Read Kill Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #6) Online
Authors: Frederick H. Christian
Tags: #old west, #outlaws, #piccadilly publishing, #frederick h christian, #sudden, #frank angel, #wild west fiction
Kill Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #6) (10 page)
‘
Nice
shootin’, Chris,’ Gates said.
‘
But
bad timing,’ Angel added. ‘Not your fault, Chris: there wasn’t time
for anything else. But in this country — ‘
‘
You
can hear gunshots for twenty miles,’ leered Yancey Blantine. ‘My
boys’ll have heard ‘em, sure. They’ll be killin’ their horses to
get over here, Angel! The three o’ ye’ll be swingin’ from a branch
afore sundown!’
Chris Vaughan whirled on
Blantine and the old man started back in fright at the naked
killing lust in Vaughan
’s eyes. The change from the usually easy going,
high bantering man he had so far seen was so complete that Blantine
could not speak, and a solid ball of fear clogged his throat as
Vaughan angrily eared back the hammer of his six-gun,
snarling:
‘
Damned
if I don’t kill you anyway, you bastard!’
For one long terrible moment,
Yancey
Blantine looked straight into the jaws of Hell. Then Gates
spoke, his voice soft and easy.
‘
Be a
shame to blow the reward, Chris,’ he said.
Vaughan blinked. Then he blinked again and
the fire died in his eyes, to be replaced by a wry, self-amused
look. A smile touched the corners of his mouth and he uncocked the
gun and slid it back into its holster in a fluid, easy
movement.
‘
One
more time, Blantine,’ he said, softly. ‘Just try it one more
time.’
Blantine
’s bluster returned now that he knew
the awful moment was past.
‘
There
won’t need to be one more time, sonny,’ he cackled. ‘You’re on your
way to Hell right now, an’ all I got to do is wait.’
‘
Get on
your horse, Blantine,’ Angel snapped. ‘Jump!’ He emphasized the
orders by stepping towards the old man, who recoiled and hastened
to get into the saddle. Gates finished saddling the other horses
and threw the rest of their gear together hastily, hitching it on
to the pack mule with rapid loops of the ropes. Blantine watched
him with hooded eyes.
‘
Let’s
go!’ shouted Angel.
They thundered out of the box canyon into
the open, the horses buck-jumping upwards against the sharp slope,
the four of them in line astern heading fast and recklessly into
the rocky fastnesses of the Santa Eulalia Mountains, moving north,
ever northwards.
Thirteen
The buzzards led the hunters to the box
canyon.
Jud Young, one of
Crumm
’s men,
circled around the campsite, squatting every now and again to look
at the ground. He turned the Apache whom Gates had killed over with
the toe of his boot, and the watching riders heard him give a low
whistle.
‘
Come
on, Jud!’ snapped Blantine impatiently.
‘
Easy,
son,’ Olan Crumm advised. ‘Jud’s the best tracker ‘tween here an’
Santa Fe. Ain’t no damn use a-tall in apushin’ him.’
Young had scouted the whole canyon now. He
stopped again by the dead Apache, shaking his head, and then came
back to where Blantine and the others waited, their horses tossing
their heads impatiently.
‘
Quite
a scrap,’ he said. He was a leathery, heavily built man with a wad
of chewing tobacco making a bulge in his cheek. His drooping
moustache was stained and ragged. Young spat accurately towards the
dead Apache, making the clouds of flies humming over the body
flurry upwards in a buzzing horde.
‘I’d
say they was jumped around sunup.
Prob’ly a huntin’ party. Them Injuns figgered they was in luck
findin’ three white-eyes all alone out here.’ He shook his head. ‘I
tell you,’ he said.
‘
Come
on, man!’ Burke Blantine burst out.
‘
Way I
see it,’ Young said, shifting the wad of tobacco in his mouth and
taking absolutely no notice of Blantine’s outburst, ‘they come up
the canyon at a run, left one man on the rim to work his way round
an’ take them from the rear. No sign o’ blood anywhere away from
the Injuns, which means none o’ them we’re looking for was wounded.
But they shore made a mess o’ them Injuns.’ He indicated one of the
Apaches with a gesture of his chin. ‘Someone bruk that buck’s back
like a stick. That ain’t no easy way to kill Injuns.’
‘
They
didn’t want to use guns,’ Blantine said. ‘They knew we’d hear
gunfire.’
‘
Prob’ly had no choice,’ Young told him. ‘These two here was
killed fust — one with a knife, the other like I told you. That ‘un
over yonder’s got two slugs in him. Tried to jump ‘em from the rim
back up there.’
‘
Can
you tell where they went?’ Blantine said.
‘
Sure,’
Young grinned, mounting his horse. ‘They left tracks a kid could
foller.’
‘
Which
way they headin’, Jud?’ Crumm asked.
‘
North,
I’d say,’ Young replied. ‘Prob’ly aimin’ to come down out o’ the
mountains through Apache Pass, east o’ Santa Elizabeta. It was me,
I’d be headin’ for the malpais.’
‘
The
desert?’ Ahern queried.
‘
Sure,’
Young said. ‘They got enough water, they can make it across. Less
chance o’ runnin’ into any more ‘paches, too. That’s what I’d try,
I was runnin’.’
‘
Good,’
gloated Burke Blantine. ‘Then we got ‘em.’
He turned in the saddle and gestured Pete
Gilman forward.
‘
Pete,’
he said. ‘You ride on back a ways, you’ll hit that long draw runs
up to Picacho Pass. Head on down east an’ you’ll — ‘
‘
—
pick up the trail to Santa Elizabeta, I know,’
Gilman grinned. ‘You want me to light a shuck thataway,
huh?’
‘
Right,’ Blantine said. ‘Pass the word on to Dave Hurwitch
to send men up to cover the Nogales road. They’ve got to cross it
if Jud here is right.’
‘
That’s
rough country up there, boy,’ Crumm said. ‘They could lose an army
up there they tried to.’
‘
Tell
Hurwitch the price is doubled,’ snarled Blantine. ‘Two thousand for
the man that kills them!’
‘
You
better warn them boys to play it careful,’ Crumm advised. ‘Your
Daddy’s with them, remember.’
‘
Tell
them!’ Blantine ordered. ‘Tell them we’re goin’ to flush those
bastards out o’ these mountains like quail, an’ all they got to do
is take them!’
Gilman nodded,
‘I’ll pass the
word,’ he said. Then he pulled the head of his horse around and
thundered off back along the route they had already
traversed.
Blantine turned to face Young.
‘
Let’s
ride,’ he yelled.
Young pushed his horse forward into the
lead, half-leaning from the saddle, his keen eyes picking up the
deep-cut hoof marks made by the horses of the fugitives as they had
headed up the long steep rise into the mountains. The others swung
into a straggled posse behind the tracker.
‘
That
Jud,’ Crumm wheezed as they moved on up into the mountains. ‘He
could track a trout in a river.’
‘
He
better be as good as you say, Olan,’ Blantine rasped. ‘We lose
them, an’ you’re goin’ to be shy one tracker.’ Up in front, Young
spat a long stream of tobacco juice at a surprised jackrabbit. If
he had heard what Burke Blantine said, he gave no sign of
it.
Up ahead, Vaughan and Gates crested a high
rise, Yancey Blantine in tow behind them. Angel hauled his horse to
a stop on the crest and let them go on a hundred yards or so. He
turned back, his keen eyes searching the broken land behind them. A
solid jumble of rock and boulder, interspersed here and there with
flatter stretches floored with gritty sand and gravel stretched
away as far as the eye could see. Up here, the sun was stronger,
but the slight breeze cooled the body and skin. It was only when
you stopped moving you felt the tingling burn of the sun.
The land dropped slowly away down to the
lower levels from which they had climbed, scarred and twisted,
gullied and uneven, spotted by stands of sparse timber and here and
there on the higher mountain slopes a long grey fall of stone lay
like a petrified river where winter avalanches had ripped the
topsoil away from the shoulders of the hills.
A quick glance showed him that the others
were now perhaps half a mile ahead, still moving upwards, still
pointing towards the north. He remained motionless, letting his
eyes take in the whole panorama before him rather than trying to
focus on any one area; he knew this was the best way to spot
anything alien moving in the vast wilderness. The peripheral vision
picked out a rider or an animal far more quickly than the most
assiduous concentration, and so he let his eyes swing forward and
then back, across the empty land.
He saw them coming about ten minutes
later.
They were like a vague blob, changing shape
sinuously, the details shimmered and dispersed by the sunlight, so
that from this huge distance they looked like a small swarm of bees
skimming the surface of some vast rock-strewn pool. The pursuers
disappeared then, riding down into a fold in the ground, a faint
trace of dust marking their passage. Minutes later he saw them
again, coming up to the crest of the deep arroyo they had
traversed, nearer now, so that he could see individual riders,
could roughly count their numbers.
‘
Twelve
at least,’ he muttered. His hand touched the saddle-bags behind the
cantle of his saddle absently.
Another look over his shoulder
showed him that the other three were now hauled in, waiting for him
on the crest of another rise about three quarters of a mile ahead.
He nodded. It was good to ride with men who didn
’t need to be told what to do.
Until he turned and came after them, Gates and Vaughan would wait
on where they were. A long way back the pursuing riders dipped down
yet again into another arroyo, and still Angel waited. His mouth
was drawn into a thin line and there was a decisive hardness around
his eyes. He waited until they came up out of the arroyo, much
nearer now, near enough for him to be able to pick out details: the
colour of the horses, the red checkered shirt on one of the riders.
Now Angel moved. He rode the horse back and forward along the rim
of the crest, forward again and back until he knew that the riders
coming after them could see him clearly. From afar he heard them
yelling, and then saw a puff of smoke, followed by the flat bang of
a six-gun.
There was no earthly possibility
that anyone in the vengeful gang coming after them could have hit
him from such a distance, so Angel knew that the shot was merely a
gesture, a sign that he had been seen as he had intended to be
seen. Once more he let the horse walk along the rim, and then he
neck-reined
it around, putting the animal to a run, clattering across
the slatey ground towards where Gates and Vaughan
waited.
When he came up to them, they turned their
horses to move on, but Angel shook his head.
‘
They’re getting some close, Frank,’ Gates observed. There
was no complaint or criticism in his voice. He was just stating a
fact.
‘
I know
it,’ Angel said. ‘Chris, you want to scout on up ahead and see if
you can get a fix on two peaks, one o’ them shaped like a man with
a baby on his shoulders?’
‘
That’s
Apache Point,’ Blantine put in. ‘Head of Apache Canyon.’
‘
I know
it,’ Angel said brusquely. ‘Get going, Chris.’
Vaughan nodded and wheeled his
pony around, setting off at a flat run. Gates raised his eyebrows
at Angel.
‘Let the dog see the rabbit,’ Angel said.
‘
Long
as he don’t snaffle him,’ Gates replied, ‘it’s fine with
me.’
‘
You’re
a fool, Angel!’ snapped Yancey Blantine. ‘You can’t outrun my boys,
especially if— ‘ His jaws snapped shut, and a cunning sneer touched
his face.
‘
Especially if we head into Apache Canyon, you were going to
say?’ Angel supplied. ‘That it?’
‘
You
got your own lessons to learn, Angel!’ snarled the old man. ‘I aim
to have the last laugh when my boys catch up on you.’
‘
Maybe
you’ll give me some of what you gave Dick Gould in Stockwood?’
Angel said. ‘That what you’ve got in mind?’
‘
Be a
pleasure, Angel,’ the old man said, an evil grin on his face. The
bristly eyebrows concealed his eyes, but Angel knew that the light
of devilish anticipation would be in them, the certain sureness
that when he, Blantine, got the men who had so easily outwitted and
humiliated him in his power, he would show them less mercy than he
would show a coyote caught pulling down a yearling.
‘
Don’t
hang by your toes waiting,’ Angel said humorlessly.
Up ahead of them they saw Chris Vaughan pull
his pony back on its heels and wave his arm vigorously. They kicked
the horses into a gallop and when they got up there along-side him,
they could see the peculiarly shaped rock to which Angel had
referred.
It hung poised on the edge of
the mountain, misshapen and ugly, the red stone eroded by the winds
of centuries until it had been shaped into a squat, menacing figure
not unlike a seated Buddha, and which, when the sun hit it at a
certain angle as now, bore a startling resemblance to the figure of
a crouched man, rotund and jovial, with what might have been a
child of three or four sitting on his shoulders. Apache Point!
Angel blessed the hours he had spent poring over every map of the
area that the Topographical Department and the Army had been
able
to let
him study. Beyond the monstrous deformation of rock lay a gorge,
long and narrow, deep and dark, which led upwards and slightly to
the east, up into the final crest of the Santa Eulalias, opening at
its far end into a wide and sandy declivity that led down towards
the malpais, the open desert to the west of Santa
Elizabeta.
‘
Take
the old man on in,’ Angel told Vaughan. ‘An’ don’t turn your back
on the old bastard for a second. If he gives you any hassle, shoot
his eyes out.’
Vaughan grinned.
‘Be a pure
pleasure,’ he said. ‘You hear me, Blantine?’
‘
I hear
you, sonny,’ Blantine said. ‘I aim to remember everything you ever
said to me. When my boys catch us up, you’ll pay mighty dear for
every word. Mighty dear.’
‘
Talk,
talk, talk, again,’ Vaughan said shaking his head. ‘Come on,
Granpa!’ He whacked Blantine’s horse across the rump with the flat
of his hand, grinning as the animal scooted across the rocky
stretch of ground towards the darkened entrance of the
canyon.
‘
We’ll
be along!’ Angel shouted, and Vaughan waved a hand to show that he
had heard. Then Angel swung down from his saddle, and unfastened
the saddlebags, lifting from them two, four, six, seven canisters.
He looked at Gates and Gates looked at him.
‘
Naughty boy,’ Gates said, grinning. ‘If you’re thinkin’
what I think you’re thinkin’.’
‘
Take
the far side,’ Angel told him.