Hunt Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #5)

by Frederick H. Christian

  He came up on the wagons easy, letting them see him for a good long while as he drew closer. The lead wagon was being driven by a burly, red-faced man with a walrus mustache at least two sizes too big for him. He had a hefty wedge of chaw tobacco working away in his right cheek, making him look like he had a gumboil. Every once in a while he’d spit at the mules, the gobbet splacking off the haunch of the unheeding animal in a glinting spray.

  ‘That’s a name musta given you trouble at school, sonny,’ he roared.

  ‘Did for a while,’ Angel admitted, ‘Till I got my growth.’

  ‘Haw!’ the wagon master shouted. ‘Name’s Ridlow. Nathan Stewart Lester Edward Ridlow. Nate when ya gits ta know me. Haw!’

  He was from Fort Worth, he told Angel, and he made this trip four times a year - hauling supplies for the Fort Worth Mining Company from Hays, hauling copper ingots back up to the railroad.

  ‘Be goddamned happier when they gits that new line a-builded,’ he roared. ‘Cut four days off of ma’ journey, haw!’

  Angel suggested that it was a pretty monotonous trip to make four times a year: there wasn’t enough scenery in the country between Fort Worth and Independence, Missouri, to paint on a postage stamp.

  ‘Wal,’ Ridlow said, firing another great gobbet of tobacco juice that went splack! and splottered just like all the others before it on the rump of the offside mule. ‘Haw! Wal, it keeps a feller busy,’ Ridlow said. ‘Also don’t see no more o’ my old lady than I got to, haw!’

  They camped that night on the open prairie.

  Ridlow’s drivers made a square out of the wagons, and a rope corral was erected for the mules, which were also ground-hobbled. There wasn’t too much likelihood of Indians, but the frontiersman’s first rule was ‘take no chances.’

  After they had eaten, Angel asked the old wagon-master about the sign they had passed as they crossed the dried-out ford at Bluff Creek. It had been a square of white boards, on which was painted in uncompromising capitals THIS IS FLYING H LAND. KEEP IT IN MIND.

  ‘The Hugess ranch,’ Ridlow told him. ‘Biggest spread ’n these parts, bar none. Stretches clear on down to the Cimarron, on into Injun Territory. Take a man on a good horse two days to ride across ’er from east t’west, they say.’

  In answer to Angel’s next question, he frowned.

  ‘Never met Larry Hugess, so can’t say. Met his brother, though. Burt. Big sonofabitch. One o’ them pizen drunks. Makes a habit o’ gettin’ in deep trouble and then squawkin’ for Larry, his brother, to come bail him out.’

  ‘And does he?’

  ‘Bail him out? Every damn time, by cracky. Haw!’

  ‘He must have a lot of clout in these parts.’

  ‘Bet y’r ass,’ Ridlow grinned toothlessly. ‘He wrote the book. Haw!’

  He started to rise, and then turned to the younger man.

  ‘Welcome to ride with us tomorrow,’ he said. ‘All the damned way, come to that.’

  ‘Kind of you,’ Angel demurred, ‘but I better push on. I can make slightly better time of it on my own. Thanks all the same.’

  ‘Guess you’re right,’ Ridlow said, a trace of ruefulness in his voice. ‘Been nice to talk to someone for a change ’stead o’ starin’ at them mules’ asses for another week. Haw!’

  He got up and stamped his feet. The night air was already chill, and there was a dampness in the wind that was unexpected.

  ‘Goddamned country!’ the old man complained. ‘Well. You’ll stick with us till we get to town, I imagine.’

  ‘Town?’ Angel asked.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ Ridlow explained patiently. ‘We could have us a drink, mebbe. Haw!’

  ‘Maybe we could at that,’ Angel said. ‘What’s the name of this town?’

  ‘Hugess boys own ’er,’ Ridlow said. ‘She’s called Madison.’

  Chapter Three

  Burt Hugess walked down Front Street like a prowling lion.

  He felt a strange elation, a Christmas Eve sort of feeling of anticipation, something coming. He felt ten feet tall and sexually aroused: he needed a drink and a girl, and he could get both in Fat Mary’s. He went down the street toward the depot with his head high and a proud contained smile touching his mouth, People on the boarded sidewalks got out of his way, parting before him like water before the thrusting prow of a ship, as if they could feel some emanation, some aura about him. Word of the killing had preceded him down the street; nobody wanted to bump into Burt Hugess when he was killing drunk.

  He went across the tracks and down the rutted path to Fat Mary’s place. It was surrounded by an unlovely pile of trash, and half-clean clothing hung on a sagging line above the chickens foraging in the dirt. One long, low box of adobe: he went through the door into the cool darkness of a sort of hall, the earth damped down with sprinkled water. Facing the door was a bar of sorts: Fat Mary served only tequila. Off to each side were curtained apertures, through which you could walk down the corridor to one of the four cribs on each side. There were a couple of girls sitting around, idly fanning themselves, their Mother Hubbards hiked up high on their thighs. A young Spanish-looking fellow was playing a guitar softly, but he stopped abruptly as Burt weaved in and pounded the bar.

  Fat Mary came bustling in through the curtained doorway and pasted a smile on her sweaty face when she saw who it was. A quick signal Burt didn’t see sent the girls out of the place. The guitarist backed quietly into the yard outside.

  ‘Hello, Burt, honey,’ Fat Mary said, sliding a glass across the rough planking of her bar. Her immense body wobbled as she reached back on a shelf for the tequila bottle and poured him a drink.

  Burt Hugess smiled at her to let her know it was all right, he wasn’t going to make trouble.

  ‘Have one yourself,’ he said.

  ‘Why, if you ain’t a darlin’ doll,’ she gurgled. Her smile was as false as a drummer’s expense account. When she poured the drinks, she slopped tequila on the bar. If he noticed her uneasiness, Burt ignored it.

  ‘Another,’ he said.

  She started to pour the drink, and then she made a strange noise in her throat, and he looked at her in puzzlement. She wasn’t looking at him. She was looking past him and Burt cursed, whirling around, his hand flickering toward the holstered gun at his hip as Fat Mary dropped to the floor behind the bar with a solid thud.

  When Burt Hugess saw who was standing in the doorway of the adobe, he jerked his hand away from the gun as if it had suddenly grown red hot, lifting his arms, palms facing down to the floor, almost to shoulder level.

  ‘Sheridan!’ he growled.

  Dan Sheridan was a tall man, maybe an inch over six feet. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, but he weighed a good hundred and ninety. His dark blond hair was cut on the long side, although not the show-long of some of the blustering fools who wore the star. He wore tan woolen pants tucked into well-kept, brown mule-ear boots, a dark blue cotton shirt, a soft leather belt and holster that looked as if it had been painted on him. His eyes, gray as a hunting wolf’s, were cold and challenging, and he held the double-barreled Greener with the nine-inch barrels across his left forearm like a man who was itching to use it. The twin bores trained on his belly transfixed Burt Hugess.

  ‘Sheridan!’ he said again.

  He tried to will himself to act, to challenge the lawman, but every nerve and sinew denied the commands of his brain. He could see nothing except the imaginary picture of his body torn to ribbons by the buckshot that would riddle him if Sheridan pulled the triggers of the shotgun.

  ‘All right,’ Sheridan said at last. ‘Unbuckle your gunbelt and stand away from it. You know the drill.’

  Hugess didn’t move. Sheridan took three steps forward and jammed the barrels of the gun into the big man’s gut, pushing a noisy grunt from his slightly open mouth. Close up, Burt Hugess could see the just-controlled rage beneath the apparently calm exterior, and he realized Sheridan was inch-close to killing him like a mad dog. He swallowed noisily, eyes shuttling a
way from Sheridan’s glare.

  ‘I’ll count three,’ Sheridan said.

  ‘Don’t bother,’ said a voice behind him.

  Sheridan’s eyes widened a fraction. Hugess could see him think about it.

  ‘I could still take Burt with me,’ Sheridan said almost conversationally to the man behind him.

  ‘You do that and Larry Hugess will ride in here and burn this town down for your marker,’ Danny Johnston said, reminding Sheridan of his own position with a jab of the cocked six-gun. Burt Hugess saw the lawman’s shoulders droop fractionally, and he knew the danger was over. He snatched the shotgun out of Sheridan’s hands, breaking it open and kicking the bright red shells out of sight.

  ‘Lean on the bar, both hands!’ he snapped.

  Sheridan just looked at him, the way a man might look at a reptile.

  ‘Do it,’ Danny Johnston said behind him.

  Sheridan shrugged. He leaned forward, both arms stretched out, hands on the front angle of the bar keeping him upright. The other Flying H riders pushed into the adobe. They wanted to see the fun.

  Sheridan looked at them. Danny Johnston, Johnny Evans, Ken Finstatt, two others. He knew them all, made a mental note. While he was doing it, Burt Hugess moved like a cat and whacked the barrels of the shotgun down like an axe across the knuckles of Sheridan’s right hand. Sheridan shouted with the pain and went down on his knees, writhing on the dirt floor, agony contorting his features. Burt Hugess dragged his own six-gun out and cocked it, pointing it at Sheridan’s head.

  ‘No Burt!’

  The shout made Hugess stop, whirling around to face the doorway where the tatterdemalion figure of Howie Cade stood with a six-gun in his hand. The Flying H riders had turned too, and now Danny Johnston’s voice cut the silence, contemptuous.

  ‘Get out of here, you bum,’ he snapped, turning away.

  Burt Hugess was already turning back to Sheridan, who was on the floor looking up at him now.

  ‘All right,’ Burt said.

  The sound of the shot was shockingly loud in the small area, but it did not come from Burt’s six-gun. Howie Cade let fly from the doorway, and his carefully placed bullet took Burt Hugess high on the meaty part of his right shoulder, slamming the big man’s brawny form against the bar and capsizing it on top of the screeching woman hiding behind it. Burt slid off the fallen bar with the bright blood breaking across his upper body, eyes astonished. The Flying H riders looked from the fallen man to Howie Cade, standing in the doorway with a smoking Smith & Wesson steady as a rock in his hand.

  ‘What in the name of hell. . . ?’ Danny Johnston asked.

  He realized that he still had the six-gun in his hand, and as he did so, Howie Cade spoke.

  ‘I want that gun on the floor, Danny,’ Howie said. ‘And I do mean now!’

  ‘Shit, Howie,’ Danny Johnston said. ‘You can’t take all of us.’ The gun in his hand didn’t move, but Johnny Evans and the others, without moving became poised for movement.

  ‘I can shoot your balls off,’ Howie reminded Johnston. His voice cracked on the last word.

  ‘Misdoubt you could make it, boy,’ Johnny Evans said, silky soft.

  It looked like he might be right. Whatever impulse had driven Howie Cade to action, it was gone. The resolution was dribbling out of him visibly like sand from a broken egg timer. He suddenly looked old, gray, and very tired; the hand holding the six-gun trembled visibly.

  ‘You wanna kill him or shall I?’ Danny Johnston said to Johnny Evans.

  Howie watched them, the gun moving in a small arc between the two men, his eyes full of desperate apprehension.

  ‘Don’t make me kill you, Danny!’ he said. His voice was smaller, too. The Flying H men could hear the difference.

  ‘Shit, Johnny, you kill him,’ Johnston said, as if disgusted.

  They had forgotten Sheridan. He’d been out of it, on the floor, his hand all shot to hell, done with as far as they were concerned. It was a bad mistake, because Sheridan had reached across his own body and had the Colt .44-40 with the four and a half inch barrel in his left hand. The sound it made when he cocked it was like a thunderclap, and the five Flying H men froze.

  ‘As I was saying,’ Howie Cade said, all the life coming back into his eyes, ‘I want that gun on the floor, Danny.’

  Johnston thought it over for a fast count of three and then dropped the gun. It made a soft thud in the dirt.

  ‘Now the rest of you boys,’ Howie said softly. ‘Shuck your belts and step away from them.’

  Johnny Green looked at Sheridan. The marshal was on his feet now, and he looked as if he’d welcome an excuse to use the gun in his hand.

  ‘Do what he says,’ Sheridan rasped.

  Howie Cade watched the Flying H men unbuckle their belts and step shamefacedly away from them. Nobody spoke. Outside in the street they could hear the sound of wagons rumbling across the wooden boards that bridged the railroad track.

  ‘Now get the hell out of town,’ Sheridan said.

  Danny Johnston shrugged and then stepped forward as though to help Burt Hugess to his feet. Sheridan stopped him with a gesture of the Colt.

  ‘What. . . ?’ said Danny, puzzled.

  ‘He’s under arrest,’ Sheridan said. ‘For murder.’

  ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘You want to try me?’

  ‘You know what’ll happen, Sheridan? You know what Larry Hugess will do to you? He’ll cut you up for jerky!’

  ‘That’ll be the day,’ Sheridan said. ‘On your way, boys.’

  ‘Listen, Sheridan, Burt needs a doctor. He’s hurt,’ Evans put in.

  ‘Can’t you see how I’m worrying about him?’ Sheridan grinned, cold as charity.

  He gestured with the six-gun, and this time the Flying H boys moved, filing past Howie Cade without meeting his eyes. They got on their horses and yanked them into movement, cutting across the northern side of the railroad depot and leaving only a softly sifting cloud of dust in their wake. Howie Cade had followed them outside and watched them go. Now he came back into Fat Mary’s.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said. He was trembling. ‘I need a drink.’

  Sheridan was hauling Burt Hugess to his feet. Burt looked ashen, shocked. His arm hung at his side like a piece of string. His shirt was stiff with dried blood. He watched with dull eyes as Howie went across to the shelves behind the bar which Fat Mary had propped up again and lifted down a bottle of tequila. Fat Mary watched him with eyes like a snake, but she said not a word. Neither did Sheridan.

  Howie uncorked the bottle and poured himself a stiff drink. He looked at it for a long moment, lifted it, smelled it. Then he poured it on the floor. He looked at Sheridan and tried for a grin which didn’t stick on too well.

  ‘We better go get Doc Franklin to take a look at that hand of yours,’ he said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Sheridan said. He looked at his hand. It was swollen into a ball, bruised blue here and there, with darkened patches of dried blood beneath the skin. He couldn’t move any of the fingers at all. Great shape to take on the full strength of the Flying H, he thought grimly. He looked at Howie Cade.

  Thanks,’ he said.

  ‘Aw,’ Howie said. ‘Listen, let’s get the hell outa here.’

  He knew what Sheridan was thinking. He was thinking it himself. A town marshal without a gun hand plus a deputy who might get through the night without taking a drink was a poor combination to put up against what Larry Hugess would start rolling when Danny Johnston and his boys got back to the Flying H. He gave Burt Hugess a prod with his six-gun.

  ‘OK, tiger,’ he grinned. ‘Let’s go.’

  The three of them went out of there and across the tracks, walking Burt Hugess up the street toward the jail. They walked in the center of the street, letting the whole town see them. Sheridan hoped he didn’t look as worried as he felt. Howie’s nickname for Hugess wasn’t misplaced. He had a tiger by the tail, all right. And only one good hand to hold on with.

  Chapter Four


  Madison was no great shakes as a town.

  There were a thousand like it, and Frank Angel sometimes had the feeling he’d seen most of them. Madison’s two streets, Front and Texas, joined each other in a T-junction, Front being the horizontal. At the northern end of Front was the railroad depot and the flat-roofed, gloomy-windowed warehouse owned by the Hugess outfit. Along its slab adobe sides in six-foot white capitals was painted the legend L & B HUGESS TRADERS & MERCHANTS. Upon a bluff above the depot and set back maybe a hundred yards from the main street was a small white frame church with a neat graveyard behind it. Almost directly opposite the pathway leading to the church was another pathway that wound down behind the breaks and across the tracks to the huddle of shacks and adobes that housed such establishments as Fat Mary’s.

  Front Street boasted the usual livery stable, a two-story building that housed a restaurant and also let rooms, and almost opposite Texas Street, Johnny Gardner’s Palace Saloon. At the southern end of Front was a wooden bridge across Cat Creek down to a mere trickle at this time of year. The bridge was a duplicate of the one which crossed the same creek at the eastern end of Texas Street, on which - if you cared, which frankly Angel didn’t – you could find the general store and another saloon, The Oriental, and opposite it on the junction of Front and Texas, the marshal’s office and the jailhouse in their solidly constructed adobe with its heavy iron-studded oak door and barred windows.

  There weren’t many people about.

  Angel rode the roan south on Front toward the bridge across the creek, his mind on his destination and his task there; he’d left Ridlow, after an evening of quiet drinks together, with his wagons in the big corral in back of the general store, where Ridlow had taken them last night. The town had been abuzz with the news of the marshal’s arrest of Burt Hugess, everyone pretty well agreeing that Sheridan was about to find out what it was like to walk bare-assed through hell. The threat of the Hugess outfit hung over the place like a black cloud, but Angel had closed his mind to it: the department had a rule, and the rule was: don’t get involved. If it didn’t directly bear upon the job you had in hand, you rode around it, you ducked it, you walked away from it, you got out of it any damned way you could, but you didn’t get involved. The Justice Department had its own fish to fry, and they didn’t include the problems of a town marshal in some godforsaken wide spot in the road, no matter how pressing.