Kill Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #6) (7 page)

‘
Crazy
like a fox, mebbe?’ the old man said.

‘
Whyfor, Mr. Blantine?’ Gilman said. ‘Why’d any John Law
want to stick his neck out this far from home?’

‘
Me,
boy, me,’ the old man cackled. ‘Don’t you know there’s a bounty on
me? Five thousand dollars? Don’t you know that?’

‘
Hell,
Pa,’ Burke put in, ‘there’s bounty on all of us. One or two have
even tried to collect it.’ He smiled, recalling the buckskin-clad
bounty hunter in Magdalena who’d tried to take him. Burke had shot
him to pieces, first the right arm, then the left, then the right
leg, taking a lot of time over it, enjoying the screams, the man’s
agony as the bullets cut his writhing body to bits.

‘
Could
be, you know,’ Georgie the hostler said. ‘Now I come to think of
it, he had that John Law smell.’

‘
Yeah,’
Harry said. ‘Yeah, that might just be it. Mebbe that’s why he set
me up like that, to get you to react, Pa.’

‘
Crazy.’ The old man shook his head. ‘No sense to it. He’d
know we’d ride in and cut him to bits. It still don’t make
sense.’

‘
Well,
if it’s you he wants, Pa,’ Burke said, ‘that’s easy. Let me take
the boys in to town. I’ll take care of our visiting angel,’ he
grinned at his own joke, ‘an’ you don’t even need to stir from
here. Dave or Gregg here can stay with you. That way you don’t even
show your nose in town just in case he’s got anyone backin’ his
play.’

The old man shook his head.

‘
I
ain’t happy about it,’ he said. ‘It still don’t jib to
me.’

‘
Hell
with it, Pa,’ Burke said, impatiently. ‘He’s only one man. Me an’
the boys can take care o’ him right pronto, be back here in time
for supper.’

‘
Well,’
the old man said querulously.

‘
Come
on, Pa,’ Burke said.

‘
Well
... all right,’ the old man replied. ‘You could be right at that,
boy. After all, that bounty’s for my scalp dead or alive. Mebbe
he’s got some idee o’ settin’ an ambush in town ... ‘

‘
Somethin’ like that,’ Burke said. ‘What does it matter?
Gilman! Get the horses. Gregg, you stay here with Pa. You too,
Ahern.’

‘
I
don’t need no goddamned army to protect me, you young whelp!’
snapped the old man. ‘Leave Ahern. He’s as good as any of you.’ His
calculated insult brought an angry flush to his son’s face, but
Burke let it pass. The old man was always goading him. One day ...
He pushed through the knot of men by the door and led the way
outside as old Yancey Blantine grinned evilly to
himself.

‘
Feisty
little bastard,’ he said affectionately.

Ahern grinned.
‘One of these days
you’ll push him a mite too hard, Mr. Blantine,’ he said. ‘Then the
fur’ll fly.’

‘
Won’t
be mine,’ snapped the old man, and went to the window to watch his
son lead his men off down the ravine towards Agua
Caliente.

‘
This
could be tricky,’ Chris Vaughan told his companion.

‘
No!’
said Pearly Gates in pantomime disbelief.

The two men were just below the
skyline of the bluff overlooking the Blantines
’ stone ranch house. They had
left town before dawn, circling through the hills towards the
ranch, always wary for any scout or guard from the Blantine place,
but they had seen no one. Throughout the morning they had remained
on their perch high in the hills, cursing the merciless sun, their
chosen task, and the man who had sent them. Only when Burke
Blantine had come stalking out of the house and boiled off down the
ravine followed by the Blantine crew did they smile for the first
time.

‘
Looks
like el
capitano
was right,’ Gates had observed.

‘
Never
mind that,’ Vaughan said testily. ‘Can you see inside that damned
house?’

Gates screwed the field telescope to his eye
and studied the buildings below for a few minutes.

‘
Can’t
be sure,’ he said. ‘But I’d say there was two of them in
there.’

‘
Oh,
goody,’ Vaughan said sarcastically. ‘That’s only one each if you’re
right.’

‘
I’ll
take the smallest one,’ Gates said.

‘
My
hero,’ Vaughan replied.

‘
’
T’ain’t nothing,’ Gates said. They eased their way
over the rimrock and edged down towards the ranch house, using
every scrap of cover they could find. When they got close, Vaughan
nodded, and Gates moved away on his belly towards the back of the
house. Then Vaughan got up and walked out into the
open.

‘
Hello,
the house!’ he shouted.

He stood out in the open and
hoped that he was far enough away for them
to be unable to see the sweat that
drenched him. Yancey Blantine might just as easily poke a gun out
of the window and shoot him down without a qualm. He was playing on
the old man’s curiosity and he hoped to God he was doing the right
thing.

‘
Hello,
the house!’ he shouted again.

He saw the curtain move, and then a rifle
barrel poked out of the window.

‘
Who
are you?’ someone called.

‘
Name’s
Vaughan,’ he shouted back. ‘I’m afoot. Horse throwed me back a mile
or two. I need another.’

‘
Shuck
your gun!’ came the command. Vaughan ostentatiously unbuckled his
gun belt and let the weapon fall with a dull thud to the
earth.

‘
Step
forward!’ the disembodied voice told him. ‘Keep comin’ till I tell
you to stop!’

He did as he was told, walking easily
towards the house, his hands held away from his sides, the sweat
coursing down his face.

‘
Come
out, damn you,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Come
out!’

The rifle barrel remained trained on him as
he walked forward and then he saw the door open. A thickset dark
haired man came into the sunlight, a Winchester carbine ported
ready at his hip. Not Blantine, Vaughan thought.

‘
Howdy,’ he said in what he hoped was a friendly voice. ‘Can
you help me out?’

‘
Step
up here, mister,’ the man said, emphasizing the command with a
gesture from the carbine. ‘Let me take a look at you.’ Chris
Vaughan came up to within about six feet of the man, who made
another gesture with the gun that said
stop.
Vaughan halted.

‘
I
ain’t seen you afore,’ the man said.

‘
Hardly
likely,’ Vaughan told him, smiling ingratiatingly. ‘I’m on my way
to Agua Prieta. Just came up from Caborca. Been working down there
on an irrigation project for the Mex gov’ment. On my way home.
Damfool horse shied at somethin’ an’ throwed me. Been afoot for
most o’ the day.’

The man with the gun looked at him. Vaughan
was dusty and sweaty enough to be telling the truth.

‘
This
ain’t no livery stable,’ the man said.

‘
Hell,
I know that,’ Vaughan said. ‘I’ll pay you for the
horse.’

‘
Where
you say you’re from, boy?’

Yancey Blantine came to the door. Like the
thickset man, he was carrying a carbine. Vaughan noted that the
hammer was eared back. He felt sweat trickle down his spine.

‘
Listen, if you won’t let me have a horse, how about a drink
o’ water?’ he said. ‘I’m dry as a prayer-meetin’.’

‘
Give
him a drink, Dave,’ the old man said. ‘Come into the house,
stranger.’

There was a bright light in his
eye and Vaughan didn
’t like it, but he came forward. He had no option. Both of
the carbines were ready for action and there wasn’t a scrap of
cover in the open space before the house. Where in the sweet name
of Jesus was Gates?

As if in answer to his question,
Gates
came up
behind Blantine. He had let himself noiselessly into the house from
the rear, where he had discarded his boots, and come through the
cluttered living-room on stockinged feet.

‘
Let
the guns down gently, boys,’ he said behind the two men. Blantine
whirled around, the rifle rising as he did, but then he saw the
leveled six-gun in Gates’ hand, and his shoulders slumped slightly.
He uncocked the gun without a word and set it standing against the
doorpost. The one he had called Dave looked from Gates to Vaughan
in frustrated fury, his jaw muscles bunching.

‘
Wouldn’t make sense,’ Gates told him. Tut it
down.’

The old man nodded at Ahern, as
though giving an order. Ahern let the hammer down on his rifle and
leaned it next to the old man
’s. Vaughan let his breath come out in a long low
sigh.

‘
Who
are ye?’ the old man said, venom in his voice and a brilliant light
of hatred flickering in the pale blue eyes.

‘
Nobody
you’d know,’ Vaughan told him. ‘Rope, rope, where’s a rope?’ he
muttered, rummaging around the dusty, untidy room. Saddles, bridles
and bits, worn out boots, card-board boxes lay where they had first
been carelessly tossed. The floor was gritty underfoot with drifted
sand and unswept dirt. It had been many years since Yancey Blantine
had brought his wife Betsy up here to live. After her death, no one
had ever bothered much about the look of the place. The curtains of
which Betsy Blantine had once been so proud were now solid with
grime and trapped dead moths. Yancey Blantine never saw any of it.
This was his lair, the place he laid his head. The thought of
comfort never crossed his mind.

Vaughan found a braided
reata
in a corner, and
proceeded to expertly truss up the black-visaged Ahern. He bound
the man with what used to be known as a ‘Chink’s knot’, that
vicious killer binding that choked a man to death if he struggled
to free himself from it. When he was finished, he looked down at
Ahern.

‘
Let me
warn you,’ he said. ‘That noose around your neck is a slipknot.
It’s tied to your ankles and around your arms in such a way that if
you kick and struggle to get loose, you’ll strangle yourself. You
understand?’

Ahern cursed, and tried to spit at Vaughan,
who stepped back quickly.

The bound man tried to lunge at
Vaughan
’s
ankles with his feet, and his blundering movement brought the ropes
up tight at his throat, cutting off his wind and making his eyes
bulge in their sockets. Ahern gasped and choked for breath and
Vaughan stepped quickly in and loosened the knot
slightly.

‘
Naughty boy,’ he said, wagging a finger like an elderly
schoolmarm.

‘
Who
are ye?’ Blantine asked again. His eyes darted from Gates to
Vaughan and back constantly, as if trying to place them. ‘Who are
ye?’

‘
We’re
sort of doctors,’ Vaughan said. ‘We heard you were ill, so we came
up here to recommend a trip.’

‘
For
your health,’ Gates grinned.

‘
A
change of air,’ Vaughan added. ‘Do you good.’

The old man nodded, his eyes sharp and
birdlike.

‘
That
Angel feller,’ he said. ‘Now you.’

‘
What
Angel feller?’ Vaughan asked innocently. ‘You seeing angels, old
man? You do need a change of air. Next thing it’ll be pink
elephants.’

‘
Usually is,’ Gates said. ‘Classic symptom.’

‘
Ye
damned fools!’ the old man spat. ‘Think ye can get away with
somethin’ as stupid as this? My boys’ll run you down within a few
hours.’

‘
Noisy
in here isn’t it?’ Vaughan said.

‘
All
that chatter,’ Gates told him. ‘Gives you a headache.’

‘
Still,
he’s sick, poor old soul,’ Vaughan said.

‘
We’ll
humor him,’ Gates decided. ‘Go get the horses.’

Vaughan nodded and went out.
The
old man
looked at Gates and then looked at the two carbines by the door.
Gates grinned.

‘
You’d
never make it,’ he said.

‘
Think
I’m an idjut?’ the old man snarled. ‘I ain’t.’

‘
I
heard that,’ Gates admitted.

‘
You
look a smart feller,’ Blantine offered.

‘
Mother
allus told me I was, too,’ Gates grinned.

‘
Lissen, man! I’m serious! You can’t get me away from
here.’

‘
You a
bettin’ man?’ Gates asked.