Trap Angel (Frank Angel Western #3) (4 page)

‘Holy Mother of God!’
breathed Private Casey, ‘will ye look at that?’

That was Lieutenant Philip
Evans. After the first stunning shock of the deadly fusillade had
startled his fractious horse, Evans had spent all his energy
controlling the animal. Now he wheeled around and drew the revolver
from his holster, pointing the pistol dead ahead of him over his
horse’s ears, and jammed iron into the animal’s flanks. The horse
erupted into a gallop dead straight towards the rocks where the
ambushers were hidden, and as he swept past where Mackenzie and the
other troopers lay hugging he yelled ‘Follow me, men!’ and bucketed
up the hill away from them.

‘Up yours, Charlie!’ said
Casey loyally.

They watched in awful
anticipation as the young Lieutenant charged madly towards the
hidden ambushers and it seemed to the soldiers that there was a
moment of long empty waiting in which the universe held its breath.
Then the rifles spoke in unison and they watched Lieutenant Evans
cartwheel over the head of his horse. The horse slewed sideways
into the rocks, a bullet through the head as Evans crashed to the
ground, his pistol flying in a long slow arc through the air
unfired, bright blood staining the boyish face.

‘Let’s get the hell out of
here!’ yelled Mackenzie. ‘On your feet!’

The four soldiers scrambled
to their feet, Springfields to port, running flat out across the
broken rocky ground towards the wagons. They knew that if they
could get the solid cover of the heavy wagon beds between
themselves and their attackers they had a fighting chance of
holding them off, but their attackers knew that too and gave none
of them a chance. In the thirty yards between them and shelter they
were cut down like rabbits in an open field, mercilessly and
precisely. There was a long and empty silence after the sound of
shooting died. Nothing moved except the busy flies, which deserted
the sweating backs of the mules for the sweet smell of
blood.

The raiders came out from
behind their rocks.

Two, five, seven, ten men,
led down the slope by a tall, ramrod-straight man of perhaps fifty
years, his hair iron-gray and his eyes cold and without pity. As
they approached the wagons, the last teamster, who had hidden
beneath one of the wagons, rose to his feet, his eyes shifting from
man to man, his face bathed in sweat, the stink of fear rising from
him like a fog.

‘In the name of God,’ he
wheezed. ‘Don’t kill me, Jesus, don’t — ’

He advanced towards them,
hands extended pleadingly, stumbling over the stony ground. The
gray-haired man made an impatient gesture and one of his men shot
the teamster through the chest. The man went down flat dead. Nobody
looked at him.

They went over to the wagons
and quickly checked the loads beneath the tarpaulins. One of them
came across to where the gray-haired man was standing tapping his
beautifully shined riding boots with a leather crop. ‘All in order,
Colonel,’ he said.

‘Good,’ the Colonel replied.
‘Get them moving.’

‘Yessir,’ said the man. He
yelled an order and three of the men swung up into the driving
seats on the wagons. Within minutes they were tooling them down the
road. They swung them off on a trail that led west of the main
trail and up towards Tinaja Peak. And then they were gone. Behind
them nothing moved for a long, long time. A buzzard swept down from
the high hills and soared above the scene of the ambush. With
casual beauty, it soared on the air currents high above, circling
lower towards the bloody bodies on the ground. Presently another
buzzard came to join it, and then a third and more. They waited in
the wide sky and still nothing moved. Then one of them swooped down
and landed croaking on a rock near the body of Sergeant
Mackenzie.

Suddenly it flapped away,
squawking in alarm as Lieutenant Philip Evans groaned aloud and
tried to get to his feet. There was caked blood all over his face
and for a moment he thought he was blind. He slumped back on the
ground, his head spinning with nausea. After a while he managed to
sit up. He saw first the body of his dead horse.

‘Canteen,’ he said. The
thought of water was the only one in his universe and it took him
the best part of ten minutes to crawl across to the horse and
unhitch the canteen from the saddle.

When he had drunk the
canteen dry he stood up and looked around him. He saw where he was
and he saw what had happened and he fell back against the burning
rocks, his stomach tightening and he retched and retched
again.

Then when he could stand,
when he could think again, he staggered down the rocky hillside to
where the men lay dead.

Angus Wells had learned
little in Fort Stanton and less in Fort McEwen. The Army reports
had told it all and there was little more anyone could add. In
addition, the military didn’t take all that kindly to Government
snoopers coming around telling them their business. Wells had got a
very cold shoulder in some quarters. Questioning the Indians had
been a complete waste of time. Far too many others had already
questioned them and now they were anxious to say anything the white
man seemed to want them to say, embroidered, like moccasins, to
order.

So Wells bid the
hard-drinking cavalrymen an unregretful farewell and headed across
the Rio Grande valley and up towards Santa Fe. The United States
Marshal for the Territory had his office in Santa Fe, in the
Federal buildings which had been built on ground that had once been
part of the old Plaza. Wells let his horse pick its way through the
narrow unpaved alleys which passed for streets in Santa Fe. The
cathedral bell was clanging: it sounded as if someone were beating
on it with a stick. Dogs and mules roamed everywhere. The place
looked cheap, primitive, and highly unsanitary. Ragged children
played in the dust. Chickens scattered before the horse. Yet Wells
knew that inside the adobes that looked like hovels he would have
found light, bright-painted walls decorated with Indian pottery and
blankets, and interior patios with tinkling fountains watered by
the endless snows of the Sangre de Cristos. There were families in
Santa Fe older than the United States itself, their origins going
right back to the court of Philip of Spain. These families looked
upon all Americans as a curse, considering them neither caballeros
nor Christians. In fact the Santa Fe name for an American
was
burro
—
jackass. He grinned to himself. Right now he felt they might have
something.

John Sherman was a tall
bluff man with a heavy black moustache and keen blue eyes. He wore
a black vest and pants and a soft collared white shirt open at the
neck. His boots were highly polished and he wore no pistol that
Wells could see.

Sherman stood up as Wells
came into the office. Wells introduced himself and indicated that
he would prefer to talk in private. Sherman looked at the
credentials Wells showed him with slightly raised eyebrows and then
waved to a door on one side of the room.

‘Private in there,’ he said,
and led the way into a smaller room that looked out on to the
plaza. As he closed the door he said something to one of his
Mexican deputies. By the time Wells had explained his reason for
being in Santa Fe the deputy had returned with a stone jug and two
glasses. The jug was beaded with cold, and Sherman poured some of
its ruby contents into the glasses.

‘Sangria,’ he said. ‘Best
thing they ever invented in Spain.’

The cold drink was delicious
and Wells said so.

Sherman nodded. ‘You sound
like you’ve got some sort of job, Wells,’ he said. ‘I heard a
little about those army raids. I take it they haven’t come up with
anything?

‘Not so you’d notice,’ Wells
said. ‘Where did you hear about them?’

‘Oh, there was some talk,’
the Marshal said. ‘I guess some soldier came through and talked
about it.’

‘Interesting,’ Wells said.
‘I got the impression the Army people had been trying to keep it
quiet.’

‘You can’t keep that sort of
thing quiet, man.’

Sherman smiled. ‘This is the
State capital. The Attorney-General’s office is right across the
way.’

‘Can you recall exactly
where you heard about it?’ Wells insisted. ‘It could be
important.’

‘You’re not
suggesting…?’

‘I’m not suggesting
anything. I just don’t have a pot to piss in and I can use any sort
of information.’

‘Well,’ Sherman said. ‘Wait
a minute, then.’

He got up from his chair;
glass in hand, and went across to the window. He looked down at the
Plaza, not really seeing the old men sitting on the stone benches
around the monument to the battle of Valverde.

‘It was in the hotel, I
think,’ he said. ‘La Fonda, across the way. We were taking a drink
on the porch.’ He grinned. ‘Local custom, taking a drink in the
evening after dinner. It’s where the boomers and fixers get
together to wheel and deal. You want to buy something, sell
something, you go to the La Fonda and take a drink on the porch
after dinner.’

‘Can you recall who was
there?’

‘Legal people, mostly,’
Sherman recalled.

‘There’d been some dinner.
Tom Catron was there. You know him, of course.’

‘I know him all right,’
Wells said evenly. ‘I figured you would,’ Sherman said. ‘Him being
the Attorney-General.’

‘Go on,’ Wells
persisted.

‘Who else, now? Bill
Rynerson, from Las Cruces. Got a law firm down there. Some people
from the Governor’s staff. Oh, yes, I remember now. That was the
night Denniston was there, sounding off.’

‘Denniston?’

‘Colonel Denniston, he calls
himself, although where he got his rank I wouldn’t know. War
between the States, maybe. He was making his usual speech. The
President of the United States is letting the country go to the
dogs. All politicians should be shot. You know the sort of
thing.’

‘What’s his beef?

‘Search me,’ Sherman
shrugged. ‘He claims that the Government took some land off him, I
think. Hard to say. He talks a hell of a lot but he doesn’t tell
you anything, if you take my meaning.’

‘You know his first
name?’

‘Never heard anyone use it.
In fact, he’s something of a mystery man. His men all “sir” him as
if they were still in the Army. And from what I’ve heard, which I
repeat isn’t a hell of a lot, that’s about the way he runs his
spread.’

‘Cattle?’

‘Could be giraffes for all
anyone around here knows,’ Sherman said, his expression
rueful.

‘He’s got a big place up at
Colfax county, on the Palo Blanco. Made himself mighty popular up
there. Put a seven-foot fence around it, and has hard cases
patrolling the perimeter day and night. There’s signs all over, so
I’m told, saying trespassers will be shot on sight.’

‘Interesting,’ Wells said, a
question in his voice.

‘Thought so myself,’ Sherman
agreed. ‘I sent a couple of deputies over there to take a look
around. Denniston’s men bustled them off. No way they could get in.
Since no laws had been broken there wasn’t anything I could do. I
asked Denniston why he wouldn’t let my men in, last time I saw him.
Drew himself up like a puff adder and said he’d be obliged if I
would mind my own business because I could be assured that was what
he was doing.’

‘What about his
men?’

‘They all look like toughs
to me, but as far as I can tell none of them is wanted in New
Mexico. Of course, I haven’t seen them all.’

‘They come to town at
all?’

‘Once in a while, when
Denniston comes in. As if they were some sort of honor guard. But
they never get into any trouble. They don’t drink. No girls,
nothing. just wait in the plaza like dressmakers’ dummies until the
colonel tells them to get on their nags and come home. Of course,’
he added, pouring the last of the sangria into the glasses, ‘they
got their own little hell-town not five miles away. Kiowa. I
imagine they raise all the Cain they want to nearer home. But
that’s enough about Denniston — I don’t know why I went on about
him so much. just that he’s fascinating. An enigma.’

‘How long has he been
around?’

‘Not long. A year maybe. I
can check that for you.’

‘I wish you would,’ Wells
said. ‘Colonel Denniston sounds very interesting.’

‘You don’t think he had
anything to do with—?’

‘I don’t think anything,’
Wells said. ‘Not a thing.’

‘I mean,’ Sherman said. ‘I
mean, he’s a mite on the crazy side, maybe, but he keeps himself to
himself. No trouble, you know what I mean? In fact, he’s pretty
funny, sometimes – especially when he gets going about Grant. I
don’t know whether he’s telling the truth of not, but he tells
pretty nasty stories about the President.’

‘Like?’

‘Oh, vague stuff. About him
being an alcoholic, about the whole Cabinet being up to its knees
in graft. Stuff like that.’

Wells said nothing, just sat
there and looked.

Sherman shifted
uncomfortably.