Warn Angel! (A Frank Angel Western--Book 9) Read Free

been an honor guard, not a combat
unit. He had been specially selected, and so had the cadets, not
for military duty, but for smartness, education, for—well, admit
it, for class. There had been no indication that anything like this was
going to happen and it wasn’t fair. They had promised him a minor
decoration at the conclusion of the tour. Now … ? Master Sergeant
Alex Wells looked at the young officer and grimaced. As was always
the case, the army had sent boys on men’s work. This young captain,
now: he looks as if he was going to wet his beautifully cut
infantry grays any moment, while these boy-soldiers probably
already have. Still, he thought, ’tis not the captain’s fault he’s
the son-in-law of the brigadier commanding the adjutant-general’s
department in Chicago. Nor could you blame him for grabbing a
featherbed number like the Freedom Train, seeing the country at the
country’s expense. After all, wasn’t every man on the train doing
the same? Not a one of them a fighting man, himself—alas—now
included. It was a dozen years since he’d heard the buzz of bullets
at Gettysburg, and a dozen years was a long time between fights.
These boy-soldiers, now: they could probably load and aim those
Springfields they were holding on to so grimly, but whether in a
real fight they’d be able to do much more than use up ammunition he
wouldn’t want to say. Commanded as they were by this whey-faced
popinjay who’d obviously never heard a shot fired in anger, he
didn’t rate their chances highly at all. None of what he was
thinking showed on his face when he spoke.
    ‘ Sir,’ he said, prompting Nicolson.
‘Sir?’
    ‘ Yes,’ said the captain. ‘Yes.’ Then,
as if waking from a reverie, he drew himself erect. ‘Tell them we
hear them, Master Sa’rnt,’ he said crisply. ‘Ask them—’
    Wells was already elbowing one of the cadets
away from the slot nearest him. Putting his mouth to the aperture,
he pulled in a deep breath and then bellowed ‘You up there!’
    ‘ We hear you!’ came the
reply.
    ‘ Who are you?’ Wells shouted. ‘What do
you want?’
    Willowfield told them.
    He told them that he had a hundred men
behind him, which was a considerable exaggeration they were in no
position to challenge. He told them he was giving them a
five-minute truce in which to send a man to check his statement
that there was enough dynamite beneath the express car to blow it
the rest of the way to Cheyenne. After that, he told them, they had
two more minutes in which to throw their weapons out of the express
car, and come out with their hands on their heads. Then he waited
while Master-Sergeant Wells swung down from the express car, ducked
beneath it, and returned to report his findings to Captain
Nicolson.
    ‘ It,’ Captain Nicolson said. ‘He. It
can’t be. True, I mean. He couldn’t. Won’t. Sergeant, you don’t
think he’d blow the train up do you?’
    He was thinking of the priceless treasures
which were, at least nominally, his responsibility, and about what
their loss would mean to his career. These bandits obviously
intended to steal them. There was little choice: he must die
heroically defending them. He drew himself erect again.
    ‘ I’ll go out there,’ he said, pulling
his tunic down. ‘I’ll talk—’
    ‘ Begging the captain’s pardon,’
Sergeant Wells said, sharply. He knew better than to actually lay a
hand on the officer, but he also knew that if he had to, he’d knock
the silly bastard unconscious before he let him step outside the
car.
    ‘ Meaning no disrespect, sir,’ he said
quickly as Nicolson paused. ‘But those bas—those people out there
have already killed three men. We’ll prove nothing by letting them
have you for a target.’
    Nicolson blanched. It hadn’t occurred to him
that they would quite likely kill him out of hand.
    He probably thinks they wouldn’t dare, Wells
thought, him being the brigadier’s son.
    ‘ Well,’ Nicolson said, as