Hunt Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #5) (12 page)

‘
Sabslu’lydiotichh,’ Howie said.

‘Sure is,’ Angel replied. ‘Easy,
now.’

‘Olihaddaglash,’ Howie said. His
eyes were unfocused, but he was trying very hard to get it across
to Angel that he had only drunk one drink, and that he felt idiotic
because it had knocked him sideways. He was draped around Angel
like a wet towel, and Angel held him the best way he could as they
went up the street to the hotel. Howie’s legs kept on snaking off
to right or left, and he was no lightweight. By the time they made
it to the door of the hotel, Angel was sweating hard.

The little Chinaman opened the door
and ran like a deer when Angel hefted Howie into a chair and said
‘Coffee, and lots of it!’ Sherry Hardin came down the stairs. She
looked at Howie, who was sitting in the chair with his head back,
eyes wide, mouth open, staring unseeingly at the
ceiling.

‘Oh, no,’ she said.

‘Oh, yes,’ Angel said.

‘I’ll get—’

‘I already told him,’ Angel
interrupted her. ‘Coffee’s on the way.’

‘Why?’ she wanted to know. ‘Why,
why?’

‘Feelings of inadequacy, maybe,’
he guessed. ‘Just being down. I don’t know. But don’t worry. He
hasn’t had much. And the head this will give him will be all the
discouragement he’s going to need to stay away from the
booze.’

‘You hope,’ she said.

‘I hope,’ he smiled. ‘Till
Saturday morning, anyway. After that he can go swim in the stuff as
far as I’m concerned.’

A frown touched her forehead at his words.

‘You’ll leave?’ she asked. ‘On
Saturday?’

‘If all this is settled,’ he said.
‘Yes.’

‘Ah,’ Sherry Hardin said. ‘That’s
not a lot of time to give a girl, Angel.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘But it’s all the
time I’ve got.’

‘I see,’ she said softly. Then, as
if shaking away thoughts she would rather not be thinking, she
bustled across the room toward the little Chinaman, who was just
coming in from the kitchen with a coffee pot and two mugs on a
wooden tray.

‘All right, Chen,’ she said. ‘I’ll
do this You make some more.’

As always, the little Chinaman went
out without a word, his flat-soled shoes slip-slapping on the
wooden floor. Sherry Hardin stood with the tray in her hands and
looked at Frank Angel. She had her head back, the way a woman will
sometimes hold herself so the tears won’t spill over her
eyelids.

‘Why don’t you get on with
whatever it is you’ve got to do, Frank,’ she said quietly. ‘Before
I start in bawling.’

He made as if to start toward her,
but she gave a slight emphatic shake of her head. The copper hair
caught glints of light from the hanging lamp. Angel made one of
those ‘OK, then’ gestures with his head.

‘I’ll see you,’ he said, and went
out of there without looking back, eyes adjusting to the blackness
outside, checking the street automatically. All clear. He stepped
down off the porch and turned toward the jail. He could hear the
Professor playing something slow. ‘Lorena,’ was it?

The lancing flame of the six-gun was clearly visible
in the alley across the street. The slug went past his head like an
angry wasp and he saw the man, a dark running shape against the
lighted windows of the Oriental. Almost without having to think
about it, Angel had dropped to one knee and the six-gun was up and
steadied, and he fired quickly. The man swerved, and Angel thought
perhaps he might have nicked him.

‘Hold it!’ he yelled. The man
hesitated and then ran into the Oriental. Angel legged it across
the street as fast as he could go, and then went in underneath the
batwings, flat on his belly with the gun up. There were six or
seven people bayed against the wall. Not a gun in sight. He got up
slowly, keeping the gun cocked. Three of them he knew by sight:
townspeople. Their eyes were rolling in panic. They wanted out of
there. Two of the others wore the standard range garb. They could
have been Hugess riders. They could have been any damned thing at
all. There were two others standing together near the door. One of
them had a puffy face, his eyes blackened by bruises and a huge
bloody scab across the bridge of his nose. Angel remembered him: he
was the Hugess rider Howie had backhanded with the six-gun in the
Palace the night Nathan Ridlow had been killed. Dan Sheridan had
pointed him out on the street.

‘Where is he?’ Angel
said.

‘Listen mister—’ Broken-Face
began. ‘We never—’

‘Talk!’ Angel said.
‘Fast!’

‘He went out the back door,’ the
man standing beside Broken-Face said, his voice pitched
breathless.

‘Show me,’ Angel said, gesturing
with the six-gun. One of the townspeople looked at Angel with a
strange, throttled look, as if he wanted to say something but
didn’t know how. The man didn’t speak. He looked down at the floor
as if he was ashamed of himself.

‘Over here,’ Broken-Face said. He
led the way around the bar and into a sort of hallway at the far
side of which was a wooden door with two glass panels. The panels
were of frosted glass, colored green

‘Where does that lead?’ Angel
said.

‘Out by the corral in back of the
store,’ Broken-Face said.

‘And the man who ran into the
saloon went out this way.’

‘That’s right,’ the second man
said anxiously. ‘Right through that door.’

‘Alone, was he?’

‘Why, sure he was,’ Broken-Face
said. ‘I’d say you put a slug in his hide someplace, too. He was
bleedin’ pretty bad. Harvey seen it.’

‘Better move along, Mister Angel,’
Harvey added. ‘He’ll get clean away.’

‘Sure,’ Angel said. ‘Lead the
way.’

‘What?’ Harvey said.

‘You heard me,’ Angel told him.
‘Open that door and walk on out there.’

‘Who, me?’ Harvey quavered.
Listen, Mister Angel, I ain’t got—’

Angel cocked the six-gun and in a savage gesture he
jammed the barrel of the weapon into the overhanging gut of the big
man.

‘Uccchh,’ Harvey said.

‘Move!’ Angel told him. ‘You too,
Beautiful!’

‘Listen—’ Broken-Face
stammered.

‘Why the way you boys are acting,
you’d think there was someone out there,’ Angel said. ‘You wouldn’t
have been trying to get me to walk into a deadfall, would
you?’

‘Hell, Angel!’ Harvey said. ‘We’re
tryin’ to help you.’

‘Sure,’ Angel said. Without the
slightest change of expression he shot Harvey in the backside. The
scorching burn of the slug seared a yelping screech from the man,
who fell backward against the wooden wall, smearing it with blood.
Broken-Face looked at his comrade aghast.

‘Out!’ Angel said.

‘No,’ Broken-Face said, holding up
a hand with the palm toward Angel.

‘Out!’ Angel said. His face was
like something carved from granite. He eared back the hammer of the
gun and Broken-Face cringed back. Harvey screamed in terror like a
horse going over a cliff, a dark stain spreading downward across
the leg of his pants. He scrabbled for the door and yanked it open,
shouting ‘Don’t shoot, boys, it’s—!’ but that was as far as he got.
As he yanked open the door and Angel stepped quickly back around
the right angle of the wall, the stuttering boom of two or perhaps
three shotguns tore the night apart. The flash from the guns
illuminated the alley like summer lightning and the whickering hail
of heavy slugs ripped Harvey and Broken-Face to ribbons, smashing
their torn bodies against the bullet-riddled door like tattered
puppets, filling the air with whispering lead and splintered wood
and glass and the ugly sweet smell of fresh blood. Angel whirled as
he heard footsteps pounding through the opening behind him, and Dan
Sheridan skidded to a stop, the heavy Greener ready in his left
hand. He looked at the carnage and his face set.

‘Good Christ in Heaven!’ he
breathed. ‘Who’s - who was that?’

Angel told him. He told him what had happened.

‘No use going after them,’ he
said. ‘We know who they were.’

A thought occurred to him and he asked Sheridan a
question.

‘Sherry Hardin,’ Sheridan said.
‘She came lickety-split the minute she heard shooting. Howie’s
there with her, don’t worry. Anyone tries to get near Burt’s liable
to get himself blown every damned way but up. Sherry’s as nervous
as a scalded cat, and Howie’s just about the most miserable thing
you ever saw.’

Angel nodded, moving out into the
saloon. The two men he’d noted earlier were gone. The man who’d
tried to speak to him came over.

‘I tried,’ he said falteringly.
‘But they had guns pointed at us, under the table. I’m sorry.’ He
was abject, standing there.

‘Don’t be,’ Angel told him. ‘You
told me with your face. I guessed what was happening. The whole
thing smelled of a set-up right from the start. If Hugess or his
men wanted to shoot me in the street I reckon they could make a
better job of it than that fellow did.’

‘It’s terrible,’ the man said.
‘Terrible. Can’t something be done?’

‘We’re doing what we can,’
Sheridan said. ‘Everything we can.’

‘We’re afraid to walk the
streets,’ another man said.

‘It’s about time Larry Hugess was
told he can’t take the law into his own hands,’ said the
third.

‘Well,’ Sheridan said, no humor in
his eyes, ‘if you see him, you tell him that.’

He led the way back across to the
jail, and Sherry Hardin opened the barred door. Her eyes were full
of anxiety, but they softened when she saw the tall figure behind
the marshal. Sheridan saw the look and his own expression changed
slightly. He’d been so damned wrapped up in what had been going on
in Madison that he’d missed the most important development of all.
He realized he was going to have to do some adjusting of his
thinking about Sherry Hardin. You could have cooked a meal on the
warmth in her eyes as she looked at Angel.

‘Listen,’ he said, clearing his
throat. ‘Listen,’ he said again, ‘Howie here isn’t going to sleep
worth a damn tonight and neither am I. Why don’t you grab a decent
night’s sleep, Angel? I can manage things here. You can probably. .
. .’ He trailed off with a wry grin as he realized he was selling
it too hard. Angel was looking at him with surprise, and he grinned
at Sheridan’s guilty expression.

‘Matchmaking, Dan?’ Angel said.
‘Isn’t that sort of out of your line of country?’

‘Go to hell,’ Sheridan
said.

‘Angels don’t go to hell, Dan,’
came the reply. ‘Only town marshals who read romantic
novels.’

‘Hey,’ came the injured voice of
Howie Cade. ‘Isn’t anybody going to talk to me?’

‘Sure, Howie,’ Sheridan said,
waving Angel and Sherry Hardin out of the jail. ‘Sure.’ He gave
them a so-long signal, and as he closed the door and barred it
again, they heard him say, ‘I’m going to talk to you, all right.
And you’d better believe it!’

They walked back to the hotel
together. Once in a while their hands brushed together, or their
shoulders kissed. They didn’t speak the whole way. The town was
silent now. The Professor had quit playing at the Palace. The
lights were all out in the Oriental. They went inside
together.

‘Well,’ Angel said.

Before he could say anything else,
or Sherry reply, the little Chinaman came out from his kitchen. His
button eyes were shining and he looked at Angel with unconcealed
admiration. ‘You want eat?’ he said. ‘I fix.’

It was the first time Angel had ever heard him speak.
He said so.

‘Ah,’ said Chen. ‘Special
’casion.’

‘Well, thanks, Chen But I’m really
not hungry. I could use a drink, though.’

‘You bet!’ Chen said. He scurried
over to a cupboard and clinked about with bottle and glasses. He
brought a drink for Sherry, too.

‘Chen,’ she said warningly. ‘What
is all this?’

‘Celebrate living,’ he said.
‘Sleep good.’ He managed somehow to include Angel and the girl in
the one phrase and smiled as he shuffled off back to his kitchen,
leaving them looking at each other. They finished the drinks and
put the glasses down on one of the tables.

‘Good night, Sherry,’ Angel
said.

‘You’re tired,’ she said. It
wasn’t a question. His eyes were dark with fatigue. The tensions of
the day, the sharp angry moments of action had all to be paid for.
He nodded in reply. ‘I could use some sleep,’ he said.

She turned away, picking up the
glasses, speaking with her back to him. ‘My door’s right opposite
yours,’ she said. ‘I’ll leave it open.’ She didn’t look at him as
she brushed past and hurried up the stairs. He waited until he
heard her door open and close, and then he went up. Outside her
door he paused. He could hear her moving on the bed and he touched
the doorknob, turning it. She hadn’t been lying: it wasn’t
locked.

He turned away and went into his own
room. It looked sparse and cold. The curtains lifted slightly in
the faint night breeze and he could hear the far-off yowl of a
hunting bobcat. He pulled off his boots, thinking about Larry
Hugess, wondering what the big man was planning, how he would have
reacted to the death of so many of his men, the failure of each of
his attempts to kill Sheridan, or Howie, or himself. Maybe Hugess
had decided to give up, now. Maybe he would let them put Burt on
the train and take him to the capital for trial. And maybe the moon
was made of green cheese. Angel grinned tiredly. He lay on his bed
and watched the square of moonlit wall, his thoughts jumbled. He
kept trying to concentrate on tomorrow, to put himself into Larry
Hugess’s place and anticipate the man’s plans, thoughts, ideas. But
all the time the face of Sherry Hardin floated into his mind and he
saw her toss her head and remembered her hair catching the
sunlight.