Edge 60, page 4
‘Hell of a thing, uh?’ Calhern asked Edge, and ran a hand across his saliva-wet mouth again. Then jutted out his lower lip to blow a cooling stream of air up over his sweat-beaded face. Struggling to overcome his sexual arousal.
‘Yeah,’ the half-breed agreed. ‘I’ll take a shot of rye, feller?’
‘Sure thing.’ Calhern took down a bottle off a shelf, reached a glass out from under the bar counter and put them both on top.
‘Reckon I’ll have another,’ Noon said as Calhern uncorked the bottle. He pulled a face, shook his head, complained: ‘Suddenly it don’t feel like I’ve hardly had a drink yet tonight.’
‘You’ve had three bucks’-worth, which includes this one, Eddie,’ the saloon keeper told him as he first filled Edge’s fresh glass, then the frequently used one of the younger man.
There was some low-toned talk at the table where Harper was gathering in the money from the pot and Singer and Wyler put away what was left of their stakes. While the woman continued to stand with her feet together, her arms at her sides, head held to peer straight in front of her. And Mitchell sat slumped in his chair, hands cupped at either side of the five cards that had lost him money and Ruby Red.
‘I ain’t gonna give you no argument on what I owe,’ Noon growled. He threw back the whiskey in one, banged the glass down for a refill. ‘Just so you realize I ain’t really gettin’ no more liquored-up than usual on a Saturday night, okay?’
Calhern shrugged his wide shoulders, answered evenly: ‘Sellin’ liquor is my business, like I told you awhile back. And I’ll keep sellin’ it to anyone so long as they don’t make trouble in my place.’
He started out looking between Noon and Edge, but when he made mention of trouble his attention was once again drawn to the table where trouble had simmered ever since Mitchell made his then secret deal with the other three men.
And now trouble came a long step closer.
‘No, it’s just not possible!’
Mitchell’s protest was violently accompanied by the crash of his chair tipping over backwards with the force of the abrupt rise to his feet.
‘Oh, no,’ Calhern groaned, his fleshy face more doleful looking than ever.
Noon whirled.
Edge, in process of rolling a cigarette, turned more slowly to look toward the four men and one woman at the table, cleared now of money, but still littered with cards. They were locked in a frozen tableau for a stretched second, all of them as unmoving as Ruby Red had been while she awaited her fate which depended on the whims of a poker game.
Then she was the first to move, backed away a pace and turned her head to peer at Edge. And now there was definitely a look in her dark eyes especially for him—a pleading for him to help.
Beyond her, Vincent Mitchell stood erect, right hand inside his suit jacket, under the left lapel. Cecil Wyler was also up on his feet, but his flabby body was awkwardly curved in an attitude that looked uncomfortable. But he held it from fear of what it was that Mitchell was going to jerk out from under his suit jacket. The two men who remained seated expressed a lesser degree of trepidation.
‘I think ...’ Harper started.
‘I’ve been cheated!’ Mitchell snarled, and sprang his right hand into sight, fisted around the butt of a .31 caliber Remington-Rider revolver. A small gun with a three-inch barrel that weighed less than threequarters of a pound complete with its five shells. From the way Mitchell backed off, increasing the range but giving himself a better field of fire over the entire saloon, the Remington was fully loaded and he was confident he could hit whoever he fired at if circumstances made it necessary to use the small gun.
Ruby Red spoke for the first time in a voice that did not betray a trace of any accent that came from the Indian side of her heritage: ‘Vinny, don’t be such a—’
‘Shut up, woman!’ he barked. ‘Just do what I tell you. Like always.’
‘You’re making an even bigger mistake this time, Mitchell,’ Harper warned, quickly recovered from surprise. He signaled with a wave of his hand for Wyler to sit down.
‘Don’t think he won’t carry through any threat he makes,’ Ruby Red warned grimly.
‘Damn right!’ Mitchell confirmed. ‘I’ll kill any man who tries to stop me getting back what was stolen from me.’
‘Nobody stole anything from—’ Singer made to protest.
‘There had to be some cheating!’ Mitchell broke in. Like before, with Ruby Red and Prentice Harper, he swung his angry gaze and the muzzle of the gun toward the speaker. ‘My hand was just like I left it. But I figure Harper switched his while I was gone to bring Ruby—’
‘No, mister, that ain’t necessary!’
It was Paul Calhern who blurted this and captured all attention. But just for a moment, before all eyes focused on Edge. Who had finished rolling his cigarette, hung it at the side of his mouth, turned to face Mitchell: his hand dropped down from his face to hover, slightly curved, close to his holstered Colt.
Ruby Red vented a gasp of shock and took another backward step. Made sure she was clear of the line of fire between Mitchell and Edge.
Mitchell was unable to move a muscle after he turned his head to see Edge, saw the look on the half-breed’s face, heard the tone of his voice when he warned:
‘You swing that gun to aim it at me, I’ll kill you. On account of I don’t like to have guns aimed at me. Especially it irritates me after I’ve given the warning.’
‘Mister, please don’t involve yourself in—’ Ruby Red attempted to implore.
‘I’m not through yet, lady,’ Edge told her without shifting his unblinking gaze away from Mitchell. ‘You also have to know, I’ll kill you if you don’t take back what you just said about me cheating you, feller.’
Mitchell swallowed hard, croaked: ‘I never accused you! I said it to Harper. I guess he was able to do it without you—’
A gunshot rang out. And Edge slapped his hand instinctively to the jutting butt of the Frontier Colt. Fisted it tight, then froze with the revolver only halfway out of the holster as he saw the blood on Mitchell’s face, spilling down from a hole in the center of his forehead.
Then he saw the shot had been fired by a gun in the fist of Prentice Harper, the heel of the man’s hand wrapped around the butt of the derringer resting on the tabletop, barrel angled up to draw a bead on the head of the man standing across from him.
A moment later Mitchell was not standing there. He died on his feet and staggered backwards, gun hand dropping to his side, revolver slipping from his lifeless grip as he tripped on his overturned chair and collapsed into an ungainly heap, belly arched obscenely upwards, across it.
‘Holy shit!’ Eddie Noon exclaimed for the third time.
‘Oh my God, there’s been a killin’ in the Golden Eagle,’ Calhern gasped.
Edge said evenly: ‘You want to give me a good reason why I shouldn’t kill you?’
All gazes swiveled fast toward him, like nobody could be sure who it was he addressed the question to. And they found him looking at Harper, who now had no gun in either of the hands he splayed on the tabletop. It had been spirited away as deftly as it had been conjured up, seemingly out of nowhere, a few seconds earlier.
Harper darted his tongue out and back in, inclined his head, answered in a conversational tone with just a slight sign of strain on his handsome face: ‘Item, Mr. Edge, I’m not aiming a weapon at you. Item, although I understand your point of view, it was I Mitchell accused of being a cheat. By implication, he considered you no more than a conspirator. Item, I therefore considered it was my honor that was called into more serious question.’
Behind his impassive outer shell Edge felt rage still burning almost painfully inside him as he listened to the soft-spoken words of Prentice Harper. He also had the impression of eyes boring into him with palpable force as everyone waited fearfully for his response.
Then he was able to control the emotion, confine it into an ice cold ball at the pit of his stomach: and thus the urge to kill a man who had used him as a distraction so that he could kill another was suddenly gone. But he still harbored a compelling need to unleash his frustration against something or somebody.
Which did not show as he thrust the Colt all the way back into the holster: an action that drew audible sighs of relief from Calhern, Wyler and Ruby Red. While Singer continued to show unease and Harper expressed a just discernible smile.
‘And all of this because of some lousy half-breed!’ Eddie Noon said, giggled, banged his empty glass down on the counter top to reveal this first drink after the end of the tense game and then the shooting had made him drunk again. ‘I’ll have another, bartender!’
‘Nobody gets any more drinks until I’ve got the corpse out of my place!’ Calhern snarled.
Edge figured enough cooling down time had elapsed for him to be sure he was going to do the right thing to relieve his feelings without causing some damage that might land him in serious trouble in this town.
He turned slowly toward Eddie Noon, was in process of altering his grin into a scowl at what Calhern had said. Then he speeded the turn into a whirl, brought up his right hand fisted more tightly than it had been around the butt of the revolver. Slammed it into Noon’s jaw with enough force to power the drunk up off his feet, on to the bar, slither him along it and off the far end: where he crashed to the floor with his own and Edge’s glass shattered beneath him.
After a stretched second of silence, Calhern asked in an incredulous tone: ‘Why’d you do that to him, mister?’
‘I’m as much of a half-breed as the lady, feller,’ Edge replied around the cigarette still angled from the side of his mouth. ‘He sounded off about the kind of people we are and I didn’t like it. I’ll cover the cost of the damage. Plus what I owe for the food and drink.’
Calhern vented a sound that was like a laugh that he tried to control because the circumstances made good humor inappropriate. Then he shook his head, told Edge resolutely: ‘Oh no you won’t, mister.’
‘I always pay my way,’ Edge replied flatly, and drew one of the newly-earned five spots out of his pocket, placed it on the bar top.
Calhern looked like he was about to argue the point, then shrugged, made change from a pocket in the front of his apron, said: ‘Okay, if that’s the way you want it. But only for the chow and the beer and the shot of liquor, mister.’
He directed a look of malevolent enjoyment toward the unconscious man at the far end of the counter. ‘I’ve waited a long time to see that tough-talkin’ bastard cut down to his right size. About the only thing I’ve got a laugh out of tonight. Seein’ Noon take off and zoom along the counter and—’
‘Yeah, feller, it’s what happens when you’re having fun,’ Edge broke in.
‘Uh?’
The half-breed made a sideways motion with his hand above the counter as he turned away from it, replied: ‘Time flies.’
Chapter Three
A BURST OF low-toned talk sounded against the flapping of the batwing doors after Edge left the Golden Eagle. But he made no attempt to hear what was said as, for a few moments, he nurtured his final impression of the interior of the saloon: a look in the dark eyes of Ruby Red which he got only occasionally from a woman, and mostly not from the kind he found attractive.
The majority of women considered his leanly-constructed Aryan-Latin facial mix disturbing, even repulsive. But every once in a while a woman would eye him as did Ruby Red as he went out of the Golden Eagle—with undisguised admiration, unashamed to be intrigued about the kind of complicated man who lay behind the far from classically handsome, always faintly menacing exterior. And sometimes he felt himself drawn to such a woman, like tonight with ...
But he had already resolved not to play any further part in the life of this half-breed woman! And he firmed this decision as he moved through the chill, brightly moonlit night, ambling north along the quiet main street of Ross, toward the intersection with the town’s only other street at the far end. He was going to have himself a sound night’s sleep in the Grogan boarding house on the south west corner of the intersection, undisturbed by foolish notions bred by the whims of a vivid imagination, and ride out of town at dawn.
Not for the first time, though, he discovered that roads to a lot of places other than hell can be paved with good intentions.
He managed to get a good and solid six hours of sleep despite a body of muffled sound that started up soon after he bedded down in a second floor room at the rear of the boarding house. For there was nothing remotely clamorous about the noise as news of the killing at the Golden Eagle circulated and the more curious of Ross’s citizens converged on the saloon in search of the details.
At least, this was the reason Edge figured out as the cause of the unobtrusive sounds—footfalls, voices, hooves and the wheels of a wagon on a hard-packed street surface—as he lay in the comfortable, fresh-smelling bed: prepared to fill his mind with any kind of inconsequential thoughts if they kept out erotic notions and images which featured Ruby Red.
His next conscious act was to snap open his eyes to the first light of a new day. And at the same moment he smelled coffee and ham and eggs about ready to become somebody’s breakfast: these aromas working to undermine his decision to make a start out of this town at crack of dawn.
He did not pussyfoot on the stairway, nor make any token protest when the forty-years-old, overweight and garishly-blonde haired Maud Grogan called out for him to come into the kitchen. Where her husband already sat at a scrubbed pine table and gave Edge a nod and a smile before he started in on the food placed before him.
While the woman fixed a similar meal of ham and eggs and grits which she reminded the half-breed he had paid for in advance as part of his room rent yesterday, he had himself a hot water shave in the kitchen.
This luxury would not cost him anything extra, Maud Grogan assured him. Even though it was so hard for her to make ends meet running a boarding house like this in a town like Ross that Ray had to take a job outside of the business, working as a teamster for the McAllister Lumber Company. Still she endeavored to make her roomers feel as comfortable as possible without overcharging them.
Her stockily-built, bald-headed and bright-eyed husband, older by ten years, was required only to contribute an occasional affirmative or negative response to rhetorical questions while he sat at the table finishing his breakfast. And Edge needed only to listen as he shaved.
Then Ray, washed and shaved and fully dressed already, brushed his lips across his wife’s cheek and gave Edge a compassionate look along with a cheerful goodbye before he left the kitchen and went out of the house.
Edge had finished shaving by then, and Maud Grogan ushered him into the chair across the table from where Ray had sat. A minute or so later his breakfast was placed before him and he discovered there was a price to pay, albeit only in kind.
Without preamble, the woman started in right away to dig for dirt, asked: ‘Hear you got yourself mixed up in some trouble at Paul and Peg Calherns’ place last night, mister?’ Edge answered evenly, with a quiet smile: ‘Seem to recall I managed to keep clear of most of it.’
She said with a disdainful sniff: ‘Well, yes. I’ll tell you, if it was you shot dead Mr. Mitchell, you wouldn’t be welcome to have your feet under my table right now, mister.’
She folded her arms across her ample bosom, looked at him like she expected him to ask her to explain. When he remained silent, except for eating sounds, she went on:
‘I don’t really approve of mixed marriages, color to another color like. Especially when the man and the woman ain’t been properly joined in the eyes of God. But I got a livin’ to make and Mr. Mitchell told me him and the woman were plannin’ on stayin’ in Ross awhile, if his luck with the cards ran good for him.’
‘Lady, I—’ Edge started.
‘I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ against breeds as such,’ Maud Grogan hurried on, a glint of satisfaction in her flesh-crowded eyes now she had stirred a reaction in her reluctant audience of one. ‘And I ain’t just sayin’ that because I heard how you beat up on Edward Noon for the way he insulted breeds. But I happen to believe we’re all entitled to our own opinions. But some folks just don’t think before they talk.’
‘Lady, I Edge tried again.
Maud Grogan pulled a distasteful face, but hastened to explain she was not aiming the look at Edge. ‘That Edward Noon, folks are real sick of how he struts around this town like he owns it! When all he owns, if truth was told, is the Golden Eagle: on account of the amount of money he’s put over the bar at the Calherns’ place ...’
She shook her head in self-annoyance. ‘Well, mister, I reckon what I’m tryin’ to say is that if you want to beat up on me for speakin’ my mind, then it’s up to you. But I want you to know I approve right well of you takin’ that swaggerin’ loudmouth down a peg or two?’
Edge had started to shovel down the food faster, enjoying it despite himself and his dislike for the woman who cooked it. When he became aware she had left him a pause, was waiting for a response, he told her with his mouth full:
‘I agree everyone’s entitled to their own opinions, lady. Just that sometimes people air them at a time and place that rubs me up the wrong way. This morning, I don’t feel in any mood to beat up on anybody.’
He showed her another quiet smile, but the glittering slits of his eyes got colder rather than failed to convey warmth when he added: ‘Even if they call a spade a Negro, maybe.’
‘I’m glad to hear it, mister,’ she said quickly, in a dismissive manner that suggested she had not actually heard what he told her. ‘And there’s somethin’ else I’d be glad to hear. Is it true Vincent Mitchell really put up his woman as a hundred dollar bet?’
‘You heard that?’ Edge asked, not wanting to get on the wrong side of the woman before he had finished the fine breakfast, washed it down with another cup of her good coffee.
She nodded eagerly. ‘From Ray, mister. I sent him down to the saloon after you come back here to your room. Seems half the town was there, findin’ out why the shot got fired, why Craig Craven—that’s the Ross undertaker—was out and about with his hearse so late. Way Ray and me fitted it together from what Ray was told, Mr. Mitchell betted his common law wife when his money run out. And them other three strangers to town took him for all the money and his woman, too.’
