Frame Angel! (A Frank Angel Western) #7

by Frederick H. Christian

  As they came out of the yard between blocks A and D into the cobbled parade, which was dominated by big main doors, Frank Angel seemed to stumble and fell to the floor. In a moment, the big, red-faced guard from cell block A, whose name Angel now knew to be Chris Shore, was beside him, yanking brutally on his arm, the baton poised to strike.

  ‘On yer feet, ye stumblebum!’ Shore rasped.

  He wasn’t ready for the way Angel moved, wasn’t anything like fast enough to stop the prisoner from coming up off the ground like a striking snake. His left hand moved from his right shoulder in a slicing chop that stopped with a slapping thud in the fold of flesh between Shore’s chin and Adam’s apple. A full strength blow would have destroyed his larynx, and Shore would have been dead in ten minutes. But Angel’s blow merely paralyzed the guard’s breathing. Shore’s eyes bulged as his lungs tried desperately to draw oxygen through his stunned windpipe, and the baton clattered from a hand gone suddenly limp. Angel picked up the heavy club on the first bounce and as a second guard came running, threw it as if it were a balanced knife. The heavy, metal-covered billy whickered through the air. and the running guard ducked, flinching away. In a moment Angel was behind Shore, the knife in his hand flickering as it caught the first fleeting rays of the sun coming high enough to shine over the gray walls.

  A running guard skidded to a halt, hand fumbling at the flap of his pistol holster.

  ‘Touch that gun and you’ll see his throat cut!’ Angel yelled. ‘Hear me!’

  The guard looked about him wildly as the prisoners scattered to the safety of the outer walls, leaving the tableau posed in the center of the cobbled yard – Angel with his arm around Shore’s neck, the fat man’s spine arched back; the guard standing, hand poised over his holster, looking about him; the other guards frozen, waiting a moment. Briggs was about four yards to one side and edging forward. Angel wrestled Shore’s gun out of its holster and tossed it to Briggs.

  ‘Get over here close!’ he shouted. ‘Bring that guard here!’

  Briggs gestured with the pistol, moving fast to be close to Angel and Shore. The other guard hesitated and Briggs fired the gun. The bullet smashed into the cobbles at the guard’s feet, and he jumped visibly as the slug ricocheted away into infinity. Some of the prisoners near the wall ducked instinctively. The guard came warily forward, and then Briggs grabbed him. Now Angel swung Shore around in front of him for protection so that he was behind the fat guard and Briggs was behind Shore, dragging the other guard backward with the pistol against his temple.

  ‘Open those gates!’ Angel shouted. ‘Open them up, or there’ll be two dead guards out here!’

  ‘Kill the guards and you’ll be dead two seconds later!’ one of the guards up on the prison wall yelled back. ‘Turn them loose and give yourselves up!’

  Briggs threw a shot toward the voice, and the guard ducked hastily back. The shuffling quartet edged nearer to the gates, and Angel shouted his order again.

  ‘Open up,’ he yelled. ‘I won’t say it three times!’

  Warden Abrams was coming out of the main administration building now, flanked by three guards armed with sawed-off shotguns. They were ten gauge, riot guns, Briggs saw. If one of those was fired within twenty feet of a man, the remains usually had to be buried in a sandbag to give a decent weight to the coffin.

  ‘Angel?’ he said nervously.

  ‘Keep cool,’ Angel gritted. He dragged Shore, whose eyes were bulging with fear that drenched his face and body with perspiration, nearer to the gates.

  ‘All right!’ the warden shouted. ‘We’ll open up!’

  A muttering cheer rose from the prisoners against the walls, and a dozen or so of them started forward toward Angel. Almost immediately a wicked volley of shots rang out from the sentinels around the walls, the bullets banging with ugly flat sounds into the cobblestones two feet in front of the moving prisoners.

  The prisoners shrank back quickly as the warden shouted, ‘Any man who tries to make a run for it will be shot down!’ He walked out into the middle of the courtyard.

  ‘You!’ he called. ‘You two men! If I open the gates, will you turn the guards loose unharmed?’

  ‘Open the gates first, Warden!’ Angel shouted. ‘Or we’ll kill them now!’

  Warden Abrams nodded, waving his arm in a signal to the men in the twin towers above the heavy gates. They worked the winches, and the doors slowly began to open. The guards on the perimeter fence came forward, their Winchesters cocked and ready.

  ‘Hold your fire!’ the warden shouted at them. ‘Hold your fire!’

  ‘All right, pig!’ Angel hissed at Shore. ‘Move ass!’

  He thrust a knee into the fat man’s back. Shore grunted in pain, walking as best he could with his back bent and Angel’s arm like a bar of steel around his throat. Briggs dragged the other guard by the belt, moving the man awkwardly, but without risk. His pistol was jammed into the man’s spine, and the guard knew that no matter what he might be able to do or not do to prevent or hamper the escape, it would result in his spine being blown to bits. The Territorial Prison Board didn’t pay him enough to be that kind of hero.

  ‘Get back away from me!’ Angel rasped at the bayed guards near the gate. ‘Inside, inside. Move yourselves!’

  They saw the knife at Shore’s throat, the pistol thrust into Angel’s belt, and Briggs with his gun lammed into the other guard’s back, They looked at the warden, who shook his head, and then, reluctantly, they edged away, backing off, sidling into the prison courtyard as the escaping men moved out into the no-man’s-land between the walls and the perimeter fence, its gate now unguarded.

  ‘All right, Warden!’ Angel yelled. His voice sounded thin and unnatural in the open space after days of echoing against the walls of the cell. ‘Shut the gates!’

  ‘What about my men?’ Abrams shouted back.

  ‘Shut the gates, Warden!’ Angel shouted. ‘And be damned quick!’

  Again Abrams gave a signal, and the men in the watchtower worked the winch that closed the gates. Abrams dashed across the yard, running up the stone stairs to the tower, his riot-gun-armed guards close behind him. The other prison guards were already in motion, hustling the prisoners back into the yard between cell blocks A and D, slamming the high metal barriers shut, sliding the bolts on the far side. The prisoners were herded into ranks – rebellious, muttering ranks, to be sure; but the glowering threat of the guards, all of whom had pistols drawn and were waiting for any overt movement, was enough to keep them quiescent.

  ‘Turn those men loose,’ the warden shouted. ‘You haven’t got a chance of getting away!’

  ‘Up yours, you mealy-mouthed bastard!’ Briggs shouted, and without warning aimed the pistol and threw a shot at the unprotected warden, The bullet was not carefully aimed, but Abrams was smacked backward as it ploughed a painful furrow through the muscle between his neck and shoulder. He cannoned into one of his guards, blood spurting over his light gray suit, and slid groaning to the floor.

  ‘Goddamn you, for a stupid bastard!’ Angel snarled at Briggs. ‘What the hell did you do that for?’

  ‘Ah, he was—’

  ‘Shut your mouth and move!’ Angel snapped. ‘Get the hell out of range of those riot guns, at least. If we so much as show a finger now, one of those sons up there will shoot it off!’

  They were finally outside the perimeter fence. Thirty feet from the walls. Now they hustled the two men, frog-marching them across the hilly ground as fast as they could go. Inside the prison a strident clangor began and rose to a crescendo as the alarm bells were set off. They could see guards with carbines in their hands running all along the perimeter wall.

  Groaning, panting, cursing, slipping, and sweating, the two prisoners pushed and hurried the guards across the open ground away from the prison until they came to the wide, dusty road going south-east toward Clayton. On its far side was a sloping runoff, and they slid gratefully down into it, momentarily out of sight of the prison.

  �
�All right,’ Angel said, panting for breath. ‘All right!’

  Shore looked at him. He must have seen something in Angel’s face that Angel could not conceal – a contempt, perhaps, that the guard read as decision.

  ‘Oh, God,’ Shore blubbered. ‘Don’t kill us, don’t, don’t, don’t!’

  ‘I sure as hell—’ Briggs said, cocking his pistol.

  ‘Briggs!’ Angel snapped at him, pushing the barrel of the revolver up and shoving the man away from his intended victim. Briggs growled angrily and brought the gun around on Angel.

  ‘Keep off me,’ he snarled. ‘Keep your hands off me, or I’ll kill you!’

  ‘Go ahead,’ Angel told him. ‘How far you think you’ll get alone? A mile? Two? They’ll have you back inside there—’ he jerked his head back at the prison ‘—so fast it’ll singe your ass! Don’t be a fool. They’ll be coming out after us as soon as they see these two, so we’d better make all the ground we can. You!’

  Ignoring Briggs, he turned to face Shore, who flinched as though Angel had struck him. ‘Yessir?’ the guard managed.

  ‘Take off your boots and your pants. Both of you!’

  Shore began hastily to comply with Angel’s order; the second guard hesitated until Briggs again cocked the revolver ostentatiously, whereupon he began to follow suit. In a few moments the guards stood, looking vaguely comic, in bare feet and grubby long Johns. Angel took their boots and pants and tied them into a makeshift bundle.

  ‘They can’t walk five yards in any direction like that,’ he grinned. ‘This country’s crawlin’ with rattlers.’

  He watched Shore’s greasy face pale as he spoke, and the sound of the man’s gulp was as loud as a cork being pulled out of a bottle. The other guard looked at Angel and spat on the ground.

  ‘You’re a pretty venomous bastard yourself, ain’t you!’ he said. ‘Puttin’ men barefoot where there’s pizen critters.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Angel said mildly. ‘Might be any snake bites you, he’ll be the one gets poisoned. I wish I had the time to wait an’ find out, but I ain’t. Squat!’

  The two men crouched where Angel indicated, sheltered from anyone’s view by the cut bank above them.

  ‘You stay put,’ he warned them. ‘Don’t forget I’ll be able to see you much longer than you’ll be able to see me.’

  He jerked his head at Briggs. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ He set off purposefully on foot, quartering due south to where Sierra Grande towered sharp and clear against the skyline, a banner of cloud drifting across her summit. The ground was soft and the going heavy in the laceless prison boots as they moved through the screening greasewood.

  ‘What was all that bullshit about snakes?’ he panted. ‘Ain’t no snakes this high up, an’ you know it.’

  ‘Sure,’ Angel grinned. ‘Question is, do them guards know it?’

  The other man grinned too, admiring the ruse. ‘How long you think it’ll hold ’em?’

  Angel was about to reply when, back in the direction from which they had come, they heard the faint sounds of men shouting.

  ‘Answer your question?’ Angel asked, as Briggs mouthed a curse.

  They ran on through the broken land for another quarter of a mile, Angel’s eye questing right and left constantly.

  ‘Listen,’ Briggs panted. ‘Angel, listen. We got to … get horses. Get clothes – we can’t wear these things … spiders on a whitewashed wall!’

  ‘Take it easy,’ Angel said. ‘It’s been taken care of!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It’s been taken care of,’ Angel said, and Briggs didn’t hear the words, ‘I hope,’ that Angel added beneath his breath.

  The two men stumbled into an open clearing, on one side of which was a flat rock. There was a splash of white on the rock, a striated chalk mark that could only have been made by man.

  ‘This is the place!’ Angel said. He slapped Briggs’s back. ‘This is it!’

  Briggs looked at him as if he had gone mad. The sounds of pursuit were growing louder behind them, and Angel was acting like a man who’d just been dealt a full house.

  Angel grabbed his arm and pulled him around behind the rock. There was a low stand of greasewood there. Tethered to one of the bushes were two saddled horses. Across the saddles were shirts, pants, and boots. And gunbelts. Briggs ran over to them, touching them like a kid on Christmas morning.

  ‘Jesus!’ he said, wonderingly. ‘Jesus, Angel!’

  ‘We got about ten minutes to get out of here!’ Angel snapped. ‘Come on, Briggs!’

  He hoped to God he had the timing right.

  Chapter Eight

  He’d told them to make it look good, and they did. Almost too damned good.

  He and Briggs swung into the saddle and kicked the horses into a gallop just as the guards burst through the screening bushes into the clearing. Whacking away over the broken ground, Angel thought for a moment that he saw Angus Wells among the pursuers, but that wasn’t possible. Then he put his body down low along his horse’s neck and concentrated on getting the hell out of there.

  Behind him and to one side at least a dozen guards opened up with their Winchesters, the slugs whickering past the fleeing horsemen, smashing branches off the greasewood bushes, tearing leaping spouts of darkened sandy earth from the ground around, beside, and ahead of them. Interspersed amid the rattling cracks of the carbines was the duller gbbbooomffl of the riot guns, which were about as effective at the kind of range they were now being used over as throwing snowballs would have been.

  Racing flat out away from the firing, Angel felt something touch his upper left arm. It was like someone lightly slapping a child, not in anger so much as in mild playfulness. He reeled sideways in the saddle, bright blood staining his arm, a gritted curse escaping his tensed lips. Goddamn, he’d told them to make it look good, but this was taking it too far! Straightening slightly in the saddle, he swiveled his arm around to look at it. It was a clean, burned rip, and it had done little more than take off a couple of layers of skin. Fool for luck, he told himself. If that bullet had gone an inch to the right, he’d be nursing a shattered left arm, about as much use in the game he was planning to play as a wooden-legged clown. If it had gone six inches to the right . . .

  Well, no use thinking about that, he told himself as he reined his horse around. They were traversing a rising bluff that crested and sloped away down to Carrizozo Creek. There was enough water for them to ride in it for a while, and Angel headed down, signaling Briggs to follow.

  ‘Where we headin’?’ Briggs shouted.

  ‘Further downstream there’s a ford,’ Angel told him. ‘The old Santa Fe Trail crosses this crick.’

  ‘The Cimarron cutoff?’

  ‘That’s right. We can follow the trail right on over to Las Vegas.’

  ‘What’s in Las Vegas?’

  ‘Two things,’ Angel told him, as they moved the horses at a walk down to the edge of the creek. ‘One, a lot o’ people who don’t know who we are, an’ what’s more, don’t care. Two, a telegraph office.’

  ‘Telegraph office?’ Briggs frowned. ‘What the hell you need a telegraph office for?’

  ‘Let my people know it all went well,’ Angel said. ‘An’ where I’m headin’ next. They’ll maybe want me … available.’

  Briggs nodded. He was very conscious of the fact that he had allied himself with a professional killer, and one who, if the evidence of the last few hours was anything to go by, had pretty powerful connections.

  ‘Where would you be headin’ next?’ he asked cautiously.

  ‘Why, Briggs, that’s entirely up to you,’ Angel said, with a wide grin. ‘You tell me where that money you’re gonna pay me for springin’ you is, an ‘we’ll go fetch it. You pay me my seventy-five hundred, an’ from there on in, you’re on your own. Right?’

  ‘Well,’ Briggs hesitated.

  ‘Now Briggs,’ Angel said, very gently. ‘You wouldn’t go back on our deal, would yo
u?’

  ‘Hell, no, Angel,’ Briggs said. ‘It’s … well, it’s a bit more complicated than that.’

  ‘It better not be too complicated, man,’ Angel said, just the faint edge of warning anger making itself heard in his voice. Briggs caught the tone and held up a hand.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I told you, though. There’s others involved?’

  ‘You can tell me all about it later, when we make camp,’ Angel told him. ‘For now, let’s concentrate on puttin’ some miles between us an’ that stinkin’ prison!’

  ‘You figger they’ll put a posse out after us, Angel?’

  ‘Ain’t figgerin’ nothin’,’ Angel answered. ‘Nor hangin’ around waitin’ to find out. Let’s go, Briggs!’

  He kicked his horse into a canter and splashed down into Carrizozo Creek.

  ‘There was three of us,’ Briggs began.

  ‘You told me that,’ Angel replied.

  They had made a camp on the warm, southern side of a long sloping draw that ran slanting south-west toward the Canadian River. There was jerky and a flat bottle of whiskey in one of the alforjas slung behind the saddle and two cans of beans in the other. It wasn’t Parisian cooking, but after the prison food it tasted like the purest nectar. Angel let Briggs drink most of the whiskey, contenting himself with a good slug to keep out the chill of the night. They foraged for enough wood to make a small fire in a sandpit, Apache style.

  When the food was gone, Angel leaned back and invited Briggs to tell him the whole story. ‘Who told you about the shipment?’ he asked.

  ‘Uh … listen, Angel, how’d you know about that?’ Briggs asked, peering at him suspiciously in the fire-light.

  ‘Shit, Briggs,’ Angel said. ‘You ain’t the type’d know things like that. I’m figurin’ your sidekicks didn’t either.’

  ‘No, they didn’t,’ Briggs muttered. ‘You’re right. Pete an’ Jamesie, they’re like me. Y’know – hired hands. He wanted good men who knew the country.’

  ‘He?’