Shoot Angel! (2 page)

He felt too stiff to move at
first. The angry pain of the night before had become a dull,
nagging ache.
Culp’s left eye was swollen horribly and his crushed lips
began to bleed when he opened his mouth. When he tried to sit up
the effort brought a groan of agony from him. Duggan and Koch had
really worked him over! Jesus, he was going to be stiff for
days!

The door at the far end of the
passage crashed
open. Culp heard the sharp rap of footsteps on the stone
floor. He lifted his head and saw Sherman staring at him through
the bars of the cell.

‘
Nice
day outside, boy,’ Sherman remarked. ‘Good day for a hanging, like
they say!’ He laughed sharply. ‘Judge’ll be here right
quick.’

‘
Sheriff,’ Culp called as Sherman turned away from the
cell.

Sherman turned back to stare at
him.
‘You
want something, boy?’

‘
You
mind if I ask a question?’

‘
Go
ahead.’

‘
Just
what am I going to be charged with?’

Sherman tugged at his
mustache.
‘Thought you heard last night. Well, first there’s the
attempted rape of Louella Brill. Then you went and offered my two
deputies a bribe, and when they wouldn’t take it you assaulted
them. Naturally they were forced to defend themselves and you
sustained certain injuries.’

Culp shook his head in disbelief.

‘
Sheriff, you know and I know that’s a pack of
lies.’

‘
True,
boy, but it’s your word against mine and my deputies. I’ll have to
remind you that you did try to buy off my boys.’

‘
It
was a shakedown,’ Culp protested.

‘
Tell
it to the judge.’

‘
You
figure that’ll do any good?’ Culp asked drily.

Sherman shrugged.
‘Never know your
luck, boy.’

‘
In
this town?’ Culp laughed harshly. ‘No chance, Sherman.’

‘
You
should of thought about that before you stopped over.’

The deputy named Duggan appeared.

‘
Judge
is here.’

Sherman nodded.
‘Open him
up.’

Duggan unlocked the cell. They
led Culp into the office. The other deputy, Koch, was there.
Sitting behind Sherman
’s desk was a silver-haired, lean man dressed in
somber black. He stared at Culp through glittering black eyes. The
hands resting on the desk were long and thin, the pale skin
translucent enough to show a fine tracery of veins.

‘
Read
the charges against this man, Sheriff,’ the seated man instructed.
His voice was dry, emotionless.

‘
Deputies Duggan and Koch were forced to apprehend the
prisoner in the act of sexually assaulting Miss Louella Brill. The
prisoner then offered them money to forget what happened, and when
Duggan and Koch refused this bribe he attacked them. His injuries
are a result of their having to defend themselves.’

The judge glanced at Culp.

‘
Do
you have anything to say in your defense, Culp?’

‘
Damn
right I do! I don’t know what kind of a town you crooks are running
but don’t expect me to just go quietly. This whole thing is rigged.
All the way down the line from that little whore to this so-called
trial.’

‘
Have
you finished?’ the judge enquired.

‘
For
now,’ Culp said. He
had realized that he was wasting his breath. It made no difference
what he said. It wasn’t going to change a thing. Not a damn
thing!

‘
Culp,
in view of your aggressive attitude towards this court and its
members, I feel no compunction towards reaching a liberal verdict.
On the evidence presented to me in Sheriff Sherman’s written
report, plus the testimony of Miss Brill and the two deputies, all
of whom I have spoken to at length, I find you guilty on all
counts. I sentence you, therefore, to six months’ hard labor.
Sentence to commence immediately. This session of Liberty County
Court is concluded. Remove the prisoner!’

Frank Angel took his horse
easily up Liberty
’s main street, his gaze taking in the layout of the neat
and tidy little town. It was the only way he could describe
Liberty. It was a township which had sprung up in the first
instance to serve the cattle community developing in the area. Over
the years it had become established, more and more businesses
opening up, a greater flow of families moving in. Gradually, though
still supplying the outlying ranches, Liberty became independent.
It prospered and took on an identity of its own. Unlike any
ordinary cattle-town, Liberty went further than was usual in its
attempts to create a better image for itself. It showed in the
clean streets, the cared-for, painted buildings, the atmosphere of
orderliness pervading the quiet calm. For some reason he couldn’t
figure Frank Angel found Liberty just a little too good to be true.
There was a feeling he had about the place, despite the fact he’d
only just ridden in. Perhaps, he thought, it was just his
suspicious nature. He never had been one for taking things at face
value. Angel always liked to look a little deeper. It was
surprising what a glance behind the scenes often revealed. Idly he
wondered what Liberty’s skeleton in the cupboard looked
like.

Angel reined in before a small
establishment that advertised
‘Good Food’ and eased himself stiffly from the
saddle. He looped the reins over the hitch rail, stepped up on to
the boardwalk and went inside the restaurant. The interior
reflected Liberty’s overall appearance. The place was clean,
bright, neatly arranged. The eight tables were all covered by
fresh, blue-and-white-checked cloths. The aroma of frying steak,
drifting through from the kitchen in the rear, indicated that the
standard of cooking would be as high as that of the interior
decoration. Satisfied that he was going to have a good meal, Angel
sat down, choosing a table by the window, which also allowed him a
clear view of the door. He hadn’t been seated for more than a few
seconds when he heard movement behind the counter and a girl with
dark hair and green eyes appeared from the kitchen.

The hair and the eyes were the
first things to catch Angel
’s attention. The hair because it was thick and
long and shone like he’d never seen hair shine before. The eyes
were beautiful, striking, a shade of intense, sparkling green. They
were both sensuous and mischievous, a combination Angel found
irresistible. His interest was further aroused when the girl
crossed over to his table, smiling at him as though they were old
and very good friends. She was wearing a plain, light-blue dress
that did wonders for her long-legged, slim figure, and Angel found
it wasn’t doing him any harm.

‘
My
first customer of the day,’ the girl said pleasantly. ‘I always
make a rule to give the first customer the very best
service.’

Angel couldn
’t help smiling. With a line
like that she was bound to go far.

‘
I’ve
ridden a long way since this morning,’ he said, ‘so I warn you I’m
a hungry customer.’

‘
How
about steak, with fried onions. Browned potatoes, greens, gravy. To
follow I’ve got fresh apple-pie with cream that was still in the
cow a few hours ago.’

‘
If
you could bring me a pot of coffee to start it’ll do just
fine.’

The girl nodded and returned to
the kitchen. Angel sat back and gazed out through the window. There
weren
’t very
many people out on the street. Liberty seemed to have retired for
lunch. He wondered where Harry Culp was—if the man was still in
Liberty. Angel had lost a lot of time due to getting himself set
afoot back in Arizona. Then he’d gone and walked in on that
business with the Reece brothers and the Apache raiding-party at
that way station. Matters had become a little difficult for a time
and Culp had ceased to be Angel’s prime concern. But the
interruption was over now and Angel had taken up the chase
again.

As the Attorney
General
’s
last telegraph message had suggested, he had picked up Culp’s cold
trail quickly, allowing nothing to distract him. The Old Man had a
knack of being able to convey his personal feelings even through
the mechanical and impersonal limitations of the telegraph’s
printed words. Angel had been in no doubt as to the Attorney
General’s annoyance. The Attorney General did not like his
investigators breaking off from an assignment, unless the
circumstances were very exceptional. Angel was left with the
distinct feeling that his reasons—a dead horse and the combination
of outlaw gang and warring Apaches—lacked what the Attorney General
considered to be a justifiable excuse.

On his return to Yuma Angel had
rigged himself up with a fresh outfit and had then painstakingly
gone through the motions of tracking
Culp. It had taken him three days to cut
the trail, winding its dusty way across the heat-seared Arizona
badlands, gradually slipping off towards the northeast beyond Lake
Havasu, across endless, empty miles. The three days had become
five, then six. Angel had managed to gain a little knowledge about
Culp at each place he stopped for food or water or somewhere to
sleep for the night. Each tiny, desolate town, each isolated ranch,
all furnished some information about the direction in which Culp
appeared to be heading. Angel couldn’t guess at Culp’s ultimate
destination, whether the man intended to meet anyone. Not that
those items really mattered. All Frank Angel wanted was Harry Culp
and the $75,000 he had with him. Culp was wanted for his part in a
complicated swindle involving government officials dealing in
Indian affairs, namely the sale of land belonging to tribes in the
southwest. The swindle had been broken up after long months of
painstaking undercover investigation by the Department of Justice.
Angel had only been put on the case during the final weeks, after
one of the department’s investigators had been shot down and killed
in Tucson. He had been able to assist in the capture of the men
involved—except for one. That had been Harry Culp. And Angel
intended to right that wrong as soon as he could.

The town of Liberty, basking in
the shadow of the Colorado Plateau, a tiny spot of civilization in
the middle of nowhere, was yet another stopover in
Culp
’s
seemingly endless ride. Angel was sure the man had taken time to
rest here after the long journey up into the rocky escarpments of
the plateau. Beyond lay the dry miles of the Painted Desert and the
whole of the way ahead, curving west and east, became a maze of
rocky canyons and gorges, a rising landscape of mountainous
terrain, It was a wide, empty, savage country, and if Culp intended
crossing it he would need to stock up on his supplies …

‘
Coffee!’

Angel was dragged out of his
reflections by the sound of the girl
’s voice. He nodded his thanks and watched
her cross the floor on her way back to the kitchen. The smell of
fresh coffee filled his nostrils and he eagerly filled the large
china mug she had provided. The coffee was delicious. Angel downed
half the pot over the next few minutes, slowly beginning to feel
partway human again. It was only now that he realized the grubby
state he was in. He hadn’t shaved for a couple of days, his clothes
were dusty, sweat-stale. He decided that as soon as he had finished
his meal he would do something about his appearance.

A few minutes later the girl
reappeared. She was carrying a tray holding
Angel
’s
meal. She smiled at him as she came across the floor of the
restaurant. Without warning the smile vanished from her face. Angel
heard the door rattle open, glanced that way, and saw two men step
inside. The first thing he noticed about them was the aggressive,
intolerant way they behaved. Nor was he slow to spot the badges
they wore pinned to their grubby, creased shirts. The one in the
lead was big, a heavy, beefy man with large hands. He grinned
wolfishly as he planted himself squarely in the girl’s
path.

‘
Smells good, Jess,’ he said. ‘That steak’ll do right
well.’

The girl
’s face flared with anger. She
made to move round the huge bulk but the man stepped in front of
her again.

‘
Oh,
for heaven’s sake, get out of my way.’

Duggan laughed.
‘My, don’t she get
uppity! Now you ought to treat us nice, Jess, ’cause we’re
customers. Ain’t that right, Koch?’

‘
Yeah!
Could be we want to spend some money here. Don’t cost a thing to be
civil, Jess.’

‘
How
about showing us some civility and letting the lady through with
this customer’s meal?’

The man called Duggan turned at the sound of
the strange voice. He eyed the speaker, seeing a tall, rangy young
man in the act of rising from his seat at one of the tables. Duggan
saw the dusty range clothes, the tanned, high-boned face, and
thought he was looking at some out-of-work cowhand passing
through.