Edge: Killer's Breed

"Wrong," Hedges answered. The razor cut through the air and so sharp was its edge that there was hardly a sense of resistance as it slashed across the man's throat. He slid down the wall into a sitting position. "You were here. Now you ain't."

He turned and went to the well-dressed man. He used the razor again, to slit through his elegant suit jacket, vest and shirt collar. Beneath, he found a long pouch of hand-sewn leather, hanging down the man's spine and held in place by a beaded cord looped around his neck and tied in front. Within moments he had relieved the dead man of the pouch and transferred it into a similar position around his own neck.

Then he moved away, buttoning his tunic, as the first sun of the new day threw long shadows from the slumped figures of the three men. Three cats watched him curiously as he made practice draws with the razor. Then they turned and sped away, recognizing perhaps a streak of animal viciousness in the man's gesturing.

"Scaredy cats!" Hedges called after them.

*****

"WE'RE goin' to get him out of here," Thomas Hope said with determination as he looked down at the peacefully sleeping man.

"But if the sheriff's on his way like ma says…"

The father was not normally a harsh man where his family was concerned, but the look he turned upon his son was sufficient to silence the boy. Thomas was short and thickset, with the powerful shoulders of a man who has worked hard for most of his fifty-some years. He had an open, honest face, with dull black eyes which hinted at his lack of intelligence. His son was several inches taller and although his face bore a strong family resemblance, nature had subtly rearranged the features into more handsome lines and added a polish of brightness that advertised a fine, if undeveloped mind.

It was early evening at the farm, the sky darker than usual because of the low cloud which was thinning but still hiding the sun. The men had arrived tired and hungry with a stock bull and forty-six cows. They had been looking forward with pleasure to their homecoming every hard step of the way from Kansas City. But the story Margaret Hope had told and the sight of the man on the bed replaced their feeling of exhaustion with a sense of foreboding. This was stronger in the elder man and emerged as anger.

"A posse should be here soon, Tom," Margaret said quietly. She had struggled through many lean years with her husband and shared with him the satisfaction he drew from owning the farm and working it successfully. But she knew that it was too much to expect that a line could be drawn between the bad times of the past and the just reward of a trouble-free life ahead. "They'll take him away."

Tom shook his head, fixing Edge with a frightened stare. "I heard about this man, Maggie," he said. "He's so mean he'll kill a guy for bumping him in a crowd. What you reckon he'll do when he finds out who turned him in?"

"Sheriff Layton's got a strong jail, pa," Allen pointed out.

"Layton's a lazy fool," the boy's father came back. "I wouldn't trust him to keep a gopher in an iron cage. Go and saddle this critter a horse."

"What you goin' to do, Tom?" Margaret asked fearfully.

"Turn him loose is what," came the reply, and the man's steady eyes caught and held the gaze of his wife.

"When Layton gets here you'll tell him Hedges woke up and beat it 'cause he forced you to tell him about Grace goin' to town."

Margaret drew in her breath sharply. "He could die out there."

"So much the better. If he don't he'll either get clear away or get caught. Whatever  happens, he won't have no call to think badly of us." He turned his determined eyes towards his son. "Go do like I say, boy. Don't want Layton to catch us in the act."

As Allen left the room, Tom stripped the covers from the naked Edge and ordered his wife to bring the man's clothes, stiff with dried mud. Edge was no longer in the grip of the fever, but his body was exhausted by the fight for life and he remained limp in unconsciousness as he was dressed. When Allen called that a horse was ready, Tom hefted the unresisting form over his shoulder and carried him outside, instructing his wife to bring the Winchester. He heaved Edge across the saddle and forced a foot into one stirrup and went to the other side of the animal to push a wrist through the other one.

"He could easily fall off," Margaret pointed out as she slid the Winchester into the boot.

"That ain't our concern," Tom answered as he checked the security of the slumped form. He nodded his satisfaction and took the reins to lead the horse over to the gate. He opened it, released the reins and slapped the animal on the rump. It hesitated a moment, then broke away at a canter, swinging off the trail towards the north.

"If they catch him, he won't recall anything," Margaret said suddenly.