Edge: Killer's Breed

She made clucking noises with her tongue and flicked the reins. Her mother moved on ahead to open the gate and then waved as Grace drove the buggy through. She watched its lurching, splashing progress for a full minute before turning to go back to the house. Then she spotted the two guns leaning against the live oak—the stranger's Winchester and the old 'Spencer' from above the mantelshelf. She detoured to get them and took them into the house with her.

A glance into the bedroom showed the stranger was sleeping peacefully after a restless period during which he had cursed aloud at a man named Forrest. In repose his lean features looked more cruel and, at the same time, more handsome than ever.

"Yeah, I reckon you're a mean critter," she muttered. "Might have done the world a favor to let you die."

Then she got some rags from the cupboard beneath the stone sink and sat before the fire as she started to clean the guns. The tall case clock to the right of the fireplace showed the time as one-thirty. By her reckoning, it should take Grace a little over three hours to get to town and return. If the sheriff rode on ahead with his posse, leaving the slower buggy to follow, the waiting time would be less, of course. But the first minute seemed to take an hour and Margaret guessed this was the way it was sure to be.

But then she heard a painful groan from the next room and she got to her feet hurriedly and bustled over to the doorway. The stranger was bathed in sweat again and his facial muscles bulged as his body came as stiff as a ramrod.

"This is it, feller," she said as she went to the bed. "Appears you've fought harder battles than this. Little old fever ain't going to get the better of a man like you."

Edge groaned again, thrashing his arms against the constricting sheets and blankets and tossing his head from side to side as if he was trying to shake it free of his shoulders.

"Jesus, will you look at those stupid bastards!" he shouted at the top of his voice.

"Such language!" Margaret Hope exclaimed."

CHAPTER SEVEN

IF Margaret Hope had been at Bull Run even her strong opinion of foul language may not have been able to withstand the test of frustrating events over which she had no control.

It was July twenty-first and one of the hottest days of a long hot summer. A good day—if such there can be—for a battle, which was a deciding factor in the result.

The speed tempered by caution tactics which Hedges had adopted on the push through the mountains had succeeded in one aspect and failed in another. News of the troop's approach had not preceded its arrival but the battle had begun, with McDowell's Union army engaging Beauregard's Confederates, spread out in an eight mile defensive line.

The rebel general, a great admirer of Napoleon, had modeled his tactics upon the battle plan, at Austerlitz and launched an attack at McDowell's left flank. But this had gone badly wrong as a result of orders which either went astray or were misunderstood: McDowell replied with a thrust at the Confederate left and a large number of Union infantry crossed Bull Run at Sudley Church and moved along the river towards the rebels. It was as the opposing armies clashed at Stone Bridge that Hedges led his men at full charge into the heat of the battle and received his initiation into the full horrors of a war of amateurs.

"Who the hell's on our side?" Douglas yelled as the troopers galloped up behind the Union line, riding with heads down as rifle and artillery fire was directed at them.

As Hedges looked ahead and then across the river to where the main force was located, he drew in his breath and let it out with a stream of obscenity. The corporal had posed a valid question. The regular soldiers of the Union army were correctly attired in blue but the ninety-day militia men had been allowed to wear whatever took their fancy. Many of the soldiers wore gray while others were dressed in garishly bright colors, some patterning their uniforms after the French infantry, with red breeches, blue coats, scarlet sashes and turbans.

"The ones shooting at you are the enemy," Hedges yelled back as a rebel artillery shell dug a crater immediately in his path.

His horse reared and took three bullets in the neck. As the animal came down in its death throes, the rider slumped sideways and did a head-roll across the hard baked ground. A battery of rebel mortars opened up and Hedges lay still, Spencer clutched in his hands, protecting his head as great clods of earth and splinters of shattered rock rained down upon him. Small arms fire chattered and men screamed their agonies. Something thudded down at the side of Hedges' head and when he turned to look at it he screwed up his eyes tightly and felt the bitter taste of nausea in his throat It was a complete arm and half a shoulder, the shattered bone gleaming with an incredible whiteness against the oozing red of the torn flesh.