Edge: The Loner

“Go away,” he heard a hoarse whisper. A woman. “Don’t look at me.”

Edge approached the stage, hauled himself up onto it.

“I ain’t one of them that held you up.” He said. “I’m here to help.”

“You can’t help me.”

He was on top now, looking in through the door the raiders had left open. The woman was hunched up in the corner, between the seat and the side of the stage, which was now on the floor. She was young, with pretty blonde hair and was well dressed. Edge could not tell much more about her, as she stared at her reflection in the mirror affixed to the inside of the lid of her vanity case, whimpering painfully. She might have been pretty–once, before the high caliber bullet had ripped through her cheek and exited through her nose, blowing half of it away, leaving what remained a soggy red mess of shapeless pulp.

“I told you not to look,” she tried to scream at Edge, but her voice could not rise above a whisper.

“I’ve seen worse sights,” he answered.

She slapped the case shut and raised both hands to mask her injury. Above her clasped fingers her eyes were big and beautiful.

“You said you were here to help,” the beautiful eyes questioned him.

“I ain’t got no time to be no nurse-maid,” he said flatly.

“I don’t want ...”

“Nor to tote any sick woman to the nearest sawbones,” he interrupted.

“How long would it take you to put a bullet in my brain, mister!” she asked without emotion.

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not,” she said, managing to inject annoyance into her tone.

He guessed she was still in shock. The initial searing pain of the wound would have gone and she had the relief of a period of numbness before the real agony set in.

“You ain’t gonna’ die from that,” Edge told her.

“I know,” she answered. “That’s why I want you to kill me.”

Edge shook his head, more a bewildered than a negative gesture. “I don’t follow.”

“I’m a dance hall girl, mister,” she told him and now her eyes showed a moment of stabbing pain and her body jerked. “Christ, it’s starting to hurt. It’s the only way I know how to make a living. It’s the only way I want. Not anymore, though.”

“Uh?”

The eyes showed more pain, then a flare of anger. “You dumb cluck, what man’s gonna’ want a dance hall girl with no nose?”

The insult dug deep into Edge, but he made allowances for the woman’s condition. His face became pensive.

“I’ve shot a lot of people,” he said slowly, “but always with reason.”

“I’m giving you a reason,” she came back quickly. “There’s no gun in here or I’d try it myself. But I’m scared I might miss if you give me one. I want to be stone cold dead. One bullet. Finish.”

She closed her eyes and groaned as a more intense stab of pain caught her. When she opened them again Edge was no longer at the door of the stage. She heard his feet thunder on the ground as he jumped down. “Don’t leave me,” she called, showing her first sign of fear.

“That would be slow. You couldn’t live with that. Get it over. A quick bullet is all it will take.”

She heard him moving about outside, held her breath to pick up sounds of him remounting and riding off. It went quiet.

“Where you headed?” she heard him call.

“New job. Big money.”

“Where at?”

“South, near the border. Lots of rich bounty hunters. Town called Warlock.”

Silence again. Footfalls, the scrape of metal against leather. Silence.

CRACK.

The revolver shot was magnified within the close confines of the stage and still rang in Edge’s ears as he looked down coldly from the opposite side of the door from where he had been at first. The bullet had drilled a neat hole in the center of the woman’s forehead.

“It’s better when you don’t know it’s coming,” he said, jumped back down and walked across to push the revolver back into the dead raider’s holster.

He looked around, shading his eyes from the sun, searching for the pack horse, spotting it directly below a bunch of circling buzzards. He mounted and cantered over to it, transferred as many of the supplies as he could comfortably carry. Then he returned to the stage trail, to follow it to the town called Warlock.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE sign was newly painted, the fresh white lettering shining in the moonlight against the dark wooden plank supported by two poles at the side of the trail.

WELCOME TO PEACEVILLE

Population 314

Fastest growing town in the territory.

Edge was close to the American-Mexican border now, having circled two townships and a way station since he shot the woman heading for Warlock. Three days had passed and he was starting to feel the fatigue of the search, knew he would have to rest up before he despaired of ever finding that for which he was looking.

The name Peaceville had a restful ring to it: inappropriate to its position on the map, maybe. But it showed the citizens of the town had faith in the future. Edge made his decision and urged his horse forward, moving with no haste in front of the sign and into the town.