Angel looked down the bore of the Navy Colt and showed his teeth in a feral grin.
‘Pull that trigger and I’ll kill you,’ he promised flatly lifting his eyes to meet the equally hard gaze of the man with the gun. It had to be Denniston. Iron-gray cropped hair, eyes to match, an aquiline nose flanked by deep furrows making an arch to the thin, patrician lips. A thin-boned, aristocrat’s face: or the face of a fanatic.
Denniston was dressed in a dark coat and pants which somehow had a strong military flavor, as though they might have been cut and sewn by the army tailor. The dark trousers were tucked into the tops of fine leather boots which even with their patina of dust glowed with the rich sheen of many polishings.
Denniston hesitated.
‘You believe that, don’t you?’
‘I know it,’ Angel said.
‘For a man inches from death you’re very sure of yourself, Mister — ?’
‘Angel’s the name. Frank Angel.’
‘Perhaps that explains your confidence,’ murmured Denniston. ‘It seems a shame not to test it.’
‘It would be a waste,’ Angel said. ‘Of both of us.’
Denniston thought about that one for a moment, and then smiled.
‘I admire your nerve, Angel,’ he said, lowering the gun. ‘It’s uncommon.’
Angel let his own tension go a little. He felt everyone in the room do the same. Denniston’s men, ranged in a half circle behind their leader, looked puzzled. But Denniston ignored them. Shoving the revolver into a closed-topped holster on his belt, he went across to where Atterbow lay unconscious.
He touched the broken face lightly and then looked at Angel again, his eyes narrowing.
‘What was it?’ he asked. ‘Karate?’
‘Aikido.’
‘Aikido,’ mused Denniston. ‘You are indeed an uncommon saddle-tramp, Mr. Angel. Suspiciously uncommon.’
Before Angel could reply to that, a little man bustled into the room, thrusting Denniston’s men aside with unceremonious scorn. He went straight to where Atterbow lay and opened the leather bag he was carrying, ignoring everyone else. Fishing a stethoscope out, he listened to the man’s heart, and then grunted.
‘Get him across to my office,’ he said to nobody in particular. Two men came forward and lifted the unconscious form, panting under the weight as the old man turned to face Denniston, his eyes full of malice.
‘Who took your man apart, Colonel?’ There was scornful emphasis on the last word that brought two spots of bright color to Denniston’s cheeks. But the iron control was rigid.
‘Doctor,’ Denniston said drily. ‘How nice to see you sober.’
‘You better pray I am if you expect that one to fork a horse this side of Christmas,’ the old man retorted unabashed. ‘He’s been worked over better than anyone I ever saw.’ Without another word he bustled out after the men carrying Atterbow’s supine form.
Denniston turned to Angel, who grinned unrepentantly. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Do I get the job?
‘Job?’
‘I asked Atterbow if you had any work. He said I had to talk to him first. I just got through doing that.’
‘I see,’ Denniston said. Angel let him think about it, saying nothing. There was a long silence in the room. Someone shuffled his feet. Another coughed nervously. Then Denniston nodded. ‘Let’s take drink on it,’ he said. ‘Levy, give everyone a drink.’
And then the tension was gone completely.
Men crowded to the bar, and talked to Angel, asking him questions about the fighting technique he had used. Denniston watched him as he tried to avoid the pawing that people always give the man who had come through a dangerous situation. His own men drank in a tight group at the other end of the bar. They eyed Angel with surly resentment, and Denniston grinned. Mister Angel might have a tougher row to hoe than he expected. The next time he had trouble Angel would find that it was gun trouble. And there wasn’t a man in the Denniston enclave who wasn’t very, very good.
Three hours later they were on the high divide looking down the scoured canyon on the Palo Blanco. Far behind them and below the town looked like a dirty set of building blocks left scattered by a thoughtless child. Around them tumbled the lower reaches of the mountains that went off in rising masses to Laughlin Peak and Tinzja beyond it. Off on the far side, the mountains went rolling back and upwards towards the Sierra Grande. It was a vast and lonely place, and the ten-man cavalcade looked like a column of ants in its emptiness.
Denniston and Angel rode at the head of the column and Angel asked the leader a question.
‘Why here? Because of the land, man. Here one is truly close to the grandeurs of Nature. Man’s efforts seem pygmy-like compared to them. That’s a healthy thing for any man to have around him. And of course,’ he added with a sly grin, ‘I need isolation. I want it. I cannot succeed without it.’
‘Succeed at what?’
‘All in good time, Mr. Angel,’ was the uncommunicative reply ‘All in good time. Ah, there it is!’
Angel looked down the scarred valley falling away from them. The Palo Blanco canyon was cut deep into the soft stone, its sides high and steep and treacherous on both sides of the pebble-strewn watercourse. Ahead of them the river bed turned back almost on itself, making a finger-like promontory across from which stretched a wooden bridge. Built Army-style, solid and imposing, it reached forty feet across the broken bed of the Palo Blanco. At each end two men patrolled.
On the far side of the river was the fence.
There was a gate facing the end of the bridge, perhaps a quarter of a mile from it. The fence stretched as far as Angel could see from this point — perhaps three or four miles of it, seven feet high, glinting in the sunlight.
‘I can’t see the ranch,’ he said.
‘We have some way to go yet, Mr. Angel,’ Denniston replied. ‘Quite some way.’
He gigged his horse on down the slope and approached the two men at the nearer end of the bridge.
‘Ho!’ one of them shouted. ‘Ho, the guard! It’s the Colonel!’
They rode past the man in phalanx and Angel tried to conceal his surprise at the way in which each man the Colonel passed snapped to impeccable present-arms, slapping his carbine as if it was an Army Springfield and the man passing in review Phil Sheridan himself.
‘Hold it right there, friend,’ a voice growled in Angel’s ear. He turned to see one of the riders, a thin-faced youngster of perhaps twenty whom he’d noted earlier on account of the two tie-down guns the boy had been sporting, idly cocking a six-shooter which was aimed in the general direction of Angel’s midriff.
Angel raised his eyebrows in surprise.
‘Nothin’ personal, friend,’ the kid said. ‘The Cunnel just don’t like no one peekin’ over his shoulder when he opens the gates. One of his little funniosities, you might say.’
‘You mean no one can get in or out unless he opens the locks?’
‘That’s what I mean, sunshine. So don’t you go gettin’ no ideas about leavin’ us, unexpected-like.’
‘How do the guards get in and out?’
‘Shucks, that’d be tellin’ now, wouldn’t it?’ grinned the kid. He sheathed the gun as he saw Denniston turn his horse and the gate swing open.
‘Let’s go, Angel,’ he said, and the phalanx moved forward through the gate. Angel covertly checked the fencing as he rode past. It was heavy wire mesh, a quarter of an inch thick, woven into squares about nine inches wide and long. He supposed a man could get through it if he had to.
They had said the perimeter was patrolled, though. He could see no one.
Now they were riding through broken country, the trail rising slightly uphill all the time, and ahead Angel could see a gap between two huge shoulders of rock that formed a natural gateway.
Presently they were level with this, and again he saw the hidden guards snapping to present arms as their leader rode by. Now, below, he saw the Denniston place, but it was like no ranch he had ever seen. It was laid out on the level of a green and fertile mountain plateau from which every tree and shrub over the height of two feet had been removed, and its rectangular rows of buildings serried on two sides of what looked like a parade ground had the appearance, shape and style of Army buildings. It was not the buildings, though, not the parade ground — if such it was — not yet the bustling figures of many men that he saw which startled Angel. For the place itself lay within yet another fenced area, sentries pacing along its length. As they approached, he saw that there was a gully running laterally across the northern face of the compound where the entrance gate stood flanked by two sentry platforms. Over it ran a footbridge, perhaps six feet wide, with low rails that would not have afforded shelter for a squirrel. As they crossed the bridge, he saw that the gully below was man-made, not natural, and that the smoothed ground bore no trace of a foot or hoof mark.
They rode into the compound, the sentries saluting as Denniston went by, and it was almost exactly like riding into an Army establishment.
Squads of men marched by, not drilling, but obviously under some form of disciplined activity.
Over in a far corner of the compound seven rows of men under the eye of another were doing punishing gymnastics. Angel looked up as Denniston spoke.
‘Angel, come with me. I will want to see all Twos and Threes in twenty minutes,’ he added to the others.
‘Yes, sir,’ they chorused. Angel half expected to see them salute, but they did not. He sought the word for this kind of organization. They were no guerillas. Not renegades. Yet both. Paramilitary: that was the book-word.
He followed Denniston into the centre building of three on the southern edge of the parade ground. It was sparsely furnished. A simple cot in the corner. A large table with six chairs on either side, a bentwood armchair at its head. A bureau. Pegs sunk into the walls for hanging hats, clothes, gun belts. A bearskin rug on the floor. An open hearth with a military saber crossed on its scabbard above it. A photograph in a silver frame, young men in uniform on a lawn somewhere.
And a huge large-scale map of northern New Mexico, southern Colorado and western Kansas on the wall facing the table. A window looked out on to the parade ground.
‘Well, Mr. Angel?’
‘I’m impressed,’ Angel said. ‘Astonished. But this is no ranch, no way. What are all these men doing up here?’
‘I will give you a general answer to your questions, Mr. Angel. I cannot be specific until you have been voted by my fellow — ah, officers, to be a man with whom they will serve. This is slightly different to the real Army, but our purpose is such that I can admit of no dissent. Each man has to believe completely in his fellow. There can be no exceptions. However, within the limitations placed upon me by that fact, I will try to satisfy your curiosity.’
‘You’re raising some kind of Army up here?’
‘I suppose you could say that.’ Dennison smiled. ‘I prefer the term Kommando — a Dutch word meaning a mobile, well-trained, totally ruthless attacking unit.’
‘And you use military style and titles?’
‘Not quite. You heard outside I asked for Twos and Threes to join us shortly — when we shall decide upon your acceptability — or otherwise. As commander, I, of course am Number One. There are two Number Twos, of whom the unfortunate Atterbow was one. Four Number Threes.’
‘And how many men?’
‘Classified,’ Denniston said, smiling slightly to take the sting out of the words. ‘I don’t wish you to think me discourteous, Mr. Angel. But at the moment you have only the status of a possible recruit.’
‘And if your — ah, officers don’t care to have me along for the ride, what then?’
‘Let us hope,’ said Denniston without humor, ‘that you are not so unlucky.’
He walked across to the window, looking out on the busy scene and lighting a thin cigar which he used as a pointer.
‘I’ve built it all,’ he said. ‘The whole thing. Slowly, painfully, choosing my location and my men with infinite care. Now … now it is almost ready.’
‘For what?’
‘Ah, Mr. Angel, you are a direct man, a man after my own heart. But not even my most trusted subordinates know that.’
Angel shrugged, changing the subject. ‘Place like this can’t be put together for pennies,’ he suggested.
‘True,’ Dennison said. ‘I once owned land. In Virginia. It was worth a great deal of money. My heritage, you might say. I sold it. Sold that lovely green land for this.’ His tone was bitter and his eyes far away, but he got control of himself quickly, as if there had never been gall in his tone. ‘And with the passing of time, I found other ways to make money. I made it. And built a little more of my empire. Hired the right men. Paid them enough to keep them happy, keep them loyal. And then began to teach them true loyalty, the loyalty of a man for his own cause, his own Army.’
His eyes had gone empty and he was really talking to himself. Angel had ceased to exist except as an excuse to pour out his vanity and contempt.
‘Ten years,’ Denniston said. ‘Ten lost years. But now I am within sight of my objective. Then it will have been worth it.’
Angel walked across the room and picked up the silver-framed photograph from the mantel.
Looking at it, he thought one of the faces looked familiar. It was Denniston. A much younger Denniston. He looked up to see the iron-gray eyes watching him.
‘You recognized me,’ Denniston said.
Angel nodded. ‘West Point?’
‘Class of ’6l,’ he said. He took the picture from Angel’s hands, intoning the names of the faces as his eyes ran over them for the ten thousandth time. ‘O’Rourke, Alonzo Cushing, Charles Parsons, Elbert, Jamie Parker, George Custer, Robley Denniston — ’ he broke off his reverie, lifting empty eyes towards the window.
‘I didn’t realize you were Regular Army,’ Angel said, for want of anything better to say.
‘Yes,’ Denniston said dully. ‘Yes, I was. I served with George Thomas, General Thomas. At Mill Springs, Murfreeboro, Chickamauga.’
‘And then?’
‘What? Oh, I was invalided out after Chickamauga. Shot through the lungs. They gave me the usual medals, the usual pension. It wasn’t what I wanted. I was used to commanding men. And so I made my plans to do it my own way: If the Army didn’t want me, I would build an Army of my own that could not function without me. And I have done it.’
He really believed it, Angel thought. He’s convinced himself that it happened that way. The whole dirty little scene after Chickamauga, the court martial and the ignominious discharge have all been safely tucked away where no one can see them.
Denniston went across to the wall where the huge map was hung and looked at it long and intently. There was a red flag stuck into the map on the line which marked the road from Trinidad to Raton through the mountains.
‘Well, Mr. Angel,’ Denniston said, after a while. ‘Now you know what the background of this place is. I think we can use you — again providing my staff officers agree. Do you know anything about explosives?’
The question was shot at him without warning and Angel grinned at Dennison without shame.
‘Explosives? Where the hell would I learn about explosives? I was too young for your war, Colonel.’
‘Quite,’ Denniston said. ‘It was just a thought.’
‘Sure,’ Angel said. Before he could say more there was a respectful knock at the door. A man poked his head around it and said that the officers were waiting outside. Denniston nodded and the man closed the door. Denniston motioned Angel to stay where he was and went towards his cot. He pulled a curtain across so that he was hidden behind it. Then, and not until then, the door was smartly opened and five men came into the room. They stood behind their respective chairs alongside the table, their eyes looking up somewhere above head level, faces blank. Then Denniston pulled his curtain aside and stepped into view and the man at the top of the table on the left yelled ‘Atteeeeennnnn . . . tion!’
The five men came smartly to attention and saluted, as Denniston sat at the table and said ‘At ease, gentlemen.’ The quintet sat down in their chairs, hands folded on the table. The man on his left handed Denniston a piece of paper.
‘Minutes, sir,’ he said.
‘Thank you, Froon,’ Denniston replied.
Angel watched this imitation of Army ritual in fascinated silence. They were like children playing soldiers, except that they, like Denniston, seemed to believe in it implicitly, and they, like Denniston, intended to use their military force in some way. But what? What?
He let his gaze rest on the faces of Denniston’s officers one by one. Next to an empty chair on Denniston’s right sat the slow-spoken kid who’d held the gun on him at the gate. On his right was a pockmarked man of about thirty with a badly broken noise. On the left hand side of Denniston was the burly man with the wind-burned face who had brought the officers to attention on Denniston’s entrance; the other Number Two, Angel guessed. On his left was a tow-haired young man with a Texas drawl who carried a tied-down gun low on his right thigh. And at the end of the table a short, squat, beady-eyed little man who had a singsong accent which Angel finally identified as Welsh. The man looked completely out of place until Angel remembered Denniston’s earlier question about explosives. He’d be a miner. And know about things like that.
‘Before we discuss business, gentlemen,’ Denniston was saying, ‘there is the matter of our — ah, guest. And the replacement of John Atterbow. It is my intention to appoint Mr. Angel as a Number Three, replacing John with you, Mr. Adam. With the approval of all you gentlemen, of course.’
He looked at them all for a moment, then spoke again.
‘Mr. Whiting? That was the miner, who said, ‘Agreed sir.’
‘Mr. Adam?’
‘Honored at my promotion, sir,’ drawled the Texan. ‘And no objection.’
Denniston nodded. ‘Mr. Briggs?’
The pockmarked one shook his head. ‘Fine with me, sir.’
‘And you, Mr. Jackson?’
‘A question, sir?’
‘Certainly.’
‘Is Mr. Angel any good with that gun?’ asked the kid.
Denniston swiveled in his chair and looked at Angel with eyebrow raised.’ Well, Mr. Angel?’
‘I can use it,’ Angel said without emphasis. He let his gaze hold that of the younger man until the kid’s eyes flickered and evaded it.
Denniston smiled. ‘That seems to be that, then. Please join us, Mr. Angel. Take Mr. Adam’s chair. Ray, you move up here beside me.’
Angel sat down in the vacated chair and Denniston looked at the piece of paper in front of him.
‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘The first item, Mr. Froon: what is the situation?’
‘I sent two men down to Vegas,’ Froon replied. ‘They followed the man and dealt with him. They’re waiting to report.’
‘Good,’ said Denniston, leaning back and steepling his fingers. ‘Have they come in.’
Froon got up and went to the door. A thicker man came into the room, his clothes dust-covered, eyes respectful as he came to attention in front of the table.
‘Your report, mister!’ snapped Froon.
‘Me and Rafferty did like you told us, sir. Martinez in the Marshal’s office told us that the snooper — beg your pardon, sir, the Government man — was on his way to Fort Union. We trailed him and laid for him about ten miles from Vegas.’
‘You killed him?’
‘That we did, sir. Deader than a mackerel.’
‘Very good, Reed,’ Denniston said. ‘Was he carrying any papers?’
‘Nothing we could find, sir,’ Reed said.
‘Rafferty was slightly wounded, sir,’ Froon put in. ‘Nothing serious. Reed brought him back. He’s in the sick bay.’
‘Good, good,’ Denniston said. ‘What else did Martinez tell you, Reed?’
‘Nothing much else, sir,’ Reed said, still standing stiffly to attention and gazing at a point somewhere above Denniston’s head. ‘Just that this Wells was from the Department of Justice and that he’d sent word back to Washington for another man to come out here.’
Denniston put his hands Hat on the table. ‘Another Government investigator?’
‘That’s right, sir,’ Reed said. ‘Someone called Angel. Frank Angel.’