Devil in Texas(23)

Gator's coffee-colored eyes were turned toward the horizon. He seemed to be considering the question. "Many newcomers arrive with the railroad," he said carefully.

"Lampasas's vigilante granger problem started long before the railroad boom."

Gator shrugged. "Not all newcomers are devoted to the sod."

Cass frowned. So Gator had heard something!

"Texas Jack? Pink Higgins? Clay Allison?" Cass rattled off the names of gunfighters who were supposed to be at-large in Texas.

"Not in this establishment," Gator said flatly. "But snakes tend to go underground. A wise coyote might lie in wait at a watering hole. Even vipers need to drink."

Cass wasn't surprised by this answer. "You got an address?"

"Look where the sun sets."

Western Avenue. Cass nodded grimly. "Anything else I should know?"

The ghost of a smile touched Gator's lips. "You may find your viper isn't as hungry for beef as you think."

That was news. Cass cocked his head. "Care to explain?"

"Just a hunch, mon ami."

"I'll settle for a hunch."

Gator blew a long, leisurely spiral of smoke. It drifted toward the scarlet sage bush at the side of the porch.

"Beached whales make easy prey," he advised finally.

Now Cass was getting impatient. He was about to tell Gator he was done playing guessing games, when the last, lingering rays of the sun glanced off something black and shiny under the sage.

A shoe!

Cass narrowed his gaze. He was preparing to drop his .38 from his wrist to his fist, but a tiny gasp stayed his hand. Cornflower-blue eyes blinked anxiously at him through the explosion of red flowers. He could just barely make out a nose full of freckles, yellow sausage curls, and a rag doll. Then the child ducked beneath the rustling leaves.

"Mice," Gator said drolly. "They are such curious creatures."

Cass's dimples peeked. No wonder Gator was talking in riddles! He'd been aware of the wide-eyed innocent, who probably lived somewhere in the neighborhood.

"No doubt the mice are attracted by all the corn in your tall tales," Cass retorted, rubbing out his cigarette.

Since Gator had said all he was going to say, Cass rose, slapping the dust from his backside. That's when the hairs on the nape of his neck prickled like his coyote namesake's. He glanced up, spying a busty redhead peeking at him through the lace of a third-story window.

Sadie?

He sucked in his breath. His heart thumped against his ribs.

Suddenly, a traitorous memory sneaked inside his head—a memory of another twilight. Another westward-looking

window...

She'd been freckled, auburn, and fiery, like the setting sun. The ivory silk of her nigh transparent night wrapper had done little to disguise the taut nipples on her pert young breasts. At 12 years old, he had never laid eyes on a half-naked girl. She was exotic. Dangerous.

He guessed her to be about 15 years old. She perched on the brothel window sill, sucking cream off of strawberries and smiling lusciously down at him as he craned back his head to gawk at her from the gutter. In his ratty straw hat, patched overalls, and dusty bare feet, he couldn't believe this golden-eyed goddess had noticed him at all. He looked over his shoulder to make sure some other fella wasn't waving at her from Pilot Grove's saloon.

"What's your name?" she called in her husky, older-than-her-years voice.

"Billy." He doffed his hat and held it over his racing heart. Pretty girls never talked to him, least of all, older pretty girls. A sharecropper's son was too poor to get noticed by the persnickety, fairer sex. "What's your name?"

Her dimples peeked in the most tantalizing way. "I'll give you three guesses. If you guess right, you can sample my berries."

In his innocence, he hadn't known her real meaning. But he had known he wanted to please her. For some reason, pleasing this red-haired Aphrodite had become even more important than scrambling up a tree trunk or diving into a root cellar.

So he ignored the baying of Farmer Hinckley's hounds. He could hear them tracking his scent from the cornfield that he'd just raided. The dogs were old and fat. He was young and smitten.

"Lucera is my guess," he improvised grandly. "In Spanish, the name means heavenly body."

She looked pleased. "Close enough," she purred. "You win the berries."

"I do?" His face burned like a firecracker—and not just because he'd sprinted a quarter mile under a blazing, summer sun to outrun Hinckley's shotgun.

That's when he remembered his bedraggled appearance. Dismayed, he glanced down his length at his fraying hand-me-downs. His sun-blackened forearms were coated with scratches and dusty rivulets of sweat. He'd spent the afternoon stealing his dinner—the first dinner he'd had in three days. Corn silk trailed from the satchel on his back and the bib pocket of his overalls. His mama, God rest her soul, had taught him never to accept a dinner invitation from a lady without bringing the hostess a gift. But all he had to give Lucera were some ratty old ears of maize that the crows had found too tough to gnaw.

Suddenly, he remembered the marble in his pocket. His prized shooter had won him a fishing pole yesterday, but the trout had refused to bite. He dug the milky quartz out of his trousers. In the long rays of the setting sun, the marble's pearlescent center flashed with rainbows.

"I have something for you too," he said shyly. "See? A shooting star that fell to earth."

"How lovely." Amusement warmed those golden tiger eyes. "But I can see that prize is special to you, Billy. Are you sure you want to give it away? To someone like me?"

He opened his mouth, but a man's shrill, outraged bellow cut off his answer.

"Cassidy!" The sounds of baying had grown perilously closer. "I'll skin you alive and feed your carcass to my hounds, you thieving White Trash!"

Mortified, Cass turned his gaze back to Lucera, his lovely Lucera, who'd overheard the ugly truth about him: he was worthless. Less than worthless. He expected her to wrinkle her pert, freckled nose in revulsion. He expected her to slam the shutters and send him away, like all the other pretty girls in town would have done.

But to his utter mystification, she came to his rescue. She waved him urgently toward the rear of the brothel. "Hurry, Billy! I know a place where you can hide... "

Cass's heart was still racing as his awareness spiraled back to the present. He turned his eyes toward Wilma's third story. His red-headed voyeur hadn't moved from the window. He tried to identify the face, veiled behind the lace curtain. She was dressed in nothing more than a corset. The prominent mounds of her breasts were milky white.

Cass hid his disappointment. Sadie's breasts were freckled.

Tipping his Stetson, he pasted on a roguish grin and winked at his voyeur.

She hastily grabbed the cord and drew the heavier curtains.

Strange. Bawds were usually more flirtatious.

"I see Wilma has a new redhead," he drawled.

"But not for you," Gator retorted pleasantly.

"Says who?"

The Cajun chuckled, standing and rubbing out his smoke. "Ah, l'amour. It tangles the tongue and muddies the mind."

"You're so full of crap."

Gator winked. "Bon chance, mon ami. I hope you catch your snake in the grass."

I will, Cass thought darkly, watching Gator retreat inside the house. He didn't usually go looking for showdowns, but he wasn't afraid of a challenge. He was confident in his gun-fighting skill. He would have pitted his quickdraw against any killer in Texas.

Any renegade killer, he corrected himself grimly. John Wesley Hardin and Hank Sharpe were safely in jail. With any luck, they'd rot there.