Apache Death (7 page)

"Did you get them?" 

"Yeah."

The Englishman started back along the rooftop. "So, now you can move on."

Edge's eyes narrowed to slits and glinted dangerously in the firelight. "Hey, English."

The Englishman turned around to face him and recognized the menace in the other's demeanor. He adjusted his own position, sideways on to Edge.

"Yes, old boy?"

"I don't like being told what to do."

Each was holding his rifle across his stomach, in both hands. The excited noises from the street seemed to fade off into the distance.

"Merely a suggestion."

"Stick your suggestion up where you sit down, English."

The silence between them was like a solid block of crystal clear ice. Across it, each could see every minute detail of the other's physical state of readiness. And, with the perception of skilled gunfighters, each was aware of the other's mental process. A demonic angel of death counted off the seconds. Then the Englishman made a sound with his tongue against his teeth and his handsome face was suddenly wreathed in the familiar smile as the tension flowed from his body.

"If we’re not competing, old boy, there isn't any sense in killing each other. Let me buy you a drink?"

"No, thanks," Edge responded as the Englishman went to the end of the roof and began to lower himself to the stairway. ''With you dressed up so fancy people might start to talk."

Only his head was visible over the angle of the roof now, still wearing the gentle smile. "My goodness, honey-child," he drawled in a high-pitched, Deep South accent. "People have called me odd, but never queer."

Edge spat as he went from sight. "You're sure curious," he muttered. "And' you've made me curious."

He began to move toward the stairway.

THE Pot of Gold had the atmosphere of a deserted building and it seemed likely to Edge that he could trust his sixth sense. For down at the other end of the street, across the intersection, a vast crowd of people were still fighting the fires: perhaps the whole town was there. Certainly there was no one in the opulently furnished saloon, its overturned chairs and tables, spilled drinks and discarded personal effects bearing mute witness to the panic which had erupted from the Indian attack.

There was an opened, half-empty whisky bottle on the bar and Edge used the muzzle of the Spencer to reach across and hook a clean glass from a mirrored shelf at the back. He poured a stiff jolt and took it at a single swallow before crossing to the foot of the stairs and starting up. The hallway was empty, with some doors hanging open, others tightly closed. There was no sound. The register was on top of the desk at the head of the stairs and he leaned forward and ran his finger down the list of recent entries. The name above his own was Lord Hartley Fallowfield, which Edge guessed was about as English as anybody could get. The man had checked in three days previously and been given room number fifteen. Edge straightened and moved along the hallway, his boots making a lot of noise. The door of room fifteen was at the end, on the opposite side from his own and he used the muzzle of the rifle to rap on the panel. The silence he had interrupted continued when he finished.

He tried the handle, which rattled but refused to turn. His expression impassive, he leaned his back against the opposite wall, raised his long leg and sent the heel of his boot crashing against the outside of the lock. There is never much to protect in a whorehouse and this lock was a mere token. The door swung wide and thudded against the inner wall. Edge stepped across the threshold and glanced around a room which was identical to his own. Even when he had spent a few moments allowing his eyes to grow accustomed to the dimness, he could recognize nothing that made it different in any way. He closed the door behind him and stood, whistling in low key for perhaps a half minute before starting his search. It didn't take long because the Englishman traveled light: the tallboy, wardrobe and bureau were all empty. None of the floorboards or wooden panels on the wall showed signs of having been prized up to form a hiding place and thus there was only the double bed to merit close attention. With a casual lack of haste, Edge stripped it of coverlet, blanket and sheet, shaking each and tossing them into a comer. There was no slit in the pillow until he made one and shook out the filling. It contained nothing else. There was only the mattress under the bottom sheet and Edge emitted a grunt of satisfaction when he saw the knife scar on the side: a neat slit some six inches long.

He knelt down and drove a hand inside, had to probe with his long fingers for several moments before he found a square of thick paper. He withdrew his discovery and carried it across to the window. He bad to lean his rifle against the wall to open the paper from its two folds, turning it toward the light from a kerosene lamp which spluttered outside, illuminating the bordello's sign. His lips parted in a grin when he saw he had found a map, old and stained, faded in parts and ragged at the edges. It was crudely drawn and bore no lettering but was clearly a map of the valley in which Rainbow was situated, the position of the town marked by a childish drawing of the army fort. The course of the river was marked, and the lines of the two ridges to north and south which formed the valley. There was no stage trail, perhaps because one had not existed at the time the map was drawn. But there was
a dotted line which led from just east of the fort, on a zig-zagged course up and over, or perhaps through, the northern ridge, ending at a heavily inscribed cross.

"X marks the spot, old boy."

Edge spun, his right hand streaking toward his holstered Colt and it was in his hand and cocked as he finished the turn, his narrowed eyes fastening on the .Englishman as a clearly outlined silhouette framed in the open doorway with the lighted hallway beyond. But the Englishman's hands hung loosely by his sides and Edge halted his finger' on the trigger, a sliver away from the kill.

"You ought to be dead," Edge said softly.

The Englishman shook his head, smiled and stepped into the room. "You're fast, Edge. A man who shoots as fast as you do has to have good reflexes in other directions." He glanced around at the pile of bedclothes and scattering of filling from the pillow, making a sound of distaste from deep within his throat. "But you aren't very tidy, are you? Not subtle at, all."

Edge waved the paper. "But like the Apaches, effective. What does it mark?"

The Englishman sat on the edge of the mattress, wearing the easy smile again. "You really don't know?"

Edge was still holding the gun. "No."

"Of course, it's obvious you don't. If you did I really would be dead, wouldn't I?" The smile was suddenly replaced by his expression of deadliness. "You must realize then, that I'm not going to tell you."

Edge grunted, folded the map and pushed it inside his shirt front. He stood for a moment of reflection as he studied the man on the bed. Then he tossed the Colt across the room so that it landed with a gentle thud on to the discarded bedclothes.

"It won't be easy," the Englishman said.

"Nothing I ever, got was ever any good," Edge answered as the Englishman released his small double barrel under-and-over and tossed it in the same direction as the Colt.

"Not Queensbury rules, I suppose?" the Englishman asked still sitting on the bed as Edge stepped up to him.

Edge stood before him, clenching and unclenching his fists."What are they?"

"They don't allow certain moves," the Englishman answered and launched himself forward so that the top of his head thudded into Edges stomach. "That, for instance," the Englishman went on as Edge began to double up, hot breath burning through his throat.

"I get it," Edge gasped as he started to fall backward and suddenly accelerated the action and kicked upward with both feet. The toes of his boots found contact with the other man's groin so that the Englishman was lifted bodily from the floor and was forced to let out a roar of agony. "The Bastards' Rules?"

"We both know them," the Englishman croaked as both men climbed to their feet and faced each other, bodies slightly bent to ease their respective pains.

The Englishman came in low and feigned a right cross, sent a left jab hard into Edges already injured portion. The fresh wave of pain only added more power to the uppercut which Edge smashed into the others jaw, knocking him backward across the bed. He sprang forward, hands clawed, and made contact with fingernails on the cheeks of the man beneath them, drawing blood. But a powerful thrust of the Englishman's body, followed by an upward movement of his leg into the American's crotch sent Edge sliding forward to crash into the floor on the far side of the bed. Edge was only halfway to his feet and beginning to turn when the Englishman sprang on to his back and crossed his arms around his throat. Edges legs buckled under the weight and he had to struggle to breathe through his constricted windpipe. But he summoned enough energy to turn and move across the room in an ungainly run, heading for the window. Then he stopped abruptly and bent, sharply so that the forward momentum was enough to somersault the Englishman off his back and feet first through the window in a shower of splintered glass.

Edge stood inside the room, gasping for breath and rubbing his stomach but managing to curl back his lips in a grin, watching carefully as the other man got painfully to his feet. "You had enough, feller?" he called out.

The Englishman, his face running with blood from the wounds opened by Edges fingernails, answered with a gentle smile as, with the arrogance of a victor, he brushed pillow down from his suit. "You haven't got enough time to make me throw in the towel, Edge," he said lightly. "Not if you live to be a hundred."

Carefully, he removed his well-cut jacket and seemed about to drape it over the balcony rail. But in the next moment he had exploded into movement as he pivoted and threw the coat through the window. It wrapped itself around Edge's head and before the American could fight it clear the coat's owner had dived back through the window to land with a mid-air head butt into the stomach. Edge was slammed against the bureau, its comer digging into the small of his back to generate a fresh wave of agony from a different source.

Edge howled with pain and stood swaying for a few moments, seemingly finished, as the Englishman advanced, the look of a killer shining in his eyes. Edge allowed him to close the gap to three feet, then clasped both hands together and swung up his arms in a fast, powerful action so that the two fists merged. into one caught his opponent squarely under the jaw. The Englishman's howl was not bogus as he was lifted clean off his feet and then crumpled to the floor, trying to roll himself into a tight ball. But his back was exposed and Edge landed two crashing blows to the kidneys with the toe of his boot before the Englishman uncurled and stretched out flat on his back, holding his hands aloft in surrender.

"You win," he gasped. But as Edge stepped back the upraised arms suddenly shot out and locked around his legs. A sudden jerk and Edge was falling, heard his teeth jar together and tasted bile in his mouth as the back of his head crashed into the tallboy. "The first' round," he heard the Englishman say.

Edge was stunned by the head blow and heard the voice from far off. The weight of the Englishman thudding, on top of him and the crunch of blows smashing into his face also reached Edge as if from a great distance and they numbed rather than hurt him. But he knew that to give in to the continuous hail of punches would be to admit defeat and he tried desperately to force unwilling muscles to obey the command of a weary brain. His efforts were feeble, easily countered by the Englishman, until Edge felt the warmth of his own blood on his face and the sharp sting of open wounds galvinated him into a fresh attack. He rolled slightly to the left and then with force to the right. Taken by surprise at the sudden new-found power, the Englishman was unbalanced and thrown clear, to receive a crack on his own head from a leg of the bed.

Breathing deeply, the air rattling in their throats, both men pulled themselves up into a squatting position and looked at each other's bruised and bloodied faces.

''This is ruining my suit," the Englishman panted.

"Ain't doing your face much good," Edge pointed out.

"You don't exactly look like a lady killer yourself, old boy," came the reply.

Edge spat and saw blood in the spittle, realizing the stinging in his mouth was from where he had bitten his tongue. "Anytime you want to tell me what the map means, I’ll listen.”

"Not even if you live to be two hundred years old."

Edge sighed and pulled himself erect, felt himself sway and struggled to contain it. The Englishman had to use the bed to help him get to his feet.

"I might just make it," Edge came back. "But if you don't learn to handle yourself better than this you won't see another birthday."

The Englishman shook his head, trying to clear it of dizziness. "You talk like a man, but you fight like a woman who deep down wants to be raped."

"How would a fairy know anything about raping women?" Edge flung at his opponent.

"Talk, talk, talk," the Englishman sneered. "I heard you Yankees try to talk your way out of everything, Why don't you put your fists where your mouth is?"

They took a step toward each other, raising their fists, much slower than before, the Englishman's smile and Edge's grin just visible through the blood on their battered faces.

"One of you guys called Fallowfield?" The voice from the doorway brought both of them up short and each turned to look at the man who stood there, covering them with a revolver in each hand.

"He is," the Englishman snapped and pointed at Edge.

"He is," Edge said a moment later, and pointed a finger of his own.

The man's confused eyes swept from one battered face to the other, his expression showing the frantic workings of his, mind. Edge, sensing possible death rather than a beating, found the energy to take advantage of the gunman's discomposure.  His left hand snaked to his belt, drew the wooden-handled knife and with a powerful wrist action he sent it spinning, underarm, toward the man in the doorway. The blade sank deep into the man's stomach and he looked down at it in surprise for a moment before the agony hit him and he dropped both guns as he reached to tug at the handle.