Edge: Apache Death

Edge jumped forward off the ledge, left hand streaking to the back of his neck. The man squeezed the trigger of the rifle and his high-pitched shriek of alarm was lost in the report as the dead weight of Edge hit him. Edge locked his legs around the man and with one hand jerked his head back as the other, fingers curled around the handle of the razor, snaked to the miner's throat. The man pitched forward under the weight and power of the lunge, the rifle clattering away. His knees hit first and his scream of pain was cut off as he went full-length, with the wind knocked out of him. The sharp edge of the razor merely nicked the grizzled, slack skin of his throat.

“'You didn't get in no lucky shot,” Edge whispered, close to his ear.  

The man was gasping for breath, the effect of the fall and the continuing weight of Edge on his back demanding his entire strength to force air into his lungs. Edge let him suffer like that for perhaps half a minute before he eased his weight off. But he left the razor close against the throat. Then, with his free hand, he grasped the man's hair and yanked him to his feet, still not removing the razor. The man was a head shorter than Edge, and would have fallen to the ground again had not Edge held him erect by the hair. They stood like that for several more moments, the man's rasping breath the only sound. Then his breathing became less pained and his body began to tremble.

“You wouldn't kill an old man, mister?” His teeth were clattering.

Edge let go of his hair and the man stood unaided, forced upright by the threat of the razor under his jaw.

“They ain't no different from-young men,” Edge told him evenly. “Skin's a little tougher to carve through, but they bleed just as much. How old are you, feller?”

“Seventy-two,” the man said quickly, as if he regarded his age as a plea for leniency.

Edge showed his teeth in a grin the man could not see. "Three score, years and ten, the Good Book says," he whispered with mock reverence. “You’ve been living on borrowed time for the past two years, old timer. Could be I'm the debt collector.”

The old man drew in his breath sharply? “Please, mister. Take half in the Silver Seam. We split down the middle. Fifty-fifty.”

“How much you dug out so far?”

“Nothing, not yet,” came the fast reply. “But it's there. Richest seam in the whole territory. Famous legend about a mountain of silver in these parts and I know this is it. I've been a miner all me life. I can recognize the sign of a silver lode.”

“How long you been working this mine?” Edge asked.

“Ain't nothing to go by,” the miner said, the confidence oozing out of his voice. “Takes time.”

"How long?”

“Be twelve years come spring,” the man said and now his, tone was devoid of all hope.

“Hell, you're dead already,” Edge said, releasing him and returning the razor to its neck pouch.

The old man turned to face him and he saw the miner carried his age well. The leathery skin was lined and wrinkled beneath the gray stubble of several days’ growth of beard, but the blue eyes were bright and there was strength of character in the leanness of his features. His gray hair, with just a trace here and there of its former dark color, was long and thick. His spare frame also hinted at a latent strength and there was just a slight thickening of excess weight around the middle. Twelve years of tearing at the heart of a mountain had kept the old man fit and a determination to find what he sought had fed a hope which in turn had nurtured his spirit.

“So you ain't going to kill me?”

Hope had sprung up again. Edge walked across and picked up the miner's rifle, an early muzzle-loading Springfield as clean as the day it had left the factory.

“What's your name?” he demanded.

“Zeb Hanson.”

“Let's go for a walk.”

Hanson squinted. “A walk?”

Edge grinned, “I've got to find a few things that belong to me and I'd prefer to have you where I can see you while I'm looking for them.”

Hanson shrugged and fell in beside Edge. He found his Colt first and dusted it off and replaced the expended shell with a fresh round before putting it back in the holster. The old man waited docilely at the foot of the mesa wall while Edge climbed up and retrieved the Spencer.

“You're a damn cool customer,” Hanson said with a note of admiration when Edge rejoined him. “You got the drop on me, and good.”

Edge grimaced at him. "You were easy. I'm still missing a horse.”

This news and the tone with which it was delivered raised fear within the old man again. “Got a burro in back of the mine,” he offered. “She ain't very fast, but she's steady,”

“I like my horse.”

“Could have lit off clear to Mexico,” the old man whined.

Edge grinned. “You speak passable Mexican, Zeb. You find any peons, you ask them if they've seen a big black stallion with a Mexican army brand on him."

CHAPTER THREE