‘Up yours, Charlie!’ said Casey loyally.
They watched in awful anticipation as the young Lieutenant charged madly towards the hidden ambushers and it seemed to the soldiers that there was a moment of long empty waiting in which the universe held its breath. Then the rifles spoke in unison and they watched Lieutenant Evans cartwheel over the head of his horse. The horse slewed sideways into the rocks, a bullet through the head as Evans crashed to the ground, his pistol flying in a long slow arc through the air unfired, bright blood staining the boyish face.
‘Let’s get the hell out of here!’ yelled Mackenzie. ‘On your feet!’
The four soldiers scrambled to their feet, Springfields to port, running flat out across the broken rocky ground towards the wagons. They knew that if they could get the solid cover of the heavy wagon beds between themselves and their attackers they had a fighting chance of holding them off, but their attackers knew that too and gave none of them a chance. In the thirty yards between them and shelter they were cut down like rabbits in an open field, mercilessly and precisely. There was a long and empty silence after the sound of shooting died. Nothing moved except the busy flies, which deserted the sweating backs of the mules for the sweet smell of blood.
The raiders came out from behind their rocks.
Two, five, seven, ten men, led down the slope by a tall, ramrod-straight man of perhaps fifty years, his hair iron-gray and his eyes cold and without pity. As they approached the wagons, the last teamster, who had hidden beneath one of the wagons, rose to his feet, his eyes shifting from man to man, his face bathed in sweat, the stink of fear rising from him like a fog.
‘In the name of God,’ he wheezed. ‘Don’t kill me, Jesus, don’t — ’
He advanced towards them, hands extended pleadingly, stumbling over the stony ground. The gray-haired man made an impatient gesture and one of his men shot the teamster through the chest. The man went down flat dead. Nobody looked at him.
They went over to the wagons and quickly checked the loads beneath the tarpaulins. One of them came across to where the gray-haired man was standing tapping his beautifully shined riding boots with a leather crop. ‘All in order, Colonel,’ he said.
‘Good,’ the Colonel replied. ‘Get them moving.’
‘Yessir,’ said the man. He yelled an order and three of the men swung up into the driving seats on the wagons. Within minutes they were tooling them down the road. They swung them off on a trail that led west of the main trail and up towards Tinaja Peak. And then they were gone. Behind them nothing moved for a long, long time. A buzzard swept down from the high hills and soared above the scene of the ambush. With casual beauty, it soared on the air currents high above, circling lower towards the bloody bodies on the ground. Presently another buzzard came to join it, and then a third and more. They waited in the wide sky and still nothing moved. Then one of them swooped down and landed croaking on a rock near the body of Sergeant Mackenzie.
Suddenly it flapped away, squawking in alarm as Lieutenant Philip Evans groaned aloud and tried to get to his feet. There was caked blood all over his face and for a moment he thought he was blind. He slumped back on the ground, his head spinning with nausea. After a while he managed to sit up. He saw first the body of his dead horse.
‘Canteen,’ he said. The thought of water was the only one in his universe and it took him the best part of ten minutes to crawl across to the horse and unhitch the canteen from the saddle.
When he had drunk the canteen dry he stood up and looked around him. He saw where he was and he saw what had happened and he fell back against the burning rocks, his stomach tightening and he retched and retched again.
Then when he could stand, when he could think again, he staggered down the rocky hillside to where the men lay dead.
Chapter Five
Angus Wells had learned little in Fort Stanton and less in Fort McEwen. The Army reports had told it all and there was little more anyone could add. In addition, the military didn’t take all that kindly to Government snoopers coming around telling them their business. Wells had got a very cold shoulder in some quarters. Questioning the Indians had been a complete waste of time. Far too many others had already questioned them and now they were anxious to say anything the white man seemed to want them to say, embroidered, like moccasins, to order.
So Wells bid the hard-drinking cavalrymen an unregretful farewell and headed across the Rio Grande valley and up towards Santa Fe. The United States Marshal for the Territory had his office in Santa Fe, in the Federal buildings which had been built on ground that had once been part of the old Plaza. Wells let his horse pick its way through the narrow unpaved alleys which passed for streets in Santa Fe. The cathedral bell was clanging: it sounded as if someone were beating on it with a stick. Dogs and mules roamed everywhere. The place looked cheap, primitive, and highly unsanitary. Ragged children played in the dust. Chickens scattered before the horse. Yet Wells knew that inside the adobes that looked like hovels he would have found light, bright-painted walls decorated with Indian pottery and blankets, and interior patios with tinkling fountains watered by the endless snows of the Sangre de Cristos. There were families in Santa Fe older than the United States itself, their origins going right back to the court of Philip of Spain. These families looked upon all Americans as a curse, considering them neither caballeros nor Christians. In fact the Santa Fe name for an American was burro — jackass. He grinned to himself. Right now he felt they might have something.
John Sherman was a tall bluff man with a heavy black moustache and keen blue eyes. He wore a black vest and pants and a soft collared white shirt open at the neck. His boots were highly polished and he wore no pistol that Wells could see.
Sherman stood up as Wells came into the office. Wells introduced himself and indicated that he would prefer to talk in private. Sherman looked at the credentials Wells showed him with slightly raised eyebrows and then waved to a door on one side of the room.
‘Private in there,’ he said, and led the way into a smaller room that looked out on to the plaza. As he closed the door he said something to one of his Mexican deputies. By the time Wells had explained his reason for being in Santa Fe the deputy had returned with a stone jug and two glasses. The jug was beaded with cold, and Sherman poured some of its ruby contents into the glasses.
‘Sangria,’ he said. ‘Best thing they ever invented in Spain.’
The cold drink was delicious and Wells said so.
Sherman nodded. ‘You sound like you’ve got some sort of job, Wells,’ he said. ‘I heard a little about those army raids. I take it they haven’t come up with anything?
‘Not so you’d notice,’ Wells said. ‘Where did you hear about them?’
‘Oh, there was some talk,’ the Marshal said. ‘I guess some soldier came through and talked about it.’
‘Interesting,’ Wells said. ‘I got the impression the Army people had been trying to keep it quiet.’
‘You can’t keep that sort of thing quiet, man.’
Sherman smiled. ‘This is the State capital. The Attorney-General’s office is right across the way.’
‘Can you recall exactly where you heard about it?’ Wells insisted. ‘It could be important.’
‘You’re not suggesting…?’
‘I’m not suggesting anything. I just don’t have a pot to piss in and I can use any sort of information.’
‘Well,’ Sherman said. ‘Wait a minute, then.’
He got up from his chair; glass in hand, and went across to the window. He looked down at the Plaza, not really seeing the old men sitting on the stone benches around the monument to the battle of Valverde.
‘It was in the hotel, I think,’ he said. ‘La Fonda, across the way. We were taking a drink on the porch.’ He grinned. ‘Local custom, taking a drink in the evening after dinner. It’s where the boomers and fixers get together to wheel and deal. You want to buy something, sell something, you go to the La Fonda and take a drink on the porch after din
ner.’
‘Can you recall who was there?’
‘Legal people, mostly,’ Sherman recalled.
‘There’d been some dinner. Tom Catron was there. You know him, of course.’
‘I know him all right,’ Wells said evenly. ‘I figured you would,’ Sherman said. ‘Him being the Attorney-General.’
‘Go on,’ Wells persisted.
‘Who else, now? Bill Rynerson, from Las Cruces. Got a law firm down there. Some people from the Governor’s staff. Oh, yes, I remember now. That was the night Denniston was there, sounding off.’
‘Denniston?’
‘Colonel Denniston, he calls himself, although where he got his rank I wouldn’t know. War between the States, maybe. He was making his usual speech. The President of the United States is letting the country go to the dogs. All politicians should be shot. You know the sort of thing.’
‘What’s his beef?
‘Search me,’ Sherman shrugged. ‘He claims that the Government took some land off him, I think. Hard to say. He talks a hell of a lot but he doesn’t tell you anything, if you take my meaning.’
‘You know his first name?’
‘Never heard anyone use it. In fact, he’s something of a mystery man. His men all “sir” him as if they were still in the Army. And from what I’ve heard, which I repeat isn’t a hell of a lot, that’s about the way he runs his spread.’
‘Cattle?’
‘Could be giraffes for all anyone around here knows,’ Sherman said, his expression rueful.
‘He’s got a big place up at Colfax county, on the Palo Blanco. Made himself mighty popular up there. Put a seven-foot fence around it, and has hard cases patrolling the perimeter day and night. There’s signs all over, so I’m told, saying trespassers will be shot on sight.’
‘Interesting,’ Wells said, a question in his voice.
‘Thought so myself,’ Sherman agreed. ‘I sent a couple of deputies over there to take a look around. Denniston’s men bustled them off. No way they could get in. Since no laws had been broken there wasn’t anything I could do. I asked Denniston why he wouldn’t let my men in, last time I saw him. Drew himself up like a puff adder and said he’d be obliged if I would mind my own business because I could be assured that was what he was doing.’
‘What about his men?’
‘They all look like toughs to me, but as far as I can tell none of them is wanted in New Mexico. Of course, I haven’t seen them all.’
‘They come to town at all?’
‘Once in a while, when Denniston comes in. As if they were some sort of honor guard. But they never get into any trouble. They don’t drink. No girls, nothing. just wait in the plaza like dressmakers’ dummies until the colonel tells them to get on their nags and come home. Of course,’ he added, pouring the last of the sangria into the glasses, ‘they got their own little hell-town not five miles away. Kiowa. I imagine they raise all the Cain they want to nearer home. But that’s enough about Denniston — I don’t know why I went on about him so much. just that he’s fascinating. An enigma.’
‘How long has he been around?’
‘Not long. A year maybe. I can check that for you.’
‘I wish you would,’ Wells said. ‘Colonel Denniston sounds very interesting.’
‘You don’t think he had anything to do with—?’
‘I don’t think anything,’ Wells said. ‘Not a thing.’
‘I mean,’ Sherman said. ‘I mean, he’s a mite on the crazy side, maybe, but he keeps himself to himself. No trouble, you know what I mean? In fact, he’s pretty funny, sometimes – especially when he gets going about Grant. I don’t know whether he’s telling the truth of not, but he tells pretty nasty stories about the President.’
‘Like?’
‘Oh, vague stuff. About him being an alcoholic, about the whole Cabinet being up to its knees in graft. Stuff like that.’
Wells said nothing, just sat there and looked.
Sherman shifted uncomfortably.
‘Hell, Wells,’ he said. ‘Out here, that kind of gossip is like water in a thirsty land. No matter if it’s true or not. Nobody really takes Denniston seriously.’
‘Funny,’ Wells said, reflectively. ‘Here you have a man who hates the President of the United States enough to tell people he’s an alcoholic and an embezzler, a man who has a spread in a remote place surrounded by guards and security, a man with military knowledge and experience, a man with what you yourself called hard cases working for him — and you don’t take him seriously? What does it take to get you to take someone seriously, Sherman — does he have to walk around with a lighted stick of dynamite in his hand?’
Sherman looked stunned, and sat down heavily in his chair. ‘Wells,’ he said. ‘Listen. I mean, I hadn’t even thought of it like that. You just don’t. I mean, it’s so — wild, so improbable.’
‘I’ll grant you that,’ Wells said grimly. ‘But I want you to put every man you’ve got on to putting a dossier together for me about this Denniston. I want a map of the Palo Blanco area, an Army survey map if you can get it. I want to talk to the two deputies you sent up there. I want to see the records of Denniston’s land filing—’
‘Hell,’ wailed Sherman, ‘they’re in Mesilla, Wells.’
‘I don’t care if they’re on the goddamned moon, Sherman,’ Wells snapped. ‘I want to see them and I want to see them fast. Now get me a pencil and paper, and have someone stand by to take some messages to the telegraph office. Washington can turn up this man’s military record if he has one. Move, man!’
Sherman jumped, and almost ran out into the office. He started shouting commands to his office staff, and within minutes the place was a veritable hive of industry. Sherman came back and stood looking at Wells, who was scribbling furiously on the pad he had provided. He was trembling, as if he had been physically attacked, and felt the sour bile of resentment rising in his gorge. Who was this, this cripple, to come in here and order him about? These Government people were all the same — they came out here knowing nothing about the country or the people and expecting everyone to kiss their asses on command. Well, he for one wasn’t going to take any more crap. The next time — Wells looked up and his cold eyes met those of Sherman. And for the first time Sherman realized the kind of man Angus Wells was, and every foolhardy ounce of bluster went out of his body as if it had been siphoned off with a hydraulic pump.
‘Now we’re in business,’ Well said. If he had been tired when he arrived, he showed no sign of it now. ‘Sherman, you’ve been a great help. Why don’t you let me buy you a real drink while we’re waiting for the replies to these?’ He waved his hand at the sheaf of messages he had printed carefully on the yellow ruled paper. Sherman let a watery smile slide on to his face.
‘Why, uh, that’s be right nice, Wells,’ he managed.
Wells stood up. ‘Call me Angus,’ he said, and stumped out of the office, leading the way into the street. He scanned the Plaza, saw a board sign that read cantina and headed towards it at a rate of knots that had Sherman trotting to keep up with him. Indians selling beads and colored blankets beneath the porch of the Governor’s Palace stretched out their hands to try to attract the attention of the Yanquis, but Wells didn’t even see them. He went into the cool darkness of the cantina and ordered tequila. The two men went through the courtly south-western ritual with salt and lemon and salute, and let the fiery liquid warm their bellies.
‘Aaaaahh,’ Wells said. He sounded happy Outside the street was quiet in the afternoon sun. They could not see Sherman ’s office, nor the man who came out of it, looking first right and then left, staying in the shadow of the squat adobe building until he came to the corner. Then he was around it and going at a fast lope down the dusty alley, heading south towards the Alameda.
He had some yellow papers in his hand.
Chapter Six
Kiowa was no great shapes as a town.
It straggled along the Palo Blanco canyon, houses and larger buildings
scattered at each side of a road that turned S-shaped like a snake between the beetling hills that rolled back to even higher hills rising to the eight-thousand-foot peak of Laughlin.
Angel rode in across the wooden bridge that spanned the noisy river rushing on down towards its confluence with Ute Creek and then onwards to the Canadian, his eyes alert but his body slouched in the saddle like a man who has come a long, hard way. As indeed, he had. It seemed like years since he had reported to the Attorney-General in the big office overlooking the muddy bustle of Pennsylvania Avenue.
News of the attack on the military wagons had reached Washington almost simultaneously with Wells’ messages from Santa Fe. The scale of the latest raid had startled even the Justice Department: not only well over a hundred brand-new Winchesters plus ammunition, but this time a disassembled Gatling gun which had been on its way to Fort Marcy.
The Justice Department could move very fast when it had to, and it moved fast now. Within two days Angel had read every report, every file, and every dossier that could be assembled on the people involved: the young Lieutenant that Wells was even now interviewing in Fort Union; on Colonel Rob Denniston, late US Army, cashiered for cowardice in the aftermath of the battle of Chickamauga; on Johnnie Atterbow, ex-US Army sergeant, who had deserted shortly after Denniston’s court-martial and now ran the fenced-off enclave in the Palo Blanco mountains, and who kept Denniston’s hard case crew in line.
He had only had time to spend a few hours with the Armorer, but no trouble had been spared to get him what he needed. And now he was sifting down the straggling street of Kiowa, and he looked every inch of what he was posing as: a saddle tramp, looking for any kind of work that paid well. Unshaven, dust-coated, his clothes stained with sweat and grime, he moved down the street, noting the long looks he got from men on the sidewalks, the absence of any sign of children in the place, the packrats playing in the refuse between the tarpaper shacks. There was only one big building, a saloon with a false front and a long sign painted in red and gold that read ‘Levy’s — The Traveler’s Rest’. There was a tacky-looking store with pans and mining equipment hanging on strings from the porch roof, and at the end of the street he found a livery stable of sorts. It looked as if nobody really worked at keeping it more than nominally clean, but he turned the horse into the dark cool interior. A man of about forty with shifting eyes which never met Angel’s limped forward.
Trap Angel (Frank Angel Western #3) Page 3
