Kill Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #6) (5 page)

‘
We
could just turn around an’ go right on back to God’s country,’
Gates said. ‘Forget the whole thing. Live a long, happy, productive
life.’

‘
Right,’ Angel said. ‘Of course, you wouldn’t get a crack at
the five thousand dollar reward, but I guess you don’t really need
the money anyway.’

‘
Nope,’
Gates said. ‘I don’t need no money.’

‘
Me
neither,’ Vaughan added. ‘Pearly an’ me could get jobs.’

They looked at each other.

‘
That’s
a terrible thing to say to a man,’ Gates said.

‘
Terrible thing to say to a woman, come to that,’ Vaughan
replied. ‘OK,
capitano.
We’ll do it. But only because it’s for the good of the
regiment.’

‘
O say
can you see,’ hummed Gates, ‘by the dawn’s early light.’

‘
Full
military honors if we don’t pull through,’ Vaughan said.

‘
And
... ’ Gates mock-choked, ‘take ... care of Betsy and the
babies.’

‘
You’re
both mad,’ Angel grinned.

‘
You
can say that again,’ Vaughan told him.

They kept to the hills for two
days, riding after sundown and through the night, quartering south
and west and putting long hard miles between themselves and the
border. In the high hills above Agua Caliente they split up.
Vaughan grinned when Angel told them to
‘stay loose’.

‘
I’m so
loose my knees is knockin’,’ he told Angel.

‘
Try
and stop them before you get to town,’ Angel said. ‘Or they’ll know
it’s you.’

‘
Don’t
worry,
capitano,’
Gates said. ‘Us soldiers of fortune is skeered o’
nothin’.’

‘
Bold
as brass,’ Vaughan said.

‘
Steady
an’ true.’

‘
Steel
for muscle an’ tequila for blood,’ Vaughan said. ‘Ten men like us
could ride through the Apache nation.’

‘
Con
Dios!’ Angel said, slapping the haunch of Vaughan’s horse, sending
the animal rocketing off down the trail that led south and east
towards the
placita
of Agua Caliente. He watched the two of them go, a grin
lingering for a while on his tanned face. Then he sobered, and
gigged his own horse into action.

Agua Caliente lay in a tight
valley where the mountains marched in serried yellow ranks all
about it, a good sixty miles south of the border. Like most Mexican
towns, it was laid out in the form of an X, a dusty plaza at the
centre of the two arms of straggling street, its biggest building a
whitened adobe church with a single bell tower in which pigeons
nested,
broo-borooing
as Angel walked his horse towards the twin-roofed
adobe with the deep-recessed windows that bore a sign which read
‘Cantina’. Agua Caliente was only a small town, but it was far
enough south of the border to be a haven for the desperadoes who
had fled from American law, and he saw many Anglos on the streets.
This was the heart of Blantine country. Nothing went on here that
they did not know about. For a moment he had misgivings about the
sketchy plan he had outlined to his two companions, but he
shrugged. There was no other way to smoke Yancey Blantine out of
his stronghold. Going after him into the mountains would be even
more suicidal than what Angel had in mind. Yet the first step of
the plan was hinged upon pure luck. He shrugged.

‘
For
the good of the regiment,’ he told himself with a grin, and
dismounted outside the livery stable. A man sat on a stool at the
entrance, inside the cool shadow of the building, whittling on a
green stick with a wicked-looking Bowie knife.

‘
Howdy,’ Angel said.

The man eyed him coldly for a
moment, checking him out, noting the cant of the gun on
Angel
’s hip;
the quality of his horse, the dust on his clothes.

‘
Come
fur a piece?’ the man said.

Angel nodded.
‘Like to feed the
horse,’ he said. ‘Leave him a few nights, maybe.’

‘
Stayin’ in town, then?’ the man said. He made no move to
get up from his stool or take the reins which Angel offered
him.

‘
Nope,’
Angel said coldly. ‘I was planning on a hike up into the mountains
on foot. You in the hostling business or what?’

‘
Keep
your shirt on, mister,’ the man said. ‘Only askin’ a civil
question.’

‘
I come
a long way and I’m tired,’ Angel said. ‘How much for the
horse?’

‘
Twenty
pesos a night,’ the man said. ‘Take it or leave it.’

‘
Like
that, huh?’

‘
Like
that.’

Angel pulled a coin from his
pocket and flipped it towards the man who caught it without putting
down either the knife or the stick.
‘Leave him there,’ the hostler said. ‘I’ll
look after him directly.’

‘
I’d
as soon you did it now,’ Angel said, levelly.

The man frowned, and then got up
slowly. He was tall and well-built and he eyed Angel reflectively
for a moment.
‘Yo’re pushy,’ he said. ‘For a stranger.’

‘
You
mean it ain’t wise?’ Angel said. ‘You’re scarin’ me to
death.’

‘
Comin’
on tough around here won’t pay you no dividends, mister,’ the
hostler said. ‘None at all.’

‘
I’ll
write to my mother and tell her,’ Angel said. ‘In case she ever
thinks of paying you a visit.’

‘
Blantine send for you?’ the man said abruptly.

‘
Who’s
Blantine?’ countered Angel.

‘
Mister, you don’t know the answer to that question, you’re
in the wrong town,’ the man said. ‘Might be better if you climb
right back on your pony an’ keep going.’

‘
I
don’t understand it,’ Angel said. ‘The way everyone makes you feel
so welcome in these tinhorn run-out towns.

You must see so many
tough
hombres,
you think you’re one yourself. Listen, friend — I don’t
think I lost any Blantines, and if I had, I’m not sure I’d go
looking out for them. I cut my own trail. You want to cross it,
you’re never going to have a better chance.’

The hostler looked at Angel again, his eyes
crafty and bright.

‘
All
right,’ he said. ‘All right.’

‘
Bueno,’
Angel said and turned away, satisfied that he’d made enough
of a scene for the man to be sure, as soon as Angel was out of
sight, to pass the word on to whoever it was in town that had the
ears of the Blantine boys. It was a calculated move, and he was
well aware of the dangers. But he was playing the odds. Likelihood
was that they’d send someone in to look him over. That would be
enough for him to set his plan into operation. He headed for the
cantina and paused for a moment on the ramada to light a cigarette
he didn’t need, checking the building out. Like most of the other
structures in Agua Caliente it was of adobe, the walls thick and
solid to keep the interior cool in the blasting summer heat, and
yet keep in the heat when the chill of the desert night fell on the
valley. Angel looked about him. Across the street some houses, a
store, a long low building that might be some kind of hotel. There
were few signs outside the buildings in Mexican towns: they didn’t
go in for advertising like their
Norte Americano
cousins. Knots of men lounged around
the plaza, keeping on the shady side of the buildings or beneath
the ubiquitous porches, the ramada roofs that sheltered what passed
for sidewalks in Agua Caliente. Women were washing clothes in the
stone fountain at the centre of the plaza, gossiping loudly, the
smack of the wet clothes against the stone loud in the flat hot
sunlight. The spirit of old Mexico was strong here, and yet Angel
felt something else: as though everyone in the town were conscious
of a presence, of the black power of the Blantines. For this was
the Blantines’ town and its laws were their laws.

It was cool and dark inside
the
cantina.
The dirt floor had been freshly sprinkled with water,
giving the place a cool, earthy smell that mingled in Angel’s
nostrils with tobacco smoke and the faintly oily tang of tequila.
The furniture was sturdy and plain, tables and chairs all made to
withstand rough handling rather than for any aesthetic beauty.
Behind the long plank bar which ran the length of the room Angel
was surprised to find an American bartender. He bellied up and
ordered a beer, letting his eyes briefly touch the men sitting
around at the tables. At this time of day most of the Mexican
population was deep in its
siesta.
If Angel saw the faces of his two friends, who
were sitting at different tables drinking, his expression gave no
indication of it.

‘
New in
town?’ the bartender asked.

‘
Yep,’
Angel said. ‘Gimme another of those.’

‘
Sure,’
the bartender said. ‘But you pay for the one you had
first.’

Angel let his eyebrows rise a fraction.

‘
House
rule,’ the bartender explained. ‘Don’t get hairy about
it.’

‘
Wasn’t
going to,’ Angel replied. ‘Just unusual, is all.’

‘
Two
dollars American for the beer,’ the bartender said. His voice had
no inflexion, friendly or otherwise.

‘
If
that’s the price of the beer, how much is the whiskey?’ Angel
said.

‘
Same,’
was the monosyllabic retort. ‘Every drink in the house is two
dollars American.’

‘
Might
as well take the whiskey, then,’ Angel said. ‘At those
prices.’

The bartender took his money and
poured some whiskey from an anonymous bottle into the shot glass on
the bar. Angel reached for his drink and in that same second a shot
shattered the glass, splashing whiskey all over his arm. The
bartender was out of sight below the bar like a flash. Angel
wheeled, his eyes narrowed, to face a man standing at the end of
the bar. The
door of the saloon moved slightly behind him, he had
obviously just come in.

‘
You’re
very picky, stranger,’ he said. ‘Don’t like our livery stable,
don’t like our prices, don’t like our beer. Maybe you ought to just
keep on going until you find somewhere you do like.’

He was a man of medium height,
well built, with something of a gut starting to hang over the belt
around his middle. Thirty, thirty-five, was
Angel
’s
guess, noting the powerful shoulder muscles and the thick neck. He
let his eyes touch the smoking six-gun in the man’s left hand
briefly, then met the cold gaze. The eyes were a flecked green, and
in them Angel could see an unholy anticipation, the ready
willingness of a killer to shoot at any sign of a fight. He took a
deep breath and then let it out slowly, loudly.

‘
Hey,’
he said. ‘Easy, mister.’

‘
I
thought you said he was a hard case?’ the man with the gun said,
turning towards the livery stable hostler, who stood behind him
just inside the door. ‘He don’t act so tough now.’ He turned to
face Angel, letting the hammer back down on the cocked
gun.

‘
What’s
your name, stranger?’

‘
Angel.’

‘
You’re
kiddin’!’ The man guffawed.
‘Angel?
Like with wings?’

‘
That’s
right,’ Angel said. ‘Like with wings.’

‘
Well
I’ll be a bull’s balls!’ the man roared. ‘I ain’t shore you wasn’t
named right, Angel, I ain’t at all shore. Mebbe we ought to make an
angel of you right now an’ save everyone from havin’ to listen to
your complaints. What you say, Angel?’

‘
Can’t
say I love the idea,’ Angel replied. He put an ingratiating smile
on his face. ‘How about if I was an angel an’ bought you a drink
instead?’

‘
We-e-ell,’ said the man. ‘You have changed your tune,
Angel. Ain’t he, Georgie?’

‘
Singin’ purtier than a medderlark,’ Georgie grinned. ‘Like
an angel, you might say.’

The man with the gun guffawed at
this, and one or two of the onlookers joined in, as if anxious
to
humor him.
The man slapped his thigh with his left hand, and shoved the gun
back into its holster.

‘
Damn
if I don’t let you buy me a drink afore you leave, Angel,’ he said.
‘Set ‘em up, Jerry.’

The bartender, who had been watching warily,
ready at any moment to dive again below the protecting barrier of
his bar, set more glasses on the counter. Georgie poured large
drinks for himself and his friend.