The last place Boyd Smith wanted to be at dark was the hideaway of Taviz and his men. But there he was at sunset, two days after he’d left Wishbone, riding into the derelict mining camp that Taviz’s gang occupied.
Skull, the place was called, a name that added to Boyd’s apprehension as he spotted a tin roof and a chimney of smoke rising from it. Skull was one of those towns that had sprouted out of the ground overnight with word of a promising gold strike a few years back. The strike had proved disappointing and the mine had petered out faster than a desert rain. The buildings that had not been cannibalized for the next short-lived town, now housed the cutthroats Taviz rode with.
Boyd shouted out a friendly greeting when he was close enough for the lookout to see him. He heard the click of a safety on a rifle somewhere nearby and felt sweat pop out on his forehead. “Boyd Smith!” he yelled. “Adams sent me!” He waved a white handkerchief high in the air but didn’t breathe easy until a raspy voice from the dark responded.
“Ride in,” the man said. “But keep them hands on the saddle horn or get them shot off.”
Boyd nudged his horse along with his spurred heels, not daring even to move the reins before he rode into a circle of light cast from lanterns strung from the sagging eaves of rooftops. One of the men gathered around a popping fire got up and walked over to him. The women—three or more interspersed with the half-dozen men—didn’t look back at him. He hoped their lack of interest didn’t bode ill for him.
“Leave that gun on your saddle and get down!” The man giving that order was Taviz himself. Pete could see his harsh face and the long jagged line of a scar that ran from one cheek clear down to his collarbone. The scar didn’t ruin the man’s looks. Pete assumed he would have to be female to understand just how it added to his dangerous Latin countenance. He didn’t know, either, how Taviz had gotten that scar, but he was certain the man that gave it to him was no longer alive.
To any who knew men from the underbelly of life, Taviz was the worst of them. His cruelty shocked even the vicious men who rode with him. It was made all the worse because Taviz was no lackwit who turned to thievery and murder because he had failed at an honest living. He killed and robbed because he liked it. He relished the power he held over life and death, and it thrilled him to outsmart those who’d worked hard to make a fortune only to lose it to the likes of him.
It was rumored that at times when Taviz tired of the company of his coarse men he dressed himself up in finery and rode to places where he’d never been heard of. There he passed himself off as a well-to-do rancher. He was said to appreciate a night in the theater after which he would buy his companions a round of White Seal champagne. It was said, too, that he had danced with ladies from the finest families in Phoenix. Boyd doubted none of it. Taviz was savvy and intelligent and completely without conscience.
“Adams must want me bad to send you up here at night,” Taviz said. Standing in the shadows, dressed all in black but for the red silk scarf knotted around his neck, he appeared strangely disembodied.
“He does,” Boyd answered, feeling a shiver run down his spine. “He’s got a job for you.”
“One you couldn’t do?” Taviz grinned.
“That’s right,” Boyd admitted and looked down at the ground. A grin was misplaced on Taviz’s diabolical face and it gave Boyd an eerie feeling. He jumped like a skittish horse when a woman’s scream tore out of the night and after it the faint, reedy cry of a newborn.
Taviz kicked the door of the cabin the scream had come from. “Tell that woman to shut up!” he yelled. “I’ve heard enough of her moaning.” Cursing those within, he gave the weathered door another kick. “And bring a bottle of mescal out here. I’ve got company.” Over his shoulder he called for one of the men to take Boyd’s horse to the corral then urged Boyd over the bright, crackling fire. “Go on! Get out of here,” he told the men. “I’m tired of you, too.”
Those men who would have killed another for looking at them wrong got up and drifted off, some grumbling but none challenging Taviz for sending them away from the warm fire. The women went with them, disappearing with their men into the dark or into the tumble-down cabins in the camp. A few minutes later, a woman who had not been among those at the fire came out of the largest cabin. It was the most brightly lit—the one from which Taviz had demanded silence. She had a gray woolen shawl draped over her head and wrapped loosely around her shoulders. She was not young, not pretty, and she looked tired and frightened. In her hands was the mescal and a plate of beans for Boyd.
She handed Taviz the mescal, gave the stranger the food, then stood with them a moment, biding her time until Taviz spared her a look. “You have a son,” she said quietly. “My sister has given you a boy but she—she is not well. She wants to see you. She begs—”
He shot her a cold look that shut her off. “Bring the boy out here,” he said. “And tell the woman I’ll see her when I’m done drinking.”
The woman who had served them backed away then turned and ran into the cabin. Boyd heard voices from within, a harried chattering in Spanish, an argument, a cry of anguish, then silence. He felt uneasy, sensed that something was wrong and feared trouble, but beside him Taviz was calmly drinking the mescal. Boyd had no appetite for the beans but ate a few mouthfuls anyway then remembered that Adams had sent a gift for Taviz. Setting the tin plate and spoon aside, he reached into his pocket and brought out a dozen of Adams’s best cigars carefully wrapped in brown paper and tied with string.
“Adams sent them,” he said.
Taviz handed him the mescal and took the package, tore off the wrapping and smiled. While Boyd stared into the fire Taviz stuffed eleven of the cigars into his breast pocket. He lit the twelfth with an ember from the campfire. While Boyd fidgeted and hoped for an opening to deliver all of Adams’s message, Taviz smoked, amusing himself making stacks of smoke rings until he tired of it and started gazing at the stars. Boyd thought he had been forgotten until the toe of Taviz’s boot struck him hard on the thigh. “Tell me what Adams wants.” His black-capped head was still bent toward the stars. “Maybe I’ll do it.”
Boyd, bolstered by a few swigs of mescal, told Taviz what Adams wanted. Boyd first explained that he and his brother had been causing havoc for the Gamble Line until one of their band got caught and then killed.
“He wanted to put a scare in Teddy Gamble so she would sell out. But now he’s ready to do more than scare her out of business.”
“She.” Taviz spat a mouthful of mescal into the fire and watched the flames leap high. “Adams cannot stop a woman?” Laughing loudly he slapped Boyd on the back. “Sí, he does need Taviz if a woman stands in his way and he cannot make her do what he wants. Taviz, my friend, knows what to do to—”
A weak cry and quiet footsteps interrupted. The woman in the shawl was carrying an infant wrapped in a bright Mexican blanket. Only a bit of the baby’s tiny face was revealed and this she showed to Taviz. “Your son,” she said.
With the cigar dangling from his large white teeth
Taviz got to his feet. He gave Boyd, still seated by the fire, a light kick. “A son, gringo,” he said proudly. “Taviz sires only sons, eh? This one will grow up smart and strong like his papa. Sí.” The woman holding the infant began trembling and this seemed to infuriate Taviz. Distrustful by nature, he glared at her and roared, “Show me the boy!”
The woman could not meet his eye but she shook her head and hugged the wiggling bundle to her. “It is a cold night,” she said. “He is small.”
“Show me!” This time the command and the anger evident in Taviz’s contorted face struck fear in the woman.
Slowly, hesitantly she unwrapped the blanket. The baby screamed when the cold night air hit him. His small red, wrinkled body began to jerk and twitch. Boyd saw the infant clearly and even his inexperienced eyes could tell that the baby was undersized and ill-formed, and that his tiny legs, twisted and stunted as they were, would never be right. Taviz’s son would grow up lame or, more likely, never walk at all.
Uttering a curse, Taviz threw his cigar off into the night and grabbed the howling baby in one big hand. Teeth clenched, he held the infant before him, his dark face set so fierce the woman trembled and dropped the child’s wrapping at her feet. Taviz shook the helpless baby. “This is not my son!” he roared. “I did not beget this misfit! This bastard brat!” Cursing anew, he shoved the squalling infant into the woman’s arms. “Get him out of my sight! Get him out of my camp! Take the whore too! She’s crawled to some other man’s blanket and tried to foist her brat on me. Get her out of here! Tonight!”
“Señor Taviz,” the woman, quaking so she could hardly speak, dropped to her knees in the dirt before him and pleaded. “Please. He is your child. You know it. Let her stay. Please. She is not well enough—”
He shoved her away with his boot. She nearly tripped on the hem of her skirt as she scrambled to her feet balancing the baby in her trembling arms. Realizing too late that she had done the unthinkable in balking at Taviz’s orders, she broke into a frantic run to the cabin. No one defied Taviz and lived, least of all a woman.
But this once he seemed to have shown mercy. Already he had signaled his men to bring up a horse. They held it outside the cabin door and soon the women came out, both crying, one, the baby’s mother, barely able to stand. Whimpering with fear, her sister helped her on the horse and handed up the child. Neither of them looked at Taviz or even dared to look back as the woman in the gray shawl led the horse in a brisk trot along the trail Boyd had ridden upon.
The way was steep and they would have the devil of a time getting down the mountain in the dark but they could not have feared the journey more than they feared Taviz’s rage. The mescal bottle tipped to his lips, he watched them depart. When they were well out of sight, he called one of his men and spoke to him in a low, rough voice. The bandito nodded and with his rifle in hand mounted a horse and rode out after the women.
Taviz was done with the matter then and sat down at the fire to talk about the job Parrish Adams offered. “How much will Adams pay?” he demanded.
Boyd named an amount and gave Taviz the five hundred in gold that was the first of it. Adams had told him to bargain for the balance but he disregarded that instruction and named the top sum to start.
Taviz nodded, satisfied with what would surely be easy money and certain he would not be cheated. He never was. “What is this woman like?” He looked hard at Boyd. The flames from the campfire were flickering in his black eyes like the fires of hell. “This Teddy Gamble? Pretty? Sí?”
“Some might think so.” Boyd’s voice croaked and his throat felt like it had a fist inside it. “But she shore ain’t the frilly type and I shore wouldn’t want her in my bed.”
Taviz’s bawdy laughter echoed off the canyon walls. “My friend, that is the only place for a woman,” he said.
A while later and after Taviz had left him, Boyd heard, far in the distance, the report of a rifle firing three times. He knew he would not sleep that night.
***
Rhys slept well in his soft bed of straw. It was there that Bullet found him at sunup. The mare and her offspring had fared well too. The mare was stronger, proud and protective of her baby and hesitant to allow Bullet near the stall until she had sniffed his shirtsleeve and hand and confirmed that he was trustworthy.
“I rode by the ranch on the way in.” Bullet wore a white pullover shirt and the silver and turquoise belt that was apparently a part of him. He nudged Rhys awake. “Teddy said you brought in this little ’un.”
“With her help.” Rhys sat up and stretched, then searched beneath the straw for his boots. “And the mare did her part as well.”
He slid his boots on, got up and rubbed his shadowed chin. Mae Sprayberry would think he’d spent the night with a floozy since he’d failed to return to his rented room. He did not care too much if she did, not if it would keep Mae from constantly knocking on his door when he wanted to be alone.
Bullet, moving soundlessly on his moccasin-clad feet, slipped inside the stall and examined first-hand the latest addition to the Gamble remuda. Bullet valued the horses that were in his care and treated them better than many people did their families. He’d have blamed himself if the two he was looking at had not survived the night. So it was with great satisfaction that he pronounced the leggy colt and his mother sound.
“You are a better man than I thought, Delmar,” Bullet admitted. “Reckon that just proves everything ain’t the way it looks at first glance. Anyhow I say a man that’s got a feel for horses ain’t half bad. An’ listen,” he added, “if you change your mind about givin’ Teddy a hand while—while things are gettin’ settled, you’re welcome to work with me.”
Rhys realized that Bullet’s effusive speech was more than most had ever heard him say at one time. Rhys thanked the half-breed, but declined. Given a choice he’d rather have spent the night in the cozy feather bed at the boarding house. That was where he was headed as soon as he could pick all the straw off his wrinkled clothes. He wanted a shave and a wash-up and some of Mae’s coffee and biscuits—then a few hours napping in that feather bed before he headed over to the Diamond and got to work doing what he did best.
***
Everything went according to plan until he got to the Diamond early that afternoon. He had a hard time getting into a game though finally he put together one that ran late into the night. The next day was a repeat of the one before and each day afterwards he had more and more difficulty finding players willing to allow him at their table. Even the faro dealer shut down when he showed an interest in the game he was running. By the end of the week Rhys found himself alone with a deck of cards except for the few occasions when Honor pulled herself away from her cowboy admirers and came and sat with him.
He shared a few drinks with the girl but since he was disinclined to go up to her room and pay for her services, her visits at his table were short. With too much time on his hands Rhys grew restless. He kept thinking of Teddy, remembering the sweetness of her mouth—the depth of his longing for her that night at the stable—the way it had come on him like a fever. He wondered what would have happened if Frenchy hadn’t squeezed out of the stall door and upset his mother.
Most of all he wondered how Teddy had turned off her passion and turned on him so fast. Even a black widow spider waited until after the mating to turn mean. But Teddy was more devious than that treacherous creature. She apparently had a penchant for toying with her prey before she did him in. An ugly thought occurred to him all at once. He had begun to suspect that, as had once happened in London, he had been shut out of gambling circles in Wishbone.
Why that should be had seemed a mystery. Maybe it was not. Maybe Teddy’s devious hand was in that, too. He recalled from his conversations in the Diamond that almost everyone in town knew Teddy and most of them, for reasons he wasn’t entirely sure of, seemed to be fond of the bad-tempered spitfire of a woman. He wouldn’t put it past Teddy to be vindictive enough to enlist her friends in a scheme to make him go bust. On the other hand she had to know that kind of spite would only drive him to accept Adams’s offer.
He planned to tell her that, as soon as he saw her again. She’d been avoiding him, he thought. Every time he’d dropped by the stage office she’d been out. He suspected some of those “outs” had been the result of a convenient dash behind the boxes and crates in the back room of the office, and had lasted only until he left the premises. Undoubtedly she felt safe tormenting him as long as Adams was out of town. Harley had told him that the Diamond’s boss was up north for a time taking care of interests he had there. Harley had volunteered this information when Rhys had asked the man’s opinion on why he was persona non grata at the tables. Harley had offered little insight into Rhys’s problem.
He’d shrugged his wide shoulders and said “Nobody likes to lose. Get my meanin’?”
Rhys didn’t.