Read Online Send Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #2) by Frederick H. Christian - Free Book Online

at the thought and went into the house. After a moment,
Kate Perry came back into the pool of light, turning to where they
could hear the sound of Clare’s horse moving off across the packed
earth of the yard. Kate waved at the darkness and they heard Clare
call something which the wind snatched away.
    ‘ He’s
got a long way to ride,’ Angel said.
    ‘ He
likes to ride at night,’ Kate told him. ‘Says he feels closer to
the stars.’ Then she shook her head impatiently. ‘That sounds
silly, I guess.’
    Angel shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.
Neither do you, I’d imagine.’
    Her smile was radiant. ‘I’m glad you liked
him. He said you seemed like a decent man. Worth saving, his words
were.’
    He was about to reply when they
heard the boom of a rifle somewhere in the darkness. The flatter
reply of a six-gun sounded. Then the rifle boomed again with a
terrible finality that was followed by an immense silence. The
cicadas had stopped their ceaseless racket and Kate Perry’s face
was chalk white in the lamplight spilling from the open door.
George Perry stumbled out of the house, his hair
tousled.
    ‘ What
in the name of Christ was that?’ he barked.
    Then he saw his
daughter ’s
face and without another word he ran across the yard towards the
corral. Shouting for his men to follow him, he was in the saddle
and galloping off into the darkness before the tears that had been
brimming behind Kate Perry’s eyes finally spilled down her
face.

Chapter Nine
    Al Birch sat in his customary
chair in the Alhambra Saloon in Daranga and chomped on his cigar.
He was a big man, strongly built, his shock of hair iron grey, his
eyes hidden beneath heavy brows and bushy eyebrows. Opposite Birch
sat his neighbor and partner Jacey Reynolds. A thin-faced man, his
nose long and drooping, Reynolds had the air of an
unsuccessful undertaker. Both men had come to Arizona with the
California Column during the War between the States, and stayed on.
There wasn’t an officer above the rank of lieutenant in the
Territory of Arizona that one or both of them didn’t know
personally. They had used those friendships ruthlessly to carve
themselves a monopoly in the Rio Blanco country. The saloon they
were sitting in, their ranches, the trading post on the Fort,
stores and hotel in town, all belonged to either Reynolds or Birch
or both. They drank only good liquor, smoked only the best tobacco,
rode fine horses. And they knew their power.
    ‘ This
Angel feller,’ Birch ground out.
    ‘ The
boys have taken care of that by now,’ Reynolds observed, pulling a
gold watch from his fob pocket. His thin lips puffed at the briar
pipe he rarely had far from his mouth.
    ‘ Thompson thought he might be another o’ them Gov’ment
snoopers,’ Birch went on. ‘Said he had that kind of
look.’
    ‘ Thompson,’ Reynolds said, and there was a world of meaning
in the word.
    “ You
think he was wrong, then?’
    ‘ I
don’t think I’d put any money on his judgment,’ Reynolds said, ‘but
just supposin’ he was right, so what?’
    ‘ Been
a few of ‘em,’ Birch said. ‘The Man got on to ‘em because of his
contacts back in Washin’ton. That Jasper Maclntyre that was
sniffin’ round the Land Office in Tucson. Freeman—’
    ‘ Hell,
he was just some surveyor or somethin’,’ Reynolds said.
    ‘ Federal man, all the same,’ Birch insisted. ‘And what about
Stevens in San Pat?’
    ‘ Boys
found nothin’ on him,’ Reynolds pointed out.
    ‘ He
was as kin’ lots of questions about sales of beef to the
Reservation, just the same. You know what I say, Jace.’
    T know: once is accident, twice
is coincidence, three times you better do
something. ’
    ‘ Damned right,’ growled Birch, relighting the butt of his
cigar.
    ‘ So?’
    ‘ Now
this Angel,’ Birch continued. ‘I don’t like it.’
    ‘ Explain,’ Reynolds said patiently. ‘What’s
wrong?’
    ‘ It
ties our hands a mite. The Man sent word; we got to play it
different,