Violence was a way of life for Josiah Hedges, better known as Edge. And the murdering band of renegade Apache that crossed the heartless avenger were about to find out they had made the biggest mistake of their lives. Because when you toyed with Edge, you were playing with killing fire!
For
E.M.C.D.
who drew the pictures.
The man had been dead a long time and he smelled bad, the malodorous stink of his decomposing flesh tainting the hot, still air that was already fetid with the dry stench of stale wood-smoke. He was folded double, over the top strand of a wire fence that enclosed the yard of what had once been a small farmstead. Now it was merely a single-story adobe house with the blackened ruin of a barn on one side; a corral littered with slaughtered livestock on the other and a burnt-out wagon in front of it.
Edge had been smelling the woodsmoke for, a few miles, knowing it meant trouble. The big black stallion he rode was also familiar with the scent, its equine awareness causing it to falter from the steady pace which had been maintained ever since the border was crossed at noon. But Edge stroked the smoothness of his mount's neck and muttered gentle words of encouragement as he urged the animal forward again, toward the north.
Edge had stolen the horse many months before, from a Mexican Army captain who should not have shot the American's own horse. The single-action .44 Colt in a holster tied down to Edge's right thigh had also been stolen from the Mexican officer, as had the ornate non-regulation saddle and the seven-shot Spencer repeating rifle slung in the boot behind. The knife tucked into a sheath at the back of his gunbelt was Edge's own: so was the razor which sat snugly in a pouch hanging at the back of his neck beneath the black shirt. The Mexican had not complained as he watched Edge rob him, for his jugular vein had been opened by the American's razor and he had only enough strength remaining to ask for a priest. To Edge's mind, the trouble he had taken to get the man his priest was adequate barter for the horse and weapons.
It was a good horse; strong, willing and intelligent and it had learned to trust its new owner so that even when the ruined farmstead came into sight and the smell of violent death mingled with the after-scent of fire, the animal continued to advance, a low-keyed whinny supplying the only clue to its nervousness. Edge halted his mount a few feet from the dead man and dismounted, his right hand hovering above the wooden butt of the Colt. He led the horse to one of the uprights supporting the wire fence and looped the reins around the post, never taking his eyes away from the farmhouse. The Spencer slid smoothly from its boot and he worked a shell from the stock-housed magazine into the breech.
Over at the house nothing moved and in the area of the dead man there was just the constant stirring of the hungry flies. They buzzed away angrily at the intrusion of Edge, who relaxed his vigilance of the house to examine the body with dispassionate interest. The man had been scalped, cleanly and expertly, the crown of his head laid open in an almost perfect circle to allow a large tuft of his black hair to be claimed as a trophy. But he had been lucky, for he had died first Edge, wrinkling his flared nostrils; his narrowed eyes showing for a fleeting moment his distaste for the long-dead body, used the barrel of the rifle to flip the man off the fence. The man went over backwards and did not unbend from the attitude of death which the passing hours had forced it to adopt for eternity. Looking across the fence, Edge could see the barbed arrow embedded into the man's chest, left of center.
Edge walked back along the outside of the fence and unhitched his horse, then led the animal toward and through the open gateway into the yard of the farmstead. “I should have taken notice of you, feller,” he murmured softly. “Mexican trouble we know about and can handle. It's been a long time since I had a run-in with any Apaches.”
The horse heard only a reassuring, soft-spoken voice and allowed the man to lead it forward and hobble it to the iron rim of one of the wheels on the charred wagon. As Edge crossed the final few feet to the house he saw that the layer of dust on the sun-hardened ground had been disturbed by many unshod hoofs and he saw, too, several arrows, some of them broken, lying, beneath the shuttered windows and in front of the closed door.
The heel of his boot thudded against the door and it crashed away from him on well-oiled hinges, smashing into a piece of furniture. His pale blue eyes raked the darkened interior, looking over the top of the leveled Spencer. Death looked back at him. The smell was worse here, both because it had been trapped inside all day and because it emanated from two bodies. He took a deep breath and stepped through the doorway, moving quickly to the windows at each side and throwing open them and their shutters. The air which flowed in was hot enough to burn the throat, but refreshing compared to that which had been confined for so long.
