The Devil and Lou Prophet (18 page)

There was a faint rustling of weeds,
as if the man closest to him took another step or two forward. The
man cleared his throat. “Why don’t you send the girl out, friend?
We’ll let you live.”

More rustling, and the man’s hatted
head came into view through the bending weed tips. Prophet lowered
his own head while lifting his chin, feeling a dull pain in the
back of his neck. His calf throbbed metronomically.

“
Come on, friend, be
reasonable,” the man continued. “What’s ole McCreedy payin’ you,
anyway? Can’t be enough for your life.”

There was a long, breeze-brushed
pause. More rustling, the snap of a stout weed under a
boot.

“
Sure enough, friend. We’ll
let you go—scot-free,” the man said, his voice growing louder as he
approached. He was only about ten yards away and facing just north
of Prophet and the girl.

Prophet’s heart hammered as the man
swung his head toward him. The man’s eyes grew large as they found
Prophet. He started lifting his rifle, but he was too late. Prophet
jumped to his feet, ignoring the pain in his right leg, and shot
the man through the chest. The man went over backwards, discharging
his rifle in the air and giving a clipped scream.

Prophet knew the other two men and
probably the man with the Big Fifty were bearing down on him, but
he didn’t have time to find out which was bearing down on him
fastest. He had to pick one and shoot, and to that end he wheeled
to his left. About thirty yards away, another man already had his
rifle to his shoulder. Prophet fired a quarter second before the
rifle sprouted smoke and flames. Dropping the rifle, the man
grabbed his neck, twisted, stumbled backwards, and fell without a
sound.

Before he hit the ground. Prophet
turned slightly right and saw the third gunman running toward him
through the weeds. He was about forty yards away and closing,
yelling something unintelligible, raising his rifle as the wind
tore his cream Stetson from his head, revealing a thatch of wavy,
chestnut hair.

Prophet knew he couldn’t get off a
shot before the man running toward him did, so he dove forward just
as he heard the rifle bark. The weeds were too high—he couldn’t see
through them—but he fired through them, anyway, hoping for a lucky
shot. Then, knowing that his chances of having hit the man were
slim, and also knowing the man would probably fire at the spot
where he’d seen Prophet hit the ground, he rolled to his
left.

Just as he’d suspected, the man fired
a barrage of bullets where Prophet had landed, the slugs whistling
and crackling through the weeds and tearing into the spongy ground
with decisive thumps. As the man fired, the slugs grew closer and
closer to Prophet, for the gunman was keying on the weeds Prophet
bent as he rolled. To top it all off, the fourth man was cutting
loose with the Big Fifty, the fifty-caliber booms lifting boldly
and horrifically above the wind.

Prophet knew he couldn’t keep roiling
forever, but he also knew that when he stopped, he’d no doubt catch
a bullet. Then the shooting stopped, and Prophet, grunting with
fear and exertion, his breath rasping in and out of his lungs,
stopped rolling. He climbed to his feet, lifted the Peacemaker to
his shoulder, and aimed in the direction of the third
rifleman.

But the man wasn’t there. Prophet’s
heart increased its pounding, and he jerked in a half-circle,
searching for the man while expecting a slug to tear through him at
any moment. Behind him, a gun cracked. Prophet jumped. The
small-caliber pistol cracked again as Prophet turned, aiming the
Peacemaker.

It was the girl, standing and holding
her small, silver-plated revolver in both hands. She flicked back
the trigger, scrunched up her face as she aimed down the barrel,
then blinking and recoiling as she fired, the small gun jumping in
her hands.

Looking northward, Prophet saw the man
with the Big Fifty galloping away on his mouse-brown gelding with
the single white sock. He’d mounted so quickly he hadn’t had time
to sheathe the buffalo gun, which dangled from his right
hand.

The girl steadied the gun on him
again, and fired. The man turned a look over his shoulder, the brim
of his hat bending in the wind, then jerked back around, spurring
his horse over a rise and out of sight.

Prophet stared flabbergasted at the
girl, the Peacemaker falling to his side. Remembering the third
gunman, he jerked back around, lifting the Peacemaker once
again.

“
I shot him,” the girl
said, turning to him.

Prophet walked cautiously forward and,
sure enough, found the third gunman lying dead with a bullet
through his forehead. He glanced back at the girl, surprised by her
prowess with the thirty-two.

Prophet knelt down, removed the man’s
revolver from his holster, and picked up the man’s rifle—a
new-model Winchester, freshly cleaned and oiled.

“
Is he dead?” the girl
called.

Prophet turned and walked toward her.
He nodded. “He’s dead, all right. Where in hell did you get that
thing, anyway?”

Her eyes were haunted as she stared at
the bent grass where the dead man lay. “Brian Kildavies gave it to
me.”

“
Who’s Brian
Kildavies?”

“
A fine old actor I met in
San Francisco. He was finally dying of a bullet wound he’d received
in the war, and gave me the gun when he learned I was heading to
the frontier. He said you never knew who you’d meet out there.” She
formed a crooked half-smile.

Prophet scratched his head, giving a
befuddled look. “Well... that was some ... good shootin’, I
reckon.”

Her haunted eyes strayed to him
slowly. “I never shot a man before.” Her gaze grew fishy once more
as she returned it to the matted weeds where the dead man
lay.

“
Could’ve fooled me,”
Prophet muttered. As he started limping away on his wounded leg,
using his new rifle for a cane, he said, “We’d best track down our
horses before that hombre with the Big Fifty comes back for
more.”

“
Will he do that?” she
asked.

“
With the reward you have
on you,” Prophet said with a sigh, “you can bet your pantaloons he
will.”

On his bad leg and cursing with every
step, Prophet tracked the horses down in a small box canyon. They
were idly cropping grass, reins dangling around their
feel.

He discovered that his own horse came to a
whistle. The girl’s horse, however, was more skittish, and Prophet
had to run it down atop the speckle-gray, reaching out and grabbing
the reins just before it broke into a gallop. He led the Appaloosa
back to where the girl waited in the shade of a sandstone
escarpment, bathing her wounded shoulder in the water that bubbled
out of the rocks.

In spite of his painful calf, he knew
a moment’s arousal when he saw the skin the girl had exposed when
she’d slipped the sleeve of her dress halfway down her arm,
revealing a good bit of ample cleavage. The sensation was not at
all welcome, and he was vaguely startled and disgruntled that after
all he’d been through— after the bullet he’d taken in his calf—that
a woman needed only to reveal a little more skin than usual to make
his member stiffen.

He’d always known he was a rather
simple mechanism—plenty of women had told him so—but the current
revelation was all the more startling for his being in such an
otherwise foul mood. Why the hell hadn’t he stayed in Henry’s
Crossing and drank himself stupid?

“
Pack some mud on it and
let’s ride,” he ordered. “You can tend it more after
sundown.”

“
It won’t stop
bleeding.”

“
Pack some mud on it, and
that’ll stop it. Let’s go. We don’t have time for dawdlin’. If that
polecat with the Big Fifty follows like I think he’s going to,
you’ll have more holes than that one to worry about.”

She turned to him sharply, red hair
flying. “What are you so goddamn mad about? You act like I’m the
one that got us ambushed!”

Prophet flushed as her barb hit home.
He realized he’d gotten careless back there but wasn’t about to
admit it to her. “I said pack some mud on your shoulder, and mount
your goddamn horse!”

She grabbed up a handful of mud, laid
it on the wound, and stalked over to the Appaloosa idly cropping
grass. Grabbing the reins out of Prophet’s hand, she turned a look
on him that would have sent Lucifer packing. “You son of a bitch,
Prophet!” Then she mounted with an angry huff.

Without looking at her, Prophet reined
his horse around and led out at a canter which he quickly stretched
into a gallop, ignoring the fire burning in his leg. They had to
eat some ground if they were going to reach Johnson City before
Owen McCreedy set Billy Brown free.

And if they were going to stay ahead
of that Big Fifty, as well.

They’d ridden for only a half hour
before they came to the badlands, the cuts and gouges spreading out
before them as far as the eye could see. Under the harsh, midday
light, it was a menacing moonscape relieved here and there by tiny
mesas and round-topped buttes slashed by the runoff of recent
rains. It was a maze of sandy canyons in which the only green was a
smattering of grass and sage in the lowest areas, and the spindly
spikes of yucca.

In the hazy blue distance, two hawks
hovered low over the canyons in their hunt for mice and rabbits—two
black specks lazing on thermals, appearing nearly
stationary.

Lola Diamond turned to Prophet with
the angry, terrified expression that had become glued to her face
over the past couple of days. “You’re insane.”

“
It’s shorter this way than
by the stage road. And Brown’s men—and whoever else is after
us—will have a lot tougher time tracking us down there,
too.”

He spurred his horse toward a game
trail winding into the canyon yawning below.

“
Wait,” she said. “I need a
rest and so does my horse.”

“
No time” was his curt
reply. He rode until he and his horse disappeared into the
canyon.

“
You son of a bitch,” she
muttered, hating his arrogance. He knew very well she wouldn’t stay
here alone, would have to follow him like a dog no matter how much
she wanted to do otherwise.

She reined her own horse to the game
trail, then closed her eyes as the animal took halting, mincing
steps into the canyon. It was a steep descent, and halfway down the
horse broke into a run, which it checked when it reached
bottom.

It looked around as though wondering
where to go. Lola did the same. All she saw before her was several
sandy buttes with sage growing along their gravelly bases, each
with a much-used game trail winding around its bulk.

Which trail had Prophet
taken?

She called his name.

There was no response but the distant
screech of a hunting hawk and the breeze playing in the bushes
along the rim. The sun beat straight down upon her, so that her hat
barely shaded her face. She knew a moment’s concern. Then, looking
around, she saw fresh hoof prints and gigged the Appaloosa
forward.

Keeping a close eye on the fresh
tracks, she followed their serpentine route through the buttes. It
was like a maze she’d once read that a rich man had formed out of
hedges. One butte or boulder after another, each a different height
and width, each stepping out before her to make her rein the horse
either left or right. When she hadn’t caught up to the bounty
hunter in ten minutes, she grew concerned that she wasn’t following
his tracks after all.

Her heart pounded and her mouth became
dry. Her eyes were large, her brows furrowed. She couldn’t imagine
being out here alone at this lonely end of the world.

Her voice quivered. “Prophet,
goddamnit, where are you?”

“
Keep your voice down, will
you? You never know who else is out here.”

She reined her horse to a quick halt
and swung her head right. There he was, in a corridor made by a
sandstone scarp and several low, deeply eroded buttes. He stood
beside his horse, filling his hat from his canteen.

He was such a welcome sight, she felt
like running over and hugging him. Then her anger burned at his
leaving her back there.

“
What in the hell ... what
in the hell do you think you’re doing ... leaving me back
there?”

He shrugged as he held the hat for the
horse to drink. “I told you we didn’t have time to
stop.”

His nonchalance sent another fire through
her. She gripped her saddle horn until her hands turned white, and
her voice quivered again, this time with rage. “I have never in my
life, Mr. Prophet, met a more arrogant ... impertinent ...
supercilious cuss than you!”

He regarded her casually as the horse
drank from his hat. “I think I know what arrogant means, but the
other two words”—he shrugged and shook his head, returning his
attention to the horse—”I didn’t get much schoolin’ back in
Georgia, you see. Mostly just picked my daddy’s cotton and raided
watermelon patches.”

“
You could have fooled me,”
she said with taut sarcasm.