The Quiet Gun - Edge Series 1 (9 page)

There was a low buzz of glum faced agreement among the gathering of townspeople. Interrupted when Emily Jonas, still attired in the mourning black dress, stepped forward and extended a cupped hand with some coins in it.

‘I certainly would not take advantage of the dead in any way at all,’ she stated firmly, her ruddy complexioned features uncharacteristically hard set. ‘No matter how bad an individual he was. That man paid me in advance for a night’s room and board. He ate his supper, but then he did not stay the night. This is the seventy five cents refund due. Despite him breaking some of my best china.’

‘Aw, Emily, you don’t have to – ‘ Slocum began as she gave him the money.

‘A clear conscience makes for a good night’s sleep,’ Miss Jonas proclaimed primly as she turned away. ‘And I have never had anything but that for as long as I’ve lived an honest and blameless life. Which is what I have always lived.’

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The group began to disperse and Slocum, the cheroot clamped tightly between his yellow teeth, waited until there was space on the street then drove the buggy into the alley beside his premises. Which left just Edge, Williams and Bannerman standing outside. The druggist chewed on his lower lip and wondered anxiously: ‘Maybe he wasn’t cheating at the time when he won the money off me, you think?’

‘We’ll never know,’ Edge said.

‘It’s between you and your conscience,’ Bannerman growled, uninterested in the man’s moral quandary, his mind obviously concerned with other matters. Williams, looking slighter than ever in the sole company of the massive Bannerman and above average height Edge, seemed undecided whether he should go back into Slocum’s funeral parlour to get his money or return to his own place of business along the street. Then after sucking on his lower lip for a few moments more, he revealed this was not in fact his dilemma when he said: ‘It wasn’t on account of any ten bucks that I tried to shoot Sam Kress, Bart.’

Bannerman scowled as he answered: ‘With them arthritic hands of yours, you ain’t the best shot in the world, Billy. So I guess you didn’t have much of a chance of hitting the buggy, let alone the guy in it.’

‘I was inside with Jake. Getting a price on a new headstone for the wife’s plot. Heard the ruckus over at Emily’s place and saw who it was driving the buggy so fast out of the alley. Knew John McCall wanted to see Kress on account of what happened at your place last night. But more important, it sounded like he could’ve maybe shot Emily. I just grabbed Jake’s rifle and did the best I could to stop him. Wasn’t thinking anything about money at the time.’

He shared a pleading gaze to be believed between Edge and Bannerman.

‘You did what a responsible citizen ought to do, Billy.’

Williams muttered something about wishing something then turned to head off disconsolately toward his drugstore.

Edge said: ‘When you came out of the law office just now, you looked like those two Mexicans had given you a hard time, feller?’

Bannerman grimaced. ‘They’re mad as hell about Shannon getting out of jail.’

57

‘Did they come far to get him?’

The big man spat forcefully between his feet and scowled in the direction of the law office. ‘Some place with a name I don’t remember. And sure wouldn’t be able to say properly if I could. Four days on the trail to get here. Shannon killed some bigwig politician down over the border. Sanchez and Mendoza aren’t your ordinary run-of-the-mill lawmen. They’re government agents.’

‘Seems to me that whatever beef they got is between them and McCall.’

‘Yeah, I know. But I got a certain standing in this town, Mr Edge. Which caused me to feel I had to go over to John’s office and tell them more of the details than they said you told them out along the trail. I didn’t like their attitude: acting like they had some kind of authority here in Dalton Springs – which ain’t even in their country! Seemed to me from how they looked and spoke that they called John and the rest of us some dirty names.’

Edge made to move away and Bannerman was disconsolately reluctant to end the exchange, searched his mind for something to say and finally managed:

‘What’ll happen, you figure?’

‘No idea, feller.’

‘Yeah, it’s not your concern, I know that. You’re just passing through.’

‘Maybe. But I need to make a living. And it could be there’s a way for me to do that around here. In town or out of it.’

Bannerman’s frowning face became shiny with sweat unconnected with the hot morning air. And once more Edge was aware of the musky smell of the big man who looked as if he was steeling himself to say something disturbing. Then blurted:

‘Look, Mr Edge – the standing I got in Dalton Springs is that I’m the elected mayor of the town. Which ain’t much of an office to hold. But I take it seriously. We don’t get too much bad trouble around here and when we do, either John McCall or Phil Raine has always taken care of it. But I figure in this situation I got a duty to do what neither of them is around to carry out?’

Edge replied evenly: ‘Whatever you say, feller. But don’t count on me to lend a hand. If my plans work out whatever line of business I take up won’t have anything to do with the law. Just be doing the best I can to stay on the right side of it.’

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Bannerman shook his head, his fleshy face set in the familiar morose expression. He said hurriedly: ‘Trouble is, it seems to me I ought to arrest you for killing Sam Kress. Hold you in jail until John gets back to Dalton Springs. Let him decide if – ‘

Edge cut in: ‘Tell you what I’ll do.’

Bannerman looked nervously unconvinced that he would be able to accept whatever suggestion was going to be put to him. And his sorrowful gaze shifted constantly back and forth between Edge’s impassive face and the revolver that jutted out from the waistband between the unfastened jacket.

Edge took the recently recovered money from his back pocket, counted off twenty dollars and held the bills out toward Bannerman. ‘You keep this for Ephraim Rider, feller. Which will mean the twenty bucks bail money in the law office safe is mine.’

The saloonkeeper accepted the bills but looked uncomfortable as he murmured: ‘I’m not sure if I can go along with this and – ‘

Edge jerked a thumb toward the funeral parlour and said with a shrug: ‘You’ve seen how much I value my own money. Even more important to me is that I’m not on any lawman’s wanted list. You can bet I won’t be going far until I’m certain I’m not. The big man remained cheerlessly thoughtful for several seconds. Then he nodded emphatically and was no longer so uneasy as he dropped the money into his apron pocket.

‘That sounds okay to me.’

Edge nodded.

But the saloonkeeper who was so conscientiously aware of his civic responsibilities as mayor of Dalton Spring scowled again as he gazed toward the law office. ‘I just hope those two government men from over the border are as easy to deal with once they’re through being so damn mad at me for something that wasn’t any of my fault.’

Edge checked a move to cross the street in the direction of the boarding house and said with a trace of a grin: ‘Why don’t you take them over to the Lucky Break and stand them to a couple of glasses of your beer, feller?’

‘Uh? Bannerman was clearly in no mood to match the other man’s good humour.

‘Then if they complain about how lousy it tastes, you can remind them they were the first to start poisoning Mexican-American relations.

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CHAPTER • 8

_________________________________________________________________________

EMILY JONAS, her short and wide frame clad in workaday grey instead of
mourning
black, pointedly did not invite Edge into the boarding house when he called to retrieve the carpetbag abandoned as he gave chase to Samuel Kress. There was an unblinking coldness in her brown eyes that effectively concealed why she distanced herself from him: whether from resentment or fear. But whatever her reason, he judged now was not a good time to ask the disapproving elderly lady about renting one of her rooms.

The Frontier Colt was back in its holster tidily wrapped in the gunbelt stowed in the carpetbag he carried when he re-crossed the almost empty street. Then entered the bank which smelled of fresh furniture polish and the cloyingly sweet perfume of the lone middle aged lady teller whose aloof attitude toward Edge was much like that of Emily Jonas. But at least this soberly dressed, tall and thin, obviously falsely blonde woman was duty bound to usher him into the inner sanctum of the banker when the man agreed to see the visitor.

The name and title neatly painted on the frosted glass panel of the office door was
Cyril J. Casey – President.
He was an immaculately dressed, animated, thick bodied little man with wire framed spectacles perched on a snub nose at the centre of a round, pallid, smooth skinned face that, like his almost hairless head, looked as polished as every piece of furniture in his bank.

Casey listened attentively to what Edge told him and agreed that in theory it sounded like a first class business opportunity for a man prepared to work hard at it. And it might in time be successful in making money. But since Edge was new in town, had no references, little ready cash of his own to invest and no collateral to support a loan, there was absolutely no chance of him borrowing from the Dalton Springs Savings Bank to buy the equipment and livestock needed to start up the proposed enterprise. Which came as no great surprise to Edge who was not unduly disappointed by the banker’s polite, reasoned and apologetic refusal to make him a cash advance. In his experience during recent years, raising money to finance often sound but never certain schemes for making a living or maybe a fortune had always been difficult. And so he was 60

used to having heads shaken in his direction in the offices of often, heeding, sometimes interested and occasionally understanding but invariably pragmatic bankers. But he never abandoned a possible project until all avenues had been explored and today he had another idea already formed before he attempted to raise a bank loan. And having learned from the sympathetic Casey exactly where he could find the man who had taken delivery of the wagon load of farm implements yesterday evening, he set out to put this into effect.

Fred Drayton’s farm was some five miles to the south west of town and it was a wearisome walk through mounting heat far into afternoon before he reached his destination. But at no time did he regret his carefully considered decision not to take a horse from the livery of the absent Ephraim Rider. Because to rent a mount cost money and with his limited resources he needed to cut every financial corner he could. The farm, set in an extensive hollow off the trail to the west, was something of a surprise. For it was comprised of only about ten acres of high grown corn, a small lemon grove, an adobe shack in urgent need of repair, a larger and newer clapboard barn and a corral from which two swayback horses eyed him forlornly.

So it was not the kind of spread in need of a whole wagon load of new implements. As he drew closer on a spur track running down off the trail, his suit jacket over an arm and the rest of his clothing pasted by sweat to his flesh, he recognised Drayton’s piebald was one of the corralled horses. But the flatbed wagon parked alongside the barn was far older and not so large as the one he had driven down from Tucson to Dalton Springs.

There was no smoke from the shack’s single chimney, which was not unusual at this time of day: for noon was long gone and the supper hour still far off. There was a well out front of the shack and as the prospect of a cool drink of water acted to quicken his pace along the rutted track, he sensed that except for the pair of horses he was the only living thing hereabouts. Which brought a deeply etched scowl to his sweat run, heavily bristled face as he reflected on the long walk through the harsh heat of the day.

There had always been the possibility he could not swing a deal with Drayton. Which was acceptable on the luck of the draw principle. But that his arduous trek – and he still 61

had the return half to make – should be wasted simply because the farmer was not at home

. . .

He halted three-quarters of the way between the trail and the two buildings and yelled: ‘Anybody home? Drayton! You about?’

For long seconds silence was the only response to his shouts, before one of the horses in the coral whinnied and shook his head as if to augment the negative reaction of the human kind.

He moved closer to the shack, which he now saw had no glass in the windows and a door that was firmly closed. The barn had no windows of any kind, but one of its large double doors was part way open, a gap of perhaps five feet offering a tacit invitation to enter into the shade beyond.

He paused beside the well and hauled up a bucketful of water that sparkled in the bright sunlight. There was no ladle so he used his cupped hands, first to drink his fill then to splash water over his face.

Next he went to the shack, thudded the heel of a fist on the door and yelled again:

‘Drayton! It’s Edge! The feller who brought the wagon from Tucson last night!’

This time not even a horse offered a coincidental reply and he stepped to the side to peer through a window into the deeply shadowed, cool looking interior of what was a single roomed home.

A narrow cot stood in one corner and there was some mismatched, roughly fashioned furniture that took care of Drayton’s living and eating needs when he was not sleeping inside or working out. Two chairs at a table, a rocker beside the fireplace in which a cold cooking range stood, two throw rugs on the dirt floor, some cupboards presumably where cooking and eating utensils and maybe some clothing were stored. It was far from immaculately neat and clean, but neither was it grossly unkempt and filthy. The simple abode of a man without a woman who happened not to be around the place at the moment and probably would not have gone to any trouble if he was expecting a visitor he had no reason to impress.