Hunt Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #5)

by Frederick H. Christian

  His sudden appearance, the startling sight of the flapping blanket, and the unearthly noise had a predictable effect on the horses of the Flying H riders. Both of them went up into the air stiff-legged, ready to take off at a full gallop when they hit the ground. Neither Danny Johnston nor his sidekick had a cat’s chance in hell of letting off a shot at Dan Sheridan, which was exactly what Angel had gambled on. Their instinctive reaction was to grab for the saddle horn and as they did so, he swept his gun from the holster, going down on one knee in a sweet, trained movement, clasping the wrist of his right hand in his left and cocking the gun in the same moment that the barrel lined up. His first shot blasted the skinny man sideways out of the leather with the astonishment of the moment still on his face. Johnston had perhaps a second longer to act and he did well enough, whacking a shot at Sheridan which took a piece of wood, about six inches long and two inches wide, out of one of the uprights of the ramada roof not more than a foot from Sheridan, who was already moving for the Greener. Before Danny Johnston could cock the gun in his hand again, Angel’s second bullet tore through the muscles of Johnston’s upper left arm, smashed its way through the bones, and ranged at a tangent upward through his body, exiting in a bloody spraying mist just below his right ear. The Flying H man went off the horse as if someone had roped him, while the panicked horses stampeded off away toward the bridge over Cat Creek. Johnston humped up once in the dirt of Texas Street and then subsided even as Angel cocked his six-gun yet again. The man in Howie Cade’s clothes had watched this awful scene in a frozen disbelief that melted suddenly as he realized he was standing in the center of the plaza, and that Dan Sheridan had the Greener in his hand and was turning. He ran.

  ‘Stop!’ Sheridan yelled at the top of his voice. Johnny Evans heard the shout, but its meaning did not penetrate his panic-stricken mind for a long moment. Then as fast as he had turned to run he turned again with both of Howie Cade’s six-guns in his hands and an animal snarl on his face that was torn away in a welter of mangled ribbons as Dan Sheridan laid the barrel of the Greener across his right forearm and pulled both of its triggers, almost blowing Johnny Evans into two separate pieces. Johnny went down flat on his back like one of those little metal figures in a fairground shooting booth; and then it was over.

  Sheridan stood there in the middle of the street with the smoking shotgun laid across his forearm trying to figure out how it had all happened. He tossed the gun aside and started up the street and Angel watched him go. He saw people coming out of the houses and the saloons. Sherry Hardin came out onto the street and ran toward Sheridan. She told him something, and he turned away, going up an alley between the saloon and the next building. Sherry ran down toward Angel. In the curiously detached aftermath of the sudden action, he could see her face and body very clearly. She was a good runner, he noted. He watched the sweet, soft movement of her breasts. She stopped beside him.

  ‘Frank,’ she said. She wasn’t hysterical, upset, frightened. Just glad to be with him. ‘I saw it. Saw what happened.’ She looked down at the torn, bleeding bodies of three men. ‘It was - so quick. They died so fast.’

  He nodded. They always did, but there was no point in saying that to her. It was when you saw what the guns could do that you hated them. You hated the fact that you had to use them knowing what they could do. But you knew you had to do it.

  ‘Where did Sheridan go?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘He’s safe. He went after Howie.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘They dragged him up the alley, I think. The Chinaman saw them. He came and told me. But it was too late for me to tell you. It all happened so fast.’ She shuddered a little, holding her own upper arms with her hands, arms folded across her chest. There was no breeze and it was hot in the late afternoon sun.,

  ‘You need a drink,’ he told her.

  ‘Not as bad as Howie,’ she said, and managed a smile.

  ‘You’re quite a girl, Sherry,’ he said.

  ‘You’re quite a girl yourself, Angel,’ she replied. This time the smile took, and it warmed her eyes. ‘Maybe I’ll buy you a drink.’

  ‘Let’s see if Howie’s OK first,’ Angel said.

  She unfolded her arms and put them akimbo on her hips, pretending vexation.

  ‘Don’t you ever relax?’ she asked him.

  ‘Work first,’ he said. ‘Fun later.’

  Up the street, Dan Sheridan was bringing Howie Cade toward the jail. He looked used up, and there was blood on his face and neck. But he was on his own two feet. He’d be OK, Angel judged.

  ‘Well,’ Sherry Hardin said when they came level. ‘You sure are hell on clothes, Howie Cade.’

  With three men dead in the street it didn’t really seem appropriate to laugh. But the laughter bubbled up in them: first Howie, weakly, and then Sheridan, Angel all of them. They stood there in the street and slapped each other on the back, laughing at Sherry Hardin’s mild little joke. Maybe it was relief. Maybe it was the reaffirmation of just being alive to laugh at all. Whatever it was, they laughed until tears ran down their cheeks. Mrs. Mahoney said it was almost indecent; so it was.

  Chapter Eleven

  Useless, Howie Cade thought.

  He sat in the jail alone. Sheridan and Angel were making a patrol of the town, the next to last one: what Sheridan called his ‘sunset stroll.’ Howie’s hands were shaking. Useless, he thought, recalling how Danny Johnston’s boys had taken him like a baby. He hadn’t even been able to put up a fight. Fancy dude, buscadero belt and all, he was about as much use to Sheridan as a spavined mule. If it hadn’t been for Angel, he and Sheridan would already be dead. They would have taken Dan as neat as a haircut, and it would have been his, Howie’s, fault. The thought was like wormwood in his soul. He thought of a glass of whiskey and then he put the thought out of his mind, but it was still there somewhere in the background. He thought of Angel covering Dan Sheridan on the street. That was his job, Howie’s job, not Angel’s. Sheridan obviously figured Angel was more reliable. He probably was. He didn’t have anything against Angel: he was good. It was a damned good job he’d shown up. Dan Sheridan wouldn’t have lasted one day, let alone three, if the only backup he’d had was Howie Cade.

  Goddamned useless, he thought.

  I used to be good, he told himself. Damned good.

  He stood up and strapped on his gunbelt. Standing in a tight, poised crouch, he drew the right-hand gun. Good enough, he thought. As good as anyone needed to be. Yet they’d taken him like a snot-nosed kid, because he was slow, stupid, dumb. Useless.

  The mental picture of the whiskey popped into the front of his brain again and he gave an order in his brain and it went away. He sat and stared at the calendar on the wall. Three days: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, today, all but gone. Tomorrow was Friday. If they got through Friday, it would be all over. The train from El Paso to Kansas City, Missouri, would chug into the depot at 11:45 on Saturday morning and once they had Burt Hugess on that train not even Larry Hugess was going to be able to do anything to stop them.

  One more day, he thought.

  Then he thought of a drink.

  He told himself that it wouldn’t make any difference. They wouldn’t even miss him. If Dan told the truth, he’d admit that he can handle it just fine with Angel backing him up. It was Howie who couldn’t cut it. They were carrying him, and they were avoiding telling him, that was all. Howie hoped he never had to stand there while Sheridan told him. One drink won’t hurt me, he thought. Might even help with these shaking hands.

  They were taking their goddamned time with the patrol, too. Leave a man sitting alone in the jail, no telling who might kick the door in. Suppose Larry Hugess decided to put every man he had into the saddle and just ride in and take Madison apart stick by stick. Who the hell could stop him? How long could they hold out in the jail? Until they ran out of water, food, or ammunition. And what would Hugess do to them when they did? Anyway, who’d ever know if he took just one
quick drink? Pretend he was just checking out one of the dives down below the depot, taking a quick snort, move on.

  One more day, he thought.

  The town was quiet. He could hear the Professor banging away at something up-tempo in the Palace. He imagined the smoky warmth of the place, the yellow light of the oil lamps, the crickety-crickety sound of the chuckaluck box, the smell of sweat and sawdust and the smoky, hot taste of whiskey. No, he thought. But who the hell would care if I said yes?

  He sat there and glowered at the wall until Sheridan and Angel came back. Sheridan used the interrupted knock that they had devised as a signal that it was safe to open up. Howie saw that it was dark outside now; the bright lights of the saloon across the way beckoned invitingly and he heard one of the girls laughing.

  ‘Everything OK?’ Sheridan asked, laying the Greener he’d been carrying down on the desk.

  ‘Sure,’ Howie said. His voice was surly. He didn’t care if it was, he didn’t care if Sheridan raised his eyebrows in surprise. The hell with Sheridan, if he felt like that.

  ‘Any coffee?’ Angel asked him.

  ‘Go take a look,’ Howie snapped. ‘I ain’t the maid.’

  Angel held up both hands with the palms out. ‘OK, OK,’ he said. ‘Excuse me for living.’

  He went across and poured some coffee into a tin mug. He raised an eyebrow at Sheridan, who nodded, yes, he’d take a cup. As their eyes met, Angel put the question on his face: what’s wrong with Howie? Sheridan gave him an exaggerated shrug and a look of puzzlement as his answer, so Angel shrugged and sat down sipping at the steaming brew.

  ‘Listen,’ Howie said. ‘I need some air.’

  Sheridan looked at him.

  ‘Wait on,’ he said. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘No!’ Howie said sharply. ‘I’ll just walk across the street to the Palace. Then back. Ain’t nothing going to happen to me while I do that.’

  He was conscious of the way Sheridan was watching him. He jerked his head, so Sheridan couldn’t see what was in his eyes, but Sheridan had guessed.

  ‘Howie,’ he said. ‘You want a drink, you go ahead and take one.’

  ‘Who the hell said anything about. . . ?’ Howie Cade’s outburst petered out. He looked at Sheridan and then he looked at Frank Angel. ‘Oh, dammit all to hell,’ he said, and went out, slamming the heavy door behind him. Sheridan crossed the room to go after the deputy, and then, as if vexed with himself, stopped. He looked at his right hand and flexed it, steeling his expression against the pain.

  ‘How does it feel? Angel asked.

  ‘Lousy,’ Sheridan said. ‘Just plain lousy.’

  ‘Let him do it, Dan,’ Angel said. ‘Maybe he feels he has to.’

  ‘Has to?’ Sheridan ground out. ‘You know what’ll happen if he takes a drink, don’t you? He’ll take another and then another and then another, and that will be the end of him.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Angel said. ‘I’m not so sure, though. I was watching his face. He can’t bring himself to be jealous of me, which would solve his problem. But he’s feeling as if somehow he’s let you down. Maybe he reckons we don’t need him. All that drives him toward the liquor. You don’t drink the way Howie was drinking and then just quit. It hurts. It hurts for a long, long time.’

  ‘You some kind of head-doctor, Angel?’ Sheridan said, trying for a grin he had trouble pinning on.

  ‘That’s me,’ Angel smiled. ‘America’s answer to Florence Nightingale.’

  ‘Florence who?’

  ‘Never mind,’ Angel said. ‘Give him ten, fifteen minutes. Then I’ll walk over there and see how he’s doing.’

  Sheridan shrugged again. If Howie was really going to dive back into the bottle, it wouldn’t take him any fifteen minutes. But he didn’t tell Angel that. Angel would find out soon enough.

  ‘Sabslu’lydiotichh,’ Howie said.

  ‘Sure is,’ Angel replied. ‘Easy, now.’

  ‘Olihaddaglash,’ Howie said. His eyes were unfocused, but he was trying very hard to get it across to Angel that he had only drunk one drink, and that he felt idiotic because it had knocked him sideways. He was draped around Angel like a wet towel, and Angel held him the best way he could as they went up the street to the hotel. Howie’s legs kept on snaking off to right or left, and he was no lightweight. By the time they made it to the door of the hotel, Angel was sweating hard.

  The little Chinaman opened the door and ran like a deer when Angel hefted Howie into a chair and said ‘Coffee, and lots of it!’ Sherry Hardin came down the stairs. She looked at Howie, who was sitting in the chair with his head back, eyes wide, mouth open, staring unseeingly at the ceiling.

  ‘Oh, no,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Angel said.

  ‘I’ll get—’

  ‘I already told him,’ Angel interrupted her. ‘Coffee’s on the way.’

  ‘Why?’ she wanted to know. ‘Why, why?’

  ‘Feelings of inadequacy, maybe,’ he guessed. ‘Just being down. I don’t know. But don’t worry. He hasn’t had much. And the head this will give him will be all the discouragement he’s going to need to stay away from the booze.’

  ‘You hope,’ she said.

  ‘I hope,’ he smiled. ‘Till Saturday morning, anyway. After that he can go swim in the stuff as far as I’m concerned.’

  A frown touched her forehead at his words.

  ‘You’ll leave?’ she asked. ‘On Saturday?’

  ‘If all this is settled,’ he said. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ah,’ Sherry Hardin said. ‘That’s not a lot of time to give a girl, Angel.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But it’s all the time I’ve got.’

  ‘I see,’ she said softly. Then, as if shaking away thoughts she would rather not be thinking, she bustled across the room toward the little Chinaman, who was just coming in from the kitchen with a coffee pot and two mugs on a wooden tray.

  ‘All right, Chen,’ she said. ‘I’ll do this You make some more.’

  As always, the little Chinaman went out without a word, his flat-soled shoes slip-slapping on the wooden floor. Sherry Hardin stood with the tray in her hands and looked at Frank Angel. She had her head back, the way a woman will sometimes hold herself so the tears won’t spill over her eyelids.

  ‘Why don’t you get on with whatever it is you’ve got to do, Frank,’ she said quietly. ‘Before I start in bawling.’

  He made as if to start toward her, but she gave a slight emphatic shake of her head. The copper hair caught glints of light from the hanging lamp. Angel made one of those ‘OK, then’ gestures with his head.

  ‘I’ll see you,’ he said, and went out of there without looking back, eyes adjusting to the blackness outside, checking the street automatically. All clear. He stepped down off the porch and turned toward the jail. He could hear the Professor playing something slow. ‘Lorena,’ was it?

  The lancing flame of the six-gun was clearly visible in the alley across the street. The slug went past his head like an angry wasp and he saw the man, a dark running shape against the lighted windows of the Oriental. Almost without having to think about it, Angel had dropped to one knee and the six-gun was up and steadied, and he fired quickly. The man swerved, and Angel thought perhaps he might have nicked him.

  ‘Hold it!’ he yelled. The man hesitated and then ran into the Oriental. Angel legged it across the street as fast as he could go, and then went in underneath the batwings, flat on his belly with the gun up. There were six or seven people bayed against the wall. Not a gun in sight. He got up slowly, keeping the gun cocked. Three of them he knew by sight: townspeople. Their eyes were rolling in panic. They wanted out of there. Two of the others wore the standard range garb. They could have been Hugess riders. They could have been any damned thing at all. There were two others standing together near the door. One of them had a puffy face, his eyes blackened by bruises and a huge bloody scab across the bridge of his nose. Angel remembered him: he was the Hugess rider Howie had backhanded with the
six-gun in the Palace the night Nathan Ridlow had been killed. Dan Sheridan had pointed him out on the street.

  ‘Where is he?’ Angel said.

  ‘Listen mister—’ Broken-Face began. ‘We never—’

  ‘Talk!’ Angel said. ‘Fast!’

  ‘He went out the back door,’ the man standing beside Broken-Face said, his voice pitched breathless.

  ‘Show me,’ Angel said, gesturing with the six-gun. One of the townspeople looked at Angel with a strange, throttled look, as if he wanted to say something but didn’t know how. The man didn’t speak. He looked down at the floor as if he was ashamed of himself.

  ‘Over here,’ Broken-Face said. He led the way around the bar and into a sort of hallway at the far side of which was a wooden door with two glass panels. The panels were of frosted glass, colored green

  ‘Where does that lead?’ Angel said.

  ‘Out by the corral in back of the store,’ Broken-Face said.

  ‘And the man who ran into the saloon went out this way.’

  ‘That’s right,’ the second man said anxiously. ‘Right through that door.’

  ‘Alone, was he?’

  ‘Why, sure he was,’ Broken-Face said. ‘I’d say you put a slug in his hide someplace, too. He was bleedin’ pretty bad. Harvey seen it.’

  ‘Better move along, Mister Angel,’ Harvey added. ‘He’ll get clean away.’

  ‘Sure,’ Angel said. ‘Lead the way.’

  ‘What?’ Harvey said.

  ‘You heard me,’ Angel told him. ‘Open that door and walk on out there.’

  ‘Who, me?’ Harvey quavered. Listen, Mister Angel, I ain’t got—’

  Angel cocked the six-gun and in a savage gesture he jammed the barrel of the weapon into the overhanging gut of the big man.