Shoot Angel! (12 page)

‘
That
was Cranford and Trench,’ Sherman protested. ‘Weren’t a thing I
could have done to have stopped that! It’s easy for you to say how
things should have been, Angel. You weren’t mixed up with Cranford!
I was!’

‘
Sure,
it just happened. You bastards are all the same. The minute you get
caught you start bleating about not being responsible. It wasn’t
your fault. You didn’t know what was going on. Well, hard shit,
Sherman, you won’t get any sympathy from me. Don’t forget I
happened to go through your little set-up and I didn’t see anybody
forcing you to play your part. And you damn well seemed to know
what was going on. How do you explain that?’

Sherman remained silent. He had no way out of
that. Angel had him cold and Sherman knew it.

‘
Sherman, you know the situation we’re in. I’ll do what I
can to keep us both alive. But I want help from you on one thing. I
told Cranford you were putting everything down on paper. That’s
just what I do want you to do. Just in case something happens I
want a record of Cranford’s activities. You can put down how you
were involved too, and when you’ve finished, sign and date
it.’

‘
You
really mean it,’ Sherman scowled. ‘All right, Angel, what if I
cooperate—tell me how much it’s worth! If I’m going to give you the
evidence you need to get Cranford, what’s in it for me?’

Angel smiled.
‘Lucky for you,
Sherman, that will be up to somebody else. If I had my say you’d be
a dead man right now! So find yourself a pen and some paper and get
to work. There might not be much time. I have a feeling Cranford’s
going to start getting impatient pretty soon.’

In fact Amos
Cranford
’s
patience ran out after exactly thirty minutes.

Cranford
’s men hit the jail front and
rear. The interior of the building echoed to the blast of gunfire.
The front window exploded inwards, glass and shredded wood
showering the office. Bullets whined across the room, expending
themselves in the thick adobe-and-stone walls. While the gunfire
carried on, other men made attempts to break down the front and
rear doors. They retreated after a couple of minutes. Shortly after
that the gunfire ceased and it became ominously quiet.

Raising his head from below the edge of his
desk Sherman glanced across the office to where Angel stood.

‘
Ain’t
you going to do anything?’ Sherman demanded.

Angel glanced at him.

‘
Time’ll come,’ he said. ‘Right now they’ve found out it
ain’t going to be easy getting in here. It didn’t do us any harm
but they used a lot of ammunition and energy. Next time they’ll try
something else.’

He crossed to the window and peered out
through the bars. At first glance the street appeared empty. Over
on the far side, though, Angel was able to make out the dark shapes
of waiting men. They were huddled together in a tight bunch. Trying
to decide on their next move. Angel settled himself against the
wall beside the window and waited.

‘
Angel!’

‘
Yeah?’

‘
Why
don’t we get the hell out of here before they come
again?’

Angel glanced over his shoulder
at Sherman. Liberty
’s lawman was hunched over his desk, staring down at the
paper he was writing on.

‘
How
do you plan for us to do that, Sherman? You can bet your last
dollar Cranford’s got front and back covered. Maybe you’re planning
for us to fly out!’

Sherman
’s head rose with a jerk. He stared
vacantly at Angel, as if he had just roused himself from a deep
sleep.

‘
Guess
I ain’t thinking too straight,’ he said, unable to conceal the
nervous tremor in his voice.

‘
Just
let it lie,’ Angel told him. ‘We’ll take our chance when it
comes!’

He turned back to the window in
time to see the knot of men break apart. He noticed, too, that
there were many lamplight reflections beginning
to show along the street. The
citizens of Liberty were having their evening calm disrupted, yet
nobody seemed interested enough to venture out on to the street to
investigate.

‘
Angel! Angel, you hear me?’

Amos
Cranford
’s
voice floated out of the shadows.

‘
I
hear
you.’

‘
Angel, don’t be a fool! You can’t win, man! See reason,
Angel, give up. Let me have what I want and you and Sherman can
walk away unharmed!’

Sherman himself gave a hollow laugh. He stood
up and came to stand beside Angel at the window.

‘
Think
about it, Angel,’ Cranford advised. ‘Wouldn’t you rather stay
alive?’

‘
Sure
we would, Amos,’ Sherman yelled. ‘That’s why we ain’t about to
listen to any of your deals!’

Cranford swore volubly.

‘
You
want it the hard way, so that’s how it’s going to be!’ There was
unconcealed rage in Cranford’s tone now. ‘You’re both fools and in
a while you’ll be dead fools!’

Sherman uttered a low sigh.

‘
Much
as I hate to admit it, Angel, I got to agree with him. We’re as
good as dead right now. Christ, man, he’s got us and he knows
it!’

‘
You
see it any way you want to, Sherman,’ Angel said. ‘I ain’t dead
yet—’cause if I am I’m the liveliest corpse you’re ever going to
see!’

Cranford retraced his steps to
the far side of the
street and for a time nothing appeared to be
happening.

Maintaining his position at the
window Angel kept his eyes on the tight group of men. He knew damn
well that they were up to something, and he would have given a
month
’s pay
to know what it was.

Without warning a horse and
rider came out of an alley on Cranford
’s side of the street. At first Angel
couldn’t understand the reasoning behind the move. The rider was
half-way across the street before Angel realized what was
happening. His keen eyes picked out the red tracery of sparks
falling away behind the rider. The sparks came from a dark bundle
in the rider’s hand. Angel’s mind whirled frantically, and then it
hit him.

Explosives!

The bastards were going to blow the goddamn
jail apart to get at him!

Angel jerked his rifle up,
aiming and firing in a single motion. The blast of the Winchester
was loud in the comparative silence. The rider went back out of his
saddle like he
’d been hit with a forty-foot plank. But his right arm had
already reached the apex of its swing as he arched violently off
the horse. Angel watched the dark bundle leave the rider’s hand.
Saw the glowing red tail. He watched for a second, held by the
awful directness of the bundle’s trajectory, and knew that he had
to get away from the front of the jail.

And fast!

He pushed himself away from the
window, throwing out a hand to shove Sherman aside. His palm
touched Sherman
’s chest. Angel shoved hard, feeling a warning yell rising
in his throat. Yet he knew, coldly, logically, that it was too
late.

Far too late.

The front wall of the jail vanished in a
blinding flare of flame. Thick coils of smoke and dust gushed into
the office. The ear-splitting roar of the explosion mingled with
the crash of falling masonry and splintering timber.

Angel, halfway across the office, was lifted
off his feet as though he was weightless. The explosion threw him
across the room, slamming him brutally up against the far wall. A
fragmentary burst of pain preceded a total blackout. Angel felt
nothing as a mass of stone and timber piled up over his inert
body.

He heard nothing. Saw nothing. Felt
nothing.

He lay like the
dead
—and
because of that he stayed alive.

Angel woke up with a sullen
headache, countless cuts and bruises, but no serious injuries.
Liberty
’s
former lawman, Phil Sherman, however had not been so lucky. He had
died as a result of the explosion, so Liberty’s doctor informed
Angel. He imparted this information while he was treating Angel in
a small, neat bedroom which turned out to be situated over Jessica
Blake’s restaurant. The doctor was a gruff, dark-haired man in his
late forties. He had an abrasive manner, a brown, seamed face, and
hands as gentle as a woman’s. He wore a pair of steel-rimmed
spectacles that clung by some miracle to the extreme tip of his
nose, and he peered over the rims at his patient as he tended to
the various wounds covering Angel’s torso.

‘
You
people just have no consideration,’ the doctor grumbled. ‘Never a
thought, day or night, when you set out on these damn
shooting-matches!’ He paused in his ministrations to stare
accusingly at Angel. ‘You listening to me, boy?’

Angel smiled painfully.
‘I’m all ears,
Doc.’

‘
And
you can cut out the facetious remarks, too, young feller. Ain’t it
enough I get dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to tend
your damn-fool hurts? Insults I don’t need. Department of Justice,
eh? Seems to me they must be in a bad way if they have to take you
so young.’

‘
Sign
of the times, Doc,’ Angel said. ‘It’s a young man’s
world!’

The doctor gave a bandage an
unnecessarily hard turn over Angel
’s ribs. Angel winced. The doctor ignored
his patient’s discomfort and carried on.

‘
I
suppose it’s a
waste of time telling you to rest?’

Angel nodded,
‘Sorry, Doc. Soon
as I can stand up without falling on my face I’ve got to move
out.’

‘
What
happens to Cranford when you catch him?’

‘
Not
up to me to decide.’ Angel sat up at the doctor’s request. ‘All I
have to do is find him and bring him back.’

‘
They
ought to hang the son of a bitch!’ the doctor said with surprising
venom.

‘
That’s likely.’

The doctor finished his handiwork.

‘
If
you have to go riding all over the territory, boy, just remember
what happened to you a short time ago. The body needs time to
recover. I doubt yours will get that but try and remember all the
same.’

‘
Thanks, Doc, I’ll try and take it easy,’ Angel
promised.

The doctor put away his tackle and closed his
bag. At the door he paused, turned, staring over his spectacles at
Angel.

‘
One
thing, boy, who the hell pays my bill?’

Angel stood up, carefully flexing muscles and
limbs. With a little care, he realized, he might be able to move
small distances over long periods of time.

‘
Send
it to the Department of Justice in Washington,’ he suggested to the
medical man.

‘
Don’t
think I won’t!’ The doctor closed the door firmly behind him when
he left.

Angel spent a few minutes walking round and
round the confines of the room. He felt a little unsteady at first
but after a couple of circuits he had regained control of his
wandering balance. He was still working flexibility into his stiff
joints when somebody tapped on the door.

‘
Come
on in.’

The door opened to reveal Jess
Blake. She had a cup of black coffee in one hand and a
man
’s shirt
draped over her arm. She smiled at Angel and passed him the
shirt.

‘
Best
I could do at this time of night,’ she said.

Angel pulled the shirt on and found that it
fitted him perfectly. He took the coffee Jess offered.

‘
How
do you feel now?’ she enquired.

‘
Let’s
say I’ve had better days.’

‘
We
thought you were dead. There was so much confusion at the jail
after Cranford and his men left. Everybody was crowding round,
shouting orders to each other. We found Phil Sherman first—or what
was left of him. It was Birdy who found you. He practically dug you
out with his bare hands.’

‘
Where
is he?’ Angel asked.

‘
After
we’d got you up here and the doctor said you weren’t badly hurt,
Birdy took his horse and told me to tell you he was going to follow
Cranford. Keep the trail in sight he said.’

‘
Damn!’ Angel swore. He quickly downed the remainder of his
coffee. ‘Jess, I’ve got to move fast. The last thing Birdy should
be doing is trailing Cranford and his bunch. He’s no tracker and he
certainly isn’t a gunman!’

‘
I
said the same but
he seemed to want to do it,’ Jess said. ‘I hope he’ll be all
right.’

Angel
’s thoughts ran along the same lines.
He just hoped that Birdy had the good sense to keep his activities
restricted to no more than simply tracking Cranford and his bunch.
If he was spotted Birdy wouldn’t stand a chance against Cranford’s
hired guns.