her emotions. She stepped up close enough to him so he could faintly smell her perfume and clearly see that her cajoling expression was a match for her tone when she offered: ‘Are you hungry, Mr Edge?’
He nodded. ‘It’s been a long time since I ate breakfast with Bannerman at this saloon, lady.’
‘I’ve fixed supper for myself. But what with the worry of all that’s happened in this town I’ve lost my appetite. You’re welcome to come have the food I can’t eat anymore?’
‘Much obliged. But first I need to take care of the horses.’
‘Fine, you do what you have to, Mr Edge. I live in the house right across the – ‘
‘I know where you live, lady.’
She made a muted sound of disgust. ‘In this town is there anything about anybody not known to everybody else?’ She spoke rhetorically, each word dripping with bitterness.
73
‘I’m a stranger here, so I can’t say,’ he answered, then climbed back up on to the wagon seat as she turned to leave the alley by the rear, which was how she had entered it: the end furthermost from her house behind the green picket fence on the other side of the street.
She muttered grimly as she moved off: ‘But you’ve been here long enough to find out what happens to local people’s guts when they’re called on to show them?’
From beyond the closed door Slocum warned ominously: ‘You better be very careful of her, mister. A man that’s hungry is liable to bite off more than he can chew with the kind of woman she is.’
Edge took up the reins and acknowledged wryly: ‘Much obliged for the advice, feller. It could maybe give me food for thought while I wait on supper.’
74
CHAPTER • 9
_________________________________________________________________________
EPRAIM RIDER’S livery was as silently empty of human presence as Dalton Springs’ main street. So Edge was unable to ask if anybody ran the place in the man’s absence.
He parked the wagon out back of the two story clapboard building and dutifully attended to the needs of the pair of horses. Of the twenty stalls in the stable, twelve were vacant and he saw to it the piebald and the grey had adequate feed and water and clean straw in two of these. Then he drew a pail of water for his own use: washed up and shaved in the darkened building.
Shaving without a mirror was no hardship for him and after he was through he had effortlessly left the merest trace of a moustache along his top lip, curved down at each side of his mouth.
Started off again his single affectation since he was old enough to shave, something that left no doubt in the minds of all who saw him that he was a half breed: a prominent feature of his countenance with which he chose to stress the Hispanic bloodline of his father. Which counter-balanced – some women used to say handsomely - the natural blueness of the eyes he inherited from his mother’s Scandinavian origins. Then, feeling hungrier by the moment, he elected to take a more covert route back toward the place where he had been invited to eat supper. Moved from the livery near the north side of town to the Raine house closer to the south by crossing behind the properties lining the east flank of the street.
Dalton Springs continued to be held in the grip of an eerie silence and as he neared the house of the fine looking new widow the only sounds he heard beyond his own footfalls were subdued ones from the premises of Jake Slocum directly across the street. The undertaker doing whatever was necessary to finish his final chores at the end of this unusually busy day for him in a town that surely would not normally be so ominously quiet on a Saturday night at supper time.
Kitty Raine called his name, her voice soft and rasping and he saw her pale face against the dark bulk of the back of the house into which her mourning dress merged. She beckoned eagerly and whispered:
75
‘You did perfectly right, Mr Edge. I meant to tell you to come the back way. If people saw
He nodded. ‘It’s been a long time since I ate breakfast with Bannerman at this saloon, lady.’
‘I’ve fixed supper for myself. But what with the worry of all that’s happened in this town I’ve lost my appetite. You’re welcome to come have the food I can’t eat anymore?’
‘Much obliged. But first I need to take care of the horses.’
‘Fine, you do what you have to, Mr Edge. I live in the house right across the – ‘
‘I know where you live, lady.’
She made a muted sound of disgust. ‘In this town is there anything about anybody not known to everybody else?’ She spoke rhetorically, each word dripping with bitterness.
73
‘I’m a stranger here, so I can’t say,’ he answered, then climbed back up on to the wagon seat as she turned to leave the alley by the rear, which was how she had entered it: the end furthermost from her house behind the green picket fence on the other side of the street.
She muttered grimly as she moved off: ‘But you’ve been here long enough to find out what happens to local people’s guts when they’re called on to show them?’
From beyond the closed door Slocum warned ominously: ‘You better be very careful of her, mister. A man that’s hungry is liable to bite off more than he can chew with the kind of woman she is.’
Edge took up the reins and acknowledged wryly: ‘Much obliged for the advice, feller. It could maybe give me food for thought while I wait on supper.’
74
CHAPTER • 9
_________________________________________________________________________
EPRAIM RIDER’S livery was as silently empty of human presence as Dalton Springs’ main street. So Edge was unable to ask if anybody ran the place in the man’s absence.
He parked the wagon out back of the two story clapboard building and dutifully attended to the needs of the pair of horses. Of the twenty stalls in the stable, twelve were vacant and he saw to it the piebald and the grey had adequate feed and water and clean straw in two of these. Then he drew a pail of water for his own use: washed up and shaved in the darkened building.
Shaving without a mirror was no hardship for him and after he was through he had effortlessly left the merest trace of a moustache along his top lip, curved down at each side of his mouth.
Started off again his single affectation since he was old enough to shave, something that left no doubt in the minds of all who saw him that he was a half breed: a prominent feature of his countenance with which he chose to stress the Hispanic bloodline of his father. Which counter-balanced – some women used to say handsomely - the natural blueness of the eyes he inherited from his mother’s Scandinavian origins. Then, feeling hungrier by the moment, he elected to take a more covert route back toward the place where he had been invited to eat supper. Moved from the livery near the north side of town to the Raine house closer to the south by crossing behind the properties lining the east flank of the street.
Dalton Springs continued to be held in the grip of an eerie silence and as he neared the house of the fine looking new widow the only sounds he heard beyond his own footfalls were subdued ones from the premises of Jake Slocum directly across the street. The undertaker doing whatever was necessary to finish his final chores at the end of this unusually busy day for him in a town that surely would not normally be so ominously quiet on a Saturday night at supper time.
Kitty Raine called his name, her voice soft and rasping and he saw her pale face against the dark bulk of the back of the house into which her mourning dress merged. She beckoned eagerly and whispered:
75
‘You did perfectly right, Mr Edge. I meant to tell you to come the back way. If people saw
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