Name On The Bullet - Edge Series 6 (12 page)

Hannah blurted triumphantly: ‘See, at least that proves we were right about you, mister!’

Edge was eating and allowed his glittering eyed gaze to pose the obvious query. Julia looked intently at him. ‘She means you’re a man familiar with such circumstances, Edge. And so there must have been some times in the past when you’ve agreed to help such people?’

He took his time chewing food and seemed reluctant to swallow it. She pressed on:

‘For a cash reward you’ve taken care of the kind of trouble that’s outside the experience of the kind of people who live in Brogan Falls?’

‘Damnit, Edge, when it suits you you’re a gun for hire, ain’t that the truth in a nutshell?’ Hannah demanded.

Edge swallowed, the women waited and he took up another forkful of beans. Julia showed disappointment, but Hannah grunted her satisfaction with his tacit response and showed a knowing smile as she said: ‘So I figure we can quit pussyfooting around, right? Sometimes a person’s silence can say more than a thousand words. This ain’t the first time you’ve been offered bounty money, it seems to me?’

‘Is that what you ladies are doing?’

‘No!’ Julia almost shouted into the surrounding near silence of the rain-freshened timber. ‘My father’s going to have the people of Brogan Falls put up a reward for the capture of the man who murdered Wendell. But it’ll be paid just to you alone. Nobody else. So it’ll be a kind of wage. Just like you were being paid while you worked on pa’s farm during the summer. So – ‘

‘He’s
going
to have them put up a reward?’ Edge cut in with heavy emphasis on one word.

The women exchanged anxious glances.

Julia said: ‘My father’s certain he’ll be able to convince them it’s what they should do. The marshal said the town’s fund for such a purpose can stretch to five hundred dollars. So you’ll be working for a lot more than that. Maybe double even?’

‘They figured five hundred bucks wouldn’t be enough for a guy like you,’ Hannah rasped scornfully. ‘So the good folks of Brogan Falls will take up a collection . . . ‘ She chewed on her lower lip. ‘Julia says her pa’s sure he can get them to do that.’

‘And you think I should – ‘

Hannah snarled: ‘Right now, mister, just do like you said you was gonna do. Eat your chow and listen, damnit!’

Edge inclined his head, showed a sardonic smile and said: ‘I beg your pardon, ladies. But you got to excuse a gun for hire like me not always recalling that he should keep his word.’

‘Look, please . . . Can’t we get this over and done with like the business deal it is?’

Julia seemed genuinely pained, perhaps even ashamed, to be involved in the exchange. ‘The long and short of it, Mr Edge, is that they can probably raise a thousand dollars in total. Which will be paid to you if and when you bring the man who murdered Wendell back to Brogan Falls.’

‘The sonofabitch who’s likely to be the same one who killed Vic!’ Hannah rasped.

‘All we need from you right now is your agreement to do what we ask for the money we’re offering,’ Julia said. ‘Or your refusal, so we can make other arrangements.’

‘No sweat.’

There was a sudden brief silence, ended when Edge set his plate down and rattled the fork on it.

‘Does that mean . . ?’ Julia began tensely and allowed her wide-eyed gaze to supply the conclusion to the question.

‘It means,’ Edge said evenly as he unfolded up from the ground, ‘that for the promise of a thousand bucks I’ll keep a look out for the killer the people of Brogan Falls want caught and brought back to town.

‘That’s not damn well good enough!’ Small patches of crimson showed in the centre of Julia’s cheeks and Edge recalled that all summer long he had never heard the woman utter a curse.

‘I’ll say it frigging well ain’t!’ Hannah was not embarrassed to use bad language. ‘The more time that goes by the harder it’ll be for anyone to track him down! So you can go to hell, mister! And like Julia says, we’ll find somebody else to take the money!’

She scrambled angrily to her feet and glowered at Edge like she hated him worse than she did the man who gunned down Munro. Julia rose with less ill-tempered haste. And her expression suggested no more than disgusted disappointment: like her hopes for the outcome had been strangely much lower than those of the worldly-wise whore. Edge drained his cup of coffee, stooped to pick up the used plate and cutlery and gestured to encompass their surroundings as he said evenly: ‘Just look around you, uh? In this kind of country this long after the killings there’s no chance of tracking sign: even if I knew the direction the killer’s headed in.’

‘Stop making more excuses!’ Julia accused and compressed her thin lips into an almost invisible line that for a moment made her look like a small child determined to get her own way against an adult argument.

‘Frigging right!’ Hannah snarled, angled the cigarette into the side of her firm set mouth and bent to snatch up a glowing bough from the fire to light it.

‘I wish you luck, ladies.’ He turned and went to the spot where he had spent the night and took his time over cleaning his plate with tufts of damp grass. Then he rolled up his blankets and started to saddle his horse. He paid scant attention to the women but was aware they were making similar preparations to leave the clearing and sensed each of them from time to time directed resentful glowers toward him. When he was ready to leave he straightened up from removing the hobbles from the forelegs of his horse and asked: ‘Do you mind telling me something, Miss McGowan?’

‘Why should either of us do you any favours?’ Hannah countered bitterly.

‘What is it?’ Julia still sounded dejected.

‘How come your pa and the marshal sent you two to put the proposition to me?’

Hannah made a sound of disgust then challenged: ‘You think they figured that if the money wasn’t enough to tempt you then maybe we’d be able to offer you a little something extra that a man couldn’t?’

‘Hannah Foster!’ Julia blurted and her entire face was suffused with the scarlet colour of embarrassment.

Edge smiled briefly. ‘It’s a dirty thought but I didn’t think it.’

‘The simple truth is, Mr Edge,’ Julia said quickly, like she sought to diminish her shock with a fast spoken explanation. ‘They don’t know . . . Nobody in Brogan Falls knows that Hannah and me left town. That I went to the jail and let her out after my father talked to me about raising money for a reward. Time was wasting and so – ‘

‘What she’s saying is that we lied to you,’ Hannah cut in grimly. ‘That good for nothing lawman didn’t let me out of his lousy jail. Julia turned me loose while he was asleep. And we came to find you because you’re the only one who got a really good look at the dame with the bastard that shot and killed her husband.’

She paused for a response and when none came went on: ‘We told you a bunch of lies, I admit. But the town’s sure to put up a reward. And maybe it won’t be as much as a grand, but it’ll only be for you. Lots of no account saddle tramps could likely come up with a couple of dead men and . . . ‘

She shuddered and expelled a stream of tobacco smoke. ‘Like you know, I’ve been around, Edge. And I’ve run with men a whole lot worse than Vic Munro could ever have been, I can tell you. Some of them bounty hunters. And the kind of guns for hire who hunt men with bounty money on their heads . . . they’ll stoop to any level if there’s easy dollars to be had at the end of the hunt. You know what I mean, I reckon?’

Julia hurried to ensure there would be no wrong impression given. ‘Not that we think you are that kind of man who – ‘

‘There’s nothing wrong with collecting reward money on a wanted man,’ Edge cut in as he swung up astride his horse. ‘But it can be as dangerous for the hunter as the hunted. So I’d advise you ladies not to let it be known you’re tracking a couple of killers.’

Julia shook her head vehemently. ‘That never was our intention. I’m not fitted to do such a thing and my father’s surely out looking for me already. So I’ll be going back with him now I’ve found you and made you the offer. Hannah may do as she pleases. I’ll take full responsibility for freeing her from Mr Hooper’s jailhouse.’

Edge tipped his hat, took up the reins and said: ‘I’m much obliged for the breakfast, ladies. And for letting me know there’s maybe some money in it for me if I get lucky enough to run into one particular blue eyed blonde and her beau.’

‘Why don’t you go with him, Hannah?’ Julia urged abruptly. ‘Perhaps you and Mr Edge together could – ‘

‘Go to hell, Julia McGowan!’ Hannah interrupted sourly. ‘There are times when even a whore can pick and choose the male company she keeps.’

Julia flushed, clutched a hand to her throat and checked what she had intended to say before they all heard hoof beats on the trail. Some way off along the turnpike to the north west, but maybe closer than they sounded because of the muffling effect of the thick timber that intervened.

‘I reckon these will be the men looking for you ladies.’ Edge tugged on the reins to wheel the horse.

‘Mister!’ Hannah blurted and the plea that sounded in the single word was plain to see on her green eyed, full lipped, suddenly wan face as Edge paused to peer back at the women.

‘Something you forgot to ask?’

She hurried on: ‘Look, just for awhile? Until they find Julia and head back for town . . ?

Can I ride with you?’

He did not answer at once.

‘No strings, no nothing,’ she pressed on plaintively. ‘As soon as we’re sure they won’t be coming after me . . . to take me back to jail . . . I’ll be on my own way.’

Julia ignored her own horse and hurried to throw the bedroll on the back of the other woman’s mount.

Edge said evenly: ‘This important personal business I have to do – ‘

‘No strings,’ she repeated. ‘But if you want to have a good time, then I ‘ ‘

‘Please hurry!’ Julia implored as she lashed the bedroll to the saddle of the bay gelding.

‘On your own or with him. No matter which, but you have to go quickly.’

‘Get mounted, lady,’ Edge told Hannah who was gazing fixedly up at him. ‘Maybe after I’ve attended to what I have to do, I’ll make plans to try a little bounty hunting. But it’ll be my intention to nail the killer without screwing anybody.’

CHAPTER • 7

__________________________________________________________________________

PERHAPS BECAUSE somebody in the bunch from Brogan Falls had an instinctive
feeling about getting close to what they were looking for, they all spurred their mounts to a faster pace along the Sacramento Turnpike. And galloping hooves set up a barrage of noise that masked the less obtrusive sounds of the geldings under Edge and Hannah Foster as they made more sedate progress: angling back and forth on a zigzagging course among the trees east of the trail.

Then when the men discovered the woman in the clearing and reined their horses to a snorting halt there was a burst of raucous shouting. And moments later, Julia McGowan’s complaining voice rang out more shrilly than those of the men: but not so much that her protesting words carried distinctly beyond the clearing.

‘Damnit, Edge, I wish you’d move faster than this!’ Hannah urged in a rasping whisper from where she rode close behind him.

‘Lady, you can do whatever the hell you like,’ he replied and made no attempt to pitch his voice low while the body of sound remained at a high level at least two hundred yards behind them through the dense expanse of pine trees. ‘But it ain’t me who’s running away from anything.’

There was a period while, without turning around to look at her, Edge guessed the apprehensive woman often peered nervously backwards while she struggled to contain the impulse to demand greater speed from her horse. Then she allowed in a husky tone: ‘Okay, you’re right. I sure can do whatever I like. But as long as I stick with you, you’re gonna be the head honcho.’

‘I’ve made the rules for what I have it in mind to do,’ he told her. ‘But if you want to tag along for now, no sweat.’

The ever-widening distance back to the clearing where the excitement of the men finding Julia quickly died down meant that soon the only sounds within the timber were those made by the pair of horses moving at an easy walk in single file through the coldly damp, pungently aromatic trees. Occasionally Edge glanced behind him and every once in awhile found the woman showed the remnants of a pensive expression before she had time to summon back the impassive look she was more comfortable to be seen with. Then she invited:

‘You know, if you really do want me to take off and leave you to ride on alone you only have to tell me so.’