Edge 54, p.1
Edge 54, page 1
part #54 of Edge Series
The Home of Great Western Fiction!
The man was sick. The man was busy.
Thin, hollow-cheeked, breathing heavy with a nasty cough, blood showing where he spat. Looked to be fifty going on seventy.
But working. Digging, determined, near exhausted but full of purpose.
The man called Edge, riding easily down from the Rattlesnake Hills in Wyoming Territory, reined in to watch him. Knew at once what was being dug.
A grave.
Later, when he’d hired on with the sick man’s wife, he saw the other grave. The one with the elder son, already buried. Backshot, so they said, by the younger son. Whose grave was being made ready for when his pa found him and killed him. A family that didn’t so much pray together as slay together.
EDGE 54: BACKSHOT
By George G. Gilman
First published by New English Library in 1987
Copyright ©1987, 2022 by George G. Gilman
First Electronic Edition: May 2022
Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by means (electronic, digital, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book
Published by arrangement with the author’s estate.
Series Editor: Ben Bridges
Text © Piccadilly Publishing
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For L. T. who makes them sound exciting!
Illustration by Tony Masero
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
About the Author
One
THE MAN WHO looked like he could be digging his own grave also looked like he might die before he got the job done.
Edge had not started to think on this line when he first saw the steadily working figure across a distance of maybe half a mile: when he rode his travel-wearied gelding over the crest of a low rise and had his first sight of a fellow human being for more than a day and a half of unhurried progress through the Rattlesnake Hills of central Wyoming Territory. Heading west out of Casper toward anywhere that happened to be in his way and had an appeal: which in this instance meant any place that offered an opportunity to make a more or less honest dollar.
The man was sinking the hole in the south east corner of a piece of property that looked on first impression to be an extensive spread of prime grazing land featured with rolling hills, stands of mixed timber, granite outcrops and a meandering creek. Just a couple of dozen acres of the spread were in the half-breed’s line of sight from the hill crest. Beyond this a line of six-feet-high fence posts strung with five strands of barbed wire ran to the west, parallel with the trail, and right angled to the north away from it, then disappeared behind the shapes of the land.
As he rode through the brightly sunlit but uncomfortably chill air of the early spring afternoon, Edge felt himself mildly intrigued by what the man was doing. Working within a private world of concentration that allowed for no break in his rhythm: either for a respite or to check an instinct that a stranger was approaching on the trail. This was not so unusual in itself, Edge allowed as he delved under his sheepskin coat into a shirt pocket for the makings and began to roll a cigarette. He was close enough now to see the elongated shape of the hole and make an educated guess that it was destined to be a grave. Why though, he found himself wondering, was the man siting the burial plot so close to the angle of the fence: so close there was a danger he could expose the sunken length of the corner post, and he also had to constantly take care he did not snag himself or his clothing on the vicious barbs of the wire.
When he had ridden to within a hundred and fifty yards of the corner of the spread, Edge was sure the gravedigger knew he was no longer alone, although the man gave no sign of this. For the half-breed had an instinct for knowing when he was being secretly watched and although it was never an entirely reliable faculty, he trusted it on this occasion. The man toiling in the four-feet-deep hole was just too pointed about the manner in which he ignored the half-breed.
He was about five and a half feet tall, underweight rather than simply thin: probably he did not tip the scales beyond a hundred and twenty pounds. From the way his clothes hung on him and the manner in which the bones of his face and hands were prominently seen through the sagging folds of his wrinkled skin, he had not always been so emaciated.
Closer still, as Edge reined in his mount just a few feet away and the man could no longer ignore his proximity, the half-breed saw the gravedigger was sick. Not just drained by the exertion of digging what was now obviously a grave: he had been sick for a long time, with an illness that had made him look older than his years, Edge was sure. For as he lifted his head to show his face without interrupting the measured cadence of his work, he appeared at first glance to be past seventy: even eighty.
But a man of such an age, as ill as this one, could not possibly have maintained the steady rate of work which Edge had seen him do as he covered the half mile from the hill crest to the corner of the property.
His eyes were black in surrounds that were gray rather than white. Deeply socketed between lids that looked like wounds, they were so red. His hollow cheeks flanked a sharp nose with oversize nostrils. And he had a small, thin-lipped mouth which hung slackly open in repose, to show a few discolored teeth with many gaps between them where he had lost the others. The hair visible below the brim of his hat was a mixture of dirty brown and gray. The bristles that had sprouted since an early morning shave were mostly gray.
His loose-fitting clothing was grubby and old and stained: work boots, pants, shirt, kerchief and Stetson.
He had either walked or been given a ride out to this isolated spot and had brought nothing with him except for the shovel.
When Edge had seen him at a distance the man often coughed and spat. But as he closed with the gravedigger, Edge was aware he did not do this so much. Guessed he took the trouble to guard against the need to do it, like he was anxious to hide that he was a consumptive.
‘Somethin’ you want, stranger?’ the man asked after he had glanced up to show the degree of aging sickness in his scrawny face. Then immediately he bowed his head to attend to his chore.
Thrust the long handled, arrowhead-bladed shovel into the dark earth, levered up a half load and tossed it on to the untidy heap at the side. It was a slow process, but smoothly done. And maybe every second of the time the life-weary man experienced pain. But he never showed it in his movements. Neither did he breathe raggedly. He did sweat a lot, despite the chill of the spring day, and the grimace he had shown when he glanced up was maybe more deeply set when his head was down again.
‘The boss in need of any hired help?’ Edge asked and struck a match on the butt of the Frontier Colt that jutted out of the holster tied down to his right thigh. He lit the cigarette and carefully shook out the match flame, then waited until the final trace of smoke had wisped away from the charred end before he dropped the stick to the ground.
The gravedigger, who he thought could be as young as fifty, shot a surreptitious glance at him. But it was not an inquisitive double-take toward a man more than six feet two inches tall and over two hundred pounds in weight. With long black hair worn in the manner of an Indian, the skin color and some features of a Mexican but with the bluest of narrowed eyes that told that one strand of his bloodline stretched back to northern European beginnings. A man who looked tough and mean: who had obviously done a lot of travelling in his present workaday outfit astride a horse that, like its rider, was nothing special.
‘What?’ the man in the hole growled, simply surprised to be asked the question. Then he went back to giving his full attention to digging the hole deeper.
Edge leaned to the side, craned his neck so that he was able to more easily read the lettering, in faded black paint, that ran down the weathered gray length of the corner fence post. ‘Sign says this spread is The Peppercorn Place. That the name of the owner: Peppercorn?’
‘That’s right, mister. Norman Peppercorn.’ His voice got wet and he had to pause in both what he was saying and what he was doing. Took the trouble to screw his head far around before he sucked the moisture up out of his throat and directed it with a half spit, half cough into one end of the hole. The white, bubbled mixture was flecked with dark red. He drew the back of a hand across his small mouth and bristled chin before he turned to look up at Edge, and added: ‘And he don’t need no help.’
‘You look like you could use some,’ Edge said, his tone as impassive as his dark-hued, heavily-bristled face.
‘I’m Norman Peppercorn, mister. And I just told you, there’s no help wanted on the place.’ He made to restart digging, but held back. Spread a hostile expression across his prominently-boned, slack-skinned face before he stressed: ‘Not for nothin’! Es
He jerked a thumb toward the west as he made what to Edge was a cryptic comment, before he bent to his chore again.
‘What’s that way, feller?’
‘Sanctuary.’ He went on working. ‘A kinda town, if you can call it that with not much more than a church and a saloon. People gather there. The saloon on weekdays. The church on Sundays. Maybe some of the others with places around here need to hire on help. I wouldn’t know. I ain’t the nosy kind.’
‘Obliged to you,’ Edge said and took up his reins.
‘No need to feel obligated, mister. We’re even. On account of I’m obliged to you for not askin’ no questions with answers that are none of your business. Luck to you.’
This time he simply spat out some stained saliva. But then had to interrupt his work as he was attacked by a violent fit of coughing that wracked his slight frame from head to toe. He stumbled, but was able to stay upright by leaning on the side of the grave and using the shovel for further support.
‘None of your business,’ he said again, forcing out the words before he had recovered, so that the strain he was under sounded in the tremulous tone of his voice. But he had the strength of purpose to glower at Edge who had paused and turned in the saddle to look back and down at the suffering man. ‘There’s no help wanted here, okay? I can take care of this!’
‘Could be just the first part of it, seems to me, feller,’ the half-breed said flatly.
'What?’ Peppercorn snapped irritably. ‘I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about!’
Edge showed a cold grin that failed to put warmth into his slitted, glittering eyes. Replied: ‘That job could turn out to be the death of you.’
‘Tell me somethin’ I don’t know!’
Edge, the grin still drawing his lips apart, shook his head then shrugged as he answered: ‘If it does, someone else will have to fill you in.’
Two
NORMAN PEPPERCORN’S PLACE was not so large as Edge had first thought. As near as he could judge, without being concerned too much as he rode alongside the old but well maintained barbed-wire fence, the southern property line stretched for close to a mile.
Between the eastern and western extremes of the place, the fenced-in terrain always looked good in terms of the kind of land on which a man with vision and a willingness to work at bringing his plans to reality could make a good life for himself and his family.
But if there was stock currently on the place the animals were by accident or design grazing pastures that were out of sight beyond the low hills with their timbered and outcropped ridges. For he saw just an occasional bird and rabbit as he rode the little-used trail.
So, aside from the fence, he was riding through much the same kind of country, empty of humanity outside of himself, as he had been crossing since he left the sights and sounds and smells of Casper behind him a day and a half ago.
Although the property on the trail side extended to about a mile, the spread was far narrower at the western end than at the east. Thus the place seemed to be wedge-shaped, the western extreme coming to a point where the two fences met at the base of a thirty-feet high escarpment of gray granite.
Short of where the fence turned at an acute angle there was a gateway hung with two five-barred gates. From here the trail swung off its arrow-straight line to curve into the mouth of a crumbling-sided canyon flanked by cottonwoods, two hundred yards to the south.
The ranch house was built across the angle of the corner, L-shaped so that one part faced north east and the other south east. It was single story, of timber and stone, and had started out small: maybe as a one-room shack. But it had been extended several times over many years into something more substantial and, doubtless, more comfortable.
It was a neat, carefully constructed house that was well-maintained: the paintwork shiny, the roof shingles all in place, the windows gleaming and the porch uncluttered. The attendant out-buildings at the rear—a barn, stable, chicken run and hog pen were also in a good state of repair. The three horses that were in the corral that bounded a third side of the front yard looked to be in fine condition. And in the narrowing angle of the fences, a partially planted vegetable garden was totally free of weeds.
At the center of the front yard that extended from the buildings and corral to the double gates was a shade oak just breaking into new leaf. An old, smooth-seated child’s swing was suspended from a stout branch. And nearby were two expertly crafted benches where up to six people could sit in the summer shade.
To a man who hankered after a place in the wide open spaces to settle down, the house and its surroundings were likely to suggest an idyllic setting sparking envy on this fine afternoon as smoke wisped from the chimney on the ridge of the gently pitched roof of the latest extension to the house.
But all Edge thought about after a first glance over the scene was that the well in the corner of the yard between the house and the corral offered a chance to replenish his canteens and to water his horse. Then, as he steered his mount toward the gates—which were painted along each top rail with the familiar legend: The Peppercorn Place—his attention was captured by something else. And he did a double-take as he reined in the gelding.
Out back of the house, to one side of the kitchen garden, was yet another new grave. But this one was complete. Filled in, with the earth displaced by the casket carefully formed into a low, elongated mound. With a glass vase of flowers standing in the fresh earth midway along the mound.
The horse sensed the unusual surprise that his rider experienced and softly snorted his unease, sidled nervously away from the gate. Then calmed to a gentle stroking down his neck and the murmured words:
‘Easy, boy. I knew we were somewhere in the middle of Wyoming: I just didn’t figure it for the dead center.’ There was a white-painted porch in the angle of the L-shaped house. It cast afternoon shade on the brown-painted door which was jerked open as a woman’s voice paraphrased the first words spoken by the gravedigging owner:
‘What d’you want here, mister?’
Something metallic gleamed dully in the shaded doorway as she moved slightly. Then the sounds of a repeater rifle as a bullet was jacked into the breech made evident what it was that gleamed.
‘You’re Mrs. Peppercorn?’ Edge responded and tipped his hat, his attitude and tone composed while behind the unruffled facade he remained as tense as he had become when he discovered a rifle was aimed at him.
‘If you can read, it’s the name that’s painted on the gates, stranger. So?’
‘So I know it’s no use asking if there’s any help wanted on the place. Your husband already told me there isn’t.’
‘I say again, so?’ Where, a moment ago there had been straightforward belligerence in her tone, she now sounded anxious in back of the hostility.
‘So I just have two favors to ask of you?’
‘Get them asked, stranger.’
They were talking across some hundred and fifty feet. But such was the surrounding utter silence of the still, clear day, that every nuance of each voice was distinctly discernible.
The woman had managed to curb her unease now. Edge slightly hardened his tone as he replied: ‘Like to draw some water from your well? For my canteens and my horse?’
‘What’s the other?’
‘Like you to put away the rifle, Mrs. Peppercorn. I can’t abide them being aimed at me. Rifles, revolvers, any kind of gun. Give folks just the one warning.’
If she was in the least disconcerted by what he had told her, she masked it well as she countered: ‘You have two choices, stranger. You can help yourself to the water and put up with me keepin’ you covered with this Winchester. Or you can ride on through Cottonwood Canyon. And three miles up the trail you’ll reach Sanctuary. Where Jim Latimer probably won’t feel cause to protect himself from the likes of someone like you.’
‘I’m obliged, Mrs. Peppercorn,’ the half-breed said and swung down from his saddle. Tipped his hat again as he introduced: ‘The name is Edge.’
He opened the gates, led his gelding through one of them and closed it carefully behind him. Did not call himself a fool for making an issue of the aimed rifle, which would have been akin to chiding himself for having a clutch of bullet scars on his body. Just as they were the sign of old gunshot wounds, so was it a shot—which he had blasted into somebody else much longer ago—that forced him to be the way he was about aimed guns.
