It was dark, but the saloons were well lit. He remembered the Blazing Star as the best of the lot; its girls were younger and prettier than most. He tried to remember the one called Mary May, but he couldn’t. On his last visit, he’d been too concerned with finding Sanctuary.
He looked back toward the room where he’d left Nicky. How long had it been? Damn. Yet he was as compelled to reach some agreement to his plan as he was to return to Nicky. Where in the hell was Masters?
The Blazing Star was full. Men took up nearly every inch of the bar, and all the tables were taken. He glanced around quickly. Last time, he’d seen Masters, the marshal had been wearing a dark sweat-stained hat and leather vest. Then he stopped looking for a moment, his gaze settling on a tall, thin man who was watching the door. John Yancy! He’d seen him briefly at the hotel in Sanctuary before his expulsion.
Kane hesitated, wondering exactly how good his disguise was. He wouldn’t have recognized himself in the mirror, but surely Yancy was familiar with all of Sanctuary’s offerings, including disguises. Yet there wasn’t a flicker of recognition, or even interest. Kane took a deep breath and surveyed the women, wondering which was Mary May Hamilton.
With Yancy in the room, he hesitated to ask questions. His voice wasn’t disguised, and now he felt an urgency to get back to the hotel. Nicky was unpredictable. He had to let her know that Yancy was here.
He had turned and was going back through the swinging doors to the street when he saw Masters approaching. Now was as good a time as any to test the beard. Kane sauntered drunkenly forward and stumbled into Marshal Ben Masters.
Masters backed up, looked at him in disgust and started to go on his way—then stopped short. Slowly, he turned and stared at Kane’s eyes. Even in the dim light, Kane saw the recognition dawning in his face. The disguise was good, but Masters was more observant than most.
“You’re late,” he said in a low voice.
Kane shrugged. “I’m here.”
“My room. Ten minutes. You know the hotel. Room Five.
Kane nodded. “Make it thirty.”
“You keep trying to change the rules, don’t you?”
“You want to keep discussing it here?”
The marshal conceded. “All right,” he said in a lower voice. And then in a louder one, “Watch where you’re going from now on.”
“Then don’t get in my way, you clumsy bastard,” Kane retorted in a voice loud enough for everyone in the saloon to hear. The obscenity wasn’t all for effect.
Kane hurried back to the hotel. Food, damn it. Nicky needed some food; so did he, for that matter. But there was no time. He took the steps two at a time and knocked at her door. “Nicky,” he called.
It opened almost immediately.
She stood there, looking wonderful. She had evidently taken that bath and washed her hair. The short curls were damp and soft-looking. Her eyes were cautious, though she wore a tentative smile on her lips. He cursed himself again. She couldn’t know what to expect from him next; in trying to stay away from her, in trying to limit the injury, he was causing more injury. If only he didn’t face stone walls wherever he turned.
He held out his arms, and she went into them, snuggling against his chest.
“I thought maybe …” Her voice trailed off.
“Thought what?” he asked.
“You might not come back,” she whispered.
“I wouldn’t leave you … not alone like this,” Kane said in a choked voice. Hoping she didn’t understand the full meaning of words he hadn’t intended, he tightened his grip around her. He kissed the top of her hair, smelling the freshness of soap, and feeling every inch of the dust on his own body. He moved away slightly and frowned. “John Yancy is in town.”
Her eyes opened wide. “Yancy? Why would he be here?”
“Your uncle said he’s vowed revenge. Maybe he’s trying to find out how to get to Sanctuary.”
“He didn’t recognize you?”
“No.” He shook his head.
Nicky relaxed slightly. “No one would, except me.”
Someone would—and had, but he couldn’t tell her that. “You can’t leave this room,” he said. “I don’t want Yancy to see you. You are very recognizable.”
“I’ll stay with you,” she said.
“I have to go out again,” he said. “Alone. I won’t be long, and I’ll bring us both back some food.”
Nicky nodded, but her eyes were suddenly different. They had been hard to read when he’d first met her, but ever since he’d taken the hawk to Robin, they had been as open and honest as those of a child. Or a woman in love. It was as if she’d had no reason to hide any thoughts. Trust. It had been trust, pure and simple, and now he was watching it seep away slowly because of his own contradictory, inexplicable actions. He hoped to hell he could work out his problem tonight, come back and even tell her the entire truth.
If only Masters would listen.
Christ, he wanted to wash and clean up, but the dirt did as much to disguise him as the beard. His hair color was indistinguishable under the grime. But when he returned …
He put a finger to her cheek. “I should be back soon,” he said softly.
Doubt filled her eyes. Her mouth was pursed so solemnly, he wanted to lean down and kiss it, but there was no time for that now. He would do it later. He would kiss away the doubt and caution. Later … There had to be a later.
Before he said any more, he left, going down the stairs as rapidly as he’d gone up them. He would convince Masters of his plan. He had to.
Ben Masters entered the Blazing Star. He’d told Mary May he would meet her there at eight, and he didn’t want her to come looking for him and finding Diablo.
There was a new lightness in his steps, even his bad leg felt agile. O’Brien had come back. Ben hadn’t liked putting him off, for even a few moments, but neither of them could afford to be seen with the other. O’Brien must have the long-awaited information. Ben congratulated himself about being right about the man; he couldn’t wait to tell him that he’d talked the governor into giving him a pardon as well as Carson.
There was a posse awaiting word in a nearby town. Perhaps in another week or two, this whole job would be wrapped up and he could start thinking ahead.
Ahead to what? Another job in another town? Tracking, moving, always moving? He thought about Sarah Ann, her laugh, her delighted smile upon seeing her mother. He thought how nice it would be to have someone welcome him. He even caught himself thinking about marriage, but then he drove the idea away. Mary May always made it clear she liked being independent.
Ben looked around for Mary May and found her dealing cards in a corner. He paused for a moment before going to her table. The man she’d pointed out to him several days earlier was standing by her, his gaze moving from Mary May to the game. Damn. He had to talk to her. Deciding to risk reviving the man’s memory—if Mary May was right—he trod carefully over to the table.
One man got up. “Too rich for me,” he said.
Ben quickly slid into the chair before anyone else could. Only by a flicker of eyelashes did Mary May give any indication he was more to her than any of the other customers. He’d not played at one of her tables before, but he wasn’t surprised at her dexterity or mastery of the game. He lost two hands and purposely lost a third he knew he could win. “The man was right,” he said. “It’s too rich for my blood, too.”
“Losers can buy me a drink later,” she said lightly as she often did.
He hesitated. “I’m not sure I can make it.”
She nodded and smiled neutrally. The owner of the Blazing Star and the bartenders, as well as the other girls, were quite aware that Ben Smith was special to Mary May. But taking a favorite wasn’t something she advertised among the customers. It could make some think she was something she wasn’t—a woman available to any comer—and that would invariably start trouble.
He rose lazily, tipped his hat, knowing she understood. He would return when h
e could. His eyes momentarily caught Yancy’s. God, they were reptilian. Because Ben didn’t want to seem too interested, he turned and walked away. But he felt as if the man’s gaze was following him every step of the way.
Nicky went to the side of the window and looked out. She saw Kane striding purposefully across the street.
He had been strung as tightly as a string on a fine fiddle, closing himself off as thoroughly as if he were still in that prison cell, surrounded by iron and brick and rock. She couldn’t figure what was bothering him so much that he couldn’t tell her.
A friend, he’d said. A debt to a friend. But then why was he so tense? A vendetta? A robbery? Nothing made sense. He didn’t seem the type for vendettas, or he surely would have killed the two men who planned to kill him. A robbery? He didn’t need money. She knew how much he’d won in the games of chance at Sanctuary, and her uncle was offering him something of far more value than the proceeds of a simple robbery.
Something to do with her uncle? A woman? The worries wouldn’t go away. Jealousy and fear loomed like great vultures on the ledge of her heart. She had to know. She watched him walk down the street and go into another hotel. A light went on in one of the rooms. Then the shades closed.
The vulture spread its wings wider.
She clutched the edge of the window. Yancy was down there somewhere. Or was Kane lying about that? She immediately dismissed that possibility. She knew there were things Kane hadn’t told her, but he wouldn’t lie about something like that.
Nicky couldn’t stand it any longer. She had to know, had to get answers to so many questions pounding in her head and in her heart.
She put her hat on, pulling it low on her forehead, and quickly put her arms through Kane’s jacket. She thought about Yancy briefly, but she remembered that he had stayed in the saloon at Sanctuary even more than the others. She would keep a safe distance from the town’s drinking establishments. She went down the steps, saw the clerk glance at her, then back down to the newspaper he was reading. This new world was strange, and the freedom it offered would have been exhilarating if she were not so worried about Kane.
She couldn’t help looking at everything. Sanctuary was a miniature version of this place, but there was so much more activity here. She walked quickly, sticking to the walls, trying to keep to the shadows, avoiding the lights of the saloons, and then she was at the hotel she’d seen Kane enter.
Nicky really didn’t know what to do. She thought Kane was probably in one of the front rooms, but maybe the lighting had been coincidental. And what would she do if she found him? Burst in? Doubt filled her. Still, she was here.
There was no one behind the clerk’s desk, and she hurriedly ascended the stairs that, as at her hotel, probably led to most of the rooms. The hallway of the second floor was empty. She figured out which door led to the room with the lit window and walked there as quietly as she could. Every footstep seemed to echo in the hall. Down the way, she heard a man and woman yelling at each other. She hoped the doors were as thin as the walls seemed to be. She felt like a sneak, and she hated herself for it, but she had to know. Nicky stopped outside the door she had chosen and huddled next to it, trying to hear something, anything.
Kane tried to keep his expression neutral, his resentment toward Masters hidden. It galled him to ask a favor of the man, who was so ruthlessly trying to use him. Except for that time in the Yank prison camp, he’d bent to no one, not since his father died. Even in the Yank prison, he had resisted authority with every ounce of his being. Now he was being manipulated into doing something that went against every one of the few decent qualities he had. He wanted to slam his fist into Masters’s gut.
But he couldn’t afford that. He had to present his bargain coolly, with confidence. Still, he found himself swearing when no one answered the door to Masters’s room, glaring at the marshal when he appeared several minutes later.
Once they were both inside and the door firmly closed, Masters stared at him for a long time. “That’s damn good,” he said. “Where did you get the beard?”
“Sanctuary,” Kane said shortly. “You can get anything there for a price.”
Masters went over and studied it again. “I wouldn’t have recognized you except for the eyes, and the fact I was expecting you. Days ago,” he added with an edge to his voice.
“Worried?” Kane couldn’t resist the taunt.
Masters’s hard face didn’t change. “About your friend, maybe.”
“I doubt it,” Kane said bitterly, acknowledging the reminder, the reason he was here.
“You have what I need?”
Kane took a long breath. “I have something better.”
Masters raised an eyebrow in question.
“What if you can take Sanctuary with no loss of life?”
The question hung there in the air for a moment. Masters’s face didn’t change. There wasn’t the slightest hint of interest. But Kane knew men. He knew that Masters was listening.
Kane went over to the window and looked out. He could see the Traveler’s Rest down the street, and he looked for Nicky’s window. The room was still lit. Thank God, she was finally doing as he asked.
“Spit it out,” Masters said abruptly after a silence of several minutes.
“You ride in there with a posse, and at least half of them will die,” Kane said. “It’s a natural fortress guarded by sharpshooters. It’s also protected by hostile Indians.”
Masters sighed. “Where is it?”
That was a question Kane wanted to avoid for a few more moments. He damn well didn’t want to tell Masters he didn’t know.
“Indian Territory,” Kane said.
“Where in Indian Territory?” Masters persisted with single-minded persistence.
Kane silently damned him in every way he knew. “You want to hear my proposal?”
Masters shrugged. “Go ahead.”
“The man who runs it is dying. He’s offered Sanctuary to me. In two, three months, I can just turn it over to you.”
For the first time, Kane got a reaction. Masters’s eyes narrowed, his lips thinned. Kane watched as the implications of his offer were weighed, found wanting.
“You don’t have two or three months,” Masters finally said.
“You can give them to me.”
“I’m not the governor. He made the terms.”
“You proposed them. It was your idea to use me,” Kane said heatedly.
Masters hesitated. He’d never told Kane that.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Kane persisted, finally receiving a curt nod from Masters. “Now I can give you even more than you wanted. You can be a hero,” he added sarcastically.
Masters studied him. “Who runs Sanctuary?”
“A man named Nat Thompson.”
“Thompson?” Masters said with surprise.
“You know him?”
“I know of him. He was a bank robber. And a killer. Disappeared about twelve years ago. He’s still wanted.” One of Masters’s eyebrows lifted. “He’s dying?”
Kane nodded.
“Why you? Why single you out?” Masters asked suspiciously.
“Damned if I know,” Kane lied, not wanting to mention Nicky or the boy. “I just know he asked me if I wanted to join him.”
“You’re lying.”
Kane felt his hope draining. Masters was too good a judge of men. There had to be a reason Thompson would make his offer. Kane hadn’t been in Sanctuary long enough to win the confidence of a man wily enough to keep his hideout secret for so long. He balled his fists. How much could he tell Masters? How little? He had to make Masters believe he could do exactly as he promised.
“I did him a favor,” he said shortly.
“What?” Masters asked.
Kane knew he had to answer. He had to make a case for more time, damn it, but he hated explaining himself to the marshal. “The ‘guests,’ as Thompson calls them, smell blood. They know something’s wrong with him, and they want Sanctuar
y for themselves. One of them made a move and … I happened to help someone close to Thompson. He was, well, appreciative.”
Masters was staring at him with a strange expression. “Another error in judgment?”
Kane wondered what he meant for a moment, then remembered their first conversation when he’d said his rescue of Masters had been an error in judgment. “Something like that.”
Masters was silent for a moment. “I want to know where Sanctuary is.”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
Kane didn’t know how far he could tantalize Masters. He needed the marshal as much as Masters needed him. The trick was not to show it, but play to his strength. He had—almost had—what Masters wanted.
“I can give you part of the route,” he said tightly. “Not all of it. They blindfold you coming and going.”
Masters stared, disbelief punctuating the features. “Surely if Thompson offered you … an interest in Sanctuary, he would tell you where it is.”
“Thompson is a very cautious man,” Kane said. “You must realize that, or you would have found him a long time ago. He said he would tell me when I returned—when, I guess, he was sure of me.”
“What excuse did you give him for leaving?”
“Just personal business,” Kane said. “A matter I had to clear up.”
“He accepted that?”
“No reason not to. I have a reputation, remember. That’s why you wanted me.”
Masters paced the floor. “Carson’s to be executed in ten days. I can’t stop it without Sanctuary.”
“Then you don’t get Sanctuary,” Kane bluffed. “Not now, not in two months, not ever.”
“How far is it?” Masters asked.
Kane was stubbornly silent. He was gambling everything now.
Masters swore softly. “You knew what the arrangement was. I can’t change it now, even if I wanted to.…”
“Damn it, don’t you realize this is a better one? Think about it, Masters.”
“It’s not my decision,” the marshal retorted, a muscle throbbing in his cheek. “And if you won’t give me more information, I’ll have to take you back to prison.”
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