Like a flower shriveled by drought, Nelly wilted, bowing her head. The previous night with the lanky Texan had been too glorious for words, a night like none she had enjoyed since her husband’s death, and which she had never expected to enjoy again. Now her stupidity had trapped her, depriving her of the chance to start over. It wasn’t fair.
Ike Shannon pulled out his poke and wagged it at Lowe. “How much does she still owe on her contract? I’ll pay it off right here and now, plus throw in an extra hundred besides for your trouble.”
A serpentine sneer was Lowe’s response. “Keep your money. I aim to hold her to her contract.” He was no fool. Nelly was a favorite with his customers. In a single week she earned him more than a hundred on drinks alone. “What will it be, Evers?” he demanded. “Does she honor her word, or will you take her out of here by force? I’m not jackass enough to try and stop you. But if you do, then you’ll be in the wrong, and we both know it. I can go to the judge, and she’ll be back at work before the sun sets.”
A shadow fell across Vint Evers. Inwardly, he wrestled with himself, torn between his desire to free Nelly from Lowe’s clutches and his personal code that required he must always abide by the letter of the law. It was ingrained into him, like a knot into wood. Most of his adult life, after all, had been spent wearing a badge.
Legally, Frank Lowe had the right to require that Nelly live up to the terms of the contract. So long as she had signed it willingly, she was bound by its dictates. Legally, there was not a thing in the world Vint could do. The realization hit him harder than any fist ever could, and those observing him saw his shoulders sag and his mouth compress into a slit.
“What’s your decision?” Lowe said.
Lee Scurlock yearned to intervene on the Texan’s behalf, but what could he do short of whipping out his Colt and shooting Frank Lowe dead?
Ike Shannon could not bear to see his one and only friend in the grip of inner torment. “Be decent for once in your life, Lowe,” he said. “Let me pay off her contract. I’ll make it well worth your while.”
“Nope. Nelly is one of the most attractive girls I’ve got, and I won’t let her go until I’m damned good and ready.”
For a few tense moments Lee had the impression that the gambler was going to resort to his steel, but Shannon looked at Vint, frowned, and swung toward the bar in blatant disgust.
Nelly stepped forward. For one brief night she had felt what it was like to live as a human being again, and for the first time since John died she had dared to hope, to aspire to a way of life other than that of alcohol and lust. She wanted more than anything to be free of Frank Lowe’s clutches, but she would not do it at the cost of all that Vint Evers held dear.
The Texan had told her about his life. How his folks had been massacred by Comanches when he was twelve and he had struck off on his own, drifting south of the Rio Grande where he had fallen in with a Mexican pistolero who had taught him how to use a pistol.
At sixteen, Vint had gone to San Antonio with the pistolero and they had been involved in a gunfight in a cantina. The pistolero died. Vint was arrested, but a Texas Ranger took the youth under his wing. It was a turning point in Vint’s life. At nineteen he pinned on a tin star, and had been doing so ever since.
If Vint were to buck Frank Lowe on her behalf, it would put him on the wrong side of the law for the first time since he hooked up with the pistolero. Nelly would not let that happen. “I appreciate the offer,” she told him, fighting back a flood of tears. “But there’s nothing you can do.” She spun, her eyes moistening, and hastened toward the rear of the Applejack so the Texan would not see.
“Glad that that’s settled,” Lowe said expansively, checking his gloat when the lean Texan abruptly reared over him.
“I reckon you’ve got me over a barrel, mister,” Vint Evers hissed, “but I’m lettin’ you know, straight out, that if you try and use that gal for anything other than peddlin’ drinks, I’ll come gunnin’ for you, badge or no badge. Savvy?”
“It’s my—” Lowe began, his vocal cords freezing at the icy chill the Texan radiated. He was as close to death at that instant as he had ever been. Shrugging, he said, “Whatever you want, Evers. Consider it a personal favor.”
Vint glanced at the door through which Nelly had disappeared, his heartstrings tugging at his conscience. Wheeling before he did something he would regret, he stormed from the saloon, shoving past two prospectors who were entering.
Frank Lowe chuckled and turned to leave.
“You must have been born under a lucky star,” Lee noted. “If it were me, I’d have emptied my Colt into you.”
Snorting, Lowe departed. His victory lent spring to his step and he barked orders at his employees like an imperious military commander.
“Damn! Damn! Damn!” Ike Shannon barked, venting his spleen.
“Things will work out,” Lee said, the assurance sounding childish even to him. There were no guarantees in life.
“Now Lowe and Kemp will have a hold over Vint,” Shannon said, voicing his innermost fear. “If Vint becomes town marshal, I wouldn’t put it past those two to use the woman against him.” Once again the gambler eloquently summed up the situation with a heartfelt, resounding “Damn!”
~*~
Vint Evers stormed from the saloon in a blind fury. He neither saw nor heard those around him. In the iron grip of a seething vortex of emotion, he aimlessly roamed the streets of Diablo, walking off the fiery steam pent up inside of him. It might have been an hour later, it might have been two, when the clomp of hooves and brittle laughter from a second-floor window snapped him out of it.
Swiveling, Vint discovered that he had drifted toward the river. Toward, in fact, the very grove Nelly and he had visited the night before. He went to the exact spot and stood staring at the grass. The outline of where they had lain was still vaguely impressed on the bent stems, and he imagined them as they had been, locked so close together it was as if they were trying to crawl into each other’s skin.
Vint could not bear to think of his clash with Lowe. It was all he could do to keep himself from marching back to the Applejack and exterminating the vermin. But if he did, he could forget about being appointed marshal. His prospects of being a lawman ever again would be slim.
In despair, the lean Texan wandered toward the shack he shared with Shannon. He balked at going in, since it would provoke more bittersweet memories of the hours Nelly and he spent there, but at last he pushed back his sombrero and shoved the rickety door inward.
Right away the Texan was struck by something odd. It was the middle of the afternoon, yet the shack was as gloomy as a tomb. Over the single window had been draped a blanket that normally covered Shannon’s bed. For the life of him, he could not explain why the gambler had done it.
“Ike?” Vint said, entering. He left the door open to have light enough to see by, and it was well he did, for as he crossed toward the window to take down the blanket, boots scuffed on the floor behind him while at the same split second the small table in the center of the room heaved upward and out from under it sprang a dusky man armed with a Bowie knife.
The flying table saved Vint’s life. For as he leaped back to avoid it, behind him a six-shooter blasted three times in swift succession, the slugs thudding into the wall below the covered window.
In a twinkling Vint had spun and brought both of his Colts into play. He thumbed their hammers as the assassin who had tried to back shoot him was leveling a smoking Smith & Wesson. The twin shots boomed like thunder. An invisible hammer slammed into the cutthroat’s chest, flinging him into the corner, where he crumpled in a miserable disjointed heap.
That left the man with the Bowie. Vint spun again, but the dusky attacker was on him with pantherish speed. The big knife flashed. Pain seared Vint’s left forearm. Despite himself, he dropped the pistol in his left hand.
There was still the other short-barreled Colt. Vint pivoted, the barrel arcing around. As it did, the other man speare
d the Bowie straight at his chest.
Chapter Ten
Texans were a peculiar breed.
No one would deny that they loved to fight. When insulted, or at the hint of an insult, they were prone to unlimber their hardware and blast away. Hair-trigger tempers were their stock-in-trade. But the violent code by which they lived had a strange quirk. As prone as they were to violence, they disdained using their fists. It wasn’t that they couldn’t hold their own man-to-man. Many a Texan had proved that, in countless barroom brawls. But when set upon, their natural instinct was to resort to a revolver.
The Texan disdain for using fists explained why, when Vint Evers found himself locked in grim combat with the man who sought his life, he never once thought to punch the man in the face or stomach.
It happened that as the Bowie streaked at Vint’s chest, by pure chance his Colt clanged against it, steel ringing on steel, deflecting the blow. The knife seared his ribs, not digging very deep. In a heartbeat he tried to take a bead, but the dusky man seized the wrist of his gun hand.
To save himself from the Bowie, Vint, in turn, lunged and seized the man’s knife arm.
Locked in a grim life-or-death struggle, they rocked back and forth and around and around, each exerting himself to the utmost. Vint’s sinewy muscles bulged. The veins on his temples resembled carved marble.
All this while the man with the Bowie was striving fiercely to wrench his arm loose from Vint’s grasp. In their flailing around they happened to crash into the upturned table. The man’s arm hit against a leg, numbing his fingers, jarring the Bowie from his grasp. The blow also jolted Vint’s grasping fingers off the man’s wrist.
That was the moment when the lawman should have slugged the assassin. One punch, and he could have driven the man back, enabling him to employ his Colt. But instead of swinging, he clamped his left hand on the other’s arm in an attempt to free his gun hand.
It was then that the killer braced his legs and shoved. Caught off guard, Vint was flung backward, tripping over the table. In a flurry of limbs he toppled, rolling as he landed so that he came up into a crouch with his hand poised to fan the Colt.
Fanning was held in low regard by gun sharks, except when an enemy was so close that the shooter could not miss, and at that range Vint Evers could have split the edge of a coin.
Only, there was no one to shoot. For the man had vaulted through the doorway in a powerful leap and was off like a rabbit being chased by hounds, bounding down an alley that bordered the shack.
Vint ran after him, pausing at the alley mouth. He had a clear shot—at the man’s back. Slight pressure on the trigger was all it would take. He pointed the Colt, but his finger never tightened. He could not bring himself to back shoot someone, not even a man who moments ago had tried to take his life.
Giving chase would be futile. The assassin was as fleet as an antelope. At the far corner of the alley he glanced back, saw Vint, and bestowed a mocking smile on the Texan. Another second and he was gone.
Automatically, Vint reloaded his pistol. It was the cardinal rule, one he never, ever violated. Not with as many enemies as he had.
Voices were raised in outcry nearby. Feet pounded as the curious converged. Ignoring them, Vint returned to the shack, reclaiming the pistol he had dropped.
The dead man was not anyone Vint recollected. It might be someone with a grudge, someone whose kin Vint had slain at one time or another in the performance of his duties. He’d had to kill so many, it was hard to keep track. Somehow, though, he doubted it.
A shadow filled the doorway. Vint flung himself backward, his right hand stabbing downward.
“What the hell!” Ike Shannon growled. The gunshots had carried far on the sluggish afternoon air. He had pinpointed the direction, and fearing the worst, had raced from the saloon.
Lee Scurlock looked in. He saw a crimson stain on the Texan’s shirt and fresh scarlet drops forming at the ends of Evers’s fingers. “You’re hurt,” he said.
“Just a couple of scratches,” Vint responded.
“Let me see it,” Shannon said, angrily tearing the blanket from the window. It scared him to think how close his friend must have come to being murdered, and he partly blamed himself. He was supposed to stick close to Vint at all times, to always be there to cover Vint’s back. But he had not figured on someone making an attempt on the lawman’s life before the council rendered its decision.
Rolling Vint’s sleeve up, Shannon found a three-inch-long gash. Already the blood was congealing, but that did not stop him from cleaning the wound and bandaging it with a strip torn from one of his white shirts. Next he tended Vint’s cut side.
“You know who’s responsible, don’t you?” Shannon said as he carefully tied a knot.
“We can’t say for certain,” Vint said.
Shannon jerked on the knot so hard that the Texan grimaced. “The hell we can’t! Kemp is behind this. He doesn’t want you wearing the tin, so he took steps to remove you from consideration.”
The likelihood made sense to Lee. But he had to agree with the Texan when Evers replied, “Unless we can dig up proof, there’s nothin’ we can do about it.”
“There’s something I can do,” Shannon declared.
Vint shook his head. “No. That’s not our way. We do everything accordin’ to the law or we’re no better than those we’re up against. If you did what you’re implyin’, I’d have to haul you in myself.”
Shannon pushed to his feet. “That damn honor of yours is going to be the death of you one day. When fighting rats, you kill them before they have a chance to bite you. You don’t sit around waiting for them to pounce.”
“You heard me, Ike,” Vint said sternly.
It would not be the first time his friend had gone against his wishes.
Once, in Newton, a tough by the name of Clem Starling had bushwhacked Vint. The bullet had gone clean through his shoulder, sparing his vitals. Shannon had been so incensed that he’d taken his big buffalo gun and gone after Starling. Ike would have blown the man’s brains out, if Vint had not risen from his sickbed and stopped him.
Shannon flung past Lee, saying gruffly, “You try and talk some sense into that hard Texan head of his. He never listens to me.”
Outside a crowd had gathered. Many were pressing forward for a glimpse of the body. Pausing, Ike glared like a grizzly at bay and roared, “What’s the matter with you coyotes? One of you fetch the undertaker, and the rest of you skedaddle!” His hand fell to his Remington, but it was his wrath more than the threat that sparked a general exodus.
Lee watched the Irishman tromp off. “If he’s right, Kemp will try again.”
Vint slowly rose. “I hope he does. I’ve tangled with a lot like him in my time, and they all have one thing in common.” He pulled his sleeve down over the bandage. “They always trip themselves up sooner or later.”
“But what do you do in the meantime?”
“What I always do, friend,” Vint Evers said. “I try my best to stay alive.”
~*~
Why would a man who owned thousands and thousands of acres resent a handful of homesteaders for squatting on a trifling few hundred? That was the question Lee Scurlock asked himself as he rode westward from Diablo, toward the blood red setting sun.
The ranch, he had been told, was seven miles west of town, on a high rise. He saw it from a long way off, and noticed how it afforded a sweeping view of the valley in all directions.
What a valley! Lee mused. A cowman’s paradise, lush with sweet grass. Streams fed by the Diablo River quenched the thirst of huge herds. Cattle lolled or grazed or drank in total ignorance of their eventual fate in the beef-hungry East.
Kemp’s hands were everywhere. The looks they gave him were not friendly. At one point, a pair rode to within forty yards but did not do anything, so word must have gone out not to molest him.
As the roan climbed a grassy slope toward a palatial white structure on the rise, Lee heard the whoop of cowboys and the
whinny of a horse. Clearing the rim, he counted nine punchers ringing a corral attached to a stable. Half a dozen outbuildings flanked it. A tall man perched on the top rail waved to him, so Lee angled over, unconsciously loosening his Colt in its holster.
The whooping and hollering rose to a crescendo. The punchers were urging on Jesse Bodine, who was astride a bronc saddle on a piebald mustang wrinkling its spine in a frenzy to pitch Bodine off. The horse bucked and kicked in savage abandon, even jumping skyward and coming down stiff-legged, the nastiest of tricks, but Bodine refused to be thrown.
The man on the top rail hopped down. In contrast to the dusty hats, shirts, jeans, and boots of the punchers, he affected an elegant style of dress. His tall frame was clad in an immaculate blue suit and polished black shoes, a type rarely seen on anyone except rich Wall Street tycoons or railroad barons. A full head of thick, slicked black hair crowned an angular aristocratic face. Green eyes regarded the Tennessean with no warmth whatsoever.
Lee reined up. “You must be Allister Kemp,” he deduced.
“How do you do, Mr. Scurlock,” Kemp said in a clipped accent. “I’m grateful you could make it.” The Englishman’s handshake was surprisingly strong. Steel flowed in Kemp’s veins, the same steel that glittered in his eyes.
“I was a mite surprised to get the invite,” Lee admitted.
“Really?” Kemp said. “I should think that you would have anticipated it, given the situation.”
Before Lee could ask him to clarify his statement, a chorus of laughter erupted from the ranch hands as the rebellious mustang sent Jesse Bodine sailing. The foreman landed on his side, then instantly rolled to the left toward the fence and kept on rolling. It was an unusual tactic for a broncobuster. The good ones always climbed right back on. Letting a horse think it had won invited more trouble later on.
The reason for Bodine’s action became apparent when the mustang went after him like a bat out of hell, front legs pounding like hammers. It was trying to stomp him to death, and it nearly succeeded. Bodine slid under the bottom rail a fraction of a second before those driving hooves thudded into the patch of earth he had just vacated.
Diablo (A Piccaddilly Publishing Western Book 6) Page 11
