He stood up. ‘I’d like to get started asking around, Colonel, before lights out- with your permission, of course.’
‘Of course, sh - sir, of course.’ Thompson lurched to his feet. They were surprised to see he was quite drunk. ‘I’ll get Lieutenant Ellis to accompany you.’
‘No need,’ Angel said. ‘I can find my way around. Sunny, you want to check on our sleeping beauty?’
‘Be a pleasure,’ Metter said, grinning.
Austin looked from Thompson to Angel to Metter to Thompson.
‘What about me?’ he asked plaintively.
‘Why don’t you keep the colonel company, Sheriff?’ Metter said. His eyes moved to the whiskey bottle on the desk. Austin’s face brightened. He looked almost happy.
‘That ain’t a half-bad idea,’ he said, licking his lips. ‘I b’lieve I will. Colonel?’
‘Do’ min’ ‘f I do,’ Thompson said. He nodded to Angel, dismissing him, and fell back into his chair. ‘Make it a big one,’ he told the sheriff.
When Angel and Metter came out into the open, they found Lieutenant Blackstone waiting for them.
‘Frank!’ he exclaimed, pumping Angel’s hand. ‘I wondered what had happened to you.’
‘More than enough,’ Angel told him, and briefly outlined the events of the past few days. Blackstone exclaimed in disgust when Angel described his ordeal in the desert.
“You think Battle knew about the set-up?’ he whistled.
‘Only one way to find out,’ Angel said. ‘I thought I’d ask him.’
‘Angel,’ Metter said, carefully. ‘You ain’t about to do nothin’ silly, are you?’
‘Who, me?’ said Angel, smiling. ‘Perish the thought. Run along, little man. Tuck your protégé into bed.’
‘I’d as soon tuck him into a nice six by four hole,’ snapped Metter. He faded off into the darkness, heading for the guardhouse, and Angel started walking towards the stables. Blackstone paced along-side, a worried frown creasing his forehead.
‘Frank,’ he said, hesitantly. ‘If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, it’s damned foolishness. I can’t be a party to it.’
‘All I want to do is ask a few questions,’ Angel told him, with an air of injured innocence. ‘No harm in that, is there?’
They were at the doorway of the stables. Inside they could hear the sounds of the men caring for their animals; buckets clattered, hoofs stamped. There was an acrid smell of horse, urine, straw. Someone was singing Lorena in a soft Irish brogue. Angel went in. Blackstone hesitated for a moment and then followed. For a moment no one noticed them, and then they heard a shout of Attennnnnnn-shun! and Sergeant Battle came hurrying forward, carrying a storm lantern which he held high to identify the visitors.
‘Sir?’ he said.
‘Mr. Angel wants to - ah - ask you some questions, Sergeant,’ Blackstone said.
‘Yes, sir,’ Battle said. There was a finely honed edge of insolence on his voice which neither man missed. ‘What would that be about, sir?’
‘That day when you escorted me off the post, Sergeant,’ Angel said.
‘Ah, yes, sir,’ Battle said. ‘That day.’
‘You made a very specific point of taking me west of the Fort,’ Angel began. ‘Why?’
‘Orders, boy,’ the sergeant said. ‘Orders.’
‘Whose orders, Sergeant?’
‘Lieutenant Ellis was the one told me, as I recall. Not that it makes that much difference.’
‘Plenty of difference, Sarge,’ Angel told him. ‘I was ambushed out there. Left to rot in the desert because some bastard had emptied my canteen and lifted all my ammunition.’
Battle frowned. ‘You’re not suggestin’—’
‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ Angel said flatly. ‘I’m telling you what happened.’
‘And you’re thinkin’ I knew about it.’
‘Did you?’
‘Damn your eyes, boy, if—’
‘If what, Sarge? Go ahead, the lieutenant won’t put you on report for speaking your mind.’
‘I was goin’ to say, beggin’ the lieutenant’s pardon, that if the circumstances was any different than they are, I’d beat your brains out for that.’
‘You still didn’t answer my question,’ Angel said. ‘Somebody wanted me dead, and tried to make sure of it. Somebody who had access to my guns and canteen. Somebody who knew there was an ambush waiting for me, knew you and your squad would deliver me to them, ready for chopping down. If it wasn’t you, who was it, Battle?’
‘Listen, boy,’ the soldier said levelly. ‘I told you once before I admired the way you stepped in when the lieutenant here was havin’ a hard time with them two killers. I told you I had no grudge against you personally. Orders, boy. I was takin’ orders. But I wouldn’t take no order to set a man adrift in the desert without water nor ammunition, and I’ll smash in the face of any man who says I would.’
‘I never had any doubt of it,’ Angel said, softly. ‘But I had to ask. No hard feelings, Sarge.’ He held out his hand. The soldier spat on the ground.
‘Sure, there’s hard feelin’s, boy,’ he said. ‘Damned hard feelin’s. You just told me somebody on this post set you up to be murdered. I don’t want to believe that. But I’ll take your word for it. And I’ll be doin’ my damnedest to find out who it was. When I do, I’ll be comin’ lookin’ for you, boy. If you’re shootin’ your mouth off you’ll have some crow to eat, or lose some teeth - I don’t much mind which. Now get the hell out of my stables - I got work to do.’ He looked at Blackstone defiantly ‘With the lieutenant’s permission, of course.’
‘Carry on, Sergeant,’ Blackstone said. His face was red, and the broad smiles on the faces of the other enlisted men who had heard the exchange didn’t make his retreat any easier. He followed Angel out on to the parade ground.
‘You haven’t exactly made Battle your dearest friend, Frank,’ he remarked mildly.
‘I know it,’ Angel said, and Blackstone could see a faint grin on his companion’s face. ‘But if I read him right, the Sergeant won’t sleep easy until he remembers who might have set me up. And when he remembers, all hell is going to break loose on this post.’
“You—’ began Blackstone, but he had no chance to finish whatever it had been he was going to say. A commotion across the parade ground claimed their attention and they saw men running towards a man on horseback who was yelling at the top of his voice. They ran across the square and when they got closer they saw a soldier running towards Thompson’s quarters. The rider had slumped to the ground, and someone was giving him a drink from a water canteen.
‘Fetch the doc!’ yelled someone in the dark. ‘On the double!’
Blackstone pushed through the knot of men surrounding the rider. The enlisted men fell back to make room for him and Angel.
‘What’s going on here?’ snapped Blackstone.
‘Dunno, sir,’ said the soldier supporting the man on the ground. ‘This feller rode right past the guard yellin’ bloody murder, an’ then keeled over. Look at his horse.’
The animal the man had ridden was lying a few yards away. Its sides were lathered with sweat, its flanks heaving; the horse was tossing its head wildly and neighing hoarsely, a grating sound of pain.
‘Somebody shoot that horse!’ shouted Blackstone. ‘He’s all but killed it anyway.’ He knelt by the man’s side as a shot rang out and the agonized wheezing of the dying animal stopped abruptly.
‘Who are you, man?’ he said, urgently.
‘Hell . . .’ the man mumbled. ‘All hell. ..’
‘One side there!’ The men fell back to allow the post doctor through, and he took one look at the man on the ground and snapped, ‘Hospital: fast as you can!’ Willing hands lifted the man off the ground and hurried him over to the post hospital, where in the flaring light of a storm lantern, the doctor stripped the man’s shirt away from his body. There were three bullet wounds in his chest; blood was flecking the man’s lips. The doctor sh
ook his head and straightened up. Angel pushed forward and went close to the man lying on the cot.
‘You’re safe,’ he whispered urgently. ‘You made it to the Fort.’
‘Thank God!’ The man coughed, bubbles of blood flecking his white chest. ‘I - didn’t think—’
‘Save your breath,’ Angel told him. ‘Where are you from?’
‘Circle C,’ the man said. Agony twisted his features.
‘Clare’s ranch?’ Angel said. ‘What happened?’
‘Hell,’ the man said again. ‘All hell. Broke loose ... in high country. Raiders. They killed ... killed. . . .’
‘Raiders attacked the Circle C?’ Angel said. ‘Go on. Go on.’
‘Cut us ... pieces. And .. . Perry place. We . . . ran. Shot... all down . .. like dawgs....’
The eyes rolled upwards and the man made a terrifying effort to come back from the edge of the precipice. His face was contorted.
‘Get... help ...’ the rider said, his words fading away to a weak whisper.
‘Get... help. All hell’s broke loose ... in the high country.’
And then he was dead.
Chapter Sixteen
Angel and Metter left the Fort long before the sun came up. Behind them they left the pandemonium of blaring bugles and shouted orders, the men being roused, horses saddled, preparing for the forced march across country to the ranches in the high chaparral. Traveling at their fastest, the cavalry would take two hours longer to reach the Circle C than two men riding alone, and that much more again to prepare for the patrol. To wait for them, Angel had stated categorically, would be to let the trail of the raiders grow cold and Thompson was not the caliber of man who could have persuaded Angel in such a mood to change his mind. Now the two men thundered through the pre-dawn twilight towards the Ruidoso, their faces grimly set against the thought of what they would find.
It was well after sunup when they reached the Circle C, but they saw the smoke rising faintly long before them. The ranch and its outbuildings had been burned to the ground, the stock turned loose. Already the buzzards were at their grisly work. It was a sight out of the pits of hell. The black birds rose in a squawking cloud as they rode down into the open yard, where the bodies were scattered like broken dolls. They counted twelve dead; riddled with bullets, torn apart by close-range shotgun blasts. The awful sweet stench of blood hung in the air and clouds of fat black flies hummed in the sunlight.
It was not difficult to reconstruct what must have happened. The raiders had fallen upon the ranch without warning, and the Circle C men had died without a chance to fight. They had been cut down working in the corrals, in the outbuildings. The cook and his helper lay dead outside the charred ruin of the bunkhouse, obviously shot as they came running out of the blazing building. Nothing moved. There was a heartbreaking silence hovering over the place, and the crumpled bodies seemed unreal in the morning sunlight. Mass death is a strange thing: the unmoving bodies seem as though they have been posed, and will come to life if you watch long enough. Metter sat still in the saddle.
‘Nothing we can do here,’ Angel said. ‘Let’s get going.’
‘God in Heaven,’ Metter said. ‘What kind of butchers done this?’
‘There’s only one kind,’ Angel said. ‘Come on. Let’s see how much of an Indian you really are.’
‘I can read sign,’ Metter said.
There was no need of his tracking abilities. The trail of the departing raiders was easy to follow, for they had made no attempt to conceal it. It led, as Angel had known it would lead, up the rolling hill to the divide between the Ruidoso and the Feliz, almost due west, pointing straight towards the Perry ranch. They pushed on through the hills and when they crested the ridge, they could see the smoke down in the valley. As they got closer, they could see the house. It was still burning, flames licking dying tongues at what was left of the woodwork. The adobe walls were blackened with smoke. Metter ducked his head, cursing in a low monotone as they moved on down the slope and across the level land to the ranch. The Perry place had been caught as unprepared as the Circle C. The sheer savagery of the attack must have been terrible: they saw the body of one rider hanging face down over the low adobe wall around the yard before the ranch. The top of his head had been blown off at close range. Three men had forted themselves up behind a pile of timber at the back of the ranch building. Their bodies lay in a tangled heap, thick with blood. There were flies everywhere, and overhead the buzzards they had disturbed wheeled and swooped, waiting, waiting. Neither man spoke. They dismounted, and as if by prearrangement quartered around the charnel-place that was the remains of the Perry ranch. Both of them knew without speaking what they were looking for; they covered all the ground for fifty yards around what was left of the place before giving up their search.
‘She’s not here,’ Angel said.
‘Any chance of her being in Daranga?’ Metter said, without real hope.
Angel shook his head. ‘She’d have been here.’
‘Then—’
‘They took her.’
‘Who?’ Metter said. ‘Who in the name of God would do this?’
‘Plenty,’ Angel said, ‘if the money was good enough.’
As they stood there, a buzzard flopped down and waddled across the yard towards one of the sprawled bodies. Metter drew his six-gun, cursing, but Angel laid a restraining hand on his arm.
‘Wouldn’t do any good,’ he said. ‘And they might still be within earshot.’
‘They’re long gone,’ Metter said, savagely, ‘and it’ll do me good.’
He fired at the bird, and feathers burst from its body, fluttering up and then slowly down as the buzzard screeched once and flopped over.
‘We got some riding to do,’ Angel said. ‘Let’s go.’
‘What about buryin’ these men?’ Metter asked.
‘The Army can do it,’ Angel said. ‘We got business with the living.’
He swung aboard the dun, and Metter put his hand on the pommel of the saddle, looking at his companion.
‘You’re a cold-blooded bastard, Angel,’ he said, ‘you know that?’
When he got no answer, he went on, ‘Don’t seein’ this do nothin’ to you?’
Angel turned. Metter gave a start of surprise, for there were tears in Angel’s eyes. Or was it a trick of the light? He blinked and Angel was looking at the scattered bodies with an empty gaze.
‘Sure,’ Angel said. ‘It does something to me. I was fourteen when Sherman marched through Georgia.’ His voice was harsh and there was a savage glare building behind the grey eyes. ‘They killed my father when he tried to stop them going into our house. Then they broke down the doors. I hid in a tree while they went in and raped my mother. She screamed when they got to her and she went on screaming for a long time and then she stopped. I sneaked in the back way and got a gun and killed a soldier who was standing at the top of the stairs fastening his pants. Then I killed the one that was on top of her. He didn’t even know she was dead, didn’t care. They came and got me and one of them worked me over with his fists. Then they made me watch while they killed everything that moved on the place: cows, horses, chickens, geese. Then they rubbed my face in the blood of the man I killed and rode off and left me there. Sure, Sunny. This sort of thing is meat and drink to me.’
Angel wheeled the dun around savagely and jabbed his spurs into the startled animal’s ribs. The horse screamed and leaped into a gallop, rocketing up the rise away from the house. Metter leaped into the saddle and set off after Angel, spurring his horse to try and catch up.
‘Frank!’ he yelled, ‘Frank!’
He caught up as they reached the top of the rise that sloped down to the northeast and away towards the malpais. The swath of hoof prints was wide and clear in the sandy soil. Angel tracked along them, hipshot in the saddle, no expression on his face.
‘Looks like they’re heading for New Mexico,’ he said as they moved along. Metter nodded. He did not speak for a long time, but
concentrated upon keeping his pace matched to Angel’s, knowing they were punishing the horses needlessly, knowing the animals could not keep it up. But when the dun started to flag Angel whipped it with the reins, then later used the spurs cruelly, flogging the animal through the rock-strewn wasteland. Whatever was going through his mind, whatever dark thoughts pursued each other behind the burning eyes, he did not speak of them. It was noon before he pulled the dun to a halt beneath a stand of paloverde and dismounted. He slackened the girth, letting the reins trail. Water from the canteen gurgled into his hat: the dun drank greedily. Metter followed suit, and they turned the animals loose to forage. Range trained, they would not stray while ground-hitched.
Angel slumped beneath the paloverde, using the thin shade for respite from the blinding heat of the sun. ‘We’ll rest for an hour,’ he said. ‘No more.’
Metter nodded, trying to find a way to speak. Finally he gave up. There was no way to say he was sorry. He looked covertly at his companion. Angel’s clothes were already filmed with desert gypsum, and his eyes were empty and fathomless. Metter thought he had never seen a man more surely ready to kill, and felt a cold finger of dread across his spine. Up to now, Frank Angel had seemed to be a competent, civilized, easygoing man who happened to have turned out to be a lawman. Now Metter saw him with the restraints of civilization torn off, the thin veneer gone, and the cruelly efficient killing machinery exposed. He wondered what Angel’s life had been since that last year of the War between the States, what the man had done that had led him to undercover work for the Justice Department. Since by definition they had the pick of the very best the country had to offer, Frank Angel must be among a rare group of men. Yet there were laughter-wrinkles at the sides of the eyes, good humor in the normal set of the mouth. Angel didn’t look like a killer. Maybe that was why he was what he was, Metter thought, but he let none of it show on his face.
After almost exactly an hour Angel got to his feet.
‘Let’s move,’ he said, without ceremony. He went over to the dun, cinched up, and mounted. Metter followed suit, and they moved out across the featureless land.
Send Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #2) Page 10
