Send Angel! (A Frank Angel Western #2) by Frederick H. Christian

the Perry ranch, about thirty
miles due west of Fort Daranga.
    ‘ You
don’t owe us nothin’,’ George Perry told him. He was not a young
man, and the years he had spent in this hostile land had left their
marks on his face, which was lined deeply and saddle brown beneath
a crown of crisp white hair cut short as any West
Pointer’s.
    ‘ Any
man runs afoul of them varmints is lucky to come out alive,” he
added. ‘Folks say them two have been behind quite a few killin's in
these parts.’
    ‘ Not
to their faces, they don’t,’ said Kate Perry. ‘The
cowards.’
    ‘ Now,
honey, it ain’t cowardice to face the fact that a man’d as soon gut
shoot you as take a drink,’ Perry said mildly. ‘Meetin’ that Mill
on a dark night’d like to turn any man’s stomach. Say. honey, did
you tell Mr. Angel he warn’t the first man you’d found out on the
desert?’
    Kate Perry shuddered, and the old man
grinned a little.
    ‘ Don’t
like to talk about it much, she don’t,’ he said. ‘She run across a
feller out there a few months back. Someone done a real job on
him.’
    ‘ It
was awful,’ the girl said. ‘Whoever did it must have been
insane.’
    ‘ Freeman, his name was,’ Perry said, undaunted. ‘First we
thought mebbe some young buck’d been full o’ rotgut an’ taken it
out on this feller. But he turned out to be some kind o’ Gov’ment
man. Surveyor or somethin’. Deader’n a doornail,
anyway.’
    Angel let nothing show on his
face. Kate Perry bustled about, smoothing down the rumpled
bed-clothes. Her patient was showing signs of restlessness, and she chided
him with a wagging linger.
    ‘ No
you don’t, Mr. Angel,’ she said. ‘You are going to stay put for
another twenty-four hours at least.’
    ‘ Aw,
ma’am, I feel fine,’ Angel argued. ‘Besides, this much bed is about
as much as I can take, meaning no offense. You’ve been mighty kind,
but I got to get up and about.’
    ‘ You
never did say what brung you into these parts, boy,’ Perry said.
‘Not that I’m pryin’,’ he added, conscious of the fact that it was
sometimes best not to ask too many questions of drifters who might
have the law on their back trail and prefer not to talk about
it.
    ‘ No,
I’m not on the run,’ Angel grinned. ‘But I figure I’d like to do a
little rising from the dead in Daranga just to see what those two
do when I walk in.’
    ‘ I
wouldn’t advise it, boy,’ Perry said softly. ‘They’re meaner’n
pizen an’ twice as fast. You take it easy a couple more days. Get
the strength back into you. Besides, Walt Clare is comin’ over here
tonight Sparkin’ young Missy there,’ he said, bringing a flush of
color to Kate Perry’s cheeks.’ ’Spect we’ll have to feed that big
ox again. He can eat more’n a starvin’ wildcat. Love that does it,
I reckon.’ He stumped out of the room, grinning, and Angel found
the scenery engrossing for long enough to give Kate a chance to
compose her features.
    After a moment he asked a question.
    ‘ Walt
is our neighbor,’ she explained. ‘He runs a spread south of where I
found you - the Lazy C. He and I are ... sort of... engaged.’ The
blush was back, mantling her cheeks.
    ‘ He’s
a lucky man,’ Angel said - and meant it. Kate Perry was a pretty
girl.
    ‘ Oh,
fiddlesticks,’ she said. ‘You’re just sweet talkin’ me so I’ll let
you get up out of that bed.’
    ‘ It
did cross my mind,’ Angel admitted.
    ‘ You
can get up at suppertime,’ she said with mock severity. ‘Not a
minute before.’
    ‘ Then
stay awhile,’ he said. You can tell me a few things.’
    ‘ I
doubt that,’ she said with a mischievous grin. “You get some sleep.
Tonight you and Walt and Daddy can talk your fool heads off. Do you
like steak?’
    ‘ If
there’s nothing else,’ Angel said and ducked as she threw a pillow
at him. She went out of the bedroom and he lay back, hands clasped
behind his head. The Perrys seemed like decent folk, the salt of
the