EDGE SLEPT UNDER the blankets from his bedroll on the spring pine needles which thickly covered the ground in back of the granite outcrop. Here, he and his horse were out of sight and earshot of the three men and a woman a half mile down the slope, and were also effectively concealed from anyone who might happen to pass along the trail during the hours of darkness.
But nothing happened in the night to disturb the half-breed’s customary shallow level of sleep. And he awoke at sun-up feeling luxuriously rested: contented enough with his lot not to think for perhaps a full minute about the circumstances that had caused him to be bedded down in this particular spot.
During this time he remained sprawled on his back, his Stetson removed from his face. Consciously breathing the cool, crystal-clear, pine-scented morning air as he peered up at the patch of cloudless sky visible above the surrounding treetops and the slab of granite. Contemplated a future filled with such awakenings each day, untroubled by disconcerting memories, confident about facing up to the undemanding challenges he would meet during the day ahead.
Then his horse vented a low whinny, as if to call attention to the truth that a man could not live entirely for the gratification of self-interest: had responsibilities that must first be attended to if he wished to enjoy those simplest of pleasures that never did come free.
But as he felt a scowl of mild irritation grip his features, Edge became aware that the gelding was not asking for attention. Instead was giving unobtrusive vent to a nervous reaction as a new body of sound intruded on the quiet of the early morning.
This was the thud of galloping hooves and the rattle of wheelrims on hard-packed ground. The sounds coming from some way off to the south but rising steadily in volume as the fast-moving wagon headed northward.
And the final remnants of the half-breed’s contentment were shredded to nothing, while the only confidence he now experienced was concerned with the hunch he had nurtured about a less than innocent reason for the camp being set up at a midway point down the hillside.
He quickly slid out from under his blankets, taking with him the Winchester rifle that had shared his bed. Jammed the Stetson hard on his head and spat out the taste of a night’s sleep as he moved around the rock. Stepped onto the trail and went toward the brow of the hill from where he could survey the entire length of the valley.
He reached the vantage point just as the people in the camp were jerked from sleep by the same series of sounds that had ended his musings about his personal vision of the perfect life.
But in his world this early Monday morning, anything close to a state of perfection looked like it was as far removed from him as it invariably was.
He glanced for just a moment at the activity in the camp below, then shifted the direction and lengthened the focus of his narrowed eyes: peered along the valley and saw a wagon and two-horse team about a mile away. Heading northward on the curving trail beside the stream, the horses starting to slow as the driver hauled on the reins, getting ready for the less than steep but long and energy-draining climb out of the northern end of the valley.
Then Edge returned his gaze to the camp in the clearing off the trail some halfway down the slope. In time to see that although Ruby Red had been submissive while everyone was alert, she was not trusted to remain so co-operative during the night. And now, while Singer and Wyler attended to saddling their horses, Harper was crouched beside the woman, unfastening the knots of the ropes that bound her ankles together, her wrists behind her back.
There was a frenetic urgency about the activity at the camp, a tone of high tension in the harsh exchanges. The words were incomprehensible to Edge over the distance, but the meaning was plain: demands were made to hurry up and excuses returned that things were getting done as fast as they could be.
The short and flabby Cecil Wyler, his obese body straining his too-tight clothes, drew most of the criticism for his heavy breathing slowness. But the tall and slender Ruby Red came in for a share of censure after she was free of her bonds. Once Seymour Singer even lashed out at her with a fist, but she easily ducked under the clumsy swing, like an experienced prize fighter matched against a punch-drunk opponent.
‘You bitch!’ Singer yelled with shrill-voiced frustration.
And in turn was snarled at by Harper who clearly warned him about the nearness of the approaching wagon.
For a moment Edge considered staying where he was to watch the outcome of the hurried breaking of camp. What it meant in relation to the approaching wagon he was certain would be the McAllister Lumber Company rig making its return to Ross.
But he felt at a disadvantage without having his horse ready to ride. And figured he had enough time to break his own camp, saddle the gelding and be back in position to witness the climax of events in the valley without missing out on too much.
But not much more than a minute later it looked at first like he had made a mistake. That was how much time it took him to do what was necessary,, to the disgust of the gelding who objected to the hurried saddling with a disgruntled snort.
For when he returned to the top of the hill, leading his mount by the bridle, only the slow-moving rig was in sight. Harper, Singer, Wyler and Ruby Red were no longer to be seen: just the remains of their fire showing where they had been camped in the clearing.
But what the hell did it matter to him, Edge asked himself as he became aware of another unbidden scowl stiffening his facial muscles, his thin lips drawing back from his teeth, his eyes narrowing to glittering slits of ice blue. It was now as dazzlingly plain to see as the sun in the south eastern sky that the Harper bunch planned to spring an unwelcome surprise on Ray Grogan and his passenger—a man riding shotgun to protect the valuable payload?
And the finer details of how and precisely where the hold-up was to take place were no concern of his, Edge acknowledged as he took a tighter grip on the frame of the Winchester in one hand, the bridle in the other and came to the brink of venting a soft curse of irritation.
Then he spotted movement on the trail, way ahead of the wagon. Maybe a hundred feet back up the hill from where the camp had been, he saw Ruby Red move out from the trees and stand on the center of the trail. Where she remained immobile for several seconds, peering back into the timber where she had emerged. Until she swung her head around to look in the opposite direction, like something had been said to her from this side of the trail.
There was anger in her attitude, like she was impatient with the final instructions that were given her.
Now Edge switched his gaze constantly between the woman and the wagon, until it went from sight under a canopy of trees through which the trail curved before the ground started to rise.
Then he concentrated his attention on Ruby Red: saw her anger had expanded as she threw up her hands and over the distance it seemed to him like she was going to claw at her own face or maybe try to throttle herself with her bare hands. But then she hooked her fingers inside the neckline of her shirt and jerked them down: wrenched it open to the waist as buttons popped and fabric ripped.
Immediately, just as the horses in the wagon traces came into sight out of the trees, slowly, to climb the hill, she sat down hard on the center of the trail. Jerked her skirt up around her thighs and splayed her long legs. Threw her arms to the sides, thudded her back—and the back of her head—to the ground.
Plainly she was bitterly opposed to what she was being forced to do: uncaring that she caused herself physical pain by the force with which she conveyed her resentment. Or maybe she had tried to knock herself out by crashing her head against the hard-packed surface of the trail.
From where he stood beside his nervous horse, Edge had a distant view of the bare-legged, naked to the waist, woman spreadeagled, on the trail. Had to force himself to look away from the powerfully erotic attitude she had assumed, switch the direction of his narrow-eyed gaze to the men up on the open seat of the enclosed wagon.
They were getting a much more startling view of Ruby Red’s state of violent undress as the rig roiled closer to her. And whether because of sexual arousal at seeing her exposed legs and torso, or compassion for a seemingly injured fellow human being, the driver and his passenger riveted their attention on her.
Seemed suddenly immune to all else, which was surely what Harper, Singer and Wyler had intended.
But was the wagon going to stop? Edge was abruptly gripped by a degree of concern that caused him to let go of the bridle and take a two handed grasp on the Winchester. Which he angled across his chest, an instant away from bringing it to the aim from his shoulder.
Maybe the driver would stay too surprised for too long. Or else either man could figure the woman on the center of the trail was a ploy. And a failure to react quickly enough or a decision to command a spurt of high speed from the team could have the same bone-crunching result for Ruby Red if she realized too late she had to lunge away from plunging hooves and spinning wheels.
But Ray Grogan—Edge recognized it was the stockily built man who had the reins—recovered from the shock of seeing the unmoving woman who blocked the trail. And had no trouble in bringing the team to a halt short of where she lay. For because of the slow speed on the upgrade of the trail the animals stopped immediately he hauled on the reins, jerked the brake lever so the blocks bit against the wheelrims.
Maybe Grogan and his taller, younger, black-mustached partner glanced fleetingly to left and right as the wagon came to a standstill, fearful of a trap, or able to sense all was not well, or to check if the attacker of the half-naked woman was still nearby. But it could only have been with a flicking of their eyes along the sockets. Over the intervening distance, it seemed to Edge like both men stared with riveted fascination at Ruby Red for stretched seconds.
Then he saw them snap their heads from side to side: reacting to sounds that signaled they were not alone. Perhaps the crack of a dry twig under a booted foot, or more likely words that were snarled at them.
Grogan stared to the left, his passenger to the right. Then each swung his head to look in the opposite direction. And thrust their arms above their heads in response to a tacit or spoken command as Prentice Harper stepped out of the timber on the side of the trail where Ruby Red had come from, and Cecil Wyler and Seymour Singer emerged from the trees on the other side.
Each of the three men was masked by a kerchief that covered the lower half of his face and each carried a rifle, angled up at the two on the wagon seat.
Apart from when he was anxious that the wagon might not halt before running over the woman, Edge had watched the hold-up with an impassive expression on his heavily-bristled face that truly conveyed how he felt about what he was seeing.
He was satisfied with his hunches about this whole thing: that it was the lumber company wagon that interested the three men, and they had pitched their night camp precisely where they did so they were well positioned for its early morning approach, could easily stop it on a hill where it would be making slow progress as it emerged from around a curve through the timber and the first sight of the half-naked woman would not allow the driver and passenger any time to think about the possible dangerous ramifications of what they were seeing.
He was satisfied, but had no sense of elation at guessing the actions of Harper and the others in a situation such as this, when he had nothing to gain or lose from his foresight. Unless he counted the satisfying of his curiosity.
But now Edge found himself experiencing doubt again, and once more a scowl spread across his face. This as he watched the men with rifles close in on the wagon, Harper on the driver’s side, Singer and Wyler the other. And Ruby Red got to her feet, the hem of her skirt falling to her ankles of its own accord as she clutched the torn-open shirt in front of her breasts.
The early morning stillness of the timber-cloaked mountain-scape beyond the vicinity of the hold-up suddenly seemed menacingly brittle. Not at all like the tranquil peace that had reigned when he woke up, pleasant images filling his mind even though he was so sure something evil was being planned just a few hundred yards away.
But back then it had been easy to remain detached from what he had accurately predicted was going to happen. Now it was taking place, he found it was impossible to ignore what was happening: remain a bystander even though the trouble was no concern of his.
Because maybe it was, damnit!
If he were ever to have a stable life in a community among his fellow men, he had to adopt a more conventional set of moral standards than those he had lived by until now. And the most fundamental canon had to be a clear understanding of the difference between right and wrong. Especially in such a clear-cut circumstance as this, when there was not even a gray area between the two, and a right-thinking man had to side with the wronged against the wrongdoers.
And a right-thinking man in a position to help the wronged should accept his responsibility and attempt to do just that. It didn’t matter a damn whether he was directly involved or if there was no material gain to be had.
It took him just two or three seconds to consider this line of thought that would have gone so much against the grain not long ago. While he continued to watch the hold-up about halfway down the hill: decided by a sequence of coolly-reasoned thinking to take a hand.
When the time was right.
But then the impulsive actions of somebody else forced his hand.
The men on the wagon had been ordered to climb down from their seats, and this is what they started to do. And they should have completed doing as they were told if they had taken the time to think clearly about their situation. For the masks worn by the hold-up men signaled they had no intention of shooting down the lumber company men: planned only to rob the wagon and ride off, with no risk of being identified later.
From thinking this way, or out of a terrified inability to resist, Ray Grogan eagerly complied with the order. But his partner was either attacked by a bout of company loyalty or did not trust the masked men to stop short of cold-blooded murder. Or maybe he was needled by something somebody said.
Whatever the reason, instead of using both his hands, as Grogan did, to steady himself as he started to climb off the wagon, he shoved one inside his jacket: just had time to drag the butt of a revolver out from under a lapel before Prentice Harper’s rifle exploded a shot at him.
The bullet cracked past Grogan and took the other man under the jaw, jerked his head back and sent him flying backwards off the wagon, blood gouting from his holed jugular vein. He was instantly dead and spasmed in mid-air, hit the ground like a loosely-packed sack of grain and settled into an untidy heap, arms and legs twisted at awkward angles.
If he had had the time to utter a vocal response to violent death it was inaudible to Edge against the scream of terror vented by Ray Grogan. Who froze in the act of getting down off the wagon, tightly gripping the seat rail with one hand while his other arm thrust high in the air, ramrod stiff.
The shrill cry caused all the rifles to swing to cover him.
Just as instinctively, Edge threw the butt of his Winchester to his shoulder. Drew a bead on Harper, thumbed back the hammer behind a live shell already in the breech, squeezed the trigger.
The range was long, the angle downwards, but his aim was true. The bullet tunneled into Harper’s chest, high and to the right: still had enough impetus to twist him and knock him off his feet, the rifle slipping out of his weakened grip.
Once more reacting from instinct, without taking a moment for calculated thought, both the tall and skinny Singer and the short and fat Wyler swung away from the wagon and its driver and Ruby Red. To look and aim their rifles in the direction from which the gunshot had cracked.
Edge, his ice-blue eyes narrowed to glittering threads and his lips drawn back from his teeth in the killer’s grin that fitted so easily on his lean face, swung the lever action of the Winchester down and forward. Slapped it back into position to jack a fresh round out of the magazine, into the breach.
The expended shell case was still arcing through the early morning air when he saw the puffs of white smoke from the muzzles of both men’s rifles below him.
As he squeezed his trigger a second time he was aware on the periphery of his vision of a flurry of activity on the other side of the wagon to where Singer and Wyler stood.
Something red, moving fast. Red was the color of the woman’s shirt.
He had aimed at the shorter, fatter man because Cecil Wyler presented the easier target to hit over such a long range. And he made no move to avoid the two shots fired at him: knew there was no time to avoid being hit if either man were a crack shot, and that if they were relying on luck, he had as much chance of getting shot standing still as moving.
He heard one bullet ricochet off the outcrop of rock several feet to his left. Did not know if the other one came anywhere near him as he watched Wyler hurl away his gun, clutch at his belly and stagger backwards for several clumsy paces, screaming that he was hit.
By now, Singer had learned a fast lesson that it was dangerous to concern himself with what was happening nearby when a sharpshooter was exploding lethal gunfire from a distance. A sharpshooter who stood out in the open, starkly silhouetted against the bright morning sky.
He pumped the lever action of his repeater, drew a more careful bead on Edge: and found out the hardest way there is that he had made the wrong decision. For a bullet tunneled into his back from short range, with enough velocity to send him into a staggering run. Until his dead hands released the rifle and his dead legs collapsed under him. And he pitched to the ground, probably had no time to even start to wonder what had happened to him, was maybe too shocked to experience any pain.
Edge had used the lever action of his Winchester in unison with Singer. But was able to check his trigger finger at first pressure when he heard the shot and saw its effect. Kept the rifle pressed to his shoulder as he shifted his gaze from the dead man he had not killed, to look fleetingly at the two he had shot.
Prentice Harper was unmoving and could be dead.
Cecil Wyler was sitting on the ground, short legs splayed out in front of him, pressing both hands to his stomach. But he was not able to staunch the flow of blood from his gut wound and it oozed out between his interlocked fingers.
He was in no condition to try to reach for his discarded rifle when he saw Ruby Red moving around the front of the horses in the wagon traces.
It was Harper’s fallen rifle she had scooped up and used on Singer, firing from the hip. And she held it in the same position now, unmindful of the tom shirt that gaped open, flapping lethargically at either side of her naked breasts.
Edge thought he could see Cecil Wyler’s fleshy lips moving as Ruby Red came to a halt six feet in front of him. Perhaps he pleaded with her as she angled the barrel down to aim at his face. Or maybe he taunted her when he stared into her dark eyes and realized that right then she was incapable of feeling pity, being merciful.
Whatever he said to the tall, slender, blonde-haired and dark-skinned half-breed, she blasted a shot between his eyes. And the impact of the bullet in his head sent him forcefully backwards, where he twitched once from head to toe, then was still.
Next, as Edge lowered his rifle and eased the hammer forward, Ruby Red turned away from the blood-run corpses of Wyler and Singer.
And Ray Grogan hurried to balance himself precariously with his feet on a front wheel of the wagon, his knees pressed against the side of the seat so he was able to push both arms high again.
But the terrified wagon driver was not a target for Ruby Red’s spite. And she must have told him so, for he dropped his arms, scrambled back on to the seat and snatched up the reins. Then either she said something to him that caused him to delay leaving, or he became gripped by a brand of horrified fascination as he watched the woman move to where Prentice Harper lay.
Harper had not moved since he went down, a bullet in his chest. But that didn’t have to mean he was dead. Edge was too far removed from the scene to see any slight rise and fall of the man’s chest. And he thought that perhaps the woman was too emotionally involved in what she was doing to care, one way or the other, if she was ending Harper’s life or if she was carrying out a mere symbolic act of revenge against the man who had won her in a card game, forced her to suffer the greater degradation of sharing her body with his friends.
But certainly Harper was not conscious as she advanced on him, stooped a little so she could press the muzzle of the Winchester into his crotch.
She pulled the trigger.
The horses in the wagon traces, which had shied and reared against their restraints at the earlier gunfire and the acrid stink of the black powder smoke, had become immune to this brand of violence now.
But Edge’s gelding reacted as if this final distant shot had snapped the over-stretched nerve that had been strained to keep him calmly quiet for so long during the earlier exchange of gunfire.
The animal whinnied and Edge had time to throw down his rifle and grasp the reins in both hands as the gelding reared, taking the bridle out of reach. Entered into a battle of strength and wills with the gelding as he flailed his forelegs and snorted his mounting terror, eyes bulged, teeth bared, ears pricked and sweat lathering across his coat.
In countless other circumstances, the superior strength of the horse would certainly have triumphed over that of the man. The plunging, circling, shrieking animal would have wrenched the reins free of the man’s hands: wheeled and bolted to put great distance between himself and the human kind which had caused his blind panic.
But Edge was possessed of a powerful will to win this contest with a dumb animal. And felt like his natural brute strength was increased many times by the self-anger at having persuaded himself to take a hand in the carnage. By submitting to the compulsion, for whatever fanciful reasoning concerned with developing a social conscience, he felt like he had lost out: was somehow a weaker character than he was before. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to lose this battle of a clear-thinking man against a terrified animal.
At first he used brute force along with a series of snarled obscenities that took the place of hurting the innocent horse with kicks, punches or even a killing gunshot.
Then, once the initial fear of the gelding was eased, the sounds of his terror silenced and he lost the urge to lash out with his hooves, Edge spoke softer words of persuasion to soothe the final traces of fight and fright out of the animal.
The battle was won, man and horse run with sweat. And as they started to recover their breath, seemingly unable to move an aching muscle, some of the dust kicked up during the struggle adhered to coat and skin. While a blessed silence came to the north end of the valley: maybe extended for many miles to the south and out across the mountains to the east and west. It certainly seemed to the deeply-breathing Edge like the entire world came to a stop for many stretched seconds.
Then he looked around, saw that the fight with the horse had drawn him back from the brow of the hill beside the rock outcrop. He led his mount back to where he had dropped the Winchester and took the time to reload the magazine. Slid the rifle back in the boot and swung gratefully up into the saddle. Rode to the crest of the hill and down on to the slope without pausing. Rolled a cigarette and hung it from the side of his mouth as he watched the changed and still slowly changing scene near the stalled wagon.
In no hurry to get down there, be faced again with the prospect of behaving like a man who had turned over a new leaf to become like other men.
In the time it had taken to calm the spooked horse, Ray Grogan had done the right thing by his partner. Only a stain of dried blood on the trail showed where the shot man had fallen from the wagon. There was a like-colored stain on Grogan’s shirt front as he moved from the rear of the wagon, climbed wearily up on to the seat, which suggested he had loaded the corpse aboard to bring back to Ross.
Ruby Red sat on her haunches off to the side of the trail, her back against a tree trunk. A rifle rested across her thighs and her head was bowed as one hand held her tom shirt together. Her attitude was of total physical exhaustion, and Edge guessed she had herself taken care of the corpses of Harper, Singer and Wyler. Had dragged them from where they dropped to place them in a neat line beside where she sat. By accident, or maybe because she wanted to look at their dead faces, the kerchiefs that had been masks were now around their necks. Two Winchesters and the revolver which had been dropped by Grogan’s partner as he fell were together on the ground between Ruby Red and the line of bodies.
The half-breed woman did not look up after Edge rode close enough for the slow clop of hooves to be within earshot. Nor when he was recognized by the white-faced, no longer bright-eyed Grogan who called huskily:
‘Boy, am I grateful to you, Mr. Edge!’
‘Wish I could tell you it was a pleasure, feller,’ Edge replied flatly.
‘But if you hadn’t shown up and—’
‘Don’t think anything of it, uh?’
Grogan shook his head ruefully, swallowed hard and looked like he was close to being sick to his stomach before he admitted: ‘Well, I reckon I’m goin’ to be thinkin’ about all of this a whole lot, Mr. Edge. Likely wake up in a cold sweat over it a lot of nights. You wanna give me an address where you’re gonna be?’
‘What?’ Edge interrupted the process of striking a match on the butt of the Colt that jutted from his holster.
‘I need to know where you’re headed so I can—’
‘I won’t know where that is until I get there,’ the half-breed cut in. ‘Even if that wasn’t so, what—’
‘Damnit, mister, you just saved the McAllister Lumber Company a big bundle of money.’ The frowning Grogan jerked a hooked thumb over his shoulder to indicate the enclosed wagon he was driving. ‘There’s been some kinda delay in raisin’ the payroll money for six weeks. Usually me and the rest of the guys get paid every week. But we all agreed to keep on workin’ when the company said there’d be a bonus at the end of it.’
He had been talking fast and needed to take a long pause to draw breath. While he did this, Edge struck the match and lit the cigarette. Grogan went on with less frenetic haste: ‘Reason me and Joe Biles snuck outta town early Sunday mornin’. And made a fast turnaround. Drove through the night. Told there’d be a little extra for us if hurried things up and the bonuses would be low as possible.’
Edge nodded, said: ‘So you better be on your way to Ross, not waste any more time.’
Grogan nodded more emphatically, agreed: ‘What I plan to do. But there’s better than fifty thousand bucks aboard this wagon. And I reckon the company’ll be grateful enough to come up with some kinda reward when they find out what you done so it didn’t get stolen.’
Ruby Red vented a low growl of wearied scorn.
Grogan insisted: ‘And since I figure you saved my skin, I plan to do what I can to make them come—’
‘He didn’t do it on his own,’ Ruby Red reminded dully. Both men looked at her now, as she lifted her head and tossed it, to swing the long, disheveled, blonde hair from off her face. And they saw in the haggardness of her features just how mentally and physically drained she was. But deep in the darkness of her eyes there was a glint of resolute determination as she stared into the middle distance.
Grogan nodded, looked and sounded nervous as he spluttered: ‘Well, I don’t know if the company’ll pay more than the one reward. So what you two people do about splittin’ it, that’ll be up to you and I—’
‘You get your shotgun rider loaded aboard yet?’ Ruby Red cut in, still gazing at infinity. And it was obviously not a rhetorical question. She had been completely withdrawn into a private world while she sat against the tree after dealing with three of the corpses. Now she was disinclined to take the trouble to look around for the body of Joe Biles.
‘Yeah, I did that,’ Grogan reported morosely.
‘So you’re ready to haul all that temptation out of my sight,’ she murmured.
‘Uh?’
‘I didn’t know there was that much money aboard when they made me help them with the hold-up, Mr. Grogan,’ Ruby Red told him. ‘I didn’t want no part of gettin’ money that way. But I had to do like I was told or end up like this.’
She raised the hand off the rifle, waved it over the line of corpses, went on: ‘But now I know how much you’re carryin’ and there wouldn’t be no sharin’ it with ...’ She pulled a face, gripped the rifle again but not in a menacing way. ‘And since I’ve already killed two guys, one more won’t make me lose any extra sleep. So best you be on your way, mister. Before I think too hard about it and figure I could get real hot over a cool fifty thousand.’
Grogan swallowed hard again, perhaps looked more frightened than at any time since the three masked men with rifles emerged from the timber. He shifted his anxious gaze from the drained face of the woman to the impassive features of Edge. Then nodded, reached a tentative hand for the reins, another to grip the brake lever. Plainly would have preferred it if his tacit request for permission to leave had drawn a response, but managed to squeeze out the request around the lump in his throat:
‘So it’s okay to leave?’
‘No sweat,’ Edge answered.
Ruby Red said nothing nor did anything.
Grogan let off the brake but did not flick the reins over the backs of the horses as they took the weight of the wagon that wanted to roll back down the gentle slope, asked:
‘What about an address for the reward? If the company feels—’
‘You know the name,’ Edge interrupted. ‘Could be I can be reached care of Adam Steele, ranch called the Trail’s End, town of Providence, California.’
‘Ma’am?’ Grogan asked of the woman who had allowed her head to sink forward again, hair swinging across her face.
She said without looking up: ‘Send the whole bundle to where he says. Maybe he’ll see to it I get a share.’
‘Okay,’ Grogan acknowledged, and gave a sharp-voiced command to the team as he flicked the reins.
The rig moved forward, its driver looking neither to left nor right, his attitude seeming almost painfully stiff as he crouched on the seat, concentrated on not submitting to an impulse to order a frantic gallop up the slope and out of the valley.
Edge remained astride his mount, smoking the cigarette, switching his attention unhurriedly between the departing wagon and the hunkered-down woman, until the rig went out of sight over the brow of the hill beside the outcrop.
This took perhaps three minutes, during which time Ruby Red never moved or made a sound. But she was not so detached from her surroundings that she failed to hear Edge ask:
‘You trust me, lady?’
‘Like hell I do, mister. I don’t ever trust any man unless I know him real well. Most times not even then.’ Maybe there was a moment when blazing fires lit up her eyes in her downcast face, but her voice hardened just a little.
‘So?’
‘So what?’
‘The reward, lady.’
‘What friggin’ reward?’ Now there was just a hint of scorn in her voice. ‘I’d bet a buck to a penny that lumber company’s run by men. So I’m not countin’ on anybody to take the trouble to send any reward anyplace. Once they get their payroll safe and sound. And you and me are long gone.’
‘You could be right,’ Edge allowed evenly, shrugged.
Now she brought up her head, rose wearily to her feet and showed her face was expressionless, like she was too tired to feel anything about anything. She left the Winchester on the ground with the other rifles and the revolver so she could use both hands to clutch the torn shirt across the front of her body. Said dully:
'Let me tell you, mister, where men are concerned, I’m right more times than I’m wrong about them. And I ain’t gonna make no exceptions for present company. Most of them are bastards. Them that ain’t are sonsofbitches. A lot of the rest are assholes. Nine outta ten of the others are creeps. And maybe one in a million of all them that are left might be the kinda guy I could maybe get to like.’
Edge told her: ‘I ain’t about to defend any part of the human race, lady.’
She shrugged, showed something close to a cynical smile. ‘I’m one sour piece of ass, ain’t I, mister?’
‘I guess you got good reason to think the way you do.’ Now the cynical smile developed into a short laugh of contempt. ‘If you got a year to spare, I could maybe tell you about it.’
Edge shook his head. ‘I don’t go for that stuff about a trouble shared being a trouble halved.’
‘I wouldn’t expect you to. If it matters a damn, neither do I. Was once told that keepin’ stuff to myself is what makes me the mean-tempered bitch that I am.’
‘You know where to stop by if you figure there happens to be a reward?’
‘I heard.’
‘If I’ve moved on, I’ll leave your part of it there.’
She pulled a face, told him: ‘I reckon if I’m in line for any kinda reward, it’ll be the kind I’ll get in heaven. Best to you, mister.’
Edge tipped his hat, showed her a brief smile as he replied: ‘Guess the best I can wish you is to be good and die young.’