‘Well,’ Finstatt said, letting the rest of the leer write itself around his mouth and eyes, ‘I’d say the widder Flardin’s got the hots for our Mister Angel!’
For a moment, he was afraid he’d gone too far: Hugess’s eyes blazed with anger, but the big man quickly got control of his emotions. ‘Guesswork, or fact?’ he’d forced himself to say.
‘Fact,’ Finstatt said, openly smiling now. He’ll nudge me in the ribs with his elbow next, Hugess thought, repelled. ‘One o’ the boys sez he snuck up on the porch o’ the hotel. Seen that Angel carryin’ her up the stairs.’
There was another question, but Hugess couldn’t bring himself to answer it. It didn’t matter; what mattered was the fact that there was an emotional tie between Sherry Hardin and Frank Angel. How strong it was he would have to find out, gamble on. The more he thought about it, though, the likelier it all seemed. The Hardin girl had always been a stand-off, even Sheridan hadn’t got really close to her, and it wasn’t too hard to figure he’d tried. She was pleasant to everyone - Hugess included - but never really unbent to anyone. Maybe Angel had touched the trigger that no other man had been able to find. It was more than possible and that was enough for Larry Hugess. Emotion drained out of him now and decision rushed to fill the vacuum. He gave a great shout of triumph that brought his Mexican housekeeper running into the room, wide-eyed with alarm.
‘Oh, Senor Hugess!’ she exclaimed. ‘You frighten’ me bad!’
Larry Hugess was smiling with pleasure and anticipation and he slapped her on her ample rump. ‘Es nada, Maria, nada,' he chortled. ‘Bring me some coffee. Finstatt, get in here!’ This last he yelled out of the open window; Ken Finstatt, working in the corral across the wide open space in front of the house, looked up and shambled into a run.
‘Somethin’ wrong?’ he said as he came into the house.
‘Just the opposite,’ Hugess said. ‘Saddle my horse. Get the men ready. We’re going into Madison!’
‘Madison?’ Finstatt said. ‘What we goin’ to do?’
‘Do?’ Larry Hugess roared. ‘Do? We’re going to fetch my brother home for dinner tonight, that’s what we’re going to do!’
Ken Finstatt looked at Larry Hugess for a long moment, the carefully judged look of a man weighing another for any hint of bluff or braggadocio but not showing what he is searching for. There was no question of Larry Hugess’s confidence - it radiated from him like heat from a fire. ‘Well?’ he growled. ‘What the hell are you waiting for?’ ‘Nothin’, boss,’ Finstatt said. ‘Not a damned thing!’ He hurried from the house to do Larry Hugess’s bidding. Whatever it was Hugess aimed to do, it sure looked like he didn’t expect it to backfire. Well, Finstatt thought as he yelled orders to the men in the bunkhouse, it sure as hell better not.
Chapter Thirteen
One more day, Frank Angel told himself.
They were sitting in the jail with nothing very much to do, taking their time about doing it. The sun was already well up toward noon, and the town was as quiet as a baby’s bedroom. Howie Cade was in fact half-asleep. He’d kind of snuggled himself up in a blanket, propped his feet upon the desk, and tilted his hat forward over his eyes. Dozing, he called it. Once in a while the other two heard him make a noise like a fretful sigh.
Sheridan had fashioned himself a smoke. He was still clumsy but he could use his injured hand some now. He kept practicing a draw, but he was nowhere near being ready to do it in earnest. He looked across at Frank Angel, but didn’t speak. Angel’s eyes were blank, looking inward,. He wondered what Angel was thinking about.
Angel was thinking about Larry Hugess. About everything Sherry Hardin had told him, everything Sheridan had told him, everything old Nate Ridlow had told him and they all added up to the same thing: a man who went after what he wanted and never gave up until he got it. With twenty-four hours between train times and now, Hugess had to move soon. He’d tried every damned way there was to cut one or two of them down, leaving the way clear to his brother in the cell. With failure jeering at him, Hugess would react. He might even overreact, Angel thought. He thought of Hugess mounting up all his riders and making a concerted attack on the jail. Thirty men, maybe, against three: but three with an ace-in-the-hole of great strength. Larry Hugess knew that if push came to shove, Burt Hugess wouldn’t come out of the jail alive, either. He tried to put himself in the rancher’s place. What other methods could he try?
Hold up the train? It seemed highly unlikely. A man with as much at stake as Hugess might risk everything in the town he controlled, but he wouldn’t want to take on the kind of investigation that follows a train hold-up. Delay the train? Possible, but to what purpose? In the end, he was still faced with the impasse: Burt in the jail and three men determined to keep him there in with him.
Hugess might string his men all the way along the street and across it up by the depot, dare them to try to take Burt onto the train. That wouldn’t work, and he figured Hugess knew it as well. All Sheridan had to do was lash himself to Burt, cock the hammers on the Greener, and jam the barrels under Burt’s chin, then walk up the street to the depot. One try at stopping him and he could spread Burt Hugess over about half an acre of the territory. Impasse again.
‘You think Hugess would want to take us even if it meant killing Burt to do it?’ he asked Sheridan. The marshal’s eyes widened at the unexpected question, and he pursed his lips while he considered it.
‘I reckon not,’ he said finally.
‘No way,’ Howie said from under his hat. ‘Larry Hugess is a man too full o’ pride to defeat hisself thataway.’
‘What I figured,’ Angel said, lapsing into silence again.
‘I reckon he’ll rush us,’ Sheridan said, as if reading Angel’s mind.
‘How come?’
‘Look at it from his point of view,’ Sheridan said. ‘Time’s running out fast. He’s got to commit: it’s a piss-or-git-off time. He’s probably wondering just how genuine my promise was to shoot Burt if the going got too rough. Maybe he’ll even look at it as a benefit: I shoot Burt, ain’t no way he can be tried and disgrace the Hugess name.’
‘Hard to swallow,’ Howie said, without moving. ‘But possible.’
‘It’s about all he’s got left to shoot with,’ Sheridan said. ‘And the longer we got to wait, the likelier it is that that’s what he’ll do.’
If he agreed with them, Angel didn’t say so. He had withdrawn again, and his eyes were hooded. What would Hugess do? Where would he make his play? When would it happen?
He didn’t have to wait too long for an answer.
Larry Hugess and his men holed up in the big warehouse by the depot while Finstatt did what needed to be done. It was easy as slicing pie. They went around in back of the hotel, where they could hear the cheerful clatter of the pots and pans as Chen went about getting the midday meal ready. Finstatt had two men with him: Lee Shepard and Jim Landy. Landy rapped on the screen door, and Shepard and Finstatt flattened themselves against the wall on either side.
‘What you want?’ the Chinaman asked Landy.
‘Can you spare me a minute,’ Landy asked politely. ‘Just a minute?’
‘Hokay,’ Chen said cheerfully, and stepped out. His knees folded as Finstatt smacked him behind the ear with the barrel of his six-gun, and he fell into the arms of the waiting men. In two minutes Landy had him tied securely, and they rolled him out of the way, going into the kitchen on careful feet, easing open the swing door that led into the dining room.
‘Right,’ Finstatt whispered.
The place was empty; Sherry Hardin was humming to herself as she moved around the tables, setting cutlery in place and putting salt and pepper cruets in the center of the tablecloth. She turned without panic as she heard their footsteps, thinking it was the Chinaman.
‘Chen,’ she said, ‘I think we—’ The words trailed into nothing as she saw the three men, and they saw her chest rise as she drew in her breath.
‘That would be very silly, lady,’
Finstatt said, showing her the cocked six-gun.
‘Wh-what do you want?’ she said. Then, angrily, ‘What have you done to Chen?’
‘That the Chinee?’ Landy grinned. ‘He’s takin’ a nap.’
‘If you’ve hurt him—’ Sherry Hardin said fiercely, ‘I’ll—’
‘Lady, don’t try my patience,’ Ken Finstatt said. ‘Just quit jabberin’ an’ come with us.’
‘Where? You’re Hugess’s men, aren’t you? What’s this all about?’ she said.
‘Just move your ass, lady,’ Finstatt said. ‘Beggin’ your pardon. We ain’t got all day, an’ the boss wants to see you.’
Her chin came up. ‘And if I refuse to go?’
Finstatt shook his head, as if bored with such folly. ‘Then I’ll bend this six-gun over your pretty little head, lady,’ he told her. ‘An’ we’ll carry you over there.’
‘I’ll walk,’ she said quickly. ‘Just don’t any of you touch me.’ There was a revulsion in her voice and Finstatt caught the tone. He reacted sharply.
‘Not with a bargepole, lady,’ he snapped. ‘We don’t want none of that government snooper’s leavin’s!’
He caught the hand she swung at his face and held it, effortlessly, as she cursed him. Then he shoved her away with an impatient gesture.’ All right,’ he said. ‘You’ve had your fun. Now walk!’
Sherry Hardin looked at him and then at the other two. They returned her burning contempt with complete indifference, and she shrugged.
‘Very well,’ she said.
‘That’s better,’ Ken Finstatt told her. ‘It’s only up the street.’
‘Marshal!’
Sheridan let his rocked-back chair come four-square to the ground and used its impetus to propel him forward onto his feet. The hammering on the door continued.
‘Who’s out there?’ Sheridan called, keeping to one side of the door.
Angel was already on his feet, and Howie was poised warily by the door that led to the cells, the Greener in his hands and every trace of sleepiness gone from his stance.
‘It’s Gardner, Marshal,’ the voice came. ‘Johnny Gardner!’
‘Speak your piece,’ Sheridan said.
‘I brung you a message,’ Gardner said through the wood. ‘From Larry Hugess. You better open up, Marshal.’
Sheridan looked at Angel with raised eyebrows, and Angel nodded. He gave Howie Cade the signal and Howie propped his back against the wall, leveling the heavy sawn-off on the doorway which Sheridan was now about to open. If anyone was using Gardner to gain entrance to the jail, he wasn’t going to make it more than about two paces inside. Angel, too, was ready with cocked six-gun, and Sheridan was behind the door with another. Gardner paled when he saw the arsenal staring at him.
‘Hey,’ he said weakly. ‘Hold on there.’
He was alone, and Sheridan closed the door behind the saloonkeeper.
‘Larry Hugess is in town?’ Sheridan asked.
‘That’s right, Marshal,’ Gardner nodded. ‘An’ he sent me to give you his message. His ultimatum.’
‘Let’s hear it,’ Angel said.
‘Hugess said to tell you he wants Burt delivered to him at the warehouse by two o’clock. Not a minute later. You all got to walk up there unarmed. Hugess will be waiting for you.’
‘It’s a good message,’ Howie Cade said. ‘If you believe in fairy tales.’
‘Which Hugess doesn’t,’ Sheridan reminded him grimly. ‘What’s the rest of it Johnny?’
‘Said to tell you he’s got Sherry Hardin up there,’ Gardner said. ‘Said to tell you to do what he says or he’s going to give her to his boys.’
‘He what?’ Sheridan grabbed Gardner’s shirt and pulled the man toward him. ‘He said what?’
‘Listen, Marshal, this ain’t none of my doin’!’ Gardner screeched. ‘They told me to bring you the message, that’s all. I got nothing to do with it!’
Sheridan thrust the quaking saloonkeeper to one side. He looked at Frank Angel, who had not spoken. Angel’s eyes were dark, burning with a deep fire somewhere a long way inside.
‘Jesus, Dan,’ Howie Cade said. ‘What we goin’ to do?’
‘What time is it?’ Sheridan asked, absently, his thoughts furiously busy.
‘Twenty before two,’ Johnny Gardner supplied, trying to be helpful, the gold hunter watch picking up a faint glint of sunlight from a crack in one of the shutters.
‘Twenty minutes,’ Sheridan muttered. ‘That doesn’t give us any damned time at all.’
They looked at each other in silence, and then Howie Cade broke it by addressing the saloonkeeper. Johnny,’ he said, measureless contempt in his voice. ‘You done what was expected of you. Now get out o’ here!’
Gardner nodded, backing away toward the door. ‘I’d help, you boys know that,’ he chattered. ‘I’d be glad to do anything I could, except I’m no fighting man, you know that, Sheridan, I never carry a gun, I—’
‘Get out of here, Johnny,’ Sheridan said offhandedly. There didn’t seem to be any threat in the marshal’s voice at all, but Gardner must have seen something in Sheridan’s eyes, because he gave a squeak of panic and scuttled out of the jail like a rabbit. They heard his feet stumble on the boardwalk outside the building, and then the silence came down like a tangible thing. The room smelled of tension.
‘Get him out,’ Angel said, harshly.
‘Listen,’ Sheridan said.
‘Get him out,’ Angel repeated. ‘Howie: do it!’
Howie Cade looked at Angel and then at Sheridan.
‘Listen, Frank,’ Sheridan said. ‘He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t do it.’
Angel just looked at him; the deep fire was still seething behind his eyes. He looks as if he wants to kill someone, Sheridan thought. With his bare hands.
‘You a betting man?’ Angel asked.
Sheridan thought about that for a moment. He knew what Angel was asking him: was he prepared to pay up if he lost the bet? He thought about Larry Hugess, and what Larry Hugess had done already to try to free his brother. He thought about all the other things Larry Hugess had done in a lifetime of being top man, getting what he wanted. And he knew he wasn’t about to take that kind of chance with Sherry Hardin as the stake. This game was sudden death: and you don’t back long shots in it.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Get him out here, Howie.’
Howie Cade nodded and lifted the ring of keys off the hook. The other two stood silently, looking at but not seeing each other as Howie opened the cell door and brought a grinning Burt Hugess into the office.
‘Well,’ Burt said, arms akimbo and a wide smile on his face. ‘Well, well.’
There was no way he couldn’t have heard what Gardner had told them, no way he could have missed their evaluation of the situation. He was sure Larry had them cold and he was enjoying it hugely.
‘Haw,’ he exploded. The laughter, the sheer delight in their predicament, welled up in him. ‘Haw, haw, haw!’ Burt went. ‘Haw, haw, hucccccchhh!’
He hadn’t seen Angel move, hadn’t even sensed the coiled tension in the man, but Angel’s hand, the fingers held in a certain way, had jabbed out horizontally at heart level, moving no more than six inches but striking Burt Hugess’s chest above the sternum with a force that momentarily stopped Burt’s heart. He flailed backward against the edge of Sheridan’s desk, eyes popping with panic as his astonished body tried to obey the commands of the brain and get blood pumping from the shocked muscles of his heart. He went down on one knee, head hanging, laboring wheezes breaking from his throat. He sounded like a gut-shot horse. Angel stood over the fallen man, his hand drawn back. He was centimeters away from delivering the second blow that would have snapped Burt Hugess’s neck like a dried cornhusk when Dan Sheridan laid a very, very gentle hand on his forearm and spoke his name. Then again, watching carefully, poised, as the killing anger died in Angel’s eyes and he came back from wherever he’d gone.
‘All right,’ Angel said. His shoulders slumped
a fraction of an inch. ‘All right.’
Burt Hugess was climbing to his feet, coughing, wheezing, water dribbling from his nose, his eyes wide and shocked.
‘You bas—’ he said. ‘You fuckin’—’
‘—Burt!’ Sheridan snapped. He nodded to Howie who grabbed Hugess’s arms.
‘Turn me loose!’ Burt Hugess screamed. ‘Let me at that f—!’
‘That’s all,’ Sheridan said, and showed Burt the bore of the six-gun. The triple click of the hammer going back stilled Burt’s outburst. Then his sneer pasted itself back across his face. ‘You won’t use that, Sheridan,’ he said. ‘You don’t dare use a gun on me.’
‘Not to kill you,’ Sheridan admitted judiciously. ‘But I might just wound you some.’ He said it with a cold grin that checked Burt Hugess for a moment. Then the bluster came back.
‘Yeah,’ Burt said. ‘You got the whip hand now, Sheridan. For the moment. You and this . . . this pile of manure.’ He jerked his thumb at Angel, but from his appearance it was difficult to know whether Angel had even heard the words. ‘Well, just wait that’s all,’ Burt Hugess ranted on. ‘Just wait till we get up the street. Wait till I’m the one with the gun. I’ll shoot your goddamned balls off, Sheridan. All of you.’
‘That’ll be the day,’ Sheridan said, and tapped Hugess lightly alongside the ear with the barrel of the gun. It wasn’t a hard enough blow to stun, but both of the other men in the room heard the audible clack as Burt Hugess’s teeth jarred together from the impact. His eyes crossed slightly, unfocusing, and he reeled on his feet.
‘Mind your manners, now,’ Sheridan told him. He turned toward Frank Angel. Angel was standing pretty much in the same position that he had been when Sheridan had stopped him from killing Hugess. ‘Frank?’ he said.
Hunt Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #5) Page 11