Edge: Killer's Breed

"He wants to win the damn war all on his own," Bell complained as a rebel's head was split asunder by the captain's flashing saber.

"Yeah," Forrest muttered to himself. "That guy's a loner."

Hedges heard none of this as he swept forward, slaughtering every rebel soldier within range of his blazing guns or reach of his slashing saber. He rode on and on, waging his own personal war, a man alone.

*****

THE gunfire of Shiloh faded and then was abruptly magnified and channeled into a single shot that rang out with the utmost clarity then echoed away into the distance. Edge snapped open his eyes and had a blurred view of broken ground rushing along a few feet beneath his face. His body ached as it continued to be buffeted by the headlong gallop of the horse and through his background of pain he could feel a sharper agony at his neck. He was sure he had been hit by a Confederate bullet and was slumped across the back of his still galloping cavalry mount.

Then he recalled a girl. Jeannie? No, not Jeannie. A girl tending a grave. Christ, Jamie's grave. Jamie had still been alive when the carnage of Shiloh took place.

Edge heard another shot; and galloping hooves. He turned his head to look behind the horse over which he was slumped, ignoring the stab of agony from his neck. He had an upside-down view of a group of horsemen streaming after him. He saw the flash of discharged bullets and then heard the cracks of the reports. Only then did he see the riders wore civilian clothes and came to his full senses.

Gritting his teeth against the pain, he drew his hand from out of the stirrup and swung his free leg over the saddle. By the time he was upright and gripping the reins of the galloping horse he had remembered Rainbow and the wound he received there; had recalled the agonizing trek back to Ohio and the farm; knew a girl had been tending Jamie's grave in the rain. After that there was only blackness except for a tiny fragment of a nightmare in which death had played a leading part.

But whatever had happened to him since he had seen the girl in the rain was no longer of any importance. The weakening after-effects of a serious illness were threatening to tumble him from the speeding horse as far more deadly, heavy caliber bullets whined about his head. As he glanced about him in the gloom of twilight the recognized the countryside of his youth and forced his reluctant brain to decide upon a plan of escape.

The flat plainslands of Iowa showed a slight rise to the north of him and he angled his lathered mount in that direction recalling how, in his early years, he had played and learned to shoot in a ravine among the hills. Although he was unaware of the events which had led to the present situation, it was obvious that his horse was much fresher than the mounts of his pursuers for it seemed that every yard he covered, widened the gap by half a yard between him and the men on his trail. Soon he was out of effective rifle range and Sheriff Layton and his posse ceased fire long before their quarry went from sight into the ravine.

The cleft in the hills was neither very wide nor very deep, on a far smaller scale than the many canyons Edge had travelled through in his wanderings of the south western territories. But at least its sides, sometimes sheer, sometimes sloping down at a climbable angle, offered a better chance of survival than the open prairie.

Edge slowed his horse to a walking pace, his eyes raking the slopes for a secure position where he could make his stand. And a stand it would have to be, for the ravine continued for less than a mile and if the pursuers emerged at the other end and saw no sign of him on the plain, they would certainly double back to search for him. As close as he had been able to judge there had been about a dozen men trailing him. Edge's only weapons were the razor in its neck pouch and the Winchester in the saddle boot—loaded with fourteen rounds. He halted his horse finally and dismounted gingerly, careful to test his strength before trusting to it. "I got out, of tighter spots than this," he muttered as he slapped the horse hard on the rump, snatching the Winchester from the boot as the animal bolted down the ravine, whinnying its protest. "But not much," he finished as he started up the steep angle of the ravine side, heading for a narrow shelf.