The Deputy - Edge Series 2 (4 page)

Martinez was already in the town lock-up, taken there when his public behaviour at Red Rocks had threatened to get out of hand as the church picnic drew to a close.

‘His old man came to Bishopsburg later that day,’ North told Edge as the barber held up a mirror for the out of town sheriff to view his new haircut from the rear.

He nodded his satisfaction with the job Baldy had done and pushed up out of the chair as soon as the cape was removed. Continued with the story as his shoulders were brushed free of hair clippings:

‘Eduardo Martinez has got a heart problem and he hardly ever leaves the
hacienda
these days. But he came to town real fast when he heard what had happened and offered Molly Crowell’s pa and ma more money than they’d ever dreamed of to forget what happened at the canyon.’

22

North grimaced and shook his head in disgust. ‘And it seems Frank Crowell was so insulted he would likely have killed the old man if a couple of Martinez’s hands hadn’t been there to stop it.

North paid Baldy for the haircut and headed for the door as Edge opened it to let the lawman out in front of him on to the sunlit street. Where they stood, looking across at the Railton City law office and jailhouse as North took up the subject again.

‘I was out at the canyon and my deputy along with Isabella Gomez was outside the jail when the old man and his two hands came to call on his son. There were harsh words spoken by the woman and Eduardo. And Ted had to pull his gun before the end of it: to keep the old man from doing Isabella harm. North took a cheroot case from an inside pocket of his jacket. ‘I showed up then and right away I figured it would be best to take her into protective custody until the circuit judge was scheduled to hold court. And I didn’t have any trouble getting her to agree.’

He slid a cheroot from the case and rolled it between a thumb and two fingers as he went on: ‘Then, after a couple of days of hearing all kinds of rumours and seeing Martinez hands hanging around town a lot more than usual she went along with me again without complaining when I smuggled her out of Bishopsburg. Brought her up here until the trial could be arranged.’

‘Which is going to be the day after tomorrow?’

‘That’s right, Mr Edge.’

‘And it’s no longer a secret your star witness is in Railton City?’

‘I can’t say that Martinez knows exactly where she’s being kept out of sight. But he never knew where I took her and I’m as sure as I can be nobody followed me when I rode up here yesterday. What’s certain is that it won’t be too difficult for him to have his men watch the trails into Bishopsburg.’

‘You said he’s rich?’

‘One of the richest – maybe even the richest – man in Texas. But in my book that doesn’t buy him a right to some place above the law.’

‘But it does allow him to hire on all kinds of help who don’t give two cents for the law? Or the fellers who enforce it?’

23

‘Right. And my budget only allows me to pay ten bucks for the help of a man with higher ideals than Martinez’s hired hands.’

‘Be obliged if you didn’t talk of ideals.’

‘How’s that?’

Edge showed an easy grin as he explained: ‘It’s almost always lousy deals that get me into the kind of financial messes that leave me open to job offers worth ten bucks a throw, sheriff.’

North was in no frame of mind to try to see any kind of a joke in the ironic response and remained grim faced as he bit the end off the cheroot and jabbed the smoke into the side of his mouth.

Then his grey eyes showed just a flicker of relief as a hand was stretched toward him and he took it in a firm grip and shook it.

And thus it was that, once again, Edge found himself wearing a deputy’s badge while he rode a dangerous south western trail.

‘What’s wrong?’ Isabella asked tensely as she became fearfully aware that the men riding to either side of her were spending more time than usual peering back the way they had come.

North ignored her as he continued to ride with his head turned around and asked:

‘You thinking what I think you are, Edge?’

‘It could be, feller. I keep getting a strong urge to scratch an itch between my shoulder blades.’ He faced front again then glanced at the woman to explain:

‘The sheriff and me figure we’re being followed, lady.’

She uttered an inarticulate sound that was clearly not far removed from an obscenity. Then twisted in her saddle to glower back along the trail that was empty for as far as anybody could see toward the distant high ground.

‘It’s
loco!
’ she exclaimed shrilly. ‘This whole thing is
loco!
I said so from the start! I wanted a wagon to ride in so nobody could see me! And more than two men to protect me!’

‘Keep your voice down,’ North snarled softly and moved a hand from the reins to drape it briefly over the butt of his holstered Colt.

Edge brushed fingertips over the stock of the Winchester that jutted from his boot.

24

‘Two of you against how many of Eduardo Martinez’s men?’ the woman complained with heavy contempt as she faced front again and hunkered lower in the saddle like she was trying to make herself less of a target for potential killers. ‘The hired guns paid for by a man who is determined to have me killed! Do you think they will be frightened by a pair of – ‘

‘Lady,’ Edge broke in on the scornful diatribe.

‘What do you want,
hombre?’

‘If you don’t take it easy you’ll maybe wet your drawers. And me and the sheriff will only go so far in taking care of your needs.’

She uttered another sound of disgust. ‘If you do not do something about these men you say are following us all my clothes will be wet maybe. With my blood!’

Neither man offered a response to this as they continued to survey the surrounding terrain, paying more attention to the country at their backs than elsewhere.

But some thirty minutes later it was to the front of them they first saw for certain they were not the only people on this Texas trail tonight. They had just rounded the base of a small hillock to emerge on the crest of a gentle slope that swept down into the head of a broad valley. At the foot of the incline, a quarter of a mile away, an enclosed wagon with two horses in the traces was stalled.

A man was stooped near the offside rear wheel of the rig, like he was about to change it, or maybe had just finished changing it.

All three riders reined in their mounts and Isabella caught her breath: this time certainly rasped an embittered Spanish oath.

North said: ‘What do you reckon, Edge?’

Edge did not need to survey their surroundings again to know they were totally exposed at the top of the slope, with no cover of any used within immediate reach: and maybe a bunch of hired guns not too far away.

He replied tautly: ‘We got nothing to lose but our lives. I say we keep riding.’

‘You can if you want, but I’m – ‘

25

Isabella made to jerk on her reins to command her horse to wheel. But Edge thrust out a hand and gripped her arm to prevent her from completing the move. He looked grimly at her with eyes narrowed to glittering slits for a stretched second before he returned his intense gaze to the stalled wagon ahead and below them and told her evenly:

‘There’s no place for you to go, lady. So it seems to me it’s best you stay with us, uh?’

North added through clenched teeth: ‘But it’d be better if Edge didn’t need to keep hold of you,
senorita.
Best for him to have both hands free for his guns if he needs them don’t you think?’ The woman swallowed hard and remained rigidly tense as she allowed huskily: ‘All right. I see I have no option but to do as you say.’

After a sideways glance into her fear filled dark eyes Edge was certain she meant what she said and released his hold on her.

Then the three of them started their mounts forward and concentrated their attention on the wagon as the man beside the wheel looked toward them, rose from where he had been hunkered down and waved in friendly greeting. I do not think you should trust him!’ Isabella cautioned softly, her voice quivering in a fearconstricted throat. North’s tone was almost as shaky as he rasped: ‘I ain’t your grandmother, so don’t try to teach me to suck eggs.’ All three peered fixedly ahead. And with the talk done the only sounds in the night were the clop of hooves, creak of tack and rasped breathing which seemed much louder than before.

If the man at the wagon said anything as the riders came to within a hundred feet of him, the words did not carry to Edge, North and Isabella. Or maybe here was no need for him to utter any kind of signal.

Whatever, the burlap covering of the wagon’s rear end was abruptly wrenched aside. And three guns stabbed vividly bright muzzle flashes out into the night. Edge snarled: ‘Eggs as in duck!’

26

CHAPTER • 4

___________________________________________________________________

ISABELLA SCREAMED.

Edge powered off his horse, crashed heavily into the fleshy woman and bundled her down against the rock hard ground as North’s horse crumpled under him with a high pitched equine screech, blood spurting from its many wounds. In the night filled for stretched seconds with the crackle of gunfire, any noise made by the men, the woman and their mounts was masked by the barrage of shots. As the cursing Edge struggled to keep the shrieking and struggling woman pressed hard against the dirt.

And North freed himself from the saddle of his stricken horse, slid the rifle out of its boot and triggered a shot as his feet slammed to the ground. Then pumped the action and exploded a second shot as he pitched forward. This while the man who had been crouched beside the wagon’s rear wheel raced forward and clambered up on to the seat. Commanded the team to a gallop as the men in the rear continued to explode gunshots back along the trail. But they were less accurate as the wagon bucked and jolted and the bullets cracked through the cloud of dust thrown up by the thundering hooves and spinning wheels.

‘You will cease fire –
NOW!’
The harsh toned demand was barked out at the moment the shooting from the retreating wagon ended, the voice coming from in back of where Edge kept his weight pressed down on to the now silent and compliant Isabella. And North, realising the order was directed at him, rose on to one knee and then froze in the act of jacking a fresh round into the breech of the repeater.

All of them slowly turned their heads to peer up at three men who sat astride horses breathing hard from a headlong gallop down the hillside: the animals’

approaching hoof beats covered by the barrage of gunfire.

When they halted a dozen feet away they were seen in the bright moonlight to be Mexicans in their twenties and thirties, dressed like American cowhands. 27

All had Colt .45s fisted in their right hands, the hammers cocked as muzzles swept threateningly back and forth over the two men and a woman on the ground. Isabella now struggled free of Edge when he eased his hold on her: wrenched her head around, crossed herself and whispered a stream of Spanish, expressing the tearful conviction that she was about to die an undeserved death. The young man at the centre of the line of riders, who was a couple of years older than the others and the only one with a moustache, shook his head and said politely in English:

‘No,
Senorita
Gomez. I can assure you we do not wish to kill you.’

He moved his gaze to Edge, who was inching a hand toward his holstered revolver. Then to North, clearly poised to whirl around and bring his Winchester to aim at the horsemen.

‘We have no desire to harm anybody.’ He gestured with his head toward the lawman’s gelding, sprawled in the inertia of certain death. ‘It was regrettable that your horse was killed,
senor
. The plan was to persuade you to halt on the trail without bloodshed of any kind.’

North grimaced as he rose to his full height and turned to face the Mexicans, his rifle gripped in one hand, the barrel angled toward the ground. ‘The bullets the animal took could just have well have killed any of us!’

Edge let go of the subdued but still mistrustful woman and rose painfully to his feet, massaging his left wrist that had been twisted in the lunge from his saddle. Isabella struggled into a slightly more elegant position on the ground, scowling in pain or fearful incredulity or a mixture of the two. Then all three returned their attention to the south as the wagon was heard to creak to a halt. Watched as silently as the men with aimed revolvers while the rig was steered into a tight turn and started to trundle back toward them. One of the mounted men recaptured their attention with the threat: ‘But be warned,
amigos.
If you do not lay down your weapons then you will perhaps be as dead as the animal. We may not wish to cause it, but we are not afraid of bloodshed.’