Edge: Killer's Breed

But the horses had little reserves left upon which to call and their pace slackened. When the skies were next split asunder by lightning and its accompanying thunder they could do no more than whinny and roll their eyes, white in their terror. Then; as Edge screamed his demand for further speed, one of the lead horses put a hoof in a gopher hole and the shinbone broke with a sharp crack, like a distant rifle shot. The other lead horse veered sharply to the left and the wagon slewed round, a rear wheel hit a rock and the rim sheared off the spokes. As the wagon canted sharply Edge was rocketed from the seat and in his deranged mind experienced a sensation of exhilaration as his body sailed through the rain-streaked air. He thudded in the rain-softened ground and lay still on his back for several moments, his mouth open to drink from the storm. This period of inactivity seemed to have a calming effect on his mind and there was a sense of logical purpose in the movements of his mud-covered body, an expression of impassive intent as he picked himself up and moved slowly towards the overturned wagon and pathetically struggling horses. The lid of the box seat was still shut and he grunted with surprise when he discovered the extent of his weakness. But eventually he raised the lid and took out the Winchester. Terror left the eyes of the injured horse as he approached it and the animal looked at the man with trust. It did not move as the rifle muzzle pressed against its head. The crack of the rifle was lost in a clap of thunder and in the blue flash of lightning the eyes of the horse became glazed. The animal's final breath gushed from its nostrils and then the horse collapsed, setting off the others into renewed struggles. Edge's hand was slow going to the back of his neck, but the movement was sure. The reaching fingers avoided the purple and yellow swelling of the festering wound and closed upon the handle of the cut-throat razor. He jerked it clear of the pouch and then began to slice through the traces which held the other three horses in the wagon shafts. As each animal was freed it moved a few paces away and there waited patiently as if expecting some new demand from the man. But the next stab of blue lightning and the smash of the thunderclap sent the animals into a stumbling gallop that would not end until physical fatigue overtook mental anguish.

Edge watched them out of sight, then turned to follow his instinct home, and instinct was all that kept him going now. The elation of the team's terror-fed dash, the exhilaration of the crash and the smashing of his body into the ground had robbed his mind of the last vestiges of unreality. His body was wracked with pain, fatigue was an unbearable weight on every muscle and his brain communicated only defeat. There was no longer any vision to lure him on nor any abstract struggle with the angels of death to drive him forward. He was just a terribly sick man in search of relief, forced on by sheer determination to get to where he was going.

Thus, when another lightning streak bathed the country ahead of him with an instant of blue brilliance, he knew that what he had seen was true. There really was a house where, when he had last been here, there had been only blackened timber. And there was a new barn, too, over to the right of where the old one had been. The picket fencing enclosing the yard might have been the same one Edge and his brother had put up so long ago, but it had been painted since—perhaps more than once. And the fields spread out around the farmstead, last seen as the sooted remains of a wheat crop, were now either golden with stubble or black with ploughing for the next planting.

What made it so real, confirmed to Edge that he had come home at last, was the big live oak inside the yard, not far from the gate in the fence. It was almost leafless now, surrendering its foliage to the onslaught of fall, but Edge had seen the tree in every season and he recognized it instantly. If every other feature of the country had been wiped out by a natural disaster, providing the oak tree had survived, Edge would have known he was home.