Kill Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #6) (4 page)

‘
That’s
our boy,’ murmured Angel to his companion. ‘And in trouble like
always.’

For now he recognized the big man with the
unshaven face, and the knowledge brought him no pleasure.

‘
Bob
Blanchard,’ he told himself, ‘and a long way from
Oklahoma.’

Vaughan, standing close to his elbow,
nodded.

‘
Seems
like I recall he was run out of Indian Territory on account of some
difficulties with the Doolin boys.’

‘
More
than likely,’ Angel agreed. ‘You spotted all of them?’

‘
I
reckon,’ Chris said. ‘Two at the door. An’ that scar-faced
hombre
over by the rear
door. He’s got a scattergun, by the way.’

‘
I
noticed,’ Angel replied. ‘What about corpse-face on your
left?’

Chris turned easily back to get
his drink, surreptitiously checking out the
man standing next to him at the bar.
An inordinately thin, tall man, with a curiously grey cast to his
skin, he looked like a walking cadaver. Neither man failed to
notice, however, that he had two holsters, both tied down, or that
his lambent eyes were fixed upon the men at the table with a
curious, strained intentness.

‘
Oh,
yes,’ Chris said, turning back. ‘I think so.’

‘
That’s
all, then.’

‘
You
mean you were hoping there’d be more?’

Before Angel could reply, there was an
interruption. Blanchard slammed his fist down on the table, setting
the coins jingling, stopping the faint hum of conversation in the
saloon as if it had been cut off with a knife.

‘
Goddammit!’ yelled Blanchard. ‘Got you at last, pilgrim!’
He threw down his hand, three aces and two tens, reaching forward
with ham like arms to scoop the huge pot towards himself. His eyes
were alight with triumph and he looked around at the people
standing near the table as though expecting applause.

‘
Sorry,
mister,’ Gates said quietly. He turned his own cards over. Four
kings and a jack. There was an immense silence as Blanchard took in
what Gates had said, then let his popping eyes settle on the cards
Gates had splayed in front of him. Gates himself sat impassive, his
hands resting flat on the table.

A strange light nickered in
Blanchard
’s
eyes. He looked to right and then to left and although those
watching saw no signal, both Angel and Vaughan knew he had tipped
the wink to his two
compadres,
the one by the rear door and the cadaverous one at the
bar.

‘
You
got the luck, mister,’ Blanchard rumbled.

‘
Seems
like,’ Gates agreed. ‘Another hand?’

‘
I
reckon not,’ Blanchard said. ‘Seems to me like these cards is a
mite too educated for my taste.’

‘
Meaning?’ Gates’ voice had gone suddenly cold and there was
a rapid shuffling of feet as people tried to get out of the line of
any possible shooting.

‘
Aw,
nothin’ personal, feller,’ Blanchard said. ‘Lissen, I got a
proposition. How’s about you an’ me cut the cards double or
nothin’? I reckon yo’re inta me fer about two hundred. What you
say?’

‘
It’s
your money,’ Gates said. ‘You want to play sudden-death cards it’s
fine with me. What’ll it be?’

‘
What
yu reckon’s on the table, then?’ Blanchard asked. If Gates could
see the open hatred on Blanchard’s face, the sneering insolence in
the voice, he gave no sign. His voice was as mild as ever when he
replied.

‘
About
five hundred, I’d say.’

‘
Fine,
fine,’ Blanchard said. ‘Let’s cut the cards.’

‘
Not so
fast,’ Gates interjected. ‘Put your money up first.’

‘
You’ll
take my note, o’ course?’

‘
Of
course ... not,’ said Gates emphatically. He reached forward to
take in the money and as he did so, Blanchard’s hand clamped down
on his arm.

‘
Leave
it be, sonny,’ he said.

Gates looked up, his eyebrows rising
slightly. Then he leaned back in his chair, and held the lapels of
his jacket with both hands. He looked at Blanchard hard.

‘
You
don’t think I’m going to let you get away with that, do you?’ he
said quietly.

Blanchard grinned evilly.

‘
I
know
you are, sonny,’ he said. He nodded towards the man at the
bar, and the one at the rear door stepped forward. The sound of the
twin hammers going back on the shotgun was slick and clear in the
silence. Blanchard reached forward to take the money and then he
suddenly froze, a curious, almost apoplectic expression freezing
his grin into a rictus of astonishment. The cold pressure on his
neck could only be one thing: the barrel of a gun. Behind him Angel
spoke.

‘
Tell
your friend to ease the hammers down on that scattergun, Bob,’ he
said quietly. ‘Or I’ll blow your head clear into Texas.’

The cadaverous man at the bar started to
move forward. He, too, froze in unwilling disbelief as a quiet
voice at his ear whispered:

‘
Forget
it.’

He turned to see Chris Vaughan
looking at him pleasantly, a slight smile touching his lips. There
was nothing friendly about the
leveled six-gun in Vaughan’s hand, however, and
the cadaverous one let his shoulders drop about two inches, easing
back his weight on his heels again. His hands moved carefully away
from the twin guns and his eyes shuttled from Blanchard to Vaughan
to Angel and then back again to Blanchard. Gates had looked up and
seen his saviors and a wide grin split his friendly face. He
started to pick up the money, stuffing it into his pockets. Angel
stepped back away from Blanchard, the gun still ready. Gates came
around the table and joined them, and the trio started for the
door.

‘
Don’t
forget,’ said Vaughan, gesturing with his chin towards the
door.

‘
As if
I would,’ Angel replied.

He walked without haste towards the door and
stuck his head out.

‘
Bob
wants you,’ he whispered urgently.

One of the two men cursed and both of them
turned to hurry in, their hands ready by their guns. Vaughan was
waiting for them as they came in.

‘
Evenin’,’ he said. He pole axed one of them and the other
whirled, his hand going for the gun just as Angel rapped him neatly
behind the ear with the barrel of his six-gun. In that moment,
however, Blanchard made his move. With a speed astonishing in one
so big, he threw himself backwards, kicking the table forward,
making a shield of it.

‘
Get
him, Don!’ he yelled.

The cadaverous one with the two
guns moved like a snake, his hands stabbing for the
six-guns tethered at
his hips, and the man at the rear door cut loose simultaneously
with the shotgun. The air was filled with the whickering whistle of
lead dicing through the space which Angel and Vaughan had occupied
seconds before. They were already in action, having dropped to the
packed dirt floor, rolling aside from the path of the scything
lead. Gates vaulted across another table, ending up neatly with his
back to a corner of the room, and almost simultaneously the three
men opened fire.

Vaughan
’s shot took the man with the shotgun
very neatly about two inches below the breastbone. Angel’s unerring
bullets smashed the cadaverous one, Don, back dead against the bar.
Gates, whose view of Blanchard was completely unimpeded, drove
three bullets into the black-bearded man as he brought his gun into
use. Blanchard went down kicking behind the table he had knocked
over. The whole thing took about seven seconds.

Smoke
drifted slowly across the saloon. Men
began to rise from the floor, from behind furniture, their eyes
wide at the terrible carnage. There were five bodies on the floor.
They looked at the three men who had wrought this havoc, and
watched as Angel, Vaughan and Gates stepped backwards towards the
doorway.

‘
Thank
you for a lovely evening,’ Gates told the bug-eyed
onlookers.

‘
Sorry
we can’t stay longer,’ Vaughan added. They grinned at each other
like school kids.

‘
Let’s
go,’ Angel said.

Five minutes later they thundered out of
Daranga, heading south for the New Mexico line.

They crossed into Sonora just east of Agua
Prieta.

They came down out of the
Pedregosas, bearded
as bandits, and found a little village where they could get rooms
above the cantina. A long-haired, sloe-eyed Mexican girl served
them drinks, switching her hips as she walked barefoot to the rough
bar, conscious of the stare of the strangers.

‘
I
might get to like Mexico,’ Vaughan observed offhandedly, ‘if the
rest’f it’s like this.’

‘
Good
place,’ Gates nodded. ‘Sleep upstairs, liquor downstairs, chickens
in the yard, no worries. Wonder if she’s got a big
sister?’

‘
More
likely she’s got a big brother,’ Vaughan said. ‘With our
luck.’

They went through the ritual
with the salt and lemon and drank some of
the tequila. Vaughan
gasped.

‘
Chihuahua,’
he said. ‘To think I’ve been wasting all these years
getting rust off of guns with acid and emery cloth.’

They ordered more drinks and Vaughan smiled
ingratiatingly at the girl as she brought them.

‘
Yes,’
he said. ‘More I think of it, the more I reckon we’d be crazy to go
any further. This must be the place.’

‘
What
about the girl who brings you buttermilk and honey?’ Angel
said.

‘
Girl?’
Vaughan said. ‘I don’t recall any girl.’

‘
He’s
cut his picket pin,’ Gates explained. ‘He’s goin’
native.’

‘
A man
could do worse,’ Vaughan said.

‘
Wait
till you see her Mama,’ Gates said and Vaughan fell
silent.

After a moment he looked up at Angel.

‘
All
right,’ he said. ‘You goin’ to tell us now?’

‘
Good a
time as any,’ Angel said.

‘
Tell
us the plan,
mi
coronel,’ Vaughan said. ‘Eet is time.’

Angel told them.

They were silent for a moment and then Gates
looked at Vaughan.

‘
Told
you,’ he said. Vaughan nodded.

‘
Had to
happen,’ he replied.

‘
Allus
knew it would,’ Gates grinned. ‘He finally snapped.’

‘
All
that fancy Eastern living, maybe,’ Vaughan postulated.

‘
Could
be,’ Gates said with a rueful look. ‘You’d never know by lookin’ at
him.’

‘
Nevertheless, Doctor, if he is not put somewhere safe he
might run amok at any moment.’

‘
You’re
right, of course,’ Gates said. ‘The rubber-lined room?’

‘
Yes,
yes, and no excitement,’ Vaughan added.

‘
It’ll
take years,’ Gates said.

‘
Better
for the world than that he be allowed to walk around loose,’
Vaughan said portentously.

‘
Cut it
out,’ Angel said, smiling. ‘It’ll work.’

‘
It’ll
work all right, capitano,’ Vaughan said, serious now. ‘That’s what
scares the shit out of me.’

‘
One
thing to have the Blantines kind of happen to you, Frank,’ Gates
ventured. ‘Another bowl o’ sucama-growl to actually invite
it.’

‘
Let’s
get some more of that tonsil paint,’ Vaughan said. ‘I get the
feeling I’m going to need it.’

‘
You’ve
thought this through,’ Gates asked. It wasn’t really a question. He
knew Angel well enough to know that.

‘
Yes,’
Angel said. ‘Yancey Blantine has got to stand trial. Killing him
won’t do. He has to be seen to be tried, convicted, and
hung.’

‘
I’d
rather just sneak up an’ kill him then run like hell,’ Vaughan
said.

‘
Me,
too,’ Gates added. ‘Them sons o’ his could be some unpleasant if
they took it into their heads.’

‘
And
they would,’ Vaughan said. ‘They would.’

‘
You
don’t have to do it,’ Angel said.

‘
That’s
right,’ Vaughan nodded. ‘That’s absolutely right. We don’t have to
do it.’