Warn Angel! (A Frank Angel Western--Book 9) by Frederick H. Christian

trail-herders at Ogallala or the
Army at Fort Sedgwick, paying a few dollars a head. Then he would
drive the animals to his place and nurse them back to health. Most
of the time he was able to do such a good job that he could sell
them back to the Army at a handsome profit. It gave his contrary
soul pleasure to take money from the same people who had abandoned
the horses as useless. He was happy to sell Angel a big rangy roan
with powerful shoulders and legs that looked sturdy enough to do
farm work. They worked out a deal that included an old McLellan
saddle, a bedroll, and a bridle, but Kitchen wouldn’t take a cent
for his hospitality.
    ‘ Hell’s teeth, boyo,’ he said.
‘Pleasure to have somebody to yatter at. You sure you’re in shape
to ride?’
    ‘ No, I’m not,’ Angel said, managing a
grin. ‘But I aim to get at it anyway.’
    ‘ You must want to ketch up with them
jaspers real bad,’ Kitchen observed. ‘I wish you luck of
it.’
    ‘ Thanks, Henny,’ Angel said, meaning
it. ‘For everything.’
    ‘ Aw, go on an’ git!’ Kitchen said. He
slapped the roan across the rump and the animal moved off at a
trot, snorting with surprise. Kitchen stood watching as Angel
lifted the horse’s stride to a canter, and not until all he could
see was the soft plume of dust marking the rider’s passage did he
turn away and return to his chores.
    ‘ B’Gawd an’ Moses,’ he muttered.
‘Whoever them fellers is, I sure am glad I ain’t one of
’em!’
    ~*~
    He picked up their trail at Two Mile
Creek.
    A man who ran a small spread up on the
divide, Dan Callow, remembered the fat man and the boy. He had sold
the riders some grain for their horses, which they had paid for in
good clean American greenbacks. Angel grinned at the thought of
that as he headed the big roan up into the foothills. The trail ran
along the south Platte, which looked about as muddy as usual—too
thick to drink, too thin to plow—and he could see it snaking up
into the mountains ahead like a skein of string left unrolled
behind some meandering wagon. The mountains lay ahead in rolling
pile after soaring pinnacle, slate gray and deep purple, not the
shining mountains of the summer but sullen, heavy, their peaks
already capped with snow. He checked off in his mind the mountain
torrents that raced down to the river whose trace he was now
following: Cache-le-Poudre, Clear Creek, St. Vrain’s Fork, Big
Thompson, and Little Thompson. A man could take trout up there with
his bare hands. The air was sharp, the sky clear. It felt good to
be out in the open again: lately he had been too much in cities,
and had missed the winey taste of the mountain air.
    He camped overnight in a clearing that stood
sheltered beneath a frowning stone bluff in the edge of the pine
forest. Two wood pigeons—which advertised their presence by noisily
calling each other in the woods—provided him with supper. He dug
heavy clay from the riverbank, making two heavy balls in which the
whole bird, feathers and all, disappeared. These clay balls he laid
in the glowing red center of his small fire, and waited until the
clay was hard and brittle. Using a stick he rolled the clay balls
out of the fire and let them cool slightly before tapping them,
hard, with the barrel of his sixgun. The clay balls broke open, and
the steaming pigeons, feathers stripped away by the baking, were
ready to eat. He cleaned them swiftly with his knife and devoured
the soft flesh with relish. He wished he had some beer. A glass of
beer would have completed a meal that Delmonico’s couldn’t have
improved. Next morning he pushed the roan harder, and made Denver
halfway through the day. He walked the horse through the unlovely
outskirts of the city, past the freighting corrals and teamster
outfits, the tent shanties and the stockyards, the sawmills and the
builder’s merchants, making for the most famous rendezvous in
Denver. This was a huge corral next to which stood a saloon called
The Mammoth.