Killing Time In Eternity - Edge Series 4 (24 page)

‘I don’t claim to be that, but – ‘

‘You notice something different about Brady?’

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‘What?’ She peered deliberately across the room and Brady was just as purposeful in the way he shifted his chair to put his back squarely toward her and Edge.

‘He’s got a black eye that he didn’t have when I was out at the Shaver place this afternoon.’

‘Has he? What does that . . ? Oh, I see what you mean. You think he may have got it at the colonel’s house? That him and Hardin - who sometimes seem like they’re joined at the hip they’re in each other’s company so much - could have been the ones who – ‘

Edge held up a free hand as he took a swallow of whiskey. ‘It’s not something I’ve just thought of, Sue Ellen. Don’t go jumping to a – ‘

‘I’ll go ask him about it.’ She rose resolutely to her feet and started across the saloon.’

‘ – conclusion that can wait to be reached,’ Edge finished in a murmur as everyone in the saloon looked up, their gazes drawn again to the woman whose heels as they rapped on the floor made the most obtrusive sound, then the only sound, in the Second Chance until she halted.

While Brady looked at her he was half turned on his chair in such a way that the discoloured swelling below his left eye was clear to see under the brightest lamp in the room.

‘This game is for men only, Miss Spencer,’ Shaver said.

She ignored him and said to Brady: ‘I think I ought to take a look at that shiner you’ve got, Gus.’

The man with long, dirty blond hair hanging lankly from under his hat brim raised a hand toward his injured cheek and vented a harsh and unconvincing laugh. ‘No, that’s okay, Miss Spencer. It don’t hurt nearly so much as my pride. I smacked into a doorpost on my way to the saloon. Before I even had a drink today, would you believe that?’

‘I don’t believe I would believe it,’ she replied evenly. The response caused a scowl to spread across the young man’s weather burnished face and a dangerous glint showed in his pale blue eyes. Edge made to rise from the table and was unable to check a groan when the abrupt move triggered fresh pain. He sat down again. Hardin got to his feet smoothly and fast, a threatening growl spilling from the pursed lips beneath his thick black moustache. Shaver abruptly reached out both hands and curled one to fasten a grip around the wrist of Hardin to one side of him and Brady the other. Baldwin did not move and continued to smile contentedly at the fan of cards he held.

‘Easy boys,’ Shaver said tautly and swung his head to look up at Sue Ellen, his discoloured teeth displayed in a smile that augmented the placating tone he used. ‘And 127

you, too, Miss Spencer. I reckon Gus appreciates your concern for his injury. But he don’t need to trouble you for any of your medical skills. And unless we all calm down it could be there’ll be trouble none of us wants?’

‘You know the rules!’ Segal yelled, his handsome face dark with controlled anger as he reached under the bar counter but didn’t produce any kind of weapon. ‘Any trouble in the Second Chance and I close up the place!’

‘There ain’t gonna be no trouble, Buck.’ Shaver released the double-handed hold on his men and leaned to the side so he could see around Sue Ellen to where Edge was now up on his feet. ‘And you, too, mister. We all heard how you got yourself roughed up tonight. So I don’t reckon you’re in any shape to come to the aid of a lady if she was in distress. Not after you couldn’t do nothing to stop poor old Walt Benson from getting his head stove in.’

‘You seem to know a great deal about what happened at the colonel’s house earlier, Mr Shaver?’ Sue Ellen’s intonation made her comment into a pointed innuendo.

‘What the hell are you trying to say?’ Brady demanded. ‘With that crack and about this black eye I got by accident, damnit!’

‘Yeah?’ Hardin sprang to his feet. ‘It sounds to me like you and him are tying to accuse us of – ‘

He reached for his holstered Colt, swung around and drew with a smoothness of action and speed Edge wasn’t sure he could have beaten even in the best of recent times. But tonight he had not buckled on his gunbelt to come to the saloon for what was planned as a quiet drink with Sue Ellen Spencer.

‘Don’t be such a crazy young fool!’ Shaver lunged upright and side stepped to place himself in the line of fire. ‘Put up that pistol!’

‘And then clear out of my place!’ Segal brought a shotgun into view above the bar top. He thumbed back the hammer but tilted the weapon to aim at the ceiling.

‘Lester!’ Shaver rasped at Hardin.

‘All of you!’ Segal snarled. ‘I warned you and now I’m telling you! I want you all to clear out of my saloon. I’m closing up. There’s been too much damn trouble in this town already. And I ain’t gonna risk having anyone killed on my premises!’

There were several stretched seconds of hard silence when he was through. That ended when Hardin cursed softly and holstered his revolver, Shaver swallowed noisily and Sue Ellen turned and her heels rapped again on the floorboards as she moved back to where Edge stood.

A bearded old timer drinking at a table alone growled sourly: ‘I’ve always said it. You let women come into a barroom you got yourself big trouble just waiting to happen.’

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‘And how’s your trouble, Mr Blades?’ Sue Ellen countered grimly as drinks were hurriedly swallowed and the disgruntled exodus from the saloon got under way. ‘Are those piles of yours still bothering you?’

Blades heavily wrinkled features coloured to deep crimson and he snarled: ‘You’ve got the wrong man, nursey! I ain’t never suffered in that area!’

Sue Ellen matched his hostile tone and expression as she countered: ‘So how come you’re always such a pain in the ass?’

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CHAPTER • 16

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EDGE AND Sue Ellen were the focus of much tacit and low toned ill will as they
headed up Main Street. They were very much not a part of the dispersing crowd of former patrons of the Second Chance and clearly were considered the prime reasons Buck Segal had closed up his saloon so early.

‘You know what?’ Edge said when the slow pace of his painful gait had separated them from the faster moving men and they were around the curve of the street, out of sight of a few others who were grouped near the horses at the hitching rail out front of the saloon.

‘Are you going to say it’s my fault for making it so you just had time for the one shot of liquor?’

‘No. What I think is that you could turn out to be Eternity’s very own Carry Nation. You sure seem to have struck a blow for temperance, the way you put such a sudden end to drinking in a public place in this town tonight.’

She gave a short laugh. ‘Let me tell you, Edge, being thrown out of the Second Chance Saloon is something that happens every now and again to most people who use it. The doc held the opinion that Buck Segal isn’t quite right in the head.’

She shrugged. ‘But it has to be said Buck’s never allowed any trouble to get out of hand in there. And as for me being against the demon drink well . . . Hey you louse, you did have a second shot of bourbon! You downed mine, you dirty dog!’

He said with a grin: ‘You were busy with other things and I hate to see good liquor go to waste.’

During the exchange Sue Ellen cast several glances back over her shoulder and then when they reached the Quinn and Son store she peered fixedly along the deserted curve of Main Street for several seconds.

Edge asked: ‘Are you worried Brady and Hardin won’t leave it where it lays, Sue Ellen?’

‘What?’ She was distracted then shook her head and returned her attention to him.

‘Did you happen to notice a buggy parked in the alley between the theatre and the candy store?’

She peered again along the stretch of deserted street where just a few lamps burned in the windows of the flanking commercial premises.

‘I can’t say I did.’

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‘There’s no reason you should and it probably wouldn’t have meant anything to you if you did, I guess. But I happen to know that it’s Olivia Colbert’s brand spanking new buggy. Delivered only last week. It’s particularly noticeable because it has a white roof canopy.’

‘Lee Baldwin was at the saloon so maybe he – ‘

‘Shush!’ The woman reached around him, sprang open the door and ushered him into his store while she continued to look fixedly back the way they had come. As he stepped inside, Edge heard splashing hooves and turning wheels heading up the muddy street from that direction: more than just one horse drawing a buggy. Then he saw the distinctive white topped rig and four escorting riders approaching at a sedate pace. Slowly enough so that he and Sue Ellen had plenty of time to step into the store and get the door firmly closed before the white roofed cut-under buggy and four men on horseback moved by. In the light of the moon filtered through ragged clouds, the riders were seen to be Shaver and Brady at the front with Hardin and Baldwin to the rear: the quartet easy to identify because they all turned to glower at the store where they expected Edge to be. Only the lower length of the light coloured skirts of a woman could be seen of the buggy’s driver.

‘Odd, uh?’ Sue Ellen murmured as the rig and riders moved out of sight and the sounds of their measured progress began to be diminished by widening distance.

‘I have to allow that it’s pretty late in the day for a lady of Olivia Colbert’s means to drive into town to bring the builders out to her house.’

‘So, what do you think is going on?’

Edge reached for the door latch. ‘I think I’ll maybe go after them and try to find that out, Sue Ellen.’

‘Are you in any state of health for riding?’

‘I figure a lot of what we feel as pain is in the mind. And if a man has something else to occupy him, it helps to ease what ails him.’

‘Okay, on your own mind be it,’ she said.

He left her standing in the doorway while he went around to the rear of the building and into the stable that was shared with the owner of the neighbouring meat market owner. He had just begun to saddle the chestnut gelding in the light of a kerosene lamp when he heard a sound behind him, turned too sharply and uttered a low groan of pain: scowled at the woman standing in the doorway.

‘Was that some kind of medical test you ran on my fitness to be doing this?’ He instantly regretted the irritation that rasped in his tone.

‘I just thought you might have need of this?’ Her resentment lasted for only a moment as she held out the gunbelt with a walnut butted Colt in the holster he had earlier 131

hung on the peg behind the door in the parlour. ‘But I see you have a rifle in the bucket. So maybe I should have the pistol?’

She started toward the other stall where Wyatt Ramsay’s horse stood.

‘What do you think you’re doing, Sue Ellen?’

‘You attend to your own business,’ she answered with as much firm determination in her voice as in her actions. ‘Wyatt and me are old friends. He won’t mind if I borrow his horse for awhile.’

‘To go where?’

‘Where do you think? With you, of course.’

‘I go alone, lady!’ He finished preparing his horse for riding and turned to face the woman.

‘So I’ll tag along behind you.’ She surrendered the gunbelt into his outstretched hand and went on as he buckled it around his waist then fastened the holster toe ties:

‘You’re still my patient and in case you need any more medical care, I should be close by.’

She coaxed the grey gelding out of the stall and expertly hefted a saddle on to his back without looking at Edge. ‘And there’s no point in arguing with me, is there? Because unless you lock me up in here – and you’d need to tie and gag me to keep me from yelling blue murder and doing anything else necessary to raise a stink which would – ‘

‘All right, all right: we’re wasting time!’ He led his horse to the doorway.

‘You’re the one doing that.’ Her tone was defensive in response to his peevishness. Because she had no aches and pains to hamper her, Sue Ellen was much faster than he had been in cinching the saddle securely to the horse. And Edge hardly had time to haul himself awkwardly astride the chestnut before she appeared from the stable and swung aloft the grey with the same smooth ease with which she had put the saddle on the horse.

‘Tell me something?’ he asked as he led the way down the alley.

‘If I can.’

‘Is there anything you’re not good at?’

‘There’s one thing for sure.’ They started along the street in the same direction taken by the buggy and four riders.’

‘That surprises me.’ Without any conscious effort, his mood had lightened.