Find Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #1) (14 page)

Wells
was up and about now, and he spent a lot of time with the Army
telegraphers. Messages flew between Bowie and the Department of
Justice in Washington.

Reports had to be written, investigations set in hand, checks
made. They sweated it out in the barren heat of the Fort waiting
for news and while they did, Wells started to unteach Frank
Angel.

At
first, Angel was skeptical.

‘
Listen to me, Frank,’ Wells told him. ‘You’ve been a fool for
luck. Your luck ran out real fast when you came up against pros who
knew you were coming after them. You’ve got to learn all over
again. How to use a gun is one thing. How to use your head is
another. So far you’ve been doing only the one. It’s time to learn
a few tricks.’

The
first thing he did was to throw away the soft leather holster that
Angel had bought in Silver City.

‘
Dammed dangerous rubbish,’ Wells told him. ‘You could snarl
up you gun in a thing like that so bad you’d never even get it into
action before they cut you to bits.’

He
got an Army holster off one of the officers and went to work on it.
First he cut away with a knife the flap all Army holsters had, and
then he shaped the outer lip so that when the Army Colt was slid
into the holster the trigger guard was completely exposed. Then he
worked on the leather with saddle soap and dubbin until it was
pliable, molding the holster until it was shaped to the gun. He got
a tape measure from the sutler and went to work measuring Angel’s
chest and waist and hips. Then he fashioned, clumsily using the
clawed and paralyzed right hand and cursing his own uselessness as
he did so, a belt rig for the younger man. When he was finished he
started in on a shoulder rig which could be used with the same
holster. Then every day for a week he took the boy out on the flats
at the far side of the Fort and had him practice drawing the gun.
He showed him the standard gunfighter’s repertoire: the fast draw
from the hip, the shoulder-holster draw, the road-agent’s spin, the
border shift. Angel was a good pupil. His naturally fast reflexes
adapted quickly to the new things Wells was teaching him and before
long he was able to draw the Colt faster than Wells’ primitive
timing device; a coin placed on the back of the hand, held forward
at arm’s length was dropped to the ground. As the coin was
released, the draw was made.

Angel
could draw and fire the unloaded six-shooter before the coin hit
the ground ten times out of ten, then twenty times out of
twenty.

‘
So
far, so good,’ Wells grunted. That was as close as he

came
to praise. ‘Now let’s see about shooting.’

Day
after day he ran through the full range of tests that he himself
had to pass every six months as part of his Justice Department
proficiency tests. He would make Angel ride past on horseback at
full gallop, firing at tin cans set along a fence. He would throw
the cans into the air, as high as he could, making Angel turn his
back.

Then
he would rap out the command ‘go!’ and the boy would wheel around
and try to hit the cans in flight. He showed him some of the ways
to get out from under an already drawn gun, the few he
knew.

‘
By
and large,’ he drawled, grinning, ‘there isn’t any way to beat the
drop. A man has a loaded gun pointed at you, all you can do is
stand very still. Wait for your moment, hope one comes. If it
doesn’t … ’ He shrugged. ‘Let’s hope it never happens,’ he said
grimly, gesturing with the shattered right hand and tapping his
crooked leg with the cane he had to use.

Then
when they had finished, they started all over again. He told Angel
about fanning a gun, and why most times it was a damned stupid
thing to do. He gave him long lectures about hideaway guns,
Derringers and over-and-unders, pepperboxes and belt pistols, boot
guns and guns hanging from cords around the neck, tiny guns capable
of being hidden in the pockets of a man’s vest and big guns
attached to the belt on metal swivels and hooks. He told him about
Derringers on elastic cords hanging down sleeves, pocket pistols
hidden between the thighs or inside hard hats. And then they moved
on to rifles.

Wells
gave Angel a complete grounding in them all.

Matchlocks and wheellocks, snaphaunces and Baltic locks, dog
locks and flintlocks, breechloaders and revolving cylinders.
Between themselves and all the officers they came up with a motley
collection of weapons and Wells made Angel use them all. There was
a huge old Hawken muzzle loader nearly as long as Angel himself,
and there was a Remington Rolling-block that the Commanding Officer
used for hunting.

Running flat out and firing as he ran, lying down and
carefully sighting, using the guns on horseback or flat on his
belly in the scrub until his shoulders were a mass of aching
muscles and his ears rang constantly with the flat sound of the
explosions, Frank Angel used them all: the Henry and the Spencer
and the sweetest of them all, the Winchester ’66. He learned the
differences between them, too. The Winchester’s lack of punch and
range, the Henry’s limited magazine capacity, the terrible power of
the single shot Sharp’s ‘Big Fifty’ — all these he knew and
understood, all of them Wells made him field-strip and reassemble,
load and fire until he became not merely proficient but as close to
perfect shooting as Wells felt he could in the time they had.
‘That’s it with the guns,’ he said, one day. ‘Now you’ve got to
learn when not to use them.’

He
gave Frank Angel a good and comprehensive understanding of the laws
of the United States.

Territorial law, Federal law, Army standing orders, the powers
of the District Attorneys, the judges, the law officers. He
explained the difference between a town marshal, who was a
freelance town-tamer hired by a town to keep the place relatively
law-abiding, men like Tom Smith who had run Abilene, or Hickok,
whom Angel had once — it seemed like years ago — met, and the
United States Marshal whose position was a Federal appointment and
who was responsible for the maintenance of Federal law throughout
an entire State or Territory. He told Angel about the powers of
sheriffs, and their antecedence in old English common law, and the
grand juries, whose antecedence was the same. The formation of the
police forces of cities and their duties, the enormous number of
ways in which civilian lawyers could ensure that a criminal known
to be guilty by the officers of the law was never brought to trial.
He explained all this and much more in simple, easily understood
terms, and when Angel grew restive, impatient at so much talk, so
little action, he would then tell him why it was necessary to know
all this.

‘
You
go after Cravetts with a gun in your hand the way you did before,’
he said, ‘and when you get him they’ll hang you.’

‘
I’ll
give him an even break,’ muttered Angel, ‘which is more than he
gave the Gibbonses.’

‘
No
way,’ Wells told him, shaking his head. ‘You got to have a warrant
for the man’s arrest, a reason for trying to take him. He killed
someone, then there’s a warrant for his arrest wherever he did
it.’

‘
Except a Kansas warrant isn’t any damned use at all in
California,’ Angel said bitterly. ‘So my way is the only
way.’

‘
Frank,’ Wells said, ‘you haven’t been listening. Federal law
isn’t hampered by State or Territorial borders ... ’

‘
I
forgot,’ Angel said, ‘you got a warrant on Cravetts for that Army
payroll robbery.’

‘
Which is a Federal offence,’ Wells nodded.

‘
I
forgot,’ Angel repeated. ‘I only want him for what happened at the
Gibbons place.’

‘
I
know that,’ Wells said. ‘But we’ve got to do it my way, Frank. You
can’t take the law into your own hands.’

‘
Can’t I?’ Angel said darkly, and slouched out of the room
into the darkness of the ramada outside. Wells let him go. The
inaction was plaguing Angel. Dammit, he thought, it isn’t making me
any more even-tempered.

What
in the name of sweet charity was the Department doing, taking so
long getting word to them? Ah, he thought, it takes time. Finding
one man in a city who had no reason at all to conceal his presence
there was difficult enough. Finding a man who had every reason not
to want to be found … he shook his head, knowing what the
Department, with its limited resources, was facing.

They
would check everything. Hotel registers, boarding houses,
laundries, electors’ lists, newspapers, shipping line passenger
lists, directory publishers, process servers, anyone who kept
records. But it took time, and time was on Cravetts’ side. The
longer they took to get a lead on him, the more likely it was that
they would never get one.

Two
days later word came in: they had run down Lee Monsher in San
Francisco.

San
Francisco!

Wells
and the man from the District Attorney’s office who met them at the
Ferries were busy exchanging information almost from the moment
they clapped eyes on one another and hardly seemed to notice the
swarming, astonishing city. Frank Angel regarded it all wide-eyed:
it was the first city he had ever been in, and everything was on
such a scale as to make it an astonishing experience.

The
forests of masts in the harbor, growing it seemed thicker and
taller as the ferry had brought them across the bay, the humps and
hills of the town covered as far as the eye could see by one-storey
houses in all colors, white and yellow, red and pink and blue, a
chiaroscuro of hues that became in the bright sunlight a sort of
bright and misty pale blue, beautiful against the green of the
hills. Closer to, it was something else. Opposite the ferries were
the cheap saloons and eating houses, boot-black stands, peanut
vendors, newspaper sellers, candy men, stalls selling shrimp and
crab and lobster, and over them all a clamor of noise such as Angel
had never encountered. They walked up Market Street past buildings
which gradually became more imposing, more permanent. Row upon row
of substantial edifices of one, two, sometimes three storeys height
marched along the busy downtown streets while behind them up the
hills stretched serried rows of wooden houses running over the top
of the heights and down the other side. The D.A.’s man, whose name
was Larry James, told them that San Francisco now had a population
of over 200,000 and it seemed to Angel as if everyone of them was
on the streets. Well-dressed men in stovepipe hats jostled for
space on the sidewalks with roughly-dressed miners.

bearded sailors with bright blue-striped jerseys whistled and
nudged each other when ladies dressed in the height of fashion
paraded past them on the plank sidewalks, their skirts daintily
lifted to avoid the filthy water which spurted up between the
boards as men clumped past. The streets were muddy and potholed and
carriages dashing by often threw up a great splash of water that
spattered passers-by or carriages going in the opposite direction
with a fine spray of mud. Barouches, surreys, coaches, wagons
thronged Market Street, and outside the shops and stores hung trays
displaying ribbons and cloth for dresses. There were signs at every
level the eye moved so that in the end one saw nothing. They passed
palatial marble edifices, some of them looking like Angel’s idea of
a Doge’s palace, which James told them were banks, or office
buildings, or, once in a while, brothels where, he said, only the
finest food and liquor, only the most beautiful young women were to
be found.

‘
You
have to see the other side of the town, too, of course,’ James
remarked. ‘We’ve got dives down on Pacific Street that would make a
Wichita deadfall look like a rest home.’

But
Angel hardly heard him. The city had taken him by the heart, the
glamour, the people, the excitement, the pace of it grabbed his
imagination. All he could think of was going out on the streets,
walking around, seeing it, touching it, hearing it, smelling it,
getting to know the secret comers of it. He watched the people
going by. So many Chinese! So many nationalities: there a swart
Mexican, trousers flared and conchoed like a Tijuana dandy, there
an English sailor with a bright cheery face, a red handkerchief
knotted beneath his chin, over there a coal miner in blue dungarees
and an old shiny black coat, his eyes rimmed by the black rings of
coal dust.

Outside one building he saw men looking at a notice board
marked ‘Help wanted’ and saw requisitions for milkers and
buttermakers and coachmen, tree fellers and day laborers. He soaked
in all these things and many more as they made their way along
Market Street and turned right into Post Street. When they were
settled in James’ office, he got out a folder with some papers in
it and spread them out on his desk for Wells to see. Wells read the
reports of the police investigators and nodded.

‘
Where is he now?’ was all he said.

‘
He’s
got a suite at the Occidental — that’s on Montgomery,’ James
said.

‘
A
suite?’ Wells raised his eyebrows.

‘
He’s
a big spender,’ James said. ‘Must be one of the best customers
they’ve had on the Barbary Coast for years. Every cardsharp, every
brothel — they’ve all had a piece of our friend’s
money.’

‘
The
US Army’s money, you mean,’ Wells gently reminded him.