Edge: The Loner

“It ain’t wrong,” Brady said, looking at her with a quizzical expression.

Silence settled over the group as they watched the woman approach Linmann, completely ignorant of her intention, deeply interested in the outcome. They saw the smile on her face but only Brady recognized it for what it was. Not until she stopped in front of the prisoner and started to unbuckle her belt did Edge realize Stella was stimulating her impression of feminine sexual invitation.

A great cheer went up from the gang as Stella unfastened the belt, hooked her fingers on each side of Linmann’s pant waistband and jerked downwards, so that all the buttons popped and the man’s genitals were exposed. Then silence settled upon the watchers as Stella began to murmur softly, her face nuzzling Linmann’s cheek.

“You’ve never had me, have you, Linmann,” she whispered as the gang strained their ears to pick up the words. “Nobody has except Brady. But you can. If you confess. Look I’ll show you.”

Several of the men, including Linmann, emitted low gasps of amazement as the woman stepped back and ripped open her dress from neck to waist, allowing the top half to fall from her shoulders. Her body was grimed with dirt, the neck and small conical breasts a mess of teeth marks from countless congresses with Brady. And her manlike voice aroused no stirring in Edge’s loins. But the members of the gang were less fastidious and watched the women with unconcealed lust in their eyes as their mouths worked silently.

“Tell it,” Stella commanded softly, stepping forward, sinking to her knees and moving her body from side to side, her breasts caressing Linmann’s body. “That’s it, my darling,” she encouraged.

Pain and lust can be part of the same sensation and despite his agony and his fear, his discomfort and his distrust, Linmann was reacting, albeit involuntarily, to the overtures of the woman. Looking on, feeling not a part of what was happening, Edge knew that the sweat standing out on Linmann’s twisted face was not all from the heat of the day which was trapped in the bowl of the gully and turning it into an oven.

“That’s it,” Stella murmured once more, then suddenly sprang to her feet, her hand going inside her skirt to emerge a moment later clutching a knife which she brought down in a savage sweep. The glinting blade sliced through Linmann’s flesh as if it were rotten rope.

“Christ,” Pete uttered, turned away from the sight and sound of the screaming man and vomited his jailhouse breakfast.

“String him up,” Stella yelled in fury above the screams of agony as she shrugged her dress back onto her shoulders, raised her skirt to thrust her knife back into the sheath strapped to her thigh. “Move. You and you.”

She pointed at two of the gang members closest to the gallows and they sprung out of their shock to do her bidding, slicing through the ropes of the man whose body lay still with the blood still jutting from his groin. They heaved him up on to the bales and put the noose around his neck, moving gingerly, careful not to brush against him.

When they backed away Stella moved forward and looked up at the man, who was now held upright by the rope at his neck, which was threatening to choke him before he could be hung.

“You want to confess and clear your soul?” she asked.

Stella realized that the spark of life had almost left Linmann’s tortured body so she kicked the bales clear. His body jerked down. His legs kicked convulsively once. His neck snapped with a dry sound. He was dead.

“I don’t think he did it,” Edge said to Brady.

The fat man shrugged. “Neither do I.”

“Why’d you let her do it?”

He grinned evilly. “The man who ratted on us ain’t likely to do it again. Not after seeing that.”

“Yeah,” Edge agreed with the logic. “I like to buy Linmann’s horse.”

Brady grinned as Stella sidled over to him, wearing the same expression with which she had coaxed Linmann into excitement.

“Later, feller,” the fat man said with a lascivious wink. “Sight of blood always gives my girl the hots. I’ve got some pleasure to attend to ‘fore I can talk business.”

Edge looked on coldly as Stella led Brady coquettishly into the shack. He, too, had a date with a girl, but it would have to wait.

CHAPTER NINE

BRADY did not hurry over his pleasures, or if he did, he liked to sleep off his exertions for a very long time afterwards. Outside the shack, in front away from the sight of the man hanging limply from the gallows, the remainder of the gang also took their rest, satiated by the violence rather than sex, sleeping in the attitudes of exhaustion across the scattered hay bales.