Name On The Bullet - Edge Series 6 (32 page)

‘I ain’t seen Slim today and I don’t give a damn for what he’d say if he was here right now!’ Guthrie countered harshly in a tone of tightly controlled rage. ‘When your boy just come into the store and told me he’d seen a guy he figured could be Edge head into the saloon . . . Well, I had to see if it was really him had the gall to ride back into town. Because I’ve got to tell the murdering bastard just what I think of - ’

He broke off as all three men heard the running footfalls of a woman heading toward the front of the Timberland. And he expressed expanded anger as she halted on the porch and shrieked: ‘George, don’t you dare go and do anything stupid, you hear me?’

The short and stoutly built wife of the enraged man thrust forcefully between the batwings. And was momentarily frozen into immobile silence at the sight of her unarmed husband and Edge, a Colt jutting from a tied down holster, facing each other across twenty feet of saloon furniture.

Edge tipped his hat and greeted evenly: ‘Mrs Guthrie.’

She nodded shortly, gulped and reached out a tentative hand to rest it on her husband’s forearm. He wrenched violently free of her insecure grip while he continued to fix Edge with a resentful stare and rasp:

‘I never believed what your murdering partner said back then, mister! I always reckoned as how you were as much to blame for killing that federal marshal as he was. So me and young Fred should have collected twice as much bounty money as we got!’

Whitney tried to placate the ranting man: ‘George, that was all a long time ago and it’s over and done with.’

‘Jack’s right!’ the anxious woman blurted. ‘There ain’t nothing to be gained from – ‘

Guthrie broke in aggressively on Rachel as he ignored her and the apprehensive bartender to continue directing his hatred at Edge. ‘I want you to know, mister! I figure a man who allows his dead partner to take all the blame for something bad they both did together, well he ain’t worth that!’ He snapped his fingers. ‘And I sure as hell hope you’ve been having a whole heap of sleepless nights knowing you should’ve – ‘

‘Day or night, how me and my conscience get along is between me and my conscience, feller,’ Edge cut in on the enraged man. ‘But to my way of thinking you’ve got an opinion you’re entitled to hold. And a right to express it.’

‘You bet I have! And my opinion is that you’re the lowest of the low and I ought to have shot you down the same way I did that other – ‘

‘I can’t see that you’re packing a gun, feller?’ Only the ice cold glint in Edge’s narrowed eyes revealed the depth of his contempt for Guthrie and gave the lie to the even tone at which he pitched his query.

‘No, my George don’t ever carry a gun, mister!’ Rachel claimed shrilly. ‘And now we’re going right on back home! So there ain’t gonna be any trouble!’ She fastened a stronger grip on his arm and tugged at it as she turned toward the batwings.

‘I ain’t scared of this murdering four-flusher!’ Guthrie snarled. But he had read the threatening message in the coldness of Edge’s unblinking eyes and made no attempt to escape from his wife’s hold on him this time.

‘No sweat, feller,’ Edge said.

Guthrie felt the need to have the final word but addressed it to his wife. ‘I reckon I touched a raw nerve there, woman. And I’d say that means he’s as guilty as Steele was.’

Edge pushed away from the bar counter and started slowly toward the couple on the other side of the room: moving around the solid bulk of the tables in his path but colliding with chairs that scraped across the floor or tipped over.

‘Remember what Slim Haydon warned you about, Edge!’ Whitney pleased hoarsely. And Rachel implored, almost tearfully: ‘Please don’t hurt him, mister.’

Guthrie stood his ground despite the way a cheek was convulsed by a tic and his eyes blinked and his lips quivered. And just for a moment as Edge halted a few feet in front of him the man was maybe on the verge of whirling around to lunge out of the saloon. But perhaps he drew strength from the firm grip his wife continued to maintain on his upper arm. Then a trickle of saliva spilled out of a corner of his mouth, ran down his chin to drip on to his dungaree front as Edge said softly:

‘One day, feller, I may well have to kill you. But right now I’ve got more important business to attend to.’

‘The truth hurts, don’t it, mister?’ Guthrie managed to force out from his fearconstricted throat, the challenge off-key and a little shrill.

‘Hurting is something I’ve gotten used to,’ Edge replied as the tension drained out of him while he looked into the scowling face of Guthrie from six feet away.

‘Go on home, George,’ Whitney urged from across the room. ‘Best you take him home, Rachel.’

‘George,’ the frightened woman muttered and swallowed hard. ‘You’ve said your piece just like you want to. This man could hurt you more than any truth could. And that’s the truth sure enough. I reckon we’ve suffered more than enough without going looking for more of the same.’

Guthrie allowed himself to be steered to the batwings. But held back to look again at Edge and sneer: ’What other business can someone like you have in this town?’

‘It’s between me and my conscience, feller: and you know how I feel about that.’

Guthrie mouthed a curse before his wife steered him outside and Edge watched them over the tops of the batwings as they moved disconsolately away across the broad area out front of the Timberland. Neither of them looked back as they headed for a dilapidated flatbed wagon with a small tarp covered load on the back and a mule in the traces parked outside a seed and feed store on the other side of the street.

Edge said to Whitney: ‘I well recall the Guthries from the last time I was hereabouts, feller. You never made mention they were still in town?’

‘That’s on account of they don’t live in Pine River Junction,’ the bartender answered.

‘They’ve got a half-assed little farmstead twenty miles south east of here out along the Sacramento Trail. Far enough off so it ain’t possible for George to ride in and indulge himself with drinking and gambling like he did in the old days.’

‘That far away?’

‘Yeah. They visit only once in a while, always together. Put up in a back room at the Junction Hotel for a night and spend a few hours buying the supplies they need. It’s just coincidence they were here today when you rode in.’

‘What happened to the spread they used to have?’

The Guthries reached the rig and climbed aboard. The woman needed to help the man who seemed almost frail now the anger had drained out of him. When they were seated, she took up the reins, but held back from starting off when a quartet of men came along the sidewalk and paused beside the wagon. One of the four was Sheriff Slim Haydon, another wore the clerical garb of a preacher and the other two were attired in blue work coveralls and check shirts. The level of the rage that Guthrie had showed when he entered the saloon seemed to return during the exchange between him and the lawman. And his mood infected the sheriff as they both gestured toward the Timberland where Edge was unseen in the shadowed interior behind the unmoving batwings.

‘George’s lousy luck at cards never did change,’ Whitney replied evenly. ‘He ran through his share of the bounty money in hardly any time at all. And after that Rachel stood as much as she could of his drinking then packed her bags and came to town on the stage.’

The owner of the Timberland had crossed his saloon to come stand beside Edge and gaze mournfully out over the batwings toward the group at the wagon parked before the feed and seed store.

‘Later that same day, George got crazy drunk on home brew out at the farm and then he set fire to the house and barns. Folks in town saw the smoke rising over the western ridge and a whole crowd of us went hell for leather out there to help try douse the flames.’

He shrugged and his melancholy expression became more firmly set. ‘But it was too late. There wasn’t a hope in hell of saving any part of the place. And it was that night a stallion panicked by the smoke and flames caved in Fred’s skull.’

‘But she stayed with him,’ Edge said as Rachel slapped the reins to have the mule start the flatbed rolling. And Haydon began heading for the saloon while the other three men moved off down the street.

‘Yeah, that’s what she did. She never took the next stage out like she planned. Told George she’d stay with him so long as he promised to give up his hard drinking and high stakes card playing ways. And they moved a lot further out of town than the old place was.’

Edge pushed out between the batwings as Whitney remained inside the Timberland and continued: ‘George gave her his word on that and he kept to it. Built a shack with hardly room to swing a cat inside and both of them worked the fields hard enough to pay their way.’

As Edge moved down the steps to where his gelding was hitched the solemn faced, sombre toned bartender went on insistently: ‘They were in hock to a few folks for quite awhile after the bank wouldn’t lend them any money. But I can tell you, mister they paid back every last cent that was borrowed. And they seemed to get along pretty well as far as anyone knew. For sure, today is the first time George has been as mad as that since he used to lose so much money at gambling right here in the Timberland.’

‘Much obliged for the information feller.’ Edge released his reins from the rail and raised his free hand in lethargic farewell to Whitney as Haydon reached the foot of the porch steps.

The lawman halted and jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward where the preacher and the two other men he had been with moved out of sight beyond a row of stores on this side of the street. ‘I’ve got the okay from the doc and the minister for you to dig up your buddy, Edge. The Reverend Mitchell never wanted to have him in consecrated ground from the start. And it seems that after so long in the grave there won’t be anything left of Steele but a heap of old bones – which don’t spread disease.’

‘That’s fine.’ Edge made to start forward leading his horse by the bridle, but held back when Haydon said:

‘The two guys with the Reverend Mitchell – Josh and Hal – can handle the digging. They work for the local mortician when needed and just want to be sure there’s a little money in it for them before they start the chore for you? They’re asking two bucks apiece.’

‘No sweat, sheriff. But I need to be there – to make sure there’s no mistake made. Haydon countered sourly: ‘Jeremiah Mitchell ain’t likely to have them dig up the wrong piece of his cemetery, mister!’

‘It’s my peace of mind that concerns me,’ Edge said when he looked over a shoulder as he moved off and caught Haydon grimacing.

Then the lawman darted forward, taking long strides to catch up with Edge and his horse halfway to the street and growled: ‘George Guthrie tells me you and him had a run-in?

‘We exchanged some words and most of his were of the angry kind.’

‘He reckons he pushed you close, is that so?’

Edge allowed: ‘Almost too close for his comfort. But him and me reached an understanding.’

‘About what, do you mind me asking?’

‘George Guthrie will go on carrying a grudge because he never collected any part of a bounty on me. And I’ll carry on not giving a damn about him.’

‘George has turned over a new leaf since the bad times when he had the farm over the hill.’ He gestured ahead of the way they were walking, toward the western crest of the valley side.

Edge nodded as he answered sardonically: ‘That’s what I’m trying to do now I’m over the hill.’

The bearded lawman failed, or chose not, to take note of the other man’s irony as he asked earnestly: ‘And you reckon that moving Steele’s body from the town cemetery here to some place else will help you to do that?’

‘It’s something I have to do is all,’ Edge answered coldly.

Haydon shrugged, shook his head and briefly grimaced as they ambled around the curve in the street and came within sight of the church where he said: ‘It looks like that could create something of a stir, Edge. And knowing these folks like I do, I’m damn sure most of them won’t agree with you doing what you have it in mind to do.’

There was a cluster of a dozen people at the gateway of the graveyard: eight of them women who, along with a man – all middle aged to elderly – eyed Edge and Haydon bleakly as they drew near. These were all outside the closed wrought iron cemetery gate. While the dressed for grave digging Josh and Hal along with the tall, grey haired and gaunt faced Reverend Mitchell waited inside. The tenor of the low murmuring from the larger section of the group suggested the lawman had called it right. Then the talk was abruptly curtailed when Edge started to hitch his reins to a gatepost and said:

‘I’m obliged to you for allowing me to do this, reverend. And no sweat, fellers: at two bucks apiece we got us a deal.’

The preacher remained where he was while the two hired hands moved off up the walk toward the church and ignored a tall, thin, bespectacled woman of middle years who accused from behind them: ‘Joshua Reno and Harold Proctor, what you are about to do is the devil’s work! Disturbing the dead at their rest is a sin!’

There was a mumbling of agreement with this, ended when the short, stout, ruddy complexioned man who was with the group of scowling women sneered: ‘Even though the dead man was a murderer he still ought to be left to rest in peace. After he paid with his life for the crime he committed.’

More righteously earnest agreement was voiced and this time it was the preacher who ended it when he reminded solemnly: ‘I well remember the time when some of you here took me to task for allowing the body of Adam Steele to be interred in this consecrated ground.’