Read Ten Grand for Free Online Page A

without emotion. “They done worse than that to me.”
    Edge nodded, acknowledging his belief of her words. A beating was not a new experience for this woman.  Edge thought she had taken so many that she would miss them if they stopped.
    “I get better as I go along,” Edge said wryly.
    The woman shrugged her thin shoulders. “I’m a woman and I got the better of you, a man. You couldn’t let it rest. Where you headed, mister?”
    The shot and the beating might never have happened.  The words were spoken in a conversational tone, as if they were strangers who had met accidentally and were passing the time of day.
    “My business,” Edge replied.
    “I got no money and only a few supplies,” she answered. “It’s a bad country for a woman alone.”
    Edge spat, and reached up his hand again, gently this time.  His exploring fingers felt her scrawny neck, travelled down over her narrow shoulders, formed a cup over one small, hard breast, traversed the protrusions of her rib cage and halted on the taut flatness of her belly. She submitted tacitly to the assault of his hand. Like the beating, it was something she had been forced to accept many times before. Edge stepped back.
    “I got delicate skin,” he said sardonically, “I could cut myself on you.”
    It got no reaction.  “I got other uses,” she said.  “I cook good and whenever you get mad at anything, you can beat me. You were going south when Luke made his play. I’m heading for Mexico.”
    “I travel light.”
    “I won’t be no trouble.”  For the first time the woman revealed a positive emotion, her features forming a tacit plea. “Just to the next town.”
    “What if there ain’t no man there so hard-up he’d take you in?”
    “I’ll take my chances.”
    “Go and get the horses,” Edge told her.  “Just the best two.”
    She had been holding her breath for his decision, and let it out with a small gasp as she turned and started back up the slope, towards a craggy column of rock.  Edge went over to the dead horse, unfastened her girth and dragged off his saddle and bedroll. He dusted off the Henry and was reloading the Remington when the woman emerged from around the rock, started down the slope leading two stallions, a big bay and a smaller piebald. They were both saddled, but carried no bedrolls.
    “What’s your name?” Edge asked as the woman approached.
    “Amy,” she answered.
    “Pretty,” he said, holstering the Remington. “Don’t match your looks.” 
    “What’s yours?” 
    “They call me Edge.”
    “It suits,” she told him shortly.
    Edge sat down, back against a rock and tipped his hat forward over his eyes, just enough so that he could see the lower half of her body, would know if she went for any of the dead men’s guns or her own Harmonica which was resting across the back of the dead horse. 
    “Back up your claim to be a cook,” he told her. “I don’t like what you pull out of the pot, I’ll slice off those hard little titties of yours and see if they tender in the cooking.”
    He watched her ground tether the horses, then collect brush and make a fire. She got the makings of a meal from the saddlebags of the bay and water from the bottles on the piebald. Then she crouched down beside the pot and began to sing softly as she stirred its contents.  Her speaking voice was harsh, with a rasp to it, but when she sang. it took on a sweetness and clarity that caused Edge to raise his hat brim, look at her face.  But he dropped it again, for she was still as ugly as ever.
     
    As I walked out in the streets of Laredo,
    As I walked out in Laredo one day,
    I spied a poor cowboy all wrapped in white linen.
    All wrapped in white linen,
    As cold as the clay.
    I see by your outfit that …
     
    “You from Texas?”  Edge asked, cutting off the woman in mid-song.
    “No. Why?”
    “That’s where Laredo is.”
    “I just like the song,” she answered, continuing to stir the pot, which was now giving off an