The Devil and Lou Prophet (20 page)

“
Let me see that shoulder,”
he said, gruffly taking her arm.

As he inspected it, holding it out to
catch the last light from the fading sky, she studied him soberly.
“What in the hell are you so sour about?” she said. “I’m the one
getting dragged to my death.”

“
I ain’t sour,” he said.
“Just busy. Keepin’ you alive has become one hell of a
job.”

“
It’s not too late to
resign.”

He started to reply, but she stopped
him. “Don’t! I don’t even want to hear it.”

She studied him curiously as he
removed a shell from his cartridge belt, then produced a small
clasp knife from his jeans. “What are you doing?”

He said nothing as he worked the lead
slug from the brass casing with his knife. When he finished, he
dropped the slug and said, “Hold your arm out.”

“
Why?”

“
I’m going to cauterize
that wound.”

“
What!”

“
It’ll stop the bleeding.
Hold still and turn your face away.”

She wasn’t sure what he meant, but it
didn’t sound good. She drew her arm back and looked at him sharply.
“Never mind. It feels much better all of a sudden.”

He sighed and regarded her sternly.
“Listen, lady, I know what I’m doin’. I’m going to pour this black
powder into the wound and light it with a match. That’ll cauterize
it. If I don’t, you’re gonna bleed dry by morning.”

“
Just pack some mud on
it.”

“
We’re low on water, and
I’ll need some to clean my leg.”

She stared at his dark visage as she
thought it over. Finally, reluctantly, she held out her arm. “This
better not hurt.”

“
Just for a second. Now
turn your face away.”

She turned her face away and squeezed
her eyes closed, wary but finding herself trusting the man. She
supposed his type had to do this kind of back-country doctoring all
the time.

She heard a match flare and felt a
sudden burn on her arm, smelled the acrid odor of gunpowder, burned
blood and flesh. As he had promised, the pain lasted only a second.
The smell lingered, however, causing her nose to
wrinkle.

“
Did it work?” she said,
inspecting the arm. It stung a little, but not bad. The blood
appeared to have clotted.

“
Like a charm,” he said
matter-of-factly, turning to his own wounded leg. “Pull my boot
off.”

“
What?”

“
My boot needs to come
off,” he grouched.

She crawled around in front of him.
“What are you so damn grouchy about, anyway?” She grabbed the heel
and toe, and gave the boot a solid tug. It slipped halfway off the
heel. Another tug, and it came free so quickly she nearly fell over
backwards.

Prophet sighed painfully, removed the
bandanna from around his calf, and rolled up his blood-soaked
jeans. He grabbed the canteen and poured water over the wound,
sighing again, whistling through his teeth.

Lola watched him pensively. A thought
dawned on her. “Oh ... I know what it is,” she said,
brightening.

“
Know what what is?”
Prophet said, his voice pinched with pain. He took up his clasp
knife and opened it.

“
What you’re so grumpy
about.”

“
I told you I ain’t grumpy,
just busy. There’s a difference. But I wouldn’t expect a woman to
understand.”

“
Oh, I understand quite
well. You’re all bent out of shape because I saved your
life.”

He paused to look at her dumbly.
“What?”

“
You’re mad because a woman
saved your life.”

“
Oh, for crying out loud!”
He removed a box of matches from his shirt pocket, struck a match
on his thumbnail, and ran the knife through the flame, sterilizing
it. “I never heard anything so stupid in my life.”

“
Thai’s it! That’s it!” she
laughed. “You’d rather have died back there than have your hide
saved by a woman— a showgirl, to boot!” She laughed once more, for
the moment not feeling her shoulder or the sting of the saddle in
her loins.

She couldn’t see his eyes in the dark,
but she could tell from his posture that Prophet was angry.
“Listen, lady, I don’t give a shit who saves my hide—if it needs
saving, that is. But my hide didn’t need savin’. I was about to
plug that hombre myself. You just beat me to the punch, that’s all.
Squeezed off a lucky shot.”

She snickered. “Oh, I admit it was a
lucky shot, but the fact that it was fired by a woman—while you
were cowering in the weeds—is going to haunt you till the day you
die. Especially if anyone else gets wind of it. And believe me, Lou
Prophet, if I live to tell the tale. tell it I certainly
will!”

She threw back her head and laughed
heartily, tears rolling down her cheeks. She hadn’t felt this good
in days. Suddenly, she was actually enjoying herself. And at
Prophet’s expense!

Prophet clasped a hand over her mouth.
She stiffened, giving a startled grunt. Leaning toward her, the
bounty hunter spoke through clenched teeth. “If you don’t shut up,
you’re gonna lead that hombre with the Big Fifty right into our
camp. Is that what you want?” He shook her angrily. “Is
it?”

Incensed by his impertinence, she
would have kicked him if she’d been standing. As it was, she was
defenseless. She glared at him, outraged, her chest rising and
falling heavily. Knowing the only way she could get him to release
her was to shake her head, she did so, her eyes flashing
scorn.

He removed his hand from her
mouth.

“
How dare you!” she rasped
from deep in her throat.

He thrust the matches at her. “Now
light a match and hold it next to my leg, so I can see to dig out
that slug.”

“
I certainly will
not!”

“
If that slug isn’t out of
my leg pronto, neither one of us will be going anywhere come
daylight.”

“
Is that supposed to be
some kind of threat?” she trilled, screwing up her eyes
sarcastically. “I’ve already told you, there’s no way I’m getting
back on that horse again tomorrow.”

“
What about the hombre with
the Big Fifty ... and everybody else gunning for you?”

She stiffened, folding her arms
stubbornly across her bosom. She started to speak but checked
herself. Her body slackened. He was right. If she didn’t ride
tomorrow, she’d die. And, in spite of how much she ached all over,
she really didn’t want to die.

“
Give me the damn matches,”
she groused finally, reaching for the box.

She struck a match and held it near
his calf, wincing as she saw the blood.

“
Hold it close.”

“
I am.”

“
Closer.”

“
You wanna hold your own
damn match?”

As he dug the knife point into the
jellied wound, she turned away, covering her eyes with her free
hand. “Oh, god ... that’s hideous.”

“
It’s not that bad,” he
said, his voice pinched again with pain. “Ain’t that deep. I think
I caught a ricochet’s all.”

“
That’s all?” she
mocked.

“
It’s not that deep,” he
repeated absently as he worked, probing the wound with the blade
tip, looking for the slug. “And better yet, it didn’t hit
bone.”

“
Oh, hush!” she ordered.
Inwardly, she was amazed at his courage and resistance to pain.
Whatever his faults, he was unlike any many she’d ever
known....

The match burned down to her fingers,
and she dropped it with an angry “Ouch!”

“
Light another
one.”

“
I am, I am. Now where’s
that stupid box?”

That’s how it went for the next
several minutes, which seemed like an hour. Prophet dug with the
knife while Lola burned her fingers on one match after
another.

“
Got it!” Prophet said
through a quivering sigh, grinding his teeth together. He fished
the slug out of the wound and held it up just as the match burned
down to Lola’s fingers and went out with an angry
“Ouch!”

Ten minutes later, Prophet sat back
against the butte, his calf once again wrapped with the bandanna.
He’d had to spare more water for a mud pack, but it was either that
or lose several pints of blood by morning. He was just glad the
bullet hadn’t gone deeper than it had.

He ate several pieces of the leftover
rabbit, which the girl had refused, believing it spoiled. She dozed
beside him, her head on her saddle. It was quiet and as dark as
velvet. The alcove was capped with stars. Knowing the man with the
Big Fifty was close, Prophet hadn’t wanted to risk a fire. He could
smell the horses, hear them blowing as they slept
standing.

He wanted to sleep, as well, knowing
he’d need a good rest for tomorrow, but his calf throbbed and he
generally felt anxious and out of sorts. He didn’t think it was all
due to the man stalking them, either.

It was what the girl had said about
him being mad because she’d saved his life. He guessed it was true.
He’d gotten his tail all twisted and given her the cold shoulder
when what he should have done was thank her. If it hadn’t been for
her good shooting, lucky or not, he’d have been wolf
bait.

The thought struck him now like a cold
brace from a mountain stream.

He glanced at her lying on her side
with her back to him, and shook his head. Wolf bait, sure enough.
Imagine that, a pretty little redhead saving his hide with a bullet
to a man’s forehead. Who would have believed it?

He licked the cigarette paper and
twisted it around the tobacco, suppressing a humorous snort. It
occurred to him that he might have liked her under different
circumstances. He liked how she looked right now, but she was his
job, and in his business, you never mixed business with pleasure
and lived to tell about it. When he got her to Johnson City, Owen
McCreedy would take her into protective custody until the trial,
and Prophet would take the money and head back to Henry’s Crossing
for his horse.

From there, it was on to the next face
on the next wanted poster. It wasn’t the best life, but it was the
best one Prophet had found. Besides, he’d made that pact with the
Devil. Behind every face on every wanted poster was one hell of a
shindig.

Besides ..
. she was awful
mouthy.

He smoked the cigarette down, then
stubbed it out in the sand. He glanced around one last time,
listening closely. Satisfied they were alone, he rested his head on
his saddle. He wasn’t sure how long he’d slept when he heard a
horse whinny.

He sat up quickly and looked at his
own two horses, knowing instantly that the whinny had not come from
one of them.

There was another horse out there,
between fifty and a hundred yards away.

Heart hammering, Prophet climbed
slowly to his feet and reached for his gunbelt.

Prophet decided not to awaken the
girl. She might make noise and give them away, or startle their
horses.

He buckled on his gunbelt, grabbed his
shotgun, and stole out around the horses as quietly as possible.
The faint paling in the east told him it was nearly dawn. He had to
be careful; the outlines of objects were growing faintly visible,
which meant he would be visible, too.

He crept around a butte, traversed a
narrow gully, and hunkered down in a cedar, listening. The morning
was still and damp, without a breath of breeze. It was so quiet he
thought he could hear the grasshoppers breathing in the thin clumps
of bluegrass growing along escarpments and in hollows. A sickle
moon angled low in the west. Far away rose the hushed cries of a
magpie.

Prophet crouched and cradled the
shotgun in his arms. His ears fairly ached with listening. Finally,
he heard something. A horse clipping a rock? A man’s boot coming
down in gravel? Or was it only a stone loosed by gravity down a
butte?

Then he heard the unmistakable sound
of a horse blowing. He knew it wasn’t one of his horses; it had
come from farther west, maybe fifty or sixty yards away, behind
that big butte yonder.

Prophet hunkered down on his haunches
and waited. The trail he and the girl had taken last night passed
near here, and if the man with the Big Fifty had risen early to
track them, he would pass along their trail.

After about ten minutes, a figure
emerged from the gray-black darkness to the west, stealing around
the butte. It was a vague figure—only a few lines of a hat, face,
and shoulders—but Prophet knew it was the man with the Big Fifty.
He breathed gently through his mouth and poked his finger through
the eight-gauge’s trigger housing.

The man approached slowly, one step at
a time. When Prophet could see his outline clearly, a prairie dog
chortled about ten feet to Prophet’s right. Prophet jumped,
startled, heart racing. He cringed, hoping the prairie dog hadn’t
spooked the tracker. The rodent made a scuttling sound in the weeds
as, startled by Prophet, it ran back to its hole.