Over in a far corner of the compound seven rows of men under the eye of another were doing punishing gymnastics. Angel looked up as Denniston spoke.
‘Angel, come with me. I will want to see all Twos and Threes in twenty minutes,’ he added to the others.
‘Yes, sir,’ they chorused. Angel half expected to see them salute, but they did not. He sought the word for this kind of organization. They were no guerillas. Not renegades. Yet both. Paramilitary: that was the book-word.
He followed Denniston into the centre building of three on the southern edge of the parade ground. It was sparsely furnished. A simple cot in the corner. A large table with six chairs on either side, a bentwood armchair at its head. A bureau. Pegs sunk into the walls for hanging hats, clothes, gun belts. A bearskin rug on the floor. An open hearth with a military saber crossed on its scabbard above it. A photograph in a silver frame, young men in uniform on a lawn somewhere.
And a huge large-scale map of northern New Mexico, southern Colorado and western Kansas on the wall facing the table. A window looked out on to the parade ground.
‘Well, Mr. Angel?’
‘I’m impressed,’ Angel said. ‘Astonished. But this is no ranch, no way. What are all these men doing up here?’
‘I will give you a general answer to your questions, Mr. Angel. I cannot be specific until you have been voted by my fellow — ah, officers, to be a man with whom they will serve. This is slightly different to the real Army, but our purpose is such that I can admit of no dissent. Each man has to believe completely in his fellow. There can be no exceptions. However, within the limitations placed upon me by that fact, I will try to satisfy your curiosity.’
‘You’re raising some kind of Army up here?’
‘I suppose you could say that.’ Dennison smiled. ‘I prefer the term Kommando — a Dutch word meaning a mobile, well-trained, totally ruthless attacking unit.’
‘And you use military style and titles?’
‘Not quite. You heard outside I asked for Twos and Threes to join us shortly — when we shall decide upon your acceptability — or otherwise. As commander, I, of course am Number One. There are two Number Twos, of whom the unfortunate Atterbow was one. Four Number Threes.’
‘And how many men?’
‘Classified,’ Denniston said, smiling slightly to take the sting out of the words. ‘I don’t wish you to think me discourteous, Mr. Angel. But at the moment you have only the status of a possible recruit.’
‘And if your — ah, officers don’t care to have me along for the ride, what then?’
‘Let us hope,’ said Denniston without humor, ‘that you are not so unlucky.’
He walked across to the window, looking out on the busy scene and lighting a thin cigar which he used as a pointer.
‘I’ve built it all,’ he said. ‘The whole thing. Slowly, painfully, choosing my location and my men with infinite care. Now … now it is almost ready.’
‘For what?’
‘Ah, Mr. Angel, you are a direct man, a man after my own heart. But not even my most trusted subordinates know that.’
Angel shrugged, changing the subject. ‘Place like this can’t be put together for pennies,’ he suggested.
‘True,’ Dennison said. ‘I once owned land. In Virginia. It was worth a great deal of money. My heritage, you might say. I sold it. Sold that lovely green land for this.’ His tone was bitter and his eyes far away, but he got control of himself quickly, as if there had never been gall in his tone. ‘And with the passing of time, I found other ways to make money. I made it. And built a little more of my empire. Hired the right men. Paid them enough to keep them happy, keep them loyal. And then began to teach them true loyalty, the loyalty of a man for his own cause, his own Army.’
His eyes had gone empty and he was really talking to himself. Angel had ceased to exist except as an excuse to pour out his vanity and contempt.
‘Ten years,’ Denniston said. ‘Ten lost years. But now I am within sight of my objective. Then it will have been worth it.’
Angel walked across the room and picked up the silver-framed photograph from the mantel.
Looking at it, he thought one of the faces looked familiar. It was Denniston. A much younger Denniston. He looked up to see the iron-gray eyes watching him.
‘You recognized me,’ Denniston said.
Angel nodded. ‘West Point?’
‘Class of ’6l,’ he said. He took the picture from Angel’s hands, intoning the names of the faces as his eyes ran over them for the ten thousandth time. ‘O’Rourke, Alonzo Cushing, Charles Parsons, Elbert, Jamie Parker, George Custer, Robley Denniston — ’ he broke off his reverie, lifting empty eyes towards the window.
‘I didn’t realize you were Regular Army,’ Angel said, for want of anything better to say.
‘Yes,’ Denniston said dully. ‘Yes, I was. I served with George Thomas, General Thomas. At Mill Springs, Murfreeboro, Chickamauga.’
‘And then?’
‘What? Oh, I was invalided out after Chickamauga. Shot through the lungs. They gave me the usual medals, the usual pension. It wasn’t what I wanted. I was used to commanding men. And so I made my plans to do it my own way: If the Army didn’t want me, I would build an Army of my own that could not function without me. And I have done it.’
He really believed it, Angel thought. He’s convinced himself that it happened that way. The whole dirty little scene after Chickamauga, the court martial and the ignominious discharge have all been safely tucked away where no one can see them.
Denniston went across to the wall where the huge map was hung and looked at it long and intently. There was a red flag stuck into the map on the line which marked the road from Trinidad to Raton through the mountains.
‘Well, Mr. Angel,’ Denniston said, after a while. ‘Now you know what the background of this place is. I think we can use you — again providing my staff officers agree. Do you know anything about explosives?’
The question was shot at him without warning and Angel grinned at Dennison without shame.
‘Explosives? Where the hell would I learn about explosives? I was too young for your war, Colonel.’
‘Quite,’ Denniston said. ‘It was just a thought.’
‘Sure,’ Angel said. Before he could say more there was a respectful knock at the door. A man poked his head around it and said that the officers were waiting outside. Denniston nodded and the man closed the door. Denniston motioned Angel to stay where he was and went towards his cot. He pulled a curtain across so that he was hidden behind it. Then, and not until then, the door was smartly opened and five men came into the room. They stood behind their respective chairs alongside the table, their eyes looking up somewhere above head level, faces blank. Then Denniston pulled his curtain aside and stepped into view and the man at the top of the table on the left yelled ‘Atteeeeennnnn . . . tion!’
The five men came smartly to attention and saluted, as Denniston sat at the table and said ‘At ease, gentlemen.’ The quintet sat down in their chairs, hands folded on the table. The man on his left handed Denniston a piece of paper.
‘Minutes, sir,’ he said.
‘Thank you, Froon,’ Denniston replied.
Angel watched this imitation of Army ritual in fascinated silence. They were like children playing soldiers, except that they, like Denniston, seemed to believe in it implicitly, and they, like Denniston, intended to use their military force in some way. But what? What?
He let his gaze rest on the faces of Denniston’s officers one by one. Next to an empty chair on Denniston’s right sat the slow-spoken kid who’d held the gun on him at the gate. On his right was a pockmarked man of about thirty with a badly broken noise. On the left hand side of Denniston was the burly man with the wind-burned face who had brought the officers to attention on Denniston’s entrance; the other Number Two, Angel guessed. On his left was a tow-haired young man with a Texas drawl who carried a tied-down gun low on his right thigh. And at the end of the
table a short, squat, beady-eyed little man who had a singsong accent which Angel finally identified as Welsh. The man looked completely out of place until Angel remembered Denniston’s earlier question about explosives. He’d be a miner. And know about things like that.
‘Before we discuss business, gentlemen,’ Denniston was saying, ‘there is the matter of our — ah, guest. And the replacement of John Atterbow. It is my intention to appoint Mr. Angel as a Number Three, replacing John with you, Mr. Adam. With the approval of all you gentlemen, of course.’
He looked at them all for a moment, then spoke again.
‘Mr. Whiting? That was the miner, who said, ‘Agreed sir.’
‘Mr. Adam?’
‘Honored at my promotion, sir,’ drawled the Texan. ‘And no objection.’
Denniston nodded. ‘Mr. Briggs?’
The pockmarked one shook his head. ‘Fine with me, sir.’
‘And you, Mr. Jackson?’
‘A question, sir?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Is Mr. Angel any good with that gun?’ asked the kid.
Denniston swiveled in his chair and looked at Angel with eyebrow raised.’ Well, Mr. Angel?’
‘I can use it,’ Angel said without emphasis. He let his gaze hold that of the younger man until the kid’s eyes flickered and evaded it.
Denniston smiled. ‘That seems to be that, then. Please join us, Mr. Angel. Take Mr. Adam’s chair. Ray, you move up here beside me.’
Angel sat down in the vacated chair and Denniston looked at the piece of paper in front of him.
‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘The first item, Mr. Froon: what is the situation?’
‘I sent two men down to Vegas,’ Froon replied. ‘They followed the man and dealt with him. They’re waiting to report.’
‘Good,’ said Denniston, leaning back and steepling his fingers. ‘Have they come in.’
Froon got up and went to the door. A thicker man came into the room, his clothes dust-covered, eyes respectful as he came to attention in front of the table.
‘Your report, mister!’ snapped Froon.
‘Me and Rafferty did like you told us, sir. Martinez in the Marshal’s office told us that the snooper — beg your pardon, sir, the Government man — was on his way to Fort Union. We trailed him and laid for him about ten miles from Vegas.’
‘You killed him?’
‘That we did, sir. Deader than a mackerel.’
‘Very good, Reed,’ Denniston said. ‘Was he carrying any papers?’
‘Nothing we could find, sir,’ Reed said.
‘Rafferty was slightly wounded, sir,’ Froon put in. ‘Nothing serious. Reed brought him back. He’s in the sick bay.’
‘Good, good,’ Denniston said. ‘What else did Martinez tell you, Reed?’
‘Nothing much else, sir,’ Reed said, still standing stiffly to attention and gazing at a point somewhere above Denniston’s head. ‘Just that this Wells was from the Department of Justice and that he’d sent word back to Washington for another man to come out here.’
Denniston put his hands Hat on the table. ‘Another Government investigator?’
‘That’s right, sir,’ Reed said. ‘Someone called Angel. Frank Angel.’
Chapter Ten
Andy Ayres was ten years old.
It wasn’t really good fishing weather: too hot. But he called his old dog, Shep, to heel and went off down the creek in the afternoon sunshine, hoping to find a pool somewhere that might have a catfish wallowing in the pool shadows. His fishing rod was a supple willow pole, his bait some chicken bits his mother had given him, and his faith boundless. Shep bounded ahead, happy to be out and free on the open grassland, sniffing away under bushes at the faint remaining scent of prairie chicken or gopher, quartering back across the boy’s path, occasionally looking back over his shoulder to make sure his master was still coming.
There was a good pool by the shoulder of the creek bed not far from the road to town that Andy hadn’t tried yet, and he headed for this now. He scrambled down the steep shelving bank of the creek and meandered along, picking up pebbles for Shep to chase. As he approached the pool the dog started barking wildly and the boy looked up in alarm. He was frontier bred, and poised if the need arose to run fleet and fast towards the farm —• although there hadn’t been an Indian scare for the past ten years, his father always drummed vigilance into the boy. There was always danger on the open frontier: he must never take chances. He saw Shep circling around a jumble of rocks, barking wildly at something inside them.
‘Shep!’ he shouted. ‘Come out o’ there. What you got, anyway — a gopher?’
The dog took no notice, but went on barking, rushing at the rocks and then backing off warily, dancing from side to side. Andy went nearer, his eyes widening as he saw what looked like a bundle of old clothes thrown among the rocks. Then he realized that the bundle was in fact a man and that the man’s chest and back were covered in blood. The man was sitting up — no, trying to sit up would have been a more accurate description.
He was trying to say something, but the boy could not make out what it was. He was very frightened and did not know whether to go nearer or run away. His father’s stern warnings came back to him but his curiosity was stronger: he went nearer. The man saw him and leaned back against the rocks his face streaming with sweat, twisted with pain.
‘Boy,’ the man said. ‘Boy.’
‘What’s the matter, mister?’ Andy said. ‘You hurt? Who are you?’
‘Boy,’ the man said again. ‘Water.’
He made a little gesture with his arm, and Andy realized the man was badly hurt, maybe dying. He was frightened again.
‘Please,’ the man said.
Andy ran down to the creek where there was a slow trickle of clear mountain water. Then he realized he had nothing to carry the water in. He ran back to see if the man had a hat.
‘Water,’ the man said again. His voice was fainter.
‘You got to come to where the water is,’ Andy told him. ‘Can’t you walk?’
‘Water,’ the man said. ‘Walk.’
Andy just looked at him. There was nothing he could do. The man was too heavy for him to lift.
He didn’t know what to do. He wished his father was here.
‘Wait,’ he said to the man. He went closer to him, gingerly touching the man’s arm. ‘Wait here. I’ll get help. Wait here.’ The man looked at him through eyes washed pale by pain. But he seemed to understand. He nodded.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Get help.’
‘That’s right, mister,’ the boy said, and turned and ran as if all the devils in Hell were chasing him, the dog bounding along beside him,
running ahead and barking as Andy scooted fleet-footed across the burned plain along the side of the creek, then bore right and up the path towards his home, running, running, running until he saw his father and ran to him shouting, ‘Pa, Pa, Pa!’
John Ayres was a big man with muscles corded from years of hard work on the little farm in the fold of the hills. He ran towards his son, snatching up the pistol and belt that hung always close to him as he worked.
The boy blurted out his discovery and Ayres frowned, buckling the belt on as Andy spoke. His wife came out of the house, having heard the boy’s excited voice, and Ayres quickly told her what had happened.
‘Stay here with your mother, boy,’ he told his son, and when Andy made a moue of disappointment, went on, ‘Someone’s got to look after her.’
His words brought a quick smile of pride to the youngster’s face.
‘I’ll go down there and take a look, Martha,’ he said. ‘Maybe you’d better get a tub of hot water ready. If what Andy says is true, this man’s bad hurt.’
He strode off without another word, a tall dark man moving purposefully across his own land, the dog loping beside him through the scrubby grass and sagebrush. Within ten minutes he was beside the wounded man, dipping his neckerchief in the
creek and bathing his b
itten lips.
‘Thanks,’ Wells said. ‘Thank you.’
He started to talk and Ayres bade him be silent.
‘Talk all you like when I get you back to the house,’ he said. ‘Right now you better save your strength. From the look of that hole in your back you’re going to need it.’
Angus Wells was not a small man nor a light one, and he was too weak to give the tall farmer any real help. But John Ayres picked him up as if he was a baby, and got Wells across his shoulder.
Wells cried out once and then collapsed into unconsciousness. Ayres nodded as though obscurely pleased by this fact, and then strode off back towards his house, covering the ground in good long strong strides, his wife coming to the door as she saw her husband approaching with the burden. They got Wells into the house and Mrs. Ayres stripped away the bloody shirt with a butcher knife. She pulled the breath sharply between her lips as she saw Wells’ wounds.
john,’ she said. ‘This is work for a doctor. If the man doesn’t get medical help, he’ll die.’
‘You’re right as usual, Martha,’ John Ayres said.
‘Andy, you go out and harness the mare. I’ll take the wagon. With luck I can be in Vegas before nightfall. Come, help me, love. We’ll at least wash his wounds and bandage them before he has to travel. It’s a bad road.’
Two hours later, John Ayres swung his wagon
out on to the road, and by late afternoon he had reached Las Vegas. It was only a small place, huddled around the tree-shaded plaza, its old streets narrow, dusty, crowded. Women were standing near the fountain, gossiping. They looked up incuriously as the Anglo drove past with his wagon. John Ayres was a familiar figure in the town. He pulled up outside a brick building three doors down the street from the offices which housed the local newspaper, the Optic. A wooden sign jutted from the wall, its paint faded by many years of sun. Ayres recalled when it had been fresh and golden, eight years ago when Jack Cox had come to town. He was an ambitious young doctor then. Now he was just a doctor. He had found his vocation in Las Vegas, no child ever needed to suffer pain or sickness if Cox could help. The Mexicans rarely had money. When they could, they paid. When they had nothing, he treated them anyway. Ayres happened to think he was a very fine human being, but of course they had never been able to talk about things like that.
Trap Angel (Frank Angel Western #3) Page 6
