Name On The Bullet - Edge Series 6 (31 page)

The Timberland Saloon was still without close neighbours, isolated between two extensive vacant lots and standing back from the street by fifty or sixty feet. Edge angled his mount toward the unimpressive façade, halted the gelding, dismounted and hitched his reins to the rail beside the three steps that rose to the batwinged entrance at a midway point along the building wide porch. He saw the place seemed to have undergone a few essential repairs since the last time he was in town but that it was still in need of a lick of paint and the replacement of some cracked panes of glass: and the sign on the roof was lopsided. He had never come close enough to the building when he was last in town to notice if the two dilapidated rockers and the warped bench on the porch had been there in any kind of condition.

After he pushed between the batwings he waited for his eyes to adjust to the lower level of light that contrasted with the bright sun outside before he advanced across the ill furnished and devoid of patrons saloon: then recognised another face.

‘Howdy, what can I get you?’ The professionally amiable greeting was offered by the man behind the centre of the long bar at the rear of the musty smelling room as he started a smile. Then modified the expression to one of mild intrigue when Edge got close enough to be clearly seen. ‘Well, I’ll be, if it ain’t . . .’

‘That’s who it is and what you can get me is a beer, feller,’ Edge said as the bartender allowed his voice to trail away. ‘You’re Fred’s pa, right? Name of Whitney?’

‘Jack Whitney, Mr Edge.’ He was tall, skinny, sixty years old and gimlet eyed and wore a check shirt and leather waist apron. He made to reach for a glass from a shelf behind him, but then thrust out his right hand across the counter instead. ‘It’s been quite a while since – ‘

‘Sometimes it seems that way.’ Edge shook the man’s hand then dug for the makings as the beer started to be drawn. ‘At others it’s like it was a lot more recent. That comes of getting older, I guess.’

‘Ain’t that the truth.’ Whitney nodded enthusiastically as he put down the glass of beer. ‘But a man like you – who’s been long gone from these parts – he has to see a lot of changes to the town? Of the kind that don’t happen in a matter of days, uh?’

Edge took money from a hip pocket.

‘On the house, Mr Edge.’ Whitney said earnestly. ‘Which may go some way to making amends for the trouble you had back when – ‘

‘Obliged, but I pay my own way,’ Edge said evenly as he placed some coins on the bar top. ‘Except for those times when I’m an unwilling guest of the law. I didn’t object to eating and drinking for free back then.’

Whitney sorted out five cents and picked them up. ‘Suit yourself. But it wasn’t for no charge from me. Slim Haydon paid me out of county funds for whatever you had. He’s still the sheriff around here, by the way.’

‘I heard that.’

‘And John Smith still has his grocery store along the street, despite all the competition he’s up against since the town got to be so big. He has a wife to help him run the place these days.’

Edge finished rolling the cigarette. ‘I heard about that, too.’

Whitney was curious. ‘Have you been around town for some time, Mr Edge?’

‘Just got here a few minutes ago, feller. But I rode down from Brogan Falls with a lady who works at the Junction Hotel.’

‘Is that so?’ He remained intrigued as he watched Edge strike a match on the butt of his holstered Colt and light the cigarette. Then he shrugged. ‘Did she tell you who it was that big John Smith married?’

‘No.’

‘Loretta. I guess you got good reason to remember Loretta who used to work for me here in the saloon?’

‘I do, feller. Have you just got your boy to help out now?’

Whitney pulled a pain face. ‘Fred ain’t how you remember him, mister. It has to be said that he wasn’t never no genius. But since he got kicked in the head by a spooked horse and it did something bad to his brain . . . Like I say, he never was so smart but nowadays he ain’t much use for anything that needs any thinking about.’

‘That’s tough.’ Edge tried the beer, found it cold and the flavour to his liking. ‘Is he still a fine marksman?’

The bartender nodded and expressed pride. ‘That he is. Still wins prizes for it. And he helps me out with the provision of food for the saloon every now and then by shooting game in the woods.’

‘That’s good.’

‘I can’t think of anyone else you’d recall who’s still living here in town.’ There was on Whitney’s thin face now an expression that suggested he was not telling the whole truth and was uncomfortable with the knowledge he withheld.

‘What about – ‘ Edge curtailed the query when the batwing doors swung open and he turned to look toward them.

Whitney shifted his disconcerted gaze to the same direction and showed relief at the interruption as a woman entered the saloon. A tall and slender blonde of thirty or so whose lightness of tread explained why they had not heard her mount the steps and cross the porch.

‘Good morning to you, Mrs Sheldon,’ Whitney greeted brightly as she weaved among the scattering of tables and came up to the bar some ten feet to the left of where Edge stood.

‘Mr Whitney,’ she acknowledged. ‘I’d like another bottle of your finest whiskey, if you please.’

Edge had been aware since she started across the saloon that the woman showed more than passing interest in him. And that she was apprehensive: like she regretted she could not turn around and leave before she got closer to him. For several moments after she reached the bar and made her request, she purposefully kept her gaze averted from him. But he had already noted her eyes were blue in a pale face that was one of the prettiest he had seen in a long time, framed by short cut blonde hair. She wore a floral patterned dress that covered her slender form from throat to ankles and from shoulders to wrists. It looked good on her.

‘Ma’am.’ He tipped his hat.

‘Good morning to you.’ She glanced at him and the moment he saw her full face at close range he was sure of who she was. But he showed no sign that he recognised her.

‘There you go, Mrs Sheldon,’ Whitney said as he set down the bottle of bourbon on the counter. ‘Same two bucks as before. How’s the patient?’

She had the coins already in her fist and dropped them, on the counter. Grasped the bottle by the neck and swung around to leave as she answered hurriedly: ‘Making slow but steady progress, thank you.’

Edge turned from watching her swaying body and heard her greet somebody outside while the batwings were still flapping behind her: found Whitney eyeing him with a knowing smile.

‘She’s quite a looker, that Sarah Sheldon, ain’t she?’

‘If I was younger and I was looking, she’d sure have my attention,’ Edge said and sipped his beer. ‘But she’s wearing a gold band that shows she’s already spoken for?’

It wasn’t the man behind the bar counter who said: ‘That sure is right. She ain’t a widow and she has a husband staying with her at the hotel. A guy with a busted ankle that all the money he’s got ain’t helping to heal any faster. How are you doing, Edge?’

The man who had greeted the woman out front of the saloon supplied this information as he now pushed between the batwings and headed for a point along the bar closer to Edge than Sarah Sheldon had stood.

‘I ain’t so bad, sheriff, ’Edge said when Haydon reached the bar and matched the appraising look the lawman directed at him. Saw that even with a little extra weight at the middle, a little less redness in his beard and heavier bags under the pale blue eyes, the lawman was as instantly recognisable to look at as his voice had been to hear. He still wore the same tarnished badge as years ago. ‘And you, feller?’

‘No complaints and hoping that’s the way it will stay?’

‘I don’t aim to give you cause for any, sheriff.’

The lawman nodded, grinned and thrust out his hand that Edge took as Haydon asked:

‘Are you just passing through town?’

Edge sipped some more beer as Haydon nodded to the bartender who drew another glass of the same brew. ‘I have a little business to attend to then I’ll be on my way.’

Haydon drank some beer, wiped the back of a hand across his foamed lips and said evenly: ‘As long as it ain’t against the law or don’t cause me any trouble of a personal nature I wish you luck with it.’

‘Much obliged.’

‘Have to warn you, though, that it’ll cause trouble if you come between that nice young Sheldon couple staying at the hotel until the guy’s ankle’s healed. And don’t you tell me that you weren’t a little smitten by the way that wife of his moves her body when she walks.’

‘It’s another body that’s the reason I came back to Pine River Junction, sheriff.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’ Haydon was perturbed.

‘The body of Adam Steele: what’s left of it, anyway. In the grave out back of the church.’

Whitney gulped.

Slim Haydon said: ‘Do you mean what I think you mean, mister?’ He looked quizzically across the counter at the uneasy bartender. ‘Does he mean that he wants to dig up Steele’s body Jack?’

Whitney swallowed hard again. ‘It sure sounds like that’s what he means, Slim.’

Edge finished his beer and said with an easy grin: ‘That sure is the undertaking that’s brought me back to this town.’

‘It don’t strike me as funny,’ Haydon growled.

Edge said. ‘This is between Virginian and me, feller. And both him and me always did appreciate a little humour of the graveyard kind.’

‘Can he do that, Slim?’ Whitney asked. ‘Dig up a body that’s been buried legal and proper in the town cemetery?’

‘I don’t know: can you do that?’ Haydon asked rhetorically of Edge. Edge shrugged and answered evenly: ‘Remains to be seen.’

CHAPTER • 18

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THE COOL and dimly sunlit Timberland Saloon remained quietly peopled by just the
bartender and his two customers while Jack Whitney nursed a whiskey and Slim Haydon and Edge had another beer each as the legality of what one of the three planned to do was discussed. And some ten minutes or so after hearing at the outset just why Edge felt the need to dig up the remains of Adam Steele and take them elsewhere the lawman allowed that, as far as he was aware, there was no local or state ordinance or federal law to forbid such an exhumation from taking place.

But he felt he would have to check with the preacher and the mortician, into whose province the cemetery came: and also he needed to talk with the doctor about any health risk there might be in opening up such an old grave. After Haydon had left the saloon to attend to these errands, Whitney asked:

‘Did the notion to do this just come to you out of the blue, mister?’

‘No feller, it came out of a piece of the south western territories,’ Edge answered as he fleetingly recalled yet again the determination with which a woman named Lucy Russell had searched for and finally located the burial place of the long dead lieutenant she was to have married.

‘Uh?’ Whitney was becoming more intrigued by the moment.

‘It’s only important to me,’ Edge told him absently. ‘I was present one time when it was done. It’s only different now because then the grave was out in open country a long way from a regular cemetery. So there were no rules or regulations to say it wasn’t allowed.’

For several seconds they had both been aware of heavy footfalls approaching over the hard packed dirt out front of the saloon and now the booted feet thudded up the steps and across the porch. Then the batwings were flung violently open to crash against the flanking walls of the entrance as another familiar voice from the past snarled:

‘Since when did your kind ever give half a damn for rules and regulations?’

Edge had set down his beer glass and turned to put his back against the bar when the hurried and heavy footed approach signalled the newcomer was not so even-tempered as everyone else he had met since he rode into Pine River Junction. His expression remained impassive and his tone was even when he answered: ‘Since I gave up meeting trouble head on and started trying to ride around any that I could see coming at me.’

The dungaree-clad once tall and muscular George Guthrie was much flabbier than when he used to work his farm in the valley to the west of town those times he was not playing in high stakes card games. But there was about his still handsome face a strangely gaunt look for such a fat man whose once jet-black hair had turned entirely white. He struggled to curb his anger as he halted abruptly on the threshold of the saloon, his glaring blue eyes fixed upon Edge.

Jack Whitney rasped grimly: ‘Slim has warned Edge not to cause any trouble, George. And I’d guess he’d tell the same thing to you if he knew you were – ‘