Free Find Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #1) by Frederick H. Christian Page B

bullets where they thought Angel was. But Angel had moved
and he came up above the counter and threw two shots fast at the
man on the left, who lurched in mid-stride as he went down behind
cover, his legs kicking high and a bubbling scream of pain breaking
from his lips. The third man fired hastily at Angel, scrabbling
back away from the side of the room towards the door. Angel went
down again on the boards behind the bar, squirming on his elbows
towards the huddled body of the man with the eyeglasses. There was
a huge, sticky puddle of blood staining the splintered duckboards
but Angel ignored it as he wormed towards the open end of the bar.
Before he reached it he heard the frantic scramble of boots and
leaped to his feet in time to throw an unaimed shot after the man
who burst out of the door. Angel’s bullet took a huge chunk of wood
out of the door frame and then his target was outside. He heard
running feet and shouts from the bartender and the girls outside.
He ran catlike towards the door and edged towards it until he could
see outside. The bartender was on one knee in front of the
building, a bolt-action rifle aimed directly at the doorway. The
girls were scattering towards the outbuildings and Angel heard the
beat of hoofs behind the house.
    He
cursed aloud and then whirled as he heard the scrabble of boots on
the floor behind him. A man came up from behind the overturned
table across the room. There was a huge bloodstain beneath his left
arm, coating his entire body from armpit to waist. He lurched
drunkenly, trying to level the heavy gun in his hand, his eyes
squinted tight against the pain in his body.
    ‘ Damn
you!’ the man shouted and pulled the trigger in the same instant
that Angel squeezed off his own bullet. He felt the raw burn of
white pain across his side as the slug sliced along his ribs and he
reeled across the open doorway. The bartender saw him and fired,
his bullet whacking through the batwing door and shattering the
slats into a thousand flying splinters. Angel, down on one knee,
saw the man across the room slide forward on his face to the floor,
the gun spilling from his nerveless hands. The bartender came
running forward across the yard and Angel let him come. The man
came flying into the room, the rifle ported ready in his hands and
saw Angel in the same moment that Angel laid the barrel of his Army
Colt alongside the bartender’s head. The man went down hard on his
knees and Angel hit him again and then again. The bartender
retched, emptying his belly in a pool of stinking vomit as he slid
into unconsciousness.
    There
was an acrid stink of cordite in the air, and the slight breeze
through the doorway swung the smoke as if it were tangible. Angel
walked out into the sunlight.
    He
saw the white faces of the girls peering through the window of the
outhouse and then the two teamsters who had been drinking earlier
at the bar came out into the open. They came warily across the yard
as the girls came out, fear in every movement they made. Jesus,
mister,’ one of the teamsters said. Jesus.’
    ‘ Get
those girls over here,’ Angel said brusquely. ‘I want to know who
those men are. Or were.’
    The
teamsters looked at him thunderstruck.
    ‘ Mister, you shot them fellers down an' you don’t know who
they were?’
    Angel
nodded. ‘One of them was called Juba,’ he said. ‘The other one is
one of the Torellis. I don’t know which one.’
    ‘ Hell, that’s easy, mister,’ the teamster said. ‘You musta cut
down Steve Torelli, ’cause Frank was the one lit out of here like
his ass was afire.’
    ‘ That’s right, mister,’ the second man said. They followed
Angel into the building, their eyes widening at the havoc. One of
them went over and looked down at the man behind the bar. He turned
away, his face white and sick.
    ‘ Denny Juba,’ Angel said. He turned as the girl Carmen came
downstairs into the room. ‘That right?’
    She
nodded. Her lips were a thin and bloodless line and