Hang Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #4)

by Frederick H. Christian

  “Don’t you worry about me worrying,” Angel told him. “Get the hell out!”

  Eddy Lamb nodded, and after Billy Luskam came back with a horse, climbed into the saddle, his face creased with pain.

  “Thanks for catchin’ up my horse, Billy,” he said.

  “Don’t thank me,” Luskam told him sourly. “Thank God you’re alive to ride it!”

  Without another word he slapped the horse across the rump, and the animal whirled around, moving off up the street at a canter, Eddy Lamb reeling in the saddle until he got control of the horse and they disappeared in their own dust at the northern edge of the town.

  Angel took a deep breath; he let the tension run out of him like tap water. Then he walked across the street to where Francey King lay in the dirt. The flies were busy. He turned away.

  Doc Day was stooping over the body of Mike Fischer. He got up shaking his head, but if there was anything he wanted to say, he managed not to say it.

  “They had it set up real neat,” Billy Luskam said.

  “But not neat enough,” Angel replied. “They figured on Mike giving them enough time for what they wanted to do.”

  “It sure as hell was hectic while it lasted,” Doc said.

  “That it was,” Frank Angel agreed. “You did fine, just fine.”

  “Well ...” Luskam wanted to know. “What happens now, Frank?”

  “You run a saloon,” Angel said with a slow grin. “Suggest something.”

  Billy Luskam looked at him for a moment, then grinned too. “Got you,” he said. “That’s a hell of a good idea. Doc?”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” Day said. “Purely medicinal, you understand.”

  “Of course, of course,” Luskam said. “What else?”

  They went into the deserted saloon together, knowing that their humor was forced, to keep away the specters of the men they had killed. The bodies of the dead men lay in the street where they had fallen, and none of the three looked back. After a long while, one or two of the townspeople came out of their houses and stood in the street, talking very quietly. One or two of them looked northeast where the thunderheads were piling up over the Arabelas, and their faces were troubled. Angel had laid down his challenge. The die was cast. From now on it would be a fight to the death.

  Chapter Eight

  Frank Angel guessed right.

  Trev Rawley took the Flying Fish straw-boss Don Teesdell with him and left the Fischer spread about the same time that Francey King and Mike Fischer larruped their horses south down the trail towards the Crossing. Unlike them, Rawley and his sidekick pushed their horses up Arabela Canyon until they reached the old mountain trail that led through a ragged gap in the mountains and down into the canyon of the Rio Abajo. It wasn’t long until the two men were looking down on the cottonwood-shaded hollow where the Flying W ranch house lay, L-shaped and compact, the neat adobe building apparently deserted. Rawley pulled his horse to a stop on a brush-stippled bluff overlooking the place, scanning the surrounding area and the corral off to one side of the main ranch building. He nodded with satisfaction.

  “Just the girl, by the look of it,” he said to Teesdell. “An’ the Mex woman, probably.”

  Teesdell shook his head, pointing downhill towards the river.

  “Aha,” Rawley said. The Mexican woman, Deluvina Martinez, was slapping washing against a flat stone to get the water out them. The roiling stream was whitened with the lye soapsuds.

  “All right,” Rawley said. “Let’s move.”

  They tied the horses up in a brush stand a hundred yards upstream from where Deluvina was, moving on silent feet through the long grass and brush skirting the river until they were very close to her. She was singing to herself as she did the washing, a tuneless song that ceased abruptly as a twig snapped under Trev Rawley’s spurred boot. Deluvina turned like a startled animal, poised to flee, but the marshal was already on her, his big hand clamping across her mouth to prevent the scream, his other arm clamping Deluvina’s arms. Rawley lifted her off her feet and whirled her around, her back to a big boulder on the edge of the river.

  Deluvina Martinez closed her eyes, as if in pain. She was not a young woman, and she seemed stunned and very frightened by this sudden assault. When she opened her eyes again she saw the knife in Trev Rawley’s hand, and now real fear showed on her face. Her eyes rolled up, and she looked as if she might faint.

  “Don’t you even squeak, senora” Trev Rawley hissed to her. “Comprende?”

  Deluvina nodded her head anxiously, eyes shuttling from Rawley to Teesdell and back again. She was trembling like a leaf now.

  “Where’s the girl?” Rawley asked her. “A donde es la senorita?”

  “Casa,” the woman managed. “En la casa.”

  “In the house, eh?” Rawley nodded. “Alone? Solo?”

  “Si, solo” Deluvina managed.

  Rawley released her, and the woman slumped back against the big rock, relief and anxiety mingling her expression.

  “Stay here!” Rawley told her, pointing at the ground. “Aqui! Comprende?”

  “Aqui, si,” she whispered, nodding to show she understood.

  She watched with wide, expressionless eyes as they moved away and ran quickly through the shading oak and willow to the edge of the open space in front of the ranch house. Rawley held up an arm and Teesdell skidded to a stop behind him.

  “What?” he said.

  “Take it easy,” Rawley said. “Don’t want to flush our little bird out too early.”

  They crossed the yard fast on soft feet, coming to the wall of the house next to the door, turning their backs to and edging to the doorway. Rawley nodded. Teesdell nodded back, okay, and Rawley went in fast through the open door, the hallway dark and cool.

  There were doors on both sides of the hall, the one at the far end standing ajar. They could hear the light sound of a woman’s voice humming tunelessly, the kind of song a woman sings when she is brushing her hair before a party she knows she will enjoy. Teesdell touched Rawley’s shoulder, pointing ahead with his chin, and Rawley nodded again, moving forward with his six-gun in his hand towards the open doorway.

  As they did so the first door on the left hand side of the hallway opened, and Dick Webb stepped into the hall behind them, his father’s shotgun cocked and ready in his hands.

  Rawley felt rather than saw the movement behind him and whirled on cat feet, the six-gun coming up. Startled, Teesdell turned, in the same moment, his face going as slack with shock as Rawley’s. Their eyes fixed on the gaping bores of the old shotgun, looking as big as a cave; and as they did Susie Webb came out of the bedroom behind them with a six-gun in her hand. It looked almost too big for her to handle, but there was grim determination in the set of her mouth, and she held the big gun steady with both hands, fully cocked, its barrel not more than six inches from the center of Rawley’s spine.

  They were cold-cocked, and they knew it.

  Rawley shrugged and let the six-gun slide out of his hand. It hit the carpet, covering the boarded floor with a dull clunk as the marshal pasted a weak grin on to his face.

  “You, too,” Dick Webb said to Teesdell, gesturing with the shotgun.

  Rawley looked at him for a long moment, then back over his shoulder at the girl. She gestured with the six-gun and a nervous tic flickered in the marshal’s cheek.

  “Do it!” he snapped harshly.

  “Wait,” Teesdell said softly. There was a strange look on his face.

  “The gun, Teesdell,” Dick Webb said. “Don’t have me tell you again.”

  “That thing loaded, kid?” Teesdell asked. “Really loaded? For bear?”

  “You’re about to find out the hard way,” Dick Webb gritted as Teesdell took a tentative step forward. The twin barrels came up, and Teesdell raised his hands palm out, shoulder high, a small smile still on his face.

  “Easy, kid,” he said.

  “Stand still and shuck your gun then!” Dick Webb snapped.

 
“Sure,” Teesdell said softly. He took another small step. Rawley watched, utterly still, gaze shuttling from the straw-boss to Dick Webb and back. Teesdell took another step.

  “You going to blast me down, kid?” he whispered. “Right here in front of your little sister?”

  “Don’t make me,” Dick Webb warned. But he took a half step backwards.

  “I don’t think you could do it, Dickie,” Teesdell said. His voice was almost fatherly, even if there were small beads of sweat on his forehead and upper lip. He took another step, almost within arm’s length of the end of the gun barrels now. “Not in cold blood,” he added. “Murder me, I mean.”

  “Get back now, Teesdell,” Dick Webb said, and there was just the faintest edge of a hint of unease in his young voice now. Rawley heard it and hope blossomed inside him. Teesdell heard it and grinned.

  “You better give me the gun, Dickie,” he said softly. “Afore there’s an accident.”

  “Keep back!” Dick shouted, and as he did Don Teesdell reached up and grabbed the barrels of the shotgun, forcing them aside to point at the wall, twisting the weapon around so that Dick couldn’t pull the triggers as Trev Rawley spun around; hands reaching for the girl behind him. He fell back screeching with astonished pain because in that same moment Susie Webb yanked on the trigger of the six-gun in her hand.

  The lancing flame from the barrel seared across Rawley’s ribs, dragging a shout of agony from him as the heavy bullet whacked into Don Teesdell’s back. It smashed him face forward against the adobe wall of the hallway, his fingers hooked like claws trying to keep him upright, a twisted rictus of pure agony on his face. The heavy bullet had shattered his spine and he went down the wall like a wounded cat, dead before he collapsed on the floor, before the eddying black smoke had swirled out of the confines of the hallway. Trev Rawley looked down at the body of the dead straw-boss, his expression one of shocked astonishment.

  “You ... killed him,” he said.

  “That’s right,” Susie Webb replied. Then she turned and ran into the bedroom and left Dick Webb alone there with the shotgun pointed unwaveringly at Rawley’s belly. Rawley offered no sign of resistance; he stared down at Teesdell’s body as though it could tell him something.

  “It was a setup,” he said to himself.

  Dick Webb said nothing. Rawley’s head came up and there was anger in his eyes now, anger at having been taken like a fool.

  “You set us up,” he said.

  “That’s right, Rawley,” Dick Webb told him. “You were set up.”

  “God damn you, it won’t do you any good,” the marshal cursed. “By the time I got here, your friend Angel was already dead.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it, Rawley,” Dick Webb said. “But there’s an easy way to find out. Let’s go.”

  “Go?” Rawley asked. “Where?”

  “Back to the Crossing,” Dick Webb said.

  “You’re taking me back to the Crossing?” Rawley said. He looked at Dick Webb as if the youngster had gone mad. “Ed Fischer will hang you when we get there!”

  “Don’t bet on that, either,” Dick Webb said.

  “Get my horse and we’ll soon see,” Rawley said.

  “That we will,” Dick Webb replied. “How does it feel to be the ace-in-the-hole, Rawley? Instead of holding it?”

  “I don’t get you.”

  “Then you’re dumber than I gave you credit for,” Dick Webb said shortly. “I’m going to ride you into the Crossing, Rawley. If Angel is okay, you’ll be okay too. You’ll just go into the juzgado to wait for the U. S. Marshal to get here. But if Angel has been killed, I’m going to shoot you stone dead in full view of the whole town.”

  “You’re plumb loco,” Rawley said. “You’ve lost your marbles!”

  “Maybe so, maybe not,” the younger man said. “Either way, Rawley, it’s going to be your bad luck. Feeling in good shape?”

  “Good shape? What the hell does that mean?”

  “You got a long walk ahead of you.”

  “Walk?”

  “That’s right, Rawley,” Dick Webb told him grimly. “It’s around ten miles, give or take a furlong, over to the Crossing.”

  “Walk? To the Crossing?”

  Trev Rawley’s face was a study in horrified realization of what Dick Webb was going to do to him. He was a horseman, a Westerner, a man who would climb on to his pony to cross a street rather than walk the ten yards. Walking was for farmers, cowherds, sheep men. He looked at his beautifully tooled leather boots with their high heels. In a saddle, they were the most practical footwear ever invented. On the ground they were as useful as an Iron Maiden, and after ten miles, a man’s feet would be a sorry mess.

  “You . . . you wouldn’t make a man walk that far?” Rawley said. He tried to not sound like he was begging, because his pride was too strong for that. It came out like he was begging anyway.

  “Not a man,” Dick Webb said, emphasizing the noun. “However, that’s a breed you and your kind don’t qualify for. Let’s go, Rawley!”

  The marshal stood silent for a moment, and then he began to swear. He started slowly, working himself up to a crescendo, letting loose every filthy word he had ever heard and inventing some along the way, calling Dick Webb and Frank Angel every vile thing he could put tongue to. Dick Webb stood impassively until Rawley started to run out of breath, and then he shook his head sadly, teacher with wayward child.

  “Tut, tut, Rawley,” he said wearily. “Don’t you know there are ladies about?”

  He laid the barrel of the shotgun alongside Rawley’s head, smacking the man hard enough to make him reel, but not so hard that he went down unconscious. Rawley shook his head like a dog coming out of a river, senses stunned by the sudden blow. The flow of curses was cut off like a turned tap.

  “There,” Dick Webb said soothingly. “That’s better. Susie, you about ready?” he shouted

  “Ready,” came the girl’s voice from outside.

  Dick Webb poked Rawley into movement with the barrel of the shotgun, and the marshal stumbled outside into the bright sunlight. There was a buckboard at the door, and Rawley saw that the Mexican woman Deluvina was sitting in the back, satisfaction written on her broad, beaming face. Rawley looked at the man holding the reins.

  “Parrack!” he exclaimed. “What you doing here?”

  “Doin’ what I ought to’ve done years back, Rawley,” the grizzled rancher snapped.

  “Fightin’ back against you and your treacherous kind!”

  “By God,” Rawley swore, “you’re brave enough when there’s no danger!”

  “Might say the same of you, marshal,” Par-rack said unabashed. “Leastways, you never seen me tryin’ to make war on young girls.”

  Now Susie Webb came around the side of the house leading a pony. She came around by her brother, touching his arm. He took the looped lariat from her, and then watched as she climbed up into the buckboard with Parrack. Then Dick Webb climbed aboard the cowpony and lightly tossed the loop of the lariat, the other end of which was snugly tied to the pommel of his saddle, around Trev Rawley’s neck, pulling it firmly tight.

  “All set,” he said, looking around. “Let’s go. And Rawley—don’t you make too hot a pace, y’hear? This pony can’t do much better than around twenty miles to the hour.”

  Trev Rawley opened his mouth to curse his captor, but as he did Dick Webb yanked on his end of the rope and the noose tightened mercilessly, making Rawley’s eyes bulge as his wind was cut off. He clawed at the noose with his fingers, while Dick Webb shook the rope and it loosened.

  “You watch your mouth, Rawley,” he advised. “Or you’re gonna get all choked up about things.”

  He turned his attention to his sister.

  “Susie, you get moving now. Take good care of them, Gus. You know what to do ?”

  “Bet your ass!” was Parrack’s reply. “Beg-gin’ your pardon, ma’am!”

  “Don’t worry, Dick,” Susie said. “We’ll get there.”

>   He nodded and smiled, looking down at her. The bruises and scratches on her face were still raw and angry, but there was determination in her eyes, and he knew that physically, at least, she would be fine. The rest, he imagined, nothing else could help but time.

  “Vaya con Dios,” he said softly.

  “Con Dios,” she replied, as Gus Parrack slapped the reins across the back of the team and they rattled off out of the yard, going upstream toward the ford just northeast of the ranch. From there they could cut across to the road running due south from the Arabelas towards Fort Union.

  “Well, Rawley,” he said, switching his attention to the marshal, who was watching the receding dust cloud with frowning intensity. “Vamonos!”

  “Where are they going?” Rawley asked, jerking his head towards the direction the buckboard had taken.

  “I’ll give you one guess,” Dick Webb said with a grin.

  Trev Rawley passed up the offer. South and a little westward, not more than seventy miles away, lay Fort Union. It didn’t take a genius to figure that Angel would send for help from there and that Susie Webb, the Mexican woman, and Gus Parrack would make powerful representatives. Time was running out, unless Ed’s boys had already taken care of Angel at the Crossing. If they hadn’t ... He started walking, his mind racing furiously. Dick Webb rode easy in the saddle behind him, shotgun cradled. There was no trace of pity on his face for the stumbling, dust coated figure in front of him. For all the bantering air he had put on, Dick Webb was not going to forget why Trev Rawley had come to the Flying W, nor let him off the hook for doing it. He wondered if Angel and the Doc were in good shape. There was no way to be absolutely sure, but he was confident. Angel was the kind of man who gave you confidence. He looked at Trev Rawley. The marshal was stumbling along, head down, every line of his frame rigid with determination. His mind, although there was no way Dick Webb could know it, was seething with plans for revenge, for Rawley was as confident as Dick Webb that when they reached the Crossing, Angel would be dead. He ploughed on, thinking of what he would do when he had a gun in his hand again.