The Deputy - Edge Series 2 (15 page)

‘Upholding the law’s not what I’ve got in mind as a line of work, feller. So I – ‘

‘I’m not asking you to make a career out of it,’ North cut in impatiently. ‘I only need you to hire on for as long as it takes to wrap up this murder trial. Look, I just come from the telegraph office. Got a reply to the message I sent yesterday.’

He took out a telegram form and pushed it across the table to Edge who scanned the message printed in pencil:

SHERIFF GEORGE NORTH

BISHOPSBURG

TEXAS

JUDGE ROBERT SMALL TO ARRIVE THERE BY STAGE 15TH THIS MONTH.
KINDLY HAVE COURT CONVENED AND MARTINEZ CASE READY FOR TRIAL AT

NOON THAT DAY.

STATE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT.

‘Eight days,’ Edge said as he handed the wire back.

‘Right. Which can be one hell of a long time in this kind of situation. Time for trouble to brew up and get started. I’ll pay you two dollars a day until it’s over. A bonus of double that if you have to take any kind of dangerous hand in seeing the matter reaches a satisfactory conclusion.’

He didn’t smile as he added: ‘Is that agreeable to a man who’s trying to be the agreeable type?’

‘What exactly will my duties be, sheriff?’

North was irritated by the question. ‘To help me and Ted Straker keep the peace around here, damnit!’

‘Tell you what I’ll do?’

‘You can try. For now. But if you take on the job it’ll be me giving the orders. And you’ll be taking them. The same

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way Alvarez and his men will! And they’re not getting paid.’

‘I figure that to their way of thinking they’re getting well rewarded in kind. What I’ll do for the money you’re offering is be available.’

‘What the hell does that mean, damnit?’

‘For two bucks a day and maybe the bonus, I’ll be ready whenever you need me to help keep the peace as far as the Martinez business is concerned. But I don’t intend to take care of any other deputy type duties.’

North pursed the lips of his soured mouth line. ‘I’m not sure Ted Straker will cotton on to that. When I put the idea of hiring you to him he was looking forward to sharing some of the routine chores. Street patrols, paper work, standing guard over Martinez: that kind of thing.’

Edge shrugged and said: ‘I’ll take a turn at standing guard in the jailhouse. Because it’d be part of the job. But the rest of it . . . I need work, feller. But like I told your deputy yesterday when he suggested grave digging to raise some money, I’m not that strapped for cash yet.’

North finished his drink at a swallow, sucked deeply against the cheroot and for a few moments gazed into space, relishing the dual flavours of rye and tobacco smoke as he gave consideration to the offer. Then he abruptly thrust out a hand and while Edge grasped it to seal the arrangement, his other hand delved into a shirt pocket and came out holding the badge that had been returned to him last night.

‘Glad to have you as one of us. And I’d like for you to wear it all the time, even if you don’t have a specific duty to perform, uh?’

‘Do you really think one extra badge seen around town will scare Martinez’s men out of trying to stop the trial any way they can, sheriff?’

As he finished speaking a group of riders was heard out on the street and while they slowed their horses from a fast gallop North rose from the table and said while he watched Edge pin the badge on his shirt front:

‘Like I told you in the law office last night, the oath you swore in Railton City still holds good, deputy. Just keep it in mind that all the time you’re wearing that tin star you’ll carry out my brand of straight-down-the-line law.’

‘I guess I’m a long way short of being perfect, feller, but I do my best to never break my word,’ Edge said evenly.

North nodded emphatically. ‘I’m grateful to you for agreeing to lend a hand. And if I have to pay you for doing nothing, then I’ll be better pleased than for having had need of you again to cover my back the way you did last night.’

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Edge tipped his hat in acknowledgement.

‘Be seeing you, Jake,’ the lawman called toward the bartender as he turned from the table. ‘Another drink for Edge. On my tab.’

‘Much obliged,’ Edge said. ‘But if you could make that a bowl of what I can smell cooking out back, I’d appreciate it better.’

‘Be even more of a pleasure to stand the treat,’ North said with a fleeting smile.

‘Anyone with good sense knows liquor is no use if a man needs to keep his wits about him.’

‘An excellent sentiment,
senor,’
somebody said from just outside the batwings. The three men in the saloon looked in that direction and saw the newcomer’s well groomed head and shoulders above the half doors and his highly polished booted feet below them as he went on in the same even tone:

‘It is why I drink only infrequently. And when I do indulge in alcohol I invariably confine myself to the finest wines. Mostly those that are imported from the land of my Spanish forebears.’

‘Senor
Martinez,’ North greeted, his deeply lined, darkly bristled features grim set in contrast to the neutral expression of the man who now pushed between the batwings. The father of the prisoner awaiting trial for murder was of medium height and slight build. He was starting to put on a little weight around the middle and at the jowls of his Hispanic face as he hovered close to or perhaps had recently past sixty years of age. Grey haired and lightly moustached, he had small dark eyes and a blemish free complexion. Dressed in a grey, piping decorated three piece suit tailored in the Mexican style, he carried a straw sombrero and wore several silver rings set with coloured jewels on both hands.

Edge recognised there was a pallor of sickness evident beneath the man’s natural and element burnished skin. But, at the moment, what Eduardo Martinez lacked in physical presence and strength was recompensed by the body of men heard to ride into town with him.

These remained silently in their saddles out front of the saloon and Edge guessed they were just a small sample of many more – with guns or influence – he could command if necessary.

‘Sheriff North.’ The wealthy Mexican businessman’s response to the lawman’s greeting had a matching icy politeness. ‘I have come to Bishopsburg once more to see if we can resolve the matter that is such an irritant for both of us?’

He held back on the threshold flanked by the half open batwings while he surveyed with distaste the saloon in which the atmosphere was heavily permeated by the pungent 87

aroma of cooking chilli. ‘Since I assume that, like me, you are not a great drinker of hard liquor . . . Perhaps we can find more appropriate surroundings for our discussion on such a serious subject?’

North pointedly sat down again, folded his arms and said evenly around his bobbing cheroot: ‘Here is fine with me,
senor.
I doubt Jake stocks the kind of high quality wine that’s to your taste, but – ‘

The Mexican’s expression became neutral again as he started forward, the batwings flapping behind him and broke in: ‘Whatever you wish. I am a guest in your town and you are my host. I will not impose upon your hospitality beyond requesting you to listen to what I have to say. In private or in public, whatever you wish?’

‘This is my new deputy so he should hear you out, the same as me,’ North said with a nod down at the still seated Edge. ‘I reckon Jake won’t mind too much shutting up the Dancing Horse and making himself scarce for awhile if you want it that way?’

‘Not for my benefit, sheriff. I have nothing to say which would shame me: so it will bear repeating if anyone should wish to - ’

‘Hey, you meaning you think I’m the kinda guy to blab about private stuff I overhear in my place?’ Carr protested indignantly.

As Martinez reached the table where North and Edge sat he made a placating gesture toward the scowling bartender.

‘I assure you I did not mean that at all,
Senor
Carr. I simple stated a fact.’

He shifted his attention away from Carr in an imperious manner intended to exclude the disgruntled man from the exchange as he asked of North: ‘May I take a seat at your table, sheriff?’

‘Help yourself. My new deputy’s name is Edge. Maybe you’ve heard of him?’

Martinez lowered himself gingerly down on to the chair and grimaced, as if his joints ached after the rigors of the ride to town. Then gave Edge a peremptory glance and replied: ‘No, the name means nothing to me. Is there a reason it should?’

‘You want a drink?’ the resentful Carr growled. ‘I got some wine I keep for ladies.’

Martinez remained polite in response to the implied insult. ‘Thank you but no,
patron.’

‘Well then, I ain’t so sure I want to – ‘

North dropped his cheroot butt and ground it out under a heel. Then glowered at Carr as the saloonkeeper interrupted his objection to the presence of Martinez when Rose Riley started to descend the stairs.

‘A bowl of chilli for Edge, Rose.’

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The fleshy faced, plump bodied woman looked no more attractive in her drab workaday clothes than she had in the mourning black earlier. And she continued to keep her innate cheerfulness hidden as she moved through the doorway to the kitchen and trailed a sour toned response behind her.

‘Be a few minutes yet, sheriff. Even without a
please
I only serve food that’s properly cooked.’

Martinez growled impatiently: ‘Please may we get on,
senor?’

North seemed to derive a perverse pleasure from delaying the man still further. ‘I asked because news tends to travel fast hereabouts,
senor.
And since Edge has twice given me a hand in making sure my witness stays alive I figured there was a chance the information had reached you.’

Martinez looked searchingly at Edge, like he thought the sight of the impassively taciturn third man at the table could jog his memory. But he shook his head as he replied to North: ‘I did hear you had some trouble on the trail between Railton City and Bishopsburg the night before last. And there was shooting in the hill country to the east of town last night, I understand?’

‘You heard and you understand right,’ Carr rasped in a stage whisper. Martinez obviously had to exert some effort to contain his anger and ignore the comment as he continued to look fixedly at North.

‘Jose consorts with some hard
hombres.
Who I would think do not take kindly to knowing the boy is locked in your jailhouse, sheriff.’

‘Same as you, I reckon? I guess you ain’t too happy about that?’

Martinez, looking not quite so unhealthy now he was seated, perhaps was sweating only because of the high heat of the Texas day or the strain of containing his true emotions, reached into an inside pocket of his suit jacket, produced a pack of expensive looking cigars and offered them.

North shook his head while Edge showed his smoked out cigarette before he dropped it and stepped on it. The Mexican lit one himself and exhaled a stream of fragrant smoke. But it was not as good smelling to Edge’s way of thinking as the aroma of food wafting out from the kitchen.

‘Jose is my own flesh and blood and my only son,’ Martinez countered. ‘So of course I am not well disposed to knowing he is a prisoner in cell accused of murder. But I am a businessman of repute and I value the high esteem in which I am held by my peers in both my own and your country, sheriff. And I would certainly never indulge in acts of violence to obtain my ends.’

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Carr rasped in another histrionic whisper: ‘On account of you got others can take care of that end of your business for you.’

This time, for a stretched second, anger thinned the Mexican’s lips and put a hard glitter into his small eyes. But he was able to control the impulse to rage and he recovered his composure quickly then looked across the room at Carr.

‘I have no need of refreshments in your fine establishment,
patron.
But I am willing to pay ten dollars for you to retire – to your kitchen, perhaps . . ? So that I may discuss my business with the sheriff and his new deputy without interruptions?’

He reached into an inside pocket on the other side of his jacket from where the fine smelling cigars were stowed.

Carr shook his head, indignantly insulted again. But he spun around and headed for the doorway to the kitchen, muttering: ‘Maybe I ain’t so rich as some people around here, but I can get by without being paid for doing nothing, mister!’

Martinez sighed and shook his head ruefully as he withdrew his hand. ‘It is one of my failings, I’m afraid. So many people who know of my wealth expect payment for the least favour and sometimes I tend to think everyone is the same.’

North said: ‘We all have our failings, Martinez. Nobody’s perfect.’

The Mexican forced a smile. ‘It is difficult to imagine you have very many faults, sheriff. To hear the talk of Bishopsburg citizens, and to know you personally if only slightly, there can be few other lawmen in Texas as virtuous as you.’

‘I do my level best,’ North said, choosing to accept the man as being sincere rather than sardonic. ‘But perfection ain’t possible not any of the time for us humans, I’d say?’

Martinez sighed. ‘
Si,
that is a truth which cannot be denied. We are all human and it is human to err.’

‘If it wasn’t there wouldn’t be need to make laws and I wouldn’t have a job.’

‘Ah, at last we return to the point of my visit to your fine town, sheriff.’ Martinez waved a hand in front of his sweat beaded face. ‘It is the heat, perhaps, that dissuades me from talking of onerous business until the last moment?’