Hunt Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #5) (6 page)

The two of them stood there in the acrid, cordite
stinking darkness.

‘
All right,’ Angel said. He said
it as though it was a decision, the end of something or the
beginning. He went over to the man lying in the middle of the
stable and turned him over with the toe of his boot. Sheridan came
across as he struck a match and looked down at the mess of the
man’s face.

‘
Dick Ryan,’ Sheridan
said.

‘
Hugess rider?’

‘
What else?’ Sheridan said. ‘I
think I clipped the second one.’

‘
Uh-huh,’ Angel said. ‘Where would
he hunt cover?’

Sheridan shrugged. ‘I’d say the
Palace. They got rooms over: for the riders, that is.’

‘
Would they take him
there?’

‘
It’s not likely.’

‘
Let’s try the Palace,’ Angel
said. ‘You can check out the jail on the way.’

Sheridan looked at him as they came
out into the street. ‘Listen,’ he began.

‘
Don’t bother,’ Angel said. ‘I
promised myself I wasn’t going to get involved. Wouldn’t have done
either. Except for the old man. I liked him.’

‘
Either way, I’m thanking you,’
Sheridan said.

‘
Thank me when it’s over,’ Angel
said. ‘Which sure as hell isn’t yet.’

He started down Front Street and
Sheridan lengthened his stride to match Angel’s pace. There were
people on the front porch of the Oriental. They looked at the two
men as though they were dinosaurs.

‘
Look at them,’ Sheridan said.
‘Sheep!’

‘
Don’t be too rough on them,’
Angel said. ‘It’s not what they’re good at.’

‘
You,’ Sheridan said. ‘Where’d you
learn—?’ He stopped, aware that he wasn’t observing good
manners.

‘
It’s all right,’ Angel grinned.
‘I’m not on the dodge.’

They were outside the jail now.
Howie Cade was at the doorway, and he had Sheridan’s sawn-off
Greener comfortably cradled across his arm.

‘
Havin’ fun?’ he said sardonically
as they got nearer. ‘Enjoyin’ yourselves?’

‘
Ginger peachy,’ Angel grinned.
‘Back off and let us in a moment.’

‘
Sure,’ Cade said, not really
looking at him his eyes on Dan Sheridan. ‘You OK, Dan?’

‘
Fine,’ Sheridan said. ‘Angel here
pitched in, gave me a hand.’

‘
That your name?’ Howie Cade said,
incredulity in his voice. ‘Angel?’

‘
Would I lie about a thing like
that?’ Frank Angel asked him, keeping his face quite
serious.

‘
Well, shut my mouth,’ Howie Cade
said. ‘Now I’ve heard everything.’

‘
Let me go with you,’ Howie Cade
said.

Dan Sheridan just looked at him.
Then he looked at Frank Angel. He didn’t say anything. They stood
there in the middle of the jailhouse, Howie with the shotgun still
cradled across his arm, a look of anguished entreaty in his eyes.
Angel knew how he must feel: his need to redeem himself not only in
Sheridan’s eyes but also in the eyes of the whole town burned in
Howie’s expression. He leaned forward with the very eagerness of
wanting it.

Sheridan shook his head. ‘You better
stay here and watch Burt,’ he said.

‘
Dan!’ Howie Cade said. There was
deep hurt in his voice. ‘Dan!’

‘
Listen, Howie,’ Sheridan said,
exasperation tingeing his tone. ‘I don’t know how the hell many
Flying H boys there are over the road, but there’s sure as tomorrow
half a dozen of them. I don’t want—’

‘
To have a drunk on your hands,’
Howie said. Sheridan started to speak, but he held up a hand. ‘It’s
all right, Dan,’ he said. ‘I guess you’re right. I just thought
after what happened down Fat Mary’s, you’d maybe trust me to back
you. No offense, Angel.’

‘
Sure,’ Angel said.

‘
Give me that shotgun,’ Sheridan
said. ‘I’m no damned use with a handgun at all.’

‘
Dan, let me go with you,’ Howie
said again, not looking at Sheridan.

Sheridan started to refuse, but
Angel spoke before he could. ‘Why not?’ he said. ‘I can take care
of Hugess for you.’

He was facing Sheridan, his back to
Howie Cade, who could not see the facial signals he was giving the
marshal. Sheridan caught the message, and his eyebrows rose. Then
he nodded, seeing what Angel had already seen, that Howie
needed
to go out there
with him. He knew, and Angel knew he knew, that Howie might not be
as effective at his side as Angel in the same place. But he had to
have his crack at it.

‘
I better deputize you,’ Sheridan
said to Angel.

‘
No need,’ Frank Angel said. He
reached into the slit pocket inside his belt and drew out of it the
silver badge with the screaming eagle. It caught the yellow light
of the oil lamp hung from the ceiling, and Sheridan stared at it as
if it were a snake.

‘
Department of Justice?’ he said.
‘What the hell’s that?’

‘
Accident,’ Angel told him. ‘I was
just passing through. But it eases your problem some.’

Howie Cade’s face lit up like a
Christmas tree. ‘Oh, brother,’ he said. ‘Does it ever!’ He slapped
Sheridan on the back, his grin as wide as a slice of watermelon.
‘Here’s Larry Hugess lockin’ the town up tight to stop us gettin’
word out to the US Marshal, and we got the Department of Justice
right in here with us!’

Sheridan’s eyes lit up some, too. He
looked pleased about something, like a man anticipating a good
meal. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Well, well, well.’

‘
You think we can swing it?’ Angel
said.

‘
By God, Angel,’ Sheridan said,
his grin coming up full and warm, ‘you just watch us do
it!’

‘
All the luck you need,’ Angel
said as they started to move out.

‘
There ain’t that much,’ Howie
said, but he was still grinning, and Angel watched the two men as
they walked across the street, dark against the brightly lit
windows of the Palace Saloon. He could hear the tinny sound of
someone playing a poorly tuned piano inside. He watched Howie brace
himself outside the batwings as Sheridan slid down the side of the
saloon toward the back door.

‘
What the hell’s goin’ on out
there?’ shouted Burt Hugess from the cell in back. Angel kicked the
door of the jail building shut and went around Sheridan’s desk,
taking a seat in the swivel chair.

‘
Nothing but bad news, Burt,’ he
replied finally. ‘And all for you.’

The Palace wasn’t anything like as
palatial as the name implied. Johnny Gardner had fancied it up as
best a man could in a building that was essentially a long, narrow
box. The bar ran down the left-hand side and curved in toward the
left-hand wall about three quarters of the way down the building.
In the wide space at the end was a raised dais on which Harry
Andrews, ‘The Professor’, tinkled endlessly with the jangly old
piano. Tables and chairs were grouped in half-circled profusion
between the dais and bar, and on the right-hand side of the
building a wooden stairway led to a first floor balcony that ran
around the place like minstrel gallery. There were rooms on both
sides: some for the girls who worked in the saloon, others kept
free for any of the Flying H boys who might be in town. The
mahogany of the bar was highly shined, and ornately carved fretwork
frames held mirrors behind shelves behind bottles that caught amber
light from the flaring coal-oil lamps that hung in a row down the
center of the building. The floor was pine planking, scuffed and
cut by a thousand sets of spurs; brass rail at the foot of the bar,
brass cuspidors every yard. There was a chuckaluck layout and
another for monte, at which Danny Johnston and a couple of the
Flying H boys were sitting when Howie Cade came in through the
batwings blinking in the bright light.

Gardner saw him first and his eyes went wide; he
froze, holding the glass he had been polishing to a shine as if he
was expecting someone to shoot it out of his hands. He looked at
Howie Cade, and Howie Cade looked right back at him, and then
through him, quickly counting up the Flying H men in the place.

Johnston and three others at the
monte table; Johnny Evans and Ken Finstatt at the bar. He couldn’t
see too clearly through the rolling smoke toward the back of the
saloon, and there wasn’t any more time because Johnny Evans had
spotted the saloonkeeper’s rigid stance and followed his eyes. Now
he nudged Finstatt and pointed at Howie with his chin, grinning.
Danny Johnston looked up from his cards, saw Howie, and smiled. His
companions at the table stopped talking. They all
smiled.

‘
Well, well, well,’ Johnny Evans
said softly. ‘Look who’s here.’

The Professor’s background music
petered slowly out. He looked edgily at Johnny Gardner behind the
bar, but Gardner wasn’t moving. His eyes, like all eyes in the
place, were on Howie Cade.

Howie was standing to one side of
the batwings, his back against the wall. His gun was in its holster
and he didn’t look too well. He let his eyes move across the faces
of all the men in the room, ignoring the contemptuous grins. He was
looking for someone who might be wounded. None of them seemed to
be. Then Sheridan slid in through the back door, almost but not
entirely silently.

There was a collective sound in the room almost like
the slow exhalation of a giant breath. Sheridan just stood there
with the Greener across his forearm, waiting for Howie to open the
ball. Howie opened it.

‘
Johnny,’ he said. ‘Very, very
gently, reach under the bar and bring out that old riot gun you got
hidden down there.’

Johnny Gardner didn’t move, unless
you could count the movement of his jaw dropping open as real
activity.

‘
Do it now, Johnny,’ Howie said.
His voice was still gentle, almost dreamy, but his hand had moved a
couple of inches nearer to the holstered six-gun at his right-hand
side, and Johnny Gardner swallowed noisily. He ducked behind the
bar and came up with his old sawn-off.

‘
On the bar, Johnny,’ Howie said.
‘But away from where the boys can get at it. Up here.’ He gestured
with his chin at the bar end nearest to himself.

‘
Yeah,’ Johnny Evans said, his
voice heavy, loud in the silence. ‘And give the bum a drink while
you’re at it!’

Howie looked at Johnny Evans
thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Come here, Johnny,’ he said,
conversationally.

‘
Uh?’ Evans was
surprised.

‘
Do it,’ came a voice from the
back of the room. Sheridan hadn’t moved, but his voice left no
doubt in anyone’s mind that the barrels of the Greener were
presently pointing at Johnny Evans. Evans shuffled toward Howie,
the grin still hanging on his face.

‘
Unbuckle your gunbelt, Johnny,’
Howie said.

He let Johnny Evans think about it, and about
Sheridan back there with the shotgun. Evans unbuckled the belt, and
it thumped on the sawdusted boards.

‘
Making a habit of this,’ Howie
said, as if to himself. He didn’t look like he had a fast move in
him, but the right hand flickered down and came up with the gun in
it, and he hit Johnny Evans across the side of the head, just above
the ear. Every man in the saloon winced at the solid clunk the gun
barrel made. Johnny Evans went down on his knees as if in prayer
before Howie, and Howie pushed him to one side. The Flying H man
sprawled in the sawdust, and Howie kicked his boots.

‘
Nope,’ he said, as if he’d been
seeking something.

He turned to face the monte table
where Danny Johnston was sitting. ‘Danny,’ he said gravely. ‘Let me
see you boys on your feet.’ He still had the gun in his hand; there
was a fleck of blood on the barrel.

Danny Johnston looked at the gun and
then into Howie’s face. ‘Howie,’ he said. ‘Allus figgered you’d
prob’ly go loco one day, an’ now you’ve finally gone and done ‘er.
I’m proposin’ us boys chip in an’ buy you a vacation in one o’ them
fancy rest-cure places they got back East in St Lou. Whatcha say,
boys?’

‘
Looks like he could use one,’ the
man on his right said.

‘
Funny, funny,’ Howie Cade said.
The backhand slap of the pistol barrel across the bridge of the
man’s nose was almost negligent, but everyone in the saloon heard
the bones go as the man cartwheeled backward over the table and hit
the wall with a crash that shook the building. He slid down to the
floor, his face a bright mask of blood, and Danny Johnston stared
at Howie as if he’d just grown horns and a forked tail.

‘
You wouldn’t, of course, have
heard that someone tried to bushwhack Sheridan down by the depot,’
he said conversationally to Johnston. ‘An’ killed poor old Nathan
Ridlow in the doing of it? Would you?’

‘
Uh. . . .’ Johnston said. The man
on his left looked indignant.

‘
What the hell is this, anyway,
Howie?’ he growled.

‘
We want to talk to the man who
came in here after Ridlow got it,’ Howie said. ‘He’s probably got a
hole in his hide someplace, too.’

‘
Well, sheet, Howie,’ Danny
Johnston said, placatingly, the color back in his face now. ‘Ain’t
nobody come in here a good half-hour before you an’ the marshal
bust in here.’