Find Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #1) (2 page)
Read Find Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #1) Online
Authors: Frederick H. Christian
Tags: #texas, #old west, #western fiction, #zane grey, #louis lamour, #william w johnstone, #ben bridges, #mike stotter, #piccadilly publishing, #max brand, #neil hunter, #hank j kirby, #james w marvin, #frederick h christian, #the wild west, #frank angel
‘
Mr.
Gibbons!’ he yelled. ‘Dave!’
Nothing moved except the lancing fingers of flame that crept
greedily up the charring walls of the house. He ran towards the
door and was again beaten back by the flames. He heard the fizzing
hiss as his hair singed and then he ran flat out across the yard to
the barn. By the door of the barn he saw the dead body of Dave Pugh
lying in a sticky pool of blood covered in swarming
flies.
He
ran on past Pugh’s body and into the barn, grabbing a horse blanket
which he dunked into the horse trough.
Wrapping it around his head and shoulders he ran back to the
house and charged into the flaming doorway. The big living-room was
full of smoke and he began to cough rackingly as it bit into his
lungs. He felt the scorching heat of the flames as he breathed and
all the oxygen went out of his chest. He stumbled and fell to the
floor, and then he saw the bodies in the corner of the room, like a
carelessly piled jumble of dirty laundry. The sound of the flames
was a constant roar and his eyes were streaming. Lying flat on his
belly he scrambled across the floor, steam billowing off the wet
blanket. John Gibbons was quite dead; there was a gaping hole in
his back where the bullet had exited. He could not tell if Mrs.
Gibbons was dead or not. Her clothes were torn and her body was
bloody but he could not find any wound. He took hold of her feet
and started to drag her towards the door. His head was light and he
could hear a high whining noise.
It
took him a minute to realize he was making it himself.
The
shirt on his back was starting to shoulder and his skin was burning
off, he could feel it scorching.
Coughing, retching, blind with sticky eyes that no longer
could weep, he dragged the woman’s body to the door and then across
the lintel. Her hair was singed short and blackened at the ends.
There were blisters on her skin and he could feel the slippery
liquidity of his own burned hands as they touched the bare earth of
the yard. He dragged the woman out into the open without quite
knowing how he did it; pulling her unceremoniously away from the
flames, out into the open.
He
managed to get to his feet, his whole body heaving and retching to
get oxygen into his lungs, and staggered across to the watering
trough, half falling into it. The sudden biting coolness of the
water shocked him back into consciousness, and he heard the hiss as
the burning wool of his shirt was extinguished. He lay in the
blessed chill of the water until his head began to clear and then
he got up and tried to walk across to where Stella Gibbons lay. Now
he saw her clearly for the first time and realized she was almost
naked. He saw the bloody rags of clothing at her crotch and he saw
her trying to sit up, her face contorted into a straining mask, the
light of pure madness in her eyes as she screamed. Angel’s head was
light and he thought he must have gone deaf because he could see
her stretching her hand towards him and screaming and yet he could
hear no sound coming from her. Yet he could hear the terrible
crackling of the burning house and then he knew what had happened
and as he realized it he started to run towards her and halfway
there he slipped straight down into unconsciousness and crumpled in
a heap upon the ground.
‘
He’s
coming round.’
No
I’m not, Angel thought petulantly. No I ’m not.
But
he came on up out of the darkness and felt the pain for the first
time, alive and pure white and just below the threshold of
unbearability all over his body: his back, his shoulders, arms and
hands. He opened his eyes.
A
bed. He moved his head right and left. Beds. A hospital. Then it
all came back and he knew where he was and he lifted his head to
look at the Army uniforms, the Post Surgeon standing at the end of
the bed, the orderly with the medical chart in his hands taking
notes.
‘
How
are you feeling, young man?’ the doctor asked.
‘
All
right, I guess,’ Angel said. Then he remembered more and said ‘Mrs.
Gibbons! Is she — ’
The
Army man shook his head. ‘You’ve been out for two days, son. Mrs.
Gibbons died the night we brought her in here.’
Angel
shook his head. The memory would not go away: the straining face,
the empty eyes, that soundless, awful scream ...
‘
Did
she — ’ He stopped himself There was no way she could have
talked.
He
tried again.
‘
Did
you find out what happened?’
The
Army doctor nodded. ‘Mrs. Gibbons tried to write a little of it
down. We were able to piece it together from what we found out
there.’
‘
How
did you — ’
‘
Son,
people in this country see smoke they know it’s trouble,’ the
doctor said. ‘Al Woodward damn’ near killed a team of horses
getting to the Gibbons place. Found you and the woman laying in the
yard more dead than alive, and got you over here as fast as he
could travel. You owe him your life: if you’d lain out there much
longer you’d have died from exposure.’
‘
How
badly am I hurt?’ Angel asked.
‘
Some
bad burning on your back,’ the doctor said. ‘Nothing too serious.
How old are you, son?’
‘
Twenty,’ Angel said. ‘Why?’
‘
You’re young,’ the soldier replied. ‘Your skin will heal
fast. We’ll have you up and about in a week or so.’
‘
A
week or so!’ burst out Angel. ‘I want to be out of here faster than
that. Whoever burned the ranch — ’
‘
We
know who they were, boy. I told you, Mrs. Gibbons tried to write
down what she could. We’ve got patrols out now scouring the country
for them. Don’t worry, they’ll not get far.’
‘
You
want to tell me what happened? Angel said.
The
doctor nodded. ‘Don’t see why not. After what you did back there, I
reckon you deserve that, if we can’t get you a medal.’
‘
Skip
the medal,’ Angel said.
The
Army surgeon nodded. Then he outlined the meager facts that they
had been able to get from Stella Gibbons before she died. She had
named the men as well as she could from memory. Told how they
killed her husband and Dave Pugh. Then what they had done to
her.
‘
Savages!’ ground out the doctor. ‘If it was Indians, I could
understand it. But white men!’
‘
They
slit her tongue?’
‘
To
stop her screaming while they raped her, I suppose,’ said the
doctor. ‘Then they set fire to the house and just tossed her in to
burn alive.’ He shook his head again, pounding a fist into his
palm. ‘Savages!’
‘
They
were after the horses?’
‘
That’s our reading of it, son. They left behind some pretty
broken-down animals — probably stolen, too. If we can get a line on
them, we may know more about the men who stole them. All we got
right now is some names, and we’re not altogether sure how accurate
they are.’
‘
I
want you to write them down for me,’ Angel said.
‘
Sure, I — what for?’ the doctor checked himself. ‘If you’ve
got any ideas of going after those men — ’
‘
Just
get me the names,’ Angel said.
‘
No
way,’ replied the soldier. ‘The Army will handle this.’
‘
Sure,’ Angel said. ‘When can I get up?’
‘
Let’s wait a few more days and see, shall we?’ said the
doctor, cheerfully. ‘You’ve got to get some strength back into your
legs first. Now take a sip of this.’ He poured some liquid into a
cup and added water. It had a violet color.
‘
What’s that?’ Angel said.
‘
Just
drink it,’ urged the doctor, watching as Angel gulped it down. He
nodded. ‘Good,’ he said, and pulled his watch from his fob pocket,
watching Angel as he did so. Angel felt an undertow of tiredness.
It was like mist coming up from the river bottoms on a November
night.
Each
time you shifted your eyes, it seemed to have come closer without
moving at all. He looked at the doctor, who was smiling.
‘
You
bastard,’ Angel said, and slid down into sleep as the doctor put
the laudanum back into his bag. He beckoned the orderly
across.
‘
He’ll be out until about noon tomorrow,’ he said. ‘When he
comes to, don’t talk with him about — what happened.’
‘
Yessir,’ said the orderly, wondering if the doctor would ever
get the message that running the Post Hospital and tending to the
patients and acting as assistant vet was a full time job and if
anyone thought he had time to stand around chattering with
fresh-faced farm kids who wouldn’t know their asses from holes in
the ground then he had another think coming.
After
a week, Frank Angel was fit enough to ride.
He
thanked the doctor for his care, and the old man grinned the thanks
away.
‘
I
trust you’ve gotten over that stupid idea you had of going after
those bandits,’ he said. Angel nodded.
‘
Hell, yes,’ he said. ‘What could I do, anyway? I don’t even
own a gun.’
‘
That’s the sensible way to look at it, son,’ the doctor
assured him. ‘They’re bad medicine. The way we have it, they robbed
the Paymaster at Fort Riley, killed five men doing it. Them horses
we found at the Gibbons place were stolen from up Zanedale way. So
they’re not only on the run from the local law, they’re on the run
from the United States Army and the Department of Justice as
well.’
‘
Department of Justice?’ Angel asked, raising his
eyebrows.
‘
Sure, son, the Justice Department is responsible for the
prosecution of all cases involving the breaking of Federal law.
Robbing an Army payroll is a Federal offence. Those fellows have
got every lawman in the country on their tails.’
‘
They’ll be long gone out of Kansas now,’ Angel said,
reflectively. ‘New Mexico, maybe, or Arizona. Who
knows?’
‘
Don’t you fret, boy. They’ll be caught. And hanged. John
Gibbons was too good a man.’
‘
I
know,’ Angel said, quietly. ‘He was the nearest thing to a father I
ever had.’
The
doctor nodded, then harrumphed.
‘
What
are you going to do now, may I ask?’
Angel
shook his head. ‘Find me another job someplace,’ he said. ‘There’s
plenty of work around. Railroad’ll be coming through in another
year or two.’
‘
Well,’ said the doctor. ‘Well. If there’s anything I —
’
‘
Thanks, doc, you already did plenty,’ Angel
smiled.
He
extended his hand and the gruff old Army man shook it.
‘
Come
back and see me anytime,’ he said, ‘as long as it’s on your own two
feet!’ Then, almost abruptly, he turned and marched away, his spine
erect and soldierly as he crossed the parade ground and went into
the officers’ quarters on the west side of the Fort.
Frank
Angel led his horse up the street to the sutler’s store and went
inside. He found Al Woodward sitting at a table, a drink of beer in
front of him.
‘
Mr.
Woodward,’ Angel said. ‘I wanted to thank you.’
‘
You’re damned welcome, boy,’ Woodward said. ‘Glad I was able
to help out.’ He shook his head. ‘Those filthy
bastards!’
‘
It
must have been pretty bad for you, bringing Mrs. Gibbons in the way
you did,’ Angel said quietly. ‘I wish I could have done
it.’
‘
You
did more than enough, boy,’ Woodward said.
‘
But
I’d sure like to get my hands on that Cravetts jasper. I’d tie
knots in his stinking neck!’
‘
Cravetts?’ Angel said.
‘
Yeah, sure,’ Woodward said. ‘He’s the one Stella — Mrs.
Gibbons — said was in charge of them bravos.’
‘
I
never heard the name before,’ Angel said. ‘How come they’d pick on
the Gibbons place?’
‘
Beats me, son,’ Woodward said. ‘Way I figger her, they
stopped someplace an’ asked the whereabouts of a horse ranch.
Someone told ’em that Gibbons raised hosses, an’ that was
that.’
‘
Cravetts,’ repeated Angel. ‘Did she — Mrs. Gibbons — give any
idea what he looked like?’
‘
I
don’t know, Frank,’ Woodward said. ‘The sojer boys took all the
notes. I just heard some scuttlebutt in the store,
here.’
‘
What
else?’ Angel insisted.
‘
Nothin’ really,’ Woodward said. ‘Couple o’ names. That
Cravetts. Feller named Monsher what had tow-hair an’ a Southern
accent. An’ some Eye-talian name like Barelli, Tiratti, somethin’
like that.’ He swung to face the younger man, his eyes bleary with
the beer. ‘You wanna beer?’ he asked. Angel shook his head.
Woodward got lumberingly to his feet and said ‘I got to get another
beer. Keep seein’ that girl’s face ... ’ He shook his
head.
‘
Mr.
Woodward, I got to be going,’ Frank Angel said.
‘
Sure, boy,’ Woodward said, and lurched off to the counter.
Frank Angel went out into the bright sunlight and stood there for a
long minute, watching the busy formalities of the military post.
Fort Dodge was still quite new fort; when he had come out to this
part of the country in ’66, they were still finishing it
off.
Frank
Angel took stock of himself. He had a horse and saddle. He had a
set of hand-me-down clothes that had been found for him on the
Fort. He had some money — a few dollars, no more. And three
names.
It
was enough to make a start on.
He
climbed into the saddle and pointed the pony north.
That
night he was in Fort Larned.
