Warn Angel! (A Frank Angel Western--Book 9) by Frederick H. Christian Read Free Book Online Page B

‘What the hell was it?’
    ‘ He-he,’ Kitchen snickered. ‘Make ’er
m’self. Pooty good stuff, hey?’ He took a solid slug of the liquor
himself, as if Angel had reminded him of its existence.
    ‘ Pooty good,’ Angel grinned. He tried
to sit up, and long slow pains pulsed through his body. ‘Aaah,’ he
said, softly.
    ‘ You may be in a hurry, boyo,’ Kitchen
said. ‘But you ain’t goin’ anyplace. What the hell was it hit you
anyways, a train?’
    Angel shook his head, startled for a moment
by the accuracy of the old loner’s guess. ‘I got to move on, Mr.
Kitchen,’ he said.
    ‘ Henny,’ Kitchen said. ‘Call me Henny.
Listen, boyo, you got more bruises on you than a feller been
stampeded on. May even have a couple bones bruk for all I know. I
ain’t no medic. But I can tell you one thing—you ain’t about to
move on. No sir Matilda!’
    ‘ Listen,’ Angel began, weakly. Kitchen
ignored him.
    ‘ Y’ever hear about that feller in the
Bible?’ Kitchen was saying, as he busied himself scouring out a pan
with a stiff brush. ‘Met Death on his way someplace. “Howdy,” sez
Death, polite as you please. “Jumpin’Jesus!” sez this feller, an’
he takes off down the road like someone set fire to his ass. Death
watches him go a-runnin’, and shakes his head, sad-like. “What in
tarnation’s a-bitin’ him, anyways?” Death sez. “He ain’t got no
reason to be afeared o’ me today. It’s tomorrow I got his
appointment down for”.’
    He slapped his thigh, and looked up to see
if Angel was listening. ‘What d’ye think o’that, then?’ he
cackled.
    There was no reply. Angel had already fallen
asleep, and Kitchen let him sleep on until he woke naturally,
around dawn, as the old man started clattering about to boil up
some coffee and get the day up and moving.
    ‘ Well, well, Sleepin’ Beauty awakes,’
Kitchen grinned. ‘How you feelin’?’
    Angel sat up. He felt a damned sight better
and he said so. He got up off the chair in which he’d slept, easing
his stiffened legs. He grimaced as his feet touched the floor, and
remembered how swollen they had been. He wasn’t accustomed to that
kind of walking. After he’d hobbled about for a few minutes, he
began to feel halfway normal and asked Kitchen some questions as he
nursed the tin mug of coffee that the old man handed him.
    ‘ Five o’ them, you say?’ Kitchen
mused.
    Angel nodded, and repeated the description
of the fat man.
    ‘ One o’ them had gray hair alongside
his head, so,’ he told Kitchen, using his hands to describe Falco’s
distinctive hair. ‘Another one was short, tubby-lookin’. Might’ve
been a Texan.’
    ‘ Naw, boyo,’ Kitchen said. ‘I’d sure
as hell recall seein’ a bunch like that. Mind you, if they was
headin’ for Denver like you say, they’d probably cut over in back
o’ the hills toward Fort Morgan, bed down there a
night.’
    ‘ They might have swung north,’ Angel
hazarded a guess.
    ‘ Not damn’ likely,’ Kitchen
contradicted. ‘Nothin’ up there but ten thousand hostiles with
blood in their eye. They’d be double-damn fools if they wuz to head
north.’
    Angel nodded. Since the Custer disaster in
June, Wyoming, Montana, and even Idaho were dangerous territories
to traverse. Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, all the Plains tribes were
in an incendiary mood and a small band of men, no matter how
well-armed, would not get far across their lands. They had been
promised their hunting grounds for as long as the grass grew, and
it looked as if they were planning to keep them—any damned way they
could.
    More than that, though: there was nowhere up
there for Willowfield and his gang to go. Men with money burning
holes in their jeans would head for a big town where they could
find bright lights, soft beds, willing women. The nearest supply of
those would be in Denver and it was on Denver he decided to bet his
roll.
    Kitchen made a living trading horses. He
bought badly used animals from