Rio (27 page)

“I know, and to think I taught him. He was a strange, moody kid, with a terrible life before I found him. He never did tell us much, and now I reckon we never will know his secrets.”

“Maybe he’ll come back to us someday, and he’ll find a girl and be happy,” Cimarron said doubtfully.

“Not likely. You think any girl could love a man with a face like a monster?” Trace rolled a cigarette. “Maybe we’ll never know what happened to him. I shouldn’t have taught him to handle a gun.”

“He wanted that badly, and he was so afraid, and full of so much rage,” she reminded him.

“And he never got a name,” Trace mused. “Maybe he’ll finally ‘earn’ one. It seemed important to him. With that scarred face, if there’s news of him, people will remember, and the tales will travel all across Texas.”

Cimarron ducked her head and blinked back the tears. Gunfighters didn’t live long, everyone knew that. No doubt he’d die in the middle of a dusty street somewhere far away. She closed her eyes and said prayers for the strange, maimed kid and hoped he would find happiness, or whatever it was he was seeking.

On a northbound train to Wyoming, early April 1892

Diablo paused between the swaying cars, looking through the door to see who was inside before he entered. No gunfighter worth his bullets would enter an area without checking out the lay of the land, especially since this car was full of Texas gunfighters, all hired killers like himself.

He had come a long way since Trace Durango had found him fifteen years ago when he was a Santee slave known as He Not Worthy of a Name. Well, he had earned a name now, and when men heard it, they turned pale and backed down from the big, half-breed gunfighter with the scarred face. He dressed all in black, from his Stetson down to his soft, knee-high moccasins. The superstitious peasants along the Rio Grande had given him the name: Diablo, the devil. It suited him just fine.

Now finally he was headed north to take care of unfinished business. He had waited a long, long time for this, and all these years he had been planning and perfecting his aim. Though the Wyoming Stock Growers Association was paying exorbitant money to bring this trainload of killers
north, the money did not interest Diablo. What interested him was vengeance, and now, finally, he would have it. He was no longer the small and weak half-breed slave. No, now he had a name and was respected and feared throughout the West. Diablo had gained a reputation as a fast, deadly gunman.

Trace Durango had done well in teaching him to use a Colt, and he had used it time and time again in range wars and saloon showdowns. His gun was for hire, and he had fought side by side with men like Billy the Kid. Billy had been dead more than ten years now. Many of the others were dead too, before they reached middle age. In the end, that would probably be his fate, but for now, all that mattered was finishing his business with four men. His biggest fear was that they might now be dead and no longer able to face a showdown.

Diablo swung open the door and stood there watching the others inside. The shades had been ordered drawn, and the light in the swaying car was dim. Most of the men turned to stare at him, unsmiling, cigar smoke swirling above their heads. They did not nod a welcome, and he had expected none. These were hired pistoleros like himself, Texas gun-fighters, on a special train to Wyoming where a range war was about to start. An hombre named Frank Canton had come down to hire twenty-five of the best, offering great pay and bonuses for every rustler and nester killed.

The train swayed, and the tracks made a rhythmic click-clack as conversation in the car ceased. All the men were looking at him, but he stared only at the men in the first row of seats. Diablo liked to have his back against the wall. The two men withered under his frown and hurriedly got up and retreated down the car. Diablo took the space they had vacated as if it were his right.

“Who in the hell is that half-breed?” The growling voice drifted toward him.

“Shh! Be quiet, Buck; that’s Diablo. You don’t want to make him mad.”

“The Diablo?” Now he sounded impressed.

“There’s only one,” said the other.

“He don’t look like so much.”

“You challenge him, you’ll find out.”

“Maybe I’ll just do that when we hit Wyoming.”

Diablo sighed, pulled his black Stetson down over his eyes, and leaned back against the scarlet horsehair cushions, then opened the shade, stared out the window at the passing landscape. Quickly he averted his eyes, not wanting to see the reflection of his scarred face, and closed the shade again.

He probably didn’t look like much to the others, who sported noisy, big spurs, fancy silver conchos and pistols, and boots of the best leathers in bright colors. Diablo dressed in the color of the night, and he wore moccasins, the better to move silently against an enemy without them knowing he was coming. Silver conchos and pistols had a way of reflecting light that an enemy could see for a long way. He not only moved silently, but his appearance was as black as a thunderstorm, with no bit of reflected light to give him away.

Now he stuck a slender cigarillo between his lips, but he did not light it. He never lit them. The flash of a match or the slightest scent of tobacco smoke would also give a man away, and he had learned from the Santee Sioux that he must move as silently as a spirit—kill and be gone. No wonder the Mexicans averted their eyes and crossed themselves as he rode past.

Hours later, Diablo decided he would have a drink and moved toward the club car. Balancing lightlyinhis moccasins as the train rumbled and click-clacked along the rails, he
was acutely aware of each man he passed, sensing whether each was a threat or not. One or two eyed him, hands fidgeting nervously, as if thinking of being the one who killed the infamous Diablo, but each seemed to think twice and let him pass unchallenged.

In the club car, five men hunched over a table playing cards. Diablo paused in the doorway, looking them over. Then slowly the conversation ceased as each turned to look at him.

“Good God, look at his face!” the big, unshaven one muttered. He had red hair, and freckles showed through the balding spots.

“Be quiet, Buck,” warned a pudgy one with missing teeth, and a greasy ponytail of brown hair. “You want to die before you ever get to Wyoming?”

“But he looks like a monster.”

Nobody else said anything, waiting to see if the newcomer would take offense, but Diablo pretended he had not heard the remark. If he killed or challenged everyone who commented on his scarred face, his six gun would never be in its holster. Instead, he walked softly to the small bar and addressed the black waiter. “Beer.”

He felt the gaze of the others on his back, but he ignored them.

“Hey,” the one called Buck asked, “you got a big rattlesnake hatband and rattles on that Stetson. You kill it yourself?”

Diablo nodded as he took his beer and moved across the scarlet carpet to a comfortable chair with its back against a wall and sat down. Play at the poker table seemed suspended.

“Hell,” snorted a short man in a derby hat, “it ain’t no big thing to kill a giant rattler. Anyone can shoot them.”

Diablo drilled him with his hard stare. “I didn’t shoot it. When it struck at me, I put my foot on its head and killed it with my knife.”

The man with the ponytail raised his bushy eyebrows, and the light reflected off the silver conchos on his leather vest. “Man has to be fast as greased lightnin’to kill a snake that way.”

Diablo didn’t answer, and he knew they all stared at his rattler hatband with the dozen rattles still attached. Now he took out a fresh cigarillo, stuck it in his mouth, and gazed out the window.

“Hey, half-breed, you need a light?” The one called Buck half rose from his chair, his voice challenging. He wore big spurs, and when he moved, they rattled like the tin pans on a peddler’s cart.

The others tried to shush him.

Diablo was in no mood to kill someone today. He merely looked at the challenger, dark eyes glowering, and the man sat down suddenly.

“Well, boys,” Buck huffed, his dirty, freckled hands as nervous as his unshaven face, “let’s get this game goin’, shall we?”

Diablo watched the country gliding past the train windows for a long moment. They were only hours from Wyoming, and he was weary of the long trip. He reached for a newspaper on the nearby table. Cimarron Durango had taught him to read, and that made up for his loneliness. The others raised their heads and watched him as if astounded that a gunfighter was reading, then returned to their poker game.

Sunny sat between her father and Hurd Kruger as Hurd drove the buggy along the dusty road toward the train station in the town of Casper. Early spring flowers now bloomed along the way and in the fields where hundreds of cattle grazed.

“Thank you, Mr. Kruger, for inviting me along,” she said politely, looking up at him. He was a big, beefy man with yellow teeth that he sucked constantly. His hair
and mustache were coal black, and when he sweated, little drops of dye ran down the sides of his ruddy face.

“Now, Sunny, dear, you ought to at least call me Hurd. I’m not really your uncle.”

The way he looked at her made her feel uneasy. He’d been looking at her that way ever since she’d gone into her teens, and now that she was eighteen, he looked at her that way more and more often. She brushed a blond wisp back under her pale blue bonnet. “All right,” she agreed and looked over at her father. Swen Sorrenson did not look pleased.

“Hurd, I still don’t think much of this idea,” he said, his Danish accent still strong after all these years.

“Now, Swen, we’ve been through this before, and anyway, we shouldn’t discuss this in front of our Sunny, should we?”

It upset her that her father seemed uneasy. Her mother had died giving birth to her, and Sunny felt obliged and guilty about Dad’s loss. If it hadn’t been for his obligations in raising a daughter in this rough land, he might have remarried or even returned to Denmark. He had always seemed frail and ill suited to this wild wilderness.

“Uncle Hurd, I mean Hurd, why are we going to town?” she asked.

“Business. The Stock Growers Association business. You know I am the president. But don’t you worry your pretty little head about that, Sunny—you can go shoppin’ while your dad and I tend to it.”

That didn’t account for the unhappy look in Swen’s pale blue eyes, but she decided not to ask any more questions. A trip to a big town was a rare treat for a ranch girl.

They were approaching the town, and her excitement built. In the distance, she heard the distinctive wail of a train whistle. “Oh, a train! Who do you suppose is coming in?”

Her father started to say something, then closed his mouth.

“Some men,” Hurd said, sucking his teeth, “part of the cattlemen’s business.”

They came into town on the main road and headed toward the train station. Others were gathering, too. The arrival of a train in this small, isolated town was big news.

They pulled into the station, and Hurd got down and tied the horse to the hitching rail. Then he came around to help Sunny out of the buggy, but her father got there first.

Hurd frowned. “Now, Sunny, dear, you go along and shop. Your dad and I and some of the other members will meet the train.”

“But it’s so exciting!” she protested, shaking the dust from her pale blue cotton dress and readjusting her skewed bonnet, “I want to see who’s getting off.”

“Next year,” Swen said to her with a smile, “maybe you will ride the train to Boston and go to college.”

Hurd frowned. “Aw, don’t put such high-falutin’ ideas in her head, Swen. Maybe she’ll want to get married instead. There ain’t much need for a ranch wife to get an education.”

Swen looked like he might disagree, but instead, pulled his Stetson down over his sparse hair as pale as Sunny’s and turned toward the station.

The crowd of curious onlookers was growing on the platform as the trio joined them. In the distance, Sunny could see the smoke from the engine and hear the whistle as it chugged toward the town.

“Casper! Coming into Casper!” The conductor walked up and down the aisle and into the next car, “Casper next stop!”

On the sidewalk near the station, Sunny Sorrenson smiled at her father. “Oh, Dad, I never saw a train up close!”

“Yes, dear,” Swen smiled back at her with eyes as blue as hers. “Hurd’s been expecting it.”

“Yep, this is a special train.” Hurd walked toward them, smiling. “Now we’ll get some action.”

“What’s going on?” Sunny smiled up at him. She was petite next to the big man.

“Now, sweetheart, never mind,” Hurd paused in sucking his yellow teeth and nodded. “It’s just cattle business— nothing to worry your pretty little head about.”

“All right, Uncle Hurd.” She saw a slight look of worry pass over her father’s tanned face. He didn’t often disagree with Hurd Kruger, their neighbor from the big K Bar ranch, especially since Hurd held the mortgage on their small spread and had been extra nice to them.

The train pulled into the station, puffing and blowing acrid smoke. People started gathering on the platform. The train arrival was always a big event in town. The three of them walked to the station in time to see the conductor step down and begin unloading baggage. After a moment, the passengers began to disembark. They were all men— tough-looking, weathered men, all wearing gun belts. The newcomers looked over the crowd, not smiling, then strode to the stock car, started unloading horses.

Sunny shielded her pale eyes from the sun. “Look at all those cowboys. Do you think they’ll be able to find work here? I thought there were plenty in the area.”

“Uh,” her father cleared his throat, “Hurd brought them in.”

“Be quiet, Swen,” the other man snapped; then he smiled at her and said, “Now, Sunny, dear, why don’t you run along and do some shopping? We men have things to discuss.”

There was something wrong here, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was. There must be almost twenty-five or thirty of these tough-looking cowboys milling about on the
platform, gathering up their carpetbags and unloading their horses.

A tall, straight man with a mustache got off the train and strode over to them, smiling. “Well, Mr. Kruger, I brought them. Handpicked them, too, twenty-five or so of the best from Texas.”

“Shut up, Canton,” Hurd said, glancing at her. “We’ll talk later.”

She felt the men were withholding something because of her, but she was always obedient, as was expected of a young lady, so she walked away down the platform as Canton, Dad, and Hurd went to meet some of those men. They gathered and began to talk as she looked up at the train.

Then one final man stepped into the doorway of the railcar, looking about as if checking out the landscape. He caught her attention because he was so different than the others—taller and darker. He was dressed all in black, his Stetson pulled low over his dark face, and he wore moccasins instead of boots. From here, she could see the left side of his face, and he was handsome, with dark eyes and just wisps of very black hair showing beneath his hat. A
half-breed
, she thought. Unlike the others, he wore no silver conchos or spurs, and his pistol and gun belt were very plain and worn low and tied down. This was no ordinary cowboy, she realized with a sudden interest.