The Steel Angel Read online

  THE STEEL ANGEL

  RAY HOGAN

  Copyright © 2016 by Gwynn Hogan Henline

  E-book published in 2018 by Blackstone Publishing

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Trade e-book ISBN 978-1-4708-6104-9

  Library e-book ISBN 978-1-4708-6103-2

  Fiction / Westerns

  CIP data for this book is available from the Library of Congress

  Blackstone Publishing

  31 Mistletoe Rd.

  Ashland, OR 97520

  www.BlackstonePublishing.com

  Chapter One

  “Where the hell is he?” Joe Denver said.

  Standing at the edge of the water, Adam Rait stared out across the restless surface of the Gulf. He could barely make out the freighter lying offshore, its rigging scratched blackly against a sullen night sky. That it was the ship chartered by Kurt Hanover he was dead certain, and he was equally certain that he had brought his crew of hard-bitten teamsters to the correct point of rendezvous.

  He recalled Kurt Hanover’s words: Thirty miles upcoast from Galveston … and be goddamned sure you’re there, ready to pull out. And his answer: I’ll be there. Not so sure you’ll be. Yankee gunboats have got the Gulf locked in tight. Whereupon Hanover, portly, deceptively genial, chomping on his black Havana cigar, had grinned and said: Leave the Yankees to me. Never yet met a man who couldn’t be bought.

  “You figure that’s him out there?” Denver asked, again breaking the hush. “The boys are getting a mite jumpy … all this damn stalling around.”

  “Let ’em!” Rait snapped. “They’re drawing pay for it.”

  “It’s that Gannon, mostly. Shooting off his mouth all the time. He’s trouble.”

  “Maybe so, but I was looking to hire the best teamsters on the road. And he’s one of them.”

  “Ain’t arguing the fact,” Denver said in a dry, dissatisfied way, “but you sure could’ve looked under a lot of rocks and not found nothing like him.”

  Adam shrugged. He guessed he couldn’t blame the crew for getting edgy. For three nights running they had gathered in the clammy darkness along the Texas coast and waited futilely for Kurt Hanover. Sure, they were getting paid for it—well paid. But it takes more than that to satisfy a man; he needs to know what it’s all about—and why.

  Perhaps this would be the night. A heavy overcast smothered the stars, and visibility was next to nothing. It would require just such celestial assistance for Hanover to slip successfully through the Yankee blockade.

  A faint clanking sound drifted across the water from the ship. Immediately Denver moved to Rait’s side. “What was that?”

  “Could be starting to unload now,” Adam replied, relieved. He glanced to the west. “They’d better ease off or that racket’ll be heard clear up to the bay.”

  “Reckon I ought to bring down the teams?”

  “Not yet. Better they stay hidden in the brush, in case a patrol boat comes along. Saw a light off the point there a while ago.”

  Turning, he looked toward the thick stand of brush and trees where he had established a camp. Everything was in order—he had checked and rechecked.

  Twenty-four experienced teamsters, forty horses, twenty-four of which were now in harness, ready to hitch onto the twelve wagons Hanover was bringing in. A cook, a swamper, a hostler to look after the remuda, a chuck wagon, a light rig for gear, and a saddle horse apiece for Hanover and himself. The only thing undecided was the amount of trail supplies; Kurt had never got around to telling him where they were going or exactly how long they would be on the road.

  Rait had followed the man’s instructions to the letter, and he was ready. All that was lacking was Hanover—and the mysterious cargo they were to move.

  Like Denver and the other teamsters, he had wondered about the cargo, but he had not permitted it to trouble him. To Adam Rait it was just a job, and he’d know what it was all about eventually. What interested him most was that he would get $500 in Yankee gold for assembling and bossing the wagon train—and in the spring of 1865, that was a lot of money.

  The son of a Tennessee farmer and his schoolteacher wife, he had done his share toward grubbing out a living from eighty hard-rock acres, until a fire had taken the lives of both his parents and cut him adrift. A job here and there, several years in Mexico, and then the war had come along, and he had joined with Nathan Forrest and his Confederate cavalry. Three years later he was a wounded captain in a Georgia hospital, where they had dug an apple-size chunk of shrapnel from his thigh.

  In June of 1864, limping, frustrated, and haunted by the recollection of men who had died under his command, seemingly for no purpose, he had wanted but one thing from the army—out. His request had been granted.

  More noise was coming from the freighter—dry thuds, clankings, the muted squeal of pulleys. Adam glanced to the sky. The overcast appeared to be breaking up. Hanover had better hurry.

  One of the horses blew gustily and stamped a newly shod hoof. Trace chains rattled, and a teamster swore graphically. Toward Galveston, Rait could see more lights on the water, crawling slowly through the murk. Patrol boats, he guessed, venturing forth to investigate the sounds. He felt the sudden press of tension but brushed it away. Kurt Hanover was capable of taking care of himself.

  Rait hadn’t cared much for the man at their first meeting. They had come together in Huntsville, then a sort of junction point for several passenger and freight lines. Rait had found a job there, after he had quit the army, as an agent for one of the outfits. Agent—the title covered a broad range of duties. He was obliged not only to sell fares and look after the needs of passengers, along with the handling of freight shipments, but he served also as hostler, blacksmith, reserve driver, and occasionally shotgun messenger. About the only chores he didn’t perform were those of cooking and cleaning stable.

  It was a poor existence for a man of his capabilities, but he didn’t object, or even really care. Lonely, deserted by purpose, scarred—in mind by the things he had looked upon during the war, in body by actual conflict—it was the ideal prosaic world he had sought for, in which he could shoulder a minimum of responsibility.

  Kurt Hanover had come onto the scene some three months after Rait had established himself in Huntsville. Well dressed in hard-to-get broadcloth, a cigar thrusting jauntily from the corner of his mouth, he had stepped from an eastbound coach one hot morning, hooked thumbs in his vest armholes, and glanced about in a sharp, perceptive manner.

  Adam noticed him as he led out the change team and began to back them into position. Sweat flanked the man’s cheeks, and he had mentally observed that it was a hell of a hot day to go around dressed up like a schoolteacher playing Santa Claus.

  “You Rait?” the pilgrim had asked unexpectedly.

  Suspicious of the man, Adam had paused to take a second look. Another slicker aiming to give somebody a fast shuffle, he had decided. “Could be,” he grunted.

  “Friend of yours told me to see you. I’m Hanover, Kurt Hanover.”

  Adam resumed his hitching. “What friend?”

  “A major … name of Bowman … Missouri cavalry.”

  Again Rait hesitated. Bowman had, at one time, been his commanding officer. There had been no particular rapport between them other than that existing between officers of different rank. He was surprised that Bowman even remembered him.

  “Why …,” he began, then became aware of the driver’s impatient glare. “Be through here in a minute,” he said
.

  Hanover rocked on his heels, toyed with a heavy gold chain looped across his slight paunch. “Can you put me up for the night? Got a proposition to make you.”

  Rait spat. Just as he’d figured, a slicker. “Big money in it for me, I suppose?” he drawled, beginning his usual check of pins, singletree U-bolts, buckles, and chains.

  Hanover nodded. “Plenty. How about that bed?”

  “I think I can find room for you.”

  The stage pulled out, leaving the two men standing in the dust and sweltering heat of a Huntsville morning. Adam led the way into the clapboard station, where it was no cooler. He pointed to a chair and settled himself on the edge of a table that served as a desk.

  Unhurried, Hanover removed his coat, unbuttoned his vest. Opening a silver case, he offered a cigar to Adam, selected a fresh one for himself. “We alone?”

  Rait bit off the end of the weed, searched his pockets for a match. “Cook in back, stable boy outside.”

  “Blacks?”

  “Mexicans. Negroes all ran off, looking for that freedom the Yankees promised them.”

  “Good. Can’t trust them nowadays anyway.”

  You could before the Yankees came busting into the South filling their heads with crazy notions, Adam thought, lighting his cigar, but that was neither here nor there. Exhaling, he stared at Hanover through the smoke and waited for him to speak.

  “Your friend—Bowman—put me onto you. Said you were a good man.” Kurt Hanover, at ease, leaned back in his chair. “Fact is, he said you were the best he’d ever seen when it come to handling men and horses. Happens to be just what I’m looking for … if you’ve got a fair knowledge of the country.”

  “Texas?”

  Hanover nodded.

  Adam removed his cigar, studied the glowing end. “This got something to do with the army?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  Rait shrugged. “Had my fill of soldiering, you know.”

  “Can’t say as I blame you. Far as I’m concerned a man’s a damned fool to get himself all frizzed up in a shooting war. No offense, you understand, I just never could see any sense in risking your neck for nothing.”

  Adam made no reply, preferring not to reopen any wounds.

  “Anyway, the army as such doesn’t concern us. I’m only asking if you’re acquainted with the country.”

  “Born in Tennessee, but I’ve knocked around Texas pretty well.”

  “Good. Seems Bowman was right, so far. Now here’s what I’m needing … teamsters, horses, chuck and supply wagons, and all the necessary items and equipment to make up a train of which you would be wagon master. Two thousand dollars would be deposited in the Huntsville bank. You would draw against the account for purchasing and hiring. Everything is to be ready and waiting at a specified point on the coast, at a time I’ll tell you later.”

  Adam Rait wasn’t interested. The weight of command was still a repelling memory stamped indelibly in his mind: men relying upon his judgment, men bowing to his orders, men dying …

  “Count me out. Not interested.”

  “Not for five hundred dollars … gold?”

  Adam stirred. It was a lot of money, and he had given some thought to drifting on west if ever he could get a little cash together.

  “Won’t be much responsibility,” Hanover said, sizing up the reluctance correctly. “Once I’ve put in with the cargo, I’ll be looking after things. All I’m asking you to do is the hiring and the buying up of the livestock … getting things ready.”

  “Why don’t you do it yourself?” Rait asked.

  “Well, I’m a fair judge of men, but I’m no horse trader, and I admit it. Mainly, I won’t be around. I’ve got some buying to do, shipping to arrange. Just want you to have everything set when I get here.”

  “How long’ll that take?”

  “Several months. Be plenty of time for you to line up the best teamsters in the country and do your horse buying.”

  “What about wagons?”

  “Won’t need wagons. I’ll be bringing my own. You pick us up one for the cook and one to haul supplies in.”

  Adam had asked a few more questions and finally agreed. In the months that followed, during which he had assembled the train, he had wondered several times what it was all about. That it involved blockade running was evident. But with what and for whom was, as yet, undetermined.

  He hoped it was nothing detrimental to the Confederacy; a spark or two of loyalty for the “glorious cause” still glowed somewhere within him, although he had long since convinced himself that it was lost. Gettysburg had been the turning point. But the leaders of the Confederacy had been too stump-headed to admit it.

  “Fog’s moving in.”

  At Denver’s remark, Adam came back to the moment. He nodded to the square-built man he had selected to be teamster boss. “It’d be a help.”

  He looked for the freighter. It was no longer visible, wholly swallowed up by the thickening mist. Somewhere to the north a bell tolled, and farther out a horn moaned, desolate and lonely. Rait frowned, thinking that the fog could work both ways. While it would mask the activities of the ship, it could also make it difficult for Hanover—if Hanover it was—to locate them.

  Denver had a similar thought. “Maybe we ought to be lighting up a bonfire.”

  Adam started to reply but caught himself, some inborn instinct plucking at his consciousness, sending a warning racing through him. He wheeled, threw a glance at a band of shadowy brush below the camp. Someone was watching them. He felt it, was sure of it, although he could see no one. Touching the butt of the pistol at his hip, he was about to cross over and investigate.

  Almost immediately, a voice from the thick curtain lying upon the water cried guardedly: “Hello, the shore!”

  Adam came around swiftly. It was Hanover—at least he thought so. Certainly no seafaring man would have hailed them with those words.

  “Here!” he called, cupping his hands to his mouth. “Hanover?”

  “Sure is,” the reply drifted back.

  Chapter Two

  For a few moments there was only the quiet swish of oars coming from the mist, and then Hanover’s voice again.

  “Teams ready?”

  “Ready and waiting.”

  “Good. Got the first wagon floating behind us. Rest’ll be following.”

  “Floating?” Joe Denver muttered. “What kind of rig’s he talking about?”

  Adam wondered, too, but from Kurt Hanover you could expect anything. “Bring down the teams,” he told Denver.

  Denver stamped away on his stumpy legs, still talking to himself. Rait glanced again to the brush below camp, intuition unsatisfied, saw nothing, and moved to the edge of the water. He peered into the murk. Abruptly, the bow of a dinghy poked its nose through the damp veil.

  Hanover, hands braced against the gunnels, was staring straight ahead. He saw Adam and settled back, sighing audibly. “Plenty glad to see you, mister.”

  Rait waded out to knee depth, grasped the ring on the prow of the small boat, and dragged it to the low bank.

  Kurt, dressed in coarse woolens and wearing an oilskin coat and cap, leapt ashore. He grinned broadly, extending his hand. “Everything go all right for you?”

  “Just the way it was supposed to,” Adam replied, looking beyond the dinghy and the two sailors resting on their oars. “You say something about a wagon?”

  “Bringing in twelve, and all of ’em loaded,” Hanover said.

  The first of the teams was moving up; the horses were pawing nervously in the darkness, setting their harness metal to jingling. Denver sawed them to a halt, looked expectantly at Hanover.

  Adam bobbed his head at the driver. “My lead teamster, Joe Denver.”

  Hanover nodded, turned to the dinghy. “All right, boys, swing her in,” he sa
id and beckoned to Rait.

  The seaman in the stern of the craft turned half about, picked up a hawser, and began to tug at it. His companion, pushing the prow free of the shore, paddled the craft to one side, clearing the way.

  Hanover said: “Tongue’s been removed from the wagons. We’ll float them in close, tie on ropes, and drag them onto land with the horses.” He paused, looked to the eastern sky. “Got to work fast. I want everything back in the trees out of sight before sunup.”

  Adam wondered again, briefly, as to the nature of the cargo being transported, and also how a loaded vehicle could be floated successfully. He was face to face with part of the answer in that next moment.

  A narrow, elongated, boxlike contraption broke through the fog, sluggishly drifting toward him. Water glistened on the oilskin wrappings of its contents, and the dull shine of metal tires, exceptionally wide, flickered as the wheels bobbed up and down on the surface.

  To the sides of the wagon bed, like broad, full-length mudguards, thick planks had been affixed at right angles, forming crude but effective pontoons. Thus, the watertight, wheeled box with its wings provided a buoyancy that easily supported itself and its contents.

  “H’yars your hawser,” one of the sailors said, and flung the coil at Hanover.

  “Won’t need it,” Adam said, sizing up the arrangement. He motioned to Denver and waded out to meet the wagon. “Swing your team around, and toss me the traces.”

  Denver wheeled his brace, grabbed the trailing leather straps and chains, and then backed the nervous horses to the edge of the water. Still clutching the reins, he passed the traces to Adam, now holding to the forward edge of the wagon bed to prevent its drifting off.

  Releasing his grasp, Rait turned the traces sideways, placed the iron rings on the tongue bracket, and dropped the pin into place. “Drag it out,” he told Denver.

  Denver slapped leather to his horses, sent them lunging forward. The wagon surged toward the shoreline, sending a foot-high wave rushing ahead of it, and halted abruptly.