Stop Angel! (A Frank Angel Western Book 8) (3 page)

There was an entrance into the valley,
of course.

Through the tangled barrier of
the thornbreaks ran a track. There were guardhouses at both ends of
it, and a signal system between both that made it almost
foolproof. Even if
some unwanted visitor were to overpower one set of guards—at either
end—certain switches would infallibly be set, and the entire road
be instantaneously turned into a murderous, booby-trapped defile of
death.

South of the thornbreaks, between the
woods and there, lay a huge, swampy lake. This was as far as the
man-made river ran. Here, the water became brackish, murky,
smelling of old copper. Around it swamp plants flourished in the
overheated dampness, and old trees drooped beneath the weight of
hanging moss.

When there was quarry, many of
them headed for the lake. There were other options, all of them
clearly signposted. Nix smiled a cobra
’s smile at the thought: the Englishman,
Tyrrell, had headed for the lake. He had almost made it, too.
Almost was not good enough in Nix’s valley. Those who lived in it,
worked in it, those knew how to avoid its perils despite the
absence of any semblance of a trail. Others … others must fend for
themselves. Nix’s riders were strictly instructed and as strictly
checked to ensure that when they traversed the valley, they left no
tracks. A tumbleweed tied at the end of a length of rope affixed to
the pommel would effectively blur the marks of a horse’s hoofs. A
spar of driftwood on an A-loop would flatten out tracks made during
wet weather. The men used whatever would do the job, and always did
it. They knew only too well what happened to anyone who challenged
the will of their employer.

Nix sat now, solid and powerful
in the beautifully tooled California saddle with its silver conchos
and tapering
tapaderos.
The beautiful black stallion stirred as the wicked spade
bit touched its sensitive jaw, shivering slightly, ready to move
when commanded. Nix leaned forward and patted its sleek neck. ‘Very
soon, my beauty,’ he murmured. ‘Very soon now.’

He was a big man, wide of
shoulder, solid and heavy. His hair and brows were as black as a
raven
’s wing,
and his deep-set eyes were dark, burning, almost fanatical. His
physical presence made lesser men aware of their own comparative
weakness. His chest was like a barrel, his thighs like hams. He
stood well over six and a half feet without the soft, expensive
boots, and weighed well over two hundred pounds, not an ounce of
which was fat. There was only one imperfection in this enormous
frame, and that was his left hand. Over it, Nix always wore a black
glove which concealed an artificial hand. Specially made for him by
the leading skilled men of Vienna, it was as close in appearance to
a normal hand as anything made by man could be, but there was a
difference. Some of his men had seen Nix use the hand as a weapon.
It had become a steel claw, irresistible, terrible, and they feared
it even more than the silver-plated Remington he wore and could use
with such unnerving speed, or even the plaited rhinoceros-hide whip
he carried looped to the pommel of his saddle.

His men feared Hercules Nix and he
knew it, gloried in it.

He knew what fear was and he
knew how to use it. He had spent nearly four long years amassing
enough money to have power, and he had cheated and lied and finally
killed to get it. Now that he had power, wealth, and strength, he
used all of them ruthlessly, without pity. He gave no quarter, felt
no doubt. He had learned that survival meant life and
that life meant war
and he intended to fight that war as he did everything else,
relentlessly and totally. And as he did everything else, he would
win. He would have his revenge, and go on from there.

‘
Thar he
is,’ Des Elliott said. He was a small, fair-haired, almost cherubic
looking man dressed in a black leather jacket and pants against
which his silver-studded gunbelt and nickel-plated Colts made an
almost flashy contrast. He could have been anywhere between twenty
and fifty, and he was the most sadistic and vicious of all Nix’s
hunting crew, the leader of his hired assassins.

‘
Where?’
Nix said. His voice was throaty with anticipation.
‘Where?’

‘
Way on
up,’ a second man said. ‘Past the dry ford.’

The dry ford was the only safe way to
cross the river. There were other fords, of course. Quarry found
out the hard way which was which.

‘
He’s
done well,’ Nix said, reluctantly.

‘
Yup,’
the second man said. His name was Barnfield, but everyone called
him Barney. He was long and lanky and he had a thatch of
reddish-colored hair and three days of stubble on his chin. He
scratched a match on the seat of his pants and set fire to a
grubby-looking cigar butt.

‘
Looks
like he’s heading for the lake,’ Elliott said, venomous
satisfaction in his light voice. ‘He ain’t crossin’.’

‘
Good,’
Nix said, his voice like iron now.

‘
Well,
Boss,’ a third man asked. ‘How about it?’

‘
One
moment more, Hisco,’ Nix said. The skull-faced man who had spoken
had the white hair and pink eyes of an albino. His mouth was like a
razor-slash in the long jaw.

‘
Git
ready, boys,’ he murmured to those behind him. He’d been on a
hunting party before, and he knew what happened next. Even so, he
was still startled when Nix gave a screech like a drunken Comanch’
and drove the fine-tipped steel points of his Mexican spurs into
the ribs of the beautiful black horse. The stallion contorted with
pain and exploded into movement, going down the thirty-degree slope
of Diablo Point as if it were a kitchen table, with Nix maniacally
urging it to even greater speed. His cohorts did their nervous best
to keep up with him but by the time they got to the bottom of the
slope, Nix was already nearly half a mile ahead. Urging their
animals to greater speed, they thundered in his wake, their dust
rising behind them like a funeral pyre, a broad arrow of movement
on the vast land whose point was Hercules Nix. The arrow was aimed
unerringly at the tiny white figure moving slowly through the
broken ground alongside the treacherous river.

Jaime Lorenz saw the dust and
swore.

Men on horseback, that close,
would be on him in less than half an hour. It
didn
’t give
him a hell of a lot of time to make it to the screening timber
around the lake up ahead. Maybe he could make it, but it was going
to be touch and go. He lurched on, trying to ignore the agony of
his bloodily tattered feet. Every pounding footstep was like a
bright lance of fire through his entire body, but he had to keep
going or die, and he knew it. The sun had broiled his naked body,
and his tongue was already thick with thirst. His lips were
cracked, and he looked longingly at the purling river on his left.
He shook his head doggedly. He wasn’t about to risk that again. He
kept on, his run hardly much better than a shambling walk, but
moving on, a small defenseless speck in the hugeness of the land,
ignoring the pleas of his overworked body for rest, water, and
food. The timber up ahead was appreciably nearer when he looked up,
and the sight gave him fresh strength. He caught the glint of water
through the close-set trees, and dreamed for an instant of
splashing in a deep, cool lake.

He risked a look over his shoulder. He
saw the dust off to the rear, easier to see now, appreciably
closer. He ignored the clear trail of blood spots he himself was
leaving. They could see him, he knew. There would be no need of
tracking until or if he got into the timber. He ignored everything
now except the need to survive. Everything they had taught him in
the training school, every technique, every trick was vital if he
was to survive, get out of this deathtrap, and report what he had
discovered here.

His brain checked, examined, and
discarded idea after idea, trick after technique. He had to be
realistic. He was naked, unarmed, and worn down by the exposure,
minor wounds, and relentless pursuit. Until he reached the timber,
he could not hope to make himself a weapon. He prayed to God
he
’d have the
time. He could sure as hell use a break.

‘
There
is no escape from my valley,’ Nix had told him the night before.
‘No escape at all. But you will try. You must. You know you must
and I know you will. I will give you your chance. It is only a
small one, but it is at least a chance.’

‘
Why are
you doing this to me?’ Lorenz had asked. ‘Why is it necessary? If
you want to kill me, why not just stand me up against a wall and
shoot me?’

Nix had looked surprised and
shocked.
‘Do
you think I am a barbarian?’ he said.

‘
As a
matter of fact,’ Lorenz replied, ‘yes.’

The words were hardly out of his
mouth when Nix struck him down with the steel hand. It was a wicked
punishing blow that numbed the entire side of
Lorenz
’s
body, and he lay on the ground retching in agony and looking up at
the giant towering over him, madness glaring in his yellow eyes. It
was then he had realized that Nix was going to do exactly as he had
promised: turn him loose naked and unarmed in the hostile land, and
then hunt him down like some animal. Quarry, Nix had said. You are
merely quarry. And we kill it without remorse or pity.

They turned Jaime Lorenz out
soon after sunrise. They told him he had a twenty-four hour start
before they began the pursuit, but he did not believe that,
although it was true. He moved away steadily eastward, away from
the
hacienda,
heading for the long valley he had noted on his way into
the area. It ran between the two lines of hills in the southeastern
corner of the valley and Lorenz figured it might veer east even
further, bring a man out above the Nueces country. He moved
steadily, using the controlled jogtrot the Apaches used, the sun
not unpleasant yet on his naked body. Later, he knew, he would have
to find shade. He checked constantly for signs of pursuit, but
there were none. Nor were there any trees or bushes big enough for
him to fashion a weapon from. A bow and arrow, a spear, anything
would be better than nothing. It would have to wait.

The long valley had turned out
to be a blind canyon, with a sheer rock face at its southernmost
end. There was a wooden sign set into the ground and Lorenz stood
with his head down like a tired animal as he realized that this was
all part of Nix
’s psychological warfare. The sign had a black skull and
crossbones painted on it, and one word: WRONG! It was as if the big
man was there in the canyon, jeering at him.

He knew that he had lost a lot
of the advantage they
’d given him. By the time he retraced his steps, sheltering
from the fierce midday sun, it would be late afternoon. He shrugged
fatalistically. When there was no choice, there was no choice. He
had to work north after all, he had to do what he knew they would
expect him to do: work north, toward the Portal, as they called the
entrance road through which he had been brought in.

Morning found him halfway up the
length of the valley. He had worked his way diagonally across the
width of it, skirting the wooded glade without ever seeing any
trace of the Comanche camp. At the edge of the river was a
four-armed sign. Northward lay the lake, it said. Westward, lava
beds. Northeast, desert, and back the way he
’d just come:
Hacienda.

Still no damned choice at
all.

With a bob of the head for
decision, he
’d set off then toward the lake. He moved between stands of
willow where they were available, even taking the risk of a
kicking, cooling run through the shallowest edges of the river,
relying on his speed to cancel out the danger of doing it. His
breathing was more ragged now, though, and his heart thundered in
his chest like a trapped beast. His whole chest felt as if it was
on fire, and he wondered again whether that steel claw of Nix’s had
broken some of his ribs. There had been no time to fashion any form
of defense, and now he knew that they were very close
behind.

He plunged into the woods,
heedless of briars and branches that whipped and tore his
unprotected skin. Deeper and deeper into the screening trees he
thrust, feeling the ground grow swampy, squishy, and wet and
deliciously cool beneath his torn feet. Once he measured his length
in the slopping mud, and its clammy embrace cooled, chilled his
burned skin. Chattering birds fled ahead of him in panic, and he
realized that he was making a lot of noise. Panic, he told himself.
He thought of the dour instructor who
’d taught him survival, imagined him
standing watching with that disgusted expression he always wore
when one of his charges blundered about like a panicked
pig.

‘
That’s
it,’ he would sneer. ‘Nice and noisy, so they can find you with
their eyes closed. Go on, make it easy for them!’

He stopped, poised like a hunted
deer, letting his senses pick up the sounds of pursuit. They were
close, but not closer. He tried to pinpoint them from the faint
sound of their calls, but the dark dampness around him muffled
sound. He moved forward again, but lifting his feet carefully now,
setting them down warily, moving slowly and steadily through the
darkening shadows where the swamp vegetation thickened. The earth
gave off a damp, pungent, loamy smell and it was much cooler. He
shivered slightly as
he heard the eerie call of an unknown bird. Hanging moss
brushed his naked skin like the finger of the dead.