Hunt Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #5) (8 page)

He came up off the bed in a very fast, rolling
movement, on his feet and crouched with the six-gun cocked and
ready, whirling to face the figure by the door. She grinned.

‘
Well,’ she said. ‘And good
morning to you!’

She was tall for a women, Angel saw, five eight or
nine at least and strongly, if slenderly built. Her hair was a
deep, burnished copper color, and her eyes were as green as spring
grass. She wore a dark blue work shirt tucked into corduroy Levis,
embroidered Indian moccasins on her feet. Her body was good. In
fact, he realized, she was quite beautiful.

‘
Uh,’ he said, lowering the gun,
suddenly aware that he was bone naked.

If it bothered the woman she didn’t
show it.

‘
I’ll get you some hot water to
shave with,’ she said tactfully and went out of the room before he
could reply. He threw the six-gun on the bed and snatched for his
pants, cursing softly under his breath. By the time she knocked on
the door he was dressed. She came in and put the earthenware jug
and bowl on the washstand. It had blue forget-me-nots on it. Steam
spiraled upward from the jug.

‘
I’m Sherry Hardin,’ she said. Her
voice was low-pitched, warm-toned. ‘I own the hotel.’

‘
Glad to know you,’ Angel said.’
Mind if I ask you a question? What—?’

‘—
was I doing in your room?’ She
smiled. ‘Making sure you had a razor and stuff. Dan Sheridan said
he wasn’t sure whether you needed one and sent one of his
over.’

‘
You weren’t—’

‘
Here last night when Dan brought
you in? I know,’ she said. ‘I was with Janet Mahoney - her husband
owns the general store. One of her kids has whooping cough. I
didn’t get back until quite late. Is everything all right - the
room, I mean?’

‘
Fine,’ Angel said. ‘By the way,
where can I—’

‘
Get breakfast? Right downstairs.
We’ve cooked you up something special. Heard how you helped out Dan
Sheridan.’

‘
One other thing.’

‘
Yes?’

‘
You ever let anyone finish a
sentence?’

She smiled. ‘Not if I can help it.
Dan’s always telling me about that.’

‘
You think he’s pretty special,
don’t you?’

She blushed slightly at his direct
question but her eyes didn’t shift away from his. She pushed back a
straying lock of the copper hair from her forehead and smiled
almost challengingly.

‘
I’m very fond of Dan,’ she said.
‘He’s like a brother to me.’

He didn’t answer that one. When a
woman tells a man that another man’s like a brother to her, she’s
also telling him lots of other things.

‘
I’m going to get me a shave,’ he
said, rubbing a hand over his bristled jaw ruefully. ‘Sure as hell
need one.’ She didn’t take the hint.

‘
I’ll watch,’ she said, unabashed.
‘I like to watch a man shaving. Gives me goose-bumps.’

He thought he’d better not reply to
that one either. Sherry Hardin wasn’t only a very beautiful woman,
she also clearly didn’t give a hoot in hell for what was commonly
called convention. He unrolled the soft leather kit he always
carried with him, containing a razor, shaving brush and soap, steel
mirror, leather strop, stiff nail brush, soap, scissors, needles,
thread, spare buttons, small ball of twine, all neatly packed away
in pockets and loops on the flat leather square. For once,
unexpectedly, he found himself feeling like a pernickety old maid
and he asked her a question, working on the shaving soap with the
brush to get a good lather.

‘
A little over seven years,’ she
said. ‘Hal and I came out here in the spring of ‘70.’

‘
Hal?’

‘
My husband. He died four years
ago.’

‘
I’m sorry.’

‘
No need to be,’ she said. She
gathered up her shoulders slightly, the movement not so much
indicating that she didn’t care about the subject as that she
preferred not to dig up old bones, backtrack to the
past.

‘
He wasn’t . . . Hal never really
liked this country,’ she said quietly.

‘
But you do?’

‘
I love it,’ she said
passionately. ‘I love the space of it, the wildness. Or rather, I
used to.’

‘
Until?’ He worked busily with the
razor, keeping his eyes averted, not looking at her in the mirror
over the washstand.

‘
Until lately,’ she said flatly.
‘Believe it or not this town used to be a pretty nice place to
live. Kids playing in the street. Farmers coming in on weekends to
do their shopping, gossip around. We had a produce market on
Saturdays. Lots of people. Lots of laughter. Now . . . well, you’ve
seen it.’

‘
What happened?’ he
asked.

‘
Larry Hugess happened is what
happened,’ she said. ‘His hired thugs drove all the smaller farmers
and ranchers out. One by one, they pulled stakes and moved on.
Usually with a Flying H escort.’

‘
Didn’t anybody put up a
fight?’

‘
Oh, one or two. But it was no
use. They couldn’t face down hired guns - they weren’t that sort of
people. Hugess claimed they fenced off water his cattle needed.
Eminent domain, he called it. First come, first served.’

‘
What about the Law?’

‘
The US Marshal is in Winslow,’
she said. ‘That’s around fifty-four miles away. Even if he was
there on tap, waiting for us to call on him, which of course he
isn’t. He’s got a pretty big bailiwick, Angel.’

‘
Frank,’ he corrected her,
thinking, yes, she was right. The US Marshal patrolled an area that
was about the size of Delaware. To do it he had the help of two
deputies. That wasn’t exactly what you’d call a deterrent to
crime.

‘
How many men has Hugess got on
his payroll?’ he asked.

‘
Thirty, thirty-five,’ she
replied.’ It’s hard to say - there are always some new faces coming
in, others moving on.’

‘
Yeah,’ Angel said. ‘I met some of
the boys. That Willie Johns. He’s a mean one.’

‘
He is!’ she said
vehemently.

‘
Personal experience?’

She gave a theatrical shudder.
‘Uhhhhh,’ she went. ‘He comes in here sometimes. Once he - he put
his hands on me.’ She tossed her bright hair as if getting rid of a
dark thought. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘How about some
breakfast?’

‘
I could use some,’ he said. ‘Will
you join me?’

‘
Pooh,’ Sherry Hardin laughed. ‘I
had breakfast hours ago. But I’ll sit and have some coffee with
you.’

She turned and held the door open
and he bowed to her with a smile and did one of those ‘after
you,
Alphonse
gestures. She was very close and he could smell a faint, clean
perfume. Her eyes were smiling as he looked down at her. He was
standing near enough to feel the warm glow of her body and he
stifled the sudden impulse to touch her. A quick light in her eyes
told him that she had sensed his impulse and there was a quick lift
of the corners of her mouth. Her lips were slightly parted, soft,
warm. He pushed her shoulder.

‘
G’wan,’ he said, mock growling.
‘I smell coffee.’

She ducked her head and went out
into the corridor ahead of him. He couldn’t see her face but he bet
himself she was smiling, with perhaps a faint touch of triumph in
the expression. She had a good walk and Angel watched the sensuous
movement of her hips with pleasure. One of life’s sheerest
enjoyments was watching a healthy, beautiful woman walk. As if she
sensed his gaze she turned her head and smiled impishly over her
shoulder as she went down the stairs and into the dining room to
the right at the foot of the staircase.

It was a bright, airy room with six
or eight tables spread far enough apart so nobody would ever feel
he was sharing his breakfast conversation with his neighbor. The
tables were all circular, and each had a small glass jug with
desert flowers in it. There was a big window with a square table up
against it looking out on to the bustle of Front Street. They sat
there and a tiny old Chinaman shuffled in with a platter of ham and
eggs, bread, coffee, cream, sugar and cups. He laid them all out
without a word, working in neat precise movements. Then he bowed
just enough for it to be seen and went out without a
word.

‘
Smells good,’ Angel said, leaning
over the food.

‘
It should,’ she replied. ‘I
cooked it myself.’

Angel could see Dan Sheridan leaning
against the hitch rail outside the jail down the street. The
marshal looked relaxed, comfortable. Angel got started on the food,
asking the girl a question as he did.

‘
Two years come fall,’ she told
him.

‘
Tell me about him,’ he
pursued.

‘
Nothing much to tell,’ she said.
‘Dan had been kicking around since the end of the war, scouting for
the Army, I think, hunting buffalo. I think he rode shotgun for
Butterfields for a while, but I’m not sure if he told me that or I
heard it someplace else. He just happened along at a time when the
Flying H boys were getting a little too much for the town to
handle. Jock Mahoney, Johnny Gardner, Jack Coltrane who runs the
livery stable, some of the others, hired him as town marshal. You
know the sort of thing: keep the town in line but don’t stop the
boys from spending their money.’

‘
I know the sort of
thing.’

‘
I think the Flying H boys didn’t
mind. They kind of respected Dan. He never pushed them around. Just
kept them from going too far.’

‘
Until the Burt Hugess
thing.’

‘
Yes. Until then.’

‘
You think he made a
mistake?’

‘
It could be,’ she said,
tonelessly. ‘How’s the food?’

‘
First class,’ he said. ‘You’re a
good cook.’

‘
I know. I make good coffee,
too.’

‘
Then pour me some.’

She poured more coffee and they sat
in a comfortable, companionable silence while he finished his food.
When he pushed the plate away and leaned back, she looked at him
for a moment, as though uncertain what to say.

‘
Go ahead and ask,’ he said,
smiling.

‘
You’re not supposed to be able to
do that, Angel,’ she said, softly. ‘Not quite so soon.’ There was a
breathlessness in her voice.

‘
Frank Angel,’ he said.
‘Twenty-seven years old. Born in Georgia, but I got most of my
growth not far from here. Fort Dodge way. I work for the government
- I guess Dan told you that. And I’m on my way to Fort Griffin.
That’s about it.’

‘
The Justice Department,’ she
said. ‘What does that mean?’

‘
Like I told Dan Sheridan,’ he
said. ‘It’s the government department that’s responsible for all
law enforcement in the United States. My being here, however, is a
pure accident.’

‘
You live in Washington?’ she
probed.

‘
Uh-huh.’

‘
With your parents?’

‘
No,’ he said softly. ‘My parents
died a long time ago.’ There was a far-off glint of old anger deep
in his eyes that made her regret her question. She filled the
silence with another.

‘
Nope,’ he grinned, his face
boyish again. ‘No wife. But I’ve got a beaut of a landlady. Her
name’s Mrs. Rissick.’

‘
Oh,’ Sherry Hardin said. ‘She’s
pretty.’

‘
Well,’ Angel allowed, ‘for a
woman of sixty-eight, she’s not bad. If you go for
sixty-eight-year-old women.’

‘
And do you?’ she asked with a
straight face.

‘
Pour some more coffee,’ he told
her. They were smiling at each other like fools and they both
realized it at the same moment, both knowing why. As the
simultaneous thought occurred to them they laughed out
loud.

‘
Aren’t I the forward hussy, now,’
Sherry Hardin said, almost to herself.

Just pour the coffee in the cup this
time,’ Angel said, ‘and tell me about Larry Hugess.’

She lifted the pot but didn’t tilt
it, and he looked at her, puzzled for a moment by the stiff shocked
look on her face. She had gone pale beneath the warm tan and her
eyes were fixed on the street outside. Angel turned quickly. A
phalanx of horsemen was coming down the street past the flat hulk
of the warehouse behind the depot. In its van was a solidly built
man in a dust-coated dark suit. At his right side rode Willie Johns
and on the other Danny Johnston.

‘
No need,’ Sherry Hardin said. ‘No
need now.’

And Larry Hugess led his men through the town like a
king, along Front Street to the jail where Dan Sheridan stood
waiting.

Larry Hugess came down Front Street as if he owned
it.

Frank Angel came out onto the porch
of the hotel to watch him go by and had to admit that Hugess was
something to watch. He was a big man, broad across the shoulders,
tall in the beautifully tooled Denver saddle, head erect, and eyes
disdainful. Hugess was clad in a dark blue suit which, although
dust-coated, was plainly tailor-made, as were the fine smooth
leather boots he was wearing, glowing the way leather only glows
from much and diligent polishing. If it hadn’t been for the rig
Hugess was using, Angel would have said he was a fine figure:
despite the fact that the gray Hugess was riding was a superb
animal with the arched neck and graceful lines of an Arab, Angel
noted that the man used a wicked-looking
chileno,
or ring bit. Any man who
knew horses also knew that this kind of hardware was liable to
break a horse’s jaw if used too severely: It was the cruelest bit
ever put into an animal’s mouth. If Hugess had been a working
cowman, nobody would have ridden alongside him. Angel noted too
that Hugess spurned the lighter Texas or California-style saddle,
burdening the animal with forty pounds and more of ornately tooled
and silver-decorated leather and a three-quarter rig, topped off by
the extra weight of an engraved Winchester carbine which Hugess
patently didn’t need to carry, since he had Willie Johns to guard
one flank, Danny Johnston to take the other side, and four men to
bring up the rear.