Frame Angel! (A Frank Angel Western) #7 (7 page)

‘
Hup-hi,
hup-hi, hup-hi!’ the guards shouted their cadences, their breath a
steamy fog in the chilly morning air. ‘Hup-hi, hup-hi!’

As they came out of the yard between blocks
A and D into the cobbled parade, which was dominated by big main
doors, Frank Angel seemed to stumble and fell to the floor. In a
moment, the big, red-faced guard from cell block A, whose name
Angel now knew to be Chris Shore, was beside him, yanking brutally
on his arm, the baton poised to strike.

‘
On yer
feet, ye stumblebum!’ Shore rasped.

He wasn
’t ready for the way Angel moved,
wasn’t anything like fast enough to stop the prisoner from coming
up off the ground like a striking snake. His left hand moved from
his right shoulder in a slicing chop that stopped with a slapping
thud in the fold of flesh between Shore’s chin and Adam’s apple. A
full strength blow would have destroyed his larynx, and Shore would
have been dead in ten minutes. But Angel’s blow merely paralyzed
the guard’s breathing. Shore’s eyes bulged as his lungs tried
desperately to draw oxygen through his stunned windpipe, and the
baton clattered from a hand gone suddenly limp. Angel picked up the
heavy club on the first bounce and as a second guard came running,
threw it as if it were a balanced knife. The heavy, metal-covered
billy whickered through the air. and the running guard ducked,
flinching away. In a moment Angel was behind Shore, the knife in
his hand flickering as it caught the first fleeting rays of the sun
coming high enough to shine over the gray walls.

A running guard skidded to a halt, hand
fumbling at the flap of his pistol holster.

‘
Touch
that gun and you’ll see his throat cut!’ Angel yelled. ‘Hear
me!’

The guard looked about him
wildly as the prisoners scattered to the safety of the outer walls,
leaving the tableau
posed in the center of the cobbled yard – Angel with his
arm around Shore’s neck, the fat man’s spine arched back; the guard
standing, hand poised over his holster, looking about him; the
other guards frozen, waiting a moment. Briggs was about four yards
to one side and edging forward. Angel wrestled Shore’s gun out of
its holster and tossed it to Briggs.

‘
Get
over here close!’ he shouted. ‘Bring that guard here!’

Briggs gestured with the pistol,
moving fast to be close to Angel and Shore. The other guard
hesitated and Briggs fired the gun. The bullet smashed into the
cobbles at the guard
’s feet, and he jumped visibly as the slug ricocheted away
into infinity. Some of the prisoners near the wall ducked
instinctively. The guard came warily forward, and then Briggs
grabbed him. Now Angel swung Shore around in front of him for
protection so that he was behind the fat guard and Briggs was
behind Shore, dragging the other guard backward with the pistol
against his temple.

‘
Open
those gates!’ Angel shouted. ‘Open them up, or there’ll be two dead
guards out here!’

‘
Kill
the guards and you’ll be dead two seconds later!’ one of the guards
up on the prison wall yelled back. ‘Turn them loose and give
yourselves up!’

Briggs threw a shot toward the voice, and
the guard ducked hastily back. The shuffling quartet edged nearer
to the gates, and Angel shouted his order again.

‘
Open
up,’ he yelled. ‘I won’t say it three times!’

Warden Abrams was coming out of the main
administration building now, flanked by three guards armed with
sawed-off shotguns. They were ten gauge, riot guns, Briggs saw. If
one of those was fired within twenty feet of a man, the remains
usually had to be buried in a sandbag to give a decent weight to
the coffin.

‘
Angel?’
he said nervously.

‘
Keep
cool,’ Angel gritted. He dragged Shore, whose eyes were bulging
with fear that drenched his face and body with perspiration, nearer
to the gates.

‘
All
right!’ the warden shouted. ‘We’ll open up!’

A muttering cheer rose from the prisoners
against the walls, and a dozen or so of them started forward toward
Angel. Almost immediately a wicked volley of shots rang out from
the sentinels around the walls, the bullets banging with ugly flat
sounds into the cobblestones two feet in front of the moving
prisoners.

The prisoners shrank back
quickly as the warden shouted,
‘Any man who tries to make a run for it will be
shot down!’ He walked out into the middle of the
courtyard.

‘
You!’
he called. ‘You two men! If I open the gates, will you turn the
guards loose unharmed?’

‘
Open
the gates first, Warden!’ Angel shouted. ‘Or we’ll kill them
now!’

Warden Abrams nodded, waving
his
arm in a
signal to the men in the twin towers above the heavy gates. They
worked the winches, and the doors slowly began to open. The guards
on the perimeter fence came forward, their Winchesters cocked and
ready.

‘
Hold
your fire!’ the warden shouted at them. ‘Hold your
fire!’

‘
All
right, pig!’ Angel hissed at Shore. ‘Move ass!’

He thrust a knee into the fat
man
’s back.
Shore grunted in pain, walking as best he could with his back bent
and Angel’s arm like a bar of steel around his throat. Briggs
dragged the other guard by the belt, moving the man awkwardly, but
without risk. His pistol was jammed into the man’s spine, and the
guard knew that no matter what he might be able to do or not do to
prevent or hamper the escape, it would result in his spine being
blown to bits. The Territorial Prison Board didn’t pay him enough
to be that kind of hero.

‘
Get
back away from me!’ Angel rasped at the bayed guards near the gate.
‘Inside, inside. Move yourselves!’

They saw the knife at
Shore
’s
throat, the pistol thrust into Angel’s belt, and Briggs with his
gun lammed into the other guard’s back, They looked at the warden,
who shook his head, and then, reluctantly, they edged away, backing
off, sidling into the prison courtyard as the escaping men moved
out into the no-man’s-land between the walls and the perimeter
fence, its gate now unguarded.

‘
All
right, Warden!’ Angel yelled. His voice sounded thin and unnatural
in the open space after days of echoing against the walls of the
cell. ‘Shut the gates!’

‘
What
about my men?’ Abrams shouted back.

‘
Shut
the gates, Warden!’ Angel shouted. ‘And be damned
quick!’

Again Abrams gave a signal, and
the men in the watchtower worked the winch that closed the gates.
Abrams dashed across the yard, running up the stone stairs to the
tower, his riot-gun-armed guards close behind him. The
other prison guards
were already in motion, hustling the prisoners back into the yard
between cell blocks A and D, slamming the high metal barriers shut,
sliding the bolts on the far side. The prisoners were herded into
ranks – rebellious, muttering ranks, to be sure; but the glowering
threat of the guards, all of whom had pistols drawn and were
waiting for any overt movement, was enough to keep them
quiescent.

‘
Turn
those men loose,’ the warden shouted. ‘You haven’t got a chance of
getting away!’

‘
Up
yours, you mealy-mouthed bastard!’ Briggs shouted, and without
warning aimed the pistol and threw a shot at the unprotected
warden, The bullet was not carefully aimed, but Abrams was smacked
backward as it ploughed a painful furrow through the muscle between
his neck and shoulder. He cannoned into one of his guards, blood
spurting over his light gray suit, and slid groaning to the
floor.

‘
Goddamn
you, for a stupid bastard!’ Angel snarled at Briggs. ‘What the hell
did you do that for?’

‘
Ah, he
was—’

‘
Shut
your mouth and move!’ Angel snapped. ‘Get the hell out of range of
those riot guns, at least. If we so much as show a finger now, one
of those sons up there will shoot it off!’

They were finally outside the perimeter
fence. Thirty feet from the walls. Now they hustled the two men,
frog-marching them across the hilly ground as fast as they could
go. Inside the prison a strident clangor began and rose to a
crescendo as the alarm bells were set off. They could see guards
with carbines in their hands running all along the perimeter
wall.

Groaning, panting, cursing,
slipping, and sweating, the two prisoners pushed and hurried the
guards across the open ground away from the prison until they came
to the wide, dusty road going south-east toward Clayton. On its far
side was a sloping runoff, and they slid
gratefully down into it, momentarily
out of sight of the prison.

‘
All
right,’ Angel said, panting for breath. ‘All right!’

Shore looked at him. He must
have seen something in Angel
’s face that Angel could not conceal – a contempt,
perhaps, that the guard read as decision.

‘
Oh,
God,’ Shore blubbered. ‘Don’t kill us, don’t, don’t,
don’t!’

‘
I sure
as hell—’ Briggs said, cocking his pistol.

‘
Briggs!’ Angel snapped at him, pushing the barrel of the
revolver up and shoving the man away from his intended victim.
Briggs growled angrily and brought the gun around on
Angel.

‘
Keep
off me,’ he snarled. ‘Keep your hands off me, or I’ll kill
you!’

‘
Go
ahead,’ Angel told him. ‘How far you think you’ll get alone? A
mile? Two? They’ll have you back inside there—’ he jerked his head
back at the prison ‘—so fast it’ll singe your ass! Don’t be a fool.
They’ll be coming out after us as soon as they see these two, so
we’d better make all the ground we can. You!’

Ignoring Briggs, he turned to
face Shore, who flinched as though Angel had struck him.
‘Yessir?’ the guard
managed.

‘
Take
off your boots and your pants. Both of you!’

Shore began hastily to comply
with Angel
’s
order; the second guard hesitated until Briggs again cocked the
revolver ostentatiously, whereupon he began to follow suit. In a
few moments the guards stood, looking vaguely comic, in bare feet
and grubby long Johns. Angel took their boots and pants and tied
them into a makeshift bundle.

‘
They
can’t walk five yards in any direction like that,’ he grinned.
‘This country’s crawlin’ with rattlers.’

He watched
Shore
’s
greasy face pale as he spoke, and the sound of the man’s gulp was
as loud as a cork being pulled out of a bottle. The other guard
looked at Angel and spat on the ground.

‘
You’re
a pretty venomous bastard yourself, ain’t you!’ he said. ‘Puttin’
men barefoot where there’s pizen critters.’

‘
I don’t
know,’ Angel said mildly. ‘Might be any snake bites you, he’ll be
the one gets poisoned. I wish I had the time to wait an’ find out,
but I ain’t. Squat!’

The two men crouched where Angel
indicated, sheltered from anyone
’s view by the cut bank above
them.

‘
You
stay put,’ he warned them. ‘Don’t forget I’ll be able to see you
much longer than you’ll be able to see me.’

He jerked his head at
Briggs.
‘Come
on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’ He set off
purposefully on foot, quartering due south to where Sierra Grande
towered sharp and clear against the skyline, a banner of cloud
drifting across her summit. The ground was soft and the going heavy
in the laceless prison boots as they moved through the screening
greasewood.

‘
What
was all that bullshit about snakes?’ he panted. ‘Ain’t no snakes
this high up, an’ you know it.’

‘
Sure,’
Angel grinned. ‘Question is, do them guards know it?’

The other man grinned too,
admiring the ruse.
‘How long you think it’ll hold ’em?’

Angel was about to reply when, back in the
direction from which they had come, they heard the faint sounds of
men shouting.

‘
Answer
your question?’ Angel asked, as Briggs mouthed a curse.

They ran on through the broken
land for another quarter of a mile, Angel
’s eye questing right and left
constantly.

‘
Listen,’ Briggs panted. ‘Angel, listen. We got to … get
horses. Get clothes – we can’t wear these things … spiders on a
whitewashed wall!’

‘
Take it
easy,’ Angel said. ‘It’s been taken care of!’

‘
What?’

‘
It’s
been taken care of,’ Angel said, and Briggs didn’t hear the words,
‘I hope,’ that Angel added beneath his breath.

The two men stumbled into an open clearing,
on one side of which was a flat rock. There was a splash of white
on the rock, a striated chalk mark that could only have been made
by man.