Edge: Killer's Breed

Margaret Hope looked at the pale face of her daughter and smiled to take the harshness out of her words. "It was you who found him, so you've got to help me. Bring that bowl and be ready to mop up the mess when it bursts out. Likely to smell a bit which won't help your stomach none but now you know about it, you'll expect it. That water looks to be boiling, girl. Let's get it over with and see if he's toting a bullet in there."

There was already a heap of clean clothes on the bed—shreds of tom-up sheet—and Margaret Hope arranged these around the wound as her daughter set down the steaming pan on a nearby chair.

"At least he won't feel it." Grace said.

"Course he won't," her mother snapped, her sudden anger revealing for the first time her own distaste for what lay ahead. She was immediately penitent for the slip and reached out to brush gentle fingers down her daughter's forearm. "Be brave, Grace," she murmured. "It must be done."

Her hand trembled as she lowered the blade of the razor, but became abruptly steady as the point touched and then sank into the sliver-thin, septic skin. Grace swayed but fought for self-control as the first spout of pus erupted, then gasped in horror as the blade travelled the length of the wound and the man's neck was suddenly running with yellow and green poison which gave off a nauseating odor.

"Wet cloths, girl," her mother demanded and Grace scalded her hand without feeling pain as she complied. The razor dropped to the floor, and the first swab followed it, white with an ugly stain. Working with haste and feminine gentleness, the elder woman accepted each new soaking cloth from her daughter, bathed the poison from the wound and discarded it. And soon the staining changed color, from the subdued tones of venom to the bright scarlet of fresh, clean blood. The man did not move or make a sound, but his body reacted with great beads of sweat which oozed from each pore to soak the bed-linen.

Margaret Hope sighed as she looked at the cleaned wound, bright red at the center with a darker coloration of inflammation along each side. "It was a bullet," she pronounced. "Creased him deep but didn't stay."

Grace had kept her eyes averted during the primitive surgery. Now she looked at the man and drew in her breath sharply. "It still looks..."

"I know," her mother answered. "He's still making poison, but we won't get at it like this. Bring the medicine chest, girl. All we can do now is put some salve on him, cover it and then keep him sweating to kill the fever." She used the back of a hand to brush sweat from her own forehead. "Then it's up to him. I reckon if he's got the spirit to live, he'll pull through."

"We could pray for him," Grace murmured.

Her mother nodded. "Reckon we could, Grace. We ain't no doctors but we did pretty good. So maybe we could pray and it won't matter that we ain't been to church since last Christmas. You say the words, daughter. You speak prettier than me and the Lord's a man."

As Grace sank to her knees and began to move her lips in silent prayer, her mother continued to stand by the bedside, clasping her hands together. The rain seemed to slacken during the appeal for mercy, but when it was over, came down with an increasing intensity.

"Weather’ll slow down your father and brother," Margaret Hope said pensively. "Kansas City ain't no Sunday ride at the best of times."

"Wonder where he comes from?" Grace asked, nodding to the man on the bed.

"Somewhere I want no part of," Margaret answered. "That's just one more wound he's got. He's been shot lots of times before. I don't think he's a good man, Grace. Feller who carries a razor like he does don't only use it for shaving."

The two women looked down at Edge, each with her own thoughts about the kind of man he was.

CHAPTER THREE

HEDGES and Captain Gordon Leaman, each with a party of twenty troopers, rode three miles ahead of the main body of McClellan's army. Leaman's group was north of the railroad tracks while Hedges kept to the south. As they pushed eastwards in the pale light of pre-dawn they were sometimes lost to each other behind low rises of areas of timber. But for the most part each group had sight of the soldiers in the other as they scouted the route for the main body.