Read Warn Angel! (A Frank Angel Western--Book 9) for Free Online Page A

train in a precipitous slope that was scarred with
rockslides and shale. It ended, forty feet below, where the ground
swelled upwards again toward the hills on the far side of the creek
that sluiced down the valley. Curtis let the Special get all the
way onto the embankment, the caboose rocking as she whammed past
his marker. He slammed the plunger into the box. The flat smack of
the explosion hit their ears an instant after they saw the
brilliant blue-yellow light beneath the engine, and for a fraction
of a second, the watchers thought the attempt had failed. Then they
saw how the engine was leaning, nosing down, the front bogie
completely destroyed, the bright brass reflector lamp crashing,
smashing, digging, tearing into the ties with an enormous,
deafening roar. Huge chunks of rock and earth and shattered timber
flew high into the air over the shoulder of the thundering
locomotive and then the whole terrifying juggernaut of metal and
wood and flying rock erupted in an astonishing booming burst of
fire that lofted great steel plates from the ruptured boiler up
into the air like playing cards. The blast whirled across toward
the hidden men, making the horses curvet in panic. They felt the
long soft insistent pressure on their ears but they could not tear
their eyes away from the terrible sight of the train ripping off
the tracks and plunging down the side of the rocky gully. They
heard the huge noise of the disintegrating engine sounding like the
last quivering clangor of the great bell of Hades, the tender and
caboose rolling over and over, breaking up as they rolled, and then
the locomotive jumping up off the rocky slope and turning over, and
over, and then, in a final, searing, stunning explosion of boiling
flame, ending its life in the scoured, smoking pit it had dug for
itself at the bottom of the gully.
    ‘ Jesus,’ Falco said, into the
comparative silence. His voice stirred Willowfield from the
hypnotized reverie into which he had sunk. Then the fat man swung
up into the saddle. The horse braced itself as his weight settled
into the fork, and he pulled its head around to face
downhill.
    ‘ Will she blow again?’ he asked
Curtis.
    ‘ Naw,’ Curtis said, dancing triumph
over what he had just effected still lighting the darkness of his
eyes. ‘That war the boiler went, Cunnel. She’s done
fer.’
    ‘ Good,’ Willowfield said. ‘Let’s get
down there.’ He kicked the horse into a walk and led off across the
broken ground toward the wreck. The bright yellow glow of the
flames flickering over the hulk of the shattered engine reflected
on the receding clouds. Hesitantly, somewhere in the smoking
depths, a bird began to sing.
    ~*~
    When Frank Angel opened his eyes he thought
he was in Hell. The red glare of the flames, the charred stink of
the burned ground, the crackling heat that brittled his skin all
struck his senses simultaneously, muddling his mind. Fire? He could
not remember anything. His mind was completely disoriented and his
memory drowned in dread. Instinct told him to move. He could feel
the scorch of fire, realized he was inside something that was
burning. A broken wooden crate, his blurring eyes reported, seeing
broken slatting, wood, twisted metal. He tried to move, and felt
something pinning down his legs. He rolled back, kicking away the
piece of timber that lay across them. As he did so, what was left
of Bob Little’s tattered body rolled away from him and slid down
the canted floor.
    It all came back to him then and he lay on
the charring floor retching, oblivious. After a few minutes he was
able to sit up, and the adrenalin surged through his veins: he knew
he had to move. The train had been dynamited, and that meant
whoever had dynamited it would be coming to inspect the results. If
they found him alive they would kill him. He knew there was nothing
he could do for Little, or for anyone else who had been on the
train. The way the train had been destroyed was proof that the
wreckers neither