Edge: The Loner

There was a crude wooden shack in the center of the bowl, with a hitching rail along the side to which a dozen horses were tethered. Bales of hay were stacked on the other side of the shack. Other bales were being used as seats for a group of men who lounged in front of the shack, four playing cards, two apparently sleeping, another idly picking at his nails with a curved blade knife while three more talked, their heads close together. On a horse count that meant two more in the shack, Edge figured, maybe only one if the lookout and not rode to his position.

The Brady Gang was a big one.

All the men outside looked up with interest at the approach of the horsemen and one or two shouted ribald remarks of welcome to Pete, who waved back at them like a visiting dignitary, enjoying the limelight enormously. But when the men realized the fourth rider was not a member of the gang the banter ended abruptly.

“Brady,” one of the card players shouted as the newcomers dismounted two figures emerged from the shack, a man and a woman.

He was of indeterminate age, anything from twenty-five to thirty-five, vastly overweight with arms that threatened the seams of his shirt, thighs that made his pants skin-tight and an enormous body that overhangs his gun belt, drooping over to conceal his buckle. His face was round with cheeks that ballooned out as if stuffed with uneaten food and above these he had small, round, pig-like eyes, which warned the world that weight was not all he had an excess of. They were the eyes of a man whose middle name was HATE.

Beside him the woman was almost girl-like: slim and frail looking, with a mere hint of feminine curves under the dirty, once white dress. But when Edge looked again at her face, dull-eyed and etched with lines of bitterness, framed by long matted, greasy black hair, he could see she would be at least forty on her next birthday.

“Hi Brady,” Pete said, excitedly.

“Who’s the new critter?” Brady said, ignoring the rescued gang member and locking his mean eyes upon those of Edge, who returned the gaze without blinking.

“Name’s Edge,” Pete said, refusing to have his mood of jubilation quelled. “Hadn’t been for him I might not have broken out. Carved some foreign word on the sheriff’s face. Real mean cuss.” There was a tone of respect in Pete’s voice as he spoke his last.

“What happened to Chuck?” Brady demanded, and it was he who now lost out in the staring match.

“Somebody blasted him out of the saddle back at Anson City,” Edge answered. “Obliged for the loan of your horse.”

He led the animal to the hitching rail and lopped the reins over it, removed his gear and the Henry. All eyes were on him, and several hands went to guns as they saw the rifle held loosely in Edge’s hand.

“Don’t let the priest’s outfit fool you none,” Pete said, his voice cutting across the moment of tension like a keen edge through soft cheese. “He ain’t no priest. Why he’s got ...”

Edge poised himself to loose of a shot and leap back upon the horse as he realized Pete was about to shoot off his mouth about the money in the saddlebags. But it was not fear of Edge that caused Peter to halt the flow of words. The expression that flitted across his face told of a thought that had suddenly struck him. And Edge knew what that thought was.

But nobody else in front of the shack showed any suspicion at what had happened. Truth was, Edge suspected, Pete always talked too much and the rest of the gang had learned to ignore most of what he said; probably didn’t listen half the time.

“Let’s get to Linmann,” the woman said suddenly, her voice gruff, almost as deep as that of a man. “We waited long enough.”

Brady made a sound from deep inside him, causing his mass of flesh to shake like jelly and it took Edge a moment to realize the big man was laughing.

“You really itching to have some sport with that bastard, ain’t you, Stella?” he said between chortles.

“Ain’t we all itching to see it?” Pete said with glee, grinning at everybody, and triggering them all into gusts of laughter. Then Pete looked at Edge who was standing in stony silence, gear in one arm, Henry held loosely in his other hand. “Linmann’s the guy I told you about. Sold us out to Hammond.”

Brady stopped laughing and his dark eyes found Edge’s face again. “Like you to stick around for awhile, Mr. Edge. Might be we have a spare horse to sell you later. Don’t figure Linmann will be wanting it anymore.”

His laughter exploded the excess of flesh into a paroxysm of movement again as he put a meaty arm about the woman’s thin shoulders and urged her around to the back of the shack. The rest of the gang, noisy with eager anticipation, rose to their feet to follow. Again, Edge held back so that he could bring up the rear.