Diablo (A Piccaddilly Publishing Western Book 6) Page 9

  The full implications bunched Lee’s gut into a knot. Like most Tennessee hill folk, he tended to take others at face value. It shocked and angered him whenever he found that he was being used—especially by people he had taken to be friends. “So you had it in the back of your mind to ask me to apply even before we got to town yesterday, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “So that’s the real reason you invited me here,” Lee said, and he could not keep an edge of disappointment and rising resentment out of his voice.

  “Now, hold on,” Jim said defensively. “I think I see where this is leading, and nothing could be further from the truth. I happen to think highly of you or I wouldn’t have even considered asking you over.”

  Lee’s appetite had evaporated like dew under a blistering sun. Pushing the plate back, he said to Ethel, “I want to thank you, ma’am, for your hospitality. I reckon it’s time I was on my way.”

  Old Abe sat up. “Hold on, young hoss. Don’t go off half-cocked. Stay and hear us out.”

  “My answer is no.”

  “Just like that?” Abe said, his cheeks hardening. “Stop and think a moment, won’t you? Unless we appoint an impartial lawdog, there will be hell to pay. Diablo will run red with the blood of innocent men and women. Do you want that to happen?”

  “Vint Evers is your man,” Lee said. Nodding at the Delonys, he wheeled and stalked toward the front hall, not caring one whit that they were shocked by his rudeness.

  Allison Hays watched the Tennessean’s retreating broad shoulders a moment, her heart torn by the thought that she might never see him again. Flinging her napkin onto the table, she dashed after him, calling out, “Lee! Wait! Please!”

  If it had been anyone else, the Tennessean would have kept going. Halting, he turned, jamming his hat onto his head so that the brim hid his eyes. He could not quite decipher Allison’s visage. Was she upset over what had happened, or was she upset with him?

  “I want you to know that I had no idea what my father was up to,” Allison explained. “When he told me, I tried to talk him out of it, but he refused to listen.” She laid a hand on his arm. “Please don’t think badly of him, or of Old Abe. They honestly feel that appointing you marshal is best for the town and everyone in it.”

  “A man has the right to do what he believes is best for him,” Lee said. He did not mention what was really upsetting him.

  “Are you mad at us?”

  “Why should you care?”

  The verbal lashing caused Allison’s skin to prick. “What?” she said, aghast at the vehemence that suddenly twisted his handsome face.

  Her question opened the floodgates of Lee’s pent-up frustration. It was as if a finger had been yanked from a hole in a dike and all the water came crashing through at once. “Why should you care?” he repeated himself. “You’ve been riding roughshod over me since you found out how I make my living. I didn’t try to hide it from you, but that didn’t count for much. You decided I was no more than a jug-headed no-account.” In his anger he reared over her in dark and ominous profile.

  Allison was chilled to the depths of her marrow. Not by fear for her safety, for her intuition assured her that he would never, ever, do her physical harm. No, she was scared because she saw that in some unfathomable manner she and her father had hurt him more than a bullet ever could, that her childish carping and her father’s subtle manipulation had wounded the southerner severely.

  “Who are you to judge me?” Lee voiced the question that had seared him from the beginning. “Did you ever think to ask about all the steady work I’ve done in the past? No. You thought the worst of me and branded me as less than decent.” He paused, righteous with wrath. “Well, I have news for you, Miss Hays. Whatever I’ve done, whatever mistakes I’ve made, I’ve never done anything I’m ashamed of. I may not be a Bible-thumper, but I’m not as worthless as you seem to think. And I won’t abide being treated as such.”

  The words trickled to a stop and Lee paused, waiting for a reply, but there was none.

  Allison’s mouth had slackened at the tirade, and she gazed at him in frank astonishment, at a loss for words.

  “I’ve said my piece,” Lee said, rotating on a boot heel. “Tell your pa that neither of you will be bothered by my presence again.” With that, he stormed to the door, thrust it wide, and was gone.

  In shock, Allison ran to the doorway. “Lee, I didn’t—!” she yelled, stopping when she realized that nothing she could say would stop him from going. Inexplicably, her knees went weak, and she clutched at the jamb for support.

  Chapter Eight

  Ike Shannon loved to gamble. He loved it with a passion that defied description. He loved it more than he did fine liquor, or willing women, or any of the other pleasures men were addicted to.

  A combination of factors contributed to his zeal. There was the rush of excitement, the lure of a challenge, that came from pitting his intellect and skill against others’. There was added spice in the fickle element of pure luck that more often than not decided the outcome.

  The very first time Shannon had sat in on a poker game, he’d been hooked. It had not been all that long ago, actually. Seven years had passed since he saw the handwriting on the wall and gave up his previous profession to ply the craft of cardsmanship. Not once had he regretted his decision.

  But there were days like this one when the hours dragged. It was early afternoon, and only a handful of patrons were in the Applejack. None showed an interest in parting with their money, so Shannon sat alone at his table, glumly playing solitaire, depressed as much by boredom as by the weight of worry for his best friend in all the world: Vint Evers.

  Two less similar people would be hard to find. Where Shannon was coldly logical, even methodical, in all he did, the Texan was a man of fire and action, further marred by a wild streak that had nearly been the death of him on several occasions. For a man who made his living by enforcing the law, it was a potentially fatal flaw. The hellholes that Evers tamed festered with the flotsam of humanity, with callous brutes and razor-honed gunnies who would give anything to be the one who brought the Texan down.

  Shannon had seen Evers’s flaw right off. Yet he had been oddly drawn to the formidable pistolero, and had risked his own life to save the Texan’s time and again.

  Why did he keep doing it? He was under no obligation to follow Vint from town to town, to always be there when Evers needed a helping hand. Vint had certainly never asked him to do it. He had taken it on himself, as if it were the most natural thing in the world for him to do.

  Friendship. That was the answer. For most people, friendship meant sharing a drink or a meal or going out on the town now and then, or lending tools or helping out when a roof needed to be repaired or a field needed tilling.

  In the name of friendship Shannon was willing to do much more; he was willing to die for Vint Evers, something he would do for no other human being, not even some of his own relatives. The bond between them was as profound a mystery as life itself, one he could no more deny than he could willingly stop breathing.

  Shannon accepted it. He lived by it. And on this particular day, he worried that his friend was making the biggest mistake yet, a mistake that might cost both of them their lives.

  The rush of air and the tramp of heavy boots brought Shannon out of his reverie. Into the saloon had stalked the Tennessean, another man Shannon had taken an instinctive liking to. Immediately, he saw that something was wrong, that a thunderstorm roiled on the southerner’s forehead.

  A trio of miners were near the entrance, in Scurlock’s path. Shannon saw them hastily step aside, one saying, “Afternoon, Mr. Scurlock, sir.”

  Lee tromped past them without comment. His gaze was fixed inward, not outward, and he stepped to the bar oblivious to his surroundings. All he could think of was how the Hayses had let him down, and how he had let himself down by being stupid enough to get interested in a woman who saw him as so much dirt.

  “Howdy,
Mr. Scurlock,” the bartender greeted him. “The same as last night?”

  Lee absently nodded. He wanted to jolt his anger out of his system with a few shots of rotgut. Intent on the barkeep, he started when a hand fell lightly on his shoulder.

  “Whoa there, feller! It’s me,” Nelly Rosell said, sliding up beside him. She had been at the back of the room when he entered, and recalling how kind he had been the night before, she had hurried over before any of the other doves snagged him for their own.

  “Nelly,” Lee said sourly. He wanted to be alone, but he could not bring himself to ask her to leave.

  “What’s eating you?” Nelly asked.

  “Nothing.”

  Nelly almost laughed. Men liked to pride themselves on being as hard as nails and keeping their feelings a secret, but the truth was that most wore their emotions on their sleeves and were no harder to read than an open book. They were boys, the whole lot of them, only bigger. And brasher. “If you say so,” she responded. “But you sure are a terrible liar.”

  Lee bit his lower lip, mad at himself. It wasn’t bad enough that he had let the Hayses make a fool of him. Now he was doing it to himself. “It’s that obvious?” he said.

  “Afraid so. Woman trouble would be my guess.”

  “It would be a good one,” Lee confessed. But he did not elaborate. His problems were his own. He would not burden others with them.

  Nelly did not pry. A lifetime ago she had learned that men were touchy when it came to personal matters. She’d learned it long before she ever set foot in a saloon. Her husband had taught her.

  No finer man had ever drawn breath than John Rosell. Nelly’s heart had fluttered the first time she laid eyes on him. Wonder of wonders, his had done the same on being introduced to her. After a whirlwind courtship they had wed, and John persuaded her to leave Ohio for the frontier.

  Nelly had not really wanted to. She would have been content to stay in Ohio the rest of her life. But her man had a dream. John was a farmer, and he had heard that all the farmland he could ever want was in western Kansas, just sitting there, ripe for the taking. All he had to do was file a claim. A few years of hard toil and sweat, and he would have a farm the size of a county and be able to provide all his family’s wants.

  That was the dream. The reality was that they filed on a windswept stretch of arid prairie that seemed to resent their presence as much as Nelly resented being there.

  No one had told them about the awful summer heat, about the bleak winter cold when their sod house was buried in snow clear up to the roof and there wasn’t a lick of wood to be had anywhere.

  No one had told them about the wind, the constant, buffeting wind, that scattered precious seed as if it were chaff, the wind that was forever tangling her hair even when she wore bonnets, the wind that fanned her face day in and day out until her cheeks felt like leather.

  Nor had anyone told them about the dust. It was everywhere. It got into their eyes, into their ears, into their nostrils. It covered every article in the house. She would clean until the place was spotless, then go to bed, only to wake up the next morning to find a fine layer of dust again covering everything.

  Then there were the thunderstorms. They had to be seen to be believed, awesome tantrums of nature, violent, raging upheavals that tore portions of their roof off or damaged their stable or blew down fences.

  Hail as big as hen’s eggs. Deluges that turned dry gullies into seething torrents, grassland into soggy ruin. Tornadoes that destroyed everything in their path. Nelly had seen them all.

  Little by little, the steady wear and tear took its toll on her husband. Crop after crop failed, and with each failure the gleam of hope dwindled a bit more in John’s eyes, eventually to be replaced by a horrible despondency. He went about his daily toil mechanically, seldom laughing, never joking.

  Nelly had done what she could to bolster his spirits. When he would not respond, she had tactfully suggested that they go back to Ohio and start over. But John would not listen. His pride would not let him give up. He toiled on and on, losing more and more of his self-esteem as the days went by, until that nightmarish morning when he went out to plow and she never saw him again.

  Indians, the Army said. A marauding band of Cheyennes, some claimed. No, it was Kiowas, others said. A patrol followed their trail until the tracks were wiped out by a storm.

  For days Nelly had wept, until she had cried herself into a state of total emotional and physical exhaustion. Left all alone, virtually penniless, she’d had no one to turn to.

  Returning to Ohio had been her only option. But her few friends did not have any money to spare. So, in desperation, she had done what everyone claimed no decent woman would ever do.

  It had seemed like a harmless idea at the time. Nelly had gone to Dodge and applied at a saloon that happened to be run by Frank Lowe. How many years had it been now? she mused sadly, and suddenly grew aware that Lee Scurlock was studying her.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?”

  “Never better,” Nelly said. For once she meant it, but she hesitated to tell him why. Leaning closer, she warned, “I saw you blow in. You should know enough not to waltz around with your guard down. Take a gander to your left.”

  Lee did, and saw Jesse Bodine and three cowboys at a faro table. The human bull of a ramrod was staring at him.

  “Bodine was asking about you earlier,” Nelly said. “He seemed real interested in knowing if you’d be in tonight.”

  “I wonder why,” Lee said.

  “I don’t think he’s on the peck.”

  “If he is, it’s his mistake,” Lee vowed. He was in no mood to be pushed by anyone.

  Nelly made a tsk-tsk-tsk sound. “Vint’s right about you, Tennessee. You’d better watch yourself.”

  “You two have been talking about me?”

  The sparkle in Nelly’s eyes grew brighter. “We hit it off last night, Lee. That Texan sure is special.” Catching herself, she said, “Anyway, we got to gabbing about you and he told me that you remind him of an hombre who’s never forked an ornery horse. You don’t know when to rein up, because you’ve never been thrown.”

  Lee could have told her differently, but Jesse Bodine had risen and was walking toward him. “Maybe you should skedaddle,” Lee suggested in case there was gunplay.

  “Not on your life,” Nelly said. Just as she had stood by her husband’s side until the very end, so she would stick by her newfound friend.

  Taking a casual step, Lee aligned his back to the counter, his elbow propped so his right hand was near the ivory butt of his Colt. Bodine did not have a threatening air about him, but a man could never be too careful. Intent on the Texan, he did not realize someone was at his other elbow until the person spoke.

  “Care for some company, lad?” Ike Shannon asked. He, too, had heard Bodine asking about the Tennessean, and he wanted to be on hand to learn why. Not that he would interfere if Bodine called Lee out. He liked the southerner, but his true loyalty lay with Vint Evers.

  “Ike,” Lee said, noting a Remington on the gambler’s right hip. “I see you’re packing more hardware than before.”

  “Not by choice. A belt gun is damned uncomfortable to wear for hours at a stretch at a gaming table,” Shannon remarked, “but I need something to swat the flies with.” He grinned at Bodine. “Here comes one now.”

  Jesse Bodine had halved the distance to the bar when he said, “Hello, Scurlock. I’ve been looking for you.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “I need to talk to you,” Bodine said, glancing at Shannon and Nelly as if they were intruding.

  “So talk.”

  Bodine did not like it, but he said, “My boss sent me in to find you. He wants to extend an invite to you to come visit his ranch.”

  One thing Lee could safely say about his short stay in Diablo: One surprise was piled on another. “Why does Allister Kemp want to see me?”

  The huge man shrugged. “He’s not in the habit of explaining w
hy he does things, and I’m not about to ask. All I know is that you’re invited to supper tonight at six. Head due west out of town. You can’t hardly miss his spread, since it’s all there is between here and the hills to the west.” Chortling at his own warped humor, Bodine walked off.

  Nelly waited until the giant was out of earshot, then slapped the Tennessean’s arm. “Are you insane?”

  “I’m beginning to think that most everyone in Arizona is a mite touched in the head,” Lee said wryly.

  “I’m serious,” Nelly said. “How can you be loco enough to accept Kemp’s invitation? After what you’ve done, he’s just waiting for a chance to kill you.”

  “You know this for a fact?”

  Ike Shannon answered. “Anyone with half a brain knows that Kemp is your enemy. You’ve killed two of his men, wounded another, and he’s not the forgiving kind, laddie. You’re playing into his hands by going out there. Don’t do it.”

  Lee turned to his drink to gain time to focus his thoughts. They had a point, he granted, but if he didn’t go, there would be talk. Some people might brand him a coward. He mentioned as much, adding, “There’s no harm in riding out to see what the man wants. Kemp is not about to have me killed in his own house.” He jerked a thumb at each of them. “I have witnesses that he invited me.”

  “You’re forgetting that there ain’t no law in these parts yet,” Nelly said.

  “Besides which, witnesses don’t count for much when lead is flying thick and fast,” Shannon reminded him.

  Half in jest, Lee said, “Well, then, if the Englishman does make wolf meat of me, I’ll expect the two of you to see that he gets his due.”

  “You’re on,” Shannon said sincerely.

  Lee was surprised. “You’d call him out on my account?”

  “No, I’d use a Sharps fifty-caliber and drop him from a quarter of a mile away,” Shannon said, straight-faced.

  When it came to killing, Shannon was not like Vint. His friend was so inherently fair-minded that he would never shoot anyone from ambush. Vint would rather brace an enemy to the enemy’s face. Not so with Shannon. To him, killing was killing, plain and simple. How the deed was done was of no consequence. Doing it was what counted, and Shannon would do it in whatever way was best guaranteed to get the job done.