Name On The Bullet - Edge Series 6 (26 page)

These sounds coming from beyond the batwing doors that spilled pale yellow lamp light across the area immediately outside the saloon entrance some seventy five yards from where Edge unfastened the latch and carefully eased open one of the stable’s double doors. Just enough so he could slide sideways through the gap. Steele followed close behind him, pulled the door silently shut and moved to a window from where he was able to see the front of the saloon. While Edge crossed to a row of stalls where ten docile horses continued to make subdued sounds and totally ignored the intruders.

‘Have you found him?’ Steele asked in a rasping whisper.

‘I got him and it looks like he’s had some much needed attention while he’s been in here,’ Edge said as he went from the stall to the tack room.

‘Just like you did in the jail it seems to me,’ Steele growled sourly. ‘I noticed while we were heading over here that you’d managed to catch up on a little rest - and got to eat pretty good, I reckon - while you were a guest of the local sheriff?’

The never raucous level of sound from the Timberland Saloon continued to swell and recede within narrow limits as Steele switched his attention to the interior of the stable when Edge stepped out from the tack room carrying his saddle and accoutrements.

‘Did you hear what I -?’

‘I heard you, feller,’ Edge cut in. ‘Do you want me to say how sorry I am you never got to enjoy the same luxuries the local law showered on me?’

Steele grunted with irritable impatience and returned his gaze to the scene beyond the dusty, cobweb-draped window.

‘Did you say something, feller?’

‘No. But I’m thinking that you haven’t changed over much since I last saw you. And I mean that time long before the other night outside Broadwater. You’re still the kind who won’t let bygones be bygones. But maybe you’ll see things differently after we’ve had a chance to talk things over.’

‘Which maybe there’s a little time to do now?’ Edge suggested as he backed his horse out of the stall then began to saddle the animal.

Steele spared another resentful glance for Edge before he resumed his grim faced surveillance of the saloon. ‘You have to believe that I never did want for you to wind up in jail?

‘We’ve got us some common ground there, feller. I didn’t plan for that either.’

‘I knocked you out cold and took off precisely because I didn’t want you to get in the fix you did, damnit! It was a spur of the moment thing. I planned to head off on my own and see to it that I got all the blame for what happened to Strachen. And I didn’t reckon you’d go along with that idea if I just explained to you that was what I wanted. Because you’re not that much of a selfish bastard, uh?’

Edge straightened up from tautening the clinch and said: ‘Flattery won’t get you any place I want to go – which right now is out of this town.’

Steele suggested: ‘Forgiven but not forgotten, maybe?’

‘Are we leaving now?’

‘It sounds like a good idea to me.’ Steele went to the door, pushed it open and waited for Edge to lead his horse outside. And after he turned from closing the door he watched Edge swing up astride the gelding then asked: ‘Do I get to ride double?’

Edge reached down a hand for the Colt Hartford so that Steele was unhampered in getting up astride the horse behind him: and reclaimed his rifle a moment before a burst of sound emerged from the Timberland. An enraged curse, a high pitched shriek, the crash of an overturned table and the spilling to the floor of glasses and money. Next heavy footfalls hit the floor and a gunshot exploded as the batwings were flung violently open to thud against the outside walls.

Edge rasped: ‘Shit!’

Steele muttered: ‘At least we’re agreed on something.’

The horse was spooked by the sudden noise in the quiet night and bridled as the two men on its back looked over their shoulders toward the saloon. Where they saw that George Guthrie was rooted to the porch for stretched seconds, his head thrown back to stare fixedly up into the night sky immediately above the no longer peaceful town: his right hand fisted around the butt of a wavering revolver that leaked muzzle smoke. He was some distance off, his back to the lamplight from the saloon doorway so they were unable to see his expression. But the silhouetted rigid posture of his muscular frame then the tone of his strangled voice emphasised the high degree of rage that had erupted within the saloon and sought further release outside the building.

‘You bastard! What the hell did I ever do to deserve what you’re doing to me? Just what did I do, Goddamnit? Tell me that, why don’t you?’ He swung up his right arm to aim the revolver skywards, thumbed back the hammer and squeezed the trigger. A moment later he repeated the actions to explode two fast shots in a senseless attempt to hurt whatever deity he held responsible for the run of bad luck that did not end tonight as he had expected. Then a third bullet was blasted into the night sky and Guthrie began a more obscene tirade as the doors of the saloon cashed open again. And this time several men spilled out over the threshold. Among them was Slim Haydon who clutched a handgun: but he chose to thrust it back in the holster as he halted immediately behind Guthrie, curled both his skinny arms around the maddened, much bulkier man and clasped his hands to trap him in a tight bear-hug.

The equally lanky Fred Whitney took two long strides, reached up with both hands and grasped the wrist behind Guthrie’s gun. Began to shake it, struggling to wrest the revolver loose from the grip of the anger-crazed farmer. Then a tall and broadly built man wearing a bartender’s leather waist apron stepped out from the group of bystanders to move up on the other side of the struggling Guthrie: abruptly swung a back-handed haymaker and landed a vicious slap across his cheek. There was a moment of complete silence: ended when the revolver dropped from Guthrie’s hand to thud to the porch floor. Then his arm flopped to his side as Whitney released his hold on the man’s wrist and leapt fearfully back.

‘Hey you men, what on earth is going on here?’

The violence that had first erupted within the Timberland and the louder body of sounds after it was heard louder outside had masked the clatter of a flatbed wagon as it trundled around the bend from behind a row of houses beyond the saloon. The woman on the seat hauled forcefully on the reins to bring the rig to a halt some fifty feet from the front of the suddenly subdued men in front of the saloon doorway. She stood up and was seen by all to be the short and broadly built, silver haired Rachel Guthrie as she pointed a rock steady finger at her husband and demanded:

‘George, what on earth are they doing to you? Is somebody hurt? What’s was all that gunfire about?’

‘Rachel, this ain’t got nothing to – ‘ Guthrie began, a strangely embarrassed whining tone having displaced the shrill voiced rage.

‘Hey, I think we should – ‘ Steele started to rasp.

‘Me, too.’ Edge tugged on the reins to wheel the gelding. ‘I always figured that if the need was there you and me would turn out to be an agreeable couple of fellers.’

Rachel Guthrie had surely seen the two men astride the single horse out front of the livery as she steered her wagon from beyond the row of houses. But the worrying gunshots involving her husband had been the woman’s first priority. And now she shared this concern with another anxiety and pointed once more, in a different direction, as she demanded to know: ‘What are those two men over by the livery doing? I thought they were . . . ‘

The rest of what she said and then the startled responses it drew from the group of men out front of the saloon were unheard by Edge and Steele as the gelding lunged into an instant gallop. For a few seconds the animal’s beating hooves on the hard packed ground were the only sound the two riders were able to hear as the horse raced through the town in which widely scattered house windows started to gleam with lamplight. While Edge kept the horse on a straight line that was the shortest distance to the abandoned sawmill and took no account of cover as gunshots cracked from the area of the saloon again. More than a single weapon fired in high anger now. Several of the men triggering wild shots toward something more substantial than the open sky. But the rapidly widening range between the barrage of revolver fire and the fast moving targets meant the shells fell far short. While Edge concentrated his attention on keeping the horse galloping in the right direction and Steele peered backwards: saw no sign of a chase before the gelding made it into the cover of the derelict but nonetheless substantial building. Where Edge hauled on the reins to bring the doubly burdened mount to a rearing, dust billowing halt. And for stretched seconds the breathing of the horse and the men was harshly laboured. Then Steele dropped to the ground and Edge said flatly: ‘I figure Guthrie must have lost a bundle again?’

‘I reckon so,’ Steele answered in the same even tone as Edge dismounted.

‘And I guess it won’t be just that down-on-his luck farmer who comes after us for the bounty: soon as a bunch of them get themselves some horses?’

‘A half dozen or so were heading for the livery the last time I could see clearly. But I don’t hear anything yet?’

They both adopted listening attitudes but the widely spread community of Pine River Junction had become as quiet as it normally was again.

‘What now?’ Steele went to the corner of the sawmill, checked the scene from there, withdrew and stepped from sight with a beckoning gesture to Edge. Edge double checked to ensure there was no sign of immediate pursuit and then went through the door-less entrance behind the Virginian into the cavernous, musty smelling building.

‘How’s that, feller?’ Edge asked when he saw Steele approaching his horse that was hitched to a piece of rusted machinery deep inside the big, moon shadowed building.

‘Do you reckon we should get out of here fast? Or wait for them to ride on by and back track them - assuming nobody saw us come in here? The way I’ve been making such an unholy mess of things lately, I’ll be happy to have you call the shots.’

Edge shook his head. ‘You’ve put right most of the mess. And I figure the favours are about evened out so you don’t have to suck up to me, feller.’

‘Damnit, I . . . don’t suck up to anyone!’ The glowering Steele had started out giving loud mouthed vent to his ill feeling: but then distant sounds of stomping hooves from the area of the livery stable caused him to finish in a rasping whisper. Edge led his gelding over to where the Virginian’s horse was tied as Steele remained where he was, sullen anger evident in his scowling features and rigid posture and he was obviously eager to continue the exchange. But he held his peace as both men checked their rifles and moved behind the redundant machinery. The thundering hoof beats swelled in volume as the men from the saloon neared the building: and galloped by, the sounds of their frenetic progress rapidly diminishing into the distant east.

‘Four or five, I reckon?’ the Virginian murmured.

‘That was my count, too.’ Edge shrugged. ‘We’ll let them open up some distance on the trail?’

‘Sure.’

Edge rasped softly into the near total silence after the group of riders had gone from earshot: ‘That comment you made earlier: about me calling the shots? For what it’s worth I figure . . ?’

‘I’m listening.’

‘It’s best that we go our different ways is my opinion.’

‘That’s how I wanted it to be.’

Edge touched fingertips to his bruised temple. ‘I recall how forcefully you held that view when you first laid it on me.’

Steele grimaced. ‘You were sleeping quiet as a contented baby when I left.’

‘Then I guess I must have woke up yelling like one with the colic,’ Edge replied sourly.

‘The way they showed up right beside me before I’d figured out what was happening.’

‘I was long gone down the Sacramento Turnpike before I got a bad feeling something wasn’t right. Don’t ask me why’ He grimaced again. ‘But I started back and when I didn’t meet up with you, I knew I’d fouled up. Dumb luck.’

‘How did you find out for sure it was more than just a bad feeling, feller?’

‘I got back here around noon. And managed to move in close enough to see the guy bring chow from the saloon to the jailhouse. I didn’t reckon the local sheriff would get that kind of room service.’

‘That was the kid – Fred Whitney.’

‘It seemed to me that if there was a prisoner inside, the chances were it was going to be you. So after nightfall I headed into town and heard what was being said inside the law office. Then I had to wait for a chance to get you out of there without anyone seeing what was happening. Like I said, plain dumb luck.’

Steele suddenly thrust out his gloved right hand toward Edge.

‘Uh?’

‘That’s all the talking done. So it’s time we went our separate ways at last it seems to me?’

Edge nodded, clasped the extended hand, shook it and said: ‘Take good care of yourself, feller. I reckon we’ve both reached a time of life where we’ve about used up all the dumb luck we were ever entitled to.’

‘Yeah,’ Steele said. ‘I sure won’t be counting on it to get me out of any tough spots from here on in?’

‘Damn right, feller.’

‘That other thing – about me wanting to take all the blame for killing Al Strachen and letting you off the hook?

‘Yeah?’

‘I never did plan to turn myself in and meekly own up to a killing I never did.’

‘That’s not your way, feller.’

‘Same as it wouldn’t be yours. But if I happen to get myself backed into a corner I can’t get out of . . . By the law here or some place else, then I reckon I might as well hang for both the Strachen and Jim Bishop killings instead of just for my old buddy Bishop?’