Nelly Rosell was seared by dizziness. She had to dig her nails into her palms to keep from fainting. Oh, Vint! she yearned to cry. Please don’t leave me!
Frank Lowe chuckled. “Now, what do you suppose got into him? If you ask me, the way that man is acting, he has no business wearing a badge.”
“No one asked you!” Nelly responded. If she’d had a knife or a gun, she would have put an end to her misery on the spot, and hang the consequences. Turning, she took a step, but her elbow was snagged.
“Not so fast, dearie. You’ve been awful uppity of late. Keep it up and there will be hell to pay, Evers or no Evers. Savvy?”
Nelly jerked free. Incensed, she nearly spat in his face, but contented herself with shoving his arm. Her legs were cast in iron as she shuffled back to the bar.
“Everything okay, honey?” the drummer asked. “What was that all about?”
“None of your business,” Nelly snapped. Her glass was empty and she ordered a refill, swallowing the whiskey in three swift gulps. Her throat felt as if it had been scorched by acid, but she didn’t give a damn. The past few days she had been drinking much more than usual. At the moment she was inclined to get falling-down drunk.
The coffin varnish helped ease the pain. It numbed her. It enabled her to forget, however briefly. It blunted the injustice and cruelty of her bleak existence, made all the more unbearable by the glimmer of sunshine that had entered her life and was now being slowly but surely snuffed out—if it had not been already.
Life stunk. Just when folks thought that things were going their way, life had a knack of jarring them with a brutal dose of reality.
Nelly had the bartender top off her glass again. Two or three more and she would be able to make it through the night without shedding tears or being sick to her stomach. Two or three more and she would be as dead inside as she was beginning to wish she really were.
My dear, sweet Vint! Nelly thought, then greedily gulped the tarantula juice. Her only regret was that it wasn’t a real tarantula she held. That would put her out of her misery soon enough.
It was food for thought.
Chapter Fifteen
Vint Evers stormed from the Applejack saloon, shouldering aside a pair of clerks who were about to enter. Awash in seething emotion that buffeted him like storm-spawned waves crashing on a rocky shore, he plowed through the throng crowding Hell Street with no regard to where he was or what he was doing.
Faces were a blur. The night was a blur. Dazed by the intensity of his turmoil, he wandered aimlessly.
It occurred to him that he was being reckless, that any of his many enemies would give their weight in gold to get him in their gun sights when his guard was down. But he could not shake off the spell that gripped him in its seething coils.
Since first pinning on a tin star years ago, not once had Vint ever broken the law. He prided himself on that. Which made his lapse in the Applejack all the more abominable. For once he stepped over the line, once he crossed the invisible barrier that separated the law-abiding from the lawbreakers, he would be no better than the Frank Lowes of the world. He would never be able to look himself in the mirror again.
With a start, Vint became aware that the hubbub of voices around him had tapered to silence. Stopping short, he discovered that he had turned into an alley so dark that he could not see his hand six inches from his face.
Vint pivoted. It was well he did, for a shadow abruptly detached itself from the alley mouth and glided toward him. In the blink of an eye both pistols were in his hands and he cried out harshly, “Hold it right there, mister, or I’ll drop you where you stand.”
The figure halted. “I’m a friend, Mr. Evers, sir. There’s no call for gunplay.”
The voice was vaguely familiar. “Don’t I know you?” Vint demanded.
“We met once,” the shadow said. “I’m Sam Wilson. We talked about Teego, remember?”
Vint recalled the black ex-soldier who had ridden with Sherman, the one who told him about the killer from New Orleans. “Don’t you know it’s not smart to sneak up on someone like me?” he scolded. “I have too many enemies to give someone the benefit of the doubt.”
“Sorry,” Sam said, “but I didn’t want to talk out in the open where we might be seen. What I have to say is for your ears alone.”
“I’m listening.”
Sam shifted to scan the street, then whispered. “My kind wouldn’t take it kindly if they knew what I did, so this is just between you and me.”
“You have my range word on it.”
“Good.” A clomp of hooves made Sam whip around. After a horseman passed, he said urgently, “It’s about Teego. Do you still want that worthless polecat?”
“More than ever,” Vint said. And in more ways than one. “Why?”
“I found out where he’s stayin’,” Sam said. “Do you know those shacks on the south side of town, the ones over by the river? Well, Teego is livin’ with a white gal in the one that has roses planted out front. He’s been there ever since the two of you tangled.”
Vint lowered his six-guns. “You did the right thing by tellin’ me.”
“My friends wouldn’t think so,” Sam replied. He waved aside a handful of coins Evers thrust at him. “Don’t insult me by offerin’ money. I didn’t do this just so I can stake myself in a poker game. I came to you because what Teego did was wrong. Vermin like him have no business breathin’.”
The man moved to the opening. “You be careful, friend. That Teego has all the moves of a copperhead, and he’ll kill anyone, man or woman, if it suits his purpose. He’s pure mean.”
Sam blended into the flow of passersby, leaving Vint alone in the darkness to ponder the warning. The sensible thing to do was to fetch Shannon or Lee and try to take Teego into custody alive, so they could get some answers. But Lee would be tied up at the Delonys’ for hours, and Ike was mopping up at the Silver Dollar.
Vint elected to go it alone. After the encounter with Lowe, he was feeling peckish. Bracing the killer by his lonesome would be just the thing to get his blood pumping and clear his head.
Consequently, the Texan soon found himself near the lush belt of vegetation that bordered the gurgling Diablo River. Here the air was cooler, danker.
Dozens of ramshackle shacks were home to the town’s poorer element. Many were so dilapidated that it was a wonder they didn’t topple in gusts of strong wind. Here and there windows covered by burlap or tattered sheets were illuminated by the glow of lanterns or candles.
A grunting brown hog rooted around a shattered stump. Mongrels sniffed at a reeking pile of garbage. One growled at the lawman as he walked by.
The shack Sam had mentioned was easy to find. It was one of the few that boasted neat, washed curtains, and the only one where someone had taken the time to plant a flower garden. Roses grew beside the small porch. Light glared within. Dancing shadows confirmed that someone was there.
Vint circled wide, hugging the shadows. The shack was on the riverbank, less than ten yards from the Diablo. At the water’s edge grew a willow that overspread the roof. Tied to a rail at the back was a bay, unsaddled.
Vint was itching to barge right on in, relying on his reflexes to see him through as they had so many times before. But the black soldier had mentioned a woman, and Vint did not want her harmed if he could help it. She might be perfectly innocent, with no idea of what the man she had taken up with was really like.
At that exact moment the front and only door opened. Out sashayed a full-figured female in a pink blouse and long beige skirt. She toted a pitcher toward the river, humming softly.
It was an opportunity Vint could not let pass. Palming his right-hand Colt, he padded to the porch. A board shifted under his boot, squeaking like a mouse. Hardly enough noise to forewarn the killer. Or so Vint thought until he reached the jamb and peered past it.
Steel gleamed, flashing at his head. Barely in time, Vint threw himself backward and the Bowie swished past his cheek. As he back
pedaled he leveled the Colt, but Teego was on him in a bound, the Bowie slamming against the pistol’s barrel and knocking it from his hand.
Snarling, the curly-headed assassin pressed in close. Vint managed to grasp Teego’s wrist and they grappled, Vint wincing when Teego’s other hand closed on his throat. Locked toe to toe, they strained and heaved, Vint seeking to break Teego’s grip, Teego striving to crush Vint’s throat or embed the knife.
Someone yelled. Feet pattered, and suddenly the woman was there. The pitcher arced overhead as she swung it at the Texan’s head with all her might.
“I’m the marshal!” Vint bellowed, rotating to the right and pulling Teego after him. The blow clipped the killer’s shoulder; Teego roared lustily.
“Not me, bitch! Hit him, damn you!”
Obeying, the woman pranced to the left in search of an opening. “Leave my man be!” she howled. “I’ll bust your skull wide open if you hurt him!”
Vint Evers tried to keep an eye on the enraged she-cat even while battling Teego for his life. The razor tip of the Bowie sliced into his shirt, nicking his flesh. Shoving, he pushed the naked steel back a few inches. All the while, the killer’s steely fingers clamped tighter and tighter on his throat.
Only Vint’s constant twisting and turning had saved him so far. It soon was apparent that Teego’s strength was superior to his own, and that if he did not do something and do it quickly he would not live to greet the next dawn.
What slight disadvantage Vint had in sheer brawn, he more than made up for in speed and shrewdness. Since brute force would not prevail, he resorted to his wiles, throwing himself onto his back, wrenching Teego down on top of him.
As they toppled, Vint brought his boots up, slamming them against the dusky cutthroat’s chest. His legs uncoiled like giant springs.
Teego was catapulted head over heels to crash against a porch post, then sprawled forward.
Vint started to rise. A rush of air behind him galvanized his limbs into a forward leap, but the heavy metal pitcher caught him across the back of his head. Bursts of light flared before his eyes, swirling around and around. His knees buckled. Dimly, he was aware that Teego had lifted his head.
“Kill him, Mavis! Now, before he recovers!”
The woman moved as if to brain Vint again but instead darted to the left, her outstretched fingers grasping at a metal object lying in the dust near the porch.
It was Vint’s fallen pistol. “Leave it be!” Vint warned, dipping into the reservoir of stamina that had served him in good stead time and again. “This doesn’t concern you!”
Mavis paid him no mind. She brought up the pistol, cocking the hammer as it rose, showing that she knew how to use a revolver. At that short distance she could not possibly miss. Simultaneously, Teego shoved onto his knees and clawed at the six-shooter on his hip.
Maybe, if Vint had been able to, if he had not been partially stunned and hurt and bleeding, he would have tried to wound the pair rather than slay them. More than anything he wanted Teego alive. But with his own life hanging in the balance, with two gaping muzzles rising toward him and two fingers curled to stroke hair triggers, he could not afford the luxury of being lenient.
Self-preservation flashed the Texan’s left hand to his other pistol. Self-preservation streaked the Colt up and out. And it was that most basic of human instincts which tightened Vint’s finger on the trigger.
Two shots rang out. Two forms pitched to the earth, the darker of the duo to rise again, foam flecking contorted lips as Teego elevated his pistol once more. Another report smashed him flat. His arms shook, his spine arched. An animal snarl was the last sound he uttered.
The she-cat lay where she had gone down, her face covered by her long raven tresses.
Vint Evers slowly stood. Sickness assailed him, a queasy, gut-wrenching sensation born of loathing and despair. He had never shot a woman before.
Teego did not rate another glance. The man had been a coldhearted fiend, a merciless assassin who killed for hire. No-account trash, through and through.
But the woman? To Vint’s knowledge, her only crime had been that she was fond of the rabid wolf she lived with. That she had been all too willing to kill a lawman doing his duty in order to save her lover should have been enough to convince Vint that she deserved her fate, that maybe she was as callous and brutal as Teego himself.
But Vint had been reared to treat all women with respect. Boys living on the frontier were taught to always place females on pedestals; women were kinder, gentler, living visions of grace and charm. Even doves were held in high esteem, since more often than not how they earned their livelihood was more a result of circumstance than choice.
Now Vint had done something he would never have imagined doing. Filled with horror and self-reproach, he hunkered and gently placed a hand on the woman’s dark mane. Blind to the shouts and rushing footfalls around him, he bowed his head and shuddered.
The Texan tried to tell himself that he had only been doing his job, that he had tried to warn the woman off and she had not listened, that she would undoubtedly have shot him if he had not shot her.
It was small consolation. Coming, as it did, on the heels of his failure to save Nelly from the clutches of Frank Lowe, it made him doubly distraught at his own shortcomings, and for the first time in his career he questioned the wisdom of being a lawman.
What good was a badge if it could not right wrongs? What was the use of wearing one if it meant having to put up with all the insults and abuse and outright hatred of those he was sworn to protect? Why bother? Why inflict a burden on his soul that no man should have to endure?
Maybe, just maybe, it was high time he turned in the tin and hung up his pistols.
~*~
The afternoon sun blazed in a stark blue sky. To the north of Diablo Valley stark peaks reared in somber array.
Lush vegetation blanketed the valley floor, but on the arid slopes little grew besides shrub brush and occasional stunted trees. Ravines and gullies laced the rocky terrain like stitching on a quilt. Every few miles the rider in the wide-brimmed black hat came up on bubbling ribbons of water fed by an unknown source high up in the mountains, each winding down to drain into the Diablo River.
Lee Scurlock followed a dusty track westward from that river, steadily climbing. The badge pinned to his frock coat gleamed in the bright glare.
It was not the scenic splendor that drew Lee’s interest. It was the swarm of humanity that covered the land like a plague of locusts.
Crude shacks, torn tents, and earthen dugouts were everywhere. Silver fever had lured prospectors in droves from all parts of the country. The fact that relatively few would make strikes worth their effort did not deter them from ranging over every square inch of the high country in dogged search of the precious metal.
To be fair, a number of major veins and immense pockets had been found, and that was where the miners came in. For when a prospector hit it big, he needed help to sink a tunnel, and if the mine proved ample enough, he soon had anywhere from a handful to dozens of miners working for him and had set himself up as a fledgling silver baron.
Old Abe had been one of the first, and he had the biggest operation of all. Thanks to Bob Delony’s directions, Lee located the Diablo Creek Mine with no trouble. It was situated on the east bank of the only wide creek in the mountains. Several large log structures were proof of the mine’s status in the hierarchy of wealth.
From a mine shaft rattled a laden ore cart pushed by a pair of brawny miners. Four men were working at a sluice, while a fifth stood guard on a ledge.
Lee shifted so the rifleman could see his badge plainly, then kneed the roan down to a hitch rail in front of the main building. A sign proudly proclaimed, “Diablo Creek Mine. Abe Howard, Proprietor.”
Another man sat in a chair near the door, a Greener on his lap. He stared at the tin star, then rose, cradling the shotgun. “Are you here about the shootin’, lawdog?” he inquired.
“Yes,” Lee
admitted. The query sparked a vivid recollection of the hours he had spent in the Delony parlor, holding Allison, consoling her as she gave expression to her grief in a torrent of tears and heart-wrenching sobs. He had held her until the wee hours of the morning when she at last cried herself to sleep.
After placing her gently on the sofa, Lee had gone outside and sat on the porch to ponder. He’d watched the sun rise, listened to the birds greet the new day. It was after eight when Allison woke up and came out to sit in his lap. She seemed to take it for granted that from then on they would be inseparable, and nothing could please him more.
During those lonely hours spent on the rocking chair, Lee had vowed that come what may, he was going to provide for her the best he could, and be the best damn husband any woman ever had.
First, though, he had to settle accounts. First he had to track down the party responsible for her father’s death and see that the son of a bitch paid— and paid dearly.
Over a late breakfast cooked by Ethel, they had nibbled and poked and talked about the arrangements that had to be made for the funeral. Lee confided in her his belief that there was a link between her pa’s murder and his being bushwhacked.
When they parted later, Allison had boldly kissed him on the mouth. He could still feel the pressure of her soft lips, still taste the salty tang of dried tears.
“How’d you hear about it so quick?” the man with the shotgun asked, ending Lee’s reverie. “Old Abe didn’t want any of us to spread the news that he’d taken a bullet.”
Being a gambler came in handy at times. Such as now. Lee did not let his reaction to the startling news show as he lithely swung down and looped the reins around the rail.
“I reckon you can go right in,” the man said.
To the right of the door stood a counter and a table, both littered with mining equipment that included a large scale and several pans, as well as sacks and assorted odds and ends. On the left, in a corner, was a green cot on which reclined the owner of the mine, his left thigh swaddled in crude bandages.
Diablo (A Piccaddilly Publishing Western Book 6) Page 17
