EDGE: Death Drive (Edge series Book 27) by George G. Gilman

Author:George G. Gilman [Gilman, George G.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Lobo Publications
Published: 2014-02-27T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

NOBODY asked Edge for an explanation of the events leading up to the killing of Edwards and he did not offer one. And by the evening of the fourth day out from the Big-T ranch, the men who witnessed the blood-letting on the sun-drenched ridge had been drained of any feeling about what they had seen.

It was only at night that they had an opportunity to make these feelings known to the half-breed. For during the daylight hours when the herd was moving inexorably northwards—following a route to pick up the Goodnight-Loving Trail west of Fort Concho—Edge rode out ahead: or occasionally swept wide around behind the herd to check for the possibility of trouble to the south, east and west. Thus, he only came into close contact with the drovers at night camp during the eating of the meal cooked by Pancho and the bedding down to rest. At the first camp, the Taggarts, Tait and the Mexicans made an emphatic point of avoiding him—speaking to him only when it was strictly necessary and most of the time acting as if he was not present. He knew they were afraid of him.

The next night the men had overcome their fear of him and he sensed their scorn as they watched him attend to his horse, eat his food and bed down.

Finally, there was curiosity with undertones of nervousness and contempt. On several occasions during that night—at the camp-fire beside the parked chuck wagon and when he made one of his periodic patrols around the bedded down steers—men came close to posing questions to him. But each time they were dissuaded by his icy gaze and grimly set mouth-line.

By the end of the fourth day the men had lost interest in Edge and his cold-blooded brutality on the ridge. For by this time the killing seemed to them like something from ancient history: bone-deep weariness of the drive was beginning to take its toll of the drovers. And they had another man to hate and fear, for more personal reasons.

Tait was a hard and dedicated trail boss whose preference for cattle above men became more evident over every mile of Texas which was put behind the massive herd. The longhorns were in prime condition and ever eager to push on from dawn to dusk in the wake of the big lead steer. The vaqueros were skilled at their trade, but subject to human weaknesses. As an outfit they were undermanned to cope with such a large herd. During the day they were constantly in the saddle, riding at point, swing, flank or drag. Eating dust and sweating under the harsh blaze of the sun. At night it seemed to a resting man that he had been asleep for only a few minutes before he was roused to take his duty as guard.

None of them had expected the job to be easy, irrespective of the high pay for the additional risks involved in driving the hated Big-T herd. For pushing any herd up any trail was an exhausting, uncomfortable, dirty chore.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.