Free Ten Grand by George G. Gilman Page B

his arms out on each side of him. “See.  My burro he bolted from me and now I come to claim him. Do not shoot an unarmed man, amigos.”
    Edge’s lips tightened in a snarl. If the people of Hoyos were asleep the progress of a runaway burro would cause them no alarm.  But the whining pleas of the old man were a different matter.  However, the impassive walls of Hoyos with the chasm of blackness at their center offered no response to the shouting, beyond acting as a sounding board to throw back the frightened wails.
    “Hold it there, amigo,” Edge called suddenly when the old man was within twenty yards of the gateway.
    Luis halted abruptly, body still trembling, teeth chattering against each other as he strained his eyes to peer into the darkness above.  Behind him he heard Edge cluck to his horse, then the sounds of footfalls and hoof treads as man and animal approached him.
    “Maybe El Matador got randy again,” Edge whispered to Luis. “Reckon you been asking the dead not to kill you?”
    “I can feel a thousand eyes watching me, señor,” the old man said throatily.
    “They all belong to your guilty conscience,” Edge told him and jabbed him in the back with the rifle muzzle.
    The two men went forward, reached the dark opening and entered. After the moonlight which had bathed the plateau outside the walls, it was like entering a dark cave on a sunlit day. Luis heard Edge halt behind him, to take time to adjust his eyes, and he did likewise.
    “Señor?”
    Edge grunted.
    “I cannot see any bodies.”
    “Don’t feel bad about it,” came the reply, punctuated by the crack of a rifle shot. The bullet kicked dust a few inches in front of Luis’ boots, but he yelled as if it had pierced his flesh. Edge tightened his grip on the Henry as his eyes flicked over the dark shapes of buildings.  He had seen the flash of the shot, knew the exact point from where it had been fired. But the sharpshooter was obviously not alone. Equally obviously, he could have shot to kill had he wanted to.
    “There are just the two of you?” a voice said from another direction, cutting across the sniveling of the old man.
    “How many you expecting?” Edge called back.
    “We have a bullet for every bandit in the area,” the disembodied voice answered flatly, and then became part of a whole as a match flared and a face leapt out of the darkness.
    It was a young, handsome face with dark eyes and full lips, finely chiseled and high cheekbones. In the flame as it touched the end of a long, thin cigar, it was a face topped by a cap with a shiny peak.  Below, on the edge of the area of flickering light, could be seen the uniformed collar and shoulders bearing the insignia of a captain in the Mexican Federal army. It was a face with an insolent smile that almost invited Edge to loose off a shot at it.  But then other lights flared, and were touched to torches, blazing into life all around the wide plaza that was spread just inside the town gate.  Each torch was held high by a Mexican soldier and each of these soldiers was joined by another who aimed a rifle. Edge allowed his Henry to clatter to the ground as his eyes completed a hundred and eighty degree turn and estimated a detachment of about fifty men.
    “Señor,” said Luis with a tremor. “I think we are caught like the mice in the trap.”
    “Yeah,” Edge answered, “And the cat that’s got us looks real hungry.”
     

     
     

CHAPTER ELEVEN
     
     
     
    THE cell stank of the fear of every man who had been thrown into it. This smell was released from every piece of straw that was moved beneath the feet, burst out of the rancid blankets on the wooden bunk like some evil perfume and seemed to ooze out of the thick adobe walls like condensation on a cold day. It appeared to be intensified by the darkness of the tiny room and as Edge rose from where he had been thrown by the two soldiers who had marched him from the plaza, he drew consolation from the fact that the