The Deputy - Edge Series 2 (30 page)

‘If he’s found and then gets found guilty, that’s what he’ll have been running away from sure enough.’

‘But he cannot be found guilty or innocent until he is put on trial in a court in Texas?’

‘Lawmen are supposed to do things by the law.’

‘I heard some of the posse are not lawmen?’

‘Some help was hired on. Like me. Sworn in by the regular sheriff as deputies for this one job.’

‘I recognise the names of the Mexicans riding in your posse,
Senor
Edge. Raul Alvarez. Paco Diego. A man named Zamorra.’

‘They claim they were never in San Luis before.’

‘That is perhaps so. But to some of us they are known by their reputations. They and the fourth man, too – Pedro Sanchez.
Si
. . . they are all bandits.’

‘The Bishopsburg sheriff knew that when he gave them badges.’

‘They have caused much bad feeling here in San Luis.’

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Edge gently massaged his pained right arm. ‘It wasn’t them made be feel bad, feller.’

‘Senor?’
Jurez showed a puzzled frown.

‘No sweat. I was just thinking aloud. Something that’s between me and a couple of other fellers. My own bad business and I’ll handle it.’

The old man huddled in the chair shrugged his narrow shoulders. ‘The people here in this village are the kind of men these bandits used to be - hard working and poor, but they are honest. Despite much hardship nobody in San Luis has ever gone the way of the outlaw.’

‘Maybe because there was no reason for that to happen, feller? Alvarez and his buddies say Eduardo Martinez drove them outside the law.’

Jurez made a short guttural sound of disgust, drew in too much cigar smoke, vented a wracking cough and waved away Edge as he leaned down to help him. He clutched at his throat and took several deep breaths.
‘Gracias, senor.
It is all right. I am able to take care of it myself. As all around here take care of themselves. And are able to do this because of the Martinez family.’

He looked up, expecting a question but Edge nodded for him to go on as he delved in a shirt pocket for the makings. ‘You see, all the farms for many miles around San Luis are owned by Eduardo Martinez. As are our business premises and our houses: the whole village. But we do our work and we earn enough to pay our rents and to eat and to clothe ourselves and those who depend upon us.’

‘I heard that was the way it used to be for Alvarez and the others one time,’ Edge said as he began to roll a cigarette.

Jurez grimaced but offered no denial of this. ‘We do not seek to get what we do not earn by stealing it. We are honest and decent and so we have only contempt for such men as Alvarez and those like him.’

Edge said evenly: ‘I’m just repeating what I was told. I know for sure that they were in Bishopsburg when they were needed. To help track down a wanted rapist and killer.’

‘I am not long for this world,
gringo.
I do not complain of this because I have been on this earth longer than many I have known. And for the most part the life I have lived has been as good as I have been able to make it.’

Edge struck a match on the butt of his holstered revolver to light his cigarette as Jurez went on:

‘For myself and for my dear wife when she lived. And for our unfortunate daughter who was a very beautiful child before the smallpox scarred her so badly. And for most of 171

this time, to make it as good as I am able to, I have been careful to avoid trouble. So it may be fairly said I have never done anything of note in my life, eh?’

‘Just like most people in the world, I guess.’

‘Si.’

‘But now?’

‘But now that I am surely not much longer for this dull, trouble-free existence I have lived I wish to do something worthwhile. Though I doubt anybody else in San Luis would agree it is a worthy ambition.’

He looked hard at Edge then drew deeply against the cigar and once again peered fixedly out through the window at the barren Mexican landscape over which the light of the new day was brightening by the moment as the sun inched higher up the perfect sky.

‘But now you don’t give too much of a damn about what other people think, I guess?’

‘Si, senor.
It has been a lifelong failing of mine that I have concerned myself too much with what other people thought. Now I care only that what I intend to do is right to my own way of thinking.’

‘To do about the feller the posse came down here to find?’

‘Si.
In my opinion, as the father of a daughter, if Jose Martinez murdered a young girl after he forced himself on her then he deserves to be hanged. If he is found guilty at a fair trial.’

‘If Ted Straker ever gets him back to Bishopsburg, that’s what he’ll be given.’

‘Raul Alvarez and his bandits?’

‘What about them?’

‘They share the sheriff’s intention to bring the Martinez boy to trial?’

‘It’s what they’re sworn in as deputies to do.’

‘For whatever reason?’

‘I don’t see that their reasons matter. As long as they do what they hired on for.’

Jurez’s cigar had gone out and he removed it from between his thin lips. And studied it intently as he considered the response and at length he nodded qualified agreement. Then he sighed and said flatly: ‘I can tell you where to find the Martinez boy,
senor.’

Now he peered fixedly up at Edge again, the faint trace of a smile on his sicknessdrained face that was as grey as the sky had been during the false dawn. It was an expression that suggested he was greatly relieved to have spoken aloud the decision he had made.

Edge said: ‘It would sure save Straker a lot of time and trouble to have that information, feller.’

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‘I will do this on the understanding that the Martinez boy is treated fairly? And I require to be reasonably well rewarded for my co-operation?’

‘He’ll get justice, feller.’ Edge straightened up from the wall and glanced through the window. Listened for any sounds of activity in the small community that could signal Straker and the rest of the men were preparing to leave San Luis, maybe no longer as a legally constituted posse. ‘But I’m not a deputy any longer and I never was the top hand in the posse, Jurez. So if you’re looking for a money deal, somebody else will have to okay it.’

‘I certainly require payment in
dinero, gringo.
American dollars.’

‘How many dollars?’

‘Sufficient for Rosita to leave San Luis and go to Mexico City. So she can begin a new life for herself there. A much better one than is offered to an ageing and homely spinster running an unprofitable livery stable in this village. A place where she will be despised if it is ever known her father betrayed the son of Eduardo Martinez to the
gringo
lawmen and their bandit
amigos.’

Edge raised his hands in a gesture of compliance. ‘No sweat, feller: as far as I’m concerned. It’s right that a man should want to provide for his only daughter. But what kind of money are we talking about?’

‘I think it will be enough for Rosita to start her new life in Mexico City if the amount is one thousand American dollars.’

Edge exhaled a stream of smoke from between pursed lips. ‘It sounds kind of steep to me.’

‘Or perhaps it is too cheap?’ Jurez countered enigmatically. ‘Just two hundred and fifty dollars for each of those the posse is hunting? Because there are four of them, are there not?’

‘Maybe the head
honchos
who run the law in Texas could stretch to that much. I don’t know. But it’s not the kind of folding money the Bishopsburg sheriff carries in a hip pocket when he heads up a posse, I’d guess.’

The old man suddenly looked like he had not slept for many nights. Or perhaps it was just that in the brightening daylight it could be seen that he looked a step nearer to death as he replied evenly: ‘I understand this. So I realise that I must trust you,
Senor
Edge. But I think that from my discussion with you in the matter of my daughter’s unhealthy liking for . . . ‘ His voice trailed off in shamed embarrassment as he chewed on a slack lower lip.

Edge said: ‘I get your drift, feller.’

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‘Gracias.
So I feel I am able to trust you. When it is done you will see to it that the money is given to Rosita. Of this I am sure.’

‘If the reward money is put up, you can rely on me to do the best I can.’

‘If it is agreed by the Bishopsburg sheriff that those he hunts are worth so much
dinero?’

‘I’ll need to check with Ted Straker.’ He moved to the door. ‘Be back just as soon as I can.’

‘Tell the sheriff,
gringo.
Two hundred and fifty dollars a head is all I ask. For Jose Martinez and the three who took him from the Bishopsburg jailhouse. It is very cheap, I think.’

‘Not quite so cheap as that after I’ve concluded my business hereabouts, feller,’ Edge corrected. ‘Then it’ll work out at about three hundred and thirty three bucks a head.

‘Que, senor?’

Edge stepped out into the hallway. ‘Because there’ll be just three wanted fugitives left alive. On account of the main reason I came down here was to find a bay gelding a feller stole from me.’

‘I do not understand.’

‘There’s no reason you should but it could give some people a horselaugh, feller. I guess you could say I only came along for the ride.’

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CHAPTER • 19

_________________________________________________________________

SAN LUIS was as quiet this Sunday morning as it had been when the posse from
Bishopsburg rode in off the north trail yesterday.

But today, Edge saw as he emerged from the alley between the church and the store, there were no colourful flags or streamers strung from the facades of the silent buildings or draping the dour faced statue of the military man at the centre of the plaza. And no sudden burst of hymn singing sounded from the church. Not even the mangy dog showed up to lift a leg at a corner of a building.

He was warily suspicious as he struck a match on the wall of the church, re-lit his part-smoked cigarette and raked his narrowed-eyed gaze over the brightly sunlit, dusty and ominously silent vista before him. And was briefly reminded of ghost towns he had ridden through in the distant past. But this was not quite like any of those abandoned communities and the feeling that it triggered in him this morning was not like any other he had experienced way back then.

Only hours before, San Luis had been peopled by many dour faced men and women and their dejected looking children. While two days ago it had by all accounts bustled with the good-humoured activity of a fiesta. And knowing of these contrasting moods of this village from personal experience and by hearsay and now sensing the eerie emptiness of the place, Edge’s mind became host to unfamiliar unreasoning misgivings about the unknown.

He shook his head, seeking to dislodge the disturbing line of thought that threatened: and made to step out on to the plaza, intending to go toward the Federale post or maybe the cantina on adjacent corners of the plaza to his right. Until he heard something from the livery stable on the other side of the church from where he stood. Nothing that was unusual from such a place: just the subdued noises a horse made as it moved restlessly in its stall: but the unobtrusive sounds echoed - like the building was empty of all other animals.

Both doors were firmly closed but one swung easily open when he pulled at it. And from the threshold he saw just three horses remained in the building. Two of them he did not recognise but the third was the gelding he had ridden from Bishopsburg to San Luis. His saddle and accoutrements were the only ones in the tack area at the rear. So all the posses’ mounts had been saddled up and taken out of the stable. 175

‘They have left the village,
senor!’
There was a faint echo to the words yelled across the plaza. ‘The Bishopsburg sheriff gave me a message for you!’

Edge turned on the threshold of the livery and looked to where the slightly built
Sergeante
Manuel Torrejon stood in the open doorway of the Federale post, unshaven like Edge, and still sloppily dressed in the same crumpled and sweat stained uniform he had worn yesterday.

The Mexican had re-lit the stub of an old cigar by the time Edge crossed the plaza and begun to experience a sense that he was being watched by eyes other than those of the only man in sight. And abruptly it was easy to imagine that the surrounding buildings which minutes ago had seemed abandoned in the rising heat of the morning sunlight were now filled with hostile spectators.