Find Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #1) (17 page)

Angel
underestimated Angus Wells.

The
Justice Department man wasted no time in recriminations. He knew
where Angel had gone and why, so instead of cursing he used all his
energy and all authority his office gave him to set up a chain of
transportation. Within an hour of his discovery of Angel’s
disappearance, Wells was in a specially-chartered paddle steamer
churning across San Francisco Bay. He had no eyes for the beauty of
the scenery, fuming as Angel Island went by to starboard, fretting
as they forged through San Pablo Bay and Benicia slipped astern. He
was still grumbling with impatience as he stumped off the boat at
Stockton and clambered aboard the waiting Concord.

He
was no sooner in the red-painted stagecoach than the ribbon shaker
gave vent to an explosive Rebel yell and the team careened out of
the depot raising a huge cloud of dust as they burned up the road
towards Sacramento.

A
train was waiting for them there: Larry James had telegraphed
ahead. It was just an engine with a flat car behind it, and had
steam up already. They could only go as far as end of track, which
meant that Wells had to pick up another Concord at Shingle Springs.
He picked his way past the horde of gaudy dancers shuffling gravel
on to the newly-built right of way by the light of flaring kerosene
lamps. Night was down hard now on the teeth of the Sierras, but
Wells would brook no delay. Aching in every joint he piled into the
waiting Concord and the driver swung out on to the Placerville
road. They pulled in four hours later.

‘
What’s the road like?’ Wells asked the company at large,
miners, travelers and freighters using the eating house on their
way to or from the high country. He was wolfing down a plate of
cold meat, beans and tortillas which he hardly tasted. It was fuel
and Wells took it aboard as an engine takes on wood.

‘
Port’ good all the way,’ one grizzled oldster said. ‘Watered
ever’ night in summer, so she’s hard as rock.’

‘
More
or less,’ another grinned. ‘They’d a few rough edges
left.’

Wells
left them laughing at the sally and limped to the truck bed that
had been set aside for him in a room upstairs. They would call him
at four, just before dawn.

He
looked at himself in the cracked mirror. His teeth shone whitely
from the dusty grime of his face. He fell exhausted on the bed,
fully dressed, his dreams haunted by the fear of being too
late.

Dawn
was streaking the eastern sky as, with a pistol crack snap of his
whip the driver yelled the team into motion, lurching down the flat
empty road towards the distant mountains. By midday the road was
full of wagons lumbering along behind their teams of oxen, coaches
and carts going both east and west. Where it was possible they
overhauled them, swerving out on to the wrong side of the road,
sometimes heeling over dangerously into the thin ditches alongside
it, but miraculously the driver kept them upright, whipping the
horses into a sharp trot as they went uphill and lashing them into
an all-out gallop when the road sloped downwards. Gradually the
trail began to wind and turn more. Several times they hauled in
hurriedly as they came around blind corners to find a strung-out
ox-team on the far side, but the driver was one of the best and
kept the coach rattling at a hell of a lick all the way up to Echo
Summit Pass, where they changed teams.

If
Wells even saw the astonishing sweep of mountains and valleys
tumbling away at his feet like a map of the world he made no
comment on it. He stretched his arms and stomped his feet to iron
out the kinks from the hours in the coach, and climbed back aboard
the moment the driver said he was ready.

Then
they were off again like a bat out of hell, thundering along the
flanks of Lake Tahoe and heading for the last divide on the Sierra,
crossing the line into Nevada as dusk shrouded the far mountains
with a purple cloak. They heaved to a clamorous stop outside the
International Hotel in Virginia City at seven thirty, having cut
almost twenty four hours off the normal journey from San Francisco.
If Angus Wells was tired he gave no sign of it. A rapid-fire string
of commands sent messengers running down B Street and within
another twenty minutes Sheriff Jim Nisbet and two deputies were
with Wells in the lobby of the hotel. Standing there in a tight
knot, they listened as Wells tersely outlined his authority, his
reasons for being in Virginia City, and what he wanted Nisbet and
his men to do.

‘
No
problem,’ Nisbet said. ‘Harry, get down to A Street and check
whether Cravetts is there. Don’t do anything. Just check. Come back
here as fast as you can and report.’

The
deputy nodded and went into the night running.

Wells
went across to the desk. The clerk looked at him with
distaste.

‘
A
room,’ Wells said. The clerk frowned and then saw Sheriff Nisbet
behind Wells. A smile pasted itself across his face.

‘
You
look as if you have been travelling hard, sir,’ he
smirked.

‘
Some,’ Wells said. ‘What number?’

‘
I’ll
put you in number fifteen, sir,’ the clerk said. ‘A nice room on
the first floor. Right next to Mr. Torelli.’

Wells
was turning away from the desk as these words were spoken, but he
wheeled around and clamped both hands on the clerk’s forearms. The
man went white with fear and his eyes rolled for help towards the
sheriff.

‘
Who?’ shouted Wells. ‘Who?’

‘
Uh —
ah - I — sir, you’re hurting my arm!’

‘
What
number is he in?’ snapped Wells.

‘
Mr.
Torelli, sir? Number fourteen, but—’

His
words trailed off as Wells headed for the staircase, the sheriff
close behind him. The clerk looked at one of the deputies in
astonishment.

‘
Is
something wrong?’ he said, tentatively.

‘
If
it ain’t,’ said the man, ‘it’s about to be.’

The
big house was lit up like a Halloween pumpkin.

Every
window was ablaze with light, and through open french doors string
music drifted sweetly out into the still summer night. The
sidewalks on both sides of D Street were lined with carriages and
surreys, and here and there their drivers stood by their horses
awaiting their masters with that peculiarly listless air which is
the mark of their profession.

‘
Is
that the Cravetts place?’ Angel asked one of them.

‘
Yessuh,’ the negro said.

‘
Big
party?’

‘
Unnerstand so, suh,’ the man replied. ‘Unnerstand
so.’

Angel
turned away, a smile of wintry devilment touching the corners of
his mouth. Cravetts was obviously playing the part of the rich man
to the hilt.

‘
If
the boys at Fort Riley knew what had happened to their pay checks
they’d tear this place down,’ he told himself, and walked into the
hallway behind an elderly couple with white hair. The man was
dressed in evening clothes, the woman in a long gown that smelled
faintly of mothballs. The brightly-lit hall led to an open doorway
where a maid took the woman’s wrap and the man’s cloak. just inside
the doorway, which led into a big room blazing with the light of a
beautiful crystal chandelier and packed with people in formal
clothes stood a tall negro in a frogged uniform. He bent to hear
the name of the man in front of Angel then his deep voice boomed
out.

‘
Mistuh an’ Missus John Mackay!’

The
man and woman descended the two steps and shook hands with the
burly man waiting for them, his face wreathed in smiles. Angel
smiled in anticipation.

Cravetts was handsomely dressed in a black evening
suit.

An
experienced eye would have noticed that one of the sleeves was cut
wider than the other, to allow the Derringer strapped to the left
wrist to slip easily from behind the ruffled lace cuffs. Cravetts
looked immaculate and poised but his face went stone grey when the
negro boomed out Angel’s name. Angel went down the two steps and
stood in front of Cravetts.

‘
You!’ Cravetts said. His eyes shuttled around the room.
Everywhere was the genteel hum of conversation.

Waiters circulated with trays on which stood glasses of
champagne. There was an agony of indecision in his eyes.

Then
he turned on his heel and ran head down smashing into a man and
sending him flying backwards against a table, which overturned with
a splintering crash. Women screamed and men ran forward towards the
fallen man as Angel tried to get past them, elbowing his way
through the milling throng as Cravetts went out through a door on
the far side of the room. As he ran through the room Angel heard a
hoarse shout outside and got on to the street to see one of the
negro drivers picking himself up out of the dust on D Street,
cursing and shaking his fist at the carriage carreening twenty
yards away around the corner into Union Street. His eyes bugged as
he saw Angel kneel in one smooth movement with the Army Colt coming
up out of the shoulder holster and level across his forearm,
booming even as the man’s eyes took in the long sweet swift
movement.

Angel’s bullet hit the galloping horse just below the left ear
and it slewed forward on its breast, smashing dead into the board
sidewalk outside a hardware store, Scattering passers-by in panic
as the carriage keeled over in a long arc, throwing Cravetts into
the street. He hit the ground hard, then rolled and got to his
feet, running into an alley as Angel came sprinting around the
corner of Union.

It
was cat black in the alley. Angel stood for a moment trying to pick
up the thump of Cravetts’ feet, but heard nothing. Then down at the
far end of the littered passageway he saw a light come on and a
blowsy female voice squawked, ‘Who the shit is that?’

Angel
ran hard and fast on downhill in that direction, coming out at the
far end on a shaley open slope that canted downhill towards the
canyon road going into Gold Hill. There were more cribs and saloons
at this end of town, and in the light from their windows he saw the
bull-shape of Cravetts boring through the crowd on the sidewalk. He
was heading for the dark open slopes below Mount Davidson. Once
there he could disappear into the mountains, steal a horse, be out
of the country by morning. Angel ran as if the hounds of hell were
on his tracks. He saw Cravetts go by the fine false front of the
firehouse, its gold-lettered legend glinting in the lights from the
street: ‘Liberty Engine Co.’ it announced proudly. Cravetts slid
around the side of the building, between it and a tall pine
standing sentry over a pile of tailings which led upwards to the
gaping black maw of an abandoned mine shaft. As Angel came around
the side of the building, Cravetts drove him back with two shots
that whacked great chunks of planking from the side of the
building. Angel hit the dirt and stayed there, reloading, as the
big man bounded off again up the slope and disappeared into the
dark bowels of the empty mine.

Angel
cursed. Did Cravetts know a way through the mine? More than likely.
These hills would be riddled like a rabbit warren with tunnels and
abandoned shafts. He had to keep close on Cravetts’
tail.

Back
down the street he heard a growing commotion, the sound of voices
rising like surf. Looking over his shoulder as he got up on the
face of the tailings he saw a knot of people hurrying down the
canyon road from the edge of town. Some of them were carrying
pine-knot torches and in the uncertain light the man leading them
looked familiar. That broken, stumping gait, the head bent
determinedly forward — Wells? How in the name of God had he got
here so fast? He shook his head.

‘
No
you don’t, Angus,’ he said aloud and then set off carefully up the
hill and into the entrance of the mine.

Inside it was as black as the hinges of Hades. Feeling his way
along the walls, Angel kept his eyes closed tight to speed his
adjustment to the pitch blackness. When he opened them, he could
make out the larger looming blacknesses of ore wagons and pit
props, and in the centre of the tunnel the faint gleam of rails. He
found he was in a level passageway that ran straight ahead into the
belly of the mountain. After a hundred yards or so of cautious
advance, the rails stopped. He could see nothing ahead but deep and
impenetrable blackness. He stood still, letting his other senses
take control. No smell, no sound, nothing. Yet the hairs on the
back of his neck prickled. Cravetts was near. Somewhere
near.

He
moved carefully forward, feeling his way around some timber props
that ran upwards towards the invisible roof. Without warning his
foot sloshed suddenly in a two-inch deep puddle and the moment the
sound was made a huge flash blasted out from his right and he felt
the air swell and move as the bullet went within an inch of his
right temple. Angel gave a huge shout of simulated agony and sat
down heavily in the puddle of water, thrashing his arms around and
coming to rest on his belly. After a couple of moments he thought
he heard the sound of a foot moving, the soft sibilance of
carefully treading leather on sand. He breathed shallowly through
his nose, keeping every muscle of his body still, his eyes probing
the wall of darkness ahead of him. Then he heard a definite sound,
the shift of a foot on gravel somewhere to the left. Cravetts had
moved all that way without making a sound. The man must be like a
cat on his feet, Angel thought.