Staring Down the Devil (A Lou Prophet Western #5) (17 page)

Well
after dark, Prophet and Sergei saddled their horses in the livery
barn and headed off to Gay’s hacienda.

The
Cossack looked part gambler, part mountain man in his dark cotton
shirt, black denims, and boot moccasins. He wore a broad-brimmed
Western hat he’d bought in Denver. Characteristically ostentatious,
he’d knotted a black kerchief around his neck and secured it with a
gold ring.

He had
rented a tall buckskin in whose eyes he claimed he saw “hellfire,”
adding that every good Cossack warrior rode a mount with the fires
of hell in its eyes.

Prophet glanced over at the horse’s eyes. “That might just be
gas.”

Following Henry’s directions, they followed the pale ribbon of
road through the quiet, purple desert, threading their way
through a deep valley between jagged, rocky
peaks. A coyote yammered from a nearby scarp. The
bald, toothy ridges loomed blackly to their right and left, capped
by brilliant starlight. Occasional explosions, dynamite detonated
by the miners, echoed in the north.

They drifted off
the trail when they heard an ore wagon approach from the north,
groaning and creaking, the driver cursing and popping a bullwhip
over the backs of the four-mule team. When the wagon had passed,
they drifted back onto the road and cantered for another mile,
until they came to the trail twisting off to the left — a pale line
coiling up the western ridge.

About
halfway up the ridge sat Gay’s hacienda, a small jewel of light
shimmering against the mountain.

“Here’s where we dismount,” Prophet said.

As
they’d planned, they tethered their horses in a gully shrouded by
mesquite and sage, then walked westward, avoiding the closely
guarded trail. When they’d walked a hundred yards, they started
climbing the mountain, moving straight up toward the house, gazing
around warily for the armed guards Henry had assured them would be
spread across the slope.

Their breathing
grew heavy. Sweat ran down their backs.

Stealing around boulders, they came upon a shallow trough in
the mountainside. The scrub brush was thick enough to offer
adequate cover, as long as no guards were perched in the trough. It
wasn’t likely. Prophet figured most would have been positioned on
higher ground, where they had a clearer view of the
valley.

Prophet figured wrong. When he and Sergei were two-thirds of
the way up the mountain, a man’s voice called out from just above.
“Who goes there?”

Prophet and the Cossack froze, crouching, hands on their guns,
resisting the urge to draw. Firing their weapons would draw the
other guards. Prophet’s heart tom-tommed.

“I
said who’s there?” the guard called again, anger rising in his
voice. He was a vague shifting of the darkness about twenty yards
up the trough. Dull blue starlight shone off a rifle.

“Just
me,” Prophet said, trying to make his voice sound
casual.

The
guard said nothing. Prophet had a feeling he was trying to process
Prophet’s voice. In a second or two he’d realize he hadn’t
recognized it.

Reacting more than thinking, Prophet reached his right hand up
to the back of his neck, shucking his Arkansas toothpick from the
scabbard lying flat against his spine. With the same motion, he
crouched lower, spread his feet, and snapped his hand out and down,
releasing the savage weapon with a snap of his wrist.

The knife
disappeared in the darkness, only a silvery flicker marking its
passage.

Thump! The
guard grunted softly.
Prophet saw his silhouette stagger to the right. The rifle
clattered to the ground. Another thump and a groan.

Drawing his
bowie, Prophet rushed forward. He stopped and crouched over the
body of the prone guard. The man lay on his back, hat off, the
Arkansas toothpick jutting straight up from his throat. The blood
gleamed darkly.

The
man’s eyes fluttered, then slowly closed.

Prophet turned to Sergei, who’d walked up behind him and was
staring down at the dead man. “Not bad, eh?” Prophet said, a proud
half-grin on his lips.

Sergei
set his mouth and nodded, shrugging one shoulder. “Not bad. I was
about to do the same thing, but not bad.”

“Not
bad?” Prophet chuckled. He crouched down, pulled the Arkansas
toothpick from the guard’s throat, wiped it off on the man’s shirt,
and slid it back in its sheath. “Not bad, like hell. . .”With a
snort, he started again up the trough.

They made the
crest of the shelf about ten minutes later, and scurried over to a
wagon shed at the edge of the yard. Fifty yards before them, the
hacienda sat behind a low adobe wall, its tall, arched windows
blazing.

Starlight spread
a silvery sheen on the red clay tiles. Almond and orange trees were
spidery silhouettes against the windows.

A
black buggy sat out front, at the head of the semicircular driveway
marked with stones. A steeldust horse stood in the traces. Two
burly men wearing bandoliers across their chests stood on either
side of the wall’s gated door, smoking and talking, their voices
muffled by distance.

Somewhere to Prophet’s right, a cicada whirred.

“Let’s
head around behind, look for a back door,” Prophet
whispered.

Sergei
nodded and stood. Prophet grabbed his forearm. “Wait!”

He
gestured at the hacienda. A man had appeared from the house’s rear,
walking slowly along the wall. He held a rifle across his chest,
like a soldier.

Sergei
crouched back down and scowled at Prophet. “I saw him,” he
grumbled.

“Sorry,” Prophet said gently. “I just thought your noble
Russian ass might need savin’ — again.”

“No,
no. You misremember. It was I who saved
your
ass.”

“As I
recall . . . Oh, never mind,” Prophet grumbled, watching the guard
moving along the wall.

When the man
reached the two men guarding the front, he stopped to chat, then
drifted on around the other side of the house.

Prophet said, “Come on!”

Crouching, he and
Sergei ran across the packed yard, skirting an empty corral and a
blacksmith shop. When they reached the wall, they turned their
backs to it and whipped looks to their right and left.

Apparently, the guards hadn’t seen them. Wasting no time,
Prophet stood and hoisted himself over the wall. Sergei did
likewise, dropping into the dusty courtyard, just right of a dead
orange tree.

Before them,
stone steps rose to a second-story door. Wooden cellar doors lay to
the bottom right of the stairs.

“You
go in through the cellar,” Prophet said, keeping his voice down.
“I’ll take the door above.”

“Why
must I take the cellar?”

Prophet looked at him dully. “Why not?”

“I
think it is more likely she is upstairs than in the cellar. And
since it is I who will recognize her, I should take the upper
story.”

Sergei made for
the stairs. Shaking his head. Prophet crouched over the cellar
doors. Carefully he lifted the right one by its metal ring,
gritting his teeth at the quaking hinges. Slipping inside, in total
darkness, he let the door close softly behind him and struck a
match.

He found nothing
in the cellar but several old wine casks, racks, dry goods, and
cobwebs. By matchlight he made his way up the basement stairs and
slipped into a hall, easing the door closed behind him. Hearing
voices, he edged along the hall, keeping one hand on his
Colt.

At the end of the
hall he stole a glance around the corner. In the big, circular room
before him was a rough wooden table. Around the table sat four men
playing cards and drinking — big, sweaty men in dusty trail clothes
and with the belligerent, unshaven faces of long riders.

As far
as Prophet could tell, they all were armed with pistols. Two
carried revolvers in shoulder rigs. Rifles and shotguns lay in easy
reach.

Prophet watched
for a while, sizing up the group. There was a pillar between him
and them. That and their concentration on the game, as well as the
whiskey bottle before them, kept their attention on the
table.

Hearing laughter behind him, Prophet turned and walked back
down the hall, taking exaggerated steps on the balls of his feet,
so his spurs wouldn’t ching. Near the middle of the hall, on the
right, he came to a stout wooden door with strap hinges and a
tarnished brass latch. Voices emanated from the door, which was
open a foot.

Pressing his back
to the wall, Prophet cocked an ear to the door,
listening.

“...
just call it a contribution to your reelection
campaign.”

A man
laughed. “Hell, I’ve already been reelected!”

“For
next time, Senator. For next time.”

“Well,
I reckon thinking ahead couldn’t hurt.”

“And
all you have to do is convince the territorial governor that I’m
worthy of a pardon —”

“For
all previous offenses,” the senator said, haltingly, as though he
were pondering the proposition.

“All
previous offenses. Surely, he’ll see fit. I mean, I’ve been damn
good for the Territory’s economy, have I not?”

Good-natured laughter. “Well, I reckon you have, since you
quit robbing the army paymasters!”

There
was a pause while the senator’s laughter boiled down to
silence.

“That’s all in the past, Senator,” the one who was obviously
Leamon Gay said. “All in the past. Now, I’ve mended my ways, and
I’m damn good for this territory.”

“Well,
uh, how will I get that? In bank draft or — ?”

“Gold.”

“Gold?”

“Pure
gold. Twenty thousand dollars’ worth . . .”

Prophet shook his
head. Gay was a rapscallion, all right. A rapscallion and then
some. It sounded as though he would soon be a rapscallion amnestied
by the Territorial governor. All future crimes would no doubt be
sanctioned by the governor himself.

Having heard
enough and wanting to find the girl, Prophet moved off down the
hall. A few minutes later he came to a narrow, curving stairs. He
climbed the stairs, opened a door, and crept down another hall lit
by a single bracket lamp. He paused by a closed door on his left,
pressed his ear to the wood.

The sound of
splashing water rose in the room. Prophet lowered his gaze to the
key in the lock. He turned it and pressed the latch, slowly opening
the door, again gritting his teeth against squawking hinges. When
the door was open a foot, he slid his head through.

A dull light
entered his gaze, and the corners of his mouth curved down in a
smile. Before him stood a slender girl — no more than nineteen or
twenty — standing naked in a copper tub, her back to him. Ash blond
hair hung straight down her back. Her butt was small and round and
firm, the thighs long and wonderfully sculpted.

Prophet couldn’t help pausing a moment
to enjoy the view as she sponged her breasts.
Suddenly, as though sensing him there, she turned
her head, casting a glance over her shoulder.

Seeing him, she
gave a clipped, raspy scream and turned, splashing water over the
sides of the tub.

Quickly Prophet
stepped into the room, closed the door, and faced the girl with his
hands spread open before him.

“Easy,
easy,” he whispered.

She
covered her breasts with her elbows and stared at him with her
wide, hazel eyes. She was pretty and fine-featured with a high-born
nose like the countess’s. The family resemblance continued in the
wide-spaced eyes and firm, delicate jaw. Her skin was not as
creamy, however. This girl — Marya, Prophet assumed — had obviously
spent considerable time in the sun. Her arms were long-muscled, her
hands slightly corded, neither of which took away from her
femininity. The girl was a looker, through and through.

“Who
are you?” she snapped, reaching for a towel off the chair beside
her and using it to cover herself.

Prophet kept his voice low, his ears pricked for noise outside
the door. “I’m Lou Prophet. A friend. Marya Roskov, I
assume?”

She
studied him, her eyes remaining sharp, the flush still coloring her
cheeks. “How do you know my name?” Her tone was
accusatory.

“I’m
here with your sister, Natasha, and Sergei.”

The
lines around her eyes disappeared. She stared at him agape.
“What?”

“We’re
gettin’ you out of here.”

The
girl’s face now paled as she pinned Prophet with an urgent stare,
clutching the towel to her chest. “Where . . . ?”

“Your
sister’s in Broken Knee. Sergei’s in the house somewhere. I take it
you’re not here because you want to be?”

Her
shoulders drooped. “Oh, god!” she rasped.

“That’s what I thought.”

Holding the towel over her breasts and hips, the girl stepped
out of the slipper tub, revealing one long, creamy leg in turn. She
moved toward Prophet urgently and gazed up at his face. “I hoped so
much that someone would come.”