Send Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #2) (6 page)

Al Birch sat in his customary
chair in the Alhambra Saloon in Daranga and chomped on his cigar.
He was a big man, strongly built, his shock of hair iron grey, his
eyes hidden beneath heavy brows and bushy eyebrows. Opposite Birch
sat his neighbor and partner Jacey Reynolds. A thin-faced man, his
nose long and drooping, Reynolds had the air of an
unsuccessful
undertaker. Both men had come to Arizona with the
California Column during the War between the States, and stayed on.
There wasn’t an officer above the rank of lieutenant in the
Territory of Arizona that one or both of them didn’t know
personally. They had used those friendships ruthlessly to carve
themselves a monopoly in the Rio Blanco country. The saloon they
were sitting in, their ranches, the trading post on the Fort,
stores and hotel in town, all belonged to either Reynolds or Birch
or both. They drank only good liquor, smoked only the best tobacco,
rode fine horses. And they knew their power.

‘
This
Angel feller,’ Birch ground out.

‘
The
boys have taken care of that by now,’ Reynolds observed, pulling a
gold watch from his fob pocket. His thin lips puffed at the briar
pipe he rarely had far from his mouth.

‘
Thompson thought he might be another o’ them Gov’ment
snoopers,’ Birch went on. ‘Said he had that kind of
look.’

‘
Thompson,’ Reynolds said, and there was a world of meaning
in the word.

“
You
think he was wrong, then?’

‘
I
don’t think I’d put any money on his judgment,’ Reynolds said, ‘but
just supposin’ he was right, so what?’

‘
Been
a few of ‘em,’ Birch said. ‘The Man got on to ‘em because of his
contacts back in Washin’ton. That Jasper Maclntyre that was
sniffin’ round the Land Office in Tucson. Freeman—’

‘
Hell,
he was just some surveyor or somethin’,’ Reynolds said.

‘
Federal man, all the same,’ Birch insisted. ‘And what about
Stevens in San Pat?’

‘
Boys
found nothin’ on him,’ Reynolds pointed out.

‘
He
was as kin’ lots of questions about sales of beef to the
Reservation, just the same. You know what I say, Jace.’

T know: once is accident, twice
is coincidence, three times you better do
something.
’

‘
Damned right,’ growled Birch, relighting the butt of his
cigar.

‘
So?’

‘
Now
this Angel,’ Birch continued. ‘I don’t like it.’

‘
Explain,’ Reynolds said patiently. ‘What’s
wrong?’

‘
It
ties our hands a mite. The Man sent word; we got to play it
different, that’s all.’

‘
Different? How? We can’t pull out of this now,’ Reynolds
said, a trace of anger entering his tone.

‘
Agreed,’ Birch nodded. ‘But the old man says he wants us to
be in the clear when we make our move.’

‘
That
what he said?’ Reynolds remarked. ‘He’s gettin’ soft in his old
age, ain’t he?’

‘
Maybe,’ Birch admitted. ‘But this has gotta go as fine as
snake hair, Jace. Johnny Boot and Willy Mill got to ease off. Or
it’ll get out of hand.’

‘
Mmmm,’ Reynolds said. ‘Might be wise. We need opposition
now like a hole in the head. The whole thing could blow up in our
faces if we play it wrong.’

‘
That’s what I thought,’ Birch said. ‘Told the old man as
much, an’ he agreed. So he’s sendin’ his own man in.’

‘
Oh?’

‘
Said
he was goin’ to bring things to a head his own way, an’ we was to
make sure we had good alibis when his man went to work.’

‘
He
tell you what he had in mind?’

Birch told him and
Reynolds
’
eyebrows rose.

‘
God,’
he said, sucking on the stem of the briar pipe, ‘he’s goin’ for
broke. Who’s the gun?’

‘
Larkin,’ Birch said, leaning back to enjoy the effect his
pronouncement had.

The effect was electric: Reynolds sat up in
his chair, leaning forward.

‘
Larkin!’ he ejaculated. ‘But he’s—’

‘
I
know, I know,’ Birch waved his words down. ‘A paid killer. Hired
gun. Which is what we need right now. The old man is right. No more
mysterious disappearances to bring in the law. No more o’ that
business of ever’body reckonin’ it was Johnny or Willy but sittin’
tight on account o’ they couldn’t do nothin’ about provin’ it.
We’ll be in the clear, all of us. Larkin will ride in and take care
of things, and then be on his way. He’s what the old man called his
catalyst.’

‘
Catalyst is right,’ breathed Reynolds. ‘How come he’s in
such a hurry?’

‘
Somethin’ to do with politics,’ Birch explained. ‘The old
man reckons if we ain’t got ever’thin’ tied up neat by the end of
summer, the word will be out an’ we’ll be left at the startin’
post.’

‘
Perish the thought,’ said Reynolds. Birch balked at his
partner’s ironic comment. Always some smartass remark, always that
pretended intellectual superiority that he detested. One of these
days ... he choked back the bile in his throat and forced himself
to smile.

‘
He’ll
be in on the stage,’ he announced. Reynolds nodded.

‘
We’d
better throw a dinner party or somethin’. Your place or
mine?’

‘
Yours, I guess. Get Austin out there. Send somebody over to
bring Sim Bott up from South Ranch - everybody knows he ain’t mixed
up in things up here. Make sure Johnny brings Mill with him. We
don’t want nobody wonderin’ where any of us was.’

‘
Or
the night after that?’ queried Reynolds.

‘
As
long as it takes,’ Birch told him. ‘Until Larkin has done what he’s
comin’ here to do, we’re gonna act like a Sunday school
picnic’

‘
That’ll be the day,’ Reynolds told him, and uncoiled his
lanky frame from the bentwood chair, heading out of the Alhambra
and into the sunlit street.

The lurching Concord careened
into the plaza at about five, with the usual welter of noise and
excitement, dust piling up as the
ribbon shaker hauled the horses back on
their haunches and yelled out his announcement. Only three
passengers alighted into the street in front of the Alhambra. One
was a whiskey drummer, clutching his precious sample bag and
fanning his rotund face with a dust coated derby. The second was a
woman who was met by a trio of angular ladies who led her across
the street to the boarding house, their voices trailing behind them
like starlings on the wing. Those townspeople who looked upon the
arrival of the stage as the highlight of their day watched all
these activities with keen interest The third passenger to alight
was a man of medium height, thickset and mild in appearance,
dressed in a dark business suit. Only his wide brimmed Stetson and
range boots indicated his association with this country. His hair
was a dark reddish color and his eyes were the palest of pale
blues, almost colorless. He wore a white shirt and carried a small
carpetbag. Those watching had noticed he tipped his hat to the
ladies, and as he crossed the street towards the boarding house
they summed him up.

‘
Cattleman in town to buy stock?’

‘
Don’t
hardly figger. Them ain’t cowman’s hands.’

One of the watchers,
sharper-eyed than his fellows, had noted the thin, pale hands with
their neatly trimmed fingernails.
They were not the hands of a man who
spends his life among cattle or for that matter the hands of a man
used to hard physical labor.

‘
A
drummer, mebbe?’ opined another.

‘
No
sample bag,’ was the simple means of destroying that
theory.

‘
Some
business deal with Reynolds and Birch?’ guessed another.

‘
Could
be, could be.’ The man had gone into the boarding house and their
interest evaporated. Only one man at the plaza recognized the
newcomer. Jacey Reynolds had been idly leaning against the south
wall of the Alhambra, away from the knot of spectators watching the
arrival of the stagecoach, his hat tipped forward low over his
eyes. After a moment he hastened into the Alhambra.

‘
He’s
here,’ he announced sibilantly.

‘
Good,’ Birch said. ‘Where’d he go?’

‘
Over
to the hotel,’ Reynolds said.

Birch nodded.
‘Just fine,’ he
said. ‘Set that dinner up.’

Nobody saw Larkin leave town. He had been
told before he left Tucson that a horse would be left saddled
behind the livery stable, and he swung into the saddle and moved
the animal slowly away from Daranga, heading into the foothills of
the mountains north of town. He had changed his clothes, and was
now dressed in a dark brown shirt and pants, his scuffed boots
showing no reflection of the early morning sun. The butt of the
six-gun nestled in a cutaway holster at his side was matt black,
and the Henry rifle in the saddle scabbard had been treated so that
the nickel plating had no shine either. When Larkin moved against
the landscape, the unpretentious brown of his clothes blended with
the dun-dusty configurations of the land.

He headed up across the Twin
Peaks and down the northern side of the hills, his destination
firmly fixed in his mind. He had no feelings about the job ahead of
him. The man who hired him had been succinct and specific. He had
described the man Larkin was to kill with care and detail, and
explained the man
’s work habits and patterns thoroughly. Together he and his
employer had gone over the details of the trails, the topography,
the pitfalls. He had never been in the Rio Blanco country but he
knew it like a book. Larkin was a professional: he never got into
anything without careful preparation. This one looked easy. Most of
them did. Most of them were. It was when a man started thinking he
didn’t have to take pains that the trouble started. Larkin wasn’t
looking for any trouble. A nice clean job, the Man had said. One
thousand now, another thousand when you come back and tell me it’s
done. Larkin grinned. A man could have a hell of a time in Nogales
with a couple of thousand American dollars.

He found a stand of timber
which overlooked the trail he wanted, and he staked the horse some
way back where it could not be seen from either below or above. He
watched the house
below. It was a fine, well-built ranch. It had that solid,
settled appearance of a place built to last by a man who intended
to stay, and he knew from his briefing that George Perry was that
kind of man, and could have built no other kind of house. He
stretched out on the ground and watched the trail through a small
pair of binoculars he had once won in a gambling joint from a 6th
Cavalry officer. They were good field glasses. He could see
everything he wanted to see. He watched Walt Clare ride in from the
northeast, and from time to time during the evening, as the lights
came on in the windows, he could hear laughter in the house below.
He saw Clare and Perry and another man he did not know come out
onto the porch. He waited, breathing easily like a cat waiting for
prey. He saw Clare with the young woman whom he knew must be Kate
Perry walk away from the house, and after a while he heard Clare
making his goodbyes.

Larkin moved easily now, across
the slope, quartering to the place he had picked out earlier in the
day, his Henry rifle in his hand. He slid behind the fallen tree,
easing the rifle up to his shoulder, and he waited in the darkness
and heard the sound of Clare
’s horse on the slope below. Even in the darkness,
the young man loomed huge. He was a big man. That much easier,
thought Larkin. The looming bulk came into the sights and he
followed it along the trail for a moment before he squeezed the
trigger. He waited a moment, blinded by the gun flash, and cursed
as a shot exploded down below. He saw the flame. Reflex action, his
mind told him, I hit him right in the center and he went down.
Larkin knew his shot had been a killing shot but he took absolutely
no chances. He was already twenty feet away from the place where he
had lain in ambush and he could see Clare on the trail, the
skittish horse spooked by the gunfire but ground hitched by the
trailing reins, too well trained to break and run. Clare was on his
knees, and Larkin could hear the man’s agonized coughing attempts
to get breath into his shattered chest. There was not an ounce of
pity in Larkin, no trace of feeling. He raised the rifle and took
up the classic stance for firing. The bulky blob of Clare’s body
floated into the sights and Larkin breathed in deeply, then exhaled
and squeezed the trigger. Again he moved, soft-footed as an Apache,
twenty or thirty feet to the left, downhill. He was about ten feet
from the fallen man. There was no sound, no movement. He cat footed
across the intervening space and turned Clare over with the toe of
his boot.

Larkin nodded. The man was
stone dead. He ran
lightly up the slope, moving into the timberline and back
to where he had left his horse. He led the animal up to where the
rim rock began and then mounted, letting the horse pick its way
among the rocks, not urging it to speed until he had covered
perhaps half a mile. He thought he heard the sound of horses back
on the trail below, but by that time it did not matter: the man was
not born who could trail him across those rocks. Larkin touched his
spurs to the horse and moved off into the night. There was no
satisfaction on his face, no smile. His eyes were empty as the
night he rode through.