Read Hunt Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #5) Online

Authors: Frederick H. Christian

Tags: #wild west, #old west, #western adventure, #piccadilly publishing, #frederick h christian, #frank angel, #western pulp fiction, #lawmen outlaws

Hunt Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #5) (4 page)

BOOK: Hunt Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #5)
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There were some men standing idly at
the town end of the bridge. They had the peculiarly unoccupied look
of waiters in a failing restaurant. Angel’s sharp glance noted that
all of them were carrying carbines, and all wore heavy belts of
ammunition looped over their shoulders. As he approached the
bridge, one of the men slouched out into the middle of the road and
stood there watching him come nearer. At about ten yards the man
spoke.


All right, cowboy,’ he said.
‘Turn around.’

He was about thirty, thickset, face stubbled with a
three-day beard. He wore a red shirt and tight-fitting Levis. He
had his shirt sleeves rolled back halfway between elbow and wrist,
kind of fanciful; and he wore two six-guns in holsters peculiarly
canted forward so that the gun butts hung back not far from the
horizontal.


What is this?’ Angel asked
mildly.


Just turn around,’ the man said.
‘Nobody leaves town.’

Angel just looked at him for a long moment, and in
that long moment one of the other men eased away from the wooden
stanchion against which he had been leaning. He laid the barrel of
his Winchester idly across his forearm so that the muzzle pointed
directly at the man on horseback.


Mind telling me why?’ Angel
asked. ‘I got to be in Fort Griffin—’


Forget it!’ said the Red-Shirt.
He let a leer touch his lips. ‘She’ll wait or she won’t. Right,
Harvey?’


Right,’ said the man with the
Winchester. He was still watching Angel with the wary eyes of a man
who’s been caught off his guard once and never will be again if he
can help it.


You boys work for Larry Hugess?’
Angel said.


Yeah, what of it?’


Why does he want the town locked
up?’


You a stranger here, sonny?’
sneered Red-Shirt.


Came in last night,’ Angel
said.


You hear about the fracas - about
Burt Hugess gettin’ arrested?’


Uh huh.’


So.’


So how does that affect
me?’


Jesus,’ Red-Shirt exploded. ‘Why
do we always got to explain to them?’


Tell him,’ said the other
one.


All right,’ grouched Red-Shirt.
‘It’s like this, see, cowboy.’ He made his speech patient, simple,
the way he might talk to a small child or someone touched in the
head. ‘Marshal Sheridan arrested Burt Hugess, and Larry Hugess
don’t like that. He aims to show Mister Sheridan what it’s like to
be caught atween a rock and a hard place. But he aims to do it
without no interference. That means no messengers heading over for
Winslow to get the US Marshal, or to Fort Supply for the so’jer
boys. Sheridan’s got hisself into this, and Larry Hugess aims to
let him try gettin’ hisself out of it. All on his ownsome. Now you
savvy?’


Suppose—’ Angel said. ‘Just
suppose, mind you - that I was inclined to argue the
point’


That’d be an error,’ the man with
the Winchester said quietly.


Look!’ said Red-Shirt.

He moved. Angel knew that he’d moved
and yet couldn’t truly say he’d seen the movement, yet the man had
the right-hand six-gun in his hand, cocked. It was faster than
anything Angel had ever seen, and he had seen some of the very best
men in the business.


Got you,’ Angel nodded. He pulled
around the horse’s head, and over his shoulder, he said, ‘You boys
got any idea how long I got to be holed up in this
burg?’


Don’t make any long-term
bookin’,’ Winchester said with a coarse cackle. He’d already ported
the carbine, and Red-Shirt had re-holstered the six-gun in the
strangely canted holster at his side. Angel walked the horse back
up Front Street, heading for the hotel. As he got level with Texas
Street, he saw Ridlow standing on the sidewalk gesticulating
violently to a tall, contained-looking man whose right arm was in a
bandana sling and whose six-gun was stuck in his waistband on the
right-hand side for a cross-draw. The marshal, Angel told himself.
He swung down from the roan outside the jail.


Here, Frank!’ Ridlow turned
toward him. ‘You know what happened?’


Some jaspers stopped you leaving
town,’ Angel said.


Aw,’ Ridlow said, disappointed at
not being able to voice his disgust again for Angel’s benefit.
‘Yo’re damned tootin’ they did. An’ I wanna know what in thunder’s
going on. Oh, Dan Sheridan, marshal o’ this place, Frank. This’s
Frank Angel, Dan.’

Sheridan nodded an acknowledgment of the introduction
He had dark shadows beneath his eyes. Pain? A sleepless night?
Both, perhaps, Angel thought.


Them Hugess boys got this town
locked up tighter’n a rattler’s ass, Dan,’ Ridlow continued. ‘What
you aimin’ to do about ‘er?’ He awaited Sheridan’s reply with a
belligerent expression on his face. It turned to sour disgust as
Sheridan answered with a shrug.


Shee-hit, boy, you can’t just let
Hugess take over yore town!’ Ridlow snapped.


Got any suggestions, Nathan?’ the
marshal asked mildly. His thought seemed to be elsewhere, as though
he was merely being pleasantly polite to Ridlow.


Wal,’ Ridlow said. He let loose a
burst of tobacco juice that soared halfway across the street
and
splatted
in
the shifting dust. ‘Reckon mebbe me an’ my boys better pitch in an’
help you out, some. Haw!’

For the first time decision came
into Sheridan’s eyes. He shook his head, frowning down on the old
man.


Thanks, Nathan, but no. No way.
You and your boys keep out of this!’


Hell, Sheridan,’ Ridlow snapped.
‘You need all the help you can git!’


No offense,’ Sheridan said.
‘Nathan, how good are you with a gun?’


Wal,’ Ridlow said ‘Haw!’ He let
go with another splatter of cud. ‘If n yo’re askin’ me whether I’m
a gunfighter or not, boy, wal - haw! I ain’t!’


I can’t recall I ever saw you
carrying a pistol, Nathan.’


Wal, shoot, boy, I know what end
to point! Haw!’


You good enough to go up against
Willie, Nathan? Willie Johns?’


Aw, hell,’ Ridlow said. ‘You know
damned well ain’t nobody goin’ to go up agin’ that snake-hipped
sonofabitch, Sheridan!’


Willie Johns,’ Angel said. ‘Is he
a thickset fellow, medium height, heavy stubble, wears his guns
kind of tilted, so?’


That’s him,’ Sheridan said,
looking at Angel and seeing him for the first time.
‘Why?’


Nothing,’ Angel said. ‘I think I
just met him. He gave me a demonstration of how fast he can pull a
six-gun.’


Tell your friend here,’ Sheridan
said heavily. ‘Maybe he’ll believe you. Me, I already know how fast
friend Johns is.’ He turned back to face Nathan Ridlow.


So you just keep your nose clean,
Nathan,’ he said. ‘You pitch into this, you’d be just one more for
me to look out for. And I’ve got all the problems I can
use.’


Hell, I guess yo’re right, Dan,’
Nathan Ridlow said. Just goes an’ sticks in my craw that th’only
backup you got is that boozehead.’

As he spoke, Howie Cade came to the
door of the jail. there was no way he could not have heard what
Ridlow said, but the old man didn’t back up one inch. He glared at
Howie as though he was daring him to take offense at what was the
plain truth for any eye to see. Indeed, Howie Cade looked like
something that had been chawed on and spat out. His cloths were
ragged, filthy. He needed a shave and a haircut and a bath, not
necessarily in that order. His hands were shaky, and his eyes
looked like he’d just ridden through a dust storm.


I need a drink,’ he told
Sheridan.


Sure,’ Sheridan said, gently. ‘Go
on down the street. Maybe one of the Hugess boys will buy you
one.’


A beer would do,’ Howie
said.,


Got some inside,’ Sheridan
grinned, putting his deputy out of his agony. ‘While you were
asleep. Figured you’d need something when you came up for air.’ He
turned and opened the door clumsily with his left hand.


You boys like to join us?’ he
said to Ridlow and Angel.


Try an’ stop us!’ Ridlow cackled.
‘Haw!’

The jail was simply built. The
square building was divided down its middle by a corridor. On the
street side of the corridor was the marshal’s office, fenced off
from the rest of the room by a low rail with a swinging door in it.
There was a pot-bellied stove in one corner of the room, two rifle
racks with shotguns and carbines chained in them and locked, a
cupboard, and a scarred old desk with a swivel chair behind it that
had seen better days. In the open area was another, equally
decrepit desk and chair for the deputy. Between his desk and
Sheridan’s a door opened into the corridor, on the corral side of
which were three cells. Burt Hugess was in the middle one: the
other two were empty.

Sheridan went around behind his desk
and reached down into the cool corner of the adobe walls; he came
up with a heavy earthenware jug that had a damp cloth stretched
across its mouth. He pointed with his chin at some tin cups hanging
on nails along the side of the cupboard, and Nathan Ridlow planked
them down one, two, three, four on Sheridan’s desk, licking his
mustache as the cool beer foamed into them. While he and Angel were
saluting the marshal, Howie Cade emptied his cup like a man who’s
lived through a drought. He looked up, sheepishly, when he felt
their eyes on him.


I’m all right,’; he said
defensively. ‘Just thirsty.’

But his eyes pleaded with Sheridan,
who nodded and filled his deputy’s cup again. They tried not to
watch Howie struggling to drink it slowly.


Where have you got Hugess?’ Angel
asked, more to fill the silence than anything else.


Back there, in the middle cell,’
Sheridan said jerking his head toward the half-open door to the
corridor. ‘Nice and comfortable.’ He raised his voice a couple of
lungfuls. ‘Aren’t you, Burt?’


Go to hell Sheridan!’ shouted the
prisoner.


Nice fellow,’ Sheridan smiled.
‘Like his brother.’


No sign of him turning up
yet?’


Nope.’


He’ll be here!’ Burt Hugess
shouted from the cell. ‘Bet on that!’


You want to know the truth, I
wish he’d get at it,’ Howie Cade muttered. ‘We nailed Burt twelve
hours ago and so far nothing’s happened.’


Well, hardly,’ Sheridan said, and
told him about the barricades at the exits from town. Angel watched
the deputy’s face grow tight and pale as the marshal
spoke.


We could lock ’em all up,’ Howie
said, not really believing it. Sheridan just looked at him with one
of those you-know-better-than-that looks.


Even if you could - an’ you can’t
- Hugess’d just send another passel o’ gunnies in,’ Nathan Ridlow
said. ‘Haw!’

Angel said nothing, but he
recognized the marshal’s dilemma: damned if he did nothing, damned
equally if he made a move. If Sheridan held on to Burt Hugess, then
Larry Hugess would take him out of jail by force. If he turned Burt
loose, they’d ride him out of town on a rail and he’d never get a
job policing a town anywhere again as long as he lived, even if he
did get so he could one day look himself in the eye again. Some
parlay: a one-handed lawman and a dipso deputy up against the
combined weight of Hugess and his riders. In the back of his mind
he heard the warning voice of the attorney general, imagined
himself again in the big, high-ceilinged room overlooking
Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington with its disordered bookshelves
and its drooping flags.


You know the rules, Angel,’ the
Old Man would say. ‘Keep out of it.’


But I need to move out,’ he would
argue. ‘After Magruder. Every day I lose gives him a longer head
start.’


Can’t be helped,’ the attorney
general would reply. ‘Not as if it’s forever.’


But—’


This . . . problem,’ the attorney
general would go on, giving him no chance to argue. ‘Happens all
the time, right? Frontier towns are pretty much all the same, are
they not? Always someone struggling to be top dog, am I
correct?’

And Angel would nod, because it was true, even if in
this case. . . .


I know what you’re going to say,
now,’ the attorney general would say, reaching for one of the long
cigars he smoked. ‘This is different.’


It is,’ Angel would say. ‘You
see—’


No difference at all,’ would come
the interruption, sharp through the billowing folds of stinging
smoke from the cigar. Department wags said that there was a $5000
bounty for the man who could find the attorney general’s cigar
maker - and kill him before he made any more. ‘Tell me how this one
is different. Town marshal handling a local problem. No Federal
laws broken: always supposing we could make Federal law stick in
Indian Territory. Could be argued, I suppose, that a town marshal
hasn’t any true legal right to arrest anyway. Citizen’s arrest,
nothing more. And nothing to do with this department, Frank.’ Each
word emphasized by a jab from the cigar.

BOOK: Hunt Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #5)
7.82Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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