Wildstar

"Where is this Devlin fellow?" her father's voice broke into her disturbing reflections. "I want to talk to him right now."

"I don't know. I thought he would be here by now. He stayed up at the Wildstar to talk to the men and see what he could find out about the coward who shot you."

"He's coming here!" Riley asked ominously.

Jess took a deep breath, preparing for another explosion. "Yes, here. He's going to sleep here during the day and look after you while I'm gone—"

She wasn't disappointed. Riley let loose a tirade that made Clem's rebuke the previous night seem tame. But Jess didn't back down. Determined to make her father see reason, she laid out all the logical arguments she'd formu­lated for letting Devlin stay with them instead of at the boardinghouse. The discussion turned into a shouting match, at least on her father's part.

"Goldarnit, I don't want you getting involved, Jess!" Riley said finally, his face twisted with pain. "If somebody tried to kill me, you could get hurt, too."

"I already am involved! You can't possibly expect me to do nothing while you go and get yourself murdered. Be­sides, I'm not about to let Burke win."

That was a potent argument Riley couldn't refute. He gave a weary sigh of resignation. "All right, I'll wait to meet this Devlin fellow before I decide to send him pack­ing, but I don't want you going near the mine again, do you hear me?"

"I hear you."

"Promise me, Jess."

"All right. I promise." It shouldn't be a difficult promise to keep, she thought. From now on she intended to let Devlin guard the Wildstar alone. She didn't think she could go through another night with him like the last one.

Riley didn't seem satisfied with her capitulation, though, for his scowl merely deepened. "You're too much like your ma, Jess. You're liable to find out the hard way that some men aren't to be trusted."

His comment surprised her, but he didn't elaborate. He merely closed his eyes, grimacing in pain.

A frown gathered on her brow as she rearranged the covers to let him sleep. She already knew some men weren't to be trusted. What she didn't know was whether Garrett Devlin was one of those men.

Devlin spent his morning productively occupied, talking to the mine crew of the Wildstar and the guard from the Silver Queen who had found Riley just after the shooting.

Most of Riley's crew were Cousin Jacks—Cornishmen known for their colorful clothing and language. Like all hard-rock miners, they were rough as the ore they dug out of the earth and tough as oxen. Handling drill steel or swinging a four-pound hammer or a muck stick for ten hours a day built muscles and stamina and sheer grit. The Silver Queen guard was no miner, merely a kid who fan­cied himself a gunman.

He hadn't actually seen the shooting, but Devlin discov­ered several things of interest from him. First that the man with the scar who'd been poking around the area looked an awful lot like a rough character who once worked as an armed guard for Burke's Lady J Mine.

"His name was Zeke McRoy. 'C

ourse I could be wrong," the young guard said. "I didn't get a close look yesterday. But that red scar above his eye stood out good enough. Don't know how he got that—didn't use to have it. Somebody musta shot him. 'Course Zeke was the kinda fella folks wanted to shoot."

"Any idea where he went?" Devlin asked.

"I dunno. When he saw me coming, he jumped on that roan of his and lit out over Republican Mountain, bound for the north. I figure he was headed to Middle Park or maybe Empire. There's some rough country up there, lots of places for a man to hide if he don't want to be found."

"You say this Zeke worked for the Lady J mine? Do you know why he left?"

"Nope. You better talk to the super over to the Lady J. His name's Hank Purcell. Or maybe the big boss, Mr. Burke, could tell you."

Burke probably could tell him, Devlin reflected, but it was doubtful that he would, especially if he'd employed Zeke as a hired gun.

Knowing he would have to get the information else­where, Devlin returned to the Wildstar to question Clem and his crew about Zeke McRoy. No one had seen Zeke around for perhaps six months, but everyone agreed he was mean enough to shoot a man in the back.

It was going on ten o'clock by the time Devlin rode down the mountain, accompanied by the echoing thunder of hammering and blasting. The purple haze that had wreathed the high range had burned off, leaving behind a brilliant blue sky.

Tired though he was, he headed toward the Diamond Dust Hotel, intending to settle his bill and make sure his trunk with the rest of his things had been collected by Jess's Chinaman.

This was the first day of a work week, and Silver Plume's Main Street looked entirely different from the sleepy place of yesterday. Hard-rock mining was an ugly, noisy business, and the hubbub and smoke had turned the town into an outdoor sweatshop. Ore wagons and buck-boards jammed every corner, while numerous stamping and crushing mills ran full tilt, concentrating ore so it could be shipped by rail to the smelting works farther down the canyon for final processing. The street teemed with horses and mules and rugged men of every descrip­tion and descent—Irishmen, Welshmen, Cornishmen, Ital­ians, Mexicans, even a few Chinamen. Miners mixed with merchants, bankers, freighters, clerks, and occasionally women.

The hotel was quieter at least. Lena must have been watching out for him, though, for no sooner had Devlin gone up to his room than there was a soft knock on his door. When he opened it, Lena slipped inside.

"I missed you last night, sugar," she purred, wrapping her arms around his neck and enveloping him in a heady perfume.