Hunt Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #5) by Frederick H. Christian Read Free Book Online Page B

Johnny,’ he said. ‘Very, very
gently, reach under the bar and bring out that old riot gun you got
hidden down there.’
    Johnny Gardner didn’t move, unless
you could count the movement of his jaw dropping open as real
activity.
    ‘ Do it now, Johnny,’ Howie said.
His voice was still gentle, almost dreamy, but his hand had moved a
couple of inches nearer to the holstered six-gun at his right-hand
side, and Johnny Gardner swallowed noisily. He ducked behind the
bar and came up with his old sawn-off.
    ‘ On the bar, Johnny,’ Howie said.
‘But away from where the boys can get at it. Up here.’ He gestured
with his chin at the bar end nearest to himself.
    ‘ Yeah,’ Johnny Evans said, his
voice heavy, loud in the silence. ‘And give the bum a drink while
you’re at it!’
    Howie looked at Johnny Evans
thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Come here, Johnny,’ he said,
conversationally.
    ‘ Uh?’ Evans was
surprised.
    ‘ Do it,’ came a voice from the
back of the room. Sheridan hadn’t moved, but his voice left no
doubt in anyone’s mind that the barrels of the Greener were
presently pointing at Johnny Evans. Evans shuffled toward Howie,
the grin still hanging on his face.
    ‘ Unbuckle your gunbelt, Johnny,’
Howie said.
    He let Johnny Evans think about it, and about
Sheridan back there with the shotgun. Evans unbuckled the belt, and
it thumped on the sawdusted boards.
    ‘ Making a habit of this,’ Howie
said, as if to himself. He didn’t look like he had a fast move in
him, but the right hand flickered down and came up with the gun in
it, and he hit Johnny Evans across the side of the head, just above
the ear. Every man in the saloon winced at the solid clunk the gun
barrel made. Johnny Evans went down on his knees as if in prayer
before Howie, and Howie pushed him to one side. The Flying H man
sprawled in the sawdust, and Howie kicked his boots.
    ‘ Nope,’ he said, as if he’d been
seeking something.
    He turned to face the monte table
where Danny Johnston was sitting. ‘Danny,’ he said gravely. ‘Let me
see you boys on your feet.’ He still had the gun in his hand; there
was a fleck of blood on the barrel.
    Danny Johnston looked at the gun and
then into Howie’s face. ‘Howie,’ he said. ‘Allus figgered you’d
prob’ly go loco one day, an’ now you’ve finally gone and done ‘er.
I’m proposin’ us boys chip in an’ buy you a vacation in one o’ them
fancy rest-cure places they got back East in St Lou. Whatcha say,
boys?’
    ‘ Looks like he could use one,’ the
man on his right said.
    ‘ Funny, funny,’ Howie Cade said.
The backhand slap of the pistol barrel across the bridge of the
man’s nose was almost negligent, but everyone in the saloon heard
the bones go as the man cartwheeled backward over the table and hit
the wall with a crash that shook the building. He slid down to the
floor, his face a bright mask of blood, and Danny Johnston stared
at Howie as if he’d just grown horns and a forked tail.
    ‘ You wouldn’t, of course, have
heard that someone tried to bushwhack Sheridan down by the depot,’
he said conversationally to Johnston. ‘An’ killed poor old Nathan
Ridlow in the doing of it? Would you?’
    ‘ Uh. . . .’ Johnston said. The man
on his left looked indignant.
    ‘ What the hell is this, anyway,
Howie?’ he growled.
    ‘ We want to talk to the man who
came in here after Ridlow got it,’ Howie said. ‘He’s probably got a
hole in his hide someplace, too.’
    ‘ Well, sheet, Howie,’ Danny
Johnston said, placatingly, the color back in his face now. ‘Ain’t
nobody come in here a good half-hour before you an’ the marshal
bust in here.’
    ‘ That’s the truth,’ his sidekick
said. He was a tall, burly rider whom Howie recognized vaguely,
having seen him around town a few times.
    ‘ You wouldn’t know the truth if it
bit you in the ass, Harvey,’ he said conversationally. He moved
maybe three inches nearer the Flying H rider, and the man