Diamond Buckow (18 page)

Tom reached into his pocket and thrust a small poke at Diamond. He smiled broadly as his young partner, speechless, tumbled it around to feel several gold pieces in varying sizes through the rough material.

Diamond had no sense of the time when he rode into the cattle town. Dodge City's respectable businesses were closed. But life below the line, where the trail hands went to spend their hard-earned money on raw whiskey and soiled doves, was going strong.

He sat the borrowed bay and looked down the street, wondering how to find Jake. In the end he left the horse in a livery where he had to take care of the animal, himself. Then he walked down one side of the street and back the other. He selected a saloon at random, had a beer, looked around, and spoke to no one. After three unsuccessful trips he decided he was getting nowhere and had better change his tactics.

Diamond chose still a different drinking establishment. One that was done up fancy, and the patrons dressed and talked a tone higher-class than where he'd gone before. He figured on playing the part of a rider in for a good time after a long dry spell.

He paid for a drink and turned to survey the room with a happy-go-lucky expression. But the smile froze suddenly on Diamond's face. Bearing down on him was one of the girls who obviously worked the trade in this saloon.

It wasn't her low-cut red bodice or her hips swinging inside a black taffeta skirt that repelled him. Far from it. Trouble was, he was staring into a face, now highly painted, that he knew well. He wondered if she could possibly recognize him after all this time. Rebekah had never seen him with a beard. He wanted to run.

“Hello,” she purred, her warm breath tickling his ear as she sidled up.

“Buy me a drink, cowboy. Just in off the trail?”

Diamond shrugged off the hot hand she'd rested on his shoulder.

Her voice changed to a familiar high-pitched sharpness. "What's wrong, don't you like ladies? Or maybe you think you're too good for my kind. Don't pretend not to need my services—there's no women along the trail from Texas.”

Diamond was forced to absorb the smell of her, a mixture of strong cheap toilet water and musky female-scent. He choked back an urge to retch as he waved for the bartender to set them up with drinks.

Keeping his voice low and free of emotion, he said, “I'm not looking for trouble. And I'm
not
after your so-called services, but I'll trade you a couple of drinks and some of your time for a little information.”

“My time is valuable,” Rebekah shot back. “I make more money than the other girls because I'm good. Even if you think you don't want it, I know you do—satisfaction guaranteed.”

Diamond grunted. If his plan wasn't rock-solid in mind, he'd just reveal his identity right then and there. That'd cool her down fast enough, he'd wager.

But he asked, “You got a room?”

She darted a glance at the barkeep, who shrugged a baffled I-just-ain't-sure, you-figure-it-out look.

Rebekah turned back to Diamond, her stare a challenge.

“Can you pay my price?”

Stone-faced, he produced a gold coin.

For the first time, her haughty expression met his cold blue eyes and then raked his rough features.

“You know, cowboy, you remind me of somebody. But I'll be damned if I can think of who. Well, anyway, come on up.”

Diamond followed. He kept his eyes on his boots, unwilling to see any other customers coming or going. Rebekah closed the door to the six-by-eight chamber behind them. In the awkward silence he could hear the rhythmic creak of springs from behind the walls on either side. No doubt his sister's neighbors were just as diligent as she meant to be.

She spoke first, crushing against him.

“Sure wish I could remember who you remind me of,” Rebekah muttered, as her left ann went around him. Her right hand reached for the button on his pants.

Diamond broke free and grabbed both her wrists, keeping her at arms' length.

“I'll tell you who I am if you settle down and just talk to me.”

A momentary flash of rage flitted across her petulant face. Then something of his firm tone caught Rebekah. She recognized him as she stared again into his eyes, and when he let her wrists go, she fell back against the wall.

“Peter! It isn't. No, it can't be. Oh, my God, Peter, I thought you were dead!”

“Not quite,” he said dryly. “Damned near was, a time or two. But here I am, not exactly a corpse.”

Rebekah looked ashen even in the dim glow of a kerosene lamp set on her scarred dresser. She sank onto the end of the bed.

“Why didn't you write home? Ma still talks about you in every letter.”

Diamond cleared his throat. He felt a familiar, or was it imagined, pain throb at his Adam's-apple.

“Couldn't, Sis. It's a long story.”

“You've changed so much, so awful much. The beard makes you look a lot older. And your eyes—Where have you been? What have you been doing?”

Diamond blew out a long-held sigh, cleansing his lungs. If he'd been doing any breathing the past hour, it sure as hell didn't feel like it. He regarded Rebekah. She looked almost pathetic to him as she sat there on the source of her income. Could he trust her? Hell, did he even
know
her? What could he tell her?

“First off,” he rasped, “I don't answer to Peter anymore. I lost the right to be called Buckow, and nowadays I give my handle as Diamond.”

“But how could you lose the right to your own last name? Ma said you were alive someplace, but Gerald swore you must be dead. He said you didn't have enough backbone to make it on your own. Since you never came crawling back to him for support, he thought you must be dead.”

“To hell with Hamm and everything he does or thinks!”

Diamond realized he was shouting, and quieted down. “About the name of Buckow. A man can have troubles, get known wrong for things he never did. I'll say no more.”

Yet as he read Rebekah's pale, upturned face he knew there was more he should say.

“Look, just write to Ma soon. Tell her you saw me and talked to me, and I'm OK. Then let it go at that.”

Diamond paused a second, but knew he had to ask. “Sis, how do you explain your life to home? Ma doesn't know how you work, does she?”

“No, of course not,” Rebekah said, her bitterness evident.

“How could she stand the truth about both of us? But I'm sure Gerald sees through my lies about clerkin' in a general store. After all, he had me first, when I was fourteen. I loved it even then.”

A wave of sickness churned through Diamond. Stunned, he dropped down to sit next to his sister, but he was careful not to get too close. Wild emotions shot through his head. How Hamm beat the hell out of him, and most likely laid with Rebekah afterward. How others beat the hell out of him when he tried to protect her virtue.

But Rebekah was looking at him in a way that clearly meant she wouldn't let him off, either.

“Is that all you want me to tell Ma about you?” she asked. “After all, she is our mother. And she's been worryin' over you quite a bit, probably a lot more'n you're worth.”

Diamond's jaw worked. “That's right. Don't even bother to mention my name. Just say your brother's healthy and able to take care of himself.”

Closed doors suddenly swung open in his memory.

“How's Uncle Ed?” he asked quietly. “Still drinking as much as he can afford to, and then some?”

Rebekah raised eyes that were dead of feeling. “Ed passed away. Ma and Gerald found out you said good-bye to him, and blamed him for not stoppin' you. He caught so much hell over it, last fall he set out to find you.”

“Oh, God, Sis!”

Diamond felt his whole life swirl in jumbled images through his head. Pa's murder, Uncle Ed's dying—what ever else happened, these two would always be balled up inside him like a vague, permanent gut-ache.

“But, Sis, how? Why?”

“How?” She snorted. “Nobody knows how, but he managed to follow you as far as San Antonio. Wrote Ma a letter the day before he died. Said he'd lost your trail there but aimed to stay awhile and keep lookin'. Next thing we knew, a letter arrived from some saloon owner, reporting Ed had died on a barstool. Just leaned forward, put his head down on the wood, and was gone.”

Diamond studied the floor in front of him, his head bent low. One tear after another speckled his dirty boots and the even dustier floor. Rebekah watched him in silence, then her voice came out sounding softer than it ever had before.

“Peter. Diamond, I mean. You said something earlier about wantin' information. How did you think I might help?”

He turned to her, his mouth gone tight. “I'm here to find somebody. He's a sight taller'n me, broad shoulders, with the look of a ranch hand, big square face, and hair the color of sand. They say he's drinking overmuch.”

Rebekah's hand flew to her mouth, her face pale with alarm.

“Whatever it is, forget it. I can see how you wear that gun, and I can see the hard look in your eyes. Do you really want to kill somebody, Brother? If you miss, you'll be dead.”

“I aim to help him, not kill him,” Diamond protested, confused that she showed concern. “He saved my neck two different times. If the story I got on him is right, he needs some help.”

Rebekah's hollow laughter rang out. “I might have known my little brother would still be tryin' to play the knight in shining armor. Now, ain't I a good example of how foolish that is? No, I guess some folk never learn.”

“Get this through your hard head, Sis,” he hissed, his hand slicing the narrow space between them. “I don't give a damn what you think of me. But I do pay my debts, be they of money or any other kind of owing.”

She felt a chill wave flooding through her. When it receded, she grudgingly had to admit to a sense of awe.

“All right, Diamond.”

She spoke so quietly in contrast to the noisy conversation in the room next door that he had to strain to hear her.

“I'll do what I can. Awful lot of men through town these days, but I come to know the regulars. This friend of yours have a name, or can't he use his, either?”

Diamond chose to ignore the jibe. Still his own voice was sharper to ride over the by-now argument beyond the wall.

“His name is Jake Strickland. Far as I know, that's his real handle.”

Rebekah shouted, “Sounds like a fellow we all called Jake who came in here 'til two or three weeks ago. He never came upstairs with me. Still, I kind of thought he was runnin' low of money and maybe went to some of the cheaper places down the line.”

She paused, cleared her throat, and raised her voice again.

“Tell you what, Diamond. Let me ask around, see what I can find. You come in tomorrow and we'll discuss it.”

Before he could respond, the angry girl in the adjoining room screamed, “Get the hell out of here, you lousy son-of-a-bitch!”

The male voice that answered was thick with liquor. “Watch your mouth, lousy whore. I'll knock some respect into that empty head of yours.”

Diamond heard a dull thud as of a fist hitting flesh, then a woman's moan. The partition shook. He figured her body bounced off it and slid to the floor. He leaped to his feet and reached for the door, but Rebekah grabbed his shoulder in an attempt to hold him back.

“No,” she said. “Don't get involved in her problem. If you work here, you have to fight your own battles.”

Diamond barely heard her. Shaking free, he wrenched the door open and reached the hallway a step behind a man slightly taller and heavier than himself. The patron walked fast, and carried his riding boots.

Diamond's voice stopped him midstride. “You yellow-bellied woman beater, turn around.”

The man wheeled, swinging a looping right that caught Diamond on the side of the head and knocked him down in the narrow hall. Seeming to enjoy a spell of rough-and-tumble, the fellow moved in to stomp his downed adversary.

Then he realized his boots were in his left hand, and he backed up a step. He swung both boots together like a club, intending to make the most of the sharp spurs at Diamond's head.

But his change in tactics gave Diamond a space to roll aside. The boots descended, the spurs embedding themselves in the soft wood of the wall. While the man swore and tried to pull them loose, Diamond got onto his hands and knees. He launched himself from that position and hit his opponent at knee level. The man roared with rage and the whole building shook as he crashed to the floor.

Diamond stood up, once more in control. The big stranger came to his feet fast, too fast to have been hurt. His furious voice sounded less drunk than before.

“You gawdamned meddling bastard, I'm a-goin' to chew you into little pieces and spit you into the pot under that whore's bed.”

“Any time,” Diamond said. “Whenever you think you're man enough.”

His calm confidence brought the other to fresh rage. The man's face was red and the cords on his neck stood out. He took a half-step and let fly with another long, looping right swing. Only this time Diamond saw it coming and stepped inside close. The fellow grunted as the return landed just above his belt buckle.

While he was still off balance, Diamond's left hammered at his kidney while the right hit just above the breastbone. Air whooshed out of the bigger man's lungs and a helpless look came to his face. But Diamond didn't notice. He stood flat-footed, using all his hard-acquired muscle and frustration to drive his right into the other's chest just over the heart.

The man's eyes went glassy, but Diamond saw only a chance to make up for some of the things he'd been forced to suffer. For a blind second or two, this opponent was the bully Newt Yocum, and old Henry Blough—and even Wide Loop Thompson and Glenn Saltwell.

With his feet far enough apart for a good stance and his body leaning forward, Diamond brought his left fist up from hip level to connect with the fellow's chin. He didn't even hear the pop as the man's jawbone snapped.