Diablo (3 page)

Nicky rode back into the settlement called Sanctuary, a string of mostly stone buildings huddled along the rocky side of a mountain. They fit perfectly into the terrain, almost invisible from a distance. She ignored the men swaggering from the saloon to Rosita's brothel. Not enough of them visited the washhouse and barber's. There always seemed to be a stench in the air. Still, Sanctuary had the look of any small cow town, although it was anything but.

John Reno lifted his hand in salute, and she acknowledged it, but barely. She knew them all, the current residents, both by reputation and sight. She knew how much money they had, for without money they were not welcome at Sanctuary. There were twenty “guests” now, all wanted men successful enough to afford her uncle's protection. The permanent residents were former guests with certain skills. Andy Lonetree was the blacksmith, Sam Dunn ran the general store, and Jeb Gibson the hotel and restaurant. Cray Roberts and Bob Berry managed the saloon and its games. Old Cracker was a piano player. All had been on the run, and their money had given out in Sanctuary. Her uncle, Nat Thompson, chose his permanent residents very carefully. Once they chose to stay, few ever left. It was exile forever, and each was made to understand that.

Her exile, too. Her prison. And yet she hadn't been unhappy. She'd had love from her uncle, from her brother. She'd had a certain freedom in dress. She loved riding, and as a child she'd been doted on by Nat's friends. But as she'd grown older and her body had changed, their looks had changed. They were no longer indulgent, but hungry. She could no longer sit on someone's knee and learn a bawdy song. She sure knew her share of those.

Nicky reached the house, low and sprawling and comfortable, and hitched her horse to a rail, then went inside. Her uncle was sitting at his desk. He was looking better, the color back in his face.

“We might have a new guest soon,” he said, looking down at the papers in his hand.

Nicky sighed. She'd been hoping he would slow down, limit the number of guests, gradually eliminate them. She'd been trying to guide him in that direction.

Her uncle was looking at her expectantly, obviously waiting for her to ask the identity of their new guest. She might as well. She would learn it soon enough, anyway.

“Who?” she asked.

“Diablo,” Nat said with satisfaction. It always pleased him to get a well-known desperado. It enhanced Sanctuary's reputation among potential guests.

Nicky searched her memory. They often got newspapers here, bought by guests or by the two guides who led guests into and out of Sanctuary. Her uncle saved articles on outlaws, holdups, stage and bank robberies. They were invaluable in weeding out potential spies. One robbery did not a fugitive make, in his cautious opinion, especially after a guest recognized a lawman who had infiltrated Sanctuary. Nicky wasn't sure what happened to the man; he'd simply disappeared, just as another had who was suspected of being a spy. She tried not to think about it.

“He's been wanted in Texas nearly two years,” her uncle said. “Murder. Robbery. Broke out of prison three weeks ago, has nearly the whole state looking for him. He's been making inquiries about Sanctuary.”

She asked the obvious question. “Does he have any money?”

“Apparently. My sources tell me he's been spending enough.”

Nicky took a deep breath. “Uncle Nat, maybe you should close up. That last lawman got too close, and we have enough money to start a ranch, and—”

“Soon,” Nat said. “Another year, and we can head toward California. Far enough away the law won't ever find Nat Thompson. But I want to make sure there's enough money so Robin will never have to …” He trailed off, a muscle throbbing in his cheek.

She could have finished the sentence for him.
So he'll never have to rob like your father did.
She knew the guilt he felt for that, for her mother's death, for leading her father on that last bank robbery. John Thompson hadn't survived the shoot-out that followed.

Nat had tried to make it up to Nicky and Robin. He had taken them in, had hired housekeepers for them when he was away. She hadn't known then he'd been robbing banks. “But we've grown up, Uncle Nat. We can take care of ourselves.”

“What I want is for both of you to be taken care of,” he said. “A few more guests, and you and Robin can go anywhere.” She didn't like the tone in his voice, the words that didn't include him.

“Is anything wrong?” she said, trying to keep the worry from her voice. He didn't like worry. He didn't like fussing.

He shook his head. “Now let's talk about Diablo.”

“Why don't you go to Denver and see a doctor?”

His mouth thinned as it did when he didn't want to discuss something. It was an expression he seldom used in her presence. “I'm fine. Doc Cable said so.”

“Doc Cable is a quack,” Nicky countered. Doc Cable had been one of their guests several months earlier. “That's why he was here. He killed a few patients.”

“When he was drunk,” Nat said. “He wasn't bad when he was sober. Now let's talk about Diablo.”

Nicky decided to try once more. “Tell him no, Uncle Nat. It's getting too dangerous.”

“Nine more months,” Nat bargained.

“And then we'll go to California?” Nicky countered.

“I swear.”

Nicky didn't like it. She sensed they didn't have nine months. But she knew her uncle, and this was the best she was going to get. He would stick by his word. He always did. She nodded reluctantly. “Tell me more about Diablo.”

Kane was hot, tired, and thirsty. It had been a hell of a long ride. His eyes had been blindfolded for two days, and his horse guided by a man he'd met for the very first time three days before.

Breaking out of prison had gone smoothly. Then three frustrating weeks had followed as he kept moving from town to town, saloon to saloon, seeking entrance to Sanctuary while avoiding posses and lawmen.

Masters was on his heels the entire time. When Kane had finally gotten a bite in a little Texas trading town, Masters had provided him with cash to pay the way into Sanctuary. One thousand for entry, another thousand as down payment on the hundred-dollar-a-day privilege of staying.

Kane remembered clearly how three days ago, his escort had shown up in Kane's hotel room, a knife at Kane's throat. Their conversation had been brief.

“You got the money?”

Kane had nodded. If it had been his own money, he would have been reluctant to give it to the man in a calico shirt, dirty buckskin trousers, and an even dirtier hat. But it was the federal government's money, and he surrendered it easily enough. He'd been given no time to alert Masters, who was in another hotel, no time to do anything but throw a change of clothes in his saddlebags, which contained several thousand dollars more. His horse, he was told, was already saddled and waiting in back of the hotel.

That was in Gooden, Texas, and now he didn't know where he was.

The pace slowed. The horse was climbing upward. They must have reached a mountain somewhere. Damn. Two months and four days left, and he couldn't even tell which was north or south.

Another hour passed, and the horse began to move downhill. Time crawled by, but finally his horse came to a stop. His escort said in a gravelly voice, “You can take off the blindfold.”

He did and was instantly blinded by the sun. It was high overhead and glaring. Kane half closed his eyes until they gradually adjusted to the brightness, then opened them again. They were in a canyon, surrounded by rugged mountains he couldn't identify. He turned his head and saw the main street of a town.

“Welcome to Sanctuary,” his guide said as Kane peered around. A blacksmith shop. A barber. A saloon. A general store. Even a mayor's office and what looked like homes. Some were neat, some ramshackle. All in all, he could have been in any of a dozen small towns.

Except there was a preponderance of men, and none of them were wearing gunbelts. His own had been taken at the beginning of this journey.

His guide followed the direction of his eyes. “No guns are worn in Sanctuary. Except by Mr. Thompson and his deputies, like me,” the man added with a small smile. “He'll tell you all the rules.”

The guide gestured to the mayor's office. “He'll be expecting you.”

Kane dismounted. He looked around again, trying to identify something, anything. He thought he saw flashes of light and believed them to be from lookouts in the hills, gun barrels glinting in the rays of the sun.

“Who will be expecting me?” Kane asked.

The guide shrugged. “He'll tell you what he wants you to know.”

Kane approached the office just as the door opened, and a boy ran into him. His hands went out automatically to steady the boy and found something soft instead. He heard a gasp, then the stranger stepped back with a short curse.

Startled, Kane stepped back also. The stranger, about half a foot shorter than his own six feet, was dressed in worn, ill-fitting denim trousers, a dark shirt, and vest. The light brown hair was cut short, shorter than commonly worn by men, and was carelessly brushed back from a face he couldn't quite see. Then the face tilted up toward him, and he realized it didn't belong to a boy.

Large brown eyes the color of dark chocolate, shaded by long, black lashes, looked at him contemptuously. A small nose in an elfin face wriggled as if it were smelling something undesirable. Kane was instantly aware of his three days' growth of beard, and the trail dust and sweat that covered him. With the scar on his cheek, he must look like the devil himself.

He bowed. “My apologies, miss, both for my clumsiness and my appearance. I've been riding—”

“I know,” she interrupted, her mouth grim. “You're Diablo.”

He tried to hide his astonishment as he wondered who she was. Her exact age was impossible to judge, but clearly she wasn't a child. She obviously was unimpressed by Diablo's reputation, and he doubted she was an outlaw on the run. He tried again. “I prefer Kane. Kane O'Brien.”

“Like the man who killed his brother.” Her remark, said with disdain, hurt more than she could know, and inwardly he winced. She was angry with him and he didn't know why. He was usually successful with women, even with the scar on his cheek. Or perhaps because of it. He frightened even while he attracted. But this woman's gaze didn't focus on the scar. She just dismissed him, something that had never happened to him before. And he found that intriguing, challenging.

Nearly as much as he found her face fascinating. He'd seen far more beautiful ones, but few that piqued his interest as this one did.

Maybe he'd been too long without a woman's company. He'd spent the last three months in a cell, and two years prior to that on the run.

“Who do I have the pleasure of … almost running down?” he said in a voice that usually charmed the most reticent of women. But there was no answering smile. Only when her eyes met his did a flash of uncertainty streak across her face. Something passed between them, something so swift and strong that Kane felt jolted. She must have felt it, too, for she took a step backward, then another.

Kane suddenly feared she would fall from the porch, and he reached out a hand. His gloved fingers brushed hers, and a new kind of heat ran up those fingers and through his arms, settling deep in a most sensitive place. The woman jerked back her hand, as if she too had been burned. She stared at his outstretched hand, turned and walked away. Kane took some pleasure in noting that her gait was none too steady, but then neither was his as he took a step in her direction. A harsh voice behind him brought him to a quick halt.

“She's out of bounds.”

Kane turned and stared at the man framed by the doorway. He was as tall as Kane, his build heavier. Time had carved canyons in his face, but his pale blue eyes were ageless—and as cold as any Kane had seen.

“Why?” Kane asked.

“Because I say so,” the man said. “You're Diablo?”

Kane nodded. The man held out his hand. “I'm Nat Thompson. I run Sanctuary, and the first rule is to keep your hands off that girl.” The tight grip was more than friendly. It was a warning. Thompson released his hand, then headed inside the office, obviously expecting Kane to follow. He did.

Thompson went to a desk and took the chair behind it. “Sit down,” he said. “Welcome to Sanctuary.”

“How safe is it?”

“As safe as you can get,” Thompson said with obvious satisfaction. “There's several ways out, if a trail to Sanctuary is ever found. Even then, we're protected by several Indian tribes, and our lookouts can see miles away. You're safe enough here. If you follow the rules.”

Kane felt the muscles in his stomach tighten. This wasn't going to be easy. “What rules?”

“No guns in Sanctuary except my own and my deputies'. No fighting unless it's for entertainment—in a ring and with rules. No questions of other guests unless they wish to volunteer information. You can't ride outside the ring of mountains without one of my guides.”

“A lot of rules for a hundred dollars a day.”

Thompson shrugged. “You can leave. A guide will lead you out same way you came. You can take your chances outside.”

“What do you have except for rules?”

Thompson's lips cracked into a small smile for the first time. “Everything you want. Women. A saloon. Gambling. Good food. Feather beds. Hell of a lot better than a jail cot. Or a grave.”

Kane nodded. “I don't have much choice. Every lawman west of the Mississippi is after me.”

“So I hear.” Thompson eyed him with interest. “No one ever escaped from that prison before.”

Kane shrugged. “Wasn't that hard. They're not very smart.” He paused. “Tell me more about the women.”

“Mexican, mostly,” he said. “Have some real little fireballs here.”