Kill Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #6) by Frederick H. Christian

and
creviced from the explosion and the fall. He moved around this
sheltering boulder and then upwards, always keeping the southern
side of the rocks furthest from him, gaining height by Which he
could see down the canyon where the devastation had been the worst.
Suddenly he froze; he heard voices.
    ‘ Easy,
boy,’ he heard someone say.
    ‘ I’m
doin’ the best I can,’ someone else said, a whine in his
voice.
    ‘ That
leg don’t look too good, Mr. Crumm,’ a third voice
added.
    ‘ Dammit, I know that, Bert!’ snapped the first
voice.
    Angel eased a little further
around the sheltering rock. He was about eight or nine feet above
them and to the right of where they were, he reckoned, although it
was difficult to be sure. The resonances of the canyon wall made fixing
positions extremely difficult. He edged a fraction further forward
and then he could see them.
    A huge, fat man sat with his back against a
boulder, his clothing tattered and his jowly face streaked with
sweat and dirt. At his feet knelt a younger man, whose face vaguely
reminded Angel of someone. Of course! One of the Blantine boys,
Burke most likely. But where were the others? There were only four
men down there on the canyon floor. He tried to see further down
the canyon, but hesitated; if he leaned out further and anyone
looked this way, he would be easy to see. The fat man gave a
curse.
    ‘ Easy,
there, Burke!’ he hissed. ‘That hurts like hell!’
    ‘ Looks
like you bruk your ankle, Mr. Crumm,’ the man called Bert
said.
    ‘ Sure
is swelled up bad,’ Blantine said. ‘I’ll try an’ bind it up the
best I can, Olan.’
    ‘ Here,
use this,’ the fourth man said. He was a rangy man of about thirty,
and he limped forward, favoring his right leg. ‘Funny you got your
ankle busted up like that, Mr. Crumm, an’ me with that danged great
rock fallin’ on me on’y got kinda scraped ... ‘
    ‘ Damn
funny!’ Crumm snarled. ‘See me laughin’, Henry, see me
laughin’!’
    ‘ Sorry,
Mr. Crumm,’ the man said. ‘No offence.’
    Angel leaned back against the sheltering
rock. Was this all of them? Had the avalanche wiped out eleven men?
He edged forward again as Blantine spoke.
    ‘ We got
to go on after them,’ he said. ‘More so now than ever.’
    ‘ Leave
‘em to Hurwitch, Burke,’ the fat man said. ‘We’re sure in no shape
to chase them, even if we had hosses.’
    ‘ There’s two hosses OK, Mr. Crumm,’ the man called Henry
offered. ‘Me an’ Bert could hold on up here until you was able to
send someone up after us, I reckon.’
    ‘ Sure
thing,’ said Bert.
    Angel frowned in his hideout.
Where were the horses? Perhaps he could pick them off. That would
effectively stop any sort of pursuit behind them. Who was Hurwitch?
What had the fat man meant when he said Blantine could leave
Hurwitch to take care of things? The lines of concentration
deepened between Angel ’s brows and he moved his foot for better purchase
on the thin ledge upon which he was standing. As he did so he felt
the stone break, a piece of soft slate turning beneath his foot and
destroying his balance. The slate clattered down the side of the
bare rock and Angel jumped, out into the open, the four men on the
canyon floor already moving for their guns.
    Angel ’s leap took him seven or eight feet,
a clawing, off-balance try for the shelter of a boulder up against
the wall of the canyon. He hit the ground on his hands and knees
rolling headfirst into a somersault, and the first bullet smacked
into the rock above him as Burke Blantine got into
action.
    Olan Crumm scuttled with incredible speed
for the rocks behind him as Burke Blantine, crouching in the centre
of the canyon floor, fired again at Angel, cursing as his bullet
once more smashed rock splinters out of the boulder around which
Angel was squirming.
    The two other men, Bert and
Henry, reacted instinctively. Pulling their handguns they ran
straight at Angel, firing as they came. He saw them coming