Trap Angel (Frank Angel Western #3) (12 page)

‘Where the hell is he,
Willie?’ one of the guards above shouted. Angel rolled over on his
back, his arm across his face to conceal its paler shade, and saw
the men hurrying down the ladders of the towers, two from the side
nearest him, one from the other. With a savage grin he rolled
forward and on to one knee. One of the men shouted ‘There he is!’
and then Angel cut loose with the shotgun. The man who had shouted
was torn off his feet by the first barrel, the nine double—zeroes
whacking him seven feet to one side, his body cut to bits by the
whistling buckshot. Even as the tattered body was falling, Angel
swung the gun around and blasted the second man down, blowing him
against the wire fence so hard that the wire acted as a trampoline
and hurled the man hard away and down on his face, limbs and trunk
as limp as those of a rag doll. The third man, firing hastily and
without aim as he ran, saw the other two suddenly smashed down and
tried t turn and run but instead got tangled up in his own
confusion and fell to the ground in front of Angel, about fifteen
yards away. He tried to raise the gun and his expression when the
hammer clicked on an empty chamber was totally comical.

‘Some days nothing goes
right, does it?’ Angel grinned and laid the long barrel of the
Peacemaker alongside the man’s head, just above the ear. The man
went down into the dirt like a bundle of old clothes. Now there
were men coming out of the buildings and running across the parade
ground and Angel slid two more of the red buckshot cartridges into
the breech of the shotgun, pulling both triggers almost casually,
the buckshot screeching into the advancing cluster of men, who
slewed aside in panic as they saw the flash and heard the dull boom
of the gun. One man went over, his legs kicking high in agony, and
another let loose a high thin piercing scream as one of the
double-zeroes smashed into his elbow and mangled the joint into a
jelly of bloody tissue and bone. Even as the men scattered, Angel
was quartering across the open ground towards the stables, one or
two of the scattered men behind him firing blindly into the
darkness where he had been, shouting confused orders to each other
which nobody obeyed.

Inside the dark stable,
Angel grabbed the firing hastily and without aim as he ran, saw the
other two suddenly smashed down and tried to turn and run but
instead got tangled up in his own confusion and fell to the ground
in front of Angel, about fifteen yards away. He tried to raise the
gun and his expression when the hammer clicked on an empty chamber
was totally comical.

‘Some days nothing goes
right, does it?’ Angel grinned and laid the long barrel of the
Peacemaker alongside the man’s head, just above the ear. The man
went down into the dirt like a bundle of old clothes. Now there
were men coming out of the buildings and running across the parade
ground and Angel slid two more of the red buckshot cartridges into
the breech of the shotgun, pulling both triggers almost casually,
the buckshot screeching into the advancing cluster of men, who
slewed aside in panic as they saw the flash and heard the dull boom
of the gun. One man went over, his legs kicking high in agony, and
another let loose a high thin piercing scream as one of the
double—zeroes smashed into his elbow and mangled the joint into a
jelly of bloody tissue and bone. Even as the men scattered, Angel
was quartering across the open ground towards the stables, one or
two of the scattered men behind him firing blindly into the
darkness where he had been, shouting confused orders to each other
which nobody obeyed.

Inside the dark stable,
Angel grabbed the halter of a big lineback dun and led him outside
into the open, the shotgun in his right hand again loaded. He felt
rather than saw the man coming up on his right and heard the man
shout ‘Get him, boys!’ and knew the man had turned one of the dogs
loose — how many of them were there?’ — and then he heard the dark
deep growl of the dog as it launched itself at him and in pure
reflex pulled both triggers of the shotgun. The dog was torn to
ribbons by the terrible force of the shot at such close quarters
and fell in a quivering, smoking heap of bloody meat to one side of
him. The man came rushing at Angel in the wake of the dog, and
Angel let him come, one hand still holding the rope halter. The man
raised his gun and fired but the hasty shot missed. Then Angel
whirled in a tight half—circle and hit the man across the bridge of
the nose with the shotgun.

The man fell to his knees
mewling through the broken bones of his face and Angel hit him
again, a savage felling blow with the heavy gun that flattened the
man to the ground. Without waiting to see whether the man would
move, Angel swung aboard the horse and kicked it into a gallop,
pulling its head around towards the gate.

Someone shouted from the
shelter of the alleys between the barracks and he emptied the
Peacemaker in that direction, his shots driving the men there back
to cover as he thundered across the wooden footbridge and down the
trail, the sounds of shots falling behind him, the night enveloping
him, the rustling wind cold on his face. There was still the outer
fence, he told himself grimly. Still more guards. He eased the
horse to a canter, gripping the rope halter between his teeth as he
slid cartridges into the

Peacemaker and again loaded
the shotgun.

About a mile below him he
could see the dark outline of the Palo Blanco canyon. Faint pink
streaks were leaving the blackness of the sky. It would soon be
dawn. Now he saw the outer fence, remembering as he did the way
Denniston had opened the gates while all the others had hung
back.

He rode the horse up to the
gate and hitched it to the wire fence ten feet away. On foot, he
ran across to the centre of the gates where the flat metal lock
held the two steel uprights close and tight. Without ado he thrust
the barrels of his shotgun against the lock, turned his face and
body half away and pulled the triggers. The shotgun boomed and was
torn out of his hand by the close recoil, but the lock, mangled and
broken, fell apart and the gates swung open. He ran back towards
the horse as someone shouted down by the bridge across the Palo
Blanco ‘Hey, you!’ the man shouted. He was running, porting a
rifle, not sure what was happening until he saw Angel coming at him
on horseback, and then he dropped quickly to one knee and took aim.
He fired at the same instant as Angel, but he was shooting uphill
and did not lead enough. His slug went whining off into infinity as
the bullet from Angel’s Peacemaker slapped him aside, his tumbling
body going off the side of the steep canyon wall and down into the
boulder-strewn bottom. Angel kicked the horse into a gallop on to
the bridge as the second guard came running forward, levelling a
six-gun which he thumbed twice, his slugs whipping past Angel as
Angel launched himself off the back of the horse, his whole body
and the speed at which he had been coming making him a projectile
that smashed the man to the ground, the six-gun flying from
nerveless hands. The two men rolled over and over on the wooden
boards, the guard desperately trying to get some kind of grip on
the body of his assailant. Locked together, the two men rolled
about, their legs seeking purchase on the rough boards. They
struggled to their knees, the guard’s thumbs gouging towards
Angel’s eyes in a desperate attempt to blind his opponent, grunting
with the effort, his face contorted with rage and the lust to kill.
Then Angel relaxed, let go, rolled over backwards, bringing the
guard with him, his right knee lifting the man slightly as the
momentum of the rolling fall brought the man above him. Then Angel
snapped his leg straight and the man went over and up, as if his
head were a pivot on which he was turning, and came down flat and
tremendously hard on his back, his head to Angel’s head.

Angel was on his feet even
as the man hit the ground, the edge of his right hand extended now
slightly forward as the guard scrabbled to his feet, winded, his
eyes wary now and frightened. He made an inarticulate noise in his
throat and rushed at Angel, who swayed to one side and then hit the
man at the base of his right ear with the calloused edge of his
right hand. The man smashed face down, hands clawing at the wooden
boards in pain, and Angel was behind him, astraddle the man’s back,
the barrel of the Peacemaker jammed into the base of the guard’s
neck.

‘Denniston,’ he said. ‘Which
way did he go?’

‘Go to hell!’ spat the
guard.

Angel cocked the six-gun and
repeated the question, getting the same answer.

‘I haven’t got time for
this,’ Angel said reasonably, and shot the top of the man’s right
ear. The roar of the six-gun and the searing pain brought a
terrified scream from the man, who bucked and fought against
Angel’s weight on his back.

‘One more time,’ Angel said
grimly. ‘Which way?’

‘West,’ groaned the man.
‘Through the mountains above Kiowa.’

‘Where’s he
heading?

‘I don’t know,’ the guard
said.

Angel cocked the Peacemaker
again.

‘Sweartogodsthetruth,
mister!’ screeched the guard. ‘Nobody knew where they was goin’.
The Colonel, he was the only one knew!’

Angel lifted himself off the
prone man and stood back, allowing the man to get to his
feet.

‘How many men with him?’ he
asked.

‘Forty, fifty, something
like that,’ he man said.

‘You goin’ after him,
mister?’

‘Something like that,’ Angel
parroted.

‘He’ll kill you for sure,
when he sees you,’ the guard said. Some of his confidence was
coming back. He touched the wounded ear and winced, looking at the
blood on his fingers and then up at Angel with hate in his
eyes.

‘I hope he shoots your balls
off,’ he said venomously.

‘That’s a thought,’ Angel
said equably. As he spoke he moved the Peacemaker in a short arc,
the barrel flashing in the dawning sunshine and smacking the guard,
who was too surprised to move, alongside his unwounded ear. He fell
to his knees like a poleaxed steer, his mouth agape, eyes rolling
up in his head.

‘Sleep warm,’ Angel said,
and hit him again.

‘End of the line, Mister
President.’

Grant’s aide came into the
plush parlour of the railroad carriage which the President used on
his cross-country trips and saluted.

Grant looked up from the
copy of the St Louis Democrat he was reading, the cigar cocked as
always in the right hand corner of his mouth. He acknowledged the
salute with a nod and heaved himself off the comfortable
seat.

‘Well, we’ve had our
pleasure, gentlemen,’ he said to the other three men sitting
opposite him, ‘and now we must work for our vittles.’

They all smiled with varying
degrees of uncomfortableness. Grant was a man who loved to get his
backside into a McClellan and pound across this godforsaken
wilderness for hours. Grant would cheerfully pitch a tent and spend
the night out on the plains or in the mountains, happy to sit by a
big fire of buffalo chips and swig from a bottle of Irish whiskey.
A gentleman, however, (which they all privately agreed Grant was
not and never would be) found such pastimes about as congenial as
the abominable wagons and stagecoaches by which one was forced to
travel in the country west of Las Animas, Colorado. It was to be
another six years before the railroads would join hands and the
AT&SF was pushing fast up the approaches to the Raton Pass
between Trinidad and Las Vegas. Right now it was just a long hard
climb.

‘We’ll keep our visit here
as inconspicuous as possible, Mr Dempsey,’ Grant said to his
aide.

The young soldier saluted,
and went out. Grant looked out at the unlovely huddle of railroad
shanties and rubbed his hands together. He was as bored with the
gentlemen of the east as they were outraged by him, and he was
frankly eager to spend some time with his own kind
again.

Professional soldiers were a
special breed. Grant loved them all like brothers.

This campaign trail he was
now blazing was in many ways an historic one. The newspapers back
east had made much capital of the fact that an American President
was actually going to follow the route of the old pioneers down the
Santa Fe Trail. He had made major speeches along the way, and
smiled, recalling the ovation he had received at St Louis. Kansas
City had turned out with flags and bunting to greet him, and there
had been a very agreeable dinner at Fort Larned that had developed
into a long and heated discussion of military tactics and policy
which had gone on into the early hours of the morning.

Grant smiled. He was looking
forward to some of the stops along the route that lay ahead through
the mountains. He took a boyish delight in throwing his staff into
confusion by making side trips to destinations they had not built
into his itinerary. Well, dammit, he thought: a President has to
have some fun, too.

‘The escort has arrived,
sir,’ his aide said, entering the compartment. ‘Major Godwin
presents his compliments.’

‘Have him come in,’ Grant
said, waving his cigar.

After a few minutes there
was a knock on the door and a short, slimly built man with graying
hair came in, his uniform dusty but correct, saluting with a smart
snap that made Grant smile with pleasure.