by Bill Crider
“We’ll find a way to get across,” Brady said. “One way or the other.”
“I wouldn’t bet on that,” Shag said. “You ain’t never seen that river when it’s runnin’ high and wide.”
“I’ll see it now, then,” Brady told him. “Let’s go.”
The rain swept over them as they moved on.
TWENTY-FOUR
Ellie was wearing an old hat that had belonged to her husband, Burt. She wore it now and then when she was out in the sun, but it wasn’t sunny now. Water ran off the brim and fell in a stream in front of her face. She hunched into the slicker and asked Sue how she was doing. She had to speak up to be heard over the sound of the rain.
“Fine,” Sue said.
She, too, had on a slicker, and a wide-brimmed hat covered her yellow hair.
“This rain’s going to make the river rise,” Ellie said. “And that’s the way Angel was heading.”
“Do you think he’s already across?”
“I’d guess that he is. He got a good start on us.”
“Is there any way we can catch him?”
Ellie was feeling hollow inside again, the way she had when the trouble had started.
“I don’t know.”
“But you’re not going to turn back, are you?”
“No. You can if you want to. I wouldn’t blame you.”
“I’m not sure I could find the way even if I wanted to,” Sue said. “But I’m not going back if you don’t.” She paused. “You don’t think they’d try to cross the river if it was in flood, do you?”
Ellie knew that the level of the river could change alarmingly when there was a hard rain. She didn’t know Angel, but she didn’t think anyone would be foolish enough to attempt a crossing at the wrong time. On the other hand, he might get caught off guard. It had happened to more than one person.
She didn’t want to say that to Sue. So she said, “If he was going to cross, he’d have done it already. We’ll just have to see what it’s like, and if it’s too high and fast, we’ll wait till it goes down.”
“How long will that take?”
“I don’t know. But I’m not going to quit.”
“I didn’t think you were. But we’re going to be mighty uncomfortable.”
“I’m not worried about that,” Ellie said. She’d been uncomfortable before. “Maybe we can find us a place to wait that’s out of the rain. There used to be a little church not too far from here. It hasn’t been used in a long time, but it’ll probably keep the rain off us.”
“Can you find it?”
“I think so,” Ellie said, though she wasn’t really sure. “If we’re lucky, we can get there before we get too wet.”
“This damn wind is blowing rain up under my slicker,” Shag said. “We need to find us some place to hole up till it’s over with.”
Brady looked out through the rain. All he could see was the dark gray outline of some of the hills in the distance
“You got any place in mind?” he asked.
“Used to be an old church around in here somewhere, down near the river. If it’s still standin’, we could at least get under a roof.”
Brady didn’t like the idea of taking shelter for any length of time. He wanted to stay after Angel, though he had to admit that they’d lost the trail almost as soon as the rain started. It was dark, and the rain was washing out any signs that someone might have left behind.
“Did Miss Taine know about the church?” he asked.
“Might’ve,” Shag said. “She’s lived around here all her life. Why?”
“If she knew about it, she might try to get out of the rain there.”
“She might at that,” Shag agreed. “She’s a right smart woman.”
“We’ll give it a look, then,” Brady told him. “If you can find it, that is.”
“I can find it,” Shag said. “Don’t worry yourself about that.”
The rain drummed against what was left of the roof of the old church building and poured in through the holes, washing away part of one of the birds’ nests. It blew in through the windows in sheets.
Laurie sat in the corner, well away from Hoot, and watched the water coming in and running across the floor. She was cold and uncomfortable, and she had decided she wasn’t going to stay with her Uncle Angel any longer than she had to.
He’d lied to her about the picnic. There wasn’t anything to eat except some old dried biscuits, some syrup to put on them, and some cold tomatoes out of a can. The only good thing was the canned peaches for dessert, but the peaches didn’t make up for the rest.
Besides, Uncle Angel had lied to her about other things. She was sure her mother and father wouldn’t want her to be out here in the rain with him, no matter what he told her. She’d been looking around at the countryside as they rode, and she thought she could find her way back home by herself if she had to. But maybe she wouldn’t have to. Maybe Angel would take her if she asked him.
“When are we going back to Miss Ellie’s ranch?” she said.
Angel looked over at her from where he was lying stretched out the floor with his head resting on his saddle. His booted feet were only a few inches from a puddle of rainwater, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“Well, now, I can’t rightly answer that,” he said. “I don’t know when this rain is likely to stop.”
“When it stops, will we leave?” Laurie asked.
“I can’t say for sure,” Angel told her. “You never know what we might do next.”
Laurie took that to mean that Angel knew very well what he was going to do, but whatever it was, he wasn’t going to tell her. That made her all the more determined to leave.
She wished she had on some real clothes instead of just her nightgown, and most of all she wished she had a pair of shoes. But her feet were tough. She went barefoot most of the year around the house. She could walk a long way without shoes if she had to.
She wondered if she could ride a mule all by herself. She was pretty sure she could, but the men had taken the saddles when they hobbled the mules. She couldn’t ride without a saddle and bridle. Well, she’d just have to walk, and that was that.
Of course Uncle Angel wasn’t going to let her just walk away. She knew that. For some reason he wanted her with him, but she didn’t care what he wanted. She was going to leave anyway.
The others would be watching her, too, so she’d have to be careful, especially of Mr. Hoot. She still didn’t like the way he looked at her, and she didn’t like the way his voice sounded when he talked to her. It sounded different from when he was talking to the others.
Laurie thought that Mr. Jephson would let her go if he had anything to say about it, but Uncle Angel was the boss, and he wasn’t going to let Mr. Jephson have a say.
She looked at the window. The rain was still coming down, maybe even harder than it had earlier, though the wind didn’t seem to be blowing quite so much. Laurie couldn’t leave while it was raining like that. She’d have to wait until it stopped or at least slowed down some. When it did, she’d slip away. She didn’t know exactly how she’d do it, but she would. Somehow.
TWENTY-FIVE
Angel relaxed and closed his eyes and listened to the sound of the rain. He could have told Laurie the truth, which was that he had no plans to go anywhere, but it wasn’t any of her business. He was quite content to wait in the ruined church. He knew they’d come to him, sooner or later.
That was the secret he hadn’t told Jephson. He hadn’t told Hoot, either. He hadn’t told anyone. It was all a part of his plan, the one that had come into his head not long after he’d taken care of Rankin and Hob Bowman. He was going to take care of everyone who’d put him into prison.
He’d been disappointed when he discovered that his sister had moved from Ft. Worth, but he’d gotten over that when he found out where she was living. He could still make the plan work. In fact, it might work out even better. He knew the country around Blanco, and he remembered the old church. It was
n’t an especially good place for what he had in mind, but it would have to do.
He was a little worried about Jephson and Hoot, though. Angel opened his eyes and saw that Hoot was sitting with his back to the wall, whittling on a stick that he’d picked up off the floor, cutting a glance at Laurie now and then when he thought Angel wasn’t looking at him.
Hoot was a good man to have on your side in a fight, no doubt about it, but he was a little peculiar. There was something twisted in him, something that even Angel, who knew about twisted insides, couldn’t put a finger on. Hoot had done his part at the ranch, though, and Angel thought he could trust him in a tight spot.
Jephson was a different story. There was something about Jephson that bothered Angel quite a bit. Jephson didn’t seem to have the nerve for killing. He looked like a killer, and plenty of men in the prison had been scared of him, but he didn’t act like a killer. He acted like someone who’d be more at home walking behind a plow or branding a calf.
So Angel would have to keep an eye on Hoot and Jephson both, though he didn’t think that either of them would cause any immediate trouble. There was no way they were going to try anything with the weather acting up like it was. This wasn’t just some fast-moving thunderstorm like the one they’d been in on the day of their escape. This was the kind of rain that was going to last for a while.
Angel thought about his plan. He wondered if Lane was dead. He hoped not, but he couldn’t be sure. It had been so dark in the house that he could hardly see, and he’d been in too much of a hurry to check on Lane. He’d wanted to get his hands on Laurie and get out of there before anyone could stop him.
It was too bad that Lane had shot Abilene Jack. Jack was the only one that Angel had really trusted. He was the kind of man who’d do what was necessary and not have any second thoughts about it.
Angel figured that Abilene Jack was dead for sure. That shotgun blast was just about guaranteed to finish him off, and Lane had already shot him once.
Angel wasn’t surprised that Lane had been able to put a bullet into Jack, but the shotgun was completely unexpected. Angel had told Hoot and Jephson to watch the bunkhouse and make sure that no one came out, but he hadn’t thought anything about the main house. There hadn’t been anyone in there except those two women, not that Angel had seen, and he hadn’t thought there’d be any trouble from them. Well, it was just Abilene Jack’s bad luck that one of the women had a little sand in her craw. Angel never mourned for anyone.
He closed his eyes again and wondered who’d show up at the little abandoned church. Lane would, if he was able. Sue, maybe. But the one he was really counting on was Brady Tolbert. Sue and Lane were the ones who’d turned on their own kin, which was bad enough, but Brady was the one who’d come for him and taken him to jail. The way Angel saw it, Brady was the one most directly responsible for putting Angel behind the walls at Huntsville for more than two years. And he would’ve been there much longer if he hadn’t gotten lucky.
And Angel could still remember Brady’s last words to him as the cell door was swinging shut after Brady had brought him in. Brady had stared at Angel, his eyes hard, and said, “If you ever mess with my family again, I won’t bring you back here. I’ll kill you myself.”
And then the son of a bitch had smiled. So Angel hoped that they managed to get word to Brady about what had happened. It would take him a few days to get there, most likely, but he’d come a’running when he found out that his brother had been shot and his niece had been stolen away.
That was why Angel had taken Laurie, of course. He didn’t care about the girl, but he knew that if she was with him, they’d come after him. All of them if they could, but some of them for sure.
He could’ve killed Lane and Sue in their beds, and he’d even considered it. But that would’ve been too easy on Lane and Sue. They wouldn’t know that he’d taken their daughter, and they’d suffer a lot more if they were wondering what he was going to do with Laurie, which was why he was hoping Abilene Jack hadn’t killed Lane when he’d shot him.
Let them suffer, Angel thought. That was what he wanted them to do. It served them right. That was why Angel had taken Laurie, of course. He didn’t care about the girl, but he knew that if she was with him, they’d come after him. He’d never do anything to hurt her, and he wouldn’t let anyone else hurt her, not if he could help it. He didn’t mind at all hurting the people she loved, but Laurie was different.
When she’d been not much more than a baby she’d told him she loved him. As far back as Angel could remember, no one had ever told him that before, and really meant it. He planned to take care of her as best he could. Maybe when all this was over, they could go down and live in Mexico. He’d tell people that she was his little girl. With her hair looking almost as blonde as his, people down there were likely to believe him.
Angel smiled thinking about it. He’d heard the law in Mexico wasn’t near as hard to deal with as it was in Texas. He could have a good life across the Rio Grande.
He heard a noise and opened his eyes. Jephson was walking around like a jittery cat, trying to avoid the water that was coming in through the roof.
“I’ve heard tell that rivers out here can flood quicker than a cat can wink its eye,” Jephson said. “You reckon we’re far enough off to be safe?”
Hoot stopped whittling. “How long’s this church been here? It ain’t been carried off yet.”
“He’s right,” Angel said, sitting up. “There’s no danger up this far.”
He wished Jephson wouldn’t act so high-strung. That was another thing that bothered Angel. Hoot was steady as a stone when things got a little dicey, but Jephson always got wrought up and anxious.
Angel was more like Hoot. He didn’t worry about things he couldn’t control. He did tend to fret a little about things like how much ammunition and how many guns they had, but he thought that was pretty well taken care of.
They had the sawed-off shotgun they’d taken from Rankin, and while it didn’t have much range, it would do just fine for close-in work. Angel had managed to get a Colt’s Peacemaker for himself, and Hoot had one, too. Jephson had an old Colt’s Navy that had been worked over to take cartridges. It would’ve been better if they’d had a rifle, but they didn’t. That was too bad, but they’d just have to make the best of it.
It would have been better, too, if the walls of the church had been three or four feet thick instead of being made of boards worn so thin that you could practically stick your finger through them. But at least they offered some protection even if it wasn’t much.
It would have to do, because Angel wasn’t going anywhere. He was going to stay right where he was and wait till someone came.
He hoped it would be Lane, if Lane was still alive.
He hoped even more that it would be Brady, though that might mean they’d have to stay in the church for a couple of days. After they’d all worried themselves sick about Laurie, Angel could kill them knowing that he’d done the worst he could do. He hoped they could hole up in the church till Brady got there and that Jephson wouldn’t lose his nerve.
Angel would have to do something about Laurie when the shooting started. He hadn’t quite decided about that. He couldn’t just let her go. That would mean he couldn’t take her to Mexico with him later on.
And he was sure there’d be a later on. It never entered his head that he might not survive whatever fight ensued. There were going to be some people killed, he didn’t have any doubt about that, but he didn’t plan to be one of them.
And neither would Laurie. After that, well, to tell the truth, Angel just didn’t care.
TWENTY-SIX
“Somebody’s comin’,” Hoot said. “I can hear ’em out there.”
It was late afternoon, nearly nightfall, and it was quite dark both outside and inside the church. Angel couldn’t hear a thing except the pounding of the rain, but he didn’t doubt Hoot, who could hear things no one else could. Maybe it was those jug ears of his.
“All right,” Angel said. “See if you can get a look at ’em.”
Hoot went to a window. “Can’t see a thing. Too dark and rainy. They’re out there, though.”
Angel went to the church’s front door. He didn’t have to open it. There was a large crack between the door and the frame, plenty of space for him to peep out. He thought he saw two figures on horseback, but he couldn’t be sure.
“Can’t tell too much,” he said. “But we’d best be ready.”
He took out the Colt and checked the cylinder.
“Who gets the shotgun?” Hoot asked.
“We won’t need that for a while,” Angel said. “You ready, Jephson?”
Jephson didn’t look ready. He looked to Angel like a man who wished he were somewhere else. But he said, “I’m ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Good,” Angel said. He walked over to where Laurie was sitting, reached down, and picked her up. “Time for you to go somewhere else.”
“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Laurie said, but Angel paid her no mind.
“I’m gonna stash you in the back room for a little while. You be a good girl and I’ll come for you later.”
There was a small room in the front of the church, not far from where the altar had once been. Maybe the preachers who came there needed a private place for some reason or other. Angel didn’t know what preachers did, and he didn’t care. All he knew was that the room was a good place to put Laurie, well out of the way of whatever was going to happen.
He set her on the floor and went out, closing the door behind him. There was no lock on the door, not even a handle, but Angel picked up a small limb that had come in through the roof and jammed it under the bottom of the door so that Laurie couldn’t shove it open.
Laurie pounded on the other side of the door with her fists and called out to Angel, who said, “Keep quiet in there. Those folks out there might be outlaws comin’ to look for a dry place. I don’t want them to find you.”