The Deputy - Edge Series 2 (35 page)

He hid the bay gelding outside of the village to prevent it from being recognised by those he stole it from. Then, ravenously hungry from travelling so many hours without food and with his customary thirst for hard liquor, he mingled with the merrymakers enjoying the local fiesta: ate plenty and drank more than his fill.

‘And I ended up in jail,’ he said, no note of regret in his tone. ‘I got too drunk, I guess. I don’t remember so well. I do remember waking up and that the Mexican lawman told me I had to stay in jail until I was sober. It was very late and the party was over. Then he went home.’

‘And later still you heard something you weren’t supposed to?’ Rosita prompted, looking puzzled. ‘But you could not hear in the Federale post what was said in the cantina?’

‘Outside, I heard them,’ he answered. ‘I was not so drunk as I thought I was. As the Mexican lawman thought I was. Most times when I drink too much I do not eat anything. But that night I was so hungry and there was a feast to eat. So I was not still in a drunken stupor when I woke in the jail where I had been left alone.’

He was addressing the woman now, craning forward in his saddle to look across the front of Edge who gave no sign he was listening: certainly offered no encouragement to the mixed breed to confirm what Manuel Torrejon and then Rosita Jurez had told him.

‘I heard a man ride fast on to the plaza. And he shouted very loud the name of Jose Martinez. Men came out of the cantina. There was much loud talk but all of it in Spanish that I do not understand. Then they all went inside the cantina and I could hear nothing. Until they came out and most of them went to bring the horses from the livery stable.’

‘What did you hear then?’ the woman asked eagerly.

‘Two of them came to the building where I was a prisoner. And I was sure this would mean the end for me. I heard their talk, one a Mexican the other American. The American 199

had not understood what had happened and the Mexican told him. This was how I found out Eduardo Martinez was very sick and his son was going to him.’

Billy Injun ran the back of a hand across his sweat-beaded forehead. Then jutted out his lower lip to blow cool air up over his face and growled: ‘Talking is sure thirsty work, uh?’

This time Edge spoke. ‘You’re doing real well, feller. Building up a lot of credit you can use in the Dancing Horse Saloon when we reach Bishopsburg.’

The knife scarred face changed in an instant from savagely ugly to beamingly appealing and he hurried on: ‘The two men banged fists on the door and yelled. Trying to wake the Mexican lawman. But he was not there for he had gone home. Then they left San Luis.’

‘The whole bunch of them?’ Edge asked.

The mix breed shrugged. ‘I was not able to see this. I could only hear sounds and voices. And I heard it said they would not go back to Bishopsburg the same way they came. They planned to ride a different way, to go around the posse that was known to be coming for them.’

‘Then in the morning Manuel Torrejon came to let you out of the Federale post,’ the woman said.

‘Yes, missy. Before dawn the lawman in the uniform came back to release me. He told me to leave San Luis and warned that if I ever come back he’d lock me up again and throw away the key.’

Billy smiled. ‘So I got out of town damn quick and right away I went to where I had left my horse . . . ‘ He looked askance at Edge and corrected himself: ‘Your horse, mister. And I rode on the trail of those whose sign I had tracked from Bishopsburg. And when I saw where they had swung wide in part of a circle I thought it best to ride back toward San Luis. And wait close by for the posse I was sure would be led by my good friend Sheriff George. And I would tell him what I knew.’ Billy licked his dry lips again and tried another ingratiating smile when he added: ‘To build up some credit with him, you understand?’

‘You’re still doing fine,’ Edge assured him. ‘I heard you told all this to Ted Straker and the men with him? And they high-tailed it away from San Luis to go after Martinez and the others?’

‘Me, too. I rode with them at the beginning, mister. But my horse – your horse – he went lame. They said they could not waste time while I walked with the horse. So I had to walk alone again. But then I found out how the horse going lame was the luckiest thing 200

that ever happened to me. Because for sure I would have been killed with the others in the ambush, uh?’

‘Yeah, you certainly had a stroke of good fortune, Billy,’ Edge agreed.

‘I have told nearly all of it now,’ the mixed breed said. ‘Except how when I got to the hilltop where the ambush took place – after I heard gunfire in the night – I rested myself and the horse. Later saw two riders coming from the south.’

‘Edge and me,’ Rosita Jurez said with a trace of impatience. Billy shook his head. ‘No, not you then. These two were Mexicans. Both men - with badly scarred faces I saw when they were close.’

Rosita and Edge traded glances.

‘Almost as bad as mine. But not old scars. I stayed hidden until they moved on, laughing at so much death. Then much later I saw you and the missy riding toward me, also from the south. And waited to see if – ‘

‘That’s fine,’ Edge said and dug out the makings. ‘You’ve earned your credit, feller.’

‘I look forward very much to the whiskey you have promised, mister.’

‘And I look forward to having a shot or two with you in the Dancing Horse, Billy.’ He rolled the cigarette, lit it and tossed the still burning match to the barren ground as Rosita said quizzically:

‘Does it not seem strange that Jose Martinez wasted time waiting in ambush if his father is truly on his deathbed?’

‘I don’t figure he did that,’ Edge said pensively. ‘It would need just a couple of gunslingers with the killer instinct to cut down the posse in the rocks back there. And Bryce and Harvey have certainly got that instinct.’

The woman shuddered,

‘And Martinez had no more need of their services,’ Edge went on. ‘Except to slow down anyone trailing him. Or stop them dead. He paid them off in San Luis for busting him out of jail. Maybe he put up a bonus for them to take care of some final business.’

‘But our final business has not yet been taken care of has it,
querido?’
H e r expressive dark eyes showed deep anxiety.

‘It sure hasn’t, lady,’ he assured her.

Now hatred burned in her eyes as she snarled softly: ‘Not until Jose Martinez has been tried and hanged!’

Edge ran the palm of a hand down the neck of his horse as he murmured on a trickled stream of tobacco smoke: ‘And Morgan Bryce has paid what he owes me.’

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It was late morning as the three riders with the string of corpse-burdened horses drew level with the tumbledown adobe to which the mixed breed gave just a passing glance as he told the woman: ‘That is where I live, missy.’

‘Si,’
the pre-occupied Rosita responded absently. Billy took the brief response as a less than complimentary comment on his home and felt the need to defend self-righteously: ‘I know it is not much. But it is a place where I am mostly left alone. Where I can forget my troubles.’

‘Si,’
she repeated and offered a fleeting smile as she added: ‘There is much to be said for having such a place to live. Do you have such a place, Edge?’

‘Mostly I get by living under my hat,’ he told her.

‘But are you able to forget your troubles there?’

‘I never do forget them, lady. I take care of them and then I don’t have any troubles.’

‘Like the matter of your stolen horse and the man who stole him? Who you plan to kill?’ There was reproach in her tone and expression.

‘That ain’t my main concern at the moment,’ he answered evenly as they rode on to the end of Bishopsburg’s Main Street between the church and cemetery and the line of houses in one of which lived a new widow and her fatherless twin children. There were no sounds from these houses or anywhere else in town. Nor the slightest sign of movement along the entire length of the broad street that shimmered in the late morning heat.

‘You see much of life simply as a matter of right and wrong, don’t you, Edge?’ The reproach was still clearly evident.

‘That’s right, lady. And maybe it’s wrong.’ His glittering, narrow eyed gaze continued to shift constantly, seeking a reason for the absence of activity in the town while his hearing was attuned to detect a first sound that could hint of what was amiss here.

‘That is all very well for someone such as you – ‘

‘Hey, Edge!’

It was a man’s voice that interrupted her as they reached the intersection of River Road with Main Street, between the Hyams Guest House and the Gomez Dry Goods Store. And all three reined in their mounts and looked toward the porch of the boarding house as the door was inched open a crack.

Edge unfastened the rope on the string of horses and asked: ‘What’s up, feller?’

‘There’s big trouble here,’ Otis Logan answered, the jug eared old timer not showing himself in the narrow gap between the door and the frame. ‘They’re up at the law office.’

202

‘Tell me about it, feller.’

‘Old man Martinez has died. His heart packed up.’

‘And Bishopsburg is in mourning for him?’ Edge said cynically. Two women in the hallway behind Logan caught their breath. Doris Hyams and the schoolteacher Bette McBain, Edge guessed.

The unseen Logan explained: ‘That murdering Martinez kid blames the people of the town for his old man’s death. Reckons worrying about the trial and the threat of him being hanged was what finally killed his father. And he plans to make us all pay.’

‘Pay how?’

‘Him and his buddies have got Ted Straker’s wife and their two kids held hostage in the law office. And he’s given folks until noon to start burning the town. Or else Liz Straker and the twins’ll be shot.’

Edge continued to concentrate his attention on the law office further up the street at the corner of Mossman Road. Which looked to be as deserted as every other building in town. ‘Midday’s getting real close, I’d say?’

‘I’ll check.’

There were subdued scuffling sounds in the hallway of the boarding house, then Doris Hyams chided: ‘Dear God, what does a minute here or there matter, you old fool?

The clock on the mantle says it’s a quarter after eleven.’

Logan started to argue: ‘My watch says – ‘

‘So what’s going to happen?’ Edge cut in.

Otis Logan was irritated. ‘I just told you, damnit! That no good Martinez kid is going to –

‘Are people going to start burning down Bishopsburg, feller?’

The old man hidden in the hallway vented a strangled sound. ‘Hell, I don’t know! No one knows! Folks are waiting for other folks to make a first move, I reckon.’

Rosita asked: ‘Has anyone tried to talk with Martinez?’

‘Well, it’s hardly been – ‘ Doris Hyams began.

Logan interrupted: ‘Liz Straker and the twins must’ve been took before dawn. Before anyone knew anything about what was happening. And it was way after sun up when Jose showed himself with a gun held at the head of one of the kids. Told us what we had to do. That if anyone tried to get close to the law office, one of the twins would get the first bullet.’

‘This is very dangerous,’ Billy Injun growled and shuddered.

‘That evil Martinez boy is most certainly very dangerous,’ Bette McBain rasped.

203

Edge dropped his cigarette butt and asked: ‘You said there are others in the law office with Martinez and Straker’s wife and kids? How many, do you know?’

Logan answered: ‘I ain’t exactly sure of that, mister. The Gomez woman is in there. And a couple of Mexican
pistoleros
who look like they’ve been in a fight they lost. Got fresh knife cuts all over their faces.’

Rosita caught her breath and rasped a Spanish oath as Edge absently massaged his right forearm. Then the boarding house door cracked open a fraction more and Logan asked:

‘What have you got tied to them horses, mister?’ His tone thickened suddenly as he blurted: ‘My God, that’s not Ted Straker and the . . ?’

Edge slid the Winchester out of the saddle boot and canted it to his left shoulder as he said: ‘I reckon we should take care of the living first.’

Billy Injun swallowed hard, mopped sweat off his face and muttered: ‘I am badly in need of a drink of that whiskey you promised me, Mr Edge.’

‘Be patient, feller,’ Edge muttered. ‘We ain’t reached the promised land yet.’

Miss McBain asked from a constricted throat: ‘What do you intend to do?’

‘What somebody has to, lady.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Something.’

‘I do not like this at all,’ Billy complained fearfully. ‘Only the good get to go to that promised land you joke about. And I’m sure I’ll go to the other place. But I’ve been hoping not for a long time yet, so – ‘