Diablo Read Online Free

there’s enough money so Robin will never have to …” He trailed off, a muscle throbbing in his cheek.
    She could have finished the sentence for him. So he’ll never have to rob like your father did. She knew the guilt he felt for that, for her mother’s death, for leading her father on that last bank robbery. John Thompson hadn’t survived the shoot-out that followed.
    Nat had tried to make it up to Nicky and Robin. He had taken them in, had hired housekeepers for them when he was away. She hadn’t known then he’d been robbing banks. “But we’ve grown up, Uncle Nat. We can take care of ourselves.”
    â€œWhat I want is for both of you to be taken care of,” he said. “A few more guests, and you and Robin can go anywhere.” She didn’t like the tone in his voice, the words that didn’t include him.
    â€œIs anything wrong?” she said, trying to keep the worry from her voice. He didn’t like worry. He didn’t like fussing.
    He shook his head. “Now let’s talk about Diablo.”
    â€œWhy don’t you go to Denver and see a doctor?”
    His mouth thinned as it did when he didn’t want to discuss something. It was an expression he seldom used in her presence. “I’m fine. Doc Cable said so.”
    â€œDoc Cable is a quack,” Nicky countered. Doc Cable had been one of their guests several months earlier. “That’s why he was here. He killed a few patients.”
    â€œWhen he was drunk,” Nat said. “He wasn’t bad when he was sober. Now let’s talk about Diablo.”
    Nicky decided to try once more. “Tell him no, Uncle Nat. It’s getting too dangerous.”
    â€œNine more months,” Nat bargained.
    â€œAnd then we’ll go to California?” Nicky countered.
    â€œI swear.”
    Nicky didn’t like it. She sensed they didn’t have nine months. But she knew her uncle, and this was the best she was going to get. He would stick by his word. He always did. She nodded reluctantly. “Tell me more about Diablo.”
    Kane was hot, tired, and thirsty. It had been a hell of a long ride. His eyes had been blindfolded for two days, and his horse guided by a man he’d met for the very first time three days before.
    Breaking out of prison had gone smoothly. Then three frustrating weeks had followed as he kept moving from town to town, saloon to saloon, seeking entrance to Sanctuary while avoiding posses and lawmen.
    Masters was on his heels the entire time. When Kane had finally gotten a bite in a little Texas trading town, Masters had provided him with cash to pay the way into Sanctuary. One thousand for entry, another thousand as down payment on the hundred-dollar-a-day privilege of staying.
    Kane remembered clearly how three days ago, his escort had shown up in Kane’s hotel room, a knife at Kane’s throat. Their conversation had been brief.
    â€œYou got the money?”
    Kane had nodded. If it had been his own money, he would have been reluctant to give it to the man in a calico shirt, dirty buckskin trousers, and an even dirtier hat. But it was the federal government’s money, and he surrendered it easily enough. He’d been given no time to alert Masters, who was in another hotel, no time to do anything but throw a change of clothes in his saddlebags, which contained several thousand dollars more. His horse, he was told, was already saddled and waiting in back of the hotel.
    That was in Gooden, Texas, and now he didn’t know where he was.
    The pace slowed. The horse was climbing upward. They must have reached a mountain somewhere. Damn. Two months and four days left, and he couldn’t even tell which was north or south.
    Another hour passed, and the horse began to move downhill. Time crawled by, but finally his horse came to a stop. His escort said in a gravelly voice, “You can take off the blindfold.”
    He did and was instantly