EDGE: Ashes And Dust (Edge series Book 19) by George G. Gilman

Author:George G. Gilman [Gilman, George G.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Lobo publications (A High Plains Wesrern)
Published: 2013-06-10T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

‘TOM was my brother,’ Emma said out of the depth of her sadness as she stirred a skillet of frying beans.

It was the first time she had spoken since she glared contemptuously at Edge in the shadow of the bluff when he told her the buzzards would take care of the youngster’s remains. She had refused to allow this to happen and had gathered enough scattered rocks to stack into a funeral pile atop the body. It took a long time and Edge did nothing except wait for her until the work was finished and she had knelt in prayer beside the rocks.

They had ridden in silence until early afternoon, when the half-breed called a halt at an abandoned stage line shack with a well outside. She had shaken her head at his tacit offer of food, then walked off into a cypress grove while he made a meal of canned meat and tepid water.

When she returned from the grove, her face was puffy from tears. In such distress, she was at her most attractive. But then she washed up and, when they remounted to ride for the junction with the main east-west trail, she wore the familiar facade of strong determination and self-reliance. Then, as the heat built up and the surrounding horizons shimmered in closer, her physical discomfort acted to trigger her true emotions into penetrating the false front.

It was as if she needed all her strength of character to match the slow but unrelenting pace of the man: to an extent that she was unable to spare any for a false front. The beads of sweat standing out on her sun-reddened cheeks encouraged the held-back tears to squeeze from the corners of her screwed-up eyes.

And for the first time, she welcomed the utterly cold lack of compassion in Edge. For, had he offered to halt awhile, or even showed her a sympathetic glance, such a gesture would have opened the floodgates on the full weight of her feelings. And Tom did not deserve such grief.

‘It showed in the eyes,’ the half-breed said as he sat down beside the fire after hobbling the two geldings. ‘Not just the color. And the bone structures of the faces were alike.’

The campsite was at the side of the main trail, half-a-dozen miles towards El Paso from where they had joined it in a narrow ravine with a clear stream running down one side. There was sweet grass to feed the horses, and a tangle of brush between the trunks of some stunted pine trees which would provide a windbreak if the norther came again tonight. It was after sundown and almost completely dark when Edge decided to stop in the ravine. And still the woman failed to open a conversation. While Edge had built a fire and then attended to the horses, she had unpacked her saddlebags and started to prepare a meal.

‘You didn’t know until you saw him?’ Her misery was great, but it was now deeply buried inside her.

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