Angel looked at the man for a long moment, frowning.
‘Knew there was something,’ he said finally.
He laid the barrel of his sixgun along the side of the man’s head, dropping him like a sack in the dust. He picked up the beer bottle and emptied the contents down his throat, remembering that he hadn’t eaten. The stars were out in splendor as he gigged the spirited horses towards the edge of town. He paused for a moment to look up at the sky. Then he took a deep breath and kicked the startled horses into a thundering gallop.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Larkin came down Fort Street.
His clothes were white with trail dust and his eyes peered from an alkali mask. They burned with a lambent fire that bordered on madness. He had ridden in a huge half circle, out to the Reynolds ranch and then on to the Birch place, scouting each of them like an Indian, waiting until he could get near the main buildings and see either of the two men whose names he kept repeating to himself like a litany. Neither had been there, so he knew now that they were in town and he was coming in to get them and nothing, nothing was going to stop him. He had slept fitfully in a small stand of ironwood trees in the Rio Blanco valley, twitching as he slept, his lips making small sounds. At dawn he had saddled his horse again and now, as the sun climbed the far side of the sky, he was at Daranga. He watched the people on the sidewalks with hating eyes, and they saw him and the word ran alongside and ahead of him. He came down Fort Street and Sunny Metter stepped out into the street, a carbine in his hands.
‘Larkin!’ he shouted.
Larkin shot him down. Nobody saw him move. Metter didn’t even have a chance to fire. One second Larkin was motionless, the next Metter had been blasted backwards, his hands clutching at the dust, blood welling from his right shoulder, knees drawn up in agony. Larkin kneed the horse on, ignoring the Mexican girl who ran out to where Metter lay.
‘Sinverguenza!’ she spat. ‘Hijo de la gran puta!’
‘Ma’am,’ Larkin acknowledged, touching his hat. He felt good. All his sinews were loose and the old fire was racing in his veins. He wondered for a brief moment why the man had tried to stop him but then dismissed the thought. It didn’t matter. He dismounted outside the Alhambra and pushed in through the swinging doors.
The Alhambra was by any standards a very fancy saloon. The long bar curved around the room in a horseshoe, gleaming black mahogany polished to a high shine. Behind it, fancy fretted woodwork shelves backed with cut glass mirrors reflected the amber gleam of dozens of neatly arranged bottles. The floor was smooth-planed pine, scattered with sawdust. Brass spittoons punctuated the brass foot rail every three or four feet. To one side of the room there were tables, several set up for gambling: poker, blackjack, faro, chuckaluck. A stairway led to a balcony which ran around the room like a minstrel gallery, with doors leading off that were occupied by the girls who worked in the place. Larkin saw all this in one swift glance, and in the same glance he saw Birch sitting at a table with Burnstine. The place was almost empty. A swamper looked up and saw Larkin in the doorway, and almost fell over himself getting out of the way. His pail rattled and the two men looked up and saw Larkin there.
Burnstine’s eyes widened with fear, but Birch betrayed no emotion at all. He merely stared at the gunman, his eyes opaque.
‘Well, well,’ Larkin said. ‘Two birds with one stone.’
‘What do you want, Larkin?’ Birch said, his voice hard.
‘You, you bastard!’ Larkin spat. ‘You an’ Reynolds set me up. I played it straight and you set me up.’
A man ran from the room. The others cowered back against the bar as far away from the probable line of fire as they could get. No one moved a muscle. The air was charged with menace.
‘Don’t be a fool, Larkin!’ Birch rasped. ‘Try that here and you’re a dead man.’
‘Sure,’ Larkin said, his voice soft and easy. He directed his gaze at the cowering Burnstine. ‘Stand up, Senator!’
Burnstine looked at Birch. The big man nodded and they stood up together, chairs scraping on the floor. Birch moved off to one side away from the politician. Larkin watched them like a cat
‘I’m not armed,’ Burnstine stammered. ‘It’ll be coldblooded murder, Larkin!’
‘It don’t bother me none,’ Larkin informed him. So intent upon the two men was his gaze that he did not hear the door open soundlessly on the balcony above him, but Birch did. From beneath his jutting eyebrows he saw the slim figure of Jacey Reynolds, gun in hand, move to the rail of the balcony.
‘I don’t care much which o’ you goes first,’ Larkin said. He might have been discussing the weather.
Up on the balcony, Reynolds leaned over and cocked the gun and fired but Larkin, his reflexes honed to razor sharpness, heard the sound of the ratchet and was moving. He threw himself backwards and to one side, firing at the man on the balcony. Reynolds grunted as the slug smashed through him and then teetered for a moment, tipping forward, folding across the rail, somersaulting down to the bar, smashing flat on the polished mahogany counter even as Larkin went on with his roll, trying for the shelter of one of the tables. Birch had a second’s advantage and that was enough. His gun was out and spouting fire, three shots in a rising arc as the gunman scrambled across the floor. Birch’s first shot smashed Larkin’s right hand to a mangled mess of muscle and white bone. The second one hit him almost in the middle of the chest, slamming Larkin flat on the floor. The third, slightly wild, hit Larkin’s left thigh. He lay there on the saw dusted floor, and Birch stalked over to him, cocking the gun again.
‘So long, Larkin,’ he said callously and raised the gun. Larkin looked up and tried to spit at the rancher towering above him. Every eye in the place was fixed on the pair. Nobody saw Angel come in.
‘Birch!’ he shouted.
Every head turned. They saw Angel standing there and they saw that his gun was not drawn. Birch, too, turned half around, crouched like a cat ready to spring, the leveled gun in his hand cocked and ready to fire.
‘It’s Angel!’ Burnstine shouted.
A look of purest animal joy flitted across Birch’s face: the thoughts in his head were plain to everyone watching. Birch whipped the gun around. What happened next became a legend in Daranga. Newcomers would be told the story, and they would shake their head in disbelief and say it couldn’t be done, but the men in the Alhambra saw it done and terrible though it was, it was magnificent. In the same fraction of time that the big man moved, Angel also moved, his hand sweeping up in a motion too fast for the eye to follow, the sixgun blasting flame once, twice, three times as Birch’s gun exploded harmlessly into the ground, the big man dead as he fired. Birch’s death was so shocking, so impossible, that when he fell there was a silence of stunning intensity. The big man lay on his back. There were two neat holes just above the third button of his dark blue shirt, and another had been drilled dead center between the opaque eyes. Angel stood half crouched, his grey eyes still cold and deadly.
‘You?’ Burnstine managed. His face held the expression of a man witnessing the end of the world. Angel said nothing. He looked at Burnstine and the senator saw Angel’s trigger finger whiten. Burnstine looked into the cold and grinning skull face of death and his jaw slackened.
‘God, don’t, Angel!’ he cried hoarsely. ‘You’ve got to give me justice!’
The last word seemed to release a hidden switch in Angel. The watchers saw the man slowly straighten, slightly, easily letting the tension slip away. Angel sighed, the barrel of the gun dropping slightly. And Burnstine knew he would live. He was soaking wet with the sallow sweat of terror. At that moment Sheriff Austin burst into the room, closely followed by two soldiers. Angel whirled to meet the new threat, the sixgun level and the killing readiness back in his eyes.
‘Christ, Angel!’ screeched Austin. ‘It’s me!’
His discomfiture was so profound that it almost totally dissipated the tension in the big room. Even Angel gave a tired grin.
‘For a m
oment, there, Sheriff, I thought it was a man,’ he said.
‘What in the name o’ God’s been goin’ on?’ stuttered Austin. His eyes fell on the bodies. ‘Birch? Reynolds! What in the name of sweet Jesus... ?’ Larkin groaned. He lay in a widening pool of blood, but his eyes flickered open and he looked around.
‘That bastard!’ Austin said. ‘He shot Sunny Metter, you know that, Angel?’
‘I saw it happen,’ Angel said. ‘I was too far away to do anything about it.
‘Why did he try to take Larkin? He should have known he couldn’t do it.’
‘He can tell you that hisself,’ Austin blustered. ‘He ain’t hurt bad.’ Angel felt a warm flooding feeling of relief at this news. ‘I’ll go see him,’ he said. ‘Sheriff, this here is Senator Ludlow Burnstine. Lock him up.’
Austin had started forward, his hand extended. At Angel’s words he stopped, his jaw dropping comically.
‘Lock him? Up? he strangled out.
‘Tight,’ emphasized Angel. ‘Two guards outside his door.’
Austin gulped. ‘You can’t lock up no United States senator, Angel!’ he yelped.
‘Oh, shut up and do what I tell you, man!’ snapped Angel. ‘He won’t give you no argument. He’s plain glad to be alive.’
He motioned to one of the soldiers. ‘Give me a hand with Larkin,’ he said.
They lifted the gunman up, and Larkin shouted something from the depths of his pain as they moved him. He was quite unconscious by the time they got him to the hotel and sent for the doctor. The doctor opened his bag, snipping Larkin’s shirt away and probing gently at the wound in his chest with his fingers. He rose and snapped his bag shut. Angel watched him expressionlessly.
‘He might hang on another twenty-four hours,’ the doctor said. ‘I can’t do anything for him. Patch him up, maybe I’ll send my wife across to bandage him up, make him a little more comfortable. I’ll look in this evening.’
As quickly as he had come, the old doctor was gone. Angel stood alone in the room watching the unconscious man. After a while, he left.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Later in the day, after a huge meal and a bath and shave, fresh clothes on his back and a feeling of well-being in his soul, Angel sat in the upstairs room with Sunny Metter and Lieutenant Blackstone.
‘Looks like you tied it all up, Frank,’ Metter said, weakly. He cursed as a movement brought a stabbing pain through his shoulder.
Angel shook his head. ‘If you aren’t the world’s fattest fool,’ he said pityingly. ‘What in the name of God made you try to stop Larkin?’
‘I don’t honestly know,’ Metter admitted ruefully. ‘I figger’d he’d give the soldiers the slip, maybe head for the Reynolds place, then Birch’s. If he found out they weren’t there, I guessed he’d come to Daranga, so I made tracks here. I guess what was goin’ on in my head was that if he got to Birch an’ Reynolds, your case would go up in smoke. I didn’t know about Burnstine, of course. It just come into my head to try an’ stop him. Damnfool thing to do, no?’
The soldier nodded, grinning, and Angel smiled, too.
‘How is Larkin?’ Blackstone asked. Angel shook his head. ‘Doc says he won’t make it.’
‘Good riddance,’ snapped Blackstone. ‘Did he tell you anything?’
‘Nothing,’ Angel told them. ‘I went over to see him just a while ago.’ He had been told that Larkin was conscious and wanted to talk to him. The gunman had been sitting propped up in the bed, his face chalky beneath the tan, his eyes receded deep into the skull. He smiled weakly, eyes unreadable.
‘I reckon I owe you somethin’,’ he said softly.
‘Not a thing,’ Angel had said. ‘It just broke that way.’
‘Never Figured on Reynolds at all,’ Larkin said. ‘I must be gettin’ soft.’
He saw the expression on Angel’s face and his smile faded.
‘Give it to me straight, Angel,’ he whispered. ‘Ain’t goin’ to pull through this time, am I?’
‘No,’ Angel said.
Larkin sighed. ‘Pity,’ he said. ‘I had a lot o’ things I wanted to do.’
‘You could go out clean,’ Angel suggested.
‘Spill, you mean?’ Larkin shook his head. ‘Not my style, Angel.’ There was real regret in his voice. ‘I’d like to pay up what I owe you. But not that. Besides, who’d believe the word of a hired gun?’
‘I would,’ Angel told him levelly.
‘I’m thankin’ you for that,’ Larkin said gratefully. ‘But it’s no go, man. I allus went by my own rules.’
‘Pity,’ Angel said. ‘It would nail Burnstine good. He’d hang, Larkin.’
‘Hangin’s too good for that bastard,’ spat Larkin. He coughed, and bloody flecks of foam speckled his bloodless lips.
After a moment, he asked a question.
‘Metter’s just fine,’ Angel told him. ‘It was just a flesh wound.’
Larkin nodded. ‘That’s how I shot it,’ he said, and Angel detected a curious sort of pride in the man’s voice, as though it was important that he should believe that Larkin had known exactly where the bullet that had felled Metter would hit.
‘You sure, Larkin?’ Angel tried one last time. ‘It’d be nice to go with your head high.’
‘I’ll do that,’ Larkin had said. ‘Don’t you worry.’
Angel had left him then; the gunman had been staring up at the ceiling, his eyes empty and his mouth tight in a thin grimace of pain when he closed the door.
‘Hard as nails,’ Blackstone said, whistling through his teeth at the end of Angel’s recital. ‘Right to the end.’
Metter changed the subject. ‘How did Thompson take the news?’ he wanted to know.
‘Pretty badly,’ the young lieutenant said. ‘He headed back to the Fort with Sergeant Bettie. It was like talking to someone who was already dead.’
‘Does he know enough to help you, Frank?’ asked Metter.
‘Some,’ Angel said. ‘It’s hard to say whether it will be enough.’
‘But you doubt it,’ Metter insisted.
‘There’ll be enough to send the old man to jail for years,’ Angel said. ‘He’s finished, sure enough.’
‘But Perry, and Clare ... all those men at the high chaparral ranches,’ Blackstone put in. ‘You mean he could get away with that?’
‘He could,’ Angel admitted. ‘With Birch and Reynolds dead, Boot and Mill gone, we don’t have evidence of his involvement. Not tangible evidence, anyway, although there’s enough circumstantial evidence to hang him ten times over.’
‘Frank, you’ve done all you can,’ Metter said, sympathetically. ‘Don’t knock yourself out because you couldn’t get a full house.’
Angel got up from his chair.
‘I think I’ll have a talk with the senator one last time,’ he said.
He went downstairs to the bar, where Burnstine sat patiently in a chair, his composure intact, fully in control of himself again. Burnstine’s fertile mind had been working like a well-oiled machine, checking this facet of his involvement in the Rio Blanco troubles against that. Nothing had ever been put in writing which could connect him with Larkin, with Boot, with Mill. Witnesses might be found who could testify that they had been seen visiting his house, but that could easily have been innocent. Alternatively, witnesses could become uncertain if pressures were applied. There were still plenty of strings he could pull which these fools knew nothing about. His ownership through mortgages of the Rio Blanco ranches was pure business, nothing more. How was he to know that Birch and Reynolds had been crooks? They had paid up on the dot the monies due him each month, and he could certainly prove that. His bookkeeping was impeccable, for Burnstine knew that accounts which had no flaws in them were often considered the hallmark of an honest man, and he had employed one of the best accountants in the Territory to work on his books, all honest and above board. No, he was safe. There might be all sorts of accusations, but none of them would stick. With the conclusion of these thoughts
he had politely asked one of the guards if he might have a drink. It was rotgut brandy, of course, but better than nothing. He still had a few cigars. He was sitting now behind a baize-covered table in the saloon, expansive in the bentwood chair, cigar alight, brandy warming in his hand. Angel came down the stairs.
‘My dear Angel,’ Burnstine smiled a welcome. ‘Won’t you join me?’
Angel looked at the politician for a moment, and then with a contemptuous sweep of his arm, knocked the liquor off the table, the glass smashing to fragments against the bar. Then he leaned over and plucked the cigar from Burnstine’s mouth and tossed it away. Burnstine looked at Angel and there was complete and seething hatred in his eyes.
‘Damn you, Angel,’ he said, his voice low-pitched and cold.
‘Murderers don’t get treated like kings by me,’ Angel told him, his contempt lashing the vanity of the old man. Burnstine half rose to his feet and then a slow smile touched his face. He leaned back in the chair.
‘You’re a fool, Angel,’ he said. ‘I thought you were an intelligent man, but I see now that you are just muscle, Larkin’s kind, only on the side of law and order. You are not worth wasting time on.’
‘Senator, I am going to see you hanged,’ Angel promised him, levelly.
‘On what charge, may I ask?’ Burnstine asked. He was beginning to enjoy himself. He had gone over and over everything in his mind. He was safe and inside he felt the warm glow the knowledge created. What could this .. . this hireling do to him? ‘Who will bring evidence, may I ask?’ he continued. ‘Birch? Dead. Reynolds? Dead. Boot and Mill, I assume by your continued existence, dead. Larkin? Dead in all but fact, so my guards tell me. You have been far too efficient in your narrow way, Angel. You have not brought me down as you so fondly hoped: you have in fact ensured my survival. Oh, I agree: a little dirt may stick, it always does. I’ll simply say that it’s political jealousy in Washington, something trumped-up to discredit me, the way things are always trumped up against successful people. My scheme will go through, Angel, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.’ He sat back, smiling.
Send Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #2) Page 16