Rainbows and Rapture Read Online Free

too. He don’t work cheap.”
    “He sure don’t,” the second man added, and took a sip of his whiskey. “I heard he charged some rich woman ten thousand for findin’ her missin’ husband a few months back. She’d already had other trackers lookin’ for the man for a year. It took Zamora a week to find him.”
    “And he’s the one who brung in the Quincy gang,” another man told her. “There was eleven men in that gang, and he got ever’ damn one of ’em. There ain’t no tellin’ how much he got for doin’ it.”
    Another man nodded. “He’s richer’n the dirt in a old cowpen. Keeps all his gold with him, too. He’s a walkin’ bank. Ain’t afraid to carry all that cash around on account o’ nobody in their right mind would ever try to steal it from him. Wonder what he’s doin’ here in Hamlett.”
    Almost every man in the room had a tale to tell about Santiago Zamora. One even swore the gunslinger was a living legend. Russia felt confused by all the stories of heroism. “Well, if he’s so plumb nelly wonderful, why shouldn’t I want nothin’ to do with him?”
    “He’s dangerous, Miss Russia,” one man explained. “Got him a temper that no man with a ounce o’ brains would want to set off. I heard tell he hates bringin’ in outlaws alive. He’d rather shoot ’em dead. But if they surrender to him, beggin’ for their lives, he tortures ’em some before he brings ’em in. Mean is what he is.”
    “Did ya see that scar on his face?” someone asked. “I heard tell he got it flghtin’ a mountain lion. Zamora was mad at the cat, see, ’cause the cat stole the rabbit Zamora was gonna eat fer supper. Zamora caught the lion, killed it with one blow to its jaw, then ate the whole thing for supper.”
    Mort rose from his piano seat. “Well, I been told he got the scar wrestlin’ Apaches. They filched his horse, and there ain’t nothin’ in the world more dangerous than messin’ around with that black stallion of his. Zamora fought the whole damn tribe of braves and beat every one of ’em. Got him that scar for doin’ it, but he got his horse back.”
    “I say the devil gave it to him,” another man speculated. “The devil was jealous, y’see. Jealous on account of Zamora’s meaner’n him. So the devil threw his pitchfork at Zamora and scarred him for life.”
    “Zamora gave the scar to his own self,” the barkeep declared. “He’s so damn bloodthirsty that once when he couldn’t find anyone to kill, he slit his own face just so he could see some blood. Honest to God, he did.”
    Russia didn’t believe the barkeep’s story, but shivered nonetheless. “Well, he’s prob’ly only dangerous to outlaws,” she informed the men. “He catches criminals, don’t he? He—”
    She broke off abruptly. He catches criminals. As the words repeated themselves in her mind, excitement pulsed through her veins so forcefully it was a moment before she could find a shred of composure.
    In the next second, she was flying out of the saloon and into the street, oblivious to the shouts of the men who watched her. It took only a moment to reach the hotel. She flung open the doors and hurried into the lobby.
    Her arrival was so sudden, she failed to see that the man she sought was standing only a few feet in front of the doors. She ran smack into him.
    It was like hitting a tree trunk. As she staggered backward, her shoulder upset a small wall shelf of porcelain figurines. The fragile knickknacks crashed to the polished wooden floor.
    “What the hell—” The hotel owner pounded his fist on the registration desk. “Look what you—”
    “Oh, heavens!” his wife exclaimed. “Look what you did!”
    “I didn’t mean to!” Russia yelled. Spit and spice, what on earth was she going to do now? She had not a penny to her name, and knew the irate man and his wife were going to demand payment for the smashed figurines.
    “Do you have any idea how much those sit-arounds cost?” the man