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

gunshots back along the trail. But they were less accurate as the wagon bucked and jolted and the bullets cracked through the cloud of dust thrown up by the thundering hooves and spinning wheels.
    ‘You will cease fire – NOW!’ The harsh toned demand was barked out at the moment the shooting from the retreating wagon ended, the voice coming from in back of where Edge kept his weight pressed down on to the now silent and compliant Isabella. And North, realising the order was directed at him, rose on to one knee and then froze in the act of jacking a fresh round into the breech of the repeater.
    All of them slowly turned their heads to peer up at three men who sat astride horses breathing hard from a headlong gallop down the hillside: the animals’
    approaching hoof beats covered by the barrage of gunfire.
    When they halted a dozen feet away they were seen in the bright moonlight to be Mexicans in their twenties and thirties, dressed like American cowhands. 27
    All had Colt .45s fisted in their right hands, the hammers cocked as muzzles swept threateningly back and forth over the two men and a woman on the ground. Isabella now struggled free of Edge when he eased his hold on her: wrenched her head around, crossed herself and whispered a stream of Spanish, expressing the tearful conviction that she was about to die an undeserved death. The young man at the centre of the line of riders, who was a couple of years older than the others and the only one with a moustache, shook his head and said politely in English:
    ‘No, Senorita Gomez. I can assure you we do not wish to kill you.’
    He moved his gaze to Edge, who was inching a hand toward his holstered revolver. Then to North, clearly poised to whirl around and bring his Winchester to aim at the horsemen.
    ‘We have no desire to harm anybody.’ He gestured with his head toward the lawman’s gelding, sprawled in the inertia of certain death. ‘It was regrettable that your horse was killed, senor . The plan was to persuade you to halt on the trail without bloodshed of any kind.’
    North grimaced as he rose to his full height and turned to face the Mexicans, his rifle gripped in one hand, the barrel angled toward the ground. ‘The bullets the animal took could just have well have killed any of us!’
    Edge let go of the subdued but still mistrustful woman and rose painfully to his feet, massaging his left wrist that had been twisted in the lunge from his saddle. Isabella struggled into a slightly more elegant position on the ground, scowling in pain or fearful incredulity or a mixture of the two. Then all three returned their attention to the south as the wagon was heard to creak to a halt. Watched as silently as the men with aimed revolvers while the rig was steered into a tight turn and started to trundle back toward them. One of the mounted men recaptured their attention with the threat: ‘But be warned, amigos. If you do not lay down your weapons then you will perhaps be as dead as the animal. We may not wish to cause it, but we are not afraid of bloodshed.’
    He had a bad complexion and was the shortest and scrawniest of the trio. 28
    The third man suffered from a nervous tic in his right cheek. Although probably in his early twenties, he looked like he did not yet need to shave. He vented a short giggle that maybe was a release of tension and added: ‘So long as it is not our own.’
    ‘Please do not attempt anything heroic!’ Isabella pleaded as she rose unsteadily to her feet, a hand fastened to her throat. She wrenched her head from side to side to share an imploring gaze between Edge and North.
    ‘You sure changed your tune,’ the Bishopsburg lawman said as he and Edge traded fleeting glances and each saw the almost imperceptible shrug of the other’s shoulders.
    ‘Where there is life there is hope, is that not so?’ Isabella asked rhetorically. North allowed his rifle to fall and began to work at the buckle of his gunbelt. Edge unfastened his own