The man on the stairs had his hands above his head.
‘You, mister!’ he shouted. ‘I ain’t armed. Don’t shoot!’
He was short and pudgy, and the light from the grimy windows flickered on his eyeglasses. Angel could see the man’s tongue nervously touching thick, rubbery lips.
‘Where’s Torelli?’ he said flatly.
‘He — I — he’s not here, mister,’ the man said. He started down the stairs, eyes fixed on Angel, moving carefully, slowly. He kept talking all the way down as though by talking he could prevent anything from happening to him.
‘Torelli ain’t here, mister,’ the man droned. ‘He left earlier this mornin’. Headed for Las Cruces. That stupid Carmen thought she seen him upstairs but it was me she seen, not Frank.’
He kept on coming down the stairs and Angel watched him every inch of the way. He watched the man’s eyes and when he saw them flicker towards the window he moved, one swift leap lifting him over the top of the bar and behind it as the glass from one of the windows shattered inwards with the booming roar of a gun and Angel heard the fat smack of the slivered slug hitting the other side of the bar. He went sideways along the floor, stretching upwards to where he had earlier seen the bartender reaching, his hand closing on the stock of a shotgun. He pulled it down, still rolling, as the man on the staircase ran into the space in front of the bar, a six-gun in his hand, pumping shots, scrabbling in the blaze of noise to get around behind the bar and at Angel. Angel eared back the hammers on the shotgun, whose barrels were sawn off at about the ten inch mark, and as the man came around the bar, eyes glaring behind the spectacles, lining the gun down on the squirming Angel, he pulled both triggers. The awful flat voommmph! sounded like a thunderclap in the enclosed space and the close-packed shot had spread only about a foot when it hit the thick-lipped one. It tore a hole in his upper body the size of a plate and hurled him back against the wall with a force that shook the building. In the same instant, guns blasted from the doorway as two men came running crouched into the room, diving for the shelter of tipped-over tables, laying down a hail of bullets where they thought Angel was. But Angel had moved and he came up above the counter and threw two shots fast at the man on the left, who lurched in mid-stride as he went down behind cover, his legs kicking high and a bubbling scream of pain breaking from his lips. The third man fired hastily at Angel, scrabbling back away from the side of the room towards the door. Angel went down again on the boards behind the bar, squirming on his elbows towards the huddled body of the man with the eyeglasses. There was a huge, sticky puddle of blood staining the splintered duckboards but Angel ignored it as he wormed towards the open end of the bar. Before he reached it he heard the frantic scramble of boots and leaped to his feet in time to throw an unaimed shot after the man who burst out of the door. Angel’s bullet took a huge chunk of wood out of the door frame and then his target was outside. He heard running feet and shouts from the bartender and the girls outside. He ran catlike towards the door and edged towards it until he could see outside. The bartender was on one knee in front of the building, a bolt-action rifle aimed directly at the doorway. The girls were scattering towards the outbuildings and Angel heard the beat of hoofs behind the house.
He cursed aloud and then whirled as he heard the scrabble of boots on the floor behind him. A man came up from behind the overturned table across the room. There was a huge bloodstain beneath his left arm, coating his entire body from armpit to waist. He lurched drunkenly, trying to level the heavy gun in his hand, his eyes squinted tight against the pain in his body.
‘Damn you!’ the man shouted and pulled the trigger in the same instant that Angel squeezed off his own bullet. He felt the raw burn of white pain across his side as the slug sliced along his ribs and he reeled across the open doorway. The bartender saw him and fired, his bullet whacking through the batwing door and shattering the slats into a thousand flying splinters. Angel, down on one knee, saw the man across the room slide forward on his face to the floor, the gun spilling from his nerveless hands. The bartender came running forward across the yard and Angel let him come. The man came flying into the room, the rifle ported ready in his hands and saw Angel in the same moment that Angel laid the barrel of his Army Colt alongside the bartender’s head. The man went down hard on his knees and Angel hit him again and then again. The bartender retched, emptying his belly in a pool of stinking vomit as he slid into unconsciousness.
There was an acrid stink of cordite in the air, and the slight breeze through the doorway swung the smoke as if it were tangible. Angel walked out into the sunlight.
He saw the white faces of the girls peering through the window of the outhouse and then the two teamsters who had been drinking earlier at the bar came out into the open. They came warily across the yard as the girls came out, fear in every movement they made. Jesus, mister,’ one of the teamsters said. Jesus.’
‘Get those girls over here,’ Angel said brusquely. ‘I want to know who those men are. Or were.’
The teamsters looked at him thunderstruck.
‘Mister, you shot them fellers down an' you don’t know who they were?’
Angel nodded. ‘One of them was called Juba,’ he said. ‘The other one is one of the Torellis. I don’t know which one.’
‘Hell, that’s easy, mister,’ the teamster said. ‘You musta cut down Steve Torelli, ’cause Frank was the one lit out of here like his ass was afire.’
‘That’s right, mister,’ the second man said. They followed Angel into the building, their eyes widening at the havoc. One of them went over and looked down at the man behind the bar. He turned away, his face white and sick.
‘Denny Juba,’ Angel said. He turned as the girl Carmen came downstairs into the room. ‘That right?’
She nodded. Her lips were a thin and bloodless line and now he saw how young she really was.
‘Him over there?’
‘That’s — that was Steve Torelli,’ she whispered. ‘He — they made me do it, they — ’
‘Forget it,’ he told her. ‘It figured they’d try to whipsaw me.’
The girl nodded. ‘What about him?’ she said, nodding towards the bartender, who was trying to sit up, groaning and holding his bloody head. Angel smiled grimly.
He went across the room and yanked the man to his feet. The bartender cringed away, his face a sweaty mask of fear. ‘You know any reason why I should let you stay alive?’ Angel asked him. His voice was level and quite normal. He spoke in the tone of a man asking a reasonable question. The bartender gulped and struggled to speak.
‘Uh — I — ’
‘ — you tried to cut me down with that,’ Angel said, gesturing towards the rifle on the floor. ‘That means you’re my meat. Unless — ’
‘ — listen, mister,’ the bartender gasped. ‘I’ll do anything. Listen — ’
‘You listen!’ Angel snapped. ‘Your life’s worth exactly
what the next information you give me is worth. Where will Frank Torelli have gone?’
The bartender’s face fell.
‘Jesus, mister, he’ll kill me if I tell you that!’ he ejaculated.
‘An’ I’ll kill you if you don’t!’ Angel said. ‘So you don’t have a hell of a choice. Except that I’ll kill you now. You might have a chance to get some miles between you an’ Torelli — always supposing he’d come back here.’
‘But, mister, listen — ’
‘Talk, damn you!’ Angel said. ‘We’re wasting time!’
‘He — he might have headed for Mesilla,’ the bartender managed. ‘He might — ’
‘This is your last chance, my friend,’ Angel said. His voice had lost its edge now and he was calm. The very quietness of his tone frightened the bartender more than anything that had happened this far. He went a fish-belly white and his eyes rolled up in his head as Angel thumbed back the hammer of the Army Colt and placed the barrel to the man’s temple.
‘Lordsburg!’ he screamed. ‘He’ll head for Cravetts’ place in Lordsburg!’
‘Are all of them there?’
‘I guess so, mister,’ the bartender sobbed. ‘They left two days ago. Headin’ south. It has to be Lordsburg.’
‘It better be,’ Angel said. ‘Or I’ll come looking for you.’ He pushed the man away from him and the bartender reeled back against the wall. He felt his way with shaking hands to a table, where he sat down heavily, head in hands, sobbing quietly. Angel looked around at the wrecked saloon. He reached into his pocket and pulled out two gold eagles, tossing them on the blood-stained counter.
‘Bury them,’ he said.