Edge: The Loner

He selected the knife this time, and turned the rifle so he was holding it by the barrel. “Billy,” he called softly, bending, leaning close to the face of the sleeping man.

Seward grunted, closed his mouth.

“Billy,” sharply this time.

Seward’s eyes snapped open.

“They call me Edge now,” Edge told him. “But I’m still Jamie’s brother.”

Seward’s mouth came open with a click and the knife buried itself into the back of his throat. He gagged on blood and steel and his teeth clanged down on to the blade. His only sound was a gurgling, but his eyes, blurred by tears revealed the full extent of his pain. Then the stock of the Henry completed his execution, cracking against his forehead, splitting the skin and laying the flesh open to the bone.

“You don’t fool around,” the girl said and Edge spun around, saw her standing on the other side of the bed, still naked, still looking excited.

“Now he knows it too,” he said. “Stay here.”

She nodded, smiled. “I’ll get my fun just looking at him like that.”

Seward’s teeth had a death grip on the knife blade and Edge had to use a lot of force to pull it clear. Suddenly the girl’s bony fingers clasped Edge’s wrist and he watched through narrowed eyes as she licked off Seward’s blood. He waited until she had raised enough moisture into her mouth to spit the dead man’s blood into his face before turning and going out of the room.

He had reached the turn in the hallway at the head of the stairs before the short laugh of the man coming up from the saloon told him his next victim was at hand. And when he stepped clear of the angle of the wall, came face to face with him, he recognized Roger Bell. And recognition hit Bell at the same instant.

“Christ the captain,” he said hoarsely and suddenly took a backward pace and moved sideways, putting the shocked saloon girl between himself and Edge. “Frank,” he yelled in warning as he drew his Colt.

From the corner of his eye, Edge could see over the banisters of the stairway as Forrest and Douglas exploded into movement, pushing their girls away from them and diving for the floor, pulling guns. Bell loosed off a shot that whistled close to Edge’s ear and two cracks sounded from below. One of these sent splinters flying from the banister rail, which showered the face of the girl who was shielding Bell. She screamed and collapsed as a sliver of wood pierced her eye and Bell, a hand supporting her at the waist, was suddenly exposed from his belt upwards. One bullet from the Henry caught him in the middle of the belly, a second drilled his heart and the third gouged a furrow down the back of his head as he fell forward.

“Three from Jamie,” Edge muttered as he stepped back from a hail of bullets that was being hurled up from the two men below.

A single shot, separated by a pause from the others, then second of silence.

“Frank?” A woman.

“Yeah.”

“It ain’t me and Arlene’s fight.”

“Get.”

Footsteps rattled on the wooden floor. The swing doors swung, squeaking.

“How many you got?” Forrest’s voice addressed to Edge.

“Three. Two more.”

“Who are you. You from town?”

A table crashed on its side.

“Iowa,” Edge called back as he pumped three more shells into the Henry, making it fully loaded again.

“Frank?” Douglas called, from close to Forrest. “I thought I heard Rodge say something before ...”

“So?” Forrest asked.

“It sounded like Captain ...”

“Jesus,” Forrest said just loud enough to carry up the stairs.

“You heard right, “Edge said and suddenly broke from the cover of the angle of the wall, pumping bullets into the saloon below, firing blind and wild.

Only one shot was returned, splintering wood several feet from Edge. Edge’s narrowed eyes pinpointed the table from behind which the shot had come and concentrated his fire upon it. The heavy caliber bullets smashed through its underside and Douglas rose up from behind it like an apparition, his revolver and falling from lifeless fingers as blood stained his shirt in three places and fountained from his cheek. Edge elevated the Henry for a final shot and saw Douglas go over backwards as his nose exploded, spraying blood and splintered bone.

Edge vaulted over the banister, his feet smashing on to a table top, his weight breaking the legs as if they were cardboard. Three shots followed his progress, the last one burning across his forearm, drawing blood. He dived for the floor, wriggled behind the end of the long bar as more shots dug into the wood and smashed bottles above his head.

“We should have stayed around and taken care of you like we did your brother,” Forrest called.

Edge heard the voice without listening as he rose and ran in a half crouch to the far end of the bar, peered out around the corner and got three quarters view of Forrest squatting behind his cover, hastily reloading his Colt. Edge stood and moved clear of the bar, raising and aiming the Henry.

“Shut up and watch it coming, Forrest,” he called.

Forrest turned fast, looked in horror at Edge and then at his unready gun.