The Quiet Gun - Edge Series 1 (10 page)

Then Edge backed away from the window, turned and headed for the barn: and found Fred Drayton.

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The man was hanging upside-down from a roof beam, a quarter way into the building that was longer than it was wide: strung up by his ankles with his head six inches from the dirt floor. His arms were lashed to his sides so that he had not been able to defend himself in any manner when the killing began.

Even in the darkly shadowed interior of the barn it was clear to see from the misshapen contours and dull coloration of the man’s head, and the way dried blood was splattered far and wide in a circular pattern across the floor, that Drayton had been suspended from the beam while reasonably healthy: then kicked to death. His corpse had not yet started to smell.

Edge shifted his glinting eyed gaze away from the dead man still dressed in the same clothing as when he first saw him and impassively surveyed the rest of the hot and stuffy barn. Saw it was like the house in that while it was not immaculately kept, except for the corpse and blood stains, the place was no more than disordered from mundane day to day use.

Hay and straw bales and bulging sacks of feed and seed were stacked against one wall with a plough, a harrow, a driller and a derelict buggy missing a wheel stored opposite. All the equipment showed evidence of much use but all of it with the exception of the buggy looked to be in working order.

Across the rear wall was a line of four horse stalls only two of which showed signs of recent occupation. And nearby was a rack from which hung a range of hand tools: a shovel, fork, rake, two hoes and a water pail.

There was no sign of the new implements Edge delivered to Drayton in Dalton Springs last night.

The ladder that was used to string up the doomed farmer lay on the floor where it fell after serving its purpose. Edge reset it at an angle against the beam, took his razor from the carpetbag and climbed high enough so he could cut through the rope below the knot that had tightened progressively with each vicious kick landed against the man’s head to send his pain wracked body wildly swinging.

The weight of the corpse was such Edge was unable to lower it to the floor with any kind of reverence and the unfeeling Drayton hit the hard packed dirt with a thud. To collapse into a lose heap: head, torso and legs spread every which way. 63

It was not out of any sense of revulsion that Edge held back from untying the ropes at the dead man’s ankles and from around his torso. He simply considered it a task best left for the men with a duty to take care of such matters. Outside, squinting in the bright sunlight, he led the two horses from the corral and harnessed them in the wagon traces. Then went back into the barn, gripped the severed rope near to where it was lashed to the man’s ankles and dragged him unceremoniously out to the rig. He climbed up on to the bed of the wagon, hauled on the rope to pull the corpse aboard and draped it with the free end of the roll of tarp on the wagon. Crouched on the seat, the carpetbag beside him, he set the horses moving at a walk along the sloping track then turned on to the trail in the direction of town. Took the makings from his shirt pocket and rolled and lit the first cigarette he had tasted since he drove another, more heavily and less gruesomely laden wagon to within sight of Dalton Springs last night.

These days, for no particular reason, he did not use tobacco nearly so much as he used to in the violent times long gone by: before he reached that turning point in his life when he chose to kill a lawman to save the skin of an erstwhile friend. After which the ruling fates that until then had invariably directed him down trails fraught with danger and death allowed him to begin a new way of life. Offered him the chance to make a fresh start, living normally in peaceful surroundings. Without need to pack a Colt in a tied down holster, ensure a repeater rifle was always close to hand and carry a straight razor as a weapon in a pouch at the nape of his neck. And his attempt to emulate the example of Adam Steele had gone well enough: even though he always doubted his own ability to settle down in one place in the way the Virginian had so manfully tried and ultimately failed to do. But he was content for most of the time, putting his hand to whatever job was available wherever he happened to be before he moved on to pastures new and fresh enterprises.

Because he was by nature a loner and a drifter it was inevitable his new way of life should turn out to be as rootless as the old. But he had learned in the bad old days to maintain a stoically philosophical attitude toward the alternating comforts and deprivations that came as a piece with a wandering existence. And this attitude had served him still since that evening on a remote California trail when a premeditated act of cold blooded murder had paradoxically seemed to rule further violence out of his life. 64

Or so he had come to believe - until he happened upon the advertisement in the Tucson newspaper that was destined to be the first link in a chain of trouble filled events reminiscent of countless past violent episodes.

He could not, of course, have foreseen what was to come when he went to the cantina and struck the deal with Ezra Franklinn. Had not gotten an inkling of dangerous trouble until he saw the vicious glint in the eyes of Sam Kress when the man cheating at cards made the death threat.

Now as he smoked a cigarette in an attempt to allay hunger pangs, Edge sighed softly and shook his head ruefully. Admitted to himself that he had acted like a damn fool in the Lucky Break last night: then had reacted no better than a wet behind the ears greenhorn to the trouble he started.

But his decision to remain in the cell in the Dalton Springs jailhouse when Luke Shannon was busted out was a sound one – which he figured went some way to redeeming his early dumb stupidity.

For sure the way he dealt with the fleeing Kress had been extreme for the kind of man he had become. So was he now destined not to be that man any longer? But if this turned out to be the case, then it was reassuring to have proved to himself he could still put a Winchester rifle to deadly use if need be.

Now he ran a hand lightly over the carpetbag on the seat at his side and a narrowed eyed, thin lipped smile came to his darkly bristled, angular featured face as he thought of the Frontier Colt and sheathed razor inside. Knew instinctively that if necessary his lethal expertise with these weapons would return naturally to him. Just like at Drayton’s farm he had been able to do what was necessary to the corpse of a brutally murdered man with no unease.

So, be broadened his smile: sure in his own mind that should the quiet life end because his ruling fates ordained it was time for more encounters with violence, he had not deep down changed from the kind of man he once had always been. Forgotten the hard learned skills of survival. Or consciously altered his innate detached attitude toward the harsh realities of life and death.

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He took the near smoked cigarette from the corner of his mouth and developed the smile into a short laugh, tossed the butt off the side of the wagon and directed a stream of saliva after it then muttered: ‘Seems some old habits really do die hard, thank the Lord.’

It was getting toward cooling evening when he drove the wagon to within sight of Dalton Springs that looked much as it had when he left it on foot: its citizens as they neared the end of the working day yet to learn the violence of last night and this morning had a postscript.

But as the wagon trundle down the town’s main street after he steered it around the corner of Jake Slocum’s funeral parlour, Edge revised his initial impression. The quiet scene was not a later version of this morning’s circumstances. For the handful of people on the street seemed to emanate a kind of numbed listlessness he now recognised was not caused solely by weariness after a day’s work in the high south western heat.

And when they lifted bowed heads to peer at the wagon and driver their morose expressions emphasised the funereal atmosphere that enveloped Dalton Springs. Even horses harnessed to parked rigs or tied to hitching rails stood as if held in torpid inertia by something other than exhaustion. And the dirty grey smoke from more than a score of chimneys hung against the dulling evening sky in unmoving vertical lines like ominously pointing fingers portending further evil.

It was almost as if Fred Drayton had been a highly respected man in these parts and news had already circulated that he was brutally dead and his gruesome remains were being brought into town.

Which was crazy nonsense, Edge told himself. And although he was curious about the reason for the atmosphere of despair that gripped Dalton Springs, he held back from questioning anyone he saw: most of them unknown to him and some vaguely remembered from his brief time in town. For either the sheriff, if he was back, or Jake Slocum who would take the corpse off him in McCall’s absence, would surely explain. But it was neither of these.

When the wagon drew level with the Lucky Break Saloon, the batwings creaked open slowly and a booted foot was set down heavily on the threshold. Next he heard the tell-tale 66

metallic sounds of a revolver’s action being cocked and looked toward the man in the doorway: saw a Colt .45 aimed at him.

As he brought the team to a smooth halt he saw it was Luke Shannon who levelled the sixshooter, a broad grin on his gap toothed, narrow eyed, ruggedly handsome face when he greeted effusively:

‘Well, if it ain’t my old jailhouse buddy. How’re you doing, tinhorn?’

Edge pursed his lips. ‘To tell the truth, feller, life has been a whole series of downs without hardly an up in sight since I got to this town.’

Shannon wore no hat on his thickly black haired head, was attired in a check shirt and denim pants pushed into spurred riding boots and had a twin holstered gunbelt slung around his waist. He looked down at the revolver fisted in his right hand and seemed surprised to see it there. Scowled and pushed it firmly into the empty holster as he explained, almost apologetically:

‘Just so you know who’s the big noise around here for awhile? You go about your business and don’t cause trouble, you won’t have nothing to feel bad about on account of me and my buddies.’

Edge glanced pointedly up and down the street that was almost deserted of people now. ‘Everyone’s been told the same, I guess?

‘You’re quick on the uptake, tinhorn. Like you can see, the good citizens of this fair town are all going along with what I told them. They ain’t too happy about it, but I can understand that. See, the two Mex lawmen and the local mayor are locked up in that jailhouse I got to know a whole lot better than you. And if there’s trouble, everyone knows those three guys’ll be first to pay the price for it.’

‘Got you.’

Shannon shrugged. ‘Guess the local folks don’t care too much about the greasers. But they seem to think real highly of the big guy. Okay?’

‘No sweat.’

‘Same for me, tinhorn.’ He grinned. ‘And by the way, you don’t spook me no more.’

Shannon backed away and the batwings creaked closed as his footfalls rapped hollowly on the saloon floor. No other sounds emerged from the building as Edge turned 67

the wagon around, the rattle of its wheels, creak of its timbers and clop of the team’s hooves comprising the only body of noise to disturb the tense peace of fast falling twilight. The street was now totally empty of people, as if the sight of Shannon at the saloon entrance and the brief, low voiced exchange between him and Edge had acted to replace dejection with apprehension and caused everyone to retreat into the comforting refuge of their homes.

From up on the wagon seat, Edge was able to see over the top of the half curtain at the window of the law office and glimpsed somebody sitting in the low lamplight at the desk where Deputy Phil Raine had been killed.

Elsewhere in town no lamps were lit unless behind tightly drawn drapes. The front section of Jake Slocum’s premises was in total darkness, no crack of light showing at the edges of the door or at the flanking windows with their displays of white stone grave markers against black velvet. But a wedge of yellow shafted out across the alley into which Edge steered the wagon between the undertaker’s parlour and workshop and neighbouring bakery.

This area of light widened as a door was swung open wide and the elongated shadow of the cheroot smoking Slocum showed in it. Edge looked down at the man himself after he had halted the team so the rear end of the rig was level with the doorway.

‘Oh, it’s you, mister. I heard the wagon. You heard what’s happened in town since you been gone?’

‘A little. Shannon just pulled a gun on me. Warned I won’t be the only one to get killed it I make trouble.’

Slocum removed his cheroot for long enough to spit into the alley. ‘Puts it in a nutshell. So if you do plan to cause more trouble than you already have, do it someplace else, uh?’

He made to swing back into his workshop but checked the move when Edge said:

‘I’ve got another corpse for you, feller.’

Slocum snatched the cheroot from his mouth, ‘You got what?’

Edge jerked a curved thumb toward the tarp draped hump in the back of the wagon bathed in the glow of the workshop light. ‘Maybe you knew him? A farmer called Drayton?’

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‘Fred Drayton?’