The Deputy - Edge Series 2 (9 page)

‘Little early in the day for you, ain’t it, sheriff?’ Logan greeted as the lawman pushed between the batwings.

Carr said: ‘Lousy job you’ve just had to do, I guess, George? Can I get you something to maybe help blot out – ‘

The lawman grimaced, shook his head, waved a hand toward the two men at the bar as he crossed to where Edge sat and asked: ‘Do you mind?’

Without waiting for a response he dragged out a chair and sat down on the other side of the table. There was an almost painful melancholy in the steel grey eyes of the darkly tanned man who had just visited the house where five people had been violently killed a few hours ago.

‘Pretty ugly out there, feller?’ Edge said.

North sighed deeply and nodded curtly as he took out a cheroot. ‘At least Clyde Grover had been there ahead of me and hauled away the bodies. Just the bloodstains and the bullet scarred furnishing and smashed crockery and such like.’

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He lit the cheroot. ‘Didn’t find anything of any use inside the house. But outside there was plenty of clear to read sign. Showed where two men rode in across the fields from the south west. Hobbled their horses and came up to the house on foot. Rode off at a gallop after the killing was done. Back the way they came from.’

‘Does that mean something?’

North shrugged. ‘The Martinez
hacienda
is off to the south west of the Bellamy place. But I’m not going to draw any hard and fast conclusions from that yet awhile. It’s quite a way off – seven or eight miles, I’d guess. Tracks were easy to see in the Bellamy fields, but beyond the cultivated land the ground’s way too hard for somebody like me to do any tracking.’

Edge nodded impassively and completed rolling a second cigarette. North said: ‘Okay, so now it’s your turn. Ted Straker tells me you got a note of some kind delivered by young Bob Frank Carter this morning?’

He waved a hand in the direction of the bar where the owner of the place and the old man were blatantly eavesdropping on the exchange at the table by the window. ‘Otis Logan there saw the boy give it to you.’

‘I sure did see that right enough, George,’ Logan confirmed self-importantly. North continued to ignore him and the taciturn Carr as Edge drew the envelope from his shirt pocket, pushed it across the table and lit his freshly rolled cigarette. The lawman extracted the single sheet of paper and slowly read twice through what was printed on it, his deeply lined, five o’clock shadowed face expressionless. Then he refolded the letter, replaced it in the envelope and asked:

‘You mind telling me why you didn’t show this to Ted Straker?’

‘It’s meant for you and me, feller. Says so right at the start.’

‘But what if it got to be time to leave for the meeting tonight and I wasn’t back from the Bellamy farm or wherever? What – ‘

‘It says for either one of us to go, sheriff. I was being paid to ride herd on the woman when they snatched her. I figure that gives me some kind of responsibility to look out for her. So I’d have asked around to find out where the Brady place is and gone there.’

North trickled out a stream of cigar smoke from the side of his pursed lips while his eyes expressed uncertainty. ‘Ted’s the law here in town when I ain’t around. He won’t take kindly to not being told about this.’ He tapped the envelope against a palm.

‘He’s about to hear of it from you, I guess. I’m a stranger to town. And the way things have been around here lately – killings and a rape and a kidnapping – how’s a feller new to town supposed to know who to trust?’

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‘Ted’s – ‘

Edge went on: ‘Especially after you told me you were certain no one followed you up to Railton City. And didn’t know whether Eduardo Martinez had any idea where you were keeping the Gomez woman.’

He looked bleakly toward the two men on either side of the bar counter who were still unashamedly listening to what was being said at the table. ‘And it seems to me like everyone I’ve talked to in this town knew you were bringing her back from there last night.’

North seemed suddenly very weary. He thought for a few moments about what Edge had said, then sighed deeply and vented another stream of tobacco smoke as he nodded.

‘Sure, I get your meaning, mister. Look, I’m going to be the one to go out to the meeting place.’

‘You’re the sheriff so that’s the way it ought to be.’

‘But I’ll be needing someone to cover me. In the event there’s some kind of double cross in the wind.’

‘Straker’s your deputy, feller.’

‘That’s sure is right, George,’ Logan interjected firmly.

Which drew a scowl from North before he returned his earnest attention to Edge. ‘I’ll need Ted to stay here and guard the prisoner. Like I say: in the event of a double cross.’

‘It seems to me there are a lot of able bodied men in this town,’ Edge said.

‘And it seems to me you’re still in need of a job. And you’ve got experience as my deputy. So if you want to wear a tin star for another few hours, I’ll pay you
pro rata.’

‘It’s the best offer I’ve had so far today,’ Edge allowed evenly.

‘I’d guess it’s the only one,’ North countered laconically. Edge showed an ironic smile. ‘Your deputy figured the local undertaker might be hiring on help.’

Logan drawled across the saloon. ‘It ain’t so much the
burying
of the dead that’s in your line of business, I figure, son. It’s more likely you’re on the scene earlier than – ‘

‘Shut up, Otis!’ North snarled, sounding close to the end of his patience. Edge eyed Logan impassively as he warned coldly: ‘Well, I’ll tell you this, old timer: if you call me
son
one more time it’s likely I’ll take a grave view of the matter.’

North said as he shifted his attention away from the unrepentant Logan back to Edge. ‘So you’ll accept my offer?’

‘You’ve got yourself a deal, sheriff.’

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‘That’s good. It’ll take me an hour or so to ride out to the Brady place tonight. If I take my time: and I’m sure not going to race hell for leather out there. You come to the law office at seven and we’ll figure out a plan, okay?’

‘No sweat.’

North stood up wearily, like it was late evening after a long day of hard work instead of mid-morning. Then he paused in a half turn and said grimly: ‘One thing I’d like you to know?’

‘What’s that?’

‘If I had to trust my life to only one man in Bishopsburg, that man would be Ted Straker.’

Edge tipped his hat. ‘I’ve always been ready to learn from somebody in a position to know better than me.’

North said ruefully: ‘Guess that makes you one of the old school, Mr Edge.’

Edge dropped the cigarette butt into the dregs of his coffee cup as he replied: ‘There was a time a few years back when I used to be in a class of my own.’

54

CHAPTER • 7

_________________________________________________________________________

TO GET to the Brady place it was necessary to head five miles out of Bishopsburg
along the east trail that began where Mossman Road ended. Then make a right turn and ride a further half mile down the Creek Road spur.

This trail followed the line of a trickling watercourse to where, many years ago, a man named Jack Brady had panned for gold.

He found enough of it to begin building what he planned to be a fine house. But the sparse grains of gold ran out before the work to make his dream come true was barely started and Brady moved on to try his luck elsewhere.

Since then the partially built house and single out-building had been left to weather and decay because nobody had ever felt inclined to complete what Brady began on such a remote and infertile piece of land.

And his place had eventually become no more than a well known reference point when Bishopsburg people spoke about the hill country that lay to the east of town. Edge, again wearing a tin star on his chest, heard about this that Wednesday evening in the law office, aware without being concerned by it, of the resentment harboured by Ted Straker who was being left to guard Jose Martinez because North had not chosen him to be his cover. The deputy’s ill feeling similar to that directed at him earlier by an unusually quiet Otis Logan over supper in the dining room, of the Hyams Guest House. After the precise location of the meeting place had been explained and its history briefly told, the senior lawman instructed: ‘Need you to leave an hour after I do, Edge. And ride slow and easy, which is what I plan on doing. It figures they’ll be sure to be watching at some point between here and there.’

‘They’ve played it real smart up to now, feller.’

‘Right. So don’t close up on me in open country. And when you get to the house, only come on in if I signal you to. Or you see there’s trouble I can’t handle on my own.’

From where he leaned against the wall behind the desk at which North sat Straker complained sullenly: ‘I reckon I can more or less understand why Edge didn’t let me read the letter from the Mexicans, George. But it’s a damn sight harder to figure why you won’t trust me to do what you’re asking of a gunsl . . . of him.’

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North turned toward the good looking younger man and expressed earnest sympathy. ‘Ted, you’re my regular deputy. You know the town and the folks who live in and around it.’

‘Hell, that’s for sure, but – ‘

North cut in: ‘If something goes badly wrong out there tonight – something untoward happens to me and Edge – you’ll have to take over the whole business of seeing the law’s upheld in Bishopsburg and the county.’

He rose from behind the desk and signalled for Straker to have his chair as he went to get his gunbelt from the table beside which Edge stood. After he had carefully buckled on the belt and fastened the holster ties he said as he moved to the door:

‘Most important part of your job now – and in the event of unforeseen circumstances, Ted – is to see that Martinez stays where he is until he stands trial for raping and killing that young Crowell girl. And there ain’t no one else in this town I’d trust to do that.’

‘Yeah, I guess . . . ‘ Straker started then shook his head and moderated his tone from irritation to resignation as he dropped heavily into the chair behind the desk. ‘Yeah, I can appreciate what you’re saying, George.’

He looked grimly at Edge as North swung open the door. ‘You be sure to take real good care of him in the event he needs help, mister.’

After North left the office with just a raised hand to signal farewell there was a hard silence between Straker and Edge as the clock’s minute hand marked the passing of maybe thirty stretched seconds. Ended when Martinez called caustically from his cell:

‘That was real touching, uh
amigo?
Those two, they are like the close brothers are they not. Or perhaps like a man and his – ‘

‘Shut your rotten mouth!’ Straker snarled. ‘Or you won’t live long enough for them to hang you for what you did to Frank Crowell’s daughter!’

Martinez laughed harshly and challenged: ‘You would not dare to harm a single hair of my head,
hijo de puta!
Both of us know that is true!’

Straker half rose from the chair and dropped a hand to drape the butt of his holstered Colt.

Edge took a step away from the wall and shook his head when the deputy looked at him then warned: ‘You want to be no better than he is, feller?’

Straker remained tense with anguish for a few moments, then sank slowly back down into the chair. A stream of hot breath rasped noisily out through his gritted teeth and he nodded, as he allowed:

‘You’re right, mister. I got to stop letting the murdering bastard get to me, damnit!’

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‘But that will spoil my fun,
hijo de puta!
And I do not have so much of that while I am locked in this stinking cell.’

Edge spoke before Straker could snarl another futile angry retort. ‘I can recall from being in jail myself a time or two what it is a prisoner most looks forward to – outside of being turned loose. And it’s almost supper time, I guess?’

‘That’s at eight thirty or thereabouts,’ Straker said as a taut smile spread over his youthful, regular featured face. ‘And you’re right, mister. Martinez really enjoys my wife’s cooking. It won’t be any fun for him at all to miss out on Liz’s supper tonight.’

Martinez snarled a Spanish obscenity and challenged: ‘You would not dare to deprive me of food!’

Straker countered in a softly embittered tone: ‘Try me, you murdering bastard! You just keep flapping your jaw about why me and George North get along so well and the stray dogs on the street will get your grub. Tonight and for as long as I decide to do it - and I’ll feed it to them right outside that cell window!’