Rainbows and Rapture (15 page)

The Baylors, mouths agape, watched as the carved posts that held the cording began to teeter. One by one, in a chain reaction, the posts tipped over, sending the heavy mass of cording writhing all over the floor like a huge crimson snake. “Dammit, look what she done!” one of them yelled.

“The keys!” another boomed. “The bitch dropped ’em, and they slid under the counter!”

All four of the outlaws started picking their way over the tangle of cording. Two fell, landing in a heap together; the other two made it to the service counter.

“Blood,” Russia murmured weakly, raising her finger toward Mr. Emerson.

“Shut up!” one of the brothers demanded, battling the cording entangled around his feet. “We gotta move this damn rope before we break our necks tryin’ to get around it!” he screamed at his cohorts.

Together, the men lifted the thick cording, hoisting it and the posts over their shoulders and heaving them across the room. That done, they got to their hands and knees and crawled to the service counter.

“Dammit to hell!” one of them cursed, the side of his face pressed flat on the floor as he peered under the solid counter. “They’re right there, just outta reach!” He tried to slide his hand beneath the counter, to no avail. Less than half an inch of space existed between the counter and the floor.

His three brothers immediately assumed the same position, cheeks pressed against the floor, bottoms raised high, eyes glued to the precious, inaccessible keys to the safe.

“Stay right where you are.”

Russia recognized the deep and dangerous voice immediately. Still on the floor, she blinked and saw Santiago. With his long, leather-clad legs spread, he stood directly behind the four Baylor brothers, both Colts trained on them. Again Russia wondered where Marshal Wilkens was.

Glancing at the criminals, she managed a faint smile when she saw their heads down and their bottoms up. “Shoot ’em in the asses, Zamora.”

“Zamora?” one of the Baylors repeated, his mouth the only part of him that moved. “
Santiago
Zamora?”

Russia looked back up at Santiago. Like he’d promised her, he’d let no harm come to her. Her gaze took in each solid inch of his male strength, and she felt filled to the brim with admiration and awe. “Santiago Zamora,” she repeated softly. “The one and only.”

Gasps and whispered curses filled the air.

In the next moment, Santiago casually stepped aside as eight relinquished revolvers and one dagger came sliding toward him.

* * *

His cheroot glowing in the night shadows, Santiago leaned against a post in front of the saloon and watched Russia pace before the doctor’s office across the narrow street. She’d been there for three hours already, waiting for news of the Emerson baby. Though he couldn’t understand her extreme interest in a child whose parents she didn’t even know, he hadn’t argued when she began her vigil. Gut instinct had told him he would’ve lost the battle.

His eyes still followed her every move as he thought about her participation in the capture of the Baylors. She’d played a vital role in his scheme, and she hadn’t let him down.

Smiling, he pondered his reasons for having insisted that she cooperate with him. He’d known without a doubt that she’d cause some kind of chaotic accident as soon as she entered the bank. He’d been counting on it, and sure enough, she’d come through for him. And because of the disturbance she’d created, the Baylors had been too preoccupied to harm the Emersons and too busy to resist capture. Without having to spill a drop of blood, he’d been able to stroll right into the bank and arrest them.

Of course, he’d never tell Russia that it was her two left feet that had saved the day, nor would he enlighten her to the fact that he’d been trusting her to create havoc. If she knew, she’d knock his tidwads out…whatever tidwads were.

Still grinning, he saw a door open two buildings away from the doctor’s office. His smile disappeared when he saw it was the jailhouse door and that Marshal Wilkens was slinking out of it. He watched the lawman tip his hat to a few men who were loitering nearby. The men turned away, giving the marshal their backs.

“Marshal,” Santiago called, motioning for the lawman to join him by the saloon porch.

Marshal Wilkens approached slowly, cautiously, unable to meet the gunslinger’s eyes. “Mr. Zamora,” he mumbled.

Santiago stared at the top of the marshal’s hat. “I noticed you come out of your office. I take it you aren’t afraid of the Baylors now that they’re safely imprisoned.”

Marshal Wilkens couldn’t speak past his embarrassment or the anger such humiliation caused him.

“I wondered where you were when Miss Valentine and I marched the Baylors to jail,” Santiago continued, disgust curling through him. “Later, I heard that a few townsmen found you holed up in a back room of your office. Judging by the way those men over there across the street just treated you, I imagine all of Rock Springs has heard the story of your cowardice.”

When the marshal didn’t comment, Santiago tossed his cheroot into the street. “I have no idea how much longer you’ll be in Rock Springs, but if by any slim chance the citizens decide to keep their yellow-spined marshal, there’s something I want you to do for me.”

Marshal Wilkens looked up, wondering what favor he could do for the gunfighter. Whatever it was, he knew he’d do it, for perhaps in doing it, he could restore his reputation. “Yes, of course, Mr. Zamora. What is it?”

Leisurely, Santiago removed one of his Colts. As if he wanted to hold it just for the pure pleasure of it, he ran his finger down the barrel. “Stay away from Russia Valentine. I seriously doubt that she’ll ever return here, but if she does and you so much as look her way—I’ll hunt you down. There isn’t a skunk hole in this entire country
I
’ll miss.
Comprende?
”

Marshal Wilkens stared at the Colt and the dark hand wrapped around it. He managed a shaky nod.

“And as for the ten-thousand-dollar reward—”

“Tomorrow afternoon, Mr. Zamora, just like I promised.”

“I won’t be here that long.”

“But I can’t get it before—”

“I don’t want one miserable cent of it.”

The marshal’s heart began to pound. If Santiago Zamora left Rock Springs without the money, he could use it himself. Take it, run, and build a new life somewhere. Perhaps in some little border town. No one would ever know. He nodded again, his mind spinning with the plan that would be his salvation.

Santiago heard every silent thought that went through the lawman’s brain. “I don’t know when, Marshal, but I’ll more than likely pass through Rock Springs again. And when I do, I want to stay in a hotel. If when I arrive I don’t see one, I’ll know the reward money wasn’t used to build it.
Comprende?
”

Marshal Wilkens stiffened. Such rage blazed through him, his voice seemed burned from his throat. Nodding one last time, he swirled on his heel and stormed down the street.

Santiago replaced the Colt in his belt and looked back at Russia. She was now speaking to a man who stood in the light-flooded threshold of the doctor’s office. He tensed when he saw her cover her face with her hands, her shoulders heaving.

It took him only a few seconds to reach her. “Russia—”

“Miz Emerson,” Russia squeaked through her tears. “She had a girl, Zamora. A little girl.”

At her deep distress, he felt a catch in his throat. Perhaps the birth had culminated in tragedy. “Are they— They haven’t…died, have they?”

She shook her head and tried to dry her eyes with the back of her hand. “They’re fine.”

“What about the banker? Mr. Emerson. His head was—”

“Weren’t nothin’ but a flesh wound. He’s fine, too.”

Santiago scowled with confusion. Turning, he prepared to interrogate the man standing in the doorway, but the man backed into the room and quickly closed the door. “Who was that man, Russia?”

“The doctor.”

“Did he say something mean to you?”

“No.”

“Then why—what happened to make you cry?”

She glanced at the shuttered window of the doctor’s office. Within, in a soft bed, lay a mother and her child. Mrs. Emerson was probably smiling and cooing to her newborn. The baby was more than likely nursing contentedly at her mother’s warm breast.

Russia burst out with another choking sob.

“
Santa Maria
, Russia, what—”

“It’s nothin’! Nothin’!” With that, she lifted her skirts and scurried across the street, disappearing inside the saloon. Racing through the smoky, music-filled room, she ignored the calls of several men, slapped away a few groping hands, and ran to the steps that led upstairs. Tears blurring her vision, she stumbled her way up and tore down the hall. Once in the room, she slammed the door closed, bolted it, and threw herself on the lumpy cot.

“Russia!” Santiago thundered.

God, he must have been right behind her! she thought hysterically, listening to him rattle the doorknob. “Go away!”

“Open this door!”

“No!”

“Dammit, I said open—”

“No!”

The splintering crash of breaking wood made her hug her knees to her chest and scream out with surprised fear. Tears still clung to her lashes as she looked up and saw Santiago standing in the doorway. He filled it so completely, there was barely any empty space between him and the frame.

He took two steps into the room and stopped. “What the hell is the matter with you, Russia? You’re going to tell me right now, or I’ll—”

“No!”

He snatched his hat off and hurled it across the room. “Russia, did that doctor say something mean to you?” he asked again, sliding his palms across the ice-cold length of his pistols. “
Digame!
Tell me what he said!”

She turned her face into the pillow. “He only said that Miz Emerson had a baby girl.”

With her voice absorbed in the pillow, Santiago couldn’t understand a word she said. He stormed to the bed and pulled Russia to her knees, his hands beneath her arms. “You better tell me everything he said to you, or I’ll go back to his office and make him repeat it to me!”

“Go on, then! All’s he’ll say is that Miz Emerson had a baby girl! How many times do I gotta tell you that?”

“But— For God’s sake, Russia, why did that make you cry?” .

She dropped her chin to her chest, filmy images of Mrs. Emerson and the baby still floating through her mind. Moving her hands to her lower belly, her palms pressing into it, she dwelled on the fact that it could never harbor a tiny life, would never swell with child. Anguish squeezed around her heart; she clamped her lips together in an effort to contain another bout of tears.

But they came anyway. Silently, trickling down her cheeks.

Santiago felt a tear splash on his wrist. It felt like fire, scorching his skin and filling him with the searing need to understand why it had been shed. “Russia,” he murmured, his gaze still riveted on that lone tear, “please tell me what’s wrong. Whatever it is, I—I promise to try and fix it.”

“You cain’t,” she whispered. “Nobody can. Not never.”

“
I
can!” he roared, so frustrated he couldn’t think straight.

“Yeah?” She struggled out of his grasp. “Do it, then!”

“I
will!
” He spilled Nehemiah out of his hat, beat the cat hair out of it, then stalked to the broken doorframe. Just as he walked beneath it, he stopped, frowned at the cracked wall in the corridor, and spun to face Russia again. “Dammit, how can I fix it if I don’t know what the heil it is!”

“Even if you knowed what it was, there ain’t a damn thing you can do about it! ‘Sides that, it ain’t your problem nohow! And it ain’t never gonna
be
your problem, so fergit it, hear? Jist lergit it!” Crisscrossing her arms around her belly, she curled up on the bed and began to rock. “Go away, Zamora. Go downstairs and git drunk, or somethin.”

He felt anger explode inside him. Damn the twit, then! If she didn’t want his help, then just damn her to hell and back! His jaw clenched so tightly that his teeth hurt, he charged down the hall, his bootheels hammering against the wooden floor.

Once downstairs, he headed for the bar, where he spotted a plump, gray-haired woman drying freshly washed glasses at the end of the scarred counter. He recognized her as the saloon owner’s wife. With one slight flick of his wrist, he tossed a solid gold coin into the mug in her fat hand. “There’s no door on room six.”

The startled woman looked up from the gold piece and peered into the blackest eyes she’d ever seen. She’d heard earlier that Santiago Zamora had captured the Baylors by paralyzing them with the terrifying glitter in his eyes, and she suspected now that the rumor was true. “What—what happened to the door, Mr. Zamora?” she asked, her fleshy lips quivering. “There used…to be one there.”

“It rotted off its hinges. I want another room. A
clean
one. Tell the girl in room six to move to the new one. Then bring her a bath. A
hot
one. Soap. Towels. And food.
Lots
of it. And tell her I’ll be up in one hour.
One
hour.”

The mug clattered to the counter. In seconds, the woman was gone, hurrying to do the gunslinger’s bidding.

“Whiskey, Mr. Zamora?” her husband mumbled nervously, holding up a bottle of his finest. “On—on the house, of course.”

Santiago took it and sauntered to an empty table in the far corner of the room. For three quarters of an hour he sat alone, drinking, staring pensively into the empty space ahead of him, wondering what Russia’s trouble was, and failing to come up with a single logical reason as to why the news of a birth would reduce her to such wild tears.

Ah, to hell with it! She’d told him herself the problem wasn’t his, and it wasn’t. She’d told him to forget it, and he would.

Sliding the bottle away, he decided her hour was up. She’d had ample time to bathe, eat, and get hold of herself, and she sure as hell better be waiting for him. He’d made an oath to have her tonight, and have her he would.

Now. Right now.

He began to rise, but stopped when a man approached him. He realized the cowboy was extremely intoxicated; only drunks and young would-be gunslingers anxious to show their bravery ever had the nerve to draw near to him.