Send Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #2) Read Free

Ain’t so drunk as I
can’t tell a man the truth. Any man!’ he said defiantly, glaring at
the indifferent duo along the bar. ‘Take my advice, stranger. Steer
clear of Daranga.’
    ‘ Blackie—’ remonstrated the other soldier. ‘He don’t need
your advice. And we don’t need no trouble with Al Birch,
neither.’
    Blackie again shook off the restraining
hands.
    ‘ No.
Lemme alone,’ he said deliberately. ‘S’about time someone said it.
Tol’ truth. Owns this place. Owns the whole goddam place. Not a man
here isn’t up to his ears in debt to them for liquor or women or
cards or some damn thing. When he says shit everybody better squat,
and you can tie to that.’
    ‘ I’ll
keep it in mind,’ Angel said. ‘You’d better—’
    Without warning he was thrust aside by a
burly arm, and the two men who had been studiously ignoring the
conversation went on past him and confronted the young soldier.
    “ You’re doin’ a lot o’ jawin’, Blackie,’ one of them
rasped.
    ‘ Huh?
Oh, h’lo, Johnny.’
    ‘ Don’t
hello me, you little bastard,’ snapped the one called Johnny. ‘I’ve
warned you before about the way you shoot your mouth
off.’
    ‘ That’s right,’ whispered the second man. Angel really
looked at him for the first time. Short, squat, the man had in his
eyes a look which was identical to that of a rattler eyeing an
especially juicy prairie dog. His tongue flickered out and touched
wet, full lips. His right hand, covered in a fine black kid glove,
clenched and unclenched. Angel had never seen a man in this country
with such white skin. The man’s fat face showed no sign that the
sun had ever touched it. He was dressed in brown: brown shirt,
brown leather pants that stretched skin tight across his enormous
back and buttocks. He lisped slightly on the letter ‘s’ when he
spoke.
    ‘ That’s right,’ he repeated. You know Al doesn’t like it,
Blackie. And that means we don’t like it, either.’
    ‘ Birch
is a first-class sonofabitch, Mill. You know it and I know it and
everyone else knows it. Stopping people sayin’ it won’t change the
facts.’
    Blackie was erect and his eyes flashed with
anger, but those watching knew that the alcohol was doing a lot of
the talking. There was a great silence in the room.
    ‘ You
keep callin’ Birch names, you’re liable to wind up in the desert,
face-up with the buzzards pickin’ on you,’ grated the one called
Johnny. He was a man of medium height; his hair was long and
streaked with grey, and he wore the vest and pants of a blue serge
suit. His shirt was almost white and had figured patterns stitched
into it. He wore no tie or kerchief around his neck, and his hat
was a wide brimmed derby, slanted to one side of his square head.
His eyes were set deep in his head, and huge dark pouches were
etched beneath them. His face was high-cheekboned and drawn, and
Angel recalled seeing such faces in hospitals back East. It was the
face of a man dying of a pulmonary disease. The thin shoulders and
bony physique reinforced the similarity.
    Angel eased his weight onto the
balls of his feet as the boy stepped back slightly from Johnny, his
eyes widening at the venom in the man ’s words.
    ‘ Now
just hold on there a minute, Boot. This is an Army post, not some
one-horse cowtown saloon. I’ll say what I please.’ Just for a
moment the boy’s eyes flickered towards his friends, who sat frozen
at their table.
    ‘ You’ll say you’re sorry,’ whispered Mill, ‘or you’ll bite
on a bullet.’ The two men moved apart slightly, both of them
keeping their eyes on the soldier. The other soldier, the one who
had tried to calm Blackstone down, moved away, his jaw dropping
slightly and his eyes wide with fearful anticipation.
    ‘ Now
see here, Johnny,’ he began.
    ‘ Quiet,’ whispered Mill. ‘You’re ruining my
concentration.’
    One of the men at the table
shoved back his chair and leaped towards the door, determination on
his face. ‘Corporal