‘And civilians go see the medicine woman?’

  ‘Yes. Maria Romero. She’s an old Mexican lady, lives in the only habitable shack at the start of the trail to the border. By all accounts she’s excellent at what she does. If she can’t keep Bryce alive, no doctor could.’

  Edge recalled his arrival in Holderville last night. When the occupant of the only lamplit adobe shack had fastened tight the shutters as he neared. He said: ‘While she tries to bring the local lawman around, my business with you gets priority, Captain?’

  Edge continued to watch the street, but he was aware that the comment prodded Cameron toward anger. Guessed there was a scowl on the fleshy face as the uniformed man answered, just a little tensely: ‘I wouldn’t have thought of you as the bloody-minded kind, Edge. But if you want to be difficult, I can curb my curiosity about why you came to the post with the whore. Or maybe I’ll talk with her. Or Mrs. Cory, who it would seem is not unfamiliar with the events surrounding the death of her husband and two of the local storekeepers.’

  He paused, altered his tone to an obviously forced lightness to conclude: ‘For a serving United States Cavalry officer, Edge, it seems I am, surprisingly, spoiled for choice for once.’

  ‘You’re right, Captain,’ the half-breed said. He poured himself a second mug of coffee, shifted his attention from the street to Cameron. Guessed from the way the man moved his lips that he regretted his earlier decision to decline to share the pot.

  ‘That you’re not bloody-minded?’

  ‘I can be that sometimes. No, you’re right to think over those options you just listed. Instead of whether or not you ought to pull out of the fort today. Without taking what happened to Bryce and his buddies into consideration.’

  ‘How did you know it was today?’ Cameron snarled, on the brink of a greater degree of anger than that he had controlled a few moments ago. Then he sucked in a deep breath, vented it in a long sigh, scratched one of his bushy eyebrows, said: ‘You saw the loaded wagons, I guess?’

  ‘I saw the loaded wagons.’

  A nod. ‘It’s not a military secret as such, Edge. The order from San Antonio reached me four days ago. I’m to vacate Fort Holder by noon today, every man and every piece of equipment. All of us reassigned to Fort Brown down on the Gulf. Just why we should draw Fort Brown ...? If the army ever has reasons for much of what it does, they’re seldom passed down to field officer level.’

  ‘Somebody twist your arm, Captain?’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘Force you into joining the cavalry?’

  Again there was a threat of hot temper in the dark brown eyes beneath the prominent eyebrows as Cameron swept his gaze away from the empty street beyond the window, glowered at the half-breed.

  Edge took the makings from a shirt pocket, an expression of mild curiosity on his face—freshly shaved so it now looked more Mexican than before because his understated moustache was clearly visible.

  ‘Sometimes bloody-minded and sometimes bloody irritating, too!’ Cameron rasped, and it was enough of an outlet to take the heat from his latent rage. His tone held just a trace of bitterness when he excused: ‘It’s not just other ranks who need to gripe occasionally, Edge.’

  ‘Sure, Captain. And us civilians ain’t always happy with the lot we draw, either.’ He began to make the cigarette, returned his attention to the sunlit street. ‘And the people that are left in this doom town figure they’ve got good reason to complain.’

  ‘Doom town?’

  ‘It’s the name Lizzie Grant has for Holderville. Because of the army, it was a boom town. Now the army are pulling out ...’

  ‘Lizzie Grant?’

  ‘The whore I made a deal with.’

  Cameron nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose Holderville’s been doomed for almost two years now. Since it was first decided to run down the strength of the fort. And Holder’s the only reason for the town’s existence. It’s been dying slowly since then. The rundown’s been gradual. Reason for that was easy to work out. To test how the Comanches would respond. I don’t think the army or anyone else considers the Mexicans a threat any more. No disrespect.’

  Cameron obviously knew exactly why Edge had tangled with Cory in the saloon last night. The half-breed murmured: ‘No sweat.’

  Cameron continued: ‘The Indians have offered no response during all the time small bodies of men were transferred out of Holder. Then, six months ago, Major Sale pulled out and left just two officers and twenty other ranks on the post. General opinion is, we’ve been hanging around so long because the army didn’t know what to do with us.’

  ‘How many Comanches in the south?’ Edge asked, lit the cigarette, dropped the flaring match into the dregs in his coffee mug where it hissed out.

  ‘Close to three hundred at the last count. More than half of that total of warrior age. Should they be provoked.’

  There was an implicit question in his closing comment. Edge said on a trickling stream of exhaled smoke: ‘Bryce and Cory, Brewster and Webster rode out to the Comanche village to do a little provoking, Captain. But that’s not news to you, I guess?’

  Hooves hit the hard-packed surface of the street, the horse moving at an easy walk. Edge and Cameron both peered out of the restaurant window as Roy Bryce rode by astride a piebald gelding. The young man with his right arm in a black sling looked neither to left nor right. On his element-burnished face there was an expression of grim determination.

  ‘The army can blunt a man’s thinking powers if he allows it, Edge,’ Cameron answered. ‘Especially if he’s assigned to a back of beyond post like Holder. Where the most taxing problem a commanding officer has is how to prevent his men from going off their heads out of boredom.’

  ‘But your brain hasn’t turned to jelly yet?’

  ‘Not completely. Reason I kept the departure date a secret, threatened the men with every kind of dire consequence if they revealed it, was because I thought the townspeople might pull something stupid to try to force us to stay. Get the fort strengthened again. Keep Holderville from becoming a ... What was it? A doom town.’ Now Roy Bryce had ridden by, was far enough up the street for the sound of his mount’s hooves to have faded from earshot, the view from the window was once more totally lacking in activity and the surrounding silence was complete.

  For a few moments it was like a preview of the fate of this community. Then the sound of a heavy hammer striking metal rang out along the street: forcefully reestablished the fact that there was life in Holderville still.

  Edge thought the blacksmith was probably working on shoes for his gelding.

  ‘When I saw Bryce through the glasses,’ Cameron went on, ‘the way he was bleeding so badly, I thought they’d done something stupid. Secret or not.’

  ‘Nobody gave away the date of the withdrawal, Captain,’ Edge told him. ‘Everyone knew the fort was going to be abandoned pretty soon. And a bunch of local people decided to act.’

  ‘Exactly how did they act?’ Cameron sat straighter in his chair, eyed Edge levelly, posed the question with authority. Abruptly a man of decision again after so much time had slipped wastefully by.

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ the half-breed replied in the same imperturbable manner as before. ‘I became otherwise engaged as they got to the details.’

  ‘With the Grant woman?’ The question was snapped out. This brought an ice-cold glint to the narrowed eyes of Edge and Cameron moderated his tone to qualify: ‘I’ve a good reason for asking that. You were eavesdropping, I gather? If you and the woman were together ...’

  ‘We weren’t together, Captain. And the details of why I stopped listening ain’t important to anyone except me.’

  ‘They aren’t?’

  Edge rose from the table and Cameron looked sharply up at him, his expression severe: like he was about to snarl an order and had no intention of qualifying it. Before Edge told him evenly: ‘Not to you. That part concerns a beef I have with certain members of this community. And a couple of outsiders. The Glaser husband and wife. You can ask them for those details you want to know about. Or Mrs. Cory. Nancy Fox. If Amos Bryce doesn’t pull through.

  ‘All of them, and the four men who went to the Comanche village, held a meeting in the hotel here last night. Decided to stir up the Indians. To have the Indians get ugly. So you’d feel obliged to stay at the fort. Maybe advise your Department Headquarters to strengthen the post again.’

  ‘That’s it?’

  ‘It’s all I know. It’s all Lizzie Grant knows, she says. Why we came to the post earlier, to tell you that much. But any warning we were able to give would have been too late by then anyway, it looks like. Luck to you, Captain.’

  He started to move among the tables, heading for the open doorway into the saloon. Cameron, who had been gazing out of the window as he listened to Edge, perhaps saw there a series of vivid images of the past or the possible future, suddenly jerked out of the reverie, snapped imperiously: ‘You’re not leaving?’

  Edge countered flatly: ‘I sure hope that’s a question, Captain. Not an order.’

  ‘I have no authority over you, mister!’ Cameron replied grimly. ‘Unless the seriousness of the situation forces me to place Holderville under martial law.’

  From the doorway, Edge said in a tone that hardened progressively: ‘Best you find out the exact details, Captain, before you take any step that allows you to give me orders.’

  Through the window, he saw Lieutenant Norton hurrying up the street, looking nervous. With his head turned away from the window to glare at Edge, Cameron could not see his junior officer.

  Then the half-breed was distracted by a muffled scuffling sound at the head of the stairs. Swung his head around slowly to fix his glittering-eyed gaze on the area from which the sound had come. Guessed it had been made by one or both the Glasers, backing away from the point where the talk between the two men in the restaurant could be clearly heard.

  ‘Advice isn’t what I require, mister!’ Cameron said. ‘But if the situation with the Comanches becomes dangerous, I’ll need all the gun hands I can get.’

  Edge continued to look toward the head of the stairs in the far corner of the saloon. Raised his voice so it would carry to anyone hidden up there on the landing as well as to Cameron at the window table in the restaurant.

  ‘I’ve still got some business to attend to in Holderville, Captain. And I don’t plan to leave until it’s finished.’

  He heard a sharp intake of breath at the top of the stairway. Before footfalls rapped on the hotel porch, the batwings swung open, Lieutenant Norton strode purposefully into the Rest Easy.

  Edge swung his right hand down and back, to jerk the side of his sheepskin coat away from his hip. Slide the Colt clear of the holster with smooth speed. Automatically dropped into a crouching half-turn as he brought the revolver to the aim. Far enough in front of his right hip so he could streak his left hand toward it.

  Norton had started to say: ‘I’m informed the captain is—’

  A shoulder showed at a corner of the wall at the top of the stairs.

  Edge turned the Colt a fraction to one side before he squeezed his right forefinger to the trigger, fanned the hammer with the heel of his left hand.

  Six shots exploded from the muzzle in rapid succession. Against the barrage of reports that resounded deafeningly within the confines of the saloon, men’s voices were raised: tremulous with alarm or fear.

  The shoulder was instantly withdrawn from sight at the top of the stairs, as a shower of wood splinters was blasted from the angle of the wall.

  ‘What the hell’s going on out there?’ Cameron snarled, lunged up from his chair, sent others crashing aside as he rushed toward the doorway, fumbled to unfasten his holster flap.

  ‘Have you gone crazy or something, mister?’ Norton accused, remained unmoving between the half-open batwings, sweat oozing out of every pore on his scowling face.

  A shriek of terror had sounded from the landing. Now, against utter silence up there, while the hammering from the blacksmith forge continued uninterrupted, Edge visualized the eavesdropper, breath held, transfixed against the wall inches back from the bullet splintered corner. But he had no idea if it was Waldo or Emma Glaser: the shriek had been sexless.

  ‘Leo?’ Cameron rasped, came to a halt alongside Edge in the doorway, dropped his hand away from the exposed butt of the Army Colt in the holster.

  ‘He seems to have a habit of shooting at nothing, Captain,’ the man between the batwings replied with a sneer. Then stepped forward and the doors flapped closed.

  Edge moved a hand in front of his face, waved away the inert layers of black powder smoke. Began to empty the chambers of the Frontier Colt in the same way as at the fort gate. The expended cartridge cases made almost melodic pinging sounds as they hit the board floor.

  ‘This time not at nothing,’ he corrected through gritted teeth, gaze fixed on the head of the stairs where he knew somebody still waited in hiding, perhaps petrified with fear. ‘Pretty close to nothing, though. Name of Glaser.’

  A muted cry sounded from beyond the bullet-riddled corner of the walls. Then running footfalls along the landing. And as Edge began to reload the revolver with bullets from the loops on his gunbelt he decided it was Waldo who had been the eavesdropper. He would have felt better if it had been Emma.

  Norton sneered: ‘The way things are shaping up for trouble around here, mister, you could regret the waste of all that lead.’

  Cameron demanded: ‘You were looking for me, Lieutenant?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I was.’

  ‘You have a report?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘You have a report for me, Lieutenant, you make it to me!’

  ‘Sir, I think we should—’ the senior in years, junior in rank officer started.

  ‘Let me do the thinking, Lieutenant!’ Cameron interrupted, stepped out of the doorway. ‘Your report concerns the sheriff?’

  Edge continued to reload his revolver as the footfalls from above ended, a door banged violently closed.

  ‘Amos Bryce has regained consciousness, sir.’

  ‘Has he spoken?’

  Edge slid the Colt back in the holster, started toward the batwinged entrance. Norton, abruptly afraid, stepped fast to the side: like he suspected the half-breed intended to knock him out of the way if he did not move of his own accord.

  ‘Leo, what did Bryce say?’ Impatience once more prodded Cameron toward the brink of anger. ‘Did he say anything?’

  Edge ignored the nervous lieutenant, pushed out between the batwings, stood on the porch as Cameron warned with menace: ‘Leo, if you don’t answer me, I swear I’ll have you nailed to the post gates. Have the men use your ass for target practice. And it won’t be anything but bullets they’ll be shooting into you, Lieutenant!’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ Norton responded squeakily, hurried to add: ‘The sheriff recovered consciousness. He admits he and three other men went to Comanche Canyon to cause trouble. Burn some tepees. Wreck some wickiups. Run off the horses. Harass a few squaws and old men.

  ‘But they were ambushed from out of nowhere before they got close to the canyon, sir. A band of braves opened fire on them. Cory, Brewster and Webster were killed in their saddles. Bryce was hit but was able to turn his horse around and run for it. He wasn’t pursued, sir.’

  ‘That it, Lieutenant?’ Cameron asked, sounded dejected.

  ‘Well, sir, he was still rambling when I left. But he was just going over the same thing: on and on about the ambush, how he’s certain the other three men were dead, so there was nothing else he could do. Except run for it to save his own skin.’

  ‘I’m obliged, Leo,’ the captain said, now sounded deeply weary. Then was totally self-possessed again, snapped: ‘Detail six men, Sergeant Dolan among them. I’m taking a patrol to investigate the incident.’

  Edge stepped down off the hotel porch, began to amble diagonally across the street toward the open double doorway of the blacksmith forge. It was quiet in there now, the hammering that had not stopped during the barrage of gunfire no longer rang out.

  Elsewhere the fusillade seemed to have had just as little effect. The street remained deserted, no one sufficiently curious to approach the Rest Easy to discover the reason for the shooting.

  In the saloon, Norton urged in a whining tone: ‘It’s my opinion this has nothing to do with us, James! If the civilians set out purposely to stir up the Comanches, the trouble is entirely their concern. We have our orders, and I think we should leave as soon as ...’

  Norton’s plea was lost to Edge’s hearing by distance. It was a longer distance to the fort, where a burst of harsh laughter sounded from a group of uniformed figures at the open gateway. At the same moment he realized the troopers were not laughing at the lieutenant, the half-breed also knew it was not one of these men who, he sensed, stared fixedly at him.

  He wrenched his head around, swept his gaze over the facade of the Rest Easy Hotel, caught sight of Emma Glaser at an open upper-story window. For a second, while she was petrified by the ice-cold gaze of his eyes, he saw that today she wore a white dress. White was not the color of the fabric on the shoulder of the eavesdropper. Which confirmed his guess that it was Waldo who had been on the receiving end of his explosive release of pent-up anger.

  Now he raised a hand to touch the brim of his Stetson and the woman slammed the window closed, drew back out of sight. And he faced front again as the emaciated, now frail-looking Dolly Cory came out of a house across from where the border trail joined Freedom Road.

  For a moment after she saw Edge, the new widow looked like she was about to turn on her heels, retreat into the house. But then she squared her narrow shoulders, held her gray-haired head high, thrust her angular chin forward, strode purposefully towards him.

 

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