Edge: The Loner

THOSE who considered themselves the good citizens if Peaceville didn’t go to bed after witnessing the scene in front of the sheriff’s office. Edge, stretched out on his own bed in the hotel room, awake and fully dressed, staring up at the ceiling and thinking out a plan of campaign, neither knew nor cared what the townspeople were doing. He had stood at the window for several minutes after returning to the hotel room, watched as the street cleared of people save for Bell and Seward on sentry duty up on the sidewalk: and the grisly severed head, tipped over on its right side in the dust. But that couldn’t count because no part of Sheriff Peacock could be considered people any more.

There was a period of activity a few moments later when Forrest, Douglas and Scott emerged from the office and swaggered across the street to the Rocky Mountain Saloon. Bringing up the rear, Seward could not resist a sadistic kick at the head, which arced clumsily over the sidewalk to smash a window on the side of the street Edge had only a restricted view of. When the five had entered the swinging doors of the saloon, Edge could hear some shouts, a woman’s response and then some laughter. Then peace returned to Peaceville, apparently for the duration of the night if its citizens were prepared to allow it to be so.

Edge wasn’t.

So he lay on the bed, contemplating the ceiling, deciding how the murderers of Jamie were going to die. Then the rap of knuckles on the door sent his hand to the floor to snatch up the Henry and he was suddenly sitting up, rifle aimed, finger on the trigger.

“Come in slow and live longer,” Edge said, narrowed eyes glinting through the darkness which was suddenly split by a line of light, widening as the door was pushed further into the room, leaving a section of the hallway to view. Edge’s finger whitened on the trigger, eased slightly when he saw Gail step into view. She looked afraid. Edge licked his lips. “Last year I blasted what I took to be a nightmare,” he said evenly. “Turned out I half killed a corporal come to wake me up. You ain’t no nightmare, but best you say something so I know you ain’t a dream.”

Gail swallowed hard, stepped closer to the door. “We’ve had a meeting,” she said, and the words rasped over her nervousness.

“We?”

“The Citizen’s Council,” she explained, gaining a little confidence. “Honey’s a member. When they made their decision he suggested I come to see you. He thought you and I … well that we were friends.”

Edge heard the shuffle of feet in the hallway, out of the angle of view and he was suddenly off the bed, standing in a crouch, the Henry’s muzzle swinging from one side to the other. But then Honey forced a smile to her lips and raised a hand in a gesture of peace.

“Honey’s here,” she said. “And Mr. Chase, the banker. Eddie Old the schoolmaster and Reverend Peake. We’re a deputation Mr. Edge.”

Edge shook his head. “I don’t want no deputation. They had you come here, you knocked and you’ve spoken up ‘til now. You say the rest.”

Gail looked to either side of the doorway, and the man’s voice said something in low tones, the sense of which did not reach the interior of the room. Then the girl held out her hand, received something and dropped to her side again. She took a deep breath and stepped forward, just across the threshold, not really in the room.

“The town’s Citizen Committee had a meeting and decided it had to rid itself of the gang of vicious swine which is trying to take it over,” she paused, to see if this stirred anything in the taciturn Edge, and was disappointed that he continued to look at her with complete disinterest. She hurried on. “We—the men of the town anyway could go up against Forrest and his gang. And the committee’s certain they could oust them but a lot of people would get killed before it was all over.”

“You mean innocent people,” Edge said. “You said innocent people down on the street awhile back.”

“Very well,” she replied with a show of impatience. “Innocent people if you will. What do words matter at a time like this?”

“They matter,” Edge came back. “You’re using them, in a kind of sidestepping way, but I figure I get your drift. You want me to put my life on the line by going up against Frank Forrest and the rest.”

Gail nodded. “Yes, that’s it. I wouldn’t have put it that way. But we want you to rid Peaceville of that vermin.”

“No matter how you put it, comes out the same,” Edge said and in a dimly lit room Gail could not see if his grin was touched by humor. “Guess I haven’t led an entirely blame-free life,” he went on. “No ... no, I guess nobody could call me innocent. I get killed, well ...”

“Oh you won’t get killed,” Gail said. “I’m sure you’re better than all them put together. You thought you were, awhile back.”

Edge didn’t like getting caught out by Gail, and was suddenly angry. She heard it in his tone as he spoke: “How much you offering?” The words seemed to be thrown at her, hard and fast like bullets.

She raised her arm from her side, offering him a handful of bills. “Five hundred dollars,” she told him.

Edge nodded. “That’s a hundred dollars a man.”

The girl drew in her breath, shocked. “You don’t have to kill them. Just rid the town of them.”

Edge nodded. “That’s a hundred dollars a man.”

The girl drew in her breath, shocked. “You don’t have to kill them. Just rid the town of them.”

“Throw the money across,” Edge told her and she complied. Chase had obviously opened his bank. The notes were new, held together in a block by a paper band. Edge flipped through the money, enjoying the feel of its newness. “You people are paying the freight,” he said, looking to the doorway. “I make the rules on delivery.”

The girl looked to the left and right, and then back into the room and nodded.

“They may be vermin,” Edge told her. “But I ain’t no rat catcher. My way, and my way means dead.”

Gail nodded again. Not liking it, her expression showing that she regarded Edge as no better than the men she had just paid him to kill. There was more murmuring down the hall and Gail looked away from the door, nodded and returned her attention to Edge.

“We’d appreciate it if you didn’t take too long, Mr. Edge.”

“I don’t work too long for five hundred,” he answered. “It’ll just cover the night. If any of them are still alive tomorrow, the town will have to pass the hat again.”

The girl’s lips tightened and there was more murmuring from the unseen Citizens Committee. It had a dissenting sound. Edge made a motion with his free hand.

“Now get out of here and tell them to stay off the street if they don’t want their innocent heads blown off.”

The girl returned to the hallway, pulling the door closed and Edge realized he could have been wrong, but just as her face disappeared from view, it showed a flicker of concern. Alone, he grinned and flicked through the five hundred, enjoying again the feel of the crisp new bills. Getting paid to do something he had intended to do anyway was unexpected and added flavor to the experience. It didn’t make him anymore determined to succeed but it added fullness to the anticipation. After the sound of shuffling feet in the hallway had diminished, he spent thirty minutes cleaning and oiling the Henry and the Remington, polishing the blades of the razor and knife until they gleamed. Then he climbed out of the window onto the roof of the porch and prized back the board to add the five hundred to his capital.

The town was almost silent, with nothing moving on the street, and everywhere in darkness except the Rocky Mountain Saloon, from whence came the only sounds. These were of conversation, pierced by occasional laughter, and the clink of bottle neck on glass rim. Edge’s footfalls on the wooden planking sounded like thunder and he spent a few moments removing his boots. Then he moved forward again, testing each step before he took it, searching for planks that creaked.

A sound down the street caused Edge to freeze and he peered down, saw a large white dog dart out of an alleyway, skid to a momentary halt and then run in a wide circle with a bark of joy. Edge saw the sheriff’s head swinging from its slavering jaws.

“Guess you just lost your head, sheriff,” Edge murmured as he stepped across the narrow gap that separated the hotel porch from that of the saloon.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE saloon had just two stories and, like the hotel next door had rooms facing the street with windows that opened out onto the porch way. There were four such windows, none of which showed light as Edge stood quietly, listening to the sounds from below. Although he could not distinguish the words being spoken, he could differentiate between the male and female voices and recognized the nasal twang of Forrest’s accent. He stood like that for perhaps a full minute and thought he heard two other men talking but could not make out who they were. Nor could he be sure that all of the men were still downstairs, two of them remaining silent, drinking or doing things with the saloon girls that required no conversation.

Then he moved and the first window he came to was open a crack at the bottom, enough for him to push his fingers under it and ease it upwards, an inch at a time, ready to stop at the first sound of a squeak. But it slid up smoothly and soundlessly and when Edge put his hand into the room he could hear even, regular breathing. He remained immobile at the window for several seconds, allowing his narrowed eyes to become accustomed to the darkness, until he could see the dresser and the wooden bed, the form of the sleeper rising and falling regularly with breathing upon it. He lowered the Henry in first, then his boots, finally threw a leg over the sill and climbed inside. A floorboard made a tiny sound as it took his full weight, did not disturb the figure on the bed.

He left his boot where they were, carried the rifle across the room. It was a woman in the bed, a large, ugly woman with a face streaked by run mascara, and enormous breasts that hung down on each side of her chest, made naked by the blanket which she had thrown back in her sleep. Edge assumed she was the madam of the establishment, taken to her bed when she discovered Forrest and his men were in no frame of mind to talk terms for the favors they sought.

Edge upholstered the Remington, raised it and brought it down with a swish of air. It thudded into the sleeping woman’s temple with a dull sound. She whimpered, her breathing missed a beat then became suddenly deep. Even in the darkness Edge saw the skin swell and begin to discolor. He went to the door and cracked it, put his eye to the opening to peer into the hallway. A candle flickered at each end, leaving a pool of darkness in the middle. Nothing moved except the two small flames, dancing in the draught he caused as he stepped out of the room and closed the door softly behind him. There were four doors on each side of the hallway, and the stairs at the end.

“You’re a cute little broad and make no mistake,” he heard Forrest say with a laugh, the words coming up the stairs and along the hallway with perfect clarity.

“And you’re the kind of man I like,” the object of his attention replied. Then she squalled. “Hey, that hurt.”

“But you still like me?”

“You bet.” Pained.

“I had enough to drink,” another man said. “Let’s go join Billy and the others.”

“Yeah,” agreed another. “This little girl’s got the hots for me and I don’t want to waste what’s left of the night.”

“You’re a naughty boy,” a girl said, her voice brittle. She sounded as coy as a mountain lion.

“Finish the bottle,” Forrest said, his voice making it an order. “Night or day, don’t make no difference. We screw these girls into the ground and then we get some more. Maybe from the cantina. I hear those Mex gals can keep it up twenty-four hours a day and still come back for more.”

“We ain’t no beginners,” one of the girls put in with irritation, but Edge was no longer listening. From what he had heard there were just two of Jamie’s murderers upstairs, Billy Seward and one other. It was all he needed to know for now.

The room next to the one he had entered by was empty, and so was the one next door, but when he stepped up to the next one across the hallway he heard sounds. There was a series of sighs, interspaced with grunts of pleasure and the occasional word of breathless endearment. With, in the background, the creaking of a bed that had provided support for too much lust and simulated passion in the past, protested noisily at this latest onslaught. Edge turned the handle, opened the door wide enough, slid inside the room and closed the door behind him in one silent, fluid movement.

Neither Scott nor the girl beneath him were shy, for a candle flickered at each side of the bed, one on the dresser, another on a broken backed chair. The girl was naked, the man dressed in filthy under-vest and pants, opened where it had proved necessary. The girl was staring up at the ceiling, her expression of disinterested acceptance belying the sighs and words of encouragement she whispered. Scott had his face buried in the crook of her shoulder, was breathing like an ancient horse sloughing the last furrow in a long day. He would not have been aware of it had a train thundered through the room but the girl was different and so Edge was careful to hold his silence as he crossed the room in long strides.

He stood for a moment at the foot of the bed, looking at Scott’s thrusting body move between the girl’s spread legs. Then, just as the girl sensed his presence, he leaned the Henry against the bed and sprung forward, withdrawing the razor from its pouch. The girl’s eyes grew wide, her mouth wider as she opened it to scream a warning. But Edge’s free hand, clenched in a white-knuckled fist, caught her on the point of the jaw and her mouth closed with a force sufficient to crunch her teeth together so that the tip of her tongue was hanging over the bottom lip, still attached by a mere sliver of skin.

Scott’s sigh of climax was curtailed into a grunt of pain as Edge’s full weight smashed on to his back. Then Edge rolled off him, on to his back on the bed beside the unconscious girl, dragging Scott bodily off her, across himself and thumping him on to the floor. As he looked up at his attacker surprise became horror and he prepared to shout for help. But the downswing of the razor ended and as he felt the cold edge of the blade below his left ear he killed the words.

“I’d like you to know it’s for Jamie,” Edge said and pressed down and across with the razor. The blade sank deep into the soft flesh and cut a course in a arc beneath the jaw, did not come free until it reached his right ear. Blood oozed out, ran down to start spreading a clean, scarlet stain across the grimed neckline of his under-vest. His dying sound was a sigh more sensuous than those which the girl had been pouring in his ear.

Edge looked down at his crotch, saw Scott had completed his final act in life. “You came out of one,” Edge murmured. “Guess it’s fitting you should die trying to get back into another.”

Then he swung his legs across the supine body of the dead man, stood and retrieved his rifle. He wiped the blood from the razor on a bed blanket and went to the door, first cracked it to peer outside before leaving the room. He found Billy Seward in the room directly across the hall. Exhausted and enjoying a drunken sleep, mouth open, completely naked body stretched across the length and width of the bed. His girl was in the corner of the room washing the area of her body where Seward had spent himself. She gasped when she saw Edge in the doorway but made no further sound when he raised a finger to his lips, and stepped inside. When he had closed the door against the sounds from downstairs he removed the finger from his lips and jerked it at the man on the bed.

“You like him very much?” he asked.

The girl had a face that might have been pretty once, but time and ill-treatment had taken their toll. She looked abused and stupid. Even her nude body had lost any pride that might once have been apparent in the firm, pointed breasts and flared hips. She looked at Seward with abhorrence.

“I hate him,” she whispered. “He hurt me bad.”

“How much did he pay you?” Edge asked.

She spat into the water. “Nothing.”

“I’ll double it if you keep quiet.”

She was as stupid as she looked. She took time to think about the offer, smiled and nodded. “You going to kill him?” Her eyes shone with pleasure.

“I ain’t going to sing him a lullaby,” Edge replied, and went to the bed.

He selected the knife this time, and turned the rifle so he was holding it by the barrel. “Billy,” he called softly, bending, leaning close to the face of the sleeping man.

Seward grunted, closed his mouth.

“Billy,” sharply this time.

Seward’s eyes snapped open.

“They call me Edge now,” Edge told him. “But I’m still Jamie’s brother.”

Seward’s mouth came open with a click and the knife buried itself into the back of his throat. He gagged on blood and steel and his teeth clanged down on to the blade. His only sound was a gurgling, but his eyes, blurred by tears revealed the full extent of his pain. Then the stock of the Henry completed his execution, cracking against his forehead, splitting the skin and laying the flesh open to the bone.

“You don’t fool around,” the girl said and Edge spun around, saw her standing on the other side of the bed, still naked, still looking excited.

“Now he knows it too,” he said. “Stay here.”

She nodded, smiled. “I’ll get my fun just looking at him like that.”

Seward’s teeth had a death grip on the knife blade and Edge had to use a lot of force to pull it clear. Suddenly the girl’s bony fingers clasped Edge’s wrist and he watched through narrowed eyes as she licked off Seward’s blood. He waited until she had raised enough moisture into her mouth to spit the dead man’s blood into his face before turning and going out of the room.

He had reached the turn in the hallway at the head of the stairs before the short laugh of the man coming up from the saloon told him his next victim was at hand. And when he stepped clear of the angle of the wall, came face to face with him, he recognized Roger Bell. And recognition hit Bell at the same instant.

“Christ the captain,” he said hoarsely and suddenly took a backward pace and moved sideways, putting the shocked saloon girl between himself and Edge. “Frank,” he yelled in warning as he drew his Colt.

From the corner of his eye, Edge could see over the banisters of the stairway as Forrest and Douglas exploded into movement, pushing their girls away from them and diving for the floor, pulling guns. Bell loosed off a shot that whistled close to Edge’s ear and two cracks sounded from below. One of these sent splinters flying from the banister rail, which showered the face of the girl who was shielding Bell. She screamed and collapsed as a sliver of wood pierced her eye and Bell, a hand supporting her at the waist, was suddenly exposed from his belt upwards. One bullet from the Henry caught him in the middle of the belly, a second drilled his heart and the third gouged a furrow down the back of his head as he fell forward.

“Three from Jamie,” Edge muttered as he stepped back from a hail of bullets that was being hurled up from the two men below.

A single shot, separated by a pause from the others, then second of silence.

“Frank?” A woman.

“Yeah.”

“It ain’t me and Arlene’s fight.”

“Get.”

Footsteps rattled on the wooden floor. The swing doors swung, squeaking.

“How many you got?” Forrest’s voice addressed to Edge.

“Three. Two more.”

“Who are you. You from town?”

A table crashed on its side.

“Iowa,” Edge called back as he pumped three more shells into the Henry, making it fully loaded again.

“Frank?” Douglas called, from close to Forrest. “I thought I heard Rodge say something before ...”

“So?” Forrest asked.

“It sounded like Captain ...”

“Jesus,” Forrest said just loud enough to carry up the stairs.

“You heard right, “Edge said and suddenly broke from the cover of the angle of the wall, pumping bullets into the saloon below, firing blind and wild.

Only one shot was returned, splintering wood several feet from Edge. Edge’s narrowed eyes pinpointed the table from behind which the shot had come and concentrated his fire upon it. The heavy caliber bullets smashed through its underside and Douglas rose up from behind it like an apparition, his revolver and falling from lifeless fingers as blood stained his shirt in three places and fountained from his cheek. Edge elevated the Henry for a final shot and saw Douglas go over backwards as his nose exploded, spraying blood and splintered bone.

Edge vaulted over the banister, his feet smashing on to a table top, his weight breaking the legs as if they were cardboard. Three shots followed his progress, the last one burning across his forearm, drawing blood. He dived for the floor, wriggled behind the end of the long bar as more shots dug into the wood and smashed bottles above his head.

“We should have stayed around and taken care of you like we did your brother,” Forrest called.

Edge heard the voice without listening as he rose and ran in a half crouch to the far end of the bar, peered out around the corner and got three quarters view of Forrest squatting behind his cover, hastily reloading his Colt. Edge stood and moved clear of the bar, raising and aiming the Henry.

“Shut up and watch it coming, Forrest,” he called.

Forrest turned fast, looked in horror at Edge and then at his unready gun.

“You wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man,” he implored, knowing the lie of his words.

“They’re the easiest kind to kill,” he said and squeezed the trigger.

But at that moment the hammer struck the firing pin, glass shattered and another gun went off, the bullet smashing into Edge’s hand, spinning the Henry from his grasp, its shell burying itself harmlessly into the floor.

“Reach, Forrest,” a man commanded and as Forrest obeyed Edge looked at the shattered emptiness of the saloon window and saw Honey’s face nestled against the stock of a rifle. “I think we want a hundred back,” he said to Edge.

“He ain’t dead yet,” Edge said softly,

“He won’t see another sunrise,” Honey replied. “Please throw down your revolver, Señor Edge.”

As Edge complied the rest of the town came in through the swing door, led by Gail.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

EDGE sat on the side of the bed in his hotel room, submitting with a mere token show of reluctance to the ministrations of Gail. First she bathed his injured hand in warm water, then dabbed an astringent liquid upon the torn flesh before finally bandaging it. He was sure she enjoyed it when he winced as the healer stung, complained she had fastened the dressing too tight.

“There,” she said when she had finished. “You won’t be shooting anybody with that hand for some time to come.”

He grinned coldly. “I’m two-handed with guns, lady,” he said. “Or any weapon.”

The young man who stood to the left of the room door, holding a revolver in his hand as if he was not sure what it was shuffled his feet uncomfortably as he heard Edge’s words. Edge had heard Honey give the kid his instructions, telling him to watch the stranger, prevent him from reaching Forrest before the citizens could make the final kill for themselves. He had accepted the duty with pride and enthusiasm which had waned steadily as the results of Edge’s violence had come to light in the rooms above the saloon. He was just a kid who thought himself a man. With each soft word that Edge spoke he grew younger and more vulnerable. He was glad the waitress from the restaurant was in the room with him and Edge. She seemed able to keep him in line.

She came up from stooping over her patient, rubbing the small of her back where it ached from holding the same position too long. “You must have had a powerfully strong reason for wanting to kill those men,” she said, and carried the bloodied bowl of water over to the dresser.

“Five hundred of them,” Edge answered.

Gail shook her head. “Stronger than money. I think you took the reward under false pretences. You were going to kill them anyway.”

Edge shrugged. “Thinking is free.”

“One of them called you Captain.”

“I ain’t ever liked answering questions, lady,” he told her, his expression as hard as granite.

She pouted. “A man’s business is his own, unless he wants somebody else to know it.”

“I don’t.”

“Frank Forrest is the town’s business,” she came back. “I told you earlier we had a lot of respect for Sheriff Peacock. And we want Peaceville to be a clean, decent town. If there was any doubt who killed the sheriff we’d hold a vigilante trial and dispense justice the way we see fit. But Forrest and his men killed the sheriff before the whole town so he’ll hang.”

Edge listened dispassionately. “Then the town ain’t so decent,” he said softly. “It’s robbing me of something.”

An expression of distaste flitted across the woman’s beautiful face. “They’ll probably let you keep the full five hundred.”

“I aim to,” he answered. “But I’m not talking about money. That doesn’t matter a damn in relation to the other.”

Gail looked at him closely, a confused look upon her features, “You ...” she started and then stopped.

“Yeah?”

“You can speak like an educated man when you want to and yet most of the time you ...”

Edge stood up, suddenly angry, and the kid near the door brought up the gun, cocking it. Edge knew that when the chips were down, he’d know what to do and he’d do it quickly.

“I ain’t no first grade drop-out,” Edge snarled at Gail. “I already warned you about prying into my affairs.”

“They must have done something very evil to make you the way you are,” she replied with gentleness, refusing to be provoked by his anger.

Edge turned his back on her and went to the window, threw it open, admitting the cold of the early hours, drawing it into his lungs in great gulps. The gray light of a false dawn was already streaking the sky, dimming the stars and giving the town the substance of solid wood and adobe out of the shadows from which it was formed during the night. Edge leaned out to look back down towards the intersection of streets and watched for awhile the activity taking place there. A dozen men were working in the center of the two streets, measuring, sawing and nailing. They had been engaged on their task for less than a hour and yet already the construction was taking the shape of a gallows.

“Ain’t you ever hanged anybody in Peaceville before?” he asked without looking back into the room.

“There’s some trees outside of town,” the kid replied to Edge’s impassive back.

“They were lynchings,” Gail put in with repugnance. “This is going to be done correctly.”

Edge withdrew his head, closed the window and went back to the bed, stretched out full length on it. His hat was on the floor below and he picked it up, set it upon his forehead so that it covered his face except for the stubble jaw line.

“Wake me up before sunrise,” he said from underneath the brim. “I wouldn’t want to miss the show.”

No-one answered him and within a few minutes he was breathing deeply and evenly, like a man in a sound sleep.

“Christ that’s a relief,” the kid said with a sigh. “I don’t mind admitting it, Miss Gail. That feller makes me nervous by just looking at me. D’you see what he did to those people in the saloon?”

“They told me,” Gail answered, looking at Edge with an odd mixture of concern and disgust in her dark eyes. “I suppose he did what he felt he had to do. He has his own values and nobody in Peaceville can in any honesty despise him for what he did. We paid him for doing our dirty work and we didn’t make any conditions.” Her voice was tinged with sadness. Then she sighed and moved to the door. “He seems harmless enough now, Jesse,” she said. “I think that’s the first time he’s had any real rest in ages. But keep an eye on him. Honey will send up somebody to help you take Edge out if he really does want to see the hanging.”

“Right, Miss Gail,” the kid said with the confidence of Edge’s sleep as he opened the door, then closed it again when the woman had left the room.

But Edge was not asleep. He had kept his breathing deep and evenly paced by a conscious effort as he listened to the conversation, quelling his impatience as the seconds ticked away and the voices droned on. He knew he could handle both the woman and the kid. But he would have to take the kid first, to disarm him, and while he was doing that the woman would have enough time to raise a ruckus loud enough to wake the whole town. There was no point to that, if it could be done quietly without trouble. So Edge curbed his itch for action until the woman had gone out.

The kid was nervous, and that was bad. A brave man might think he could handle Edge alone and could be pushed into making a mistake. The kid would either shout for help or, worse, start blasting at the first flicker of trouble. So Edge had to wait for him to make the first move. It wasn’t a long wait. He had been standing by the door for a considerable time and at first the monotony of sentry duty had been counteracted by watching the woman at her nursing, then by conversation. Alone, except for the apparently sleeping man the boredom set in. The sounds of building across the street reached the room, faint but without competition, sufficient to catch his interest.

He tiptoed across the room, keeping his eyes and the gun trained upon the bed, holding his breath and clamping his teeth on to his lower lip with each tiny sound of his movement. Edge followed his progress with ease, grinned into the darkness of the hat when he heard the faint swish of the window rising, the sounds from outside suddenly amplified. Edge counted the beat of his own breathing, got to ten and reached up to raise the hat, swiveling his eyes to look at the window. He saw the kid’s rump folded over the sill, the slope his back angled out into the gray of dawn as he craned forward for a better view of the activity that held his attention.

Careful to keep his breathing pitched at the same regular beat, Edge sat up, put on his hat and turned his body so he could throw his legs off the bed. He held the pose for a second, waiting for the kid to sense trouble and swing the gun onto a target. The kid stayed as still as Edge.

Edge’s mouth cracked open and his teeth gleamed in contest with the glint of his narrowed eyes. Winter north of the Artic Circle had never been so cold as the expression. His boots were still in the room above the saloon, and his stockinged feet moved soundlessly across the floorboards. He had not spent much time in the room, but he was well aware of those sections on the floor that creaked. He avoided them.

They had found his knife, taken it with the Remington and Henry, but the razor in its pouch had escaped their attention. He came up behind the kid and drew the razor. The kid’s sixth sense delivered a late warning and he started to turn. But Edge’s fingers were already curled over the kid’s belt and the kid was being hauled in from the window with great force and speed. The side of the kid’s head smashed into the window frame, stunning him. Then Edge smashed him against the wall and pressed his body against him, bringing up his hand to hold the razor against his throat, just nicking the skin. The kid felt the sting of the wound and looked down with distended eyes at the object of his pain as warm blood oozed.

“You all right, Jesse?” somebody called from below.

“Answer him while you can still talk,” Edge hissed.

“Quiet,” the kid said. “Stubbed my toe. You’ll wake him.”

Edge grunted his satisfaction.

“Don’t kill me, mister,” the kid pleaded.

“Stoop down,” Edge told him, relaxing the pressure of his body a little, but keeping the blade tight against the other’s throat. “Lay the gun on the floor. Make a sound and you’ll be at the gates to welcome Frank Forrest.”

The kid tried to nod, felt the blade dig deeper and made a low noise of horror. As Edge’s full weight was removed, he slid down the wall, bending his knees, stretching down his arm to let the gun rest on the floor. When Edge glanced down and saw the kid’s fingers come free of the revolver he stepped back a pace, taking the blade away from the flesh. The kid’s sigh of relief was curtailed by a soft groan as Edge’s knee snapped up, caught him on the point of the jaw. His eyes glazed, closed and he fell forward, to be caught by Edge, who lowered the inert form quietly to the floor.

Then Edge picked up the revolver, grimaced his distaste that it was a .44 Starr single action; like his own Remington in appearance but vastly inferior in performance. But it fitted snugly into his holster. Better than his feet fitted into the kid’s boots, which pinched at the toes but would serve his purpose.

He went out of the room as the sound of hammering was abruptly halted and the man below the window spoke to a companion. “Reckon it’s almost time for the hanging.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

FRANK Forrest did not want to die but was not afraid of death. He had faced it a thousand times during the war and before, bounty hunting in the territory around Peaceville. Most times he could figure the odds and if they were not in his favor could choose to take the risk and wait for a more propitious time. But now, as he was led from the jailhouse behind the sheriff’s office in the cold, early light of a new day his death was inevitable and he was in no position to either delay or avoid it. His hands were tied behind his back and two ropes had been looped around his chest and pulled tight. A man held the end of each, forcing Forrest to walk a line equidistant between the two. Another man was behind him, prodding him with the muzzle of a rifle in the small of his back.

But Forrest walked to meet his fate with something akin to dignity, holding his head high, his face pale and drawn from lack of sleep, set in an expression of calm acceptance. The large gathering of people grouped around the gallows ahead of him along the street held no menace for Forrest and although the sight of the noose swinging gently from the gallows caused his throat to become dry, he knew it meant a quick, clean end to life. He had seen a lot of men die far worse deaths. A great many he had dispatched personally.

They were passing the hotel now and a head appeared at a second floor window, caused the men on the ropes to stop, jerking Forrest to a halt.

“Hey, Edge has escaped,” the kid at the window shouted, a hand going to his throat and coming away covered in blood.

The name wasn’t the one Forrest knew the man by, but it was close enough. All Forrest’s calmness and quiet acceptance of fate drained from him with the words of the kid and his body was shaking with a cold that had no relevance to the chill of the morning air.

“Let’s go,” he implored his captors, moving forward, jerking on the ropes. “You ‘gotta protect me ‘till we get there.”

The men on the ropes and the men at the back with the rifle moved with Forrest, took several steps on the run before regaining the upper hand and forcing down the pace. Four pairs of eyes raked the street on either side, searching facades and roofs, alleys and sidewalks for a tell-tale movement that would betray Edge’s position. Each man showed naked fear in his face, but by far the greatest terror was evident in the roving eyes and trembling lips of Forrest, for whom death had suddenly become awe-inspiring.

“Don’t let him get me,” he muttered, and kept repeating the claim on a rising tone.

“Shut up,” the man behind him barked, jabbing the rifle muzzle forcefully into his back.

“If you see him, shoot me before you try for him.”

“Shut up,” the man said again, ineffectually, knowing there was nothing with which he could threaten Forrest to outweigh the terror of the stranger named Edge.

The cause of Forrest’s abject fear watched the scene from a place of concealment behind the angles roof of the church at the north-west corner of the intersection. He could see clearly over the heads of the waiting crowd, across the top of the gallows its raised platform and down the length of the street. He had heard the muffled shout from the hotel, seen Forrest’s panic and the captors’ actions to control it. The crowd had heard and seen this, too, and from the obvious agitation Edge knew they had reached the same conclusion he had. The atmosphere grew more tense with each yard that was covered by the approaching prisoner and escorts.

Although the scene before him was a panorama that invited his examination of every detail, Edge concentrated his entire attention upon the object of his hate, fastening his hooded eyes upon the quivering face of Forrest, seeing every blind, each nervous tic of the cheek, counting the flicking of the tongue over dry lips. When the group reached the foot of the steps leading up to the gallows platform Forrest’s knees began to buckle as the fear turned his muscles to jelly. The men who held the ropes dropped them and moved quickly to the prisoner to support him, push him up the steps to where Honey waited – the elected hangman.

Beneath the gallows, the hanging rope brushing the side of his face, Forrest found new strength, made an almost enthusiastic attempt to push his head into the noose. He missed and Honey reached out and completed the job. The silence then was so complete it was as if the world had stood still.

“You killed Jamie!”

The accusation hurled down through the silence from the roof of the church seemed to have physical force that stunned everybody who heard it so that there was a pregnant time lapse before every head was turned to look at Edge. They saw him sitting astride the angle of the roof, aiming the Starr, barrel resting on the wrist of the crooked arm.

“Rhett killed him,” Forrest screamed back. “That’s why I blasted him. You must have seen him.”

“I saw him,” Edge replied. “Move out of the way.”

The last was addressed to Honey, who had stepped in front of the condemned man, interrupting Edge’s line of fire. The two men who had led the prisoner to the gallows crowded in on each side.

“It’s going to be a legal execution,” Honey said as the first ray of sunshine of the new day angled down the street, released between the twin peaks of a mountain range to the east.

“I’m taking Forrest,” Edge said evenly. “I take a few more with him, makes no difference to me.”

He squeezed the trigger and the slug zinged downwards. The man on the right yelled in pain and went sideways, clutching his shoulder. Edge grunted as he noted the gun pulled to the right, made allowances for this in taking aim again. But the man on the other side of Forrest saw he was next and went off the gallows in a shallow dive, hitting the dirt just as the bullet struck the wood where he had been standing. Several men in the crowd went for their guns, but not one drew. There was something about the man on the roof, about his voice and the way he held himself, about his utter coolness in leaving himself exposed that threw fear into every one of them.

Honey saw the barrel of the Starr swing in an arc on to him and hesitated only a moment. He ducked, turned and launched himself around the side of Forrest, stretched fingers clutched for the lever to open the trap door. Completely exposed, Forrest was frozen into an attitude of stiff terror as he looked at the figure silhouetted against the skyline.

Squeeze, crack, cock: squeeze, crack, cock–the motions and sounds were repeated four times as Edge emptied the gun. The first slug took out Forrest’s right eye, the second entered just below the left, the third pierced his throat and the fourth went over his head. Honey’s hands found the lever and Forrest dropped, the movement robbing Edge of a final hit.

Edge sighed, lowered the gun as smoke curled from its muzzle and surveyed the shocked faces of the crowd below him. He held the gun out, cocked it and squeezed the trigger.

All heard the dry click that told of an empty cartridge. Edge tossed the gun down to the ground, swung his legs off his perch and slid down the roof, leapt the final six feet to the ground from the eaves.

The crowd divided, allowing him passage and he walked through the space, looking to neither left nor right, his expression showed nothing of what he felt. He halted in front of the gallows, looked up dispassionately at the body of Forrest, twisting slowly on the end if the rope. He eyed the bloodied face and made a throaty sound of satisfaction.

“Figure he was dead before he dropped,” he said.

Honey seemed about to argue the point, but the evil glint in Edge’s eyes warned him off. He reached out and swung Forrest around so he could see his face. He grimaced at the sight, nodded.

“Be obliged to have my weapons back,” Edge requested.

“They’re in the sheriff’s office,” Honey said, licking his lips. Then he was reminded, reached out and ripped the star from the unresisting Forrest.

Edge gave a cold grin of approval, turned and started down the street. He stopped off at the hotel first, his too-tight boots echoing hollowly in the empty lobby. Everybody had been at the hanging. He found the cash box under the desktop and removed four dollars fifty. Then he went to his room, from which the kid had disappeared, crossed to the window and leaned out to take his capital from behind the loose shingle. Rather than go back through the hotel he stepped out of the window and swung down to the sidewalk from the porch. As he crossed towards the sheriff’s office he looked back down towards the intersection, saw the crowd still grouped around the gallows, from which Honey appeared to be making a speech. Edge spat and went inside as the sun raised clear of the mountain range and began to make its warmth felt.

His rifle, revolver and knife were neatly arranged on the desk and he stowed the smaller weapons in their appropriate places. Then he sat behind the desk and felt the full weight of his weariness settle upon him like a heavy, warm blanket. He did not think he had ever felt so tired in his life before. He could quite easily have allowed his chin to drop forward to his chest and invited sleep to claim him.

But he refused to acknowledge his fatigue, stood and moved to a rough-hewn bureau in one corner of the office, upon which rested a piece of broken mirror and a basin of stale water. He splashed the water on to his face, experienced a slight freshening up. One of the bureau drawers was jutting open a few inches and a word on a paper he could see caught his attention. He jerked open the drawer to its full extent and saw a collection of wanted posters. The top one showed a fresh faced cleanly shaven young man in a captain’s uniform, above the badly printed:

WANTED

FOR THE MURDER OF WAR VETERAN

ELLIOT THOMBS

former captain J. C. Hedges.

Edge snatched up the piece of mirror and looked at his reflection: at the cruel, hooded eyes, thin mouth line, the water-beaded beard that sprouted from sun-toughened skin. He grinned. The army picture, completed on the day he was commissioned, bore not the slightest resemblance to the man he was now. A laugh ripped from his lips as he tossed the wanted poster back, slammed the drawer shut.

When he turned, he again became aware of the depth of his tiredness. For had not the lack of rest dulled the edges of his alertness, Gail and Honey could not have got within yards of the office doorway without him knowing of their approach. As it was, they were even inside the office.

“We would like you to stick around for a while, señor,” Honey said.

Edge saw that they were both unarmed. A glance at the windows both left and right revealed an empty street. If he had read an implied threat into the words, he was wrong.

“What?”

“I think you heard, Mr. Edge,” Gail said. “The Citizen’s Committee held another meeting.”

“Who else do you want me to kill?” Edge snapped.

Gail shook her head. “Nobody. The town needs a peace officer until we can send for a regularly appointed lawman. And ...”

“And you want me to take the job?” Edge asked with a flicker of surprise.

“Were you aiming to go someplace special?” Honey asked.

“Mr. Edge doesn’t like personal questions, Honey,” Gail put in hurriedly, and looked expectantly at Edge. “Well?”

“How much? No place special.”

“Two dollars a day, free board here and all you can eat at the restaurant.”

“Four dollars,” Edge said. “And I leave whenever I’m ready.”

“Three and we want to know a week before you leave.”

The woman’s eyes were locked onto Edge’s and she showed no sign of weakening in her resolution.

“Badge?” Edge asked and held out his hand.

Honey tossed the star and saw it caught easily, pinned to the new sheriff’s shirt-front. Edge looked up and grinned and Gail thought there might have been just a twinkle of humor in the narrowed eyes.

“Let’s go and get that first free breakfast,” Edge said, hefting the Henry. “All this killing gives a man an appetite.”

Honey and Gail stood aside to allow him through the doorway, and followed in his wake. Both cannoned into him when the sound of hoof beats on hard ground froze Edge into a posture of readiness. He eyes swept up the street, searching for the source of the sound, suddenly saw two riders swing into view around the corner of a building at the end of town.

“Inside,” Edge barked, and heard Gail and Honey scamper into the cover of the sheriff’s office.

Edge himself took the final step that brought him to the limit of the sidewalk and stood waiting. He recognized the riders as two of the three kids who had jumped him in the alley: one with a wad of dressing where his right ear should be, the other with his face scarred by the marks of Edge’s fingers.

“You bastard, you broke Eddie’s back,” the one-eared kid yelled as he raised his revolver, but needed to be closer before opening fire.

Edge squeezed the trigger of the Henry and the bullet caught the kid clean between the eyes, knocked the kid sideways out of the saddle, to be dragged along for several yards before his foot came free of the stirrup. The other kid, shocked by what had happened to his friend, tried to wheel his horse away from Edge, dropping his gun as he pulled at the reins. Edge waited until the kid was level with him and not three yards from the muzzle of the rifle. Then he squeezed the trigger twice, his hand a mere blur of movement as he ejected the first shell. The large caliber bullets took the top of the kid’s head off like it was a breakfast egg and he fell alongside his partner in crime, both their young faces looking up at Edge until the pumping blood obliterated their features.

Edge heard a gasp behind him and turned to find Gail holding onto Honey’s arm for support after she had looked at the youngsters.

The new sheriff of Peaceville spat into the street. “I think I just solved the town’s juvenile crime problem,” he said, then narrowed his eyes, puzzled. “Or ain’t that fashionable here yet?”

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