‘Stupid bastard!’ he shouted, and lunged in. To his astonishment, Angel did not dodge this time. Instead, he profiled his body, the way a matador does as the bull charges, letting the long bayonet pass him. As The Major was on the return step from his lunge, Angel turned back, pivoting in a tight half-circle. His right hand brought the short chunk of wood around his body and he jammed it onto the point of the bayonet as hard as he could. The Major pulled his weapon back, and then, with an almost impatient gesture, threw his arm wide to free it, tossing the speared chunk of wood away and turning back for the killing stroke, smiling like a weasel in a skylark’s nest. It took one second, perhaps two, but it was enough for Angel.
His right hand had flickered down to the top of his mule-ear boot and it came up in a blur of movement. The Major’s reflexes were very, very good. He even started to parry, as if knowing instinctively what was coming at him. However, reflex action is very rarely enough. The eye has to see and transmit, the brain receive and instruct, the arm hear and obey. It all happens in immeasurable fractions of time, but still not fast enough to cancel out time elapsed. The slim silver Solingen blade thudded into The Major’s throat just below his chin, shearing through windpipe, larynx, and gullet before neatly severing the spinal cord between the third and fourth vertebrae.
The Major’s eyes bulged with disbelief, and he rose up on tiptoe, as though by doing so he could disengage the biting thing that had destroyed him. Then he collapsed like a dropped marionette, dead before he touched the earth.
Angel let out his breath in a long, long sigh.
It seemed as if he had been fighting for hours: every muscle in his body was alive with pain. He went across the clearing and picked up the fallen man’s weapon. It was the knife of a thug, a barbarian; it disgusted him. He jammed the blade into a tree trunk and then put his full weight against it. The steel made a noise like a bullet hitting a bucket and then broke. He tossed the useless haft at The Major’s deflated-looking body, realizing that he did not even know the name of the man he had killed.
‘Take that to Hell with you!’ he said venomously.
Now he ripped off the tattered sleeve of his shirt and looked at the ragged tear in his arm. The muscle was already numbing. When he tried to bend his arm he found he could not. He needed some time, a place where he could clean the wound, bandage it. Otherwise, he was at high risk. Gangrene from the filthy bayonet. Certain disability, fever. He had fought the Nix gang to a standstill, but The Major, although dead, had put a stop to that. He was in no shape to do any more fighting this day.
This in turn meant he had to move up the next part of his plan. There was nothing else open to him. He had to double back and head for the hacienda. It was a long way, but he could probably make it. Then a thought occurred to him that put a chill into his blood. Even if he made it, he was in pretty poor shape to take on the man he’d find there guarding Nix’s lair: the Oriental, Yat Sen.
‘Heads I lose, tails I lose,’ he muttered. Then he got up and moved out.
Chapter Fourteen
Hercules Nix could take anything except defeat.
He had to confess, however, unwillingly, that so far Angel had out-thought him and out-fought his men every step of the way. He was no nearer taking the quarry now than he had been when they set out two days earlier from the hacienda. The stampede of the Indian ponies was a further example of Angel’s resourcefulness, and his ambusher’s war in the swamp had reduced the morale of Nix’s men to nearly zero. They cared little or nothing for the death of their fellows, but they did care mightily for the manner of their own, and their guts were a-curdle from the sight of The Major’s torn throat, the headless corpse of Bobbie Dirs, the transfixed skull of Rick Cross. This was not their way of fighting.
Nix had actually been in the Comanche encampment, negotiating for the labor of the Indian women and children with Koh-eet-senko’s father-in-law, when Angel had stampeded the horses through the center of the village. Unlike the wily old savage with whom he was bargaining, Nix knew right away what had caused the breakout, and told Pah-hay-naka. ‘Patches,’ as the old man was known, had already informed him that Koheet-senko and the raiding warriors were due back within the next day, and now, as he pulled back to the edge of the swamp, his strength reduced by more than half, Hercules Nix smiled grimly in the dying light and vowed an awful vengeance.
He had not lost sight of the fact that it was he who was Angel’s main target, he who Angel wished to bring down. He was conscious of an unease, not fear; and next morning, after a miserable night camped on the edge of the mosquito-riddled swamp, he led his remaining men toward the climbing dust cloud made by the returning war party.
They had come out of the north, turning at the end of the Comanche sickle trail that had brought them across the Rio Bravo and back to their own querencia. The dust of their passing glinted in the watery morning sunlight like a smokescreen against the yellow-dun hills, gullied and scarred like the faces of crones. Grotesque in their tinsel finery, Koh-eet-senko’s raiding party came across the desert. Silvered bits on their horses, beads, scraps of colored cloth, glass or tin or fragments of mirror, gaudy bangles or bracelets bought from some passing Comanchero or ripped from the arm of a raped white woman, huge hooped earrings, their bodies painted for war, broad black stripes across face and forehead, their long straggling hair greased with bear fat or dressed with buffalo dung, they were dust-covered and ugly. The palpable stink of their presence was like the breath of the deepest pits of Hades.
The raid had been successful. Behind the war party trailed despondent Mexican women, some carrying children. They had been badly abused already, and knew that the worst was still to come. Many horses had been stolen, many guns, much plunder. There would be fat bellies in the camp tonight.
Hercules Nix did not ride straight up to the Comanche column. He knew better than to come at speed upon a raiding party. True, they knew him and knew that this valley was his, but they were still savages, without intelligence or understanding. A man could be killed just as dead by a trigger-happy Comanche buck who’d been sucking on a bottle of stolen liquor all the way home as by a trained assassin. Comanch’ were like weather and women: entirely unpredictable. So Nix led his men slowly toward Koh-eet-senko’s war party, riding alongside until the Indians recognized him. After a while, the Comanche leader made a lordly gesture: join us, it said. Nix nodded and kicked his stallion into a trot. The Comanches slowed down and made a big half-circle. They did not look particularly interested or uninterested. They were just there. They would see what was going to happen. Then, maybe, they would react. A palpable air of menace hung over them: cut-throats all, Nix thought. They looked indescribably evil. He had no misconceptions about them, but he needed them right now. He knew how to handle Koh-eet-senko. Subtlety, kindness, love, pity, all these were lost on the brute. He had risen in the ranks of the Comanch’ because he was tougher, harder, bloodier, and more vicious than anyone else, a better thief, a better rider, a better hunter, and a better killer. It was inadvisable to make the mistake of forgetting these things when dealing with him.
Nix began his greeting with the usual fulsome compliments, superlatives, and lies. Koh-eet-senko nodded, accepting them as no more than his due, looking around to make sure everyone else could hear what the white man was saying about him. Nix conducted his peroration in sign language: he could not speak the language of the Comanch’ and he doubted anyone except another Comanch’ could. It was like trying to wrap your tongue around a wriggling porcupine.
He waved an arm to include all his men, then with the index finger and middle finger of his right hand, he made a zigzag pattern in front of his eyes, after which he extended his hand forward. ‘We are hunting,’ these signs said. Then he made the signs for a white man: the right index finger drawn across the forehead to indicate a sombrero. ‘We are hunting a white man.’
Koh-eet-senko nodded and swatted at the flies buzzing around the bloody scalps on his horse’s mane. He was impa
tient to get back to the camp, to his women. They had been on the war trail a long time.
Nix now held his hand over his head in the sign for a tall man, then rubbed the tips of the fingers of his right hand on the back of the left, following these signs with the sign for shelling corn. ‘A tall man,’ he was saying, ‘with hair the color of corn.’ Nix placed his palms parallel, facing each other, taking the right hand back a little and moving it up and down. He turned his left palm up to the sky and placed his right forefinger on it. Then, with his right palm facing upward, slightly bent, he pushed his right hand forward. ‘Help us,’ he had said. ‘And I will give you—’ He waited, making sure that he had Koh-eet-senko’s attention. He had. The Comanche had become alert at the sign for ‘give’ and his eyes glowed with greed as Nix made the sign for a rifle, left hand holding the imaginary barrel, right forefinger cocked on the trigger, and added ‘many, many.’
There was a murmur of interest from the other Comanches. Guns was a subject that interested them all. More guns equaled more plunder. Koh-eet-senko turned his back on Nix and spoke rapidly in Comanche to two other Indians as virulently ugly as himself. They seemed to be arguing vehemently, but their colloquy lasted only a few minutes. Then Koh-eet-senko folded his arms, faced Nix, and nodded.
Nix pasted a smile on his face and extended his hand. The Comanche looked at it for a moment as if it was a snake, and then his brow cleared and with a gap-toothed smile, he pumped away at Nix’s hand as if life itself depended on the handshake. Then Koh-eet-senko extended his left hand, and with the right forefinger, pulled aside the left forefinger and pointed at the middle one: the sign for ‘tomorrow.’
Nix shook his head violently. No, he signaled, making another sign. He held his right index finger in front of his face, pushed it forward quickly a couple of inches, then brought it back. He repeated the signal. ‘Now, now.’
Koh-eet-senko made an angry sound and spat out a series of Gatlin-gun gutturals. Even without Comanche, Nix knew damned well what they meant, and he held up his hand palm out, in the peace sign.
‘Very well,’ he said, nodding, smiling, placating the Indian. ‘Tomorrow’ He made the sign for daybreak and Koh-eet-senko nodded curtly, not knowing how Nix was cursing him: Jesus Christ alone knew what Angel could get up to in a whole day. He realized Koh-eet-senko was telling him something, crossing the index finger of both hands and then making the hand-to-mouth signs for eating. These he followed by placing his palms parallel opposite each other and moving them up and down and away from each other and back. ‘Come camp eat dance’ was what the signs said, but Nix knew what they meant. Koh-eet-senko and his warriors were going to celebrate their successful raid. They were going to eat themselves sick, drink themselves stupid, then roll into the blankets with their verminous squaws. They would be even more slow-witted and surly than usual at daybreak, and many of them would refuse to join the band which would accompany Nix in pursuit of the white man. That was their privilege, and there wasn’t a damned thing Koh-eet-senko or anyone else could do about it. Nix stifled his anger. There wasn’t a damned thing he could do about Koheet-senko’s invitation, either. To refuse his hospitality would be to court disaster; he was more than aware of the difference in the strength of Koh-eet-senko’s band and his own, and he knew the Indian was, too.
‘Good,’ he wigwagged. ‘We are coming.’
Once again Koh-eet-senko nodded, as though he had known all along that no other response was possible. He kicked his painted pony into a walk and the warriors fell into line behind him.
‘Hey, boss,’ Des Elliott whispered urgently as Nix followed suit. ‘Where we headin’?’
‘We’re going to a party,’ Nix said sourly. ‘So look as if you like the idea. Tell the men to keep their guns handy and stay close together. And that means until we ride out of that camp, got it?’
‘You bet I got it,’ Elliott said. ‘You know what?’
‘What?’
‘I ain’t sure I wouldn’t have rather stayed in the swamp with Angel.’
~*~
Angel was long gone from the swampy lakeside.
The late afternoon sun was hot, and welcome after the steamy-dank atmosphere of the jungly undergrowth. It took away the persistent chill sourness from Angel’s body as he made his way south along the river, but he wasn’t in good shape and he knew it. His wounded arm throbbed, and his head was light. He felt sometimes as if he was having to reach his feet down to touch the ground, a strange, floaty feeling that came and went. Once he found himself lying face down in the dirt with no clear recollection of how he had gotten there. He didn’t see the dust-cloud raised by the returning Hoh’ees tribe, nor the smaller one raised by Nix and his men as they arrowed across to intercept Koh-eet-senko’s warriors. Frank Angel was too intent on just making the next bend in the river, using cover and watching for pursuit. Most of all he was intent on just plain keeping going: it was a long way to the hacienda and his troubles would be far from over when he got there. Nightfall found him about halfway to his destination, and he stopped to rest because he had to. He decided he would risk a tiny belly-fire, the kind hunting Apaches build when they are on the killing trail, a tiny fire burning in a deep-scooped hole over which the warrior arches his body, concealing the faint glow and receiving body warmth to keep out the deep chill of the desert night.
He took out the flat silver flask that had been included in his survival kit, and splashed some of the brandy on his ragged arm wound. It stung like liquid fire as he mopped the wound clean with strips torn from his shirt. He took a healthy swig of the spirit, feeling it course through his body, a moving glow that settled in his empty belly. With a regretful shrug he poured the rest out on the ground. He needed the flask more than the liquor, and with great care he filled the flask with water from the shallowest edge of the river. Then he put it on the glowing coals of his tiny fire and when it was boiled, used it to clean and disinfect the arm wound. It was stiffened and swollen, but the firm dressing of shirt-cloth and the cleansing effect of the water and the brandy eased the pain. His arm pulsed now as if alive, but he was at least reasonably confident that there was no infection in the wound. When that was done, he fed some more of the tiny dry sticks into his fire hole, then wormed into the undergrowth and sat, as unmoving as a stone idol, while the night strengthened its hold over the star strewn sky, and the creatures of the night grew bold and left their lairs.
The big old jackrabbit never had a chance.
He lollopped into Angel’s range, nostrils twitching, ready to hitch-kick his way out of danger at the slightest movement. But he was downwind of the stone-still man who sat with the slim Solingen steel throwing knife laid against his right shoulder. The jack hopped nearer, foraging, and then erupted into movement as it saw the whip-down movement of Angel’s hand, but fast as it was, the knife was faster.
‘Supper in the pot,’ Angel said, and started skinning the rabbit. He gutted and cleaned it where it had fallen. Owls and other night predators would clean up after him, and leave no waste. Nature’s food cycle was beautifully worked out. He carried the carcass back to his little fire, and now cut a long thin stick from which he stripped the bark. Then two Y-shaped branches were jammed into the ground, the rabbit spitted with the longer one.
When he had finished eating, Angel made a brush mattress and lay back to rest for a little while. He knew he would get no sleep this night, and he would need to muster as much strength as he could beforehand. He lay completely relaxed, letting his toes slacken, then his ankles, then the calves, the knees, all the way up his body He put all thought out of his head and concentrated upon the figure one. He held the image of it in the front of his mind, and when any other thought intruded he shoved it back away, returning to the figure one. After a little while his breathing slowed, his heartbeat deepened. He remained like this for perhaps half an hour, or a little longer. Then he got himself ready to move on.
It was full dark now, and the stars were sprinkled all over the sky.
Someone had once told him that on a night like this you could see up to two thousand five hundred of them. There seemed to be more, somehow, and close enough to reach up and touch. A soft breeze had sprung up from the south, and the soft purr of the river made a gentle background to his thoughts. He might have been alone in the world, moving undiscovered through some garden wilderness. He smiled at his thoughts. This valley might be many things, but it was not a garden. Now he saw the lights of the hacienda ahead of him in the darkness, and he moved more cautiously, wary as any fox. He had one vital task to perform before he went inside the stockade, and he moved up the riverside to the place where it must be done. Then he stood erect and drew in a deep, deep breath. It was time. Now, somehow, he had to go in there and kill the deadly Oriental, Yat Sen. Or get killed trying.
Chapter Fifteen
He waited until the hours before dawn.
He was conscious of wasted time, but it was time he had to waste. He needed all the advantage he could get, and even one as small as this. Yat Sen was not an ordinary man, but man he was, and like all men, his reflexes and his resistance would be at their lowest in the cold hours before the false dawn. With the handicap of his wounded arm, Angel needed all the advantage he could manage, and on this basis he picked his time. He knew, as all doctors know, as all tyrants and secret police have always known, that it is in the deathwatch hours that fear grows to the size of a monster. The doctors know they will lose their weak ones, the ones already near death, in these empty, unfriendly hours. The tyrants know that it is the time to come and hammer on the door and shout your name. The secret police know it is in the hours before dawn that you will finally break. The stockade was silent when he went over the wall, dark and deserted. There were no guards. Angel worked his way around the deep-shadowed wall, getting his bearings again, seeing some things he had not seen the first time.
Stop Angel! (A Frank Angel Western Book 8) Page 10