Hunt Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #5) (9 page)

He rode easily, Larry Hugess, a man quite sure of
himself and his dominion over this town. He had straight, heavy
features, the face just beginning to jowl, the neck thick and
obdurate. His eyes were shrewd and cool, assessing the mood of the
street, the calculating intelligence behind them considering,
weighing, accepting, rejecting.

It had pleased him to lift his
blockade of the town, to remove his guards from the streets. In a
way his action had been symbolic: he was telling Sheridan in so
many words that it didn’t matter whether he sent for the US Marshal
or not. It would take several days for any Federal law to get to
Madison in enough force to set Larry Hugess back on his heels. By
that time it wouldn’t make any difference.

He weighed Sheridan’s abilities
contemplatively as he approached the jail. A good man, but slowed
down to a walking pace by the injury to his gun hand. Still
dangerous though, as last night’s events had shown. That had been a
badly botched business, but since no one but a few of his men had
known the hired gun and the man had died without talking, no beans
had been spilled. He had been very careful to make sure that the
set-up was pulled by a stranger. But it had backfired; Sheridan and
his deputy had run Danny Johnston and the boys out of town twice,
which was a loss of face that must be redressed. The mood of the
town was cowed, though, he noted: which meant that the lesson of
Ridlow’s death had not been lost on them. Sheridan would find no
support among the townspeople. All he had was the drunk, Cade. Cade
might have held together for the business last night. Hugess
couldn’t see him hanging on when the going got really hard. And he
had decided, finally, that he was about to see that it
did.

They were level with the Palace when
Howie Cade stepped into the street. He had Sheridan’s shotgun
ported across his arm and he pointed it quite negligently at the
oncoming riders. Hugess pulled his horse to a halt. Angel saw the
animal throw its head as the wicked ring bit jarred its sensitive
mouth.

‘
New by-law in operation as of
this ayem,’ Howie said conversationally. ‘You check your guns when
you come into town.’

Hugess nodded, smiling. It came as
no surprise to him at all that Sheridan had decided to defend by
attacking. He had anticipated just such a demand, and his men were
already under strict orders not to even consider using their guns
except in extreme circumstances. Nevertheless, he couldn’t help
wondering about Cade. He surveyed the deputy
contemptuously.

‘
You look like hell, Cade,’ he
said dispassionately.

Howie didn’t rise. ‘The guns,’ he
said again, gesturing with the shotgun.

‘
Suppose I say no?’ Hugess said.
‘You think you could get all of us with that?’ He curled his lip as
he referred to the weapon Howie was holding.

‘
Be interestin’ to see,’ Howie
said, settling slightly on his heels, his lips clamping into a thin
line. He didn’t look the slightest bit edgy, and his readiness to
start in any time Larry Hugess opened the ball was so apparent that
Hugess blinked, startled in spite of himself at the change in the
man.

‘
Well, well,’ he said softly. He
turned to his men. ‘All right,’ he said.

Howie gestured with his chin toward
the hitching rail outside the Palace. ‘Hang your belts on there,’
he said. ‘Pick ‘em up when you leave.’

Hugess smiled at the deputy’s
confidence: a patronizing smile that didn’t fail to have exactly
the effect he intended. Howie Cade swung his eyes away from the big
man, just that little spooked by Hugess. Hugess wasn’t just some
forty-and-found puncher on a lallyhoot, or even some paid gun. He
was The Man, just about as powerful as they came. You messed with
Larry Hugess at your peril, and here the sonofabitch was smiling at
him like a cat who’s contemplating some particularly juicy mouse he
aims to eat up when he’s good and ready. For some reason, it made
him angry. He jerked the shotgun at Hugess who, despite his
composure, reacted. Now it was Howie’s turn to grin.

‘
I’ll take that Winchester, too,
Hugess,’ he said.

Larry Hugess slid the weapon out of
the saddle holster and handed it down. It was a pretty gun, the
1873 .44-40 center-fire model. Its receiver and breech were
custom-engraved to Hugess’s own specification, an ornate pattern of
leaves and flowers decorating the flat surfaces. Howie would have
given a year’s pay for a gun like it, and it showed in his
eyes.

Hugess smiled to himself: he had
always believed that any man - and therefore every man - could be
bought. Not necessarily with money, of course. Some men you bought
with gold; others women; still others power. He had just
established Howie’s price and he filed the information away, not
knowing how totally wrong he was.

‘
Marshal,’ he said cordially,
moving his horse across Texas Street to the rail outside the
jailhouse. ‘Good morning.’

Sheridan nodded. He’d taken in the
whole procession, watching to make sure that Larry Hugess wasn’t
planning a strike at the jail, with some of his guns hidden away in
an alley to cut down the marshal and his deputy and spring Burt
Hugess. In some ways he was surprised Hugess hadn’t done just that,
and he couldn’t figure why. Maybe he’d find out now.

‘
Been expecting you,’ he
said.

‘
Like to talk,’ Hugess said.
‘Maybe see Burt.’

‘
Fine with me,’ Sheridan said. If
he noticed that Angel was on the porch of the Oriental Saloon,
directly across the street, he didn’t show it by either word or
movement.

Hugess swung down from the saddle, and his riders
started to follow suit. Sheridan stopped them with a word. They
looked at Hugess, and Hugess looked at Sheridan.

‘
You visiting your brother’s
fine,’ Sheridan said. ‘He’s not their brother.’

Willie Johns kneed his horse
forward, crowding Sheridan back on the porch. He looked so tense,
so anxious to start something that Howie Cade started to move from
his post across the street where he was keeping the Greener pointed
in the general direction of Hugess’s men.

‘
How about I teach yore marshal
some manners, Mr. Hugess?’Johns hissed.

Hugess ignored the threatening pose, the ugly
words.

‘
Go across and wait for me in the
Palace,’ he said to Johnston. ‘Keep out of trouble.’

Willie Johns looked at Hugess, only
just succeeding in keeping the sneer off his lips. He reined his
horse around angrily, almost knocking Howie Cade over. Johns had
blood in his eye and everyone there knew he was liable to go off
like a stick of dynamite if anyone sparked him, so Howie said
nothing, just stood and watched as the Flying H boys trooped into
the cool depths of the Palace. He stayed on the porch of the jail
as Hugess went into the office with Dan Sheridan. Angel stayed
where he was, too. He looked toward the hotel longingly. Maybe he
could get a cup of coffee later. Sherry Hardin, he thought,
remembering the color of her hair and the look in her
eyes.

Inside the jail, Dan Sheridan was
opening up the cell and Larry Hugess was covertly checking over the
strength of the building. Solid and squat, it would be a bastard to
take against determined men who were well armed and had plenty of
ammunition and water. A frontal attack was out, then, unless there
was no other way. It might come to that yet.

‘
Hey, Larry,’ Burt Hugess was
saying, grinning hugely. ‘I figured it was about time you come to
bail me out. This place’s beginning to stink.’

It was clear that any thought other
than that his release was immediately imminent had not crossed his
mind. Larry had always bailed him out. Larry would do it now. Larry
could always fix everything. He’d think of something -he always
did.

Larry Hugess looked at his younger
brother, not understanding why he gave a damn about him and knowing
all the same that he loved him, and needed to protect and care for
him even though Burt was a wastrel, a womanizer, and worse - a
killer whose actions had several times endangered Larry’s own
ambitions and come perilously close to dragging the Hugess name
into the dirt. He loved his brother as he loved no other human
being, and he did not know why, but it was a love tempered by an
anger that made him want now to shake Burt the way a terrier shakes
a rat, to slap him like a wayward child, to chastise him for the
stupidity that had led him to kill - of all people - the harmless
Clell Black, a man who had never willingly hurt a soul in all of
his thirty-odd years of life. He wanted to tell Burt that he,
Larry, had broken his back working for the power and the wealth
that he now had, while Burt had never done a thing. He wanted to
make Burt understand that his deliverance would only be effected at
the cost of stopping all work at the ranch, of hiring expensive -
and unreliable - gunmen, of running up against a man who, to be
truthful, Larry Hugess respected - Dan Sheridan - and the very law
he presented. And all because in a stupid, drunken killing rage,
Burt had lost control. This was the worst thing of all to Larry
Hugess. A strong man never lost control of himself. He was proud
that he had never done so. Never.

To tell the truth, he thought, he
ought to let his brother rot in jail. If it had been some other
cause, he might even have done so. But for murder Sheridan would
see Burt hanged, and Larry Hugess was not about to stand still
while his brother was hanged at Winslow where the whole damned
territory could see the Hugess name on the front pages of
the
Enterprise.
So
there was only one thing he could do.

Sheridan was waiting for him to
speak. Burt was looking at both of them like a dog who’s heard the
word ‘walk’ -he couldn’t wait to get out.

‘
Well, Burt,’ Larry Hugess
said.

‘
Come on, Larry, come on, come
on,’ Burt said. ‘Open this damned door, Sheridan.’

When nobody moved, his face fell as
though someone had told him there was no Santa Claus. ‘Hey,’ he
said plaintively. ‘What is this? Do I get out or don’t
I?’

‘
As to that,’ Hugess said levelly,
‘perhaps Marshal Sheridan and I could discuss it.’

Sheridan laid it down flat and hard.
‘No discussions, Hugess.’

Larry Hugess let a frown touch his
forehead. He let his cold gray eyes rest on Sheridan’s. They both
knew what he wasn’t saying: in effect, he was inviting Sheridan to
back down, no harm done. Or take the consequences.

‘
No deals, no discussions, no fix,
nothing Hugess!’ Sheridan said. ‘Your brother is going to Winslow
and he’s going to be tried.’

‘
Now,’ Hugess said. ‘Let’s not be
hasty, Marshal.’

‘
Hasty, hell!’ Sheridan snapped.
‘You’ve been high man on the totem pole so long you think all you
got to do is snap your fingers and everyone jumps, Hugess. Your
little brother here killed a man in cold blood and you figure you
can ride into town and get him off the hook. You figure you’ve got
it all tied up with a string. But you’re wrong. I’m going to take
Burt out of here and I’m going to ride him across to Winslow and
there’s not a solitary damned thing you can do about
it!’

Larry Hugess felt the anger rising in him like
mercury in a thermometer.

‘
You talk a good fight, Sheridan,’
he snapped, coldly. ‘You forgotten you have to cross Flying H land
to get to Winslow?’

‘
I haven’t forgotten,’ Sheridan
said.

‘
Go on, Larry,’ Burt urged. ‘Lay
it on him.’

‘
Shut up, Burt,’ Larry Hugess
said, without emphasis. Burt Hugess closed his face with a snap
like a clam, and Sheridan permitted himself a grin.

‘
You’re being valued, Burt,’ he
said. ‘Your big brother’s just working out how much it’s going to
cost him to spring you, if he tries. And wondering whether it’s
worth it. Right, Hugess?’

Larry Hugess looked at him with
hooded eyes, Sheridan was too confident and he couldn’t figure out
why.

‘
You won’t make it,’ Hugess said
softly, letting the warning finally come out.

‘
Wrong,’ Sheridan said. ‘We’ll
make it. Your ace has been trumped, Hugess. You can lean on me all
you like. I doubt you’ll make the mistake of trying it on the US
Department of Justice.’

‘
What the hell does that mean?’
snarled Hugess.

Sheridan grinned. He was enjoying
Hugess’s discomfort, and now he laid it on thick and heavy,
relishing the way the big man’s face fell as he gave it to him. ‘We
were planning to get word to the US Marshal,’ Sheridan said. ‘You
put that one out of the window by blockading the town.’

‘
So?’

‘
You shouldn’t have done it,
Larry,’ Sheridan said. ‘If there’d been no blockade he’d have left
town and you’d have had me. As it is, he didn’t, and I’ve got
you.’

‘
What are you jabbering about?’
Hugess snapped, patience at an end. ‘Who’s he?’

‘
Burt and me got ourselves a
guardian Angel,’ Sheridan explained. ‘Frank Angel. Special
Investigator of the Department of Justice. He’s the man your boys
stopped from leaving town. He’s riding with me and Howie and Burt
across to Winslow.’

Burt looked from Sheridan’s
triumphant face to the crestfallen one of his brother.