Angel wasn’t even looking at the marshal now. He had swung around to face Regenvogel, his eyes burning with barely restrained anger.
“Get on with it, you old-fraud,” he snapped. “I want to see how far you’ll go with this charade!”
The deputy behind Angel looked at Rawley and then at Big Ed Fischer, helplessly asking them what to do to shut his prisoner up. The big man nodded, rising easily to his feet and crossing the space between them in two soft, easy strides. He stood beside Frank Angel, lambent fire in the depths of his dark eyes.
“The judge is a friend of mine,” he said softly, warningly.
“I can see that,” Angel replied, not troubling to hide his contempt.
He saw Fischer’s eyes flicker, saw the shoulder drop, knew what was coming next and realized there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. He tried as well as he could to ride the blow, but Fischer’s smashing, looping swipe caught him high on the temple, and Angel was smacked against the table, a blurring white light blanking out his vision for a moment. He cannoned off the table, and down on to his knees on the gritty board floor, shaking his head, trying to clear his vision. Then he felt the touch of cold metal on the side of his throat and he froze. With Rawley’s six-gun barrel jammed against his jugular vein, Angel was hauled to his feet, reeling slightly. Rawley gestured impatiently to the other deputy, who grabbed Angel’s arms and held him upright in front of the table.
“All right,” hissed Regenvogel, his eyes malign. “All right! That’s quite sufficient evidence for this court! I see no Indication that you, Webb, if freed, would not immediately attempt to do again what you have just been prevented from doing. Nor do I see any indication that this saddle tramp you have hired to help you in your murderous plans would not also again attempt to earn his blood money. Well, we’ve got our own way of dealing with would-be murderers!” Regenvogel got to his feet and thrust his sallow, sunken face forward across the table, devilish enjoyment dancing in his shifting eyes as he shouted the words, spittle on his blue-tinged lips. “Marshal—take this little bastard out of here and hang him! And while you’re at it hang the other one. Hang Angel!”
Chapter Five
There was complete and utter silence in the packed saloon.
No one so much as breathed. Regenvogel’s words hung in the air like carrion birds circling a fallen animal, almost palpable in their deathly intent. Dick Webb stood rooted to the spot, speechless astonishment written all over his open young face. Even the spectators, who had been expecting exactly what they now heard, were stilled by the old man’s outburst, for while it was one thing to use the law to achieve your ends, it was another thing altogether to hang a man for no reason worth the name.
“Damn me,” muttered one man in the center of the room. “Someone orta do somethin’.”
“Sure,” agreed his neighbor, smiling sardonically. “Fly at it, Charlie. See how far you get before that smilin’ ghost over there drops you in your tracks.” He pointed with his chin towards Francey King, who was looking their way. The man beside him paled, and shrank down in his chair. It was one thing to contemplate injustice; quite another to fight it. It was obvious everyone in the audience felt pretty much the same way. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. Nobody protested.
“Take them away!” Regenvogel said, triumph in his voice. He smacked the table with the flat of his hand. “Court’s adjourned!” Angel saw him glance towards Ed Fischer, saw the big man nod. Satisfactory. The old man glowed, his tongue touching lips already tasting the implicitly promised alcohol. He smiled; he’d handled it well.
“Hold it!”
Heads turned as if on swivels as Frank Angel spoke, shaking off the supporting hands of the two deputies and drawing himself erect, fighting off the dizziness which had kept him nauseous and reeling while Regenvogel had pronounced his sentence. The two deputies stood back, alarmed, the shotgun barrels coming up. There was something about Angel, some air of assurance, command, that unnerved them slightly. Trev Rawley felt his fingertips touch the butt of his six-gun and frowned in surprise at his own action.
“This court—” Regenvogel blustered. “This court is—!”
“About due for a surprise!” Angel said grimly. “And I’m it.”
“What is this, Angel?” Rawley snapped pushing forward past his deputies.
“Hold your men off while I reach inside my belt, Rawley,” Angel said.
“You do it, it better be very, very slow, my friend !” Rawley warned.
Angel shook his head. “Why does everyone round here call me his friend?” he wondered out loud.
Ed Fischer was leaning forward in his chair, a frown of puzzlement on his face as he watched Angel. People at the back half rose from their seats to see over the heads of the craning spectators in front of them as Angel slid something from the slit pocket inside the belt, something which he laid on the table in front of the judge. Regenvogel stared at it, his face suddenly sick and old. The badge glinted dully in the filtered sunlight coming into the saloon through the tinted, dust-streaked windows.
“What is this?” Rawley rasped. “What are you up to, friend ?”
“There you go again,” said Angel resignedly. “I’m not your friend.”
“De . . . Department of Justice?” Regenvogel said, picking up the circular badge in trembling fingers and staring at it. The silver circle caught the sun as he showed it to Ed Fischer. Men in the row behind the Fischer boys could see the circular seal, the screaming eagle, the words Department of Justice, United States of America.
“That’s right,” Angel said. “Which is bad news for you, judge—if you really are a judge. Even worse if you’re not.”
Fischer was turning the badge over in his hands. He looked at Angel with a new, warier light in his eyes. Watchful, he handed the badge back to its owner.
“You could have stolen that,” he said reasonably.
“True,” Angel said. Now he opened the flat oilskin pouch he had produced at the same time as the badge, spreading out a document on the table top.
“This is my commission as a Special Investigator of the Justice Department,” Angel said, raising his voice so that everyone in the room could hear it.
“It shows that I am acting under direct orders from the attorney-general of the United States, directly responsible through him to the president. It also says,” he said, measuring the words out carefully so that all could assimilate their meaning, “that I can take any action which I see fit to maintain law and order, civil or military. It means I can—and do—declare this court about as legal as a flea-circus!”
He turned now to face the crestfallen Regenvogel, whose shuttling eyes darted from face to face seeking sympathy or support which was not forthcoming.
“Judge,” Angel said levelly. “Stand up and tell these people what a joke this trial was, what a travesty this court was, what a mockery your sentence was. Tell them you’re the sorriest specimen of a vigilante judge that ever opened Blackstone. Get on your feet, go on—tell them!” There was a whiplash in his final words that made the old man jerk like a badly operated marionette, trying clumsily to get to his feet. Before Regenvogel could speak, however, Ed Fischer’s urbane voice cut it. If there was a slow burning rage behind the dark eyes, few other than Angel could see it.
“Well, Mister Angel,” he said softly. “I thought there was more to you than the usual drifter. The question is: what now?”
“By the authority vested in me by the United States Government, I am placing your brother under arrest,” Angel said. “I’ll take him to Santa Fe, hand him over to the United States Marshal there. A full investigation can be made by him, and a proper trial—if a trial’s needed—can be held in a United States court, with a real judge and witnesses who won’t be afraid to speak the truth.”
Ed Fischer smiled, a slow wicked smile of almost boyish charm.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” he asked softly. He didn’t move; but his eyes turned towards the two deputies s
till clutching their riot guns, to Rawley, whose six-gun was also in his hand, and to the albino at the bar. Francey King was standing watchfully tense, his weight on the balls of his feet, pale thin hands lingering lovingly near the eagle-bill butts of his twin guns. Fischer’s smile widened.
“I’d say you had a tiger by the tail, Angel,” he remarked casually.
Angel shook his head sadly.
“Fischer, your brain’s not connected to your mouth,” he observed. “You plan to take on the entire United States Government?”
“Well, this little bit of it, anyway,” Fischer said easily.
“Pull the wrong string now and this county’ll be so thick with law you’ll smother to death,” Angel told him. “Don’t be a fool.”
Fischer threw back his head and laughed out loud. There was the faintest echo of uneasy laughter among the men watching, and Angel saw Mike Fischer lumber to his feet, his brow knitted with anger.
“Let me take him apart, Ed,” the big man said. “I’ll take that badge and jam it up his—”
Big Ed held up a hand, and his brother fell silent, as if a switch had been thrown.
“No,” Fischer said. “He’s bluffing and he knows it. Don’t you, Angel?”
The two men looked at each other for a long silent moment and then Fischer threw back his head and laughed again. Now Mike Fischer and Trev Rawley grinned too. Even Regenvogel managed a watery smile.
“Nobody to back your play, Angel,” Fischer said, grinning wickedly. “You’re called, four-flusher. You’re on your own!”
“Wrong, Ed!” snapped a voice. “I’m backing him!”
Every head in the saloon turned towards the source of the words, and the crowd parted, as if on curtain rails, making a corridor at the end of which the men by the table could see the man standing by the batwing doors of the saloon. He had come in quietly, without anyone noticing, a small, compactly built man dressed in a dark suit with a neat white shirt and four-in-hand. He looked about thirty-five, or roughly the same age as the heavy Sharps .50 caliber rifle cradled easily at his hip, its long barrel casually menacing everything in front of it.
“Tell your people not to do anything stupid, Fischer!” the man snapped! “I’m nervous enough as it is, and if anyone makes me twitch, you’re going to get a bullet from this thing right through your belly!”
Fischer paled; at the thirty-foot distance involved, a slug from the buffalo gun would blow a hole the size of a dinner plate through his body.
“Listen,” he said. “Listen.”
“Tell them!” snapped the rifleman. “Especially this freak by the bar!”
Fischer’s gaze scuttled to where Francey King was standing, hands tensed, itching for a try at the guns in his holsters.
“Francey,” he managed hoarsely. “Hold off. Hold off!”
King looked towards Fischer, his lip curling, as though debating whether to try for the guns anyway, and the man at the doorway spoke again.
“He’s making me nervous, Ed,” he said, not a trace of nervousness in his voice. “I get much edgier, you’re going to be spread all over that wall!”
“Francey!” Fischer shouted, just the edge of panic in his voice. King looked at Fischer with disgust, but he did as he was told. He held off, lifting his hands exaggeratedly and hooking them into his shirt at breast pocket level.
“Doc,” Rawley said, eyes never still, taking in every angle, every aspect of the situation in the saloon. “This ain’t none of your affair.” His voice was reasonable, an adult telling a child he was misguided.
“Sure,” Doc said. “Sure. It’s none of my affair if I ride like a madman to Gus Parrack’s place to tend a girl who’s been beaten and raped. It’s none of my affair if someone shoots a fifteen-year-old Mexican kid down in cold blood. It’s nobody’s affair but the Fischers’, right? They can do what the hell they like and it’s nobody’s business but theirs. Like hell! I’m making it my affair, and I’m doing it right now. And it’s about time some of the spineless things that pass for people in this town did the same thing!”
There had been a murmur of surprise, tinged with anger, as he spoke. The men in the saloon were the kind who were easily swayed, and Ed Fischer felt fear for the first time. He looked towards Trev Rawley, who frowned: take it easy, the look said, we’re still in control.
He was wrong.
Frank Angel turned in a surprisingly fast, unexpected movement, lifting the riot gun neatly out of the hands of the unsuspecting deputy behind him. Everyone in the saloon heard the wicked sound of the twin hammers snicking back, and there was a gasp of indrawn surprise. Rawley whirled to face Angel, but the Justice Department man wasn’t even looking at him. He had jammed the barrels of the shotgun into Joe Fischer’s belly, forcing the quailing youngster back, his mouth open, literally afraid to breathe. There was a cold and empty look in Angel’s eyes that shocked the younger man into frozen rigidity. Angel looked as if he’d kill him just to see what he looked like dead.
‘Tell your brother he’s trying my patience, Joe,” Angel said softly. There wasn’t an ounce of menace in his voice, but Joe Fischer’s gullet jerked as he tried to swallow the ball of fear Angel’s words had put there.
“Ed . . . ?” he bleated piteously, looking towards his brother.
Ed Fischer started to move forward, but Angel just looked at him and the big man stopped, spreading his hands in a placatory gesture.
“Angel, listen to me,” he said. “Just listen.”
“Listen, hell!” Angel snapped, “Dick, you lift the guns off all these sidewinders. And don’t get between me or the Doc and any of them.”
“Sure thing,” Dick Webb said, moving sideways and lifting the six-guns from Ed and Mike Fischer’s holsters. He held out his hand for Trev Rawley’s gun. Rawley looked at him for a long second. Then he relaxed his grip and Dick Webb took the gun from his fingers.
“Don’t forget out little pink friend by the bar,” Angel said. “He looks like he might be tempted to try for those fancy guns.”
“I’d love to see him try it,” said Doc. He gestured significantly with the barrel of the Sharps.
Now Angel took the gun away from Joe Fischer’s belly and hauled him to his feet. Joe’s relief at having the gun taken away from his midriff was short-lived, for no sooner was he on his feet than Angel laid the twin bores negligently against the side of Joe’s neck, the barrel resting easily on his shoulder. Joe stood as if carved from stone, only his eyes moving in silent entreaty towards his older brothers.
“You were saying?” Angel asked Ed Fischer politely.
Big Ed stood- for a moment, then nodded, nodded again, as if coming to some kind of reluctant decision. The growing rage behind his eyes was burning fiercely now, scarcely held in check, but held. This was not the moment, and Big Ed was not a fool.
“All right,” he said. “What do you want?”
“You know that,” Angel said.
“Yes, I suppose so,” Fischer said softly. “You’re crazy if you think you can swing it, Angel. Back off now, ride out of here. We’ll give you a clear run, no strings.”
“Sure,” Angel said.
“Take the offer,” Rawley told him. “It’s the best one you’ll get.”
“Sure,” Angel said again. He didn’t move the gun from Joe Fischer’s neck though.
“You’re going to do it the hard way, then?” Ed Fischer asked.
“Never was any other,” Angel told him.
“Then you’re a fool!” Fischer burst out. “Tell him, Rawley!”
Rawley shrugged. “He knows,” he said. “Don’t you, Angel?”
Frank Angel nodded. He knew, all right. Right now he had the cards, the whip hand. But it was a Mexican standoff. Fischer knew as well as he did that there was no way out. Neither of them needed it spelled out slowly. Angel might have Joe Fischer, but they had Angel. He couldn’t take Joe out of Fischer’s Crossing alone: that way lay outnumbered death. Equally, he could not expect to stand in town alone
against the might of the Flying Fish and its riders, who could come in whenever they were ready and take Joe back. Nobody would pitch in and help man the barricades. There was Angel, the kid, and the doctor. That was all. That was what Rawley meant when he said Angel knew, and he was right. Angel knew, all right. He wasn’t about to let it bother him right now.
“Move,” he told Joe Fischer.
Joe turned, stumbling, anxious not to jar the shotgun laid so carelessly upon his shoulder next to the jugular vein which everyone could see painfully throbbing in his neck.
“You too, Fischer,” Angel said to Big Ed. “And your brother! Dick, bring Rawley and his deputies along. And you, Doc—get him on out of here!”
He jerked his chin at Francey King as he prodded Joe Fischer down the gangway between the serried rows of chairs, ignoring the gaping faces of the townspeople as Doc, with a sarcastic bow, invited Francey King to precede him through the batwing doors and out into the long shadowed afternoon sunlight.
Once outside, Angel squinted up at the sky, gauging the time. He had arrived in Fischer’s Crossing about this time yesterday. It had been a hectic twenty-four hours, he reflected. Likely the next twenty-four would be even fuller.
“Get on your horses,” he told the two Fischers. “You others, too.”
Mike Fischer bayed his horse around beside his brothers, shaking his head in an almost admiring wonderment.
“You sure as hell got your gall, Angel,” he said, softly. “It’s gonna be a barrel of fun takin’ you apart piece by piece.”
“I’ll bet you say that to all the girls,” Angel said mirthlessly. He turned his attention to Ed Fischer. “Get the hell out of town, Fischer. Take your tame lawmen and your freak friend with you. Show your nose within rifle range again and I’ll shoot it off!”
Ed Fischer reined his horse around, his face black with anger.
Hang Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #4) Page 5