Nightwalker

That was when the swinging doors to the saloon burst open. The sun was setting, painting the sky a deep red hue. Against it, a man was silhouetted in the doorway.

Frank Varny had come, just as John had known he would. But the timing was bad; Varny shouldn’t have made it in from his “office” in the hills until nightfall.

“Wolf!” he said, the single word sounding like a roar.

John didn’t twitch. He cursed silently and didn’t acknowledge the newcomer. He’d had it all planned down to a crossed T, but someone had betrayed him. Varny shouldn’t have known he was back. Not until Mariah had come.

The smoke in the air began to dissipate as most of the crowd scattered hurriedly, like dry leaves caught in a high wind, heading out the backdoor.

Even the bartender disappeared. Milly Taylor croaked out one last note, then froze, as her accompanist scrambled up the stairs.

Only John paid no attention to the other man’s arrival.

Frank Varny didn’t like being ignored. He strode across the room, so accustomed to being a law unto himself that he didn’t see the flicker of annoyance in Ringo Murphy’s black eyes.

Davison looked up nervously, though, barely noticing anything as he set his cards down by reflex alone.

John had won. “My flush beats your straight,” he said, and scooped in the gold dollars piled on the table.

“Good. Now the rest of us can get back into the game,” Ringo Murphy muttered.

“The game is over,” Frank Varny announced. By then, four of his henchmen had followed him into the saloon. They were all resting their hands on the guns holstered at their hips.

“Deal,” John told Grant Percy.

“Now, now,” Sheriff Percy said, licking his lips nervously. “Seems like Mr. Varny needs to have a word with you first, John Wolf.”

John looked toward the swinging doors and saw a tumbleweed dance by in the breeze that had suddenly lifted. He looked upward, not at Varny, but at the red sky that was darkening to crimson, deep as a dead man’s blood. From the corner of his eye, he judged where Varny’s men were standing.

Varny planted a fist on the table, leaning down. “You found the vein, didn’t you? Well, it’s my land. And it’s my gold.”

John stared back at him and smiled slowly. “It’s Paiute land,” he said calmly. He drew the cards toward himself and started to shuffle. “I brought a claim into Carson City, and I took ownership, on behalf of the tribe, of the land that once belonged to the Paiute nation, before you white men came and took it all away. Up in those offices in Carson City, they’re not afraid of you, Varny. They believe in something called the law. So now the claim is on Paiute land, my friend.”

Ringo Murphy let out a snort and stared from one man to the other. “What the hell? Are we playing cards here or not?”

“Shut your mouth,” Varny said. “We’re doing business here.”

“Get the hell out of my sight, Varny,” John said. “I told you, that gold is mine.”

It was amazing, John thought, that Varny didn’t die of apoplexy on the spot. He looked as if he was about to explode. “That’s my gold, and you’re going to tell me where to find it, you red bastard.”

“Is anyone going to deal?” Murphy demanded. “I would like to win my money back.”

“We’ll get right back to it,” John said to Murphy. He turned back to Varny. “Actually, I’m only half-red. My mother was white. She was working in this very saloon when she was captured, and she soon realized she had a better life as a Paiute captive than a white barmaid.”

“Barmaid? Whore, more like,” Varny spat out.

John looked evenly into the other man’s eyes. “Whatever she might have done in life to survive, she was a far better person than you. Hell, Varny, you murdering scum. That makes her pretty damn fine in comparison, no matter what the hell she did.”

Varny drew his gun, and his men drew theirs. Left with no choice, John Wolf rose, kicking the table over and using it for cover, as he drew, himself. He noticed Murphy drawing his own gun, evening the odds at least slightly.

As the shots began to explode and ricochet, the sheriff and Davison dived for cover, and Milly Taylor ducked behind the piano and screamed.

To John Wolf, the world seemed to slow down, letting him see every little detail of what was happening.

Murphy was good. Faster than lightning, even in John’s slowed-down view. As the sheriff threw himself under a nearby table for protection, Murphy held his ground, both guns blazing. John heard the sickening thuds as first one bullet struck home, then the other, as Murphy took out two of Varny’s men, saving John’s hide.

John Wolf took that in even as his own guns blazed against Varny’s other two thugs.

Another thud, and a spray of brilliant color as one man was struck in the heart. A moment later, the other took a bullet in the lung. Blood streamed across the floor, matching the sunset.

Varny’s men were dead, all four of them, but Ringo Murphy been hit himself. He looked at John before he died. “Sorry, partner,” he said, and fell. Hiding under a table hadn’t helped the sheriff; he was sprawled out under it now, his eyes glazed in death. It hadn’t saved the skinny fool from the East, either. Davison was bleeding out on top of the sheriff; his jugular had been hit, his geysering blood turning into a deep, dark river as it mingled with the dirt on the floor.

Milly Taylor wasn’t dead, though. She had wilted against the piano and was sobbing. The wall was blown out behind her. Varny had been hit in the right arm, but he was still standing.

Now it was just the two of them.

They stood in the midst of the carnage and stared at one another.

“You’re a lucky son of a bitch,” Varny said. “Your buddy there took down Riley and Austin. Without him, you’d be dead. You couldn’t have shot all four of them.”

“The world is full of what might have happened,” John said softly.

Varny grinned slowly. “I’m going to kill you, you know. Thing is, why the hell are you holding out? Give me the gold and I’ll let you live. Are you going to give me some cock and bull about your father’s people? You said that it was your land now. So which is it? Misplaced heroics or personal greed?”

John shrugged. “Misplaced heroics? Those who came here first, my father’s people, they need it. They’ll share. And you, you already have more than any man needs in a lifetime. You know, there’s a rumor out there that you have Indian blood, too.”

“The hell I do.”

“Thank God. The Indian nations don’t need your kind.”

Varny knew how to hold his temper, and he grinned, even if there was a tic at the vein in his throat. “What about your white half, boy?”

John hiked a brow slowly. Boy? “Well, Pops, my mother is dead. And what folks she had, I never knew about. But this isn’t about red or white. It’s about greed. Yours. You’ve managed to cause a hell of a lot of trouble since the Paiute War, kidnapping women from the villages, discarding them like garbage. And when their husbands, fathers and brothers have come after you, you’ve managed to shoot them down or get them hanged. All you’ve wanted for as long as I’ve known about you is gold. Paiute gold. And you’re not going to get it. This land—and any gold that’s on it—is the tribe’s now.”

Varny’s eyes filled with rage, but he kept his distance. John couldn’t be sure, but he thought Varny might be out of ammunition. It had been hard to count when a half-dozen guns were blazing, but if Varny carried the old army Colts he always had, he was most probably out of bullets.

Then Varny smiled coldly. “I’ve got something you want as much as I want that gold.”

John didn’t allow any sign of wariness to show on his features. He waited. What the hell did he have to lose at this point? Things hadn’t gone the way he’d expected, but now it was down to Varny and himself. He might die, but he would take Varny down with him if he did.

“Did you think I’d play all my cards so quickly?” Varny asked. He never looked away from John. “Tobias! Get in here!”

Tobias was a big man, like some corn-fed Nebraskan. He didn’t look happy as he came in, straw-colored hair flying, denims held up by suspenders.

But that didn’t give John pause. What caused his heart to skip a beat was the fact that Tobias was dragging a terrified captive.

Mariah.