Shoot Angel!

by Frederick H. Christian

  ‘Goddamn!’ Sherman exploded. He half-rose from his seat. Sickness rose in his throat and he fell back, groaning from the pain in his shoulder. He was silent for a time. Then he said: ‘You can’t do this, Angel! It’ll get us both killed!’

  ‘What do you expect me to do? Throw him his money—if I could get it out of the damn safe! Get something straight, Sherman. I’m involved in this mess now, so I play it by my rules. I could go through the routine of telling you how I’m empowered legally to take over the law in this town. But I don’t have the time. One thing I can tell you—as from now you just resigned as Liberty’s sheriff. You’re in custody. So is the money in that safe. And I don’t hand over anything in my charge. Before I found my way in here I managed to get a telegraph message to my people in Washington. They know all about the mess this town’s in and they’re sending help.’

  ‘What the hell do you expect Cranford to do? Stand and wait? Jesus, Angel, he’ll shoot us full of holes before he rides off with his money!’

  Angel smiled. ‘First he has to get to it.’

  ‘You don’t know Amos Cranford like I do. He’s a crafty son of a bitch. I tell you, Angel, he’ll find a way in to us!’

  ‘Let me worry about that,’ Angel said, and returned to the window.

  He spotted Cranford first. The man was standing in a pool of yellow lamplight, in the act of stepping up on to the boardwalk outside the jail.

  Angel raised the catch on the window and silently pushed it open.

  ‘I was you, Cranford, I wouldn’t come any higher!’

  Cranford stopped, head jerking to one side, eyes narrowed as he stared in the direction of the voice.

  ‘Phil, that you?’

  ‘It’s me, Cranford, Frank Angel. You want something?’

  Silence. Angel could almost put himself in Cranford’s place. His mind ticking over, evaluating the new set of circumstances. Figuring a way so that things came out in his favor.

  ‘Son of a bitch!’ Cranford said with great relish. ‘All right, Mister Justice Department Angel, what do you want?’

  ‘I’d be satisfied with you and your hired guns in these empty cells.’

  ‘Go to hell, Angel!’ A harsh voice hurled out of the shadows behind Cranford. It was easily recognizable. Trench—the boss of the prison.

  ‘Trench, shut up!’ Cranford snapped. To Angel he said: ‘Angel, you know what’s in that safe? It’s mine and I’m not leaving Liberty without it.’

  ‘Appears to me you’ve got yourself a problem then—Judge!’

  ‘No, boy, the problem’s yours. You’re alone, in my town, and you don’t stand a chance!’

  ‘I’ll take it the way it comes,’ Angel said. ‘Cranford, you know damn well I’ve been in touch with my people in Washington. I’m not going to be alone for long!’

  Cranford laughed at that. ‘Pure horseshit, Angel, and I’m not fool enough to panic over it. We’re a long way from anywhere. It’s going to be days before they can get help to you. How’re you figuring on staying alive that long?’

  ‘Don’t know any better, Judge. Nobody ever taught me about quitting!’

  A low moan came from Phil Sherman. He struggled clumsily to his feet, knocking over his chair. ‘Christ, Angel, I never figured on anything like this! He’s got us boxed in good and tight! You can’t hold out against that bunch!’

  ‘We’ll find out one way or another,’ Angel remarked.

  ‘Angel!’ Cranford yelled. ‘You got Phil Sherman in there with you? Is that bastard still alive?’

  ‘He’s alive,’ Angel confirmed. ‘You’re one hell of a lousy shot, Cranford. But I’m grateful. See, Sherman’s so mad at you he’s making a full confession. Putting it all down on paper. Every detail of every dirty trick you pulled. It’ll make good evidence for your trial!’

  ‘Trial? What damn trial, Angel? Not mine. I’ll see you in hell first!’

  ‘Damn you, Angel, we’ll never get out of here alive,’ Sherman groaned. ‘What did you want to go and mention a trial for?’

  ‘Because that’s what Cranford’s heading for,’ Angel said.

  ‘No chance,’ Sherman replied. His face paled abruptly. ‘You’ve got to get me out of this, Angel. It’s your job to see I don’t get killed!’

  Sherman spotted the cold expression that drifted across Angel’s face too late. He tried to step back, but Angel’s right hand, palm open, caught him across the side of the face. The sound of the blow was loud in the office. Sherman stumbled back, biting back any words ready to spring from his lips. He realized how close he’d come to getting himself killed by the very man who might save him.

  ‘I was you, Sherman, I’d be careful what I said,’

  Angel warned. ‘Seems to me you could have been thinking along those lines when you let Harry Culp die.’

  ‘That was Cranford and Trench,’ Sherman protested. ‘Weren’t a thing I could have done to have stopped that! It’s easy for you to say how things should have been, Angel. You weren’t mixed up with Cranford! I was!’

  ‘Sure, it just happened. You bastards are all the same. The minute you get caught you start bleating about not being responsible. It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know what was going on. Well, hard shit, Sherman, you won’t get any sympathy from me. Don’t forget I happened to go through your little set-up and I didn’t see anybody forcing you to play your part. And you damn well seemed to know what was going on. How do you explain that?’

  Sherman remained silent. He had no way out of that. Angel had him cold and Sherman knew it.

  ‘Sherman, you know the situation we’re in. I’ll do what I can to keep us both alive. But I want help from you on one thing. I told Cranford you were putting everything down on paper. That’s just what I do want you to do. Just in case something happens I want a record of Cranford’s activities. You can put down how you were involved too, and when you’ve finished, sign and date it.’

  ‘You really mean it,’ Sherman scowled. ‘All right, Angel, what if I cooperate—tell me how much it’s worth! If I’m going to give you the evidence you need to get Cranford, what’s in it for me?’

  Angel smiled. ‘Lucky for you, Sherman, that will be up to somebody else. If I had my say you’d be a dead man right now! So find yourself a pen and some paper and get to work. There might not be much time. I have a feeling Cranford’s going to start getting impatient pretty soon.’

  In fact Amos Cranford’s patience ran out after exactly thirty minutes.

  Chapter Twelve

  Cranford’s men hit the jail front and rear. The interior of the building echoed to the blast of gunfire. The front window exploded inwards, glass and shredded wood showering the office. Bullets whined across the room, expending themselves in the thick adobe-and-stone walls. While the gunfire carried on, other men made attempts to break down the front and rear doors. They retreated after a couple of minutes. Shortly after that the gunfire ceased and it became ominously quiet.

  Raising his head from below the edge of his desk Sherman glanced across the office to where Angel stood.

  ‘Ain’t you going to do anything?’ Sherman demanded.

  Angel glanced at him.

  ‘Time’ll come,’ he said. ‘Right now they’ve found out it ain’t going to be easy getting in here. It didn’t do us any harm but they used a lot of ammunition and energy. Next time they’ll try something else.’

  He crossed to the window and peered out through the bars. At first glance the street appeared empty. Over on the far side, though, Angel was able to make out the dark shapes of waiting men. They were huddled together in a tight bunch. Trying to decide on their next move. Angel settled himself against the wall beside the window and waited.

  ‘Angel!’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Why don’t we get the hell out of here before they come again?’

  Angel glanced over his shoulder at Sherman. Liberty’s lawman was hunched over his desk, staring down at the paper he was writing on.

  ‘How do
you plan for us to do that, Sherman? You can bet your last dollar Cranford’s got front and back covered. Maybe you’re planning for us to fly out!’

  Sherman’s head rose with a jerk. He stared vacantly at Angel, as if he had just roused himself from a deep sleep.

  ‘Guess I ain’t thinking too straight,’ he said, unable to conceal the nervous tremor in his voice.

  ‘Just let it lie,’ Angel told him. ‘We’ll take our chance when it comes!’

  He turned back to the window in time to see the knot of men break apart. He noticed, too, that there were many lamplight reflections beginning to show along the street. The citizens of Liberty were having their evening calm disrupted, yet nobody seemed interested enough to venture out on to the street to investigate.

  ‘Angel! Angel, you hear me?’

  Amos Cranford’s voice floated out of the shadows.

  ‘I hear you.’

  ‘Angel, don’t be a fool! You can’t win, man! See reason, Angel, give up. Let me have what I want and you and Sherman can walk away unharmed!’

  Sherman himself gave a hollow laugh. He stood up and came to stand beside Angel at the window.

  ‘Think about it, Angel,’ Cranford advised. ‘Wouldn’t you rather stay alive?’

  ‘Sure we would, Amos,’ Sherman yelled. ‘That’s why we ain’t about to listen to any of your deals!’

  Cranford swore volubly.

  ‘You want it the hard way, so that’s how it’s going to be!’ There was unconcealed rage in Cranford’s tone now. ‘You’re both fools and in a while you’ll be dead fools!’

  Sherman uttered a low sigh.

  ‘Much as I hate to admit it, Angel, I got to agree with him. We’re as good as dead right now. Christ, man, he’s got us and he knows it!’

  ‘You see it any way you want to, Sherman,’ Angel said. ‘I ain’t dead yet—’cause if I am I’m the liveliest corpse you’re ever going to see!’

  Cranford retraced his steps to the far side of the street and for a time nothing appeared to be happening.

  Maintaining his position at the window Angel kept his eyes on the tight group of men. He knew damn well that they were up to something, and he would have given a month’s pay to know what it was.

  Without warning a horse and rider came out of an alley on Cranford’s side of the street. At first Angel couldn’t understand the reasoning behind the move. The rider was half-way across the street before Angel realized what was happening. His keen eyes picked out the red tracery of sparks falling away behind the rider. The sparks came from a dark bundle in the rider’s hand. Angel’s mind whirled frantically, and then it hit him.

  Explosives!

  The bastards were going to blow the goddamn jail apart to get at him!

  Angel jerked his rifle up, aiming and firing in a single motion. The blast of the Winchester was loud in the comparative silence. The rider went back out of his saddle like he’d been hit with a forty-foot plank. But his right arm had already reached the apex of its swing as he arched violently off the horse. Angel watched the dark bundle leave the rider’s hand. Saw the glowing red tail. He watched for a second, held by the awful directness of the bundle’s trajectory, and knew that he had to get away from the front of the jail.

  And fast!

  He pushed himself away from the window, throwing out a hand to shove Sherman aside. His palm touched Sherman’s chest. Angel shoved hard, feeling a warning yell rising in his throat. Yet he knew, coldly, logically, that it was too late.

  Far too late.

  The front wall of the jail vanished in a blinding flare of flame. Thick coils of smoke and dust gushed into the office. The ear-splitting roar of the explosion mingled with the crash of falling masonry and splintering timber.

  Angel, halfway across the office, was lifted off his feet as though he was weightless. The explosion threw him across the room, slamming him brutally up against the far wall. A fragmentary burst of pain preceded a total blackout. Angel felt nothing as a mass of stone and timber piled up over his inert body.

  He heard nothing. Saw nothing. Felt nothing.

  He lay like the dead—and because of that he stayed alive.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Angel woke up with a sullen headache, countless cuts and bruises, but no serious injuries. Liberty’s former lawman, Phil Sherman, however had not been so lucky. He had died as a result of the explosion, so Liberty’s doctor informed Angel. He imparted this information while he was treating Angel in a small, neat bedroom which turned out to be situated over Jessica Blake’s restaurant. The doctor was a gruff, dark-haired man in his late forties. He had an abrasive manner, a brown, seamed face, and hands as gentle as a woman’s. He wore a pair of steel-rimmed spectacles that clung by some miracle to the extreme tip of his nose, and he peered over the rims at his patient as he tended to the various wounds covering Angel’s torso.

  ‘You people just have no consideration,’ the doctor grumbled. ‘Never a thought, day or night, when you set out on these damn shooting-matches!’ He paused in his ministrations to stare accusingly at Angel. ‘You listening to me, boy?’

  Angel smiled painfully. ‘I’m all ears, Doc.’

  ‘And you can cut out the facetious remarks, too, young feller. Ain’t it enough I get dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to tend your damn-fool hurts? Insults I don’t need. Department of Justice, eh? Seems to me they must be in a bad way if they have to take you so young.’

  ‘Sign of the times, Doc,’ Angel said. ‘It’s a young man’s world!’

  The doctor gave a bandage an unnecessarily hard turn over Angel’s ribs. Angel winced. The doctor ignored his patient’s discomfort and carried on.

  ‘I suppose it’s a waste of time telling you to rest?’

  Angel nodded, ‘Sorry, Doc. Soon as I can stand up without falling on my face I’ve got to move out.’

  ‘What happens to Cranford when you catch him?’

  ‘Not up to me to decide.’ Angel sat up at the doctor’s request. ‘All I have to do is find him and bring him back.’

  ‘They ought to hang the son of a bitch!’ the doctor said with surprising venom.

  ‘That’s likely.’

  The doctor finished his handiwork.

  ‘If you have to go riding all over the territory, boy, just remember what happened to you a short time ago. The body needs time to recover. I doubt yours will get that but try and remember all the same.’

  ‘Thanks, Doc, I’ll try and take it easy,’ Angel promised.

  The doctor put away his tackle and closed his bag. At the door he paused, turned, staring over his spectacles at Angel.

  ‘One thing, boy, who the hell pays my bill?’

  Angel stood up, carefully flexing muscles and limbs. With a little care, he realized, he might be able to move small distances over long periods of time.

  ‘Send it to the Department of Justice in Washington,’ he suggested to the medical man.

  ‘Don’t think I won’t!’ The doctor closed the door firmly behind him when he left.

  Angel spent a few minutes walking round and round the confines of the room. He felt a little unsteady at first but after a couple of circuits he had regained control of his wandering balance. He was still working flexibility into his stiff joints when somebody tapped on the door.

  ‘Come on in.’

  The door opened to reveal Jess Blake. She had a cup of black coffee in one hand and a man’s shirt draped over her arm. She smiled at Angel and passed him the shirt.

  ‘Best I could do at this time of night,’ she said.

  Angel pulled the shirt on and found that it fitted him perfectly. He took the coffee Jess offered.

  ‘How do you feel now?’ she enquired.

  ‘Let’s say I’ve had better days.’

  ‘We thought you were dead. There was so much confusion at the jail after Cranford and his men left. Everybody was crowding round, shouting orders to each other. We found Phil Sherman first—or what was left of him. It was Bird
y who found you. He practically dug you out with his bare hands.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Angel asked.

  ‘After we’d got you up here and the doctor said you weren’t badly hurt, Birdy took his horse and told me to tell you he was going to follow Cranford. Keep the trail in sight he said.’

  ‘Damn!’ Angel swore. He quickly downed the remainder of his coffee. ‘Jess, I’ve got to move fast. The last thing Birdy should be doing is trailing Cranford and his bunch. He’s no tracker and he certainly isn’t a gunman!’

  ‘I said the same but he seemed to want to do it,’ Jess said. ‘I hope he’ll be all right.’

  Angel’s thoughts ran along the same lines. He just hoped that Birdy had the good sense to keep his activities restricted to no more than simply tracking Cranford and his bunch. If he was spotted Birdy wouldn’t stand a chance against Cranford’s hired guns.

  While Jess made up a sack of food Angel went across to the wrecked jail. Only now, by the light of a couple of lanterns which had been rigged up, was he able to see the extent of the damage. The explosive charge had knocked down most of the front wall and part of the roof. Ignoring the curious stares of the men in and around the jail Angel clambered over the rubble until he could get to Sherman’s desk. He dragged open the drawers one by one. In the last drawer he found what he was looking for. His own gun belt and Colt. Angel checked the gun and then strapped on the belt. He noticed that the rifles were still in the wall rack. For the second time that night he chose a weapon. There were still plenty of cartridges for the rifle in the desk. Angel loaded the rifle and shoved a handful of spare cartridges in his pocket.

  Angel left the jail and walked down the street to the livery stable which, Jess had explained, looked after the horses of Liberty’s law-force. Also, she told him, the stable housed any livestock belonging to prisoners. The livery owner grumbled long and loud when Angel knocked him up and told him he wanted his horse. The man began to assume a belligerent pose until Angel shoved his badge under the man’s nose. The protests stopped as if the man had suddenly suffered a cut throat. He dragged on a pair of pants and led Angel to the stable. Inside, Angel quickly located his horse and gear. He saddled up and led the horse outside, mounted up, and rode through town to Jess Blake’s restaurant. She came outside with the food she had put in a sack.