The Deputy - Edge Series 2 Read Online Free PDF Page A

kinds of rumours and seeing Martinez hands hanging around town a lot more than usual she went along with me again without complaining when I smuggled her out of Bishopsburg. Brought her up here until the trial could be arranged.’
    ‘Which is going to be the day after tomorrow?’
    ‘That’s right, Mr Edge.’
    ‘And it’s no longer a secret your star witness is in Railton City?’
    ‘I can’t say that Martinez knows exactly where she’s being kept out of sight. But he never knew where I took her and I’m as sure as I can be nobody followed me when I rode up here yesterday. What’s certain is that it won’t be too difficult for him to have his men watch the trails into Bishopsburg.’
    ‘You said he’s rich?’
    ‘One of the richest – maybe even the richest – man in Texas. But in my book that doesn’t buy him a right to some place above the law.’
    ‘But it does allow him to hire on all kinds of help who don’t give two cents for the law? Or the fellers who enforce it?’
    23
    ‘Right. And my budget only allows me to pay ten bucks for the help of a man with higher ideals than Martinez’s hired hands.’
    ‘Be obliged if you didn’t talk of ideals.’
    ‘How’s that?’
    Edge showed an easy grin as he explained: ‘It’s almost always lousy deals that get me into the kind of financial messes that leave me open to job offers worth ten bucks a throw, sheriff.’
    North was in no frame of mind to try to see any kind of a joke in the ironic response and remained grim faced as he bit the end off the cheroot and jabbed the smoke into the side of his mouth.
    Then his grey eyes showed just a flicker of relief as a hand was stretched toward him and he took it in a firm grip and shook it.
    And thus it was that, once again, Edge found himself wearing a deputy’s badge while he rode a dangerous south western trail.
    ‘What’s wrong?’ Isabella asked tensely as she became fearfully aware that the men riding to either side of her were spending more time than usual peering back the way they had come.
    North ignored her as he continued to ride with his head turned around and asked:
    ‘You thinking what I think you are, Edge?’
    ‘It could be, feller. I keep getting a strong urge to scratch an itch between my shoulder blades.’ He faced front again then glanced at the woman to explain:
    ‘The sheriff and me figure we’re being followed, lady.’
    She uttered an inarticulate sound that was clearly not far removed from an obscenity. Then twisted in her saddle to glower back along the trail that was empty for as far as anybody could see toward the distant high ground.
    ‘It’s loco! ’ she exclaimed shrilly. ‘This whole thing is loco! I said so from the start! I wanted a wagon to ride in so nobody could see me! And more than two men to protect me!’
    ‘Keep your voice down,’ North snarled softly and moved a hand from the reins to drape it briefly over the butt of his holstered Colt.
    Edge brushed fingertips over the stock of the Winchester that jutted from his boot.
    24
    ‘Two of you against how many of Eduardo Martinez’s men?’ the woman complained with heavy contempt as she faced front again and hunkered lower in the saddle like she was trying to make herself less of a target for potential killers. ‘The hired guns paid for by a man who is determined to have me killed! Do you think they will be frightened by a pair of – ‘
    ‘Lady,’ Edge broke in on the scornful diatribe.
    ‘What do you want, hombre?’
    ‘If you don’t take it easy you’ll maybe wet your drawers. And me and the sheriff will only go so far in taking care of your needs.’
    She uttered another sound of disgust. ‘If you do not do something about these men you say are following us all my clothes will be wet maybe. With my blood!’
    Neither man offered a response to this as they continued to survey the surrounding terrain, paying more attention to the country at their backs than elsewhere.
    But some thirty minutes