CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The town had just two stores and, like the hotel next door

had rooms facing the street with windows that opened out

onto the porch way. There were four such windows, none

of which showed light as Edge stood quietly, listening to

the sounds from below. Although he could not distinguish

the words being spoken, he could differentiate between the

male and female voices and recognized the nasal twang of

Forrest"s accent. He stood like that for perhaps a full

minute and thought he heard two other men talking but

could not make out who they were. Nor could he be sure

that all of the men were still downstairs, two of them

remaining silent, drinking or doing things with the saloon

girls that required no conversation.

Then he moved and the first window he came to was

open a crack at the bottom, enough for him to push his

fingers under it and ease it upwards, an inch at a time,

ready to stop at the first sound of a squeak. But it slid up

smoothly and soundlessly and when Edge put his hand into

the room he could hear even, regular breathing. He

remained immobile at the window for several seconds,

allowing his narrowed eyes to become accustomed to the

darkness, until he could see the dresser and the wooden

bed, the form of the sleeper rising and falling regularly with

breathing upon it. He lowered the Henry in first, then his

boots, finally threw a leg over the sill and climbed inside. A

floorboard made a tiny sound as it took his full weight, did

not disturb the figure on the bed.

He left his boots where they were, carried the rifle

across the room. It was a woman in the bed, a large, ugly

woman with a face streaked by run mascara, and enormous

breasts that hung down on each side of her chest, made

naked by the blanket which she had thrown back in her

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sleep. Edge assumed she was the madam of the

establishment, taken to her bed when she discovered

Forrest and his men were in no frame of mind to talk terms

for the favors they sought.

Edge upholstered the Remington, raised it and

brought it down with a swish of air. It thudded into the

sleeping woman"s temple with a dull sound. She

whimpered, her breathing missed a beat then became

suddenly deep. Even in the darkness Edge saw the skin

swell and begin to discolor. He went to the door and

cracked it, put his eye to the opening to peer into the

hallway. A candle flickered at each end, leaving a pool of

darkness in the middle. Nothing moved except the two

small flames, dancing in the draught he caused as he

stepped out of the room and closed the door softly behind

him. There were four doors on each side of the hallway,

and the stairs at the end.

“You"re a cute little broad and make no mistake,” he

heard Forrest say with a laugh, the words coming up the

stairs and along the hallway with perfect clarity.

“And you"re the kind of man I like,” the object of his

attention replied. Then she squalled. “Hey, that hurt.”

“But you still like me?”

“You bet.” Pained.

“I had enough to drink,” another man said. “Let"s go

join Billy and the others.”

“Yeah,” agreed another. “This little girl"s got the hots

for me and I don"t want to waste what"s left of the night.”

“You"re a naughty boy,” a girl said, her voice brittle.

She sounded as coy as a mountain lion.

“Finish the bottle,” Forrest said, his voice making it

an order. “Night or day, don"t make no difference. We

screw these girls into the ground and then we get some

more. Maybe from the cantina. I hear those Mex gals can

keep it up twenty-four hours a day and still come back for

more.”

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“We ain"t no beginners,” one of the girls put in with

irritation, but Edge was no longer listening. From what he

had heard there were just two of Jamie"s murderers

upstairs, Billy Seward and one other. It was all he needed

to know for now.

The room next to the one he had entered by was

empty, and so was the one next door, but when he stepped

up to the next one across the hallway he heard sounds.

There was a series of sighs, interspaced with grunts of

pleasure and the occasional word of breathless endearment.

With, in the background, the creaking of a bed that had

provided support for too much lust and simulated passion

in the past, protested noisily at this latest onslaught. Edge

turned the handle, opened the door wide enough, slid inside

the room and closed the door behind him in one silent, fluid

movement.

Neither Scott nor the girl beneath him were shy, for a

candle flickered at each side of the bed, one on the dresser,

another on a broken backed chair. The girl was naked, the

man dressed in filthy under-vest and pants, opened where it

had proved necessary. The girl was staring up at the ceiling,

her expression of disinterested acceptance belying the sighs

and words of encouragement she whispered. Scott had his

face buried in the crook of her shoulder, was breathing like

an ancient horse sloughing the last furrow in a long day. He

would not have been aware of it had a train thundered

through the room but the girl was different and so Edge

was careful to hold his silence as he crossed the room in

long strides.

He stood for a moment at the foot of the bed, looking

at Scott"s thrusting body move between the girl"s spread

legs. Then, just as the girl sensed his presence, he leaned

the Henry against the bed and sprung forward, withdrawing

the razor from its pouch. The girl"s eyes grew wide, her

mouth wider as she opened it to scream a warning. But

Edge"s free hand, clenched in a white-knuckled fist, caught

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her on the point of the jaw and her mouth closed with a

force sufficient to crunch her teeth together so that the tip

of her tongue was hanging over the bottom lip, still

attached by a mere sliver of skin.

Scott"s sigh of climax was curtailed into a grunt of

pain as Edge"s full weight smashed on to his back. Then

Edge rolled off him, on to his back on the bed beside the

unconscious girl, dragging Scott bodily off her, across

himself and thumping him on to the floor. As he looked up

at his attacker surprise became horror and he prepared to

shout for help. But the downswing of the razor ended and

as he felt the cold edge of the blade below his left ear he

killed the words.

“I"d like you to know it"s for Jamie,” Edge said and

pressed down and across with the razor. The blade sank

deep into the soft flesh and cut a course in a arc beneath the

jaw, did not come free until it reached his right ear. Blood

oozed out, ran down to start spreading a clean, scarlet stain

across the grimed neckline of his under-vest. His dying

sound was a sigh more sensuous than those which the girl

had been pouring in his ear.

Edge looked down at his crotch, saw Scott had

completed his final act in life. “You came out of one,”

Edge murmured. “Guess it"s fitting you should die trying to

get back into another.”

Then he swung his legs across the supine body of the

dead man, stood and retrieved his rifle. He wiped the blood

from the razor on a bed blanket and went to the door, first

cracked it to peer outside before leaving the room. He

found Billy Seward in the room directly across the hall.

Exhausted and enjoying a drunken sleep, mouth open,

completely naked body stretched across the length and

width of the bed. His girl was in the corner of the room

washing the area of her body where Seward had spent

himself. She gasped when she saw Edge in the doorway but

made no further sound when he raised a finger to his lips,

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and stepped inside. When he had closed the door against

the sounds from downstairs he removed the finger from his

lips and jerked it at the man on the bed.

“You like him very much?” he asked.

The girl had a face that might have been pretty once,

but time an ill-treatment had taken their toll. She looked

abused and stupid. Even her nude body had lost any pride

that might once have been apparent in the firm, pointed

breasts and flared hips. She looked at Seward with

abhorrence.

“I hate him,” she whispered. “He hurt me bad.”

“How much did he pay you?” Edge asked.

She spat into the water. “Nothing.”

“I"ll double it if you keep quiet.”

She was as stupid as she looked. She took time to

think about the offer, smiled and nodded. “You going to

kill him?” Her eyes shone with pleasure.

“I ain"t going to sing him a lullaby,” Edge replied,

and went to the bed.

He selected the knife this time, and turned the rifle so

he was holding it by the barrel. “Billy,” he called softly,

bending, leaning close to the face of the sleeping man.

Seward grunted, closed his mouth.

“Billy,” sharply this time.

Seward"s eyes snapped open.

“They call me Edge now,” Edge told him. “But I"m

still Jamie"s brother.”

Seward"s mouth came open with a click and the knife

buried itself into the back of his throat. He gagged on blood

and steel and his teeth clanged down on to the blade. His

only sound was a gurgling, but his eyes, blurred by tears

revealed the full extent of his pain. Then the stock of the

Henry completed his execution, cracking against his

forehead, splitting the skin and laying the flesh open to the

bone.

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“You don"t fool around,” the girl said and Edge spun

around, saw her standing on the other side of the bed, still

naked, still looking excited.

“Now he knows it too,” he said. “Stay here.”

She nodded, smiled. “I"ll get my fun just looking at

him like that.”

Seward"s teeth had a death grip on the knife blade and

Edge had to use a lot of force to pull it clear. Suddenly the

girl"s bony fingers clasped Edge"s wrist and he watched

through narrowed eyes as she licked off Seward"s blood.

He waited until she had raised enough moisture into her

mouth to spit the dead man"s blood into his face before

turning and going out of the room.

He had reached the turn in the hallway at the head of

the stairs before the short laugh of the man coming up from

the saloon told him his next victim was at hand. And when

he stepped clear of the angle of the wall, came face to face

with him, he recognized Roger Bell. And recognition hit

Bell at the same instant.

“Christ the captain,” he said hoarsely and suddenly

took a backward pace and moved sideways, putting the

shocked saloon girl between himself and Edge. “Frank,” he

yelled in warning as he drew his Colt.

From the corner of his eye, Edge could see over the

banisters of the stairway as Forrest and Douglas exploded

into movement, pushing their girls away from them and

diving for the floor, pulling guns. Bell loosed off a shot that

whistled close to Edge"s ear and two cracks sounded from

below. One of these sent splinters flying from the banister

rail, which showered the face of the girl who was shielding

Bell. She screamed and collapsed as a sliver of wood

pierced her eye and Bell, a hand supporting her at the waist,

was suddenly exposed from his belt upwards. One bullet

from the Henry caught him in the middle of the belly, a

second drilled his heart and the third gouged a furrow down

the back of his head as he fell forward.

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“Three from Jamie,” Edge muttered as he stepped

back from a hail of bullets that was being hurled up from

the two men below.

A single shot, separated by a pause from the others,

then second of silence.

“Frank?” A woman.

“Yeah.”

“It ain"t me and Arlene"s fight.”

“Get.”

Footsteps rattled on the wooden floor. The swinging

doors swung, squeaking.

“How many you got?” Forrest"s voice addressed to

Edge.

“Three. Two more.”

“Who are you. You from town?”

A table crashed on its side.

“Iowa,” Edge called back as he pumped three more

shells into the Henry, making it fully loaded again.

“Frank?” Douglas called, from close to Forrest. “I

thought I heard Rodge say something before...”

“So?” Forrest asked.

“It sounded like Captain...”

“Jesus,” Forrest said just loud enough to carry up the

stairs.

“You heard right,” Edge said and suddenly broke

from the cover of the angle of the wall, pumping bullets

into the saloon below, firing blind and wild.

Only one shot was returned, splintering wood several

feet from Edge. Edge"s narrowed eyes pinpointed the table

from behind which the shot had come and concentrated his

fire upon it. The heavy caliber bullets smashed through its

underside and Douglas rose up from behind it like an

apparition, his revolver and falling from lifeless fingers as

blood stained his shirt in three places and fountained from

his cheek. Edge elevated the Henry for a final shot and saw

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Douglas go over backwards as his nose exploded, spraying

blood and splintered bone.

Edge vaulted over the banister, his feet smashing on

to a table top, his weight breaking the legs as if they were

cardboard. Three shots followed his progress, the last one

burning across his forearm, drawing blood. He dived for

the floor, wriggled behind the end of the long bar as more

shots dug into the wood and smashed bottles above his

head.

“We should have stayed around and taken care of you

like we did your brother,” Forrest called.

Edge heard the voice without listening as he rose and

ran in a half crouch to the far end of the bar, peered out

around the corner and got three quarters view of Forrest

squatting behind his cover, hastily reloading his Colt. Edge

stood and moved clear of the bar, raising and aiming the

Henry.

“Shut up and watch it coming, Forrest,” he called.

Forrest turned fast, looked in horror at Edge and then

at his unready gun.

“You wouldn"t shoot an unarmed man,” he implored,

knowing the lie of his words.

“They"re the easiest kind to kill,” he said and

squeezed the trigger.

But at that moment the hammer struck the firing pin,

glass shattered and another gun went off, the bullet

smashing into Edge"s hand, spinning the Henry from his

grasp, its shell burying itself harmlessly into the floor.

“Reach, Forrest,” a man commanded and as Forrest

obeyed Edge looked at the shattered emptiness of the

saloon window and saw Honey"s face nestled against the

stock of a rifle. “I think we want a hundred back,” he said

to Edge.

“He ain"t dead yet,” Edge said softly,

“He won"t see another sunrise,” Honey replied.

“Please throw down your revolver, Senor Edge.”

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As Edge complied the rest of the town came in

through the swing door, led by Gail.

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