Killing Time In Eternity - Edge Series 4 (23 page)

‘You don’t hope that any more than I do, Edge,’ the lawman said earnestly from the parlour doorway. ‘Once that special train has been and gone tomorrow, I’ll be better able to apply my mind to other things. And maybe we’ll talk some more. Until then, ‘night to you. And enjoy your supper with Sue Ellen.’

Edge raised his mug in a tacit toast to acknowledge the lawman’s sentiment, finished the coffee then eased himself cautiously up from the chair as he heard the store door close behind Flynt. And found that he hurt worse now he had been sitting down for so long. Then discovered that carefully moving about helped to ease the aches of the beating as his hunger diminished once more. He filled a bucket with water and set it on the stove beside the coffeepot. Then he dragged a wooden tub from the outhouse and three-quarters filled it with cold water.

He had time to smoke a cigarette and slowly remove all his clothes except for his long johns before steam began to rise from the water in the bucket. When he poured it into the tub the temperature was fine and now he stripped naked and lowered himself slowly into the water. Grimaced when it burned the pained areas at his lower back and belly. But at least there were no scraping sounds nor excruciating pains to signal fractured bone. Soon the warmth of the water began to ease the stinging of the bruises. And then he felt comfortable enough to smile his enjoyment at the simple pleasure to be had from a

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warm bath in a warm room while the cold Kansas night was kept at bay beyond the substantial walls of the well built store. Such was his level of contentment that he was on the brink of unbidden sleep when the bell at the top of the store door sounded and caused him to snap open his eyes as a woman called:

‘Hello! Edge? Are you here?’

Sue Ellen Spencer’s tone was deeply concerned as she started across the store toward the part open doorway to the parlour. Where Edge sat naked in the bathtub.

‘Its me in the flesh, Sue Ellen,’ he answered and looked down at himself: saw the discoloured water meant he was not totally exposed. ‘But I’m in no fit state to be seen by a lady.’

‘Ward Flynt told me what happened. That’s why I’m here. To see if – ‘ She pushed the door open wider and halted on the threshold. Exclaimed with mild surprise rather than shock: ‘Oh, I see what you mean.’

Edge raised a forefinger to where the brim of his hat would be if he had been wearing one. ‘Evening again, Sue Ellen. You’ll have to pardon me for not getting up.’

She smiled briefly. ‘That’s perfectly understandable, Edge. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t need any further proof that you’re a gentleman. Though, as Doc Childs nurse for so long, I’m not exactly unfamiliar with human anatomy.’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘But I figure we should know each other a little better before you get too familiar with mine.’

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CHAPTER • 15

_________________________________________________________________________

THE WOMAN who he had found so attractive at first sight several days ago waited
impatiently in the darkened store while Edge climbed gingerly out of the tub and carefully dried himself off then got dressed. Although at her insistence he remained bare above the waist and then, reluctantly at first, he allowed her to examine and gently prod the injured areas of his body.

Then fifteen minutes later he was fully clothed and stoically appreciative of how, using ingredients she found in kitchen cupboards, she had formulated a dark coloured, pleasantly aromatic paste that took the sting out of the bruises. A treatment that allowed him to sit in comfort: provided he remembered not to make any sudden moves. His head ached less without any nursing attention.

After she had poured herself a coffee and sat in the chair across the hearth opposite him he said: ‘I have to apologise for not making our supper appointment, Sue Ellen.’

‘Don’t be silly,’ she accused. ‘I’m at fault because I didn’t start to worry about where you were until it got to be so late the steaks began to burn. Their inedible now, I’m afraid.’

He scowled. ‘That’s one more debt I’m owed by the fellers who jumped me. Guess you heard they did a lot worse to Walter Benson?’

She nodded and chewed her lower lip, her pale blue eyes moist with held back tears.

‘Ward Flynt told me. When I met him going home looking like he had most of the troubles of the world on his shoulders.’

‘I guess you could say he has, the way his world seems to begin at one end of Eternity and finish at the other.’

She tasted the coffee and pulled much the same kind of face as Flynt had earlier.

‘He’s right about this awful stuff you make, Edge.’

He matched her brief half smile. ‘Maybe tonight it has something to do with me not being at my best at anything, do you think?’

She gave a rueful shake of her head. ‘I think I was close to my best in my kitchen awhile ago. Until I got to worrying when I saw it was so late and I came looking for you and met the marshal. He told me about poor Colonel Benson getting killed and you being attacked. And something about some letters Billy wrote to a woman and never sent to her. Maybe Beth Flynt?’

‘Did you get to read any of them?’

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She shook her head. ‘No, I was in too much of a hurry to come here. He showed me the bundle and told me they were love letters you found in Billy’s bedroom. Said some of them went into obscenely vivid detail. Do you really think they were written to Beth Flynt?’

He held out his unwashed mug. ‘I happen to like my own coffee.’ She refilled his mug and he asked: ‘Could you tell Flynt anything about Billy and his sister?’

She shrugged. ‘Nothing at all. I knew Billy very well and Beth quite well. As far as I was aware they were just two people who happened to live in the same small town and have a shared interest in the theatre. They acted on the stage together, but I never thought of them as close friends. She was a few years older than he was but . . . ‘ She shrugged again and expressed helplessness. ‘But knowing just how Billy was so struck by Olivia Colbert and she was even a lot older still . . .’

‘So it wasn’t you he told about his feelings for the woman he wrote the letters to?’

She expressed righteous anger. ‘No it wasn’t! The marshal asked me that. Don’t you think I’d have said something to you if – ‘

Edge held up both hands in a token of surrender and attempted a contrite smile.

‘Okay, I apologise again. So he never got around to having one of his heart to heart talks with you. And confided in somebody else instead.’

She was placated and allowed with a slight pout: ‘Maybe it’s what he intended to do the night he was killed do you think? Why he asked me to be at the theatre so early?’

‘Maybe.’

Now she became pensive. ‘Do you think it was Olivia Colbert he talked to?’

‘Could have been.’

She tried the coffee again and when her expression showed she liked it no better than the first time he asked with an easy grin:

‘You want me to apologise again, Sue Ellen?’

Her thoughts were still elsewhere and she was puzzled. ‘What for?’

‘After you’ve made me feel this much better, I’m real sorry you have to drink something you don’t like. But maybe you’re the kind of lady who enjoys a shot of bourbon sometimes?’

She showed her brightest smile. ‘Do you have a bottle here?’

He shook his head and expressed a rueful frown. ‘I like the stuff too much, so I hardly ever keep it at the places I live.’ Then his expression was forced into a grimace as he pushed up from the chair. ‘But I can go down to the Second Chance and get a bottle.’

‘On no you won’t!’ she countered with mocked severity and then grinned. ‘Why don’t the both of us pay a visit to the saloon and indulge one of our weaknesses in public?’

‘That won’t do your reputation much good, Sue Ellen,’ he said. 124

Now she laughed shortly. ‘Like I’ve already told you being an unofficial nurse has made me quite familiar with the half naked bodies of as many men as women in this town. So I’m already considered way beyond the pall by what passes for genteel society in Eternity, Edge.’

She stood up and reached for his half finished mug of coffee as she went on: ‘But I worked for Doc Childs for long enough to be accepted as no more than a brazen oddity by most people around here. Especially since I’m involved with the theatre as well. Which in a small country town like this one is considered by some to be one step removed from a dancehall girl.’ As he surrendered the mug she warned archly: ‘So it’ll be
you
putting
your
reputation on the line.’

‘I’ll risk that. And maybe when we get back here . . . ’

‘Yes?’ She eyed him suspiciously.

‘You worked wonders in the kitchen making up whatever it was that has eased my aches and pains. Do you think you could rustle up something to take care of how hungry I am, too?’

She grinned. ‘I reckon. Or we could knock on Wyatt Ramsay’s door and get a couple of replacements for the steaks that I burned do you think?’

‘I think there’s no point in living next door to a butcher unless you make use of the convenience, Sue Ellen.’

There was still rain in the air that was carried down Main Street on a light breeze. But it was little more than an icy damp threat below the low clouds and above the silent town in which many more lighted windows glowed now. They walked fast around the curve of the street, using haste to help combat the cold that turned their expelled breath to vapour: breath Edge found increasingly hard to come by as he checked the impulse to groan his discomfort.

The full-length doors in front of the batwings at the Second Chance Saloon were in use again on another cold night and as Edge and Sue Ellen pushed between them, all attention was focussed in their direction. At first with idle curiosity, to see who the newcomers were. Then unconcealed intrigue tracked them to the bar. The lights were dim except for one lamp that hung above a corner table where four men played cards. Elsewhere in the quiet, liquor and tobacco smoke smelling room a scattering of patrons sat in pairs or alone. There were about a score in total, all of them men. Buck Segal was as curious as everybody else was as he hurried to be of service.

‘Miss Spencer and Mr Edge: it’s real nice to see the both of you. What’s your pleasure?’

One man whispered and another guffawed.

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Sue Ellen said in a raised voice as Edge swung his head to look toward a pair of men who were smirking as if at a dirty joke: ‘Two shots of your best bourbon, Buck.’ There was deep scorn in her pale blue eyes as she swept the gaze over the entire room then put her back toward the pair of shame-faced men who had been instantly subdued by her glower.

‘Liquor that I have prescribed for Mr Edge as a medicine that hopefully will help to ease his discomfort. I’ll be drinking it to try to forget how there are so many narrow-minded busybodies living in this town.’

‘So you’re still working at trying to be the most high spirited female in Eternity, Miss Spencer?’ the skinny and short of stature Troy Shaver said with a sardonic smile against a mumbling of less good humoured, low tone responses to Sue Ellen’s disdain. Shaver was one of the poker players. The others were the younger and more powerfully built trio of Lester Hardin, Gus Brady and Lee Baldwin. The good looking red headed Colbert hand was as neatly turned out - but in a different outfit - as he had been when Edge first saw him at the big house on the spread earlier today. The other three had changed out of their work clothing and washed up but had not shaved.

‘It’s a shame there’s not more competition for the title, Troy,’ Sue Ellen said then added pointedly after a brief pause. ‘By the way, how is Victoria?’

A scowl twisted Shaver’s weather-beaten features and he turned his back to continue with the card game, clearly wishing he had pretended to be as indifferent to the newcomers as the other three men at the same table.

Sue Ellen murmured to Edge: ‘Victoria Shaver is a very nice lady. But she doesn’t get much chance to be anything except his wife: which in his opinion is the same thing as being a drudge.’

Segal put their drinks on the bar top and Edge paid what was asked then carried both glasses to a table. As they sat down the woman suddenly peered hard at him and asked:

‘Is it my turn to apologise?’

‘Uh?’

‘I suddenly seem to be boring you?’

‘What?’

‘You seem to be much more interested in that poker game over there than in me, Edge.’

He smiled briefly. ‘I’m sorry, Sue Ellen. I have to admit there’ve been times when a card game would have been more attractive than the most beautiful woman in the world.’