by Bill Crider
Jephson shifted uncomfortably. “Nobody’s gonna tell where you’re goin’. Hell, we don’t even know. What’s this about your family, anyhow? You said you’d tell us.”
Jephson knew that for the time being Angel was his best hope for staying out of prison, but he didn’t like the idea of committing to him without knowing the whole story. At the same time he didn’t want to make Angel mad. He decided it might be best to appear ready to fall in with Angel’s plans and then, if he had to, try to break away later on. So he said, “It’s just that I’d feel a little better if I knew what I was gettin’ into.”
Angel glanced at the snapping turtle in the creek. Some people didn’t like those turtles, but Angel did. Folks said that if you let them clamp down on a tree limb thick enough that they couldn’t bite through it, they’d never let it go. Or at least they wouldn’t let go till it thundered. In Texas that could be a long time. The turtles reminded Angel of himself that way.
“Let’s just say that my sister and I have a little unfinished business,” he told Jephson. “You know how families are.”
“What kind of business?” Jack asked.
“Personal business,” Angel said. “It won’t have anything to do with you.”
“Gonna be any killin’?”
“Well, now, that’s a good question. Right now, I don’t think so. It’s just not what I have in mind. But you never know how these things are gonna work out.”
Angel knew that Jack probably wouldn’t believe him, but he was telling the truth. He’d waited more than two years to get back at Hob Bowman, but he hadn’t known exactly what he would do. He’d just known he would do something. The same thing held for his sister and her husband. They were going to pay for sending him to prison, but he hadn’t decided how. First he’d find them. Then he’d see how things stood.
“You ain’t makin’ things very clear,” Abilene Jack said. “I don’t see how we can make up our minds on what to do from that.”
Angel stood up. “Too bad. It’s the best I can do. I don’t have any plan. I’ll just have to see how things work out and then make up my mind. If that’s not good enough for you, you can take off on your own. I’ll let you have one of the mules.”
“That’s mighty generous of you,” Jephson said dryly.
Angel was beginning to wonder about Jephson. Seemed like he was a little leery. Not the best kind of man to have with you if things got rough. And Abilene Jack wasn’t turning out to be much better.
“It is generous of me, ain’t it,” he said. “You two think things over a little longer. You don’t have to make your minds up right now. But you’d better decide before it gets good and dark. We’ll be leavin’ about then.”
“We’ll let you know,” Abilene Jack said.
TWELVE
Brady Tolbert thought he had one advantage on Angel Ware. For all Angel knew, Sue and Lane were still living up around Ft. Worth instead of just outside Blanco. The captain had sent a request for a Ranger to be on the lookout for Angel in Ft. Worth, and if they were lucky, Angel would be caught there and never get to Blanco.
Even if Angel evaded the Ranger and managed to find out where Sue was living, Brady would have a good head start on him, so Brady hoped to get to Sue a long time before Angel did.
It might have worked out that way, too, if Brady’s horse hadn’t stepped in a hole about a day and a half out of Del Rio.
Brady felt like it was at least partly his own fault. He’d been thinking about the job he was to do and not paying enough attention to where his big lineback dun was stepping, but then he told himself that the horse should have been paying attention, too.
Some armadillo had rooted out a hole, or maybe the ground had just washed that way in the recent rains that had passed through. It didn’t make any difference. Brady had to go back to Del Rio, leading his horse and losing another three days in the process. By the time he got on his way again, Angel would have had plenty of time to learn that his sister was no longer living where she had been that last time he’d seen her.
But maybe Angel hadn’t been able to learn where she’d gone. Brady hoped not. It was nearly all he thought about as he made the best time he could toward Blanco.
Angel felt perfectly at home in the Salty Dog Saloon in the section of Ft. Worth known as Hell’s Half Acre.
The sun was hot and bright in the street, and if Angel took a deep breath, he could smell the stockyards. But inside the saloon it was cool and quiet, and all he could smell were cheap whiskey, the sawdust on the floor, and the stale perfume of the saloon girls that lingered in the air from the previous night.
The Salty Dog wasn’t crowded; it was the middle of the afternoon, and at that time of day only the serious drinkers were there. Angel and Hoot were sitting at a table well in the back with a man named Kincaid, who had only three fingers on his left hand and a patch where his right eye had once been.
Angel wasn’t too happy with Kincaid.
“I don’t quite understand what you’re tryin’ to tell me,” Angel said.
Kincaid didn’t mind that Angel was upset. After all, Kincaid had a drink in his good hand, and that was all he cared about. Within the last few years, he had turned into a man to whom only two times in the day really mattered: the times when he had a drink and the times he didn’t. Taking it all in all, he much preferred the times when he did.
He tried to sit up straighter in his chair, failed, and allowed himself to slump. Then he took a hefty swallow of whiskey, wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, and said, “I’m tryin’ to tell you that nobody knows where your sister’s gone, that’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you. What’s so hard to understand about that?”
“That’s not what I paid you to find out,” Angel said.
Kincaid tried to smile, but it didn’t come off very well. Probably it was the look in Angel’s pale eyes that discouraged him.
“You didn’t pay me much,” he whined.
“Want me to take him out back?” Hoot asked. “See if I can get our money back?”
Angel grinned. Hoot was acting as if he’d worked for weeks for the money they’d paid Kincaid, but the truth was they’d stolen it from some drunken cowboys a couple of nights earlier in the week.
“I don’t want the money back,” Angel said. “I want to know where my sister’s gone.”
Kincaid said, “I wish I could help you, I truly do. But far’s I can tell she didn’t leave word with nobody where she was headed. She and that husband of hers just packed up, took that little gal of theirs, and lit out one day.”
“Little gal?” Hoot said, looking at Angel. “You didn’t say nothin’ about a little gal.”
“Purty little thing, they tell me,” Kincaid said.
Hoot smiled. “Well, well.”
“Never mind about that,” Angel said. “I think Mr. Kincaid knows more than he’s tellin’ us.”
Kincaid set his empty whiskey glass on the table. His hand was shaking and the glass tapped the table twice.
“Wh-what makes you say a thing like that?” he asked Angel.
“Because you talk too much. I wonder why that is? Maybe you don’t think I paid you enough. It looks to me like you messed around and found out things I didn’t ask you about.”
Kincaid tried to stand up, but Hoot reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, shoving him back into his chair.
“Now I have to tell you something,” Angel said. “I paid you once, and there’s no use you tryin’ to get any more out of me by sellin’ extra information. It just don’t work that way.”
“Tell him how it does work,” Hoot said, his hand still resting on Kincaid’s shoulder.
Angel’s right hand was a blur as it dipped to his boot-top and came out with the Bowie knife he’d stolen to replace the inferior model he’d taken from the farmer. Before Kincaid could jerk out of the way, the tip of the blade was an inch from his single eyeball.
Kincaid kicked his boots against the floor in an attempt to move his c
hair backward, but his heels slipped in the sawdust. Hoot jumped up to stand behind him and grabbed his head in both hands, holding it firmly in place.
Angel leaned across the table until his face was almost touching Kincaid’s. He braced his elbow on the table and held the knife steady.
“Here’s how it works,” Angel told Kincaid. “I can blind you before you can wink. I can pop that eyeball like a grape.”
“I ain’t winkin’,” Kincaid said.
Angel looked around the saloon. No one was paying them any attention. This was what passed for a quiet afternoon in Hell’s Half Acre.
The bartender was studiously looking the other way and wiping the top of the bar hard enough to take the shine off it. The few other customers were looking at their drinks. The only woman in sight was sleeping in a chair, her head resting on the table top, her mouth open.
Angel moved the knife a fraction closer to Kincaid’s watery brown eye.
“No, you ain’t winkin’, but you ain’t been tellin’ us the entire truth, either.”
Kincaid was having trouble breathing. “Yes, I am. I wouldn’t lie to a fella like you.”
“I think you would, but I guess I’m gonna have to put out that eye to make you admit it.”
“Let me do it,” Hoot said. “Just one little shove and that eyeball will turn to jelly.”
“Jesus!” Kincaid said. “I swear I don’t know where that woman is. I might be able to point you at someone who does know, but I don’t. I swear it!”
Angel relaxed slightly and moved the knife to a safer distance from Kincaid’s eye. Two inches or so.
“All right, then, tell me what you know. I might decide to let you keep on seein’.”
Kincaid was sweating heavily. “I asked around the place where she used to stay, like you told me to. The old man who bought it wouldn’t tell me a thing, but I got a feelin’ that his wife would’ve told if he’d given her the chance. She’s the one mentioned the little gal. Soon’s she did, the old man sent her off out of the room. That’s it. That’s all I know. I thought it might be worth a little somethin’ extra if I told you about the woman.”
“It is,” Angel said. “It’s worth your eye.”
As fast as it had appeared, the knife was gone, back in its hiding place. Angel leaned back in his chair, and Hoot released his grip on Kincaid’s head. Kincaid slumped forward and caught himself on the table.
“You could’ve saved yourself a lot of trouble by telling us to start with,” Angel said.
“I didn’t know you were crazy then,” Kincaid said. “I know it now.”
“It’s a good thing to keep in mind,” Angel told him. He looked at Hoot. “Let’s go.”
They left the saloon without looking back. Kincaid stayed in his chair, slumped forward until his chin was resting on the table. He looked at the empty whiskey glass and wished he had the strength to order another drink.
THIRTEEN
“I think his family’s got somethin’ he wants,” Abilene Jack said. “How ’bout you?”
“Makes sense,” Jephson agreed.
He couldn’t see any other reason why Angel was so eager to find his sister. As far as Jephson knew there was no affection between the two. Angel had never mentioned his family to Jephson, or to anyone else in prison as far as Jephson knew.
“Maybe it’s money,” Jack said. “I’ll bet it’s money. Maybe he’ll share it out with us.”
“Maybe,” Jephson said, not really believing it. Angel didn’t seem like the sharing type to him.
Jephson and Abilene Jack were in the room they’d rented in a cheap hotel not far from the Salty Dog. Every chance he had, Jephson had been talking to Jack about splitting off from Angel and Hoot, but Jack wasn’t having any of it.
“I think we oughta stick with him for a while longer,” Jack said. “He’s kept us in pocket money so far, and we ain’t had any run-ins with the law.”
Jephson pointed out that they couldn’t keep robbing drunk cowboys in dark alleys forever. Sooner or later they were going to get caught, even in Ft. Worth.
“Angel’s got a plan,” Jack said, and proceeded to explain what he thought the plan was. “He’s gonna find out where his family is, and then we’ll go there. We’ll get whatever it is that he wants, and then we’ll get out of the state. Maybe head down to Mexico. The law won’t bother us down there. We can live like kings down there.”
If that was the plan, Jephson thought, it really didn’t sound too bad, especially the part about living like kings. But Jephson wasn’t sure that was the plan at all. Angel had never spelled it out like that. He’d just let Jack draw his own conclusions, and Jephson wasn’t sure the conclusions were correct.
“What if it’s somethin’ else?” he said.
Jack didn’t seem worried by the prospect. “If it is, Angel will let us know. He’s just bein’ careful now. He don’t want any of us to wind up back in Huntsville.”
Jephson didn’t want to wind up back in Huntsville, either, but was Angel really being careful? That was another thing Jephson worried about. Sure, Angel had hired somebody to go around asking questions about his family instead of doing it himself. You could call that careful if you had a mind to, Jephson supposed.
But how careful was it to have anyone at all asking questions? And why had Angel’s family left the area? Seemed to Jephson that they were doing all they could to keep Angel from finding them again.
Not that Jephson blamed them.
Still, as far as he could tell after considering everything he could think of, Jephson figured he was just as well off sticking with Angel as he would be in going off on his own. Not being a real outlaw himself, Jephson was sure he’d probably do something stupid and get caught the first day. Jack was a little smarter about things, and Jephson figured the two of them could strike out on their own and maybe stay out of prison without Angel’s help. But Jack just didn’t seem interested.
“I guess you’re right,” Jephson told Jack. “I don’t want to go back behind those walls, and maybe Angel’s the man who can keep us out.”
What Jephson might have said was that he was scared. He was scared of Angel, and he was scared of Hoot. But he knew he couldn’t tell Jack that. Besides, he was more scared of getting caught and sent back to Huntsville than he was of Angel or Hoot. He just didn’t know what to do.
“If anybody can keep us out of that prison,” Jack said, “it’s Angel.”
Jephson wished he believed him.
Hoot rode his mule right up to the house. He hated to admit it, but he’d gotten almost fond of the critter. Abilene Jack had been right; a mule was in some ways better than a horse, and this one hadn’t tried to bite Hoot a single time. It had tried to kick him once, but Hoot figured that was his own fault. He should’ve known better than to give it a chance. It wouldn’t happen again.
Hoot slid off the mule’s back with a country-boy grin plastered on his freckled face. He looked like he’d just come into town from some farm twenty miles away from anywhere and needed a job to help him get started on his own.
He walked up to the front door with his hat crushed in his hand. The yard was well kept, and there was a little flower bed with some petunias in it.
Hoot hated the place. People who lived in houses like that were the kind of people who’d always given him trouble: Sunday School teachers, preachers, lawmen. He resisted the urge to kick the blooms off the petunias and knocked on the door.
The knock was answered by a big woman in a cotton dress. She looked nothing at all like a Sunday School teacher. Her face was weathered and red as if she worked outside a lot, and her hair was done up on a bun on the back of her head.
“Well?” she said, looking Hoot over with something less than approval.
Hoot gave her his country-boy grin. “Howdy, ma’am. I heard you could use some help around this place, and I’m just the fella that can give it to you. I’m mighty handy with one thing and another. I can chop wood, patch your roof, just about any li
ttle job you might need done.”
The woman didn’t return Hoot’s smile. “Somebody told you wrong. We don’t need any help around here. My husband and I can keep up our own place.”
Hoot scratched his head, puzzled. “You ain’t Miz Tolbert?”
“I’m Miz Wallace. The Tolberts haven’t lived here in more than a year.”
“I’ll swear,” Hoot said, looking abashed. “I guess somebody was funnin’ me. People are always doin’ that kind of thing. I guess I look simple or something.” He gave the woman what he hoped was an appealing smile. “I don’t suppose you know what happened to the Tolberts, do you? I surely could use a job.”
“I heard they moved to a little town called Blanco. I imagine that’s a little too far for you to go to looking for a job.”
Hoot settled his hat back on his head. “You never can tell about a thing like that,” he said.
FOURTEEN
“He had red hair, and he smiled a lot,” Mrs. Wallace said, speaking a little louder than she had spoken to Hoot. “That’s about all I remember; that, and he wanted a job.”
“And he asked you about the Tolberts,” her husband said. “You should’ve called me as soon as he said that. I was just out back. I’d have heard you.”
Mr. Wallace was smaller than his wife. He had a squinty eye and almost no hair at all on top of his head. He’d grown a little deaf over the course of the last few years, which is why his wife hadn’t wasted her breath by calling for him.
“He was just looking for a job,” Mrs. Wallace said, knowing that now wasn’t the time to mention her husband’s lack of hearing. “He wasn’t like that other fella, the one with the patch over his eye.”
Mr. Wallace gave her a disgusted look. “That Ranger fella said to let him know if anybody came by. That means redheaded boys just as much as men with eye patches. The Ranger said it was important.”