Chapter One

Random, Colorado, 1880

Gazing at the woman he’d just bedded, Gabriel Valance strapped on his double-holster gun belt, tested each Colt .45 to be sure it slipped easily from the leather, and then tied the thongs that kept both weapons firmly seated low on his hips.

Grinning sleepily up at him, the young but experienced prostitute murmured, “Merry Christmas, gunslinger. It was nice to have a true gentleman pay me a visit for once.”

When was the last time anyone had referred to him as a gentleman? Gabe couldn’t remember. He glanced at her again, feeling a familiar compassion. This woman lacked the hard edge he’d seen in most working girls. If she considered him to be cut from fine cloth, Gabe shuddered to think what caliber of man she normally entertained.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess it is Christmas Day, isn’t it? Merry Christmas.”

She nodded. “I can remember better ones. But thanks.” She sat up, letting the sheet fall from her small, well-formed breasts. She reached up to push her brown hair out of her eyes, and for an instant he thought he saw the glint of tears. He wondered how life had turned her down the path of selling herself and condemned her to spending Christmas in a shabby room that smelled of a succession of men she didn’t love.

Ambivalence rose within Gabe at the thought of Christmas and all the traditions of worship associated with the holiday. In a vague way, he believed in God, but as a kid, he’d never been taken to church or even taught to pray. The celebration of Christ’s birthday each year had barely made an impression on his hardscrabble existence. Christmas was a time for people with homes, families, and faith. Gabe, born to a prostitute who’d died young and sired by a gambler who had acknowledged him only after death, had grown into adulthood as a street orphan, stealing garments from clotheslines to stay warm, sleeping in hidey-holes to remain dry, and scavenging for food to keep from starving. In his experience, only other folks lived in regular homes with families who cared, and did things like celebrate Christmas.

For some reason, the whore’s wishing him a merry Christmas triggered a queer sense of something lost. Well, he’d learned long ago not to dwell on might-have-beens. He knew that people exchanged gifts at Christmas, and he could at least make one person happy today. The girl had asked him for two dollars, a high rate even in cities. He slid a hand into his pocket, brought out a five-dollar gold piece, and handed it to her. As she thanked him, her voice tight with some emotion he couldn’t identify, he fished out two gold eagles and casually laid his hand on the top of her dresser to release the coins. She’d find them later, after he’d gone. Maybe she’d get herself a new dress. Better yet, maybe she’d purchase a stage ticket and get out of this hellhole town in search of a better life.

Not that other towns would necessarily offer better. In his younger days Gabe had believed that something sweeter existed just beyond the next bend in the trail, but after thirty-three years of disappointments, he’d finally come to accept that it was a grim old world, and a goodly number of folks who walked the earth with him were as hard put to find happiness as he was.

He didn’t look back as he left the shabby enclosure and stepped out onto the landing, which was sheltered by only a shingled roof that connected the brothel rooms to the tavern next door. A nice bit of civility, Gabe thought with a grimace. The fine gents of Random, Colorado, could frequent the bar, have a few social drinks, and then sneak like thieves in the night to the upstairs rooms, where all semblance of respectability vanished as they unbuckled their belts. Then, of course, to avoid explaining the expenditure to their wives, a lot of them tried to cheat the whores out of their fees when it came time to pay. That was a fine gentleman for you, long on looks and short on honor. Now that Gabe came to think of it, he didn’t take it as a compliment to be compared to one of the bastards.

He stood on the landing, staring at the snow falling just beyond the boardwalk. The flakes melted the instant they landed on the packed-dirt street, but judging by the thickness of the downfall, Gabe guessed the ground would be white within a couple of hours. The upstanding citizens of Random would be pleased to get snow on Christmas. Personally, Gabe thought snow was about as much fun as chiggers in his boot socks, but then, he’d never really celebrated Christmas properly. He’d glimpsed the festivities only through windows, and the way his life was playing out, that was how it would stay. No decorated tree, no wonderful smells coming from an oven, no gaily wrapped gifts. Gunslingers didn’t get to enjoy things like that, and he’d learned long ago to curl his lip at all the folderol and pretend he wanted no part of it.

As he started down the steps, he heard a whisper of rushed movement under the stairwell. Stopping dead, he hovered his hands over the butts of his Colts before he continued down the steps. As he neared the boardwalk, he grasped the railing to vault over it and drop to the ground beside the staircase. On edge, he leaned low to peer into the deep shadows not yet illuminated by light of day, still an hour or so away. Narrowing his eyes, Gabe quickly made out a huddled form on the ground—a ragamuffin boy who sat with his thin back pressed into the corner created by the two exterior walls of the tavern and the brothel. The child clutched his arms around his knees in a pitiful search for warmth.

Memories blackened Gabe’s mind, for he’d spent many a cold night as a small child under the stairwell that led up to his mother’s room—a room where she’d been nice to the gentlemen, frequently abused for her trouble, and, more times than not, had earned too little to feed her child, let alone herself. To this day, Gabe had no idea what kind of sickness had taken her. He’d been—what?—five or six when she died. Much too young to understand death without some adult to explain it to him. A man in a black frock coat had tromped up the stairs, followed by two male helpers, and they had carted Gabe’s mother away on a board, her body covered by a sheet, one of her arms dangling. Gabe could remember yelling out, “Where are you taking my mama?” And the man in black, whom Gabe now realized had been the undertaker, turned to say, “She’s gone, boy.” Gone? Gabe could still see his mother, her slender arm and delicate hand swinging like a wet rag. What did gone mean? How could she be gone when Gabe could still see her, plain as day?

Nobody had visited Gabe’s shadowy, damp hiding place below his mother’s room to explain that his mother had died. Over the next few days, an older prostitute named Priss had occasionally tossed him a hunk of bread, saving Gabe from starvation, until he’d finally come to understand that gone meant his mother wasn’t going to return. She would never again wait until all the men stopped knocking at her door and then sneak him upstairs into her room. Her gentle arms would never again hug him close. The endlessly long, cold nights would never again end in her bed, which had been dry and warm even though it reeked of the countless men who’d lain between the sheets. There would be no more bits of food to make his belly stop gnawing. No loving hands to brush his black hair from his eyes. Gabe’s world had ended as if someone had obliterated it with a stick of dynamite.

Maybe it was those memories that prompted Gabe to bend at the waist to get under the stairwell. The boy cowered against the wall, shrinking inside his tattered clothing. Even in the dimness, Gabe could see that the kid’s oversize wool jacket was so full of holes that only a few threads held it together. Gabe crouched a distance away, recalling all too clearly how much he’d come to fear adults when he’d been a kid on the street.

“Hey,” he said, trying to smooth the gruffness from his voice. “What’re you doing down here?”

“Nuthin’.”

Nuthin’ made sense to Gabe. Long ago, he would have answered the same way. “Where’s your mother?”

The boy had dark, dirty hair that fell over his face in oily hanks. With a jerk of his head, he indicated the upstairs rooms. “She used to work up there. Then she went off with some cowpoke, sayin’ she’d come back for me. I’m still waitin’.”

Gabe had a bad feeling that the kid’s mama was gone coon, a cowboy’s way of saying gone forever. Maybe the mother had taken sick. Or maybe she’d hooked up with some bastard who’d injured her so badly she couldn’t return. In the end, the woman’s fate didn’t matter. She’d left a child behind, and Gabe understood just what that meant for this boy. The hell of it was, Gabe was powerless to intervene. He couldn’t take on a kid to raise, even though the idea had some appeal. Because of his father’s belated sense of responsibility as he lay dying, Gabe had been left a heap of money back in Kansas City, enough that, after selling all of his sire’s fancy gambling houses, he could live in high cotton for the rest of his life. Sadly, circumstances had never allowed him that luxury. For one, he didn’t know how to live fancy, and second, his reputation as a gunslinger kept him on the trail, trying to avoid upstarts who wanted to make a name for themselves. All Gabe had at any given moment was his horse, a saddle, two trail blankets, a little dry food in his bags, and enough coin in his pocket to lie over in some out-of-the-way town until he got the itchy feeling that always told him it was time to move on. Then, if he was lucky—and he wasn’t always—he could slip away, ride the trail hard, and spend some time in another town before some man, young or old, called him out into the street. That was no life for a kid. Gabe’s existence could end abruptly, and then what would happen to the youngster? Besides, Gabe didn’t want this boy’s death on his conscience, if the child got between him and a bullet.

The thought made Gabe shudder. He’d been in Random for only a month, but he was already getting that itchy feeling. Tomorrow, with Christmas over and the shops in most towns along the trail open for business again, he’d be moving on. It didn’t matter to him that it was the dead of winter, or that he had only the brim of his Stetson to keep the snow from slipping under the collar of his coat. But a boy couldn’t endure such harsh conditions.

Still, Gabe couldn’t bring himself to walk away. He considered his options. There weren’t many. The kid was too young for Gabe to give him a bunch of money. He’d piddle it away or lose it, or it’d be stolen, and in the end, he’d end up under the stairwell again. Maybe, Gabe decided, he could stay over an extra day, guarding his back every second, and talk with the local preacher. Surely there was a family in town who’d be willing to take in a kid and raise him properly—if Gabe offered enough money to make it worthwhile. Money talked. He’d sure learned that. And he’d learned, too, that few people could do such a deed out of the goodness of their hearts. This boy would be an extra mouth to feed, bottom line, and folks with smallish incomes would be unable to say yes unless the boy came with a generous monthly stipend attached.

Yes, Gabe decided, he’d stay an extra day and see if he couldn’t get this kid settled somewhere. At present, though, it was a hair before dawn on Christmas morning, when the preacher and his flock would be celebrating the birth of Christ. Nobody would have the time or interest to consider the fate of an orphaned boy until the holiday passed.

Gabe drew a third gold eagle from his trouser pocket and, with the ease of long practice, gave it a toss. The coin landed on its edge and rolled to the gouged and holey tips of the boy’s boots, which appeared to be several sizes too small, judging by the protrusion of one toe extending well beyond the sole. Gabe’s excellent aim, much to his shame, came from frequently following in his father’s footsteps, elbows braced on a poker table in some gaudy saloon. The one and only good thing Gabe could say that he’d inherited from his dad was a gift for playing cards. Learning how to spin a coin on its edge across green felt had served him well over the years. It kept his hands free to go for his guns if some cocky asshole decided to call him a cheat. More than one man had lost his life over a poker game. Gabe had made it a point not to become one of them.

“Boy,” he said softly, “there’s ten dollars to get yourself some decent clothes. You can’t buy any today. It’s Christmas and all the shops are closed. But you can get some tomorrow.”

The kid snatched at the coin, closed his fingers around it, and stuck a grubby fist into his pocket. The twist of his lips that passed for a smile was clearly visible to Gabe in the charcoal gloom. “Mister, my belly’s emptier than a beggar’s pocket. Ain’t clothes I’ll buy.”

Gabe lifted his hands. “No need to buy food. I plan to mosey next door for a couple of whiskeys to wet my throat, but afterward I’ll take you out for a big breakfast, and you can roll all the leftovers up in a napkin to hold you for the rest of the day.”

The kid’s unchildlike gaze locked with Gabe’s. “Yeah? After a couple of jiggers you’re gonna feed me? Hell, mister, thanks for the money, but I know better than that.”

Gabe recognized that snort. He’d made it himself more than a few times—mostly as a disillusioned youngster. He stared hard at the kid for a long moment. “I said I’ll be back to take you to breakfast. The hotel restaurant stays open for guests. We’ll have ourselves a feast. But first, I got a gnaw in my gut for a little whiskey.”

The boy nodded indifferently. Obviously, he didn’t believe Gabe would return. “You a drunk?”

Gabe nearly smiled. He tipped a glass now and again, but he wasn’t dependent upon alcohol. He simply had an inner clock that told him it was still way too early for the hotel to be serving breakfast, and, God help him, one of the few pleasures in his life was a good belt of booze after being with a woman.

“No, not a drunk.” Gabe backed out from under the stairs and straightened. “Keep your appetite sharp. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

As Gabe turned toward the tavern, he realized how lonely and utterly empty he felt. He wanted so much more out of life, but the good stuff, like taking that boy under his wing, always seemed just beyond his reach. A quiet hopelessness welled up inside him, bringing unaccustomed and unwelcome pain. Things were never going to change. He was never going to change. And the hell of it was, he wasn’t really sure he wanted to go on living if this was how it would always be, day after meaningless day blending into equally meaningless nights. Dodging bullets because some punk wanted to be known throughout the West as the fastest draw. What was the point?

A few steps took Gabe to the bat-wing doors of the saloon. He pushed them open, scanned the few men sitting at tables wreathed in smoke, and then walked over to stand at the bar. Behind him, the room fell silent. Well, he was used to that. His formidable reputation with a gun made him fearsome to a lot of folks. “A bottle of your best whiskey and one glass,” he told the barkeep.

Bald pate gleaming in the lamplight, the plump older man slung a white towel over his shoulder, pulled the cork on a bottle, and then set it and a glass in front of Gabe. “Merry Christmas.”

Gabe nodded as he poured a two-finger measure of amber liquid into the tumbler. After one gulp followed by a whistle through his teeth, Gabe barely suppressed a shiver. Even so, he sloshed another measure of alcohol into the glass, downing it quickly so he’d get the burn over with fast. Though he didn’t often overindulge, he knew that drinking rotgut liquor most of the time because nothing better was available meant he’d probably die with yellow skin from liver disease, just like his father. At the thought, Gabe poured another jigger. Why not? It wasn’t as if he had one damned thing to live for.

The barkeep moved to the far end of the counter to serve another man, a seedy-looking fellow in a rumpled gray suit. The doctor, maybe? In the month that Gabe had been in Random, he’d kept pretty much to himself and still couldn’t recognize all of the town’s residents on sight. He studied the man in the mirror that lined the opposite wall, which, by power of reflection, made the establishment’s liquor stock look a lot more ample than it was. The fellow had a thin, haggard countenance, a large nose to support his wire-framed spectacles, and a prominent Adam’s apple that bobbed with nervousness above his dingy white shirt collar, which sported a limp, off-kilter red necktie, the loops escaping from a tarnished stickpin. His blue gaze locked with Gabe’s in the mirror. Recalling his manners, of which he had few, Gabe looked away and found himself staring at his own reflection.

Christ on crutches. He looked like the very devil, his attire all black from his Stetson on down. His jet hair needed a trim, the shaggy ends shining in the light where they curled over his collar. His eyes, the color of thrice-boiled coffee, glittered like polished stones in his sun-darkened, sharply chiseled face. No wonder ladies veered off the boardwalk to avoid encounters with him, and people fell silent when he entered a building. He had the look of a coldhearted killer.

Well, that was fitting. He was a killer, though he’d never set out to be—or had a choice. Some people believed they were in control of their lives, but Gabe had learned the hard way, and at a young age, that fate was as fickle and inconstant with her favors as a dance-hall girl.

Remembering his breakfast date with the ragged, hungry boy, Gabe corked his bottle, asked the barkeep to put his name on it, tossed a coin on the bar, and left the saloon. As he pushed through the doors onto the boardwalk, he saw signs that people were awakening to celebrate Christmas. Scattered ribbons of chimney smoke canted upward into the gunmetal gray sky. He fleetingly imagined the interiors of the homes from which the smoke came. Sleepy children staggering downstairs to stare in wonder at the gifts left for them under the Christmas tree. Cheerful fires crackling on brick hearths. Gaily decorated stockings stuffed with sweets. Women stoking their stoves to roast stuffed turkeys. Was that really what Christmas was like?

In comparison to the cozy pictures in his mind, Main Street looked funereal, the windows of the shops dark and bleak, snow drifting listlessly through the gloom. Only one spot of brightness shimmered in the dreariness, the windows of the milliner’s shop a half block away. Candles flickered on the interior sills, warm beacons to a lonely man. Gabe bypassed the stairwell where the boy waited, thinking he’d come right back, and strode slowly toward the light, yearning to catch just one brief glimpse of Christmas before it turned daylight and he’d be caught staring through windows.

Several yards before he reached his destination, Gabe heard a man call his name. The hairs on his nape prickled. He had lived through this same scene too many times not to know how it always unfolded. Hand hovering over his six-shooter, he whirled to face the danger. He glimpsed movement in the shadows of a building. Then he heard a shot ring out and knew that whoever was lurking in the folds of darkness meant to kill him in an unfair exchange of lead.

For an instant, Gabe welcomed the thought and didn’t go for his weapon. But then his instinct to survive took over. He slapped leather and fired at the black blur of a man . . . and felt a slug of lead plow into his chest with such stunning force that he was knocked backward and off his feet before he heard the second report of his opponent’s gun.

Lying motionless on the frozen ground and staring stupidly at the still-dark sky, he felt no pain, just an odd heaviness and an awful coldness.

“I got him!” a man shouted. “I shot Gabriel Valance! Me! Pete Raintree!”

Gabe managed to turn his head slightly and saw a thin young man staggering toward him, crimson already staining the front of his jacket. The youth’s legs gave out just before he reached Gabe. He fell to his knees with a bewildered expression in his eyes and then touched the blood on his jacket as if he couldn’t quite believe it was there.

“Dammit, you went and kilt me, mister.”

The younger man no sooner uttered the words than he pitched face-first into the frozen mud, dead before he ever hit the ground. Gabe tried to sit up, but his limbs wouldn’t work and there was no air.

This is it, Gabe thought, and returned his gaze to the sky. The air around him smelled faintly of gun smoke, whiskey, and the metallic sweetness of blood. A fitting end. The chill of Gabe’s gun butt lay against his palm, his fingers limp around it. He regretted that he’d ever pulled the damn thing from its holster. The dead youth beside him was barely old enough to be dry behind the ears, yet Gabe had snuffed out his life. And all for what? So he could lie in the street and die with snow pelting him in the face?

It hit Gabe then that no one would mourn his passing, not even the boy for whom he’d promised to buy breakfast. As the fog of death closed in around him, as the effort to breathe became exhausting, he felt a clawing regret. He wished that just one person would cry for him, that just one person might miss him. Just one. But in all his miserable life, not once since his mother had died, had he known or earned that kind of sentiment. He’d caused plenty of tears, he guessed, but none of them had been shed for him.

His world was growing colder and darker. Why couldn’t things have been different? Why, despite all his efforts and good intentions, had he been unable to change? It’s Christmas, dammit. People shouldn’t die on Christmas. His unsteady gaze searched for the brightly illuminated windows of the hatmaker’s shop. In the moment of brilliant clarity that comes right before death, he managed to focus. Candlelight beamed in the window, casting a cheerful amber glow over the artfully draped fir boughs that framed the glass. The greenery outlined the face of a woman, her solemn gaze fixed on Gabe, her blond hair shimmering like a halo. She was so beautiful Gabe wondered if he wasn’t already dead and seeing an angel.

Dark spots dotted his vision. Her sweet countenance began to swim in and out, clear one moment, gone the next. With every ounce of his remaining strength, Gabe tried to keep his eyes open, but the blackness grew thicker until it settled over him like a blanket, wiping out everything, even awareness.