ONCE SHE REALISED she had to give her reluctant agreement to what Edge wanted to do, Ruby Red seemed to become lethargically dispirited: dejectedly resigned to meeting her fate, which had been transferred into his hands.
Or more likely, he thought as they got mounted, he pushed her gun under his belt at the belly and indicated she should ride ahead of him down the slope, she was merely facing up to the inevitable for now. Until the time came when she was in a better position to take control of the situation again.
Which he made sure was not right now as they picked their way carefully across the boulder-strewn slope, down to the trail. Then started back northward. He even abandoned his customary surveillance of his surroundings to maintain a constant watch on the woman.
On the level, unobstructed trail, he moved his horse up alongside her mount, asked: ‘You want to tell me what happened with Fortune, Ruby?’
‘I didn’t kill him.’
‘You already said so a time or two. What happened from when you were holding hands under the table and the time you started your horse running from the livery stable?’
She continued to stare directly ahead for several seconds, her profile set in a hard frown, as if to tacitly emphasize she was finished talking with him. Then a long sigh trickled out of her mouth and she said wearily:
‘I’m not what you think I am. What most men think I am. There’s a ... a purpose to everythin’ I do, mister. It doesn’t matter to you what that purpose is, but it’s the most important thing in the world to me.’
She shrugged, seemed to be lost for a form of words with which to express herself clearly. Went on at length: ‘And I’d like you to understand how a breed woman like me can want more out of life than I been gettin’. Driftin’ around, gettin’ passed from one man to another just so I can eat and have some clothes on my back?’
Edge had to drag his mind back to the present when she paused and he felt her gaze on him. Saw her Indian eyes simply asked for a response of some kind from him: did not express curiosity about why he had seemed to lose interest in what she was saying.
In fact, what she had said had acted to trigger thoughts about more parallels between them. And he clearly understood what she had said.
‘You got it, Ruby,’ he told her.
She nodded and peered ahead again, not with a faraway look in her eyes now. And she spoke in a mundane tone as she moved away from the background, began to speak of specifics.
‘I did all right from my time with Vinny, and then those three bastards who won me off him. I mean all right in the money I got off them. And the goods I was able to sell. All I figured to do in Rikersville was rest up awhile. And get over the bad feelin’ I had from killin’ Harper and Wyler and Singer. That really was the first time I killed anybody. Come close to it a lot of times before, but never did do it until then.’
‘I believe that, too, Ruby,’ Edge assured her as he took out the part smoked cigarette from his shirt pocket, relit it.
She crooked a thumb and jerked it at the rock-strewn hillside that was going out of sight behind them as they rounded the curve of the trail. ‘But I’d have shot you back there.’
‘I knew it.’
‘Like I knew you’d have shot me, mister. If I didn’t come with you, do what you told me to?’
‘One of the reasons I don’t like to have a gun pointed at me.’
‘Uh?’
‘Main reason, guns can go off without people meaning for that to happen. Did for me once.’
‘You got shot that way, by accident?’
‘No. I shot my kid brother. Crippled Jamie for life.’
‘That must’ve been awful.’
‘Especially since his life didn’t last too long. And being crippled that way didn’t let him have too much fun. Another reason, somebody makes a threat, they have to be ready to carry it out. Or they shouldn’t make it. And if they’re not ready to carry it out, they shouldn’t point a gun. But we’re not supposed to be talking about what I think of anything.’
‘Yeah, I got away from the point, didn’t I? But there ain’t no dark hidden reason why I did that, mister. I ain’t ashamed of what I do, which is to make money the best way I know how to. To live now, and make myself a better life in the future.
‘Like I stole money off Harper and Singer and Wyler after they had no more use for it. Took their horses, too. And everythin’ on the horses. Come to Rikersville and sold the horses and other stuff to the liveryman there. Then, like I said, I planned to rest up awhile, try to get over the bad feelin’ I was left with. You know?’
‘I used to know,’ he answered, and once again found himself drawing parallels between himself and the breed woman as he tried to think when he had last needed to pause and reflect with a guilty conscience on anything he had done. And all he could recall was how he behaved after the tragic manner of his wife’s dying. Which was not a period of his life he wanted to remember.
‘But it doesn’t matter, uh?’ the woman asked.
‘Just to me, lady.’
‘Yeah, it’s nobody else’s business. I think everyone should have somethin’ private to them in their lives.’
‘Like what you’re working toward, Ruby?’
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
She nodded eagerly, and came close to smiling. But abandoned the embryo expression when he said:
‘Fortune, Ruby?’
‘Yeah, okay. Grant Fortune. Almost as soon as I walked into that saloon, I saw him lookin’ at me the way a lot of men look at me. You included, mister.’
He did not look at her now because he had no wish to get into that area.
She went on: ‘Anyway, I was eatin’ and he was standin’ at the bar, havin’ a drink and talkin’ to the saloon keeper. From what I overheard, the Fortunes were from somewhere down south in California. In town to visit with a daughter who lives a couple of miles out of Rikersville. They were stayin’ in a room at the Lucky Seven because the house where the daughter and her husband lived isn’t half built and there was nowhere for them to sleep. Fortune couldn’t stand the sight of the husband, so he was takin’ a couple of drinks. Help him face up to the meetin’, he told the bartender. While his wife was upstairs, gettin’ herself ready to go visit.’
She sighed, wiped a hand across her mouth. ‘It was all borin’ family stuff, Edge. But I started to get interested when he started to show the usual kinda interest in me, and he made sure I saw the size of his roll when he paid for the drinks he’d had. Then his wife came down from the room, all prettied up, with sparklin’ rings on almost all her fingers. Like I said, I only take off people that can afford to lose what I take.’
She glanced expectantly at Edge, eager to have her basic premise for stealing accepted as valid.
He asked evenly: ‘It was right about then Fortune got a sudden pain in the belly?’
She scowled briefly, then confirmed: ‘That’s right. He told her he didn’t think he could make it out to their daughter’s place today. Maybe he’d be okay to go visitin’ tomorrow. They had a real loud quarrel about it. It was her did most of the yellin’, about how he never had liked their new son-in-law. How that probably meant he was only makin’ an excuse, so he wouldn’t have to go see him. In the end, she went on her own. Like he knew she would, he told me later.’
‘And Fortune started to show more interest in you, Ruby?’
‘Almost before the sound of the buggy was gone from the street, he moved in on me. And because I’d seen he could afford to pay for his pleasures, I didn’t do nothin’ to discourage him, that’s for sure.
‘And he had his pleasures, mister. The poor sonofabitch ain’t alive to back up what I’m tellin’ you, but seein’ as how you claim to believe everythin’ else I’ve told you, you better believe I always give value for money that way. Better than any whore, which is what I ain’t never been.’
Edge was sure he did not utter a sound, nor alter the impassive set of his features. So Ruby Red must have sensed a notion that came unbidden into his mind. But she read it wrong when she hurried to qualify:
‘I ain’t no whore. I don’t ever go lookin’ for—’
‘I believe you, lady.’
She stared at him, unconvinced, then reassessed her opinion of what was in his mind. This time got it right.
‘I don’t always keep a promise, I know. But if I take money, I always give what I’m bein’ paid for. And Fortune handed over ten bucks, so I saw to it he got ten bucks’-worth of pleasure. The kinda pleasure that almost knocked the poor guy out. Along with the whiskey he’d drunk before we went up to the room, the time we had there left him good and ready for sleep. And that’s just what he did right after: went to sleep. And if he didn’t wake up before somebody stuck that knife in him, he sure went out of this vale of tears a happy and satisfied man in one way.’
‘Not in your room?’
She shook her head. ‘No. He wanted to, but I ain’t no whore. I don’t ever make my room a crib, so we—’
‘And while he was asleep, you robbed him?’
‘Right,’ she answered immediately without any indication she was ashamed of what she had done. ‘I took his entire roll. And the woman’s jewels she didn’t wear to go visit her daughter.’
She patted one of the saddlebags.
Edge tossed away his cigarette, asked: ‘And made fast tracks out of the Lucky Seven and Rikersville?’
‘You bet, mister. I knew if he didn’t wake up of his own accord, he’d sure snap out of it fast when his wife came back and found out what happened. And I wanted to be long gone from there by then.’
‘So how d’you know he was stabbed with a knife to kill him, Ruby?’
‘What?’ She snapped her head around to glare at him, her dark eyes aflame with anger.
‘I said how—’
‘I heard what you said! You’re tryin’ to catch me out, way you sprung it on me like that! I thought you said you believed me?’
‘A lot of Rikersville people won’t, lady. It’s the kind of question they’ll want to hear you answer. And you better answer all their questions with the truth.’
Her righteous rage took a few seconds to diminish. Then she nodded, sighed, allowed: ‘Yeah, there’ll be a lot of questions to answer, won’t there? But all I can tell is the truth. And the truth about this is that I took a look in the Fortunes’ room on my way outta the place. See, I climbed out the window of my room and went real quiet along the balcony.
‘I had to pass the window of that room and I looked in. Almost scared the shit outta me when I saw the blood on the sheet that covered him. With a knife stickin’ up out of the middle of all that blood.’
This time she used the back of a hand to wipe sweat beads off her forehead. The afternoon had grown hotter, but it was vividly remembered fear rather than the heat that raised the sweat from her pores. She had to swallow hard before she could go on: ‘And that made me want to get out of town quicker than ever, I can tell you, mister. Which is what I did. Because I knew how I’d been seen goin’ upstairs with him. And no matter what, everybody’d figure I did for him that way.’
‘How long between when you left him asleep in the room and when you looked in through the window and saw he was dead, Ruby?’ Edge asked as he caught a first glimpse of the south side of Rikersville emerging from the shimmering heat haze.
‘I don’t know.’
‘That could be the truth, but it’s an answer people won’t like to hear, lady.’
She did a double-take along the trail, uttered a low, despairing grunt when she confirmed to herself that they were drawing close to the town where she was wanted for murder.
‘A few minutes was all,’ she said at length. ‘I don’t know how many. No more than five, I’d guess.’
‘And you didn’t hear anything from the Fortunes’ room while you were clearing out of yours, Ruby?’
She shook her head. ‘Mine was at the other end of the hallway from that one.’
‘Nor see anybody who may have stabbed him while you were leaving?’
‘There was nothing and nobody out on the street. For me to see, or them to see me when I climbed down off that balcony and snuck into the livery.
‘Guess a whole bunch of people heard me ride outta town. But I never looked back. Just kept movin’ fast until I knew I had to rest my horse or break him. Which is when I saw the rocky top hill. Went up there to rest the animal and hide for a while. Was just gonna start out again when I saw you come down the trail and then cut off it. Come straight up to where I was waitin’. And I was sure you were trackin’ me. Figured you had hired on as a deputy to find me, bring me in. Workin’ for the Rikersville lawman who didn’t strike me as bein’ able to follow the nose on his face.’
‘You shouldn’t underestimate or overestimate people until you know them well, lady,’ Edge said grimly. ‘I made for the top of the hill for the same reason you did. Me and my horse needed to rest. And I don’t figure Marshal Brogan for a fool. It has to look like an open-and-shut case to him, and if he’s the kind of dumb cluck you take him for, you’re dead.’
‘But you’re still goin’ to turn me over to him?’
‘Unless we find the killer. Turn him in instead.’
She snorted and pulled a face: a crude and unladylike gesture by this less than ladylike breed woman to whom he felt such an attraction. ‘Fat chance of that happenin’.’
‘Nothing worthwhile comes easy, Ruby.’
She looked like she was going to utter another contemptuous sound. But she sighed, then muttered: ‘I sure as hell know that. More than most, seems to me. All I’ve ever had are the hard times. And right now it don’t look like I’ll ever get to have anythin’ worthwhile outta havin’ all of them.’
A silence settled between them and the only sounds on the empty trail this brightly sunlit afternoon were the slow-moving hooves of their horses. Until Edge made an impulsive decision, told her:
‘Here.’
She had been peering fixedly at the buildings of Rikersville, now so clearly defined in the closing distance it was possible to see there was nobody moving on the broad width of Main Street.
She turned to look at him, and her eyes widened with surprise when she saw he had drawn her Colt out from under his belt, was extending it, butt first, toward her.
After a moment, she made to take it: then snatched her hand back and her eyes narrowed with suspicion.
‘Why?’ she asked thickly.
He nodded that he understood the reason for her mistrust. ‘I’m no bounty hunter, Ruby. This ain’t my town and Grant Fortune was nothing to me. I don’t have the right or any duty to bring you in.’
She left a pause to lengthen to several seconds before she asked: ‘Is that it?’
‘Is that what?’
‘I take my gun back and I’m free to go? You won’t ...’ She seemed embarrassed and nervous as her voice trailed away. ‘Won’t what?’
‘If I’ve got a gun, you’ll have an excuse to—’
‘Only if you aimed it at me, Ruby. You’ll be free to go if that’s what you want. But it’d be better if you head back into town of your own accord. Show the people there you can prove you didn’t kill Fortune.’
‘You figure they’ll give me a chance to do that, mister?’ Both her tone and her expression were incredulous, maybe her belief suspended in both Edge’s judgment and the attitudes of Rikersville people.
‘I don’t know. But if they’re not ready to do that, the gun’ll give you a chance to make another run for it.’
‘And you won’t be one of them who comes after me?’
He showed her a sardonic smile. ‘I told you before, I ain’t a woman chaser, Ruby.’
He offered her the Colt again and now she took it. Glanced at it bleakly as it passed from his hand to hers. Then she unfastened the saddlebag which did not contain her ill-gotten gains and dropped it inside. She did not refasten the strap of the bag.
‘Why did you do that, Edge?’ she asked earnestly.
‘I told you, I don’t have any right or duty—’
She shook her head, reminded him: ‘At first it was because you didn’t want to be wanted for havin’ a hand in a killin’, you said. But I don’t think that was true. I think you care for me, Edge? Really care about what happens to me?’
‘Maybe,’ he allowed, and discovered he did not feel too awkward and foolish. So perhaps he had gotten over the second period of adolescence in his life.
She shook her head and looked unsure of herself and his qualified agreement with what she said. ‘Yet I figured from the start you were the kind of man who just took what he wanted: when he wanted it.’
‘Like I said, I’m not a chaser of women, Ruby.’
‘What are you, Edge?’
He swept a cursory glance out over the flanking hills, for the moment experienced much the same degree of indifference when he looked again at the town. He asked: ‘Do me a favor?’
‘What?’
‘If you figure it out—what I am—let me know?’
‘Somethin’ you sure are is strange,’ she murmured.
‘I’ve been told that before.’
‘Way you just give me back the gun ... Hell, mister, I could’ve blown your brains out before you had a chance to draw!’ .
‘I don’t think you’re that good a shot.’
‘Uh? I’m pretty damn—’
He cut in on her: ‘To hit a target that small.’