The Deputy - Edge Series 2 (34 page)

‘Experts are made by experience, Rosita,’ he said as he took out the makings. ‘A village girl working in her father’s livery . . . There’s no reason for you to know about anything except horses.’

‘And men,’ she said flatly. ‘Like girls and women everywhere learn about men from experience.’

‘I guess so,’ he replied and there was a lengthy silence during which the mood of Rosita Jurez seemed to grow more melancholy. And, strange as it was to him, Edge had to admit to himself that the more morose the woman became the more attractive he found her. So, to overcome the discomfort of arousal in the mid-morning heat as they moved at a measured pace across this barren stretch of country, he searched his mind for a subject to direct his thoughts onto another track and asked: ‘Do many strangers stop by in San Luis, Rosita?’

‘No, not very many at all.’

‘I guess Martinez’s men only came to collect rents?’

‘Si.’

‘How did people find out about Jose Martinez being in the Bishopsburg jail?’

‘From the last
Americano
to come to the village. He was the first of his kind in a long time.’

‘An American? How long ago was that?’

‘It was just the other day. Any stranger from north of the Rio Bravo . . . and those from the south, also: they are always begged for news of the world outside of San Luis. He told us of the trouble Jose Martinez was in.’

‘And this particular feller, Rosita?’ Edge was unsure now if he was simply making conversation to suppress his sexual urges or whether he was digging for possibly useful information.

193

‘He stayed at the cantina and did not leave there at all. He sat at the same table and had his meals there. And drank coffee. All day long and late into the night until the cantina closed. He just drank coffee and waited.’

‘That’s all you know about him?’

She shrugged. ‘He would not say what he was waiting for, but he was always ready to talk. To answer questions if he could, as long as they did not concern his business in San Luis.’

‘What kind of questions did he answer?’

‘He gave us much news from Texas and beyond: of places where he had been a soldier. Told what it was Jose Martinez had done to be put in jail. And said it was his godfather who was to sit in judgement at the trial of the rapist and murderer.’

‘He was the godson of Judge Miller?’

‘I do not know if he ever said that name. At least, I do not remember if he did. I was not at the cantina for much of the time, you understand.’

‘What was his name, Rosita?’

‘Darnell,
querido.
The name of the
hombre
was Benjamin Darnell. Is he important, do you think?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘But you look troubled, Edge?’

‘When did he leave?’

She thought back for a few moments, nodded and replied: ‘It was on the morning of the day before the fiesta.
Si,
Thursday last.’

‘Which direction did he head in?’

‘I do not know. He left early. I did not see him leave. You still look troubled, Edge?’

‘Yeah. Like I said before, I don’t have much faith in coincidence, lady.’

‘How is this a coincidence?’

He seemed not to hear her question while he peered directly ahead, deep in thought as he recognised a familiar feature of the landscape from when the posse rode by here in the opposite direction. A mile ahead was the start of a broad, gentle slope with, at the top

– perhaps another mile beyond the base of the rise – what looked to be the entrance to a narrow ravine.

But he knew this to be no more than a six feet wide opening in a strange rock formation on the crest of the long incline. A natural gap in a seemingly unnatural wall of sandstone some thirty feet high and ten feet at its lowest and thickest. He knew that beyond this point there was a gentle drop into a broad, shallow valley. 194

Rosita repeated insistently: ‘What is this coincidence, Edge?’

He replied pensively: ‘Two mystery men: Billy Injun and Ben Darnell. Billy lives just outside of Bishopsburg and Darnell’s godfather was murdered near there. The both of them showing up in San Luis within a few days of each other seems like a coincidence to me, lady.’

Then he shrugged and shook his head, unable yet to think of a connection between the godson of the circuit judge and the liquor loving mixed breed. But he felt sure that Jose Martinez had to be a link in the chain between the two men. Rosita continued to look expectantly at Edge, obviously waiting for him to finish speaking aloud his thoughts. But when he said nothing she did not press him as they rode to the base of the gentle rise. Then, as they started up the hill, angling toward the opening in the rock face, she asked:

‘Are we far from Bishopsburg now, Edge?’

‘I figure we ought to make it before noon without need to rush.’

‘And do you think we could have any need to rush?’ It seemed to be simply a question that held no implication she wished to influence what he had in mind.

‘Ted Straker figured he could handle the situation without any help from me, Rosita,’

he told her evenly. ‘And with four relative youngsters to back him, it could be that a past his prime feller like me wouldn’t make too much of a difference one way or the other.’

‘You know what I think?’

‘I think you’re probably going to tell me.’

‘It is my opinion that you do not like it that the sheriff and the others left San Luis without you,
querido?’
She peered earnestly at Edge’s impassive profile. He said tautly: ‘What I like or don’t like ain’t important.’

‘And I think also – ‘

‘Is what you think going to matter to me, Rosita?’

‘I think you do not like it when you are not the leader in a group? I think that you do not like it when other
hombres
make the decisions and tell you what to do? I think you . . .

‘

She allowed her voice to fade away and Edge heeled his horse into a trot, moving on ahead of her. Then he looked over his shoulder and said flatly:

‘I thought I’d be right is all, lady. And what you think about me doesn’t matter a damn to me.’

They trotted their mounts to the top of the hill in single file, neither uttering a word until Edge hauled on his reins to halt his horse and rasped: 195

‘Sonofabitch!’

‘What’s wrong?’ She pulled up her mount behind the other animal at the narrow opening in the rock wall. ‘Move,
por favor.
So that I may see.’

‘If that’s what you really want,’ he said dully and heeled his gelding forward a few paces then brought him to a standstill again and heard Rosita murmur:

‘Madre de Dios!’

On the periphery of his vision he saw her cross herself. Saw, too, the expression of abject horror that became inscribed on her pocked features as she swept her wide-eyed gaze over the scene of slaughter spread before her.

The ambusheRs had been waiting out of sight among the widely scattered heaps of boulders strewn on this side of the sandstone walls flanking the narrow opening. Had held their fire until the new sheriff of Bishopsburg and the four Mexican bandits become deputies filed through the gap. Then gunned them down with consummate ease: first drilling bullets into the backs of the helpless men, next their chests and bellies as they turned their horses or fell from the wheeling, rearing animals.

The fly-infested corpses were sprawled out over an area no larger than fifty feet by fifty feet, the five-man posse killed in a brief barrage of gunfire: the carnage so fleeting that not a single victim of the massacre had time to draw his revolver or unboot a rifle.

‘The gunfire that I heard in the night!’ Rosita was fighting nausea and it sounded like she had trouble catching her breath.

‘Which lasted a lot less than a minute is my guess,’ Edge replied evenly.

‘If you want me to, I can tell you how it all happened: and I will not need to make any guesses.’ It was Billy Injun who made the grim toned offer as he rose from the hiding place where he had been hunkered down within a fissure at the base of the high rock wall to the right.

Rosita Jurez gave a stifled cry of alarm at the sight of the mixed breed with his face as badly disfigured by a knife long ago as her own had been marred by disease. Then she reached out a hand to grip the upper left arm of Edge as he dropped his right hand to drape the walnut butt of his holstered Colt. But he recognised the unarmed mixed breed before he started to draw the sixgun and rasped:

‘It’s okay, lady. He’s on our side. That’s right, ain’t it, feller?’

Billy Injun nodded emphatically and agreed eagerly as he picked his way carefully among the boulders: ‘You bet I am, mister. I seen you with Sheriff George in Jake Carr’s saloon in the town of Bishopsburg, ain’t that right?’

‘Right. Where’s my horse?’

196

‘Uh?’

‘A feller named Morgan Bryce stole my horse. Then you stole it off him.’

The mixed breed nodded, showed a nervous grin and pointed across the scattered boulders on the other side of the opening in the rock wall from where he had been hidden.

‘There is a bay gelding over there. He is safe. And he will be very well when his leg is healed.’

‘What’s wrong with his leg?’ Edge demanded.

‘It is bruised a little,’ Billy Injun hurried to explain. ‘It will soon be fine. Hey, you got any whiskey, mister?’

Edge sighed and dismounted. ‘No, feller. Which makes me, you and that bay gelding a real hurting threesome, Billy.’

‘Mister?’

‘What I’ve got is a sore arm. You tell me my horse has a lame leg. And where your liking for hard liquor is concerned you sure are one hell of a pain in the ass.’

197

CHAPTER • 22

_________________________________________________________________

THE MIXED breed looked solemn as he shook his head ruefully and muttered:

‘Damn shame about Sheriff George being dead.’

He gestured to encompass the five bullet riddled corpses sprawled on the open ground at the top of the slope below the scattered boulders. ‘Damn shame about all these good men that died. Be nice to drink a toast to their memories? Show respect and how sorry I am they are dead?’

Rosita seemed to be silently praying as she continued to sit in her saddle, her hands holding the reins clasped to the horn and her head bowed as Edge moved away to look for his horse. He said to Billy Injun as the mixed breed came up alongside him:

‘If you lend a hand to find the fellers who’ve been doing all this killing, I’ll see to it you get some whiskey to drown your sorrows, Billy. Maybe enough to drown yourself if you feel like doing that.’

The scar faced man showed a broad smile that totally negated his characteristic look of malevolence as he replied with enthusiasm: ‘That sounds to me like it would be a real good way to go, mister.’

In the aftermath of the brutal massacre the horses ridden into the ambush by the illfated Ted Straker, Raul Alvarez, Paco Diego, Pedro Sanchez and Ricardo Zamorra had been rounded up by Billy Injun. And now were hobbled in the same area as the bay gelding that had been taken from Edge, given to Jose Martinez courtesy of Morgan Bryce and thereafter was stolen by the mixed breed.

Rosita Jurez protested only mildly when she realised that Edge, with the reluctant assistance of Billy, was going to take the time to wrap the blood-encrusted corpses in their bed blankets. Drape them over the saddles of the horses and link the horses into a string to be led north. She said she thought that speed was now important since it was tragically clear that Straker had not been able to handle the situation with his posse of Mexican bandits.

As he double-checked the fitness of the bay gelding, Edge spoke dispassionately to the woman. Told her that the amount of time it would take to do the right thing by the dead men would not make a deal of difference one way or the other. And that if she disagreed with his opinion she was a free agent and could do whatever the hell she liked. 198

The lack of emotion in his voice and the glinting eyed, stone faced impassiveness that accompanied his response caused her to wait out in submissive silence the time that it took the two men to deal with the corpses. And as they completed the chore and started to head north, Billy clearly welcomed the distraction of telling how he came to be waiting at the scene of the slaughter when Edge and Rosita showed up. He explained how, not knowing of the cold-blooded killing of George North, he had followed the four riders out of Bishopsburg on foot, having instinctively suspected something was wrong. How he sneaked into their night camp and stole their horses. To slow them down, which was all he could do because he was unarmed and outnumbered. How he trailed them in relative comfort on the bareback of Edge’s horse while they trudged into San Luis.