Dying Is Forever (Edge series book 57)

The Home of Great Western Fiction! So this was Utopia, Arizona-style.The man called Edge looked about him. The Promised Land it wasn’t: one army post, two saloons and three whores. Add in a couple of rundown stores and an even more rundown church with a whiskey-soaked preacher and that was about it.Not that Edge had come looking for the perfect society. Just a man, officially dead, suspected of still living and certainly a father. Leastways, the thin-faced woman with the squalling bundle in her arms had been sure enough about the last to put up the money for the search. And now the peace of Utopia was about to be disturbed: some old wounds opened up by Edge’s questions and some new and very bloody ones by his actions. EDGE 57: DYING IS FOREVERBy George G. GilmanFirst published by New English Library in 1987Copyright ©1987, 2023 by George G. GilmanFirst Electronic Edition: February 2023Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by means (electronic, digital, optical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.This is a Piccadilly Publishing BookPublished by arrangement with the author’s estate.Series Editor: Ben BridgesText © Piccadilly PublishingVisit www.piccadillypublishing.org to read more about our books. For T. W.a right man who delivered at the right time. Illustration by Tony Masero Table of ContentsChapter OneChapter TwoChapter ThreeChapter FourChapter FiveChapter SixChapter SevenChapter EightChapter NineChapter TenChapter ElevenChapter TwelveChapter ThirteenChapter FourteenChapter FifteenAbout the Author Chapter One IT WAS RAINING softly and an insistent norther blew hard. Sometimes the wind moaned so loudly across the front of the Ace of Spades saloon that it blanketed all other sounds. But mostly the rain could be heard, beating on the windows like it was sick of its own company, wanted to come in out of the wet.There were just two men in the place: the owner behind the bar counter that ran three-quarters the length of a side wall, the customer seated at a table near the player piano with the lid down beyond the end of the bar.Tom Chase had fastened the big outer doors in front of the batwings when the threat of a storm became imminent reality. Since then just the passing-through stranger and an occasional short-lived draught of not uncomfortably cold air had entered the saloon.The stranger came in through the doorway; the draughts entered by way of the crack at the foot of the doors or at a warped window frame. The stranger drank a shot glass of rye whiskey about every thirty minutes, rolled and smoked cigarettes at the same rate. The infrequent draughts lazily swirled a little dust up off the floor or billowed a dimity curtain at one of the two windows which flanked the doorway.Although the place had been built the wrong side of twenty years ago it had been well constructed and was reasonably well maintained for most of that time, so the persistent rain would not be getting in anywhere. Unless, the morose-mooded Tom Chase reflected, somebody else opened the big doors to come keep him more talkative company than this stranger to San Cristobel: even better, spend more money than he did.Although Chase did not think this would now happen on such a wild, borderland night, he determined to stick to the schedule he had set himself when he opened up the place at five: if there was no-one in the Ace of Spades at eight, he'd turn the key in the lock and slide the bolts to secure the big doors. Keep out the potential influx of a handful of San Cristobel citizens who liked to drink slow and long into the night. Should the storm clear up.Because the stranger had enquired about a room—been told one rented for a buck a night—before he asked for the bottle of rye, he did not figure in Chase’s schedule.It was near to six when Chase recognized the dark cloud signs of a gathering storm, closed the outer doors. Ten minutes later when the stranger to town showed up. In the hour or so before this he counted three fat flies which drifted in over the tops of the batwings after the sun went behind the low, fast-moving clouds. Two buzzed right on out again and just one showed a passing interest in his shot glass of sipping bourbon: beat a fast, angry retreat after a near-miss swat with the only hand Chase possessed.Awhile later—after the broodingly taciturn stranger came into the place and made it plain he was in no mood for small talk—Chase regretted the aggressive attitude that had apparently scared off his winged visitor. He did not normally take to flies but at least, he thought, this one and he had a couple of things in common: they were both God’s creatures and they were not considered suitable company for others of their respective species in San Cristobel tonight.He shook his head irritably, made a growling sound of self-reproach, tossed off what was left of the sipping whiskey in his shot glass, muttered: ‘Don’t be such a Goddamn maudlin fool, Tom Chase!’‘You’re right, feller,’ the stranger said, struck a match on the stock of the Winchester rifle that jutted up from the heap of his gear on the floor. Lit the third of his quick-to-make, slow-to-smoke cigarettes. Placed the dead match on the two others in the center of the stained, burned and gouged tabletop.Chase had been about to pick up the threequarters full bottle of good stuff, return it to its secret hideaway under the counter. But he poured himself another drink, asked: ‘Right about what, mister?’‘It’s no good to nurse the blues. Especially