Edge: The Loner

EDGE

Without doubt, he is the meanest,

most vicious man you’ll ever meet.

He’s a man of violence, driven

by revenge.

You won’t forget him.

To L.J.

who thought of the name.

FOREWORD

Foreword by Malcolm Davey AKA Western Writer, Cody Wells

First, I would like to say what an honor and a privilege it is for me to have the opportunity to be a part of the rebirth of this great legend. 

I believe I speak for every ‘Edge’ fan there is, has ever been, and also the many new fans that will follow, when I simply say, Terry… Thank you! Thank you so much for giving us, George G. Gilman and Edge!

In my humble opinion of all the westerns I’ve ever read or watched on the big screen and TV, no one could hold a candle to this author and his creation. 

The series was written with such zeal and finesse, it’s as fresh today as it was back when it first appeared on the shelves of our favorite bookstores. And the reason is … Edge was written well before its time. 

Malcolm Davey - November 2011.

  INTRODUCTION

Introduction: George G. Gilman (Terry Harknett)

In July 2010 a first e-book edition of this first title in the Edge series was published by a company called Solstice. For a variety of reasons which I do not intend to go into here I chose to withdraw this.

This new edition with its new cover, both produced by fellow Western writer Malcolm Davey AKA Cody Wells, perhaps needs the same introduction as the one that appeared back in 2010, so here it is for readers new to Edge on Kindle:

Almost 50 years ago (1952 to be precise) my first book was published. A rather pedestrian mystery featuring a London based private eye. Nine more followed, none of which sold more than a handful of copies in the UK and Argentina - the only overseas country to launch foreign editions.

And after some ten years the flames of my burning ambition to become a professional writer were beginning to gutter towards extinction. But my day job as a trade press journalist brought me into contact with all the London paperback publishers and an editor working for one of these suggested I might like to try my hand at writing novels based upon original screenplays.

These happened to be Westerns - a genre I knew little about except from the cinema and television, for my early years were in the l940s and 50s which was something of a golden age for the oaters on the large and small screen. So with some trepidation I agreed to the project.

I wrote a small clutch of these books based upon films and the publisher concerned was sufficiently impressed to ask me to try an original novel set in the West. And since at the time the spaghetti Westerns were doing such tremendous box office business and no publishers were printing books that were anything like such movies it was suggested I fill this gap in the market.

The rest, as they say, is history, which came to a premature end in 1989 when I decided I had written my final Edge adventure.

Now all these years later Edge has entered the digital age.

Long may he continue in readers’ imaginations to ride the bloody trails through hostile territory between violent towns in books that will be revisited by loyal long time fans and read by newcomers to the Wild West. A locale peopled by characters that on the printed page - and now on the digital screen - which has to be very different from that created by other writers in the genre since George G. Gilman had never read a Western before he started to write them.

Terry Harknett AKA George G. Gilman - November 2011.

CHAPTER ONE

JAMIE Hedges counted six riders and there should have been only one. But Joe was surely among them and so he didn’t worry for he would willingly shout aloud his happiness to the whole re-united USA if that were the way it had to be. His brother was coming back home after more than five years away at the war and Jamie didn’t care whether five men or five million were there to witness his jubilation at the event.

It was the evening of a beautiful Iowa day in June 1865 and on the farmstead where Jamie waited with mounted excitement there was not one single sign of a war that had torn a nation in two and claimed the lives of six hundred thousand young Americans. There was just the small wooden house, the bigger grain barn and the corral with its eight horses, neatly fenced off with white picket from the yellowing fields of wheat that stretched out on three sides. On the fourth side virgin country diminished into the distance, bisected by the trail along which the six riders were coming. The gate which gave access to the farmstead was open for Joe to ride through and Jamie and his mongrel dog Patch waited in the gateway, in the shade of the big old live oak that rustled its leaves in the same cooling breeze which turned the wheat fields into a huge yellow lake.