He went over the side and hit the dirt.
Through the thunder of the shots he heard a high shrieking screech that went on and on as he rolled over and over through the roiling dust toward the partial shelter of a water trough outside one of the buildings on the left hand side of the street. The roan was on its back in the dust, arching its spine upward, legs flailing as it died in agony. Angel was already coming up on one knee with a gun in his hand. There was a numbness in his left hip that he had no time to try to identify, for now three men were coming out of the alley running, silhouetted briefly against the yellow lights, their guns snapping at him.
He heard a hoarse shout from somewhere up the street, the startled scream of a woman as he emptied his sixgun at the darker knot of movement where he calculated the running men would be, and he heard a sharp shout of sudden pain.
Desperately he thumbed shells through the loading gate of the Colt, eyes wary as a cornered cat, listening to the fading thump of running feet. There were no more shots and for a long minute the silence was immense. He could hear the kicked-up dust sifting sibilantly back to earth. The roan was already dead, a bulky blackness in the dark street. He thought he could see a small dark huddled shape beyond the horse, but he did not move, staying hunched down, the sixgun tilted and cocked ready, watching and watching.
There was commotion up the street and now he could see a group of men coming forward into the street from the well-lit porch of the saloon. One of them was a tall, heavily built man wearing a dark business suit with the pants tucked into high English-style riding boots. As the man strode down the street, light from a window glinted on the star pinned to the lapel of his coat. He holstered his sixgun and rose slowly from behind the water trough and, as he did, the man with the star whirled to face him, his hand coming up full of gun. Angel froze solid.
‘Hold it right there, sonny,’ the marshal snapped. There was a frayed edge of tension in his voice, and Angel tried very hard not to move a muscle. This middle-aged man with the drooping walrus mustache was strung up tighter than a banjo. If someone coughed he might pull the trigger of that enormous looking Navy Colt.
‘Andy, you git that feller’s gun!’ the marshal said. One of the men behind him sidled toward Angel. The others fanned out in a half circle.
‘Take it easy there, marshal,’ Angel called. ‘I’m the one got bushwhacked!’
‘As to that,’ the lawman retorted, ‘we’ll see. Andy, you hustle him over to my office. Two of you men bring that other feller. Easy with him, now. He ain’t dead yet by the look of him. Somebody send for the Doc.’
The one called Andy was a short, weedy man with wispy blond hair and a weak mouth with cupid-bow lips that he licked nervously as he came up behind Angel. He wore ordinary blue denim pants and a dark shirt and he hefted the sawed-off shotgun he was holding like a man who’d love to be given an excuse to use it.
‘All right,’ he said sibilantly. ‘Unbuckle the gun belt. Then step away from it.’
Angel did as he was bid. There was no percentage in bucking a man with a riot gun. Without taking his eyes off Angel, Andy scooped the belt and gun up off the ground, and gestured with the shotgun.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Jest walk on up ahead o’ me, nice an’ quiet-like.’
‘Listen,’ Angel said.
‘Walk, boy,’ Andy said, and prodded him with the shotgun.
Angel shrugged and led the way up the street. People were spilling out of the saloons and the eating-houses. They lined the sidewalk, gawking at him as he went by, then at the group of men headed by the marshal, whose two helpers were carrying the wounded man on a makeshift stretcher. ‘Who got shot?’ they shouted.
‘What the hell happened down there, Ray?’ they called.
‘Who’s the big feller, Andy?’ they yelled.
The marshal ignored them. He walked up the center of the littered street looking neither to the right nor to the left, and turned into the frame shack that was his office. Andy brought in Angel, and lifted his right buttock onto a corner of the marshal’s desk, covering the prisoner with the shotgun in a hostile, angry attitude. The marshal slid into his chair and regarded the prisoner with disfavor.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s hear your story.’
‘No story,’ Angel said. ‘Marshal—?’
‘Name’s Compton, son,’ the marshal said. He was not a young man, and he had the self-satisfied look of a small businessman who has done rather well for himself in an unspectacular way. Angel put his age at around fifty, and understood now the marshal’s nervous tension out in the street. Probably never expected to have to pull a gun in anger, he thought, and it came as a shock to him when he had to.
‘I was just riding in,’ he told the lawman. ‘I got level with the alley down the street there, and the next thing I knew my horse was gut-shot and three men were trying to kill me.’
‘For no particular reason, of course,’ Compton said heavily. ‘Just didn’t like the way you sat in the saddle, I suppose?’
‘Look, Marshal,’ Angel said patiently, ‘I was never here before in my life. Don’t know a soul in town. Listen, how about letting me see the wounded man. Maybe he can throw some light on this.’
‘Ain’t likely,’ Compton said. ‘He croaked halfway up the street an’ no wonder—you put three bullets through his belly.’
‘I was trying to stay alive,’ Angel said reasonably. ‘Can I see him?’
‘No hurry,’ Compton said. ‘He ain’t going no place.’
‘No,’ Angel said, sensing what was coming. ‘But I am.’
‘As to that,’ Compton said, ‘we’ll see. First you answer a few o’ my questions.’ He looked up from beneath his heavy eyebrows and put an edge on his voice. ‘An’ answer me straight, boy,’ he added. ‘I been known to keep fellers who lied to me locked up months at a time.’
The deputy, Andy, sniggered.
‘Months at a time, boy,’ he parroted.
Angel felt his temper surge and checked it before it showed. A show of temper was just what Compton wanted, so he could show his authority, kick his prisoner into the hoosegow, and forget him until he was prepared to eat dirt. No one knew Angel was here, so no one would come looking for him if he got himself thrown into Canon City’s undoubtedly unpleasant jail. He could rot in this wide spot in the road while Falco and his men got clear out of Colorado Territory. Easy, he told himself, take it easy.
‘Name?’ Compton asked, licking on the stub of a pencil.
‘Frank Angel,’ Angel replied. He had already set his mind to work on the problem of who had tried to assassinate him. The only obvious answer was Falco and his men. Except for one thing: there was no way they could have known he was coming to Canon City. Unless …
‘You say Angel?’ Compton said, incredulously.
‘Holy shee-hit!’ Andy added.
‘Angel,’ the prisoner repeated. ‘Frank Angel. And I’ve heard all the jokes about wings and haloes and heaven, Marshal.’
‘Angel,’ Compton repeated. ‘Well, I’ll be damned.’
Angel’s attention wasn’t even on him; the prisoner was still busy on the problem he had set himself. There was just one way Falco and his men could have known he was coming. And if it was true …
‘Marshal,’ he said, urgency in his voice now. ‘Is there a telegraph office in town?’
‘Why, sure thing,’ Compton said, the sarcasm larding his tone. ‘Not to mention the Turkish baths an’ the Japanese massoosies an’ them two duchesses workin’ in the cathouse.’
‘Haw, haw, haw,’ Andy said, without an ounce of humor in his voice.
‘Listen, Marshal, I’m serious,’ Angel said.
‘Me, too, sonny,’ Compton said. ‘Now what part o’ the country you from? You sure as hell ain’t from ’round here.’
‘Washington,’ Angel said. Without thinking he reached for the secret pocket in his belt and as he did so Andy came off the corner of the desk in a fast, ugly movement, jamming the wicked double mouth of the shotgun into Angel’s belly hard enough to make his teeth click.
‘You better take it right easy, sonny,’ Compton said, leaning back in his chair. ‘Or Andy thar’s liable to blow you forty ways to Sunday.’
‘Bet your ass!’ hissed the deputy.
‘Listen,’ Angel said, looking past Andy at the marshal. ‘In my belt is a badge. I want to show it to you.’
‘Let him get his badge, Andy,’ the marshal said. Reluctantly, the deputy eased back on the pressure, and Angel took out the silver badge. It made a bright, ringing sound as he tossed it on to the marshal’s desk. Compton looked at the screaming eagle, the circular seal with the words Department of Justice, and pushed it away with one finger, unimpressed.
‘You could’ve stole that,’ he pointed out.
‘All right,’ Angel said. This time he brought out his Special Commission and unfolded it, spreading it out flat on the desk beneath the oil lamp where the marshal could see what it said.
Know all men by these presents that Frank Warren Angel, holding the office of special investigator, Department of Justice, is empowered by the president of the United States to act for and represent the attorney general in all matters of concern to his department.
In his capacity, the aforesaid Frank Warren Angel may take any action that he sees fit to maintain civil or military law and order, this to include where necessary the convening of grand juries, the holding of special courts, the empanelment of juries, the subpoena of witnesses and the conducting of general courts-martial He is also empowered to supervene the authority of any officer of the law, civil, or military, territorial or federal, where he so desires. All United States citizens, all officers of the law both federal and territorial are requested and required to render him such assistance and support as he may demand in the performance of his duties.
It was signed by the president of the United States, and countersigned by his attorney general. The marshal sighed as he finished reading it.
‘Andy,’ he said. ‘Put that damned gun away.’
He got up and came around his desk, his hands spread in a placating gesture.
‘I’m sorry, Mr. Angel,’ he said. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Hey,’ Andy said. ‘What the hell is this?’
‘Shut your mouth, Andy,’ Compton said, pleasantly. Andy shut his face like a trap, his ratty eyes burning with the fury behind them.
‘The dead man,’ Angel said. ‘I want to take a look at him. Then I need a horse—the best you can lay your hands on.’
‘That all?’
‘If I think of anything, I’ll let you know,’ Angel said. He gestured for Compton to precede him out of the office, ignoring the glowering eyes of the deputy and wondering what he had done to provoke the man’s hatred. They crossed the street to a white-painted frame shack with a low picket fence around a small kitchen garden in front of it. There was a light over the porch and Angel waited as the marshal knocked on the door. It was opened by a gray-haired, cadaverous-looking man with eyes that looked as if they had witnessed every conceivable human aberration and still found compassion possible. The deep-set eyes moved from the marshal’s face to Angel’s and back again.
‘Ray,’ the man said. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Like to take a look at that dead man, Doc,’ Compton said. ‘This here’s Mr. Frank Angel. He’s from the Department of Justice in Washington. Angel, this is Doc Napier.’
‘Hi, Doc,’ Angel said softly.
‘Hi yourself,’ Napier said, looking more closely at him. ‘Aren’t you the one who—?’
‘He is,’ Compton said, tersely, and led the way into the hallway. There were two green-painted doors on both sides of the narrow passage, and the marshal opened the first one on the left. Inside it was the unadorned room which Napier used for a surgery. Angel smelled the fish-honey taint of death, and the sharper stink of formaldehyde. On a plain plank table lay the dead man, already stripped naked by the doctor for his examination. The three bullet wounds in the man’s belly looked as if someone had spilled violet ink on his skin.
‘Davy Livermoor,’ Angel said softly. ‘He’ll steal no more herd money.’
‘How’s that?’ Compton asked, sharply.
‘His name’s Davy Livermoor,’ Angel said. ‘He’s wanted down Fort Worth way for stealing the price of a herd he took up to Sedalia. Likely there’ll be a reward out for him.’
‘Which no doubt you’ll be claimin’,’ sneered Compton. He faltered as Angel turned and just looked levelly at him for a long moment.
‘I don’t have the time,’ Angel said softly. ‘How about the horse as a trade.’
‘Well, as to that,’ Compton said. ‘You got a deal.’
He hurried out of Napier’s house, and Angel watched as the doctor replaced the sheet over the still form of Davy Livermoor.
‘You have to forgive Ray, Mr. Angel,’ Napier said. ‘He’s what you would call a man who stoops to every challenge.’ There was no condescension in his voice, just a soft sadness at all folly.
‘Forget it, Doc,’ Angel said. ‘Life’s too short to take offense at that kind of opacity. Listen, I need some information about that one’s sidekicks.’ He jerked his chin toward the surgery. ‘Where’s my best place to get it?’
‘Over at the Eldorado,’ Napier told him. ‘That’s our local bull pen. Or ask Andy Wheatcroft, Ray’s deputy. There isn’t much goes on in town he doesn’t know about.’
‘I may do that,’ Angel said, not commenting on Compton’s deputy who, if his expression when last Angel saw him had been anything to go by, wouldn’t have given Frank Angel typhus without making him pay for it.
‘Tell Compton where I am, will you?’
He shook hands with the doctor and walked out into the street. Canon City was back to dull normality. One or two horsemen moving up the street. The sound of a badly tuned piano being played in the saloon. A woman laughing softly somewhere in the darkness. He got to the Eldorado and pushed in through the batwings. It was a big square place, one room with a bar down the right hand side. On the left were some tables and chairs, and at the back of the room there was a chuckaluck wheel and a faro layout. The place was half-empty, maybe ten or fifteen men sitting around, three more at the bar. One of them, his boot heel hooked on the brass rail, was Compton’s deputy Andy Wheatcroft.
‘Beer,’ he told the bartender, ‘and maybe you could give me some information.’
‘Beer, coming up,’ the bartender said. He was a little fellow with pudgy hands and black, button-bright eyes. His hair was pasted in greasy strands across the balding dome of his head, and his bushy sideburns were heavily pomaded. He smelled, Angel thought, like Saturday night at the whorehouse in Mexico City. ‘As to information,’ the bartender continued, ‘that’s another thing again.’
‘You heard about the fracas outside,’ Angel said. It wasn’t a question. The bartender looked uneasily toward Andy Wheatcroft. The deputy wasn’t even looking in his direction, but he was listening to what was said.
‘Sure,’ the bartender nodded. ‘Sure. Who didn’t?’
‘You know the man who got killed?’ Angel asked. ‘Ever see him?’
‘I don’t know who got killed,’ the bartender said. ‘I never seen it.’
‘He was one of a group who were in here, yesterday, maybe even today,’ Angel said. ‘One of them was a kid, tow-headed. Pale blue shirt and tight fitting fawn pants. You’d remember him. Another was a German. Scarred face, like he’d been in a knife fight. Cropped hair. You recall them?’
The bartender nodded nervously, like a bird pecking up crumbs.
‘Sure, sure,’ he said. ‘Them fellers. Who could forget?’
‘When were they in here?’
‘Oh, a couple of times,’ the bartender said. ‘They were in here yesterday, the day before that. You know.’
‘I don’t suppose,’ Angel said, ‘you heard them say anything about where they might be heading?’
‘Nope,’ the bartender said, shaking his head. ‘Nothing.’ He looked very, very nervous and Angel couldn’t figure out why.
‘What do I owe you?’ he asked.
‘Twenty-five cents for the beer,’ the man said. And then, all in a rush, as though afraid to speak the words but knowing he must, ‘An’ twenty-five dollars for the information.’
Angel just looked at the perspiring little man and then he laughed. ‘You’re kidding,’ he said, softly.
‘No,’ the bartender said defiantly. ‘Twenty-five dollars!’
‘Hey,’ Angel said. ‘What is this?’
‘Nothing,’ the bartender said. ‘You give me my money. I don’t want any trouble with you.’
‘An’ you ain’t gonna have none, Harry,’ said a familiar voice. Angel turned slowly to see Andy Wheatcroft standing at his elbow and then he understood. The deputy had his hand wrapped around the butt of his holstered sixgun. It had a staghorn handle. They always did, Angel thought. He let a slow sigh escape his lips.
‘What is this, Wheatcroft?’ he asked.
‘Nothin’ serious, little Angel,’ the deputy grinned. ‘Unless you’re figurin’ on not payin’ your bill. In which case, you got trouble.’
‘Listen,’ Angel said, reasonably. ‘There’s no call for this.’
‘I’m makin’ call,’ Andy said. ‘I ain’t taken to you at all, little Angel.’
‘Look,’ Angel said, trying one more time. ‘I’ll pay for the beer. Then I’ll be on my way. Nobody’s got to get hurt. What do you say?’
‘Crawlin’ already, little Angel?’ Wheatcroft sneered. ‘Makes no odds. You’re on your way all right. It’s up to you whether you go vertical or horizontal.’
Angel shook his head sadly. There were men like Andy Wheatcroft in every dirty little trail town in the West. They were little men, and they lived on a steady diet of envy and hate. Depending on the town, they were usually pimps, gamblers, or hustlers. Often they were also sadistic back-shooters and far too often they were lawmen. Once in awhile one of them got weeded out by pushing his brand of justice too hard with the wrong man, but more often they stayed in their own bright little pool of poison, eating away at what they were sworn to uphold, every bite they took poisoning not just their own little piece of the law, but every man’s opinion of it. There was no cure for them: they had to be stepped on like bugs.
Nobody saw his hand move.
One moment he was standing, his attitude placating, back to the bar and leaning slightly away from the glaring face of the deputy. The next, his hand stabbed forward, the knuckles of the first three fingers held so that they formed a terrible weapon. That right hand moved little more than eighteen inches and struck the deputy just above the breastbone, its awful force paralyzing the man. Wheatcroft’s eyes bulged out and his face turned purple as his astonished system struggled to obey the frantic commands of the brain to get oxygen pumped out by the heart literally stunned by the vicious blow. Wheatcroft’s knees sagged, and his mouth dropped open like a gutted shark. He made a horrid gargling noise, and his right hand twitched as he tried to make it pull the staghorn-butted sixgun from the holster.
‘Tut, tut,’ Angel said, seeing the movement.
That same deadly right hand flickered down to the holstered gun at his side, and came up and out and around in a movement that defeated sight. The barrel of the Colt hit Wheatcroft just above the left ear and he went down in a jarring crash of flailing limbs that made the bottles and glasses jingle on the shelves behind the bar. Nobody moved.
There was a silence that could have been sliced and sold. The terrible suddenness of Angel’s action, the callous indifference of the man who had unleashed it was bizarre and chilling and no one wanted to trigger such violence again. And now Angel, knowing to the centimeter the effect of what he had done, turned slowly to face the bartender.
Harry’s face had turned as gray as the collar of his once-white shirt.
‘Uh,’ he said. ‘Unh.’
‘How was that, Harry?’ Angel said, pleasantly. ‘What did you say?’
‘Honest, mister,’ the man stuttered. ‘I was. Just. Just josh—kidding, mister. I wasn’t serious, honest.’
‘Sure, Harry,’ Angel said.
‘No, listen, it’s true, they never said nothin’ the whole time, except maybe have a drink, like that,’ Harry blurted. ‘It’s the truth, mister.’
‘Oh, I believe you, Harry,’ Angel said, every syllable declaring flatly that if Harry had told him the date, he’d have checked it with a calendar.
Harry looked about him piteously for help that he knew he had no right to hope for and that was damned well not about to arrive. He racked his brain for something to tell this smiling man, who had so casually crushed Andy Wheatcroft. Before he could speak, Angel interrupted his thoughts.
‘Who put you up to that twenty-five dollars business, Harry?’ Angel asked, his voice as soft as ever.
‘Uh,’ Harry said, hesitating until Angel leaned slightly forward on the bar. Then he made a fast decision. Andy Wheatcroft might give him some stick later, but that would be later. This soft-spoken stranger would give him hell now, and he wasn’t about to take the chance. ‘He—Andy, there. He told me to do it.’
‘You know why?’
‘No idea,’ Harry said, truthfully. ‘Looked to me like he just wanted some excuse to quarrel with you.’
‘Pretty pointless,’ Angel mused.
‘I think it was mebbe on account o’ them fellers you was askin’ about,’ Harry said. ‘Andy there, he spent quite a lot o’ time with them.’
‘Did he now?’ Angel said, softly.
Harry the bartender looked pleased; as if he personally had solved all Angel’s problems for him. In fact, Harry didn’t give a hoot in hell who solved Angel’s problems for him, just so long as Angel went out of the saloon pronto and never came back into it again ever.
‘Harry,’ Angel said. ‘Let me have a jug of water, will you?’
Harry hastened to oblige, and watched fascinated as Frank Angel poured the water, without haste, over the head of the sprawled deputy, who was breathing stertorously, like a man under water. Andy Wheatcroft spluttered, coughed, retched, rolling his head to one side and then another to try to escape the cascading water. His eyes came open, and as they did, Frank Angel got hold of the deputy’s shirtfront and hauled him to his feet. He pushed Wheatcroft backward into a bentwood chair at a vacant table and lifted the man’s chin with his right hand so that Wheatcroft’s eyes were level with his own.
‘Andy,’ he said. ‘I want to ask you about your friends.’
‘Go crap in your hat!’ Wheatcroft spat venomously.
His words brought another stillness in the saloon. The onlookers held their breath as Angel shook his head sadly, like a schoolteacher let down by a favorite pupil.
‘Let me ask you again,’ he said. He was holding Wheatcroft’s shoulder, almost negligently, and no one really saw the way his fingers moved on the deep nervous center above the big levator scapulae muscles but Wheatcroft’s head went back, and his eyes widened with the shocking pain. His face went a sick gray but before he screeched his pain, Angel released the pressure.
‘Where did they go, Andy?’ he asked, quite pleasantly.
‘Fuck you!’ Wheatcroft hissed.
‘If I do this really hard, it’ll probably paralyze your left arm for a couple of months, Andy,’ Angel said, reminding Wheatcroft of the pain by increasing the pressure on the nervous system again.
‘Aaaah,’ Wheatcroft said.
‘Quite,’ Angel remarked. Relentlessly, he increased the pressure. The bartender and the other men in the room looked at the tableau with open mouths, unable to figure why Wheatcroft was the color of a gaffed catfish.
‘Up the river!’ Wheatcroft said.
‘Up the river? Which river?’
‘The Arkansas. They said it was a long pull all the way up the Arkansas. That’s all. For God’s sake, Angel, that’s all they said!’
Angel released his grip, thinking about what Wheatcroft had just said. Up the Arkansas meant, in real terms, that Falco and his men were turning north, heading back up into the mountains. Durango lay to the south and west, which meant that Durango had been a blind. But why north? North lay only the mining camps, Buena Vista and Leadville and the Chalk Creek diggings. Beyond them the high passes that lay ten thousand feet up at the crest of the Continental Divide. Beyond that again, more camps, and then the endless tumble of the mountains, the cordillera, the central spine of the country. If they bore west, they faced five hundred miles of nothing, ending in the City of the Saints, Salt Lake. They wouldn’t be heading for the Mormon capital, no way. Which left only one place they could be going—Denver.
‘Of course,’ he said, softly, beginning to see it all now.
Andy Wheatcroft stared up at him, the weak, Cupid-bow mouth loose with the reaction to pain. If his eyes could have killed, Angel would have dropped dead at the deputy’s feet.
‘Wheatcroft,’ Angel said, ignoring the venom in then man’s gaze. ‘I’m serving you notice. You’re not cut out for the law. My advice to you would be to hand in your badge, as soon as you can. You keep the wrong kind of company. Sabe?’
Wheatcroft nodded, the hatred still burning in back of his eyes.
‘Do it right soon,’ Angel told him softly. ‘Or I’ll come looking for you. You know what I mean?’
Again Wheatcroft nodded, but the soft whisper of death in Angel’s voice had driven all the fury from his eyes, replacing it with naked fear.
Just then, Marshal Compton came in through the batwing doors, and Harry the bartender let out a sigh of relief they could probably hear in Colorado Springs. Compton took in the whole scene in one swift glance: the silent room, the stock-still spectators, the gray-faced figure of his deputy in the bentwood chair, and Frank Angel standing over him. Harry’s sweaty face and enormous gasp of relief completed the story, and he walked across the silent saloon to where Angel stood.
‘The horse is outside,’ he said, levelly. ‘I’d like for you to be on it and on your way. Right soon.’ He smiled at Angel’s nod of acquiescence and jerked a thumb at Andy Wheatcroft. ‘What happened to him?’
‘He bumped into something,’ Angel said. ‘Hard.’
‘Bound to happen, sooner or later,’ Compton said, unfeelingly. He looked at Angel and raised his eyebrows, and Angel nodded. He led the way across the saloon and out into the street. The horse was standing hipshot at the hitching rail, a chunky bay gelding. Its legs were in good shape, mouth firm, chest strong. About five years old, Angel judged from the animal’s mouth, and not hard used. It would be as good a horse as he had any right to hope for in a town like Canon City.
‘Nice animal,’ he said, as he swung into the saddle. ‘Thanks.’
‘No thanks necessary,’ Compton said. ‘In fact, I oughta thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘Not killin’ Andy Wheatcroft.’
Angel neck-reined the bay around, pointing him up the street. Even though it was already dark, he wanted to get as far away from Canon City as he could. It was the kind of place whose smell stuck to your clothes.
‘It wasn’t because he didn’t need killing,’ he said, and put the horse into a trot. He didn’t look back. There wasn’t a damned thing to look back for.