Read Online Name On The Bullet - Edge Series 6 by George G. Gilman - Free Book Online
Authors: George G. Gilman
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act of raising his glass, then grunted and took a sip before he asked: ‘I guess he didn’t have any legal reason to stop the wedding?’
‘No, he didn’t! No legal reason!’ As with the bottle earlier, now with the glass: he reached for it, then jerked his hand back just before he would have touched it.
‘The time Kent Wilson was through here a few years ago he sure took a shine to Julia. And she liked him and his smooth and flashy ways well enough for awhile.’ He shrugged and sighed. ‘They took some walks together, went to a church social and she invited him here to the house for her twenty-first birthday supper. But he was a lot older than her and it didn’t take long for Julia to see the gap in their ages was a reason they could never be more than just fiends, as far as she was concerned.’ He shook his head and ran the back of a hand along his jaw-line. ‘She told him so and he didn’t take kindly to it. He was real put out and reckoned as how she had led him to believe they were all but engaged to be married.’
Edge said on exhaled tobacco smoke: ‘The feller had it bad, sounds like.’
‘He sure did and when he left Brogan Falls all of a sudden to go back to San Francisco he was real bitter about the way things had turned out between him and her. Plain for all to see how much he was smitten by my daughter?’
‘A feller used to getting his own way?’ Edge answered the implied query with a rhetorical question. ‘Did he stay in touch after that?’
‘He wrote Julia some letters and she answered them at first. She was just being friendly but he took her writing to him as a sign that she was still interested in having him for a husband. So then she stopped answering his letters and we all of us thought that was the end of Kent Wilson badgering her. Until today.’ He needed another drink but sank just half the contents of the glass this time and shook his head ruefully as he said: ‘Hell of a thing. The reason I had to send my old man packing from the house – because he told me how he was glad about what happened to Quaid. That it got him out of a spot. Seems he’d come to Brogan Falls on Wilson’s say-so: to stop the wedding by reasoning with Julia and pointing out to her how much better off she’d be for the rest of her life if she was married to Kent Wilson.’
McGowan pursed his lips, like he was about to vent a low whistle: but didn’t ‘Better off married to the president of a big San Francisco bank instead of a small town banker like Wendell Quaid. But he reached town too late: did too much drinking over in Pine River and had to sleep it off. Did some more drinking between there and here and was too crazy drunk to string more than a couple of words together when he staggered into the church after the wedding was all but over.’ He sat down carefully at the table now and looked much older than his age as he peered across at Edge then at the glass he gripped tightly in both hands and asked: ‘Like I’m getting close to being, uh?’
‘It could happen, feller.’ Edge finished his own drink, stood up and moved to the cold range, opened the grate and tossed the cigarette butt on to the dead ashes. ‘Are you saying you figure your pa and Wilson had something to do with gunning down Quaid?’
There was a deep melancholy in McGowan’s small, dull eyes as he raised his gaze to meet that of Edge. ‘The women won’t hear of it, which is the reason we were yelling at each other in the parlour just now.’ He shook his head and swallowed hard. ‘I’m not claiming it’s what happened. But it could have been, the way my old man had the gall to say what he did to me while Julia was still out of her mind with grief after the killing.’
‘You told me, feller.’
‘Yeah, he said Wendell being dead was a good thing and Kent Wilson would be just as happy to marry a widow as a spinster. Said how Wilson money in the family would help him out of . . . Hell, I told him to leave these
‘No, he didn’t! No legal reason!’ As with the bottle earlier, now with the glass: he reached for it, then jerked his hand back just before he would have touched it.
‘The time Kent Wilson was through here a few years ago he sure took a shine to Julia. And she liked him and his smooth and flashy ways well enough for awhile.’ He shrugged and sighed. ‘They took some walks together, went to a church social and she invited him here to the house for her twenty-first birthday supper. But he was a lot older than her and it didn’t take long for Julia to see the gap in their ages was a reason they could never be more than just fiends, as far as she was concerned.’ He shook his head and ran the back of a hand along his jaw-line. ‘She told him so and he didn’t take kindly to it. He was real put out and reckoned as how she had led him to believe they were all but engaged to be married.’
Edge said on exhaled tobacco smoke: ‘The feller had it bad, sounds like.’
‘He sure did and when he left Brogan Falls all of a sudden to go back to San Francisco he was real bitter about the way things had turned out between him and her. Plain for all to see how much he was smitten by my daughter?’
‘A feller used to getting his own way?’ Edge answered the implied query with a rhetorical question. ‘Did he stay in touch after that?’
‘He wrote Julia some letters and she answered them at first. She was just being friendly but he took her writing to him as a sign that she was still interested in having him for a husband. So then she stopped answering his letters and we all of us thought that was the end of Kent Wilson badgering her. Until today.’ He needed another drink but sank just half the contents of the glass this time and shook his head ruefully as he said: ‘Hell of a thing. The reason I had to send my old man packing from the house – because he told me how he was glad about what happened to Quaid. That it got him out of a spot. Seems he’d come to Brogan Falls on Wilson’s say-so: to stop the wedding by reasoning with Julia and pointing out to her how much better off she’d be for the rest of her life if she was married to Kent Wilson.’
McGowan pursed his lips, like he was about to vent a low whistle: but didn’t ‘Better off married to the president of a big San Francisco bank instead of a small town banker like Wendell Quaid. But he reached town too late: did too much drinking over in Pine River and had to sleep it off. Did some more drinking between there and here and was too crazy drunk to string more than a couple of words together when he staggered into the church after the wedding was all but over.’ He sat down carefully at the table now and looked much older than his age as he peered across at Edge then at the glass he gripped tightly in both hands and asked: ‘Like I’m getting close to being, uh?’
‘It could happen, feller.’ Edge finished his own drink, stood up and moved to the cold range, opened the grate and tossed the cigarette butt on to the dead ashes. ‘Are you saying you figure your pa and Wilson had something to do with gunning down Quaid?’
There was a deep melancholy in McGowan’s small, dull eyes as he raised his gaze to meet that of Edge. ‘The women won’t hear of it, which is the reason we were yelling at each other in the parlour just now.’ He shook his head and swallowed hard. ‘I’m not claiming it’s what happened. But it could have been, the way my old man had the gall to say what he did to me while Julia was still out of her mind with grief after the killing.’
‘You told me, feller.’
‘Yeah, he said Wendell being dead was a good thing and Kent Wilson would be just as happy to marry a widow as a spinster. Said how Wilson money in the family would help him out of . . . Hell, I told him to leave these
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