Find Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #1) (4 page)

‘
I
think it’s a place where a crook like you would try to sell a ten
dollar gun to a kid he thought didn’t know any better,’ Frank Angel
said flatly. ‘Am I right?’

‘
Now,
see here … ’ blustered the man. ‘I got half a mind … ’

‘
An’
it shows,’ Angel snapped. ‘Stop trying to run a sandy on me,
mister. Get the rest of the stuff or take your damned gun and shove
it up your ass.’ He banged the revolver down on the counter and the
storekeeper jumped. There was something in the cold eyes of this
youngster that made him nervous about pushing his sarcasm one step
further. A man who ran a store this far west saw a lot of hard
cases, young and old, and learned one thing if nothing else. Sell
them what they wanted and get them out of the place as fast as
possible. He proceeded to do just that and Angel left ten minutes
later with the Army Colt strapped to his hip in a flap-top cavalry
holster. The cartridge cases and powder he put into his saddle-bags
together with the flask and the bullet mould. The percussion caps
he slipped into a shirt pocket. Then he went to get his horse from
the stable on the southern edge of the rectangle made by the Fort.
He looked around Larned one last time as he mounted up: the
sandstone buildings with their white-framed windows, the
neat-porched officers’ quarters, the slender flagpole in the centre
of the square, the rows of saplings clinging desperately to life in
the relentless sun. He put the river on his right and turned the
horse towards the Great Bend. Three days later he was in
Abilene.

He
came out of the Alamo saloon on Texas Street.

He
had a frock coat and a low-crowned hat with a wide brim. His hair
was long and corn-yellow in the sunlight, hanging down to his
shoulders. He leaned up against the wall of the saloon and hooked
his thumbs into the red sash that encircled his waist and Angel saw
that he had two ivory-handled six-guns stuck into the sash, butts
facing inwards towards each other. The man watched everything that
moved on the street and the sidewalks from under his eyebrows.
There was plenty to watch on Texas Street.

The
sidewalks were crowded with people. Bunches of cowboys up from
Texas with the herds careened in and out of the saloons, yelling
and yipping, lurching drunkenly, catcalling to the whores parading
up and down in their white—tasseled half boots and cheap finery.
Wagons lurched up and down the street, their drivers cursing the
mules. Children played here and there in the dust, or ran shouting,
in and out and around the lumbering traffic. Horses stood hipshot
outside the saloons: the Bull’s Head and the Alamo and the
Longhorn. Angel caught a whiff of burning grease from a lunch wagon
parked at the sidewalk near the Longhorn. Men stood in front of it
or were hunkered down on the sidewalk, scooping food from tin
plates, and oblivious of the murderous looks of businessmen who had
to step around them on their way to the post office or the First
National Bank of Kansas City. A piano player was belting out a tune
in the Longhorn and now and then hoarse shouts erupted from the
place. The man leaning against the wall of the Alamo saloon watched
everything and remained motionless. Angel crossed the street
towards him. He saw the pale blue eyes touch him and then move
away, then come back again as he kept on coming. Without any haste,
the tall man eased his back off the wall. His hands stayed hooked
in the red sash. When Angel got within ten feet of him, the man
spoke.

‘
You
want something? he said. His eyes were on the r gun at Angel’s
side.

‘
Like
to ask you something, Mr. Hickok,’ Angel said.

‘
Ask
away,’ Hickok said.

‘
I’m
looking for some men who were here about six weeks ago. Seven
men.’

‘
Lot
of men come through here, sonny,’ Hickok said. His voice had a
nasal, Eastern drone.

‘
Yessir, I know,’ Angel said. ‘I just figured, you being the
Marshal, you might have run across them.’

‘
Come
on inside and you can buy me a drink,’ Hickok said. ‘Glad to help
if I can.’

He
stood courteously on one side to allow Frank Angel to precede him
into the noisy saloon. The place was jumping. Men were two and
three deep at the long bar, drinking as if someone had served
notice of a forthcoming drought. Keno, chuckaluck, faro layouts
were roaring. There were men everywhere playing cards. Girls
circulated around the tables, stroking necks and touching thighs,
smiling invitingly. The air was thick with tobacco smoke and
smelled like a barn.

‘
Over
here,’ Hickok said.

There
was a table in a blind corner of the room. It had three chairs
around it: one in the angle of the two walls, the other two facing.
Hickok sat in the angle of the walls, lifting his coat so that it
fell away to the sides. The gun butts rapped the table.

‘
My
private table,’ he explained. He lifted a hand, and one of the
girls nodded and came over.

‘
Belle, bring us something to drink,’ he said.

‘
Sure, Bill,’ the girl said, smiling widely. Her face was
painted like a doll’s and she reeked of cheap perfume.

Hickok patted her buttocks and she winked and twitched her
hips saucily. Her eyes were as empty as a hollow tree.

‘
What’s your handle, son?’ Hickok asked.

‘
Angel, sir,’ Angel replied. ‘Frank Angel.’

Hickok smiled. ‘You get teased much about it?’

‘
Not
since I got my full growth,’ the boy replied.

‘
And
you’re looking for some men,’ Hickok prompted, pouring two sizable
drinks from the bottle the girl Belle brought, still simpering at
the marshal.

‘
Seven men,’ Angel told him. ‘I only got a rough description
and some names. Cravetts was their leader. Thickset, very wide
across the shoulders, black hair and starting a beard. A tow-haired
one with a Southern accent named Monsher. A squint-eyed man called
Milt, and another with red hair. One of the others was called
Denny. Wore glasses. Two others. I don’t know anything about them
except one of them had an Italian-sounding name.’

Hickok pursed his lips. ‘Riding together, you say?’

‘
Far
as I know.’

‘
I
don’t recall seeing them,’ Hickok said. Angel’s face fell, and the
lawman smiled. ‘That don’t mean shucks, boy. If they didn’t make
any trouble here, I’d have no reason to remember them at
all.’

‘
I
know it,’ Angel said. ‘It was a long shot at the best.

Thanks anyway.’ He put a dollar on the table for the drinks
and rose to go. Hickok rose too, and Angel noticed again that the
slim hands were not too far away from the ivory-handled
guns.

‘
You
got any idea where I could find a girl called Rosie, or Little
Rosie?’ Angel asked.

Hickok laughed. ‘Son, there’s about a thousand girls in
McCoy’s Addition,’ he smiled. ‘Any one o’ them could be called
Rosie an’ probably is.’

Angel
nodded. Then: ‘Could you — maybe, ask your — uh,
friend?’

Hickok laughed again, and heads turned towards him.

Angel
noticed that many of the faces were hostile.

Hickok was obviously not popular among the cowboy element.
He’d read one or two things about Abilene in the newspapers which
came infrequently his way on the Gibbons ranch and at the Fort.
Hickok was said to be terrifyingly fast with his guns, and a born
killer. Yet here he seemed the soul of courtesy, and apart from his
florid style of dress, a gentleman.

‘
Belle!’ Hickok called, and the girl came mincing over. ‘My
young friend here is looking for a girl named Rosie.’

Belle
eyed the younger man speculatively and let a pink tongue slide
provocatively across her rouged lips, ‘Oh, come on, cowboy,’ she
said, slipping an arm through Angel’s, ‘you’ll have a much better
time with Belle, won’t he Bill?’

‘
You’d eat him for breakfast,’ Hickok grinned. ‘Leave off, and
answer the question.’

‘
Rosie, Rosie, Rosie,’ Belle said. ‘Rosie Russell, mebbe? She
works over to the Longhorn. There’s Rosie something-or—other has a
place back up in the Addition. Hell, Bill, there’s mebbe half a
dozen. Who can keep track of all of them? They come out here like
flies.’

‘
Looks like you’re going to have to do it the hard way, son,’
Hickok said, as the girl flounced off again.

‘
Ploddin’ around an’ askin’.’ Angel nodded. ‘I guess so,’ he
said.

‘
You
got much money, boy?’ Hickok asked abruptly.

‘
No
sir, not much,’ Frank Angel admitted. Hickok nodded. ‘Can you use
that thing?’ he gestured with his chin towards Angel’s
gun.

‘
Uh …
I … yes, I can shoot a bit.’

‘
That
means you can’t. Take it off.’

‘
What?’ Frank Angel looked at the Marshal in surprise. ‘Take
it off an’ give it to me,’ Hickok said.

Frank
Angel was suddenly aware that the entire saloon had frozen, and
everyone had stopped speaking simultaneously as Hickok gave the
order. Chairs scraped nervously as men tried to edge out of line of
possible fire behind Angel. Hickok just kept on looking at the
younger man and Angel shrugged. He unbuckled the belt and holster
and laid them on the table. Immediately the chatter and the noise
began again, and Hickok smiled.

‘
You
go poking your nose around the Addition totin’ a gun, someone’s
just liable to invite you to use it for the hell of it. You know
how folks are about questions in

these
parts.’

‘
I
know,’ Angel said, ‘I’m going to ask just the same.’

‘
You
take care, boy,’ Hickok said. ‘On’y go down there in the
daytime.’

‘
I’ll
do that, Mr. Hickok,’ Angel said. ‘I guess you’re right about the
gun.’

‘
About guns I’m always right, son,’ Hickok said. ‘I’ll walk to
the door with you.’ He went ahead of Angel and pushed the batwings
wide, scanning the street carefully before he stepped out on to the
sidewalk. Only then did Frank Angel realize he had shielded
Hickok’s back the entire way with his own body. He shook his head.
Why would a man want to stay in a job where he had to do that every
day of his life?

Hickok saw the head-shake and smiled.

‘
Plenty o’ men in this town who’d like to see me dead, boy,’
he said. ‘More who’d like to go back to Texas with a notch on their
six-gun for Wild Bill. I take as few chances as I can, draw my
hundred an’ fifty a month, an’ keep the town as quiet as
possible.’

Angel
gestured with his chin at the crowded, brawling, rowdy street.
‘That’s quiet?’ he asked.

‘
You
wait until Saturday night,’ Hickok said. He settled his back
comfortably against the wooden wall of the saloon and tipped his
hat slightly forward. ‘Pick up your hog leg before you leave town,’
he said, and that was the end of the interview. Angel saw he was
dismissed from the gunfighter’s mind. Hickok’s eyes were already
monitoring everything moving on the street once more.

He
headed down Texas Street towards the Longhorn and went in. It was
as crowded and noisy and smoky as the Alamo had been, and he had to
literally force a way through the crowd packed at the bar to ask
the bartender a question.

The
bartender looked up and scanned the seething room with a practiced
eye. ‘Over there with the big cowboy,’ he said. ‘Gal with the red
dress on. Listen, wait … ’ he tried to restrain Angel but it was
too late, and the bartender shrugged. He tapped one of the barflies
on the shoulder and whispered something to him and the man nodded
quickly and went out through the batwings fast as Angel crossed the
room towards the table where the girl in the red dress was sitting.
A tall, black-haired cowboy was pawing her clumsily and she was
giggling. Angel pushed through until he was standing close to the
table.

‘
Excuse me,’ he said.

The
cowboy looked up. He was drunk and his eyes were already smoky with
sexual anticipation. ‘Piss off,’ he growled.

‘
I
just wanted to ask … ’

‘
You
heard!’ snapped the cowboy. ‘Get out o’ here.’

Angel
ignored him. ‘Your name Rosie?’ he asked. ‘Rosie
Russell?’

The
girl looked up and simpered. ‘What if it is?’ she said.

‘
Like
to ask you a few questions,’ Angel said. ‘About some men …
’

The
cowboy came up away from his chair in a lurching movement and
leaned forward on the table. His was two or three inches taller
than Angel’s almost six foot height, and his eyes were glowing now
with a liquor-hazed rage.

‘
Sonny, you want your ass broke ?’ he yelled.

‘
No,
sir,’ Angel said.

‘
Then
get the hell out o’ here afore I break it for you!’ growled the
cowboy. The girl pouted. Everyone in the place was watching the
exchange, ready for a fast dive out of range if trouble
broke.

‘
Aw,
c’mon, honey,’ she said to the cowboy. ‘He ain’t doin’ no harm.
He’s only a kid.’