Edge: Apache Death

Edge turned to look at him and saw that the smile had gone, that his companion was wearing the same expression with which he had regarded Carl Drucker moments before he shot him.

"Which makes it a competition, old boy. Because I'm not sharing it."

They held each other's gaze for a moment, then returned their attention to the street as a bugle sounded at the fort. The gates were thrown open and a troop of cavalrymen charged out, firing for effect as they emerged.

"They're playing my tune," Edge muttered.

"What is it?" the Englishman asked as the Apaches were flushed from hiding, pouring into the street on their ponies.

"Never did know the name," Edge replied, starting to fire at the galloping Indians. "Only know it means kill anything that moves."

The Englishman began to fire now, as others among the town's defenders opened up, trapping the Indians in a vicious crossfire as the cavalry showered them with lead from behind.

"Like fish in a barrel," the Englishman shouted gleefully as the braves began to tumble from their ponies, screaming their agonies. A bullet from Edge's Spencer smashed into the chest of a brave a split-second after the Apache had released an arrow which entered the throat of a man shooting from a doorway.

"That was Red Hagan," the Englishman said. "Bounty of a hundred dollars if you want to try to collect." He loosed off a shot and brought down a pony which pitched its rider onto the front of a burning building. A moment later the screaming brave rushed out into the street with his long hair blazing.

"Damn hothead," Edge muttered and ended the man's agony with a bullet in his heart. Another pony went down but its rider leaped clear and landed on the run as he drew a knife. He slashed at something in shadow and collapsed with blood spurting from three bullet holes in his back. A fat man rushed from the shadow, the crimson mess of his partially removed scalp flapping down over his forehead like an opened trapdoor.

"Looks like Sheriff Beale," Edge said easily.

"I always maintained he had a hole in the head," the Englishman came back dryly as Beale's chest was suddenly bristling with a half dozen arrows and his dead body collapsed in the path of the onrushing ponies.

Then the surviving Apaches were past, fleeing down the center of the street with the cavalry troop behind them, the ponies widening the gap so that the rifle fire became sporadic as it diminished into the distance.

"Get some buckets and put out these fires," Colonel Murray shouted from below, then moving into sight at the center of the street.

Other men started to move then, seemingly with no purpose. But under Murray's direction a human chain was formed and sloshing buckets of water began to pass  along the line. Edge and the Englishman got to their feet, the latter carefully dusting off the dirt from his suit. Edge eyed him reflectively for a moment, then began to reload his Spencer.  

"Don't suppose," he said at length, "you'd believe me if I said I didn't know what you were talking about a while back."

The Englishman was wearing his easy smile again. "Then why did you come to Rainbow?"

"Clean sheets and a bath."

"Did you get them?" 

"Yeah."

The Englishman started back along the rooftop. "So, now you can move on."

Edge's eyes narrowed to slits and glinted dangerously in the firelight. "Hey, English."

The Englishman turned around to face him and recognized the menace in the other's demeanor. He adjusted his own position, sideways on to Edge.

"Yes, old boy?"

"I don't like being told what to do."

Each was holding his rifle across his stomach, in both hands. The excited noises from the street seemed to fade off into the distance.

"Merely a suggestion."

"Stick your suggestion up where you sit down, English."

The silence between them was like a solid block of crystal clear ice. Across it, each could see every minute detail of the other's physical state of readiness. And, with the perception of skilled gunfighters, each was aware of the other's mental process. A demonic angel of death counted off the seconds. Then the Englishman made a sound with his tongue against his teeth and his handsome face was suddenly wreathed in the familiar smile as the tension flowed from his body.

"If we’re not competing, old boy, there isn't any sense in killing each other. Let me buy you a drink?"

"No, thanks," Edge responded as the Englishman went to the end of the roof and began to lower himself to the stairway. ''With you dressed up so fancy people might start to talk."

Only his head was visible over the angle of the roof now, still wearing the gentle smile. "My goodness, honey-child," he drawled in a high-pitched, Deep South accent. "People have called me odd, but never queer."

Edge spat as he went from sight. "You're sure curious," he muttered. "And' you've made me curious."

He began to move toward the stairway.

CHAPTER SEVEN