“Give yourself up, Edge?” the marshal shouted.
Edge’s answer was another rifle shot that drew a grunt of pain from below as it nicked skin from a creased brow. But the minor wound did not interfere with the man’s aim as a hail of bullets whistled upwards, chipping rock from above and below the shelf, causing Edge to draw back, the woman to roll herself into a ball. When the fusillade of firing died and Edge chanced a glance down he could no longer catch a glimpse of the lawmen. They had fired on the run, going for more secure places of concealment. A rifle cracked once and a flash from the cleft showed where it came from as Edge ducked back.
He decided they had split up and that he would not see or hear from one of them until he was in a position to make a kill. Edge looked to his left and right, saw that the shelf upon which he and the woman were crouched narrowed away to nothing in one direction, continued flat and broad in the other. He looked up and saw a sheer face. Over to his right the incline got less steep, became potted with indentations, was host to some thick clumps of brush. Below, the marshal in the cleft opened up again and a hail of bullets forced Edge to interrupt his surveillance, draw back to the rear of the protective shelf. When the marshal had emptied his gun, took time to reload, Edge glanced to his right again, saw the second lawman running at a crouch up the slope, duck behind some brush.
“I ain’t been smart,” he muttered.
“We trapped?” the woman asked.
“They know their jobs,” he admitted grudgingly.
“I ain’t wanted by the law,” she said.
“I’m fresh out of sympathy,” Edge told her and pressed the Remington into her hand, not taking his eyes off the brush where the marshal was hiding. “When I give the signal, pour lead down on to that guy below. Don’t stop until the gun’s empty.”
“I don’t want to shoot no lawman,” she told Edge.
“They die as easy as anybody else,” he said, and dug his elbow into her skinny side. “Now.”
She opened up without aiming, just pushing the gun over the edge of the shelf and firing. Up on the right the second marshal mistook the first few shots for covering fire and came clear of the brush, took three fast paces out into the open towards a cluster of rocks before he saw the flashes coming from the wrong place.
He didn’t live to learn by his error. He fired on the turn, his bullet whining low along the shelf, ricocheting, tugging at Edge’s blanket, spraying rock chippings into his face. Edge fired three times before the marshal had completed his turnabout. The first bullet plowed a deep furrow across his chest, the second took him in the ear and the third went into his back, lodged in his lungs and sent him sprawling in death towards the brush he had so desired in life.
Silence was a heavy weight settling on the gully, pressing against the ears and intensifying the coldness.
“Ned?” the marshal below shouted, the name coated with concern. “You okay, Ned?”
“I’m dead,” Edge whispered, pressing his lips against the woman’s ear. “You tell him that. You say you’re innocent and tell him to hold his fire.”
“I don’t know if ...”
Edge dug his teeth into the lobe of her ear and she squealed in pain. “Lady, you do what I tell you, and then you do what he tells you.”
“Ned?”
“Edge killed him,” the woman called, a tremor in her voice so that it barely sounded above a whisper.
“What?”
“The other man’s dead,” she answered, louder now. “They killed each other.”
“A woman?” the marshal said in surprise. “That a woman up there?”
“It’s the way I was born,” she answered. “Did you hear what I said? They’re both dead.”
“I don’t believe you.” A pause. “Not about Edge.”
“Throw down the revolver,” Edge hissed.
“Look, here’s his gun,” she called, and her arm arced. The Remington clattered down the side of the gully, bounced and thudded to the bottom.
“He had a rifle,” the marshal shouted.
Edge picked up the empty Harmonica and thrust it into her hands.
“Here it comes.”
The rifle went the way of the Remington, making more noise. Moments of silence, then:
“Who are you?”
“Name’s Amy Ridgeway. Edge picked me up on the desert. I had supplies and I cooked for him. I didn’t know he was no outlaw, mister. I’d have known that, I wouldn’t have rode with him.”
“Show yourself.”
She shot a scared glance at Edge, small pointed teeth gnawing at her lower lip. “I’m scared,” she whispered. “He might shoot at me.”
“Take your pick,” Edge told her. “The lawman might. I will.”
She drew in her breath, knew he was not making an idle threat. I’m going to stand up, mister.” she called. “I ain’t armed.”
“Make it slow and easy,” the lawman instructed.
The woman pressed herself against the rock face at the back of the shelf and inched her way up, holding her breath. When she was standing erect, seemingly frozen against the rock face with her face a mask of fear in the pale moonlight, Edge inched forwards.
“Move so he can see you,” he whispered.
“I can’t,” she hissed back at him. “I can’t move a muscle.”
“I’ll help you,” he said, swung up the Henry and jabbed the muzzle hard between her legs, felt it sink in.
The woman gave a low moan. Edge grinned wryly. “You just been screwed by Henry,” he said.
“You kill me,” she muttered, stepping forward.
“Yeah,” he said, rolled on to his side and kicked out. His boots hooked around her calves and she stumbled forward, a scream of alarm leaping from her throat as she went off the shelf, smashed her skull on a projection of rock and cartwheeled down to the floor of the gully, the snapping of bones accompanying the dull thud of her body as it completed each turn.
“Have a good trip, Amy,” Edge murmured when the final thud announced her fall had ended.
The silence then was solid enough to cut with a knife. The cold bit deeper and Edge wrapped the blanket around his body more securely, prepared to wait for as long as the marshal deemed safe.
“Edge?”
It wasn’t what Edge wanted to hear.
“Edge, you up there?”
Edge grinned into the darkness. He kept his breathing low and did not move a muscle. There was a vocal sound from below: one word that was inaudible in meaning but said in a tone that meant the marshal had cursed. Silence for long moments, then a slap of hand on horse flesh, a whinney and pounding of hoofs. One of the animals, either the bay or the piebald, galloped away down the gully. Edge didn’t look to see which one. It wasn’t the right sound. Then, after another long pause, came the unmistakable crunch of a human footfall on hard rock. Pause. Another footfall. The marshal was making slow progress out of the cover of the cleft of the rocks. Edge raised his eyebrows in surprise, figured the lawman had taken no more than fifteen minutes to make his move. But Edge remained absolutely immobile, knowing that nervous eyes would be focused upon the shelf, an anxious finger curled around a trigger.
Then the footsteps sounded closer together as the man moved more quickly. Then they stopped and Edge counted to three and shot himself forward on his elbows, angling the Henry down the steep slope. The marshal heard the sounds and came up from his stoop over the woman, face clouding with horror.
“Drop it,” Edge commanded and the man complied, his rifle thudding to the ground.
“You pushed her?”
“She didn’t have a lot to live for. Who put you on to me?”
“Liveryman recognized your picture on the wanted poster,” the marshal answered. “Waitress at the restaurant said you’d headed north. Her boss backed her up. We figured they were lying.”
“Obliged,” Edge said and shot him, cleanly through the heart. The man collapsed on to the woman in an embrace of death.