Find Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #1) (3 page)

It
took him nearly three weeks.

During that time he worked as a teamster for the military at
Fort Larned — some of the older soldiers still called it Camp
Alert, the name the post had been given before the War Between the
States. They gave him a bed in the loft above the sutler’s store, a
big sandstone building with a Dutch barn roof that stood on the
edge of the perimeter, right-angled to the line of officers’
quarters. Larned was a big establishment, bustling day and night
with activity as the soldiers moved in and out on patrol, and
civilians came and went with supplies. Over the weeks, Angel met
most of the local farmers and ranchers, and always asked them the
same question. About three men looking for a horse
ranch.

They
would shake their heads, scratch their ears, screw up their eyes
reflectively. They would go back to their wagons sometimes and ask
their womenfolk. Kids would come around and chant nursery rhymes as
he waited outside ranch houses where he was making some kind of
delivery, and he would ask hired hands, cowboys he met on the open
country. Nobody remembered them.

Then
the third week, he got a break.

He
was hauling some Michigan pine that had been shipped in by rail as
far as Kansas City and then teamed down the Santa Fe Trail to Fort
Dodge. He picked it up at the depot and headed on north up towards
the Heimberger place on Buckner Creek.

Heimberger was a sharp-featured, blond-haired man of about
forty, well built and burned dark brown from the years he had spent
in the open. He had three sons and the five of them made pretty
short work of unloading the pine, which Heimberger was using to
build an extra room on to his three-room shack.

‘
Is
getting rather zmall,’ he said, ‘for us so a lot.’

‘
Erwin!’ called his wife. ‘You bring that young man inside for
some lemonade when you’re finished out there, y’hear?’

‘
That
wife of mine,’ Heimberger smiled, shaking his head. ‘Fifteen years
we are married together, still she calls me like a zmall
boy.’

Angel
grinned. He reckoned the rancher didn’t mind it all that much. They
trooped into the house, welcoming the shade after the hard heat of
the open yard. Mrs. Heimberger was a slender woman, as blonde as
her husband, with a face just short of prettiness. She asked Angel
where he was from and he told her, ‘You worked for Chon Gibbons?
Heimberger asked, his eyebrows going up. ‘Ve heard at the Fort
about what happened there. It was you who … ?’

‘
Yessir, it was me,’ Angel replied. ‘I got to be getting
along.’

He
had had a lot of that. When he asked his questions they always put
it together and then they wanted to know the details. He did not
think he would ever tell anyone the details.

‘
I
feel very … very … ’ Heimberger snapped his fingers in exasperation
when the word would not come.

‘
Guilty, you mean?’ his wife supplied.

‘
Ja,
guiltig— guilty,’ he said. ‘I think I sent those men there.’ He
looked up into Frank Angel’s eyes and fell back from the blazing
light in them. His own eyes widened, and flickered nervously
towards the rifle hanging over the mantelpiece.

‘
I
know nothing of them then,’ he said, holding up a hand as though to
ward off a psychic attack. Angel sat motionless in the chair, his
eyes fixed on the German.

‘
We
had some men come by the house asking for directions to a horse
ranch,’ Mrs. Heimberger explained. ‘We took no real notice of it
then. Only afterwards: we wondered. That was all, we just
wondered.’

‘
Did
they give you any names? Frank Angel asked.

Heimberger shook his head.

‘
No,’
he said. ‘They were chust riding through. They did not stop, even,
for coffee.’

‘
Can
you recall what any of them looked like?’ Angel
persisted.

Heimberger frowned. Then his frown lifted and his face
brightened.

‘
Ja,
I can remember somethings. That one who talked — you remember it,
schatz, the one with the shoulders so.’

‘
Oh,
yes,’ Mrs. Heimberger said. ‘The leader — at least I’d reckon he
was. He was a big man across. Big-chested, heavy set. Black hair
and a beard coming along. Very soft spoken, he was.’

‘
Cravetts,’ Angel said.

‘
What
is that Cravatts?’ Heimberger said.

‘
That
was his name,’ the younger man replied. ‘Cravetts.’

‘
You
know their names?

‘
Three of them. Cravetts. Monsher. And one with an
Italian-sounding name. Barelli, or Tiratti.’

‘
But
the soldiers … ’ Heimbreger said.

‘
Sure, they know,’ Angel replied. ‘But they aren’t about to
tell me. Army business, they say.’

‘
But
you are thinking not,’ Heimberger probed.

‘
I am
thinking not,’ Angel said.

‘
They
were hard ones,’ the rancher pointed out. ‘Not ordinary ranch
hands. Thieves. Guerillas, perhaps, from the War days. You were in
the War?’

‘
In a
way,’ Angel said. He did not elaborate.

‘
Seven of them,’ Mrs. Heimberger said. ‘I remember thinking,
John Gibbons would be pleased if he could sell seven
horses.’

‘
Can
you remember anything else about them?’ pleaded the younger man.
‘Anything at all?’

‘
Well
… ’ The woman frowned, throwing her thoughts back. ‘It was late in
the afternoon. None of them spoke, you see. Only the leader —
Cravetts, you said his name was?’ Angel nodded. ‘There was one with
glasses, I remember that. Wait, now. He called him something.
Denny! That was it. Denny, the one with glasses. Short, a bit on
the flabby side. With glasses. Thick lips. Denny.’

‘
Denny,’ Angel said. ‘Is that all you can
remember?’

‘
I’m
sorry,’ she said. ‘They really didn’t say much, you
see.’

‘
We
would help more if we could,’ her husband added.

‘
Pa,’
one of the boys said. The rancher held up his hand. His sons had
been listening to the whole conversation spellbound. When the
eldest one spoke, his father made the standard parental ‘don’t
interrupt’ sign. ‘But Pa,’ the boy said.

‘
Not
now, Chris,’ he said.

‘
They
said they hadn’t had a drink since Abilene, Pa, I heard them!’
burst out the boy. ‘The one with the squinty eyes.’

Angel
swung around to face the boy. ‘Tell me,’ he said.

‘
I
heard them a-talkin’, the one with the squinty eyes and the
red-haired one.’

‘
You
have not said about this before to me,’ Heimberger
growled.

‘
We
never done talked none about it, Pa,’ Chris said.

‘
Talk
now,’ Heimberger commanded. ‘Tell it all.’

‘
Well, like I said, I was in the barn. Steve and Paul was
milkin’, an’ I heard them fellers ride up. I sorta sneaked behind
the door an’ watched. This squinty-eyed one, on the sorrel, he was
talkin’ to the red-headed one like I told you. The red-headed one
says “I sure could use a drink,” and the squinty-eyed one says
“Yeah, Dick sure is pushin’ us along. We ain’t had a drink since
Abilene”.’

‘
He
used the name Dick?’ Angel said. ‘That would be the
boss?’

‘
Guess so,’ the youngster said.

‘
Anything else?’

‘
Well, nothin’ much, really ... ’ the boy fidgeted.

‘
You
can say it,’ Heimberger said.

‘
Uh
... well ...’

‘
They
was talkin’ ’bout women,’ interjected the youngest of the trio,
Paul. He was about eight. ‘Chris told Steve an’ I heard
him!’

‘
Paul, I’ll larrup you!’ shouted Chris, his face
crimson.

‘
Is
too late arguing,’ Heimberger said. ‘Mutti, better now you leave us
a moment.’

‘
Erwin Heimberger, if you think … ’ Her lips set in a firm
thin line as she saw her husband’s head dip, bull-like. ‘Very
well!’ She marched into her kitchen and they heard the furious
rattle of pans.

‘
Better now you tell me everything,’ Heimberger
said.

‘
He
said — the squinty-eyed one — he said he was gettin’
horny.’

‘
Horny? What is this horny?’

‘
You
know, Pa, like the bull,’ little Paul supplied helpfully.
Heimberger eyed his youngest son balefully. The boy shrank back
behind his older brother, lips trembling halfway between fear and
laughter.

‘
Go
on,’ Angel prompted. ‘It’s okay.’

‘
The
red-headed one said “Milt, if you’re horny after all the pussy you
had in Abilene, I swear to God they ain’t never goin’ to make
enough.” I didn’t understand that bit, but then the squinty-eyed
one said “Little Rosie sure could love a man”. I knew what he meant
then.’

‘
He
called the man with the squint Milt?’

‘
That’s right, mister.’

‘
You
hear anything else? Any other names? Anything at all?’

‘
No
sir, that’s all I heard, honest.’

‘
Enough, I think,’ Heimberger said, heavily. But there was a
light in his eyes and the boys could read it and they grinned.
Angel felt the tug of their affection for each other. It made him
lonely for a moment. Then he got up from the table and drained the
lemonade glass.

‘
Mr.
Heimberger, I don’t know how I’m going to thank you and your
family. But I thank you.’

‘
That
is nothing,’ Heimberger said. ‘You will tell all this to the Army
people?’

‘
I
expect so,’ Angel said noncommittally. ‘I better be moving
on.’

They
came to the door and stood there together as he swung aboard the
wagon and gigged the horses into movement. When he was a long way
from the house he looked back. He thought he could see them all
standing in the yard waving. He turned round and set his face
towards the empty land.

By
nightfall he was back at Fort Larned. Next day he told the teamster
boss he was quitting and drew his pay.

It
was the most money he had ever had in his life.

He
went into the post trader’s store and waited until the proprietor
finished serving a sergeant who was buying some twine.

‘
Howdy, son,’ the storekeeper said. ‘What can I do for
you?’

He
was a swarthy man, with a walrus moustache and liquid brown eyes. A
cigarette dangled from his lips.

‘
I
want to buy a gun,’ Frank Angel said. ‘What can I get for twenty
dollars?’

The
man looked at him for a moment, squinting through the cigarette
smoke. Then he laughed, a short sound like a dog
barking.

‘
Damn
all, I’d say,’ he said. ‘Damn all.’

‘
Haven’t you got anything? Angel asked. ‘It doesn’t have to be
new.’

‘
You’re meanin’ a handgun, I reckon?’ the storekeeper
said.

Frank
Angel nodded. ‘How much is a six-gun?’

The
storekeeper made his barking noise again.

‘
More’n you got, sonny,’ he said. ‘More’n you got.’

The
younger man’s face set. ‘You want to sell me a gun or don’t you?’
he snapped. ‘This isn’t the only trading post in
Kansas.’

The
storekeeper raised his arms in mock alarm. ‘Hey, easy there,
pardner,’ he said wheezily. ‘I was just havin’ a little
fun.’

‘
We’ll say you’ve had it,’ Angel said. ‘Now: you got a gun or
not?’

‘
Wait
a minnit,’ the man said. He went into the storeroom in back of the
building, and Angel heard him rummaging about in there, wheezing,
coughing regularly. After about five minutes the man came out. He
had a wooden box in his hands and he opened it and laid it on the
counter.

‘
There’s this,’ he offered. ‘Needs a little attention, here
an’ there. But it’s a nice handgun.’

Angel
lifted the gun out of the box, where it lay wrapped in an oil-damp
rag. It was an 1860 .44 Army Colt. One of the wooden grips on the
butt was badly cracked and loose to the touch. The 8" barrel was
pitted a little, but not badly. Angel tried the hammer, which
slicked back smoothly, and checking the sights – the nock in the
top of the hammer and the foresight — he found them well-aligned.
The gun had been hard-used but not ruined. He pushed out the
retaining lug and let the chamber slip into his hand, then squinted
up the barrel. It looked clean and unscarred.

‘
Fair,’ he said.

‘
You’re an expert,’ the storekeeper said. There was deep
sarcasm in his voice. Angel ignored it.

‘
How
much?’

‘
Twenty dollars,’ the man said.

‘
You
throw in some powder an’ caps, some tools and moulds, and a
holster, you’ve got a deal,’ Angel said.

‘
Maybe you’d like a horse as well,’ said the storekeeper.
‘What you think this is, some kind o’ charity
organization?’