The Quiet Gun - Edge Series 1 (2 page)

Or check when the next stage was due through here?

Another consideration: whatever he chose to do, should he try to improve his financial position by playing some cards?

Damn!

How often had his mind run along this line in how many other towns when he had managed to acquire a small stake? And on how many occasions when he backed a gambling hunch instead of using the money he already had to finance something less risky had he lost out? A whole lot, it had to be admitted. But then again, there were a few times when luck had run his way and . . .

‘Evening, Bart. Howdy stranger?’

Edge had been aware of footfalls out on the street, then the sharper sound of booted feet against the boarding of the porch: looked up as the batwings opened and a tall, lean man of fifty or so entered the saloon, removed his Stetson from a head of short cut, spiky grey hair. He was dressed in subdued colours, the darkness of his boots, pants, shirt and vest acting to give extra brightness to the polished tin star pinned to his chest. Likewise the plated Colt, its pearl handled butt jutting out of the holster tied down to his right thigh.

‘John,’ the bartender responded less cheerfully than the amiable lawman.

‘Sheriff,’ Edge acknowledged evenly.

‘The usual, John.’

‘You bet, Bart. How do you find that axle grease Bart likes to call beer, stranger?’

‘He warned me it’s an acquired taste.’

9

‘It sure is that.’ The personable smile on the sheriff’s rugged, deeply lined face altered to an expression of relish as he made his way to the counter where Bart had set up a shot glass and a bottle of whiskey that had an impressive looking label. Once the newcomer had poured himself a drink the two local men began a desultory conversation about the weather, moved on to discuss the flow rate of the springs in the south western hills from which the town drew its water and presumably its name, then switched to when some Mexican lawmen were due to arrive to pick up a killer presently held in the local jailhouse.

The talk was pitched at a level that did not exclude the stranger should he feel inclined to contribute. But Edge remained content to sit and consider his situation and the options open to him. And if he did pay any attention to the talk between the bartender and the sheriff, then to other men who drifted into the Lucky Break from time to time and either greeted him with brief words or acknowledged his presence with nods, it was to register those citizens of Dalton Spring who used the saloon seemed to be a friendly enough bunch.

Within thirty minutes or so there were more than a dozen men drinking at the bar or at tables, aged in a wide range that spanned from thirty to maybe as old as eighty. Judged by their physical appearance, clothing and manner many more of them were manual workers rather than office or store clerks.

They all seemed to have washed up and changed for their suppers and visits to the saloon after a satisfying day’s labours and their good humoured talkative presence acted to freshen the atmosphere and diminish the aura of despondency that had clung to the Lucky Break when it was empty of local patronage.

Even though he paid only passing attention to what was happening quietly around him, Edge knew there was another stranger to town in the saloon. A dudishly attired, thin faced, slightly built man of about forty who, maybe because he had seen the murky hue of the bartender’s home brew in several glasses, elected to drink whiskey. Nursed his shot glass while he stood at the bar, taking miniscule sips from it as he watched a game of penny-ante poker until he eventually accepted an invitation and joined the three local players at the table.

It was almost an hour after Edge entered the saloon that somebody approached the table where he sat and he looked up to see the sheriff standing over him. 10

‘It seems like it could take you a long time to acquire a taste for it?’ The lawman’s tone was a match for his easy smile as he indicated Edge’s glass that was still threequarters full.

‘Yeah, I think it could.’

‘You plan on staying in town long enough to give it a really good try?’ The tone was still friendly, but the smile was gone from the slate grey eyes and there was only a hint of it left in the line of the wide mouth.

‘That’s the very matter I’m sitting here pondering, sheriff.’

‘It’s because I’m the law hereabouts that I’m bound to ask.’

‘I realise that.’

‘John McCall is my name.’

‘Edge.’

‘You mind me asking what line of business you’re in, Mr Edge?’

‘Anything legal I can turn my hand to that makes me enough to live on. My most recent enterprise to last any length of time was a barber shop in Tucson.’

McCall gestured with a big hand to indicate an area across the smoke and talk filled room. ‘Ephraim Rider – that’s the little old guy playing cards – he’s the liveryman. Ephraim mentioned to me he took in just one horse for stabling today. Brought in by Sam Kress: Mr Kress is a drummer. The smart looking gent having a hand in the same poker game.’

‘After the barber shop went bust I hired on short term as a teamster, sheriff. That was three days ago in Tucson. To drive a wagon to Dalton Springs. And about supper time tonight I delivered it to a feller named Fred Drayton.’

McCall nodded and clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth. ‘Appreciate your attitude, Mr Edge. There are some strangers to town can be a mite prickly about stating their business. Which, it has to be allowed, ain’t none of mine unless it’s against the law. Just one more question, you mind?’

Edge leaned forward, reached into his hip pocket and withdrew his stake. Held it out for McCall to see and flipped through the bills to demonstrate there were some fives among the ones. He folded the money and replaced it as he said: ‘If I decide to stay in Dalton 11

Springs, I can pay my way for awhile without robbing the local bank, sheriff. I guess that was going to be your question, more or less?’

McCall nodded. ‘Seems to me, Mr Edge, that it’s nothing new to you? Being questioned by a peace officer about your intentions?’

In the lawman’s suddenly dulled eyes Edge saw a coldness that showed his appreciation had been replaced by irritation at how the stranger was reading him so easily.

‘I’ve been a stranger in a lot of towns.’ He tried another brief smile: not prepared to go further than this to move their relationship back on to an easy-going footing.

‘You don’t appear to be the . . . ‘ McCall abandoned what Edge assumed was the intention to say that he did not seem to be the usual kind of drifter who came to Dalton Spring. Then the nettled lawman put on his hat, touched the brim with a rigid forefinger as he turned from the table and held back for long enough to offer evenly: ‘If you stay for long enough to acquire a taste for that brew of Bart’s, you’ll find Dalton Spring a fine town, Mr Edge. Decent and peaceful. Because that’s the way the people who live here are. Night to you.’

‘And to you, sheriff.’

Edge had not been aware of any pointed interest shown in McCall and himself during the exchange conducted in low tones against a background level of noise that placed it out of earshot of others. But as soon as the batwings ceased to flap behind the lawman it was plain there was an abrupt change of subject at every table and along the line of men at the bar.

A short burst of talk about John McCall, that was obvious. And from the raucous laughter and crude gestures that accompanied the new topic, Edge guessed it was gossip about the sheriff and a woman.

Within a minute or so the level of talk on other matters had returned to normal and Edge began to feel the need of some rest after a long day on the trail. So he rose from the table, carpetbag in one hand and the less than half finished beer in the other. On his way to where the bartender stood behind the counter, he could not avoid noting that the pot in the poker game was no longer comprised of small change: now there were a number of crumpled bills to be won.

12

Bart eyed him without reproach when he saw the glass was being returned with most of the beer still in it. ‘Told you it takes some getting used to.’ He scowled and waved a huge hand to indicate what Edge had already seen: that far more men were drinking beer than hard liquor. ‘But a lot get used to it.’

‘I’m not complaining, feller. Do you have rooms to rent here at the Lucky Break?’

‘Don’t get enough passing through stranger in Dalton Springs for me to be in the hotel business. But there’s a boarding house down the street. Emily Jonas keeps a clean place and cooks real good.’

‘I can vouch she’s a lady who takes care of her boarders, mister,’ somebody said. Edge looked around and saw it was the other stranger to town who had spoken: the impeccably garbed drummer grinning broadly as he sat, half turned in his chair, while another poker player gloatingly raked in the pot with more bills than coins in it.

‘I’ve only been one of her guests since this afternoon. Which is long enough to find out that maiden lady runs a neat and tidy place. And my belly tells me she’s a fine cook and she don’t stint on the portions.’

‘I’m obliged.’ Edge turned from the bar counter. ‘Emily Jonas, down the street aways, right?’

Bart said: ‘Across on the other side. You’ll see the sign on the house porch, mister. But I reckon you ought to know, Emily Jonas runs a temperance establishment. So I could be seeing you back in the Lucky Break some time?’

‘Maybe,’ Edge told the glum faced bartender.

‘Hard liquor I buy from a supplier in Tucson,’ Bart hurried to explain. ‘In the event you don’t want to give my beer another try?’

‘I’ll remember that, feller. But I’m not much of a drinking man.’

‘But how do you rate yourself as a gambling man, miser?’ a heavily bristled, dark sun-burnished poker player challenged with an uninhibited grin. Which implied an invitation that in recent times – funds permitting – Edge had found it increasingly difficult to turn down.

He responded with a purse-lipped, glinting eyed grin: ‘Better.’

13

CHAPTER • 2

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IF PRESSED on the point, Edge could not have denied that in recent years many of
the misfortunes to befall him were the result of impulsively choosing to bet his money against that of other men in games of chance.

There were occasions he had won – probably less times that he had lost – but he had ever felt the need to calculate whether on balance he was an overall winner or loser financially. But he enjoyed gambling, so he considered himself a winner. For he had come across many men who seemed never to have gotten any kind of pleasure from anything they did.

Although he was an impulse gambler, beyond the rules specified for any game of chance in which he agreed to take a part, he always adhered to three more of his own making,

He never asked to sit in on a game, never mixed liquor with gambling, and once a player he never invited anyone else to take a hand of cards, a spin of the wheel a throw of the dice – have any piece of whatever the action happened to be. So, this night in the Lucky Break Saloon, the circumstances were right for him to accept the invitation of a man named Frank Sawkins to take the chair he vacated because he needed to get back to his farmstead east of town.

An older, smaller of stature and paler of complexion man introduced himself as Billy William, the Dalton Springs druggist.

Edge already knew from the sheriff that the oldest, skinniest, baldest player was the liveryman, Ephraim Rider.

Samuel Kress, the dudish looking drummer for a St. Louis hardware company assured the new man at the table that Miss Jonas would be willing to provide a cold supper for her second guest, so long as the game did not extend too far into the night. 14

After the preliminaries as he sat down in the chair surrendered by the farmer, Edge volunteered his own name and repeated what he had told McCall about being between jobs and looking for anything legal in this town or anyplace else. Then the game was re-started: five card draw, no wild cards and no limit. But, as often happened in small town games of poker where the players were mostly local men who knew each other’s means and needed or wished to remain on good terms with neighbours after the dealing was done, there was no heavy betting at the table. At first.

For a dozen hands or so during which the pallid faced Williams won back enough money to persuade him to stay at the table, and the winnings amassed by the wizen Rider were somewhat diminished, Edge and Kress each getting some benefit from the liveryman’s abrupt run of ill luck, there were no raises by more than a dollar. The drinking was as conservative as the betting: Edge staying dry, Kress taking infrequent sips from a shot glass of whiskey and Rider and Williams steadily getting through glasses of the thick, cloudy, sweet tasting beer which the sullen bartender delivered to the table.

As the saloon became gradually less crowded the passage of time in the expanding quietness was marked by the quarter hour chiming of a watch in Rider’s vest pocket. The game attracted little attention beyond the quartet of participants except at irregular intervals when customers left the Lucky Break and called goodnights to the local druggist and liveryman.

Perhaps an hour and a half after Edge joined the game, the grey haired, bespectacled Billy Williams announced he was about even for the night and left. Ephraim Rider looked at the final two drinkers standing at the bar and the grimace on his prominently boned, sunken eyed, slack mouthed face signalled he knew that neither of them could be persuaded to take the chair left by the druggist.