‘Nice animal,’ he said, as he swung into the saddle. ‘Thanks.’
‘No thanks necessary,’ Compton said. ‘In fact, I oughta thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘Not killin’ Andy Wheatcroft.’
Angel neck-reined the bay around, pointing him up the street. Even though it was already dark, he wanted to get as far away from Canon City as he could. It was the kind of place whose smell stuck to your clothes.
‘It wasn’t because he didn’t need killing,’ he said, and put the horse into a trot. He didn’t look back. There wasn’t a damned thing to look back for.
Chapter Nine
Chris Falco was in a bind.
The whole plan had been hung on their killing Angel in Canon City. The place was way off the beaten track, the marshal inadequate at best, and they had bought themselves an ‘in’ with the deputy as easy as falling down. By the time Angel’s death had been reported or discovered, they would have been long gone. It was for this that Willowfield had so obligingly offered himself as bait—to bring any pursuer out into the open where he could be dealt with. Then Falco and the rest would double back through the mountains to Denver, ambush the escort taking the fat man back east, and release him so they could go dig up the money. There was one additional facet to the plan, added by Falco, that Willowfield didn’t know about yet: Falco intended to kill him.
Now, however, he was in a bind: and he was going to have to improvise. Angel had to be taken care of, somehow, and not just to secure their back trail. The man’s reactions had been incredible, unexpected. He had not only wasted Davy Livermoor, but one of his bullets had torn a wicked hole through the thigh of Hank Kuden. Falco looked over his shoulder. Kuden wasn’t riding ramrod-straight like he usually did. His lips were clamped together in a bloodless line against the pain he must be feeling. Falco knew that with the hard mountain riding ahead of them, Kuden was going to come off his horse sooner or later. And when it happened, the German would never get back on again.
‘Hold up,’ he called. ‘Hank, come up here!’
The others reined in their horses. They were already high up on the flanks of Mount Antero, and the chill was insidious, despite their bundled clothing. Their breath steamed in the night air as they bunched around their leader and watched as Kuden walked his horse up alongside Falco’s. They saw the effort he made to look good, pulling his back straight, lifting his chin.
‘How is it?’ Falco asked, straight out.
‘All right,’ Kuden said. ‘Not good. But I can manage.’ He said it ‘manitch.’
‘Hank, you’re lying.’
‘Yes. I am lying,’ Kuden flared. ‘You vant truth? I tell it you. Is terrible. It stinks. It hurt like hell. Does dot make you feel bedder?’
‘In a way,’ Falco said, softly. ‘In a way.’
Kuden just looked at him; he had the expression of a soldier who knows he’s going to get an order he cannot obey.
‘I want you to lay back,’ Falco said. ‘Try and take Angel out. Then go back to Canon City, get the doc to look at your leg.’
‘No,’ Kuden said. ‘I go forward.’
‘Listen,’ Falco said urgently. ‘You’re bogging us down, Hank. The speed we’re moving, that Fed will be up with us tomorrow. You keep riding, we’re going to be even worse off.’
‘Why we not all wait for this man, and kill him?’
‘Hank,’ Falco said, with one of those ‘surely you know better’ looks. ‘We got a deadline, remember? We’ve got to get to Fort Morgan before the colonel. And we’re already behind schedule.’
‘Ach, yes,’ Kuden said. ‘I forget that.’
‘You’ll do it?’
‘If I do it, how I get my share of the money?’ Kuden asked.
‘Shit, that’s easy, Hank,’ Falco said, putting a false warmth into his voice. ‘Rent a buggy in Canon City, drive over to Colorado Springs. Take the train up to Cheyenne. Be there on the fifteenth, an’ I’ll meet you. Bring you your share. How’s that?’
‘Good,’ Kuden nodded. ‘Logical. You will do this?’
‘Hank!’ Falco said, injecting an injured tone into his voice. ‘You know you can rely on me. Don’t you?’
‘Ja,’ Kuden said, slowly. ‘I guess so. I guess I can.’
‘All right, then,’ Falco said. ‘You’ll do it?’
Kuden looked at them all. The lack of interest on their faces was total. They didn’t give a damn whether he lived or died. If he took Angel, then that would be fine, a benefit. If not, es spielt keine Rolle, one less to share the money with. He cursed his own bad luck, the chance shot that had crippled him. He had a good reason to kill Frank Angel, anyway. He might as well do it. If he tried to keep up with them, he’d probably pass out soon. And then they’d either kill him themselves, or leave him to freeze or starve to death in the mountains. At least this way, he could come out of it alive. And get to Cheyenne to meet Falco. Yes, he told himself. It was as good a way as any.
‘I do it,’ he said.
‘Fine,’ Falco said, enthusiastically. ‘You got plenty of ammo?’
Kuden tapped the ammunition pouch on the cantle of the saddle.
‘Hank,’ Gil Curtis said. ‘You’re in no shape to get close in. Use the rifle.’
‘Good, good idea,’ Kuden nodded. ‘I do it.’
‘OK, then,’ Falco said, pulling his horse around. ‘Let’s move out. We got a long way to go. Hank—we’ll see you in Cheyenne!’ In a pig’s eye, he added, mentally.
Kuden raised his hand in farewell salute as Falco kicked his horse into a canter to catch up with the others, who were already moving fast up the trail. Don’t you worry, Falco, I’ll be there. If I got to crawl every inch of the way. And if you double-cross me I’ll stay on your back trail for as long as it takes to find you and cut your throat, Kuden thought. He cocked back his head and looked at the sky. Off over the black hulk of the mountains he thought he could detect a faint thinning of the blackness. He checked his pocket watch. Four o’clock. He had a couple of hours to get ready before it was light. He started looking for a good place from which to kill Angel.
~*~
By dawn, Angel was saddled up and on the move.
He had camped overnight in the lee of a huge rock overhang crowned with small, closely set pine and thin silver birch. Beneath the overhang, the blown fall leaves were still dry and he made a comfortable mattress out of them. He picketed the horse where it could be seen and built a fire. The night chill was biting, and he knew that the dampness he could feel in the air would soon be translated into snow on the high peaks. Soon, it would be snowing even at this height, and when it snowed up here, it snowed in earnest: five feet overnight was normal. Ten, fifteen, twenty feet wasn’t remarkable. He didn’t want to be caught in the open, hostile wilderness if the weather broke. So far October had been mild, its winds soft even this high. He knew he’d have to buy some heavier clothing when he got to Buena Vista. He figured it was about ten miles north.
Off to his left now was a sheer-sided canyon, its north side the lower reaches of Mount Princeton, its southern Mount Antero. The mountains soared away up above the white chalk cliffs that bordered a creek that chattered beneath the deeply shadowed cliffs on its way to merge with the Arkansas, close to whose banks he was riding now. The trail was wide, and led through stands of aspen and pine that broke up in grassy clearings that sloped down to the purling river. Off to his right, the foothills of the mountains of South Park began, and the towering peaks made his progress seem painfully slow.
A flicker of movement caught his eye up on the crags. He saw it was an eagle, which spread its wings and soared into the cloudless sky. It flew in a long straight line from his right, coming lower as it crossed his path toward the canyon on the left. Then, as he watched, it made a sharp, veering turn away, the movement of the wide, strong wings accelerating in steady beats. Angel watched it go, the frown of concentration deepening between his brows. Easing back against the can tie of the saddle, he br
aced his legs against the stirrups and let his eyes move carefully across the barren rocks frowning down upon the trail. Nothing moved. He looked for nothing, letting his own fine eyesight do the work. He knew that anything that moved would catch his eyes as long as they weren’t focused on anything in particular. He saw nothing, and knew he was going to have to rely on the horse. He got himself ready to move and gigged the horse forward, poised but not tense. When the horse pricked up his ears, he went over the far side, hearing the angry zzzzizzz of the slug a fraction of a second before the hard flat clap of a Winchester echoed off the faceless rocks. Up to the left, he thought as he rolled in the dew-wet grass. The horse had shied at his sudden movement and the sound of the shot, but he had thrown the reins forward, and the animal came to a stop, the reins trailing, settling to placidly crop the thin grass. Angel lay where he had fallen, face down, legs akimbo, doing his best to look dead. He knew it would be a long wait now, the killer would take no chances, might not even come down to make sure. He had heard no sound of a horse moving away, but that didn’t mean one hadn’t. He had to stay down and wait. There was no way he could get to a man with a rifle hidden behind rocks. He had to try to make the man come to him and he withdrew into himself, the way that the Korean, Kee Lai, had taught him during the training sessions in the echoing gymnasium that the Justice Department shared: ‘The mind and the body are one. Both produce life-energies. Both can be controlled as one. Control the mind first. Then control the body. And at last you will control both as one. Only then can you summon all of yourself, all of your strength and mind and energy, into one place, one instant, and use it as one. You can be, you will be, more than other men if you can learn this. Learn, learn, learn … ’
In his mind’s eye, he could see his own sprawled body and the geography of the place in which he had fallen as clearly as if he were the eagle whose avoiding action had saved his life. He lay on sloping grass-covered ground that fell away from the side of the trail toward the swirling river. There were trees perhaps twenty feet away from his head, more eighty or ninety feet downstream. He lay with his leg slightly bent, right knee higher. Left hand palm down near his head, arm bent; right arm almost straight, palm up, not far from the right knee. He disciplined his breathing so that it became shallow, shallower, almost imperceptible. And then he waited. He attempted no assessment of time, concentrating upon absolutely nothing, every sense acutely tuned. He heard the birds moving overhead, or singing in the darkness of the woods. He heard the softness of the river moving over sliding pebbles, the soughing of the faint breeze that shifted the branches of the trees, the slow inevitable turning of the earth.
A twig snapped.
It wasn’t the horse; the horse was downstream of him, contentedly cropping at the grass. So it had to be the hunter who was his prey. He concentrated upon keeping death-still. If the ambusher saw even the movement of Angel’s breathing, he might come no closer, but render the coup de grace from six feet away. He tracked the man’s movements, following his approach from the slight sounds. He could see the dark figure clearly through the windows of his mind, moving down the long slope away from which the eagle had veered, down through the fringing timber and across the trail—soft slither of leather on stone—then to the edge of the clearing in which Angel lay—soft underfoot crackling of pine needles, tiny squelch of wet leaves. There the man stopped. Angel could hear his heavy, ragged breathing. The man was in poor condition or in pain, he couldn’t tell which. He heard the tentative soft swish of movement through the dew-wet grass. It stopped again. Was the man dragging one foot? Almost as if the ambusher was giving off tangible warmth, a field of energy, Angel could sense his very closeness. He knew the man was near enough to touch him now, and steeled himself. The metallic sound of a hammer going back on rifle or pistol would mean that Angel had no time, no chance at all. He heard the man exhale as he bent over the prone body. Kuden put a hand under Angel’s shoulder in order to turn him over and in that moment Angel summoned all of himself into one movement. His right hand took the hand grasping his left shoulder and he came up off the ground with the left hand pushing, turning his left shoulder down as his body came up fast and strong, acting as a fulcrum. Kuden went up across Angel’s shoulders and then down with a heavy wet thud on the grass. The Winchester cartwheeled out of his hand and he yelled with pain, yet still he rolled like a thrown cat. He was already on his feet and lunging at Angel by the time Angel wheeled upright to face him, giving Angel no chance to get set. Kuden smashed into Angel head down, bowling Angel over backward, pounding his fists into Angel’s face. Locked together they thrashed across the grassy clearing, each seeking purchase, breath coming harsh and hard as they fought with strengths almost evenly matched. Finally, Angel got one hand momentarily free and using the edge of his hand like the blade of an ax, chopped backward and upward at Kuden’s throat. The German coughed and retched, his eyes bugging as he rose upright as if trying to escape the gagging paralysis of his Adam’s apple, and as he did, Angel turned and kicked the man’s right leg out from beneath him.
Kuden went down with a screech of agony that sent birds chattering in scolding panic through the silent trees. He lay face down in the flattened grass, his whole body humping over with the pain, and now for the first time, Angel saw the dark wet spread of blood on the man’s thigh. Kuden rolled over on his back, his face distorted in a rictus of pain as he tried to get up off the floor. Angel made his decision, and when Kuden was on his knees, Angel clenched the knuckles of his right hand and hit the man with considered strength, just above the point at the back of his neck were there was a V-shaped joint above the second cervical vertebra. Kuden went down face forward in the grass, out like a doused candle. With deft movements, Angel searched and disarmed the unconscious man.
Then he set about seeing what he could do to patch him up. Capture, not kill, the Old Man had said.
~*~
‘Leek mein Arsch!’ Kuden snarled.
‘Not just now,’ Angel said, gently. ‘Let’s try again. Which route are they taking?’
This time the German just spat and Angel shrugged. Kuden wasn’t his top priority, and by and large, his information was likely to be only confirmation of Angel’s already formulated estimate. He wondered whether the attorney general realized what he’d required with that ‘capture, not kill’ edict. After he’d cleaned up the ragged hole in Kuden’s thigh as best he could with boiled river water and some iodine, Angel had bound the German’s leg firmly with bandage strips made from a spare shirt he found in the man’s bedroll. Then he had cut two stout sticks and fashioned a clumsy splint—two reasons for that. One, it was the right thing to do, medically; two, it would prevent Kuden doing anything sudden. Later, Angel had made a travois, rounded up Kuden’s horse, strapped the trailing A-shaped litter to its saddle, and led the way up the trail looking for all the world like some Ute moving house. After a couple of hours, he had found what he was looking for: a sheltered cave on the flank of the mountain, not too high for Kuden to get up there. He’d ignored the man’s puzzled face on the way up, and ignored him as he built a fire and cooked some food. The cave smelled like a cat’s litter: puma had been here, he guessed. Their acrid tang soon dispersed in the smell of the wood smoke. He gave Kuden something to eat and then told him the bad news. Kuden’s answer had been, to say the least of it, uncooperative.
‘Kuden,’ he said, sadly. ‘I’ll give you one more chance.’
Kuden said nothing. He turned his head away ostentatiously, staring at the patch of sky above the mountains that could be seen from the entrance to the cave.
Angel sighed. If information kept on being this hard to come by, he was going to end up being some kind of Marquis de Sade. He tried once more. ‘Let me put it another way,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you what I think. Then you tell me whether I’m right or wrong. OK?’
He allowed himself a grin at Kuden’s expression; it would be worth talking it out, just to hear what it sounded like. There was always the chance K
uden would react. Not much of a chance, perhaps. But a chance.
‘Here’s how it happened, Kuden,’ Angel said. ‘Near as I can figure. Your boss Willowfield knew nobody could derail a train, rip off a quarter of a million dollars, kill Federal agents, and not have the law on his back trail before you could say “holdup.” Maybe he was surprised I turned up so quick—there wasn’t any way he could have known I’d survived the train wreck—but it made no difference to the plan. He told Falco and the rest of you to hole up and wait for the word. As soon as the law turned up, he’d sit there and be taken like a pigeon, quiet as a mouse. Tell the law where Falco and the rest of you were heading. And let whoever it was ride straight into your guns. By the time anyone got on your trail again, you’d be long gone.’
‘Very clever, Mr. Angel,’ the German sneered.
‘I went to college,’ Angel said. Kuden spat in the fire, his face contemptuous. ‘However, the plan to blow me up didn’t work. So I killed Livermoor and put a hole in your leg. Falco had to do some improvising. And you were it. What did he tell you—hang back, kill me, and he’d meet up with you someplace?’
He nodded as he saw Kuden’s look.
‘And you fell for it,’ he sneered. ‘Falco couldn’t lose, could he? You killed me, he was home free. I cut you down, ditto. He probably had you down as a write-off anyway, with that leg.’
Kuden’s face was now a study in bottled rage, but he still disciplined himself not to rise to the baiting.
‘So—the big question. I’d say Falco’s on his way back to Denver, where the idea is to spring the fat man somewhere. The only thing I don’t know is which route they’re taking. And where they plan to attack the escort and spring Willowfield.’
Kuden repeated his earlier invitation, putting the whole conversation back to square one. Angel regarded his prisoner sadly, putting onto his face the exasperated expression of a teacher with a clever child who won’t try.
‘Ah, well,’ he said at last. ‘I ought to have known you’d want to do it the hard way.’
Warn Angel! (A Frank Angel Western--Book 9) Page 8
