carried it into his workshop with the easy skill of long experience that made the heavily built dead man seem less than half his true bulk. There was no studied reverence as Slocum went about the task, but neither did he treat the remains of Fred Drayton like a loosely filled sack of potatoes. Edge continued to watch from the doorway as the evenly breathing man set down his burden on a stained pine table in a corner of the workshop. A place that smelled of cigar smoke, sawdust, glue and lamp oil and was furnished with a second table, two benches, several racks of well used woodworking tools and the finished, partially completed and newly started caskets that were a stock in trade of Jake Slocum. Who now used a recently sharpened knife to saw through the ropes which bound the unfeeling flesh and talked as he worked.
‘Normally I wouldn’t do this until after John McCall had checked over the cadaver: seen how the man died. But since there’s no telling how long it’s going to be before he gets back – and when he does get back he’ll have plenty more problems to occupy him – I’m doing it now. A man that’s dead don’t care how he looks or what happens to his remains. And when there’s no next of kin to make the arrangements, it’s left to the likes of me to take care of what has to be done. See it’s done decently: with dignity.’
‘How did McCall’s other problems come about today, feller?’ Edge asked from where he remained on the threshold.
A scowl came to the angular face of the cheroot smoking man working dexterously to free the body of binding ropes. ‘Shannon and a couple of other guys just rode into town, hitched their horses to the rail outside the saloon and swaggered in, guns drawn.
‘Was there a woman with them?’
‘Nah, she showed up a little later. Said something to them about a wagon being well hid in the hills outside of town. Anyway, Shannon said they’d shoot down every man in there – and I was one of the half dozen in the Lucky Break at the time – if the two Mexican lawmen didn’t surrender. Along with Bart Bannerman who, like you know, took over McCall’s duties?’
70
‘He told me why he had to do that.’
‘Yeah, Bart’s the mayor. Him and the two Mexicans had to agree. Wasn’t nobody going to argue with Shannon: all of us knowing the kind of mean hearted, cold blooded killer he is. So we all done what we was told. And what we was told after the hostages were locked up in the jailhouse was to go about our business like everything was normal. But them of a religious disposition should pray that nobody tried to be a hero. Because if Bart had the two senors died first, a whole lot of others would follow.’
‘That won’t happen! Not if it’s done properly!’ The challenge was spoken by a woman at the rear of the alley, her voice a vehement whisper.
‘Kitty, you been told no!’ Slocum snapped the response in the tone of a man whose patience was near to breaking point.
Edge backed out of the doorway and turned toward the newcomer as she emerged from the darkness into the fringe glow from the workshop. Had guessed from hearing her given name who she probably was: now recognised her from glimpsing her smiling face at the window when she signalled an affectionate goodbye to a man riding away with the posse shortly after dawn. Kitty Raine, widow of the deputy Luke Shannon callously murdered last night.
‘Was told by a bunch of spineless small town cowards afraid of their own lousy shadows!’ She lowered her rasping voice still further as she drew close to Edge in the doorway. ‘But this guy is something else. Twice already he’s shown he’s not the kind of man to let anybody mess with him and get away with it.
Close up and wearing a scowl, Kitty Raine was as good to look at as she had promised to be from a distance, seen briefly while she smiled radiantly through the window. She was about thirty, tall, with a build that was slender but certainly not boyish.
‘Normally I wouldn’t do this until after John McCall had checked over the cadaver: seen how the man died. But since there’s no telling how long it’s going to be before he gets back – and when he does get back he’ll have plenty more problems to occupy him – I’m doing it now. A man that’s dead don’t care how he looks or what happens to his remains. And when there’s no next of kin to make the arrangements, it’s left to the likes of me to take care of what has to be done. See it’s done decently: with dignity.’
‘How did McCall’s other problems come about today, feller?’ Edge asked from where he remained on the threshold.
A scowl came to the angular face of the cheroot smoking man working dexterously to free the body of binding ropes. ‘Shannon and a couple of other guys just rode into town, hitched their horses to the rail outside the saloon and swaggered in, guns drawn.
‘Was there a woman with them?’
‘Nah, she showed up a little later. Said something to them about a wagon being well hid in the hills outside of town. Anyway, Shannon said they’d shoot down every man in there – and I was one of the half dozen in the Lucky Break at the time – if the two Mexican lawmen didn’t surrender. Along with Bart Bannerman who, like you know, took over McCall’s duties?’
70
‘He told me why he had to do that.’
‘Yeah, Bart’s the mayor. Him and the two Mexicans had to agree. Wasn’t nobody going to argue with Shannon: all of us knowing the kind of mean hearted, cold blooded killer he is. So we all done what we was told. And what we was told after the hostages were locked up in the jailhouse was to go about our business like everything was normal. But them of a religious disposition should pray that nobody tried to be a hero. Because if Bart had the two senors died first, a whole lot of others would follow.’
‘That won’t happen! Not if it’s done properly!’ The challenge was spoken by a woman at the rear of the alley, her voice a vehement whisper.
‘Kitty, you been told no!’ Slocum snapped the response in the tone of a man whose patience was near to breaking point.
Edge backed out of the doorway and turned toward the newcomer as she emerged from the darkness into the fringe glow from the workshop. Had guessed from hearing her given name who she probably was: now recognised her from glimpsing her smiling face at the window when she signalled an affectionate goodbye to a man riding away with the posse shortly after dawn. Kitty Raine, widow of the deputy Luke Shannon callously murdered last night.
‘Was told by a bunch of spineless small town cowards afraid of their own lousy shadows!’ She lowered her rasping voice still further as she drew close to Edge in the doorway. ‘But this guy is something else. Twice already he’s shown he’s not the kind of man to let anybody mess with him and get away with it.
Close up and wearing a scowl, Kitty Raine was as good to look at as she had promised to be from a distance, seen briefly while she smiled radiantly through the window. She was about thirty, tall, with a build that was slender but certainly not boyish.
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