Edge: Killer's Breed

"Maybe not if you don't smile like that," Hedges said, then suddenly stooped and picked up the unconscious man's cap. He stepped forward and the girl did not draw back or protest as he gathered up her soft red hair and tucked it under the cap.

"You're very thoughtful, lieutenant," she said. "Thank you again."

She had to go on to her toes to gain enough height to brush her lips across Hedges' mouth. Then she turned suddenly and ran off down the alley to where the railroad tracks gleamed silver in the moonlight, the spare material of the uniform flapping about her. Hedges ran the tips of his fingers along his lips and felt a stirring in his loins as his mind conjured up the picture of her near-nakedness. Then the man at his feet groaned and he was reminded of the ugliness of the circumstances; experienced a strong desire to kill the girl's tormentor.

He grinned suddenly and crouched down to remove the man's shoes, finding the two dollars in the left one. Then he grabbed the man by the feet and started to haul him out of the alley and into the street. His undershirt was dragged up, baring his bulging belly and very white, hairless chest. Hedges hauled his burden back down the street to the doorway where the whore had been standing.

"You still open for business?" he called into the shadows.

"Sure am, mister," the familiar voice answered. "Oh, it's you?" Her tone was suddenly derisive. "Change your mind, soldier boy? I got a special rate for first timers."

"It's not for me," Hedges answered. "He's got two dollars."

The whore gasped as Hedges dragged the groaning man into view. "He was so anxious he couldn't wait to get undressed," Hedges told her. "Is two dollars enough?"

"This some kind of joke?" the whore demanded.

Hedges dropped the feet of the man and held up the two bills. "He does look kind of funny, doesn't he? And for two dollars the joke can be on you,"

A hand reached out of the darkness and long fingers with scarlet-painted nails closed around the money and snatched it away. The whore laughed harshly. "They aren't usually in that state until they leave me, but I guess in wartime a girl's got to take what she can get. Bring him inside."

Hedges turned away. "I've given you your oats, lady," he called to her. "I'm not about to feed them to you."

"Screw you!" she shrieked after him.

"No, him," Hedges said as he walked away, able to maintain a straight line without effort now.

He heard the door slam and as he again neared the edge of town he turned to look over his shoulder and saw the man still lying in the street. "Should have known," he muttered. "Pa always told me never to trust a woman with painted nails." He tried to remember whether Jeannie Fisher had colored her nails.

*****

EDGE was naked and lying face down on the big double bed in the master bedroom of the farmhouse, his body from shoulder blades to feet covered with a sheet and six blankets. He was clean of mud except for that which clung among his long hair. But replacing the mud was a fine sheen of sweat, forced from his pores by the bed covering, the fire which roared in the hearth and his own dangerously high body heat.

"I wish father and Allen were here," Grace said as she sat by the fire, watching steam rise from a large pan on the hob.

Her mother was sitting at the head of the bed, stropping Edge's own razor on leather. The storm had passed now and except for when the women spoke it was very quiet in the room, the stillness marred only by the consistent splash of rain on the roof and the regular, pained breathing of the man on the bed.

"Your father wouldn't he much help," Margaret Hope answered. "He's strong and he's brave, sure enough, but he's got no stomach for this kind of thing. Your brother's probably the same."

"But they could go and get Doctor Patterson," Grace argued. "You can't be sure you're doing the right thing."

The elder woman eyed the ugly, venomous ridge across the neck of the unconscious man and grimaced, then tested the sharpness of the razor. She nodded as the slightest of pressure nicked the skin of her thumb and drew a hairline of blood.

"Wound's poisoned, you got to get the poison out," she proclaimed. "That's commonsense and I don't need no medical training to tell me that. And time anyone got to town and brought Doc Patterson back, this feller would be past helping."

She got to her feet and crossed to the fire, there to squat down before it and, protecting her hand from the heat with her apron, thrust the blade of the razor into the flames.

"I think I feel sick," Grace said, swallowing hard, her wide eyes staring in horrified fascination at the flames licking up the blade.