Free The Quiet Gun - Edge Series 1 by George G. Gilman

Shannon, right?’
    The six feet tall younger man nodded. Like his shorter and maybe ten years older companion he wore a well cut dark jacket and lighter coloured pants, a two hued patterned vest, bootlace tie and shiny, spurred riding boots. The only Mexican influence in their outfits was the silver ornamentation on the bands of their stiff brimmed Stetsons and the similarly ornate buckles of their gun belts, the holsters worn high on their hips, revolver butts jutting forward.
    The younger one was in his early thirties, with hard black eyes and a crooked mouth line that gave his otherwise bland good looks a hint of character – and also suggested a latent dangerous streak in the man. He had a thin moustache that dropped to either side of his thin lips in a style Edge had affected in his younger days. His partner’s moustache was thicker and confined to the top lip. His face was heavily pock marked from an old disease and his forehead was deeply furrowed, like he had worried a great deal during many of his forty some years of living. He listened intently to the younger man’s translation of what had been said then eyed Edge suspiciously as he spoke a terse: ‘Si.’
    ‘That is correct, senor,’ the younger man said. ‘You are from the town of Dalton Springs? Where everyone knows of the murderer Sheriff McCall is holding for us?’
    ‘I’m not and he ain’t any more,’
    ‘What do you mean, senor.’ He was abruptly anxious and ready to get angry. Both the Mexicans’ early concern about the corpse of Kress had now totally evaporated.
    ‘Shannon was busted out of the town jailhouse last night,’ Edge replied and the younger man supplied a fast translation to the other one who clearly outranked him.
    ‘McCall left this morning with a posse to try to – ‘
    The older man barked a curt command and they both spurred their mounts to a gallop.
    54
    Edge grimaced and brandished a hand amid the dust that had billowed up in front of him while he held the gelding to the same easy pace as before. Demanded no higher speed than this from the weary animal during the rest of the return to town. It was mid-morning when he drove in off the open trail and on to the main street of Dalton Springs, shortly afterwards brought the buggy to a halt out front of Jake Slocum’s premises. Was not surprised to see the horses of the two Mexicans hitched to the rail outside of the law office, his attention drawn briefly in that direction when the massive figure of Bart Bannerman emerged.
    By coincidence or otherwise, several other townspeople appeared on the street and began to advance warily on the buggy: but held back after somebody spotted one of the occupants was a corpse and the news was rapidly passed on. By the nature of his calling, the fifty plus, tall and scrawny, hollow cheeked, dungaree clad undertaker who appeared from his workshop at the rear of the funeral parlour was unaffected by the dead body of Kress. And his tone was as lacking in emotion as his expression when he glanced at the corpse and asked around a freshly lit cheroot:
    ‘You one of them there gunfighters, Mr Edge?’
    ‘It’s not my trade.’ Edge climbed down from the buggy as the bespectacled Billy Williams stepped tentatively out of the front door of the parlour between two black draped windows that displayed sample tombstones.
    The druggist was as apprehensive as most of the other townspeople: with the exception of Slocum and Bannerman, who had not held fearfully back with the rest when he saw the totally inert form of Kress aboard the buggy.
    The undertaker shrugged and pressed on: ‘Just that I’ve heard there’s some kind of unwritten rule in that line of work. A man who kills another in a gunfight is supposed to be duty bound to pay the dead guy’s funeral expenses?’
    Edge touched his hip pocket and shared a narrow eyed gaze between Slocum and Bannerman. ‘Got back the money he stole from me, feller. Guess Williams and Rider will lay claim to