miss Fisher."

He rolled off her, on to his back. She reached for his hand and squeezed it. She laughed suddenly. "It really did feel like an earthquake."

"Something moved, sure enough," he confirmed. "I feel different."

"You are," he told her, and tried to force his grin to show humor. "You're a woman now. You came into this room a maiden and then you lost your head."

For long moments she was silent and he looked sideways across the pillow at her afraid he might see regret in her face. But it was a puzzled expression that creased her forehead and crinkled her nose. Then it was gone, as she saw the joke and happy laughter burst from her bruised lips. He broke into his own, harsher laughter and the sound of their joy filled the room. Without shyness she released his hand and reached down to find the source of her pleasure. His body offered an immediate response to her touch and their laughter reached a crescendo and then died as she urged him onto and then into her again.

"Where's your sister, Miss Fisher?" he whispered as his teeth tugged gently at her ear.

"Out with a man," she answered breathlessly.

"Humping?"

"One family can't have that much luck," she sighed, clasping him to her.

The cold grey light of dawn was streaking across them eastern sky as Hedges left the hotel to begin the bleak walk back to camp through the desolate city streets. He felt weak but replete, emptied but satisfied. If he had come through the opening horrors of war with any relic of his youth intact, tonight he had lost it. He felt the complete man in every sense of the word.

"Hold it right there, soldier boy." The words were spoken in an easy drawl, almost conversationally. But the expression on the speaker's face gave the lie to his easy manner. He was leaning against a pillar in the porchway of a bank, ten feet in front of Hedges. He was tall and thin, dressed in an eastern suit with a fancy vest which had a gold watch chain looped across the front. His low-crowned hat was tipped back off his brow so that the dawn light showed every line of his thin, aquiline features. His hands were thrust casually into his pants' pockets and a half-smoked cheroot angled from the comer of his mouth, issuing blue-grey smoke in a vertical column.

"You talking to me?" Hedges asked, slowing his pace.

"I've been waiting all night for you. Not likely I'd be addressing anyone else."

"Must be something real important you want to say to me," Hedges answered, halting a yard from the other man.

"Message from the Senator."

"Which one?"

The man took the cheroot from his lips with long fingers. "The one from Virginia. The one you attacked last night."

Hedges narrowed his eyes. "He can still talk?"

"Enough." The man rolled the cheroot between his thumb and forefinger and suddenly flicked it towards Hedges.

Hedges sidestepped, feeling the adrenalin pumping through his body, driving out the euphoria of post-sexual relaxation. A man cried out and Hedges made a half turn and looked at two hulking roughnecks, one of them raising a hand to where a circular burn mark decorated his cheek. But the second man had no such preoccupation. The massive fist he had launched continued on its course and only its target as altered. Aimed for Hedges' kidneys, it landed on the side of his waist, with enough force to tear a grunt from the injured captain's lips.

"He could say kill the bastard," the instigator of the violence announced casually as he lit another cheroot.

The man with the burned face recovered from his shock and directed his anger at Hedges, sending a straight right low towards the captain's solar plexus. Hedges chopped down with the edge of his hand on the wrist and launched a kick towards his attacker's groin. Both connected and the man yelled and staggered back as his partner landed a vicious punch to Hedges' neck. He staggered to the side, feeling the pain ricochet around the inside of his skull like a solid object.

"And, he said, painfully."

One of his attackers had not yet been hurt, and Hedges' mind, working coolly in spite of the pain, demanded that this roughneck had to be taken first, while the other nursed his injuries. Hedges turned to face square on to the advance, his eyes narrowing to slits as he saw the flash of a knife.

"Just stick him," the well-dressed man ordered. "Don't kill him—yet."

The knife arm raised high and began its descent. Moving with the speed of an animal fighting for its life, Hedges stepped inside the swing, raising one hand to clutch at his attacker's wrist while the other went up behind the descending arm to grip his own wrist. Pain sent the man bending backwards as Hedges applied pressure—but not fast enough. The arm snapped like a twig at the elbow, making a similar noise that became lost under the onslaught of the scream. The knife clattered to the sidewalk and as Hedges stooped to snatch it up he sent a knee hard into the man's groin and threw him crashing backwards into the bank wall.

"Break!" he muttered as the man sailed away from him. He heard a heavy footfall behind him and spun. The second man, in a half crouch, his expression pained, was coming at him with fists flailing. Hedges had to take two blows on his shoulders as he leaned forward and thrust the knife deep into the chest, feeling the hilt change direction as the point glanced, off a bone. The man sighed and closed his eyes. His body went limp as he crumbled and Hedges withdrew the knife, a crimson fountain erupted. "Makes your heart bleed."

"I have to do everything myself!" The words were as soft spoken as any he had previously used and when Hedges spun to face the spokesman he had not altered his casual attitude. Only his expression had changed and his thin features showed distaste as his eyes flicked over the slumped forms of his strongarm men. But as Soon as Hedges took a pace towards him, he was galvanized into action. His body stiffened and the fresh cheroot arced away from him. The hand which had rejected it continued on its upward line of travel, halted for a moment at the rear of his neck and then came forward, gripping something that gleamed with a dull sheen. A grin split his mouth as he saw the flicker of bewilderment cross Hedges' face.

"Pa was a barber," he said evenly as he took a step to the side.

Hedges moved in the opposite direction, recognizing the weapon as a cut-throat razor with a four inch blade. "Guess he was a real demon."

"Gave a man a close shave," the other said conversationally, taking a further side-step in the tight circle around the dead man. "But I get closer still. Specialize in the short and curlies."

He made a threatening lunge towards Hedges' lower stomach. Hedges recognized it for what it was and did not back off. They came full circle. The man with the broken arm regained consciousness and groaned. Nobody looked at him.

Hedges went forward, leaping over the crumpled body and slashing sideways with the knife. The other man sucked in his stomach and sprang backwards, into the street. The grin altered the line of his mouth again. "Fast But not fast enough."

He feigned to the right, then came forward on the left. The swing of his arm was blurred and, as he withdrew, Hedges felt a warmth on his thigh. He glanced down and saw a three inch long slash in his pants. The cut began to sting, but was not deep enough to sap the strength from his leg.

"Real sharp," Hedges complimented.

"Yes." The move to the right was not a feint this time and as Hedges was fooled the razor found flesh again. His other leg spilled blood—from higher up, dangerously close to his manhood. "The end of your end is near," the man said and allowed a laugh of pure enjoyment to rip from his lips.

"You mean I'm going to have it off?"

"With knobs on, Yankee."

This time he relied entirely on his speed, coming in straight and low, preparing to make the final slash with a mere wrist action. Hedges kicked his feet forward and up, the toes of his boots smashing into the knees of his attacker. He hit the ground hard and threw his torso backwards, thrusting upwards with the knife as the razor came down, now aimed at any target available. The man was falling towards him, his expression showing fear for the first time. The razor cut through Hedges' tunic close to the hip, but didn't touch flesh. The knife went into the man's throat, the force of the thrust and the weight of the fall driving it deep. Hedges twisted it viciously. The man gurgled and vomited blood. More blood issued from the wound where the knife point came clear at the back of the neck. Hedges pushed the limp body from him and got painfu1ly to his feet, stood for several seconds breathing deeply of the morning air as he waited for the tension to drain from him. Then a sound on the sidewalk caught his attention and he looked over there to see the man with the broken arm trying to get to his feet. He picked up the fallen razor and moved across to stand watching.

"You killed 'em," the man accused, his voice a croak.

"Wasn't very hard."

"I didn't see nothin', captain," the man pleaded. "I wasn't even here."

"Wrong," Hedges answered. The razor cut through the air and so sharp was its edge that there was hardly a sense of resistance as it slashed across the man's throat. He slid down the wall into a sitting position. "You were here. Now you ain't."

He turned and went to the well-dressed man. He used the razor again, to slit through his elegant suit jacket, vest and shirt collar. Beneath, he found a long pouch of hand-sewn leather, hanging down the man's spine and held in place by a beaded cord looped around his neck and tied in front. Within moments he had relieved the dead man of the pouch and transferred it into a similar position around his own neck.

Then he moved away, buttoning his tunic, as the first sun of the new day threw long shadows from the slumped figures of the three men. Three cats watched him curiously as he made practice draws with the razor. Then they turned and sped away, recognizing perhaps a streak of animal viciousness in the man's gesturing.

"Scaredy cats!" Hedges called after them.

*****

"WE'RE goin' to get him out of here," Thomas Hope said with determination as he looked down at the peacefully sleeping man.

"But if the sheriff's on his way like ma says…"

The father was not normally a harsh man where his family was concerned, but the look he turned upon his son was sufficient to silence the boy. Thomas was short and thickset, with the powerful shoulders of a man who has worked hard for most of his fifty-some years. He had an open, honest face, with dull black eyes which hinted at his lack of intelligence. His son was several inches taller and although his face bore a strong family resemblance, nature had subtly rearranged the features into more handsome lines and added a polish of brightness that advertised a fine, if undeveloped mind.

It was early evening at the farm, the sky darker than usual because of the low cloud which was thinning but still hiding the sun. The men had arrived tired and hungry with a stock bull and forty-six cows. They had been looking forward with pleasure to their homecoming every hard step of the way from Kansas City. But the story Margaret Hope had told and the sight of the man on the bed replaced their feeling of exhaustion with a sense of foreboding. This was stronger in the elder man and emerged as anger.

"A posse should be here soon, Tom," Margaret said quietly. She had struggled through many lean years with her husband and shared with him the satisfaction he drew from owning the farm and working it successfully. But she knew that it was too much to expect that a line could be drawn between the bad times of the past and the just reward of a trouble-free life ahead. "They'll take him away."

Tom shook his head, fixing Edge with a frightened stare. "I heard about this man, Maggie," he said. "He's so mean he'll kill a guy for bumping him in a crowd. What you reckon he'll do when he finds out who turned him in?"

"Sheriff Layton's got a strong jail, pa," Allen pointed out.

"Layton's a lazy fool," the boy's father came back. "I wouldn't trust him to keep a gopher in an iron cage. Go and saddle this critter a horse."

"What you goin' to do, Tom?" Margaret asked fearfully.

"Turn him loose is what," came the reply, and the man's steady eyes caught and held the gaze of his wife.

"When Layton gets here you'll tell him Hedges woke up and beat it 'cause he forced you to tell him about Grace goin' to town."

Margaret drew in her breath sharply. "He could die out there."

"So much the better. If he don't he'll either get clear away or get caught. Whatever happens, he won't have no call to think badly of us." He turned his determined eyes towards his son. "Go do like I say, boy. Don't want Layton to catch us in the act."

As Allen left the room, Tom stripped the covers from the naked Edge and ordered his wife to bring the man's clothes, stiff with dried mud. Edge was no longer in the grip of the fever, but his body was exhausted by the fight for life and he remained limp in unconsciousness as he was dressed. When Allen called that a horse was ready, Tom hefted the unresisting form over his shoulder and carried him outside, instructing his wife to bring the Winchester. He heaved Edge across the saddle and forced a foot into one stirrup and went to the other side of the animal to push a wrist through the other one.

"He could easily fall off," Margaret pointed out as she slid the Winchester into the boot.

"That ain't our concern," Tom answered as he checked the security of the slumped form. He nodded his satisfaction and took the reins to lead the horse over to the gate. He opened it, released the reins and slapped the animal on the rump. It hesitated a moment, then broke away at a canter, swinging off the trail towards the north.

"If they catch him, he won't recall anything," Margaret said suddenly.

Doubt etched her husband's features for a few moments, then was gone as he turned to walk back towards the house. "He was delirious," he explained. "Ain't likely a man sick as he is would recall all his actions. Now get supper, Maggie. And tell me what it is you got to tell Layton when he gets here."

The woman and her son went into the house behind Tom and as she prepared the meal she rehearsed her story for the sheriff. Out on the range the horse continued to canter northwards, leaving easy-to-follow tracks in the rain-softened ground. Five miles to the east along the trail the posse led by Sheriff Layton and Deputy West caught up with Grace Hope's buggy and slowed the pace to escort it.

CHAPTER NINE

THERE was a lull in the fighting as summer gave way to fall and fall retreated under the advance of winter. General McClellan raised his army and trained and drilled it into a body of professional soldiers in well organized camps around Washington while the Confederates regrouped after their Bull Run victory and dug in to defend their line.

For Hedges—and many like him who had found war to their taste—it was a period of bone-deep boredom. But at least he could gain relief on the submissive body of the ever-inventive Jeannie Fisher and it was her willingness to act as a receptacle for his frustrations—all of them channeled into a single driving lust for her—that held his killer instinct in check.

Then, early in '62, action flared in western Tennessee. Navy gunboats blasted their way south down the Mississippi River as Brigadier-General Grant led fifteen thousand troops and another fleet of ironclads in the same direction, on an almost parallel course along the Tennessee. On the Mississippi, Fort Pillow fell to the Union advance and Grant took Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. The push south was on and Brigadier-General Buell swung south west from Nashville with twenty-five thousand men.

Hedges' troop of cavalry were among the reinforcements assigned to join Buell's force, and they rode with a will, anxious to avenge the rout of Bull Run. Hedges allowed little time for rest and the hard training program he had put into effect drew dividends in the stamina of the men under his command. They complained, but they kept moving, sweeping across western Virginia, through Kentucky and into Tennessee. The speed of their advance took them south of Buell's columns and, not realizing this, Hedges pressed on, expecting each minute to spot the spectular sight of a massive army on the march. But it was not Buell's brigades he saw, hut Grant's. It was the evening of April 6 and as he rode up to the east bank of the Tennessee River it was to look across to the far side and see the blue-coated Union soldiers falling back under heavy attack from the Confederates.

"God, don't we ever do nothin' but lose?" Seward demanded. "I'm in the wrong army."

"Where are we, sir?" Douglas asked, as the whole troop came to a halt to gaze in shocked amazement across the swirling water of the river.

Hedges dug for his map. "Pittsburg Landing," he muttered.

"Never heard of it," Forrest growled.

"That wasn't where, they was supposed to be," Douglas said. "Was it?"

Hedges shook his head and consulted his map again. "No, Corporal. General Grant was supposed to be camped close to a meeting house called Shiloh Church."

"Guess he was caught praying by the rebs," Forrest said cynically, unbuttoning his holster. "Reckon he needs a hand, Captain?"

"Reckon he'd be obliged," Hedges answered and heeled his horse forward, into the rapidly flowing water of the muddy river.

"Yippppeee!" Seward yelled, plunging in after the captain as the rest of the troop moved forward.

Horses whinnied and spray flew from their struggling hooves as the riders dug in their heels and thwacked at hindquarters, driving them to the far bank, where cannon roared and small arms cracked. Their approach was seen by the. Confederates and some of the rebel artillery was ordered to raise its sights. Great spouts of water began to rise up around the advancing troopers, terrifying the horses into greater efforts.

"Hell!" a man shouted and Hedges glanced to his right and saw a trooper staring down in surprise at the bloody patch where his left arm had been. Another trooper angled over to help his comrade and was smashed from his horse as he took a shell, full in the chest.

"You with Buell?" a lieutenant in one of Grant's divisions demanded as Hedges came clear of the water.

"We missed him," Hedges snapped back. "What the hell happened here?"

"Rebs caught us off-guard," the lieutenant shouted, pressing himself into the ground as another barrage of heavy shells arced overhead and splashed into the river, now clear of troopers. A Union barrage replied, whining across the open countryside towards the rebel line, distinguishable in the gathering darkness by the flashes of exploding powder.

"Many losses, lieutenant?" Scott asked.

"They cut us. to ribbons," came the shouted reply. "Came at us like hungry wolves. I hadn't been here, I wouldn't have believed such slaughter was possible."

From out of the darkness, cutting across the gunfire and pitiful calls of the wounded, a bugle sounded. Every man pinned down under the rebel bombardment turned to look across the river, straining his eyes through the gloom to see what was backing up the brave sound.

"It's Buell!" somebody shouted, the delight brittle in his voice. "It's goddamn beautiful Buell."

"Now we'll show the reb bastards," the lieutenant hissed.

The Union artillery battery waited for the head of Buell's column to splash into the river and then opened up with a murderous covering barrage. Runners spread out from Grant's command post, screaming to be heard above the din. Hedges could see the Union line advancing on both sides of the command post and did not wait to hear what the runners had to say.

"You're gonna get the chance to show them, lieutenant," he said and drew his saber, swinging it around his head and pointing ahead. "Forward!" he yelled and as his horse thundered ahead, infantrymen scrambled from his path, cursing and then bolting after him, finding an outlet for their anger in pumping a hail of bullets towards the rebel line.

All along the Union advance other cavalry units broke from cover in a series of headlong charges, safe from the enemy barrage which was still directed at the thousands of men pouring across the river. But for several minutes the rebel line held firm and the advance ran into an almost solid wall of flying bullets and ballshot as the opposing infantry found their range.

Hedges found himself gripped by the same feeling of exhilaration he had experienced at the Bull Run, heightened perhaps by the darkness of night. Horses and men tumbled about him, the sounds of their deaths swamped by the rattle of rifle fire and the deeper, more sporadic crash of artillery. Then the opposing armies clashed in close combat. Hedges saw a rebel soldier loom up out of the ground before him, raising a rifle towards him. A foreleg of the cavalry mount struck the man in the chest; spinning him to the ground. His rifle went off and sent a bullet crashing into the brain of a comrade as a hind leg thudded into the skull of the fallen man.

The rebel artillery abruptly ceased the barrage as an order to retreat was communicated down the line and moments later the Union battery was silent, its officers fearful of shelling their own cavalry and infantry.

Hedges' troop and the other cavalry units had broken through the rebel front line in many places but did not halt their charge as the enemy turned on their heels to flee. A rebel soldier fired his rifle at Forrest and succeeded only in putting a hole through the Union man's hat. Forrest was close enough and riding fast enough to slip a foot from his stirrup and lashed out with a boot at the man's throat. His neck snapped with a dry sound.

Douglas spotted an injured rebel sitting down and crying his pain. He rode in close, reached down and caught hold of the man's hair to drag him screaming across the ground. Bell swung in towards the speeding Douglas and fired his Colt twice, once into each of the rebel's wide eyes.

Seward, his giggling somehow more obscene than the crack of gunfire, had great sport zigzagging among the fleeing soldiers and swinging his rifle down, in skull splitting blows to the backs of their heads.

"Like eggs!" he shrieked in delight. "Just like rotten' eggs."

Scott, riding slower than the rest, confined his killing to those rebels already wounded, using his horse to trample unmercifully on the already broken bodies of sprawled soldiers. Hedges at first shot at anything that moved in front of his galloping horse, and then when he had emptied his rifle and revolver, slashed about him with the saber, feeling an electric thrill course his entire body with each spurt of blood that erupted from around the curved blade.

Sweat was pouring from every part of his body and his mind felt so filled with pleasure he thought it would burst. The sounds of the battle raging about him were diminished by his own personal war and he heard only the swish of metal through the air, the thud of its edge sinking through flesh to find bone, the screams of his victims. He saw only their bulging muscles as they strove to flee from him, the looks of terror as they glanced up at him, the gaping wounds and spurts of blood.

It was Forrest, galloping alongside him and then swerving in to grasp the reins and slow the horse, that wrenched him out of his private world of gore so that he heard a score of bugles sounding their strident notes.

"Recall, Captain!" Forrest roared at him. "They're sounding recall."

The two horses stopped and Hedges looked hard into the face of Forrest, his expression still set in an expression of narrow-eyed, lip-curled hatred. Forrest backed off, licking his dry lips and swallowing hard.

"You were right, Captain," he muttered.

"I'm always right," Hedges said hoarsely. "In what regard!"

"When you said you weren't in the same league."

Forest looked back over his shoulder and Hedges followed the direction of his gaze. Stretched out in a straight line along the course Hedges had ridden was a row of perhaps twenty bodies, each with a horrible, gaping wound even now still pumping blood, into the earth. Hedges grinned and spat as he wheeled his horse.

"Dead right, Forrest," he muttered, and started back to where the Union forces were regrouping.

Forrest grinned his own brand of evil now. "Learned a new lesson, too."

"What was that?"

"Easier to kill them from behind."

Hedges nodded. "Now you're right," he agreed.

That was not the end of the carnage at Shiloh. Throughout the night, as Buell's army continued to pour in with their columns of supplies, the senior officers conferred and planned their strategy. And at first light the joint forces of Grant and Buell moved forward, mounted cavalry, the infantry and the supply wagons and artillery trampling into the ground the remains of the Confederate dead.

"Reckon we'll win this one?" Seward asked.

"I reckon," Forrest answered. "Yeah, Billy. I reckon we'll beat the shit out of them this time."

"Heard they lost one of their generals last night," Douglas put in. "Feller named Johnston."

"Generals is human," Bell pointed out. "Bullets make 'em bleed same as anyone else."

"Sure like to get me a general," Seward muttered. "Sure like to do a general like what we done to Captain Jor…"

Forrest was riding beside Seward, immediately behind Hedges and he took his foot from a stirrup and lashed out with it. The toe of his boot dug painfully into Seward's calf. The boy yelled in pain and swung in the saddle, glaring angrily at the other man. But Forrest's evil expression silenced his retort.

"You kill Jordan?" Hedges asked without turning around.

"Billy's got a big mouth, captain," Forrest answered.

"Then you better make sure he keeps it buttoned," Hedges advised evenly.

"Jordan weren't no loss," Bell commented.

"You know that, and I know it," Hedges came back, still not turning to look at the men riding behind him through the early light of the new day. "Might be some people won't look at it that way."

"Billy won't go shooting off his mouth no more … will you Billy?"

Seward seemed to shrink in size under the withering gaze of Forrest. He opened his mouth to speak, but could raise no sound. He shook his head emphatically.

"And Captain..."

"Yeah, Forrest?"

"Ain't no man goin' to tell it how it really was."

"You threatening me, Forrest?" Hedges reined his horse just enough so that the big, cruel-faced man could draw alongside him.

Forrest's menacing expression could have been carved from solid rock and it did not alter one iota under Hedges' steady scrutiny. "I ain't talking to exercise my tongue," he replied coldly.

Hedges' hand flashed to the back of his neck and whisked out the opened razor, his hand chopping out to rest the blade on Forrest's tunic collar, a fraction of an inch from the flesh of his throat.

"Jesus!" Seward hissed.

Forrest swallowed hard and the swelling of his throat caused the razor to nick his skin. "You still got a tongue, Forrest," Hedges said softly. "You threaten me again and I'll cut it out and stick it up your ass."

"Yeah," Seward exclaimed and giggled. "He talks a lot of crap."

"Where'd you get the razor?" Forrest asked hoarsely.

"Guy I knew had a pa who was a barber," Hedges answered and lowered his arm, then replaced the razor in its neck pouch. "Guy's got no use for it anymore."

The first shot of the second day in the battle of Shiloh cracked through the morning and Forrest dropped back from the head of the column, lashing out another kick at Seward's leg.

"Smart talk me again, punk, and I'll stick your head up your ass."

"Can you men spare some time to fight the Confederacy?" Hedges asked sardonically as more gunfire rang out."

Yeah!" Forrest rapped out angrily. "Let's go finish this war so we can take these damn uniforms off. Then I can settle me a few private scores."

"Hope you can scare the enemy more than you're scaring me," Hedges snapped over his shoulder as he drew his saber and held it high in the air, then pointed it to the front. "Forward!"

Once more Hedges led his troop into the forefront of the battle, streaking into the hail of enemy bullets, taking a terrible toll of human life with gun and saber. Again, after he had given the command to action, Hedges was overcome by an awesome desire to kill, a lust that cut him off from every aspect of the battle except that in which he was personally engaged.

Around him, as the battle of Shiloh blazed its way into history as the bloodiest conflict yet waged on American soil, and the Confederates turned and fled, Captain Josiah C. Hedges committed legal mass murder with a cold-bloodedness that knew no bounds.

"Leave some for us," Seward yelled as Hedges pumped two shots into the head of a rebel just as the giggling boy was preparing to kill him.

"He wants to win the damn war all on his own," Bell complained as a rebel's head was split asunder by the captain's flashing saber.

"Yeah," Forrest muttered to himself. "That guy's a loner."

Hedges heard none of this as he swept forward, slaughtering every rebel soldier within range of his blazing guns or reach of his slashing saber. He rode on and on, waging his own personal war, a man alone.

*****

THE gunfire of Shiloh faded and then was abruptly magnified and channeled into a single shot that rang out with the utmost clarity then echoed away into the distance. Edge snapped open his eyes and had a blurred view of broken ground rushing along a few feet beneath his face. His body ached as it continued to be buffeted by the headlong gallop of the horse and through his background of pain he could feel a sharper agony at his neck. He was sure he had been hit by a Confederate bullet and was slumped across the back of his still galloping cavalry mount.

Then he recalled a girl. Jeannie? No, not Jeannie. A girl tending a grave. Christ, Jamie's grave. Jamie had still been alive when the carnage of Shiloh took place.

Edge heard another shot; and galloping hooves. He turned his head to look behind the horse over which he was slumped, ignoring the stab of agony from his neck. He had an upside-down view of a group of horsemen streaming after him. He saw the flash of discharged bullets and then heard the cracks of the reports. Only then did he see the riders wore civilian clothes and came to his full senses.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he drew his hand from out of the stirrup and swung his free leg over the saddle. By the time he was upright and gripping the reins of the galloping horse he had remembered Rainbow and the wound he received there; had recalled the agonizing trek back to Ohio and the farm; knew a girl had been tending Jamie's grave in the rain. After that there was only blackness except for a tiny fragment of a nightmare in which death had played a leading part.

But whatever had happened to him since he had seen the girl in the rain was no longer of any importance. The weakening after-effects of a serious illness were threatening to tumble him from the speeding horse as far more deadly, heavy caliber bullets whined about his head. As he glanced about him in the gloom of twilight the recognized the countryside of his youth and forced his reluctant brain to decide upon a plan of escape.

The flat plainslands of Iowa showed a slight rise to the north of him and he angled his lathered mount in that direction recalling how, in his early years, he had played and learned to shoot in a ravine among the hills. Although he was unaware of the events which had led to the present situation, it was obvious that his horse was much fresher than the mounts of his pursuers for it seemed that every yard he covered, widened the gap by half a yard between him and the men on his trail. Soon he was out of effective rifle range and Sheriff Layton and his posse ceased fire long before their quarry went from sight into the ravine.

The cleft in the hills was neither very wide nor very deep, on a far smaller scale than the many canyons Edge had travelled through in his wanderings of the south western territories. But at least its sides, sometimes sheer, sometimes sloping down at a climbable angle, offered a better chance of survival than the open prairie.

Edge slowed his horse to a walking pace, his eyes raking the slopes for a secure position where he could make his stand. And a stand it would have to be, for the ravine continued for less than a mile and if the pursuers emerged at the other end and saw no sign of him on the plain, they would certainly double back to search for him. As close as he had been able to judge there had been about a dozen men trailing him. Edge's only weapons were the razor in its neck pouch and the Winchester in the saddle boot—loaded with fourteen rounds. He halted his horse finally and dismounted gingerly, careful to test his strength before trusting to it. "I got out, of tighter spots than this," he muttered as he slapped the horse hard on the rump, snatching the Winchester from the boot as the animal bolted down the ravine, whinnying its protest. "But not much," he finished as he started up the steep angle of the ravine side, heading for a narrow shelf.

Once there he stretched out fiat and decided he could not be seen from below. He waited, listening to the fading sound of his horse's hoofbeats as the animal galloped away. Then came thunder without lightning and Edge turned his attention away from the direction in which he expected the riders to approach, to look towards the other end of the ravine. "It was not thunder he heard, but the thudding of countless unshod hooves as hundreds, perhaps thousands of animals headed up the ravine. After hearing the sound, he felt it; the ground trembling beneath his prone body. Small, and then larger pieces of rock started to roll, then cascade down the sides of the ravine.

It took longer for the posse to hear the stampede, for the beat of the hooves of their horses was loud in their ears. But as Sheriff Layton and his deputies rode out of the darkness into Edge's view, the sudden slackening of their pace told of their realization. Edge shot a glance back in the other direction and saw his horse bolting like the angels of death were on its tail. As, in a way, they were.

For, hard on the heels of the terrified horse, were the leading runners of what must have been the last of the enormous buffalo herds. Great, black beasts with shaggy manes, their eyes shining as white as their horns as their feet pounded at the ground, hurling their massive bodies forward at stampede pace.

The bolting horse went down, its dying whinny hardly audible above the thunder of beating hooves. Then the posse started to turn, their shouts of alarm as ineffective as the final sound of the horse against the clamor of the rushing beasts.

Layton went down under the charge, his head and body trampled into an unrecognizable mass of pulped flesh and shattered bone. Another man fell on to the horns of a beast and was tossed up and on to the head of another; then a third man was gored and flung about before finally dropping into the middle of the rushing animals. The remainder of the lawmen managed to wheel their horses and race away.

From his vantage point Edge watched the onrush, but was unable to see if any more men went down in its path as they were swallowed up by the darkness. He gazed down with a hard grin narrowing his eyes and splitting his mouth over the whiteness of his teeth, and did not come up from off his belly until the final maddened beast had passed and the sound of hoofbeats was swallowed up by distance.

Then he moved off the shelf and went carefully down the slope to amble over to where the battered body of Layton was crumpled. Imbedded in the blood and bone was something that shone faintly of silver and he stooped down and dug it free. He grimaced when he saw it was a five pointed star set in a circle. He dropped the badge back on to the body and grinned as he looked along the ravine, now filled with a solid silence.

"Now that the buffalo's gone, thanks fellers," he muttered. "And it weren't even your beef."

EDGE

Blood on Silver & Red River

Available Soon!

Title

# 1 THE LONER

# 2 TEN GRAND

# 3 APACHE DEATH

# 4 KILLER'S BREED.

# 5 BLOOD ON SILVER

# 6 RED RIVER

AND MORETO COME…