There were some men standing idly at the town end of the bridge. They had the peculiarly unoccupied look of waiters in a failing restaurant. Angel’s sharp glance noted that all of them were carrying carbines, and all wore heavy belts of ammunition looped over their shoulders. As he approached the bridge, one of the men slouched out into the middle of the road and stood there watching him come nearer. At about ten yards the man spoke.
‘All right, cowboy,’ he said. ‘Turn around.’
He was about thirty, thickset, face stubbled with a three-day beard. He wore a red shirt and tight-fitting Levis. He had his shirt sleeves rolled back halfway between elbow and wrist, kind of fanciful; and he wore two six-guns in holsters peculiarly canted forward so that the gun butts hung back not far from the horizontal.
‘What is this?’ Angel asked mildly.
‘Just turn around,’ the man said. ‘Nobody leaves town.’
Angel just looked at him for a long moment, and in that long moment one of the other men eased away from the wooden stanchion against which he had been leaning. He laid the barrel of his Winchester idly across his forearm so that the muzzle pointed directly at the man on horseback.
‘Mind telling me why?’ Angel asked. ‘I got to be in Fort Griffin—’
‘Forget it!’ said the Red-Shirt. He let a leer touch his lips. ‘She’ll wait or she won’t. Right, Harvey?’
‘Right,’ said the man with the Winchester. He was still watching Angel with the wary eyes of a man who’s been caught off his guard once and never will be again if he can help it.
‘You boys work for Larry Hugess?’ Angel said.
‘Yeah, what of it?’
‘Why does he want the town locked up?’
‘You a stranger here, sonny?’ sneered Red-Shirt.
‘Came in last night,’ Angel said.
‘You hear about the fracas - about Burt Hugess gettin’ arrested?’
‘Uh huh.’
‘So.’
‘So how does that affect me?’
‘Jesus,’ Red-Shirt exploded. ‘Why do we always got to explain to them?’
‘Tell him,’ said the other one.
‘All right,’ grouched Red-Shirt. ‘It’s like this, see, cowboy.’ He made his speech patient, simple, the way he might talk to a small child or someone touched in the head. ‘Marshal Sheridan arrested Burt Hugess, and Larry Hugess don’t like that. He aims to show Mister Sheridan what it’s like to be caught atween a rock and a hard place. But he aims to do it without no interference. That means no messengers heading over for Winslow to get the US Marshal, or to Fort Supply for the so’jer boys. Sheridan’s got hisself into this, and Larry Hugess aims to let him try gettin’ hisself out of it. All on his ownsome. Now you savvy?’
‘Suppose—’ Angel said. ‘Just suppose, mind you - that I was inclined to argue the point’
‘That’d be an error,’ the man with the Winchester said quietly.
‘Look!’ said Red-Shirt.
He moved. Angel knew that he’d moved and yet couldn’t truly say he’d seen the movement, yet the man had the right-hand six-gun in his hand, cocked. It was faster than anything Angel had ever seen, and he had seen some of the very best men in the business.
‘Got you,’ Angel nodded. He pulled around the horse’s head, and over his shoulder, he said, ‘You boys got any idea how long I got to be holed up in this burg?’
‘Don’t make any long-term bookin’,’ Winchester said with a coarse cackle. He’d already ported the carbine, and Red-Shirt had re-holstered the six-gun in the strangely canted holster at his side. Angel walked the horse back up Front Street, heading for the hotel. As he got level with Texas Street, he saw Ridlow standing on the sidewalk gesticulating violently to a tall, contained-looking man whose right arm was in a bandana sling and whose six-gun was stuck in his waistband on the right-hand side for a cross-draw. The marshal, Angel told himself. He swung down from the roan outside the jail.
‘Here, Frank!’ Ridlow turned toward him. ‘You know what happened?’
‘Some jaspers stopped you leaving town,’ Angel said.
‘Aw,’ Ridlow said, disappointed at not being able to voice his disgust again for Angel’s benefit. ‘Yo’re damned tootin’ they did. An’ I wanna know what in thunder’s going on. Oh, Dan Sheridan, marshal o’ this place, Frank. This’s Frank Angel, Dan.’
Sheridan nodded an acknowledgment of the introduction He had dark shadows beneath his eyes. Pain? A sleepless night? Both, perhaps, Angel thought.
‘Them Hugess boys got this town locked up tighter’n a rattler’s ass, Dan,’ Ridlow continued. ‘What you aimin’ to do about ‘er?’ He awaited Sheridan’s reply with a belligerent expression on his face. It turned to sour disgust as Sheridan answered with a shrug.
‘Shee-hit, boy, you can’t just let Hugess take over yore town!’ Ridlow snapped.
‘Got any suggestions, Nathan?’ the marshal asked mildly. His thought seemed to be elsewhere, as though he was merely being pleasantly polite to Ridlow.
‘Wal,’ Ridlow said. He let loose a burst of tobacco juice that soared halfway across the street and splatted in the shifting dust. ‘Reckon mebbe me an’ my boys better pitch in an’ help you out, some. Haw!’
For the first time decision came into Sheridan’s eyes. He shook his head, frowning down on the old man.
‘Thanks, Nathan, but no. No way. You and your boys keep out of this!’
‘Hell, Sheridan,’ Ridlow snapped. ‘You need all the help you can git!’
‘No offense,’ Sheridan said. ‘Nathan, how good are you with a gun?’
‘Wal,’ Ridlow said ‘Haw!’ He let go with another splatter of cud. ‘If n yo’re askin’ me whether I’m a gunfighter or not, boy, wal - haw! I ain’t!’
‘I can’t recall I ever saw you carrying a pistol, Nathan.’
‘Wal, shoot, boy, I know what end to point! Haw!’
‘You good enough to go up against Willie, Nathan? Willie Johns?’
‘Aw, hell,’ Ridlow said. ‘You know damned well ain’t nobody goin’ to go up agin’ that snake-hipped sonofabitch, Sheridan!’
‘Willie Johns,’ Angel said. ‘Is he a thickset fellow, medium height, heavy stubble, wears his guns kind of tilted, so?’
‘That’s him,’ Sheridan said, looking at Angel and seeing him for the first time. ‘Why?’
‘Nothing,’ Angel said. ‘I think I just met him. He gave me a demonstration of how fast he can pull a six-gun.’
‘Tell your friend here,’ Sheridan said heavily. ‘Maybe he’ll believe you. Me, I already know how fast friend Johns is.’ He turned back to face Nathan Ridlow.
‘So you just keep your nose clean, Nathan,’ he said. ‘You pitch into this, you’d be just one more for me to look out for. And I’ve got all the problems I can use.’
‘Hell, I guess yo’re right, Dan,’ Nathan Ridlow said. Just goes an’ sticks in my craw that th’only backup you got is that boozehead.’
As he spoke, Howie Cade came to the door of the jail. there was no way he could not have heard what Ridlow said, but the old man didn’t back up one inch. He glared at Howie as though he was daring him to take offense at what was the plain truth for any eye to see. Indeed, Howie Cade looked like something that had been chawed on and spat out. His cloths were ragged, filthy. He needed a shave and a haircut and a bath, not necessarily in that order. His hands were shaky, and his eyes looked like he’d just ridden through a dust storm.
‘I need a drink,’ he told Sheridan.
‘Sure,’ Sheridan said, gently. ‘Go on down the street. Maybe one of the Hugess boys will buy you one.’
‘A beer would do,’ Howie said.,
‘Got some inside,’ Sheridan grinned, putting his deputy out of his agony. ‘While you were asleep. Figured you’d need something when you came up for air.’ He turned and opened the door clumsily with his left hand.
‘You boys like to join us?’ he said to Ridlow and Angel.
‘Try an’ stop us!’
Ridlow cackled. ‘Haw!’
The jail was simply built. The square building was divided down its middle by a corridor. On the street side of the corridor was the marshal’s office, fenced off from the rest of the room by a low rail with a swinging door in it. There was a pot-bellied stove in one corner of the room, two rifle racks with shotguns and carbines chained in them and locked, a cupboard, and a scarred old desk with a swivel chair behind it that had seen better days. In the open area was another, equally decrepit desk and chair for the deputy. Between his desk and Sheridan’s a door opened into the corridor, on the corral side of which were three cells. Burt Hugess was in the middle one: the other two were empty.
Sheridan went around behind his desk and reached down into the cool corner of the adobe walls; he came up with a heavy earthenware jug that had a damp cloth stretched across its mouth. He pointed with his chin at some tin cups hanging on nails along the side of the cupboard, and Nathan Ridlow planked them down one, two, three, four on Sheridan’s desk, licking his mustache as the cool beer foamed into them. While he and Angel were saluting the marshal, Howie Cade emptied his cup like a man who’s lived through a drought. He looked up, sheepishly, when he felt their eyes on him.
‘I’m all right,’; he said defensively. ‘Just thirsty.’
But his eyes pleaded with Sheridan, who nodded and filled his deputy’s cup again. They tried not to watch Howie struggling to drink it slowly.
‘Where have you got Hugess?’ Angel asked, more to fill the silence than anything else.
‘Back there, in the middle cell,’ Sheridan said jerking his head toward the half-open door to the corridor. ‘Nice and comfortable.’ He raised his voice a couple of lungfuls. ‘Aren’t you, Burt?’
‘Go to hell Sheridan!’ shouted the prisoner.
‘Nice fellow,’ Sheridan smiled. ‘Like his brother.’
‘No sign of him turning up yet?’
‘Nope.’
‘He’ll be here!’ Burt Hugess shouted from the cell. ‘Bet on that!’
‘You want to know the truth, I wish he’d get at it,’ Howie Cade muttered. ‘We nailed Burt twelve hours ago and so far nothing’s happened.’
‘Well, hardly,’ Sheridan said, and told him about the barricades at the exits from town. Angel watched the deputy’s face grow tight and pale as the marshal spoke.
‘We could lock ’em all up,’ Howie said, not really believing it. Sheridan just looked at him with one of those you-know-better-than-that looks.
‘Even if you could - an’ you can’t - Hugess’d just send another passel o’ gunnies in,’ Nathan Ridlow said. ‘Haw!’
Angel said nothing, but he recognized the marshal’s dilemma: damned if he did nothing, damned equally if he made a move. If Sheridan held on to Burt Hugess, then Larry Hugess would take him out of jail by force. If he turned Burt loose, they’d ride him out of town on a rail and he’d never get a job policing a town anywhere again as long as he lived, even if he did get so he could one day look himself in the eye again. Some parlay: a one-handed lawman and a dipso deputy up against the combined weight of Hugess and his riders. In the back of his mind he heard the warning voice of the attorney general, imagined himself again in the big, high-ceilinged room overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington with its disordered bookshelves and its drooping flags.
‘You know the rules, Angel,’ the Old Man would say. ‘Keep out of it.’
‘But I need to move out,’ he would argue. ‘After Magruder. Every day I lose gives him a longer head start.’
‘Can’t be helped,’ the attorney general would reply. ‘Not as if it’s forever.’
‘But—’
‘This . . . problem,’ the attorney general would go on, giving him no chance to argue. ‘Happens all the time, right? Frontier towns are pretty much all the same, are they not? Always someone struggling to be top dog, am I correct?’
And Angel would nod, because it was true, even if in this case. . . .
‘I know what you’re going to say, now,’ the attorney general would say, reaching for one of the long cigars he smoked. ‘This is different.’
‘It is,’ Angel would say. ‘You see—’
‘No difference at all,’ would come the interruption, sharp through the billowing folds of stinging smoke from the cigar. Department wags said that there was a $5000 bounty for the man who could find the attorney general’s cigar maker - and kill him before he made any more. ‘Tell me how this one is different. Town marshal handling a local problem. No Federal laws broken: always supposing we could make Federal law stick in Indian Territory. Could be argued, I suppose, that a town marshal hasn’t any true legal right to arrest anyway. Citizen’s arrest, nothing more. And nothing to do with this department, Frank.’ Each word emphasized by a jab from the cigar.
‘Agreed?’
And Angel would duck his head, agreeing.
‘Then don’t get involved.’
He pulled his thoughts back to the here and now, heard Sheridan saying that the only thing he could usefully do was to sit tight and wait to see what Hugess planned.
‘Wal,’ Ridlow said. ‘Damned if I’m gonna sit around waitin’ on him. I’m gonna round up some able bodies an—’
‘Nathan!’ Sheridan said. His voice was not loud but it stopped Ridlow’s chatter like a tap being turned. ‘Just-plain-don’t. And that’s an order!’
Old Ridlow looked at the marshal, and then at Howie Cade, and then back at the marshal.
‘Aw,’ he said. ‘Hell, Dan’l, if that’s the way you feel.’
‘That’s the way I feel,’ Sheridan said. ‘And don’t you forget it.’
‘Shoot,’ Ridlow said. ‘Then that’s the way she’ll be. How about one more afore I get on about my business? Just a leetle one. Haw!’
Sheridan poured the beer into the cups. He handled the job quite well, but it was plain to Angel that the marshal wasn’t used to using his left hand and that he’d be somewhere less than fast getting his gun into action if he had to. As for using a rifle ... it was better not to think too much about it. Don’t get involved, he told himself again. When they’d finished the beer, he got up to leave with Ridlow, telling himself that what he’d do was wait it out, see what happened. He could always pitch in alongside Sheridan if they hit the jail. He decided to hold on until nightfall before making a decision, but the way it turned out he didn’t have to make any decision at all. It was made for him at around seven-thirty that night when someone cut Nathan Ridlow down from ambush in an alley halfway up Front Street.
Chapter Five
Ridlow hadn’t even been wearing a gun. He’d spent most of the late afternoon and early evening going from store to saloon to restaurant to livery stable to saloon, haranguing the citizens of Madison to support their marshal, completely ignoring the warning that Sheridan had served on him. He’d been vituperative, scalding, merciless, calling Madison’s men folk spineless, spavined, swaybacked, and possessed of less guts than a cooked rainbow trout, but all to no avail. When he had suggested a frontal attack on the Flying H riders, he had been gently reminded of the presence of such trigger-happy gunslingers as Danny Johnston and Willie Johns. When he had put up the idea of sending out riders in every direction under cover of darkness, it had taken only moments for someone to remind him that even if they escaped the town, the riders would still have to traverse Flying H range throughout the night, a range patrolled by heavily armed Hugess riders no doubt looking for just such riders, not to say hoping to encounter them. When in disgust Nathan Ridlow finally stamped out of the Oriental with the flat-stated intention of going the hell on down to the railroad depot and send him off a telegraph message to Fort Worth so at least his boss would know what the Sam Hill was holding him up, the citizens of Madison who’d had to stand still for his tongue-lashing watched him go with a mixture of shame and relief.
Nathan Ridlow stamped down the street toward the railroad depot, his temper not really gone at all: he’d whipped himself up into a good anger to t
ongue-lash the men in the bar, but in actual fact he wasn’t truly angry, hadn’t really expected them to rally round Sheridan. After all, they were shopkeepers, small businessmen, not gunslingers. The whole idea of hiring Sheridan was so he could do their gunslinging for them. If he got himself a tiger by the tail, it was his job to unhitch himself with the least possible damage to (a) the town, (b) its citizens, and (c) not necessarily in that order.
‘Which same is some trick,’ he told himself, as he stomped down the boarded sidewalk. ‘Haw!’ He stopped as he stepped down from the boards onto the dusty ground just before the point where the side path going up to the church split off from the main street, and in doing so, threw the aim of the ambushers. The lance of flame speared from the alley alongside the livery stable, and Nathan Ridlow felt as if some huge, invisible being had punched him heavily on the upper chest. He was astonished to find himself face down in the dust of Front Street, and he could hear the deep repeated whang! of a Winchester carbine. Out of pure instinct he rolled over, dying for the shadow of the boardwalk off which he had just stepped. Now the sharper bark of a six-gun laid itself over the repeated roar of the carbine, and bullets smacked gouts of dust into the old man’s eyes and face, half-blinding him. Then the roar of the carbine turned into a terrible clanging sound, as if someone had smote a huge anvil right next to his head, very close. He could hear the metal vibrating, and there was the taste of iron in his mouth. He cried out from the shock of it, not knowing that his body had been slammed back against the wall of the house behind him, not knowing yet that he was gunshot and dying.
Hunt Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #5) Page 3