Edge: Apache Death

Edge grunted and felt around for his own rifle as Drucker halted the wagon in the center of the compound. But there was no gun, on the roof—not even his Colt, which had been taken from its holster. He glanced across at the roof of the arsenal, then quickly down into the compound. He grunted again. Chief Cochise had got his Winchesters and every other weapon in Fort Rainbow. Edge felt for his neck again, but not for the wound, and discovered he still had the razor. But Drucker was too far away for this to be of any use. Then he looked again at the arsenal roof and his lean face broke into a cold grin, narrowing the eyes to slits of blue and curling back the thin lips to show an even row of teeth. There was still one gun left at the fort.

He pulled himself up on to all fours and fastening his eyes on Drucker, began to move slowly toward the side of the roof. Once there he relaxed his vigilance of the rancher to survey the six foot gap separating the bunkhouse from the arsenal. He went up into a crouch, backed off two yards and then broke into a short, ambling run. The sound of his feet thudding on to the opposite roof snapped up Drucker's eyes. The rancher dropped the reins, threw up the Winchester and loosed off a shot. The bullet gouged a furrow across the stomach of one of the dead braves. The wound was red but there was no blood: the Apache had been dead for too long.

"Hell, I thought you was Injun!" Drucker shouted as he saw Edge in a crouch a few feet from the Gatling. "Didn't hit you, did I?"

"You found it?" Edge asked.

"Anyone else left alive?"

"Just you and me." 

Drucker had started to lower the Winchester, but now he raised it again, a suspicious frown on his leathery features. "Who are you?" he demanded.

Edge inched closer to the gun and shot a side-long glance into the hopper. It was more than half full. "Guy you stole from," he answered. "You want to get down off that wagon and go home to your ranch?"

"The Englishman's buddy!" Drucker exclaimed.

"I ain't got no buddies," Edge told him.

"And I ain't got no ranch," came the reply. "Apaches burned it and run off my stock."

"Tough," Edge answered. "Means you ain't got nothing to live for anymore."

"I got a million reasons to live," Drucker shouted and squeezed the trigger of his rifle.

Edge went sideways, reaching out a hand for the crank of the Gatling. Lead spat from the six barrels, kicking up a wide arc of dust puffs as Edge raked the gun around toward the wagon. Drucker got off one more shot with the Winchester, standing for a better angle but still firing high. Then the deadly spray from the Gatling's revolving barrels tattooed a pattern of holes on his broad chest. He tossed the Winchester high into the air as he screamed and his knees bent, bringing his head down into the trajectory of the flying bullets. They tore the flesh to shreds, and Drucker's cheekbones shone white in the sunlight as his body pitched forward into the dust and Edge stopped cranking the handle. The horses reared once and then became quiet.

Edge Stood up, moved to the side of the roof and lowered himself gently to the ground, careful not to jerk his neck and so activate fresh waves of pain from the wound. He walked slowly across to Drucker's body and looked down at the bloody pulp which had once been on a set of features.

"Looks like I win," he muttered. "You just can't face up to things anymore."

He found the handkerchief with which the small boy had tried to surrender and used it to wipe Drucker's blood from the box' seat of the wagon. He had just finished and was stooping to pick up the dead man's Winchester when he froze, hearing a distant sound. He straightened slowly and looked out through the gateway, across the dead Apaches and ponies, past the gruesome, hanging head of the Englishman, toward a swirling cloud of dust which was moving relentlessly along the valley floor on the far side of the river. The sound rang out again: a frenetic bugle call. And as the dust cloud drew near he saw the Stars and Stripes and the company pennant streaming in the slipstream. He sighed, rested the rifle against the wagon and took the makings of a cigarette from his shirt pocket.   

"Guess everything's got to start someplace," he muttered. "It's the goddamn Seventh Cavalry. They just ain't got no sense' of timing."

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