The Devil and Lou Prophet (3 page)

“
You kids stay away from
those horses,” a man behind him ordered.

Prophet turned to see a bandy-legged
little man, with snow white mustaches and worn wool trousers held
up with a pair of snakeskin gallowses, crossing the street in front
of the Excelsior cafe. Wearing a tarnished silver star above the
pocket of his blue-plaid shirt, Sheriff Harlow F. Fitzsimmons
frowned at the two boys who had been teasing the dog. They’d been
attracted by the blanketed bundles on Prophet’s horses, and were
heading this way.

“
Are those dead men,
Sheriff?” one of the boys asked, eyeing Prophet’s
bundles.

The sheriff stopped in the middle of
the wide, dusty street and aimed a crooked finger at the kid. “I
told you to git!” His voice was as high-pitched as an old
woman’s.

The boys turned tail and ran back
toward the mercantile.

The sheriff walked up to the last
horse in Prophet’s string and lifted a blanket. “Can’t you come in
the back?” he snapped.

“
I didn’t know you had a
back door,” Prophet said.

“
I don’t, but you could tie
the horses back there, then come around the front and get me. You
have to make such a goddamn spectacle?”

“
Well, I got ’
em covered this time, for
chrissakes!”

“
And watch your goddamn
mouth! There’s ladies shoppin’ in town today.”

Prophet mopped his forehead with a
cuff of his sweat-soaked shirt. He was used to being received this
way by tin stars like Fitzsimmons, or “Little Fitz,” as he was
known by the townsfolk. “All I want is my money, and I’ll be on my
way.”

Fitzsimmons shoved his hands in his
pockets and approached the bounty hunter suspiciously, his
washed-out blue eyes going over the taller man as if sizing him up
for a hanging. “These the ones held up the express office? Where’d
you find ’em?”

“
Down in Horsetail Valley.
There’s an old buffalo camp out there.”

“
You back-shoot
’em?”

“
No, I didn’t back-shoot
‘em!” Prophet protested. He would have been the first to admit he
wasn’t the most scrupulous of bounty men, but he didn’t go in for
back-shooting. He took pride in that and was thoroughly indignant
that anyone would suspect otherwise—even “Little Fitz.”

“
Well, how’d you bring down
all four of ‘em, then? They musta been sleepin’.”

“
No, they’re weren’t
sleepin’, neither.” Prophet hesitated. “They were, well...” He slid
a glance at the wrapped bundles on the four horses, trying to come
up with a reasonable explanation that wasn’t too terribly far from
the truth. He knew that if anyone found out he’d fallen through the
roof of the outlaw shack, the story would spread faster than cheap
whiskey to every saloon in the Beaverhead. He’d never live it
down.

“
There was a hole in the roof,”
he explained finally, with an air of haughty indignance. “I saw
that from the hill above, and I decided to use it to my best
advantage. That’s how you stay alive in my line of work, Sheriff.
You use whatever they give you ... you use it against ’em.” That
last sounded even smarter than Prophet had intended.

Fitzimmons cocked his head and
squinted one eye skeptically. “The roof?”

“
I jumped through the roof,
landed feet-first on their poker table, and caught ’em with their
pants down. I ordered them to drop their irons, but as you can
see”— he turned to the bundles on the hang-headed horses, two of
which were drinking from the trough along the boardwalk—“they
didn’t take my advice.” Prophet pursed his lips, so satisfied with
the story that he was eager to tell it to the girls over at the
Queen Bee.

The sheriff rolled his eyes and
shuffled toward the door of his shabby office. “Come on, Prophet,”
he grumbled. “Let’s get to the paperwork. A hole in the roof, you
say. Huh!”

The paperwork would have taken five
minutes if the sheriff had been faster with a pencil and hadn’t had
to spell every word aloud before he wrote it down. When he
finished, he set the pencil aside with the air of a difficult job
well done, folded the reward request, and dropped it in a desk
drawer.

“
Well, you know the drill,
Prophet. It’ll take a few days for the express company to process
your request. I guess you’ll be waiting around for the money.”
Obviously, the prospect of Prophet’s remaining in Henry’s Crossing
did not appeal to the aged lawman, who scowled and gave his head a
sharp sideways jerk.

“
I reckon, Sheriff,”
Prophet said. He enjoyed antagonizing the old coot, who wore the
badge only because no one else wanted it. He was about as effective
at keeping the peace in Henry’s Crossing as a broken-down nag would
have been, but fancied himself the next Wyatt Earp. Deep down,
Prophet didn’t mind. It was ineffective lawmen like Fitzsimmons who
made the pickings rich for bounty hunters.

“
Don’t worry, I’ll mind my
p’s and q’s,” Prophet said, like an unctuous schoolboy, squeezing
the old man’s shoulder. “Wouldn’t want to cross a man with your
sand.”

“
Well, see that you don’t!”
Fitzsimmons barked as Prophet headed for the door. “If I have to
turn the key on you, it might be a while before I turn it back
again.”

“
I hear ya,” Prophet said,
throwing up a wave as he stepped outside.

He was riding off down the street, in
the direction of the undertaker’s, when the sheriff called his
name. Befuddled, Prophet turned around, and Fitzsimmons beckoned
him back. Prophet shrugged and reined the dun back to the jail,
where the sheriff stood gazing indignantly across the
street.

“
I forgot,” he said
grudgingly. “The sheriff over to Johnson City sent you a letter a
few days back.”

Prophet was incredulous. “A letter?”
Prophet was friends with Owen McCreedy, the sheriff of Johnson
City, but couldn’t imagine what he’d be writing him
about.

“
That’s what I said.”
Fitzsimmons turned into his office. He reappeared a moment later
and offered Prophet an envelope which had already been opened.
Prophet glanced at the sheepish-looking Fitzsimmons and removed the
letter. It read:

Dear Proph:

Time to call a favor in.
Please find a showgirl named Lola Diamond and bring her to me by
the 19th. She’s traveling in your area, with Big Dan Walthrop’s
Traveling Dolls and Roadhouse show. Should be in Henry’s Crossing
soon. I need her for questioning at a court hearing. Find enclosed
$150 for your trouble and $15 for two stage tickets to Johnson
City.

Hoping like hell you’ll
take the job,

Your pal,

Owen McCreedy

Scowling, Prophet folded the letter
and returned it to the envelope. He looked at Fitzsimmons. “What’s
it all about?”

The sheriff shook his head. “Don’t ask
me. McCreedy didn’t tell me much more than he told you. Just said
he needed her there in six days, which is gonna be a problem since
her troupe ain’t due in here till the fifteenth, day after
tomorrow.”

“
Why don’t you just tell
her the law wants her, and let her find her own way down to Johnson
City?”

“
My guess is she won’t go
unless she’s got a ... uh ... escort, I guess you’d call it.”
Fitzsimmons smoothed his mustache with the thumb and index finger
of his right hand, wagging his head dourly. “Don’t ask me what ol’
McCreedy has goin’ down there, but it sounds to me like he’s got
his hands full. Otherwise, he’d send his deputy for her. Instead,
he’s got you...” He chuffed without humor and shook his head once
more.

Prophet lifted his hat and scratched
his head. McCreedy’s cryptic note befuddled him. Its desperate
tone, and the fact that he owed McCreedy a favor, was making it
hard for him to turn the job down—in spite of his exhaustion and
aching shoulder. He and McCreedy had once ridden for a cow outfit
in western Kansas, and the favor Prophet owed McCreedy involved the
ranch owner, his daughter, and the lie McCreedy had told the man to
save Prophet’s hide.

“
She gets in day after
tomorrow?” he asked Fitzsimmons thoughtfully.

The sheriff nodded. “Her troupe’s due to
play here again in two days. She’s a redhead. Pretty. Big blue eyes
and a figure, that ... well, you can’t miss her.”

“
I’m not so sure I want to
find her,” Prophet groused.

“
Well, that’s up to you and
McCreedy. I don’t want no part of it. Downright unprofessional, you
ask me. Sendin’ a bounty hunter after a murder witness. Ain’t even
sure it’s legal.”

“
Why don’t you do
it?”

“’
Cause I’m needed here, for
godsakes!” Fitzsimmons defensively exclaimed. “The goddamn city
council hasn’t hired me one single deputy. Not one! If I took this
little ... this ... tart ... down to Johnson City, hell, not only
would my wife prob’ly leave me, but the town would be burnt to the
ground by the time I got back. What with all the rivermen and owl
hoots and soldiers on the prod every day and night—”

“
All right, all right, I
get the drift,” Prophet said, thinking it over.

Taking a showgirl down to Johnson City
shouldn’t be such a hard way of making a hundred and fifty dollars.
Hell, he’d been planning to head that way anyway, as soon as he’d
pocketed his reward money and rested his shoulder a few days. He’d
heard the gambling was good down there, and the whiskey and women
were even better. Why not repay an old friend a favor and get paid
for it?

The decision must have been apparent
on Prophet’s face. When he lifted his eyes from the boardwalk, he
saw that the sheriff was holding out an envelope. “You’re to serve
her with this here subpoena. I reckon it’s legal, but I won’t vouch
for it. Like I said, this is between you and McCreedy.”

“
A showgirl, eh?” Prophet
said, ignoring the paper and staring at the false front of the
Queen Bee with a shit-eating grin on his face. Hell, he’d tracked
renegades through deserts for little more than a hundred dollars.
Even with a sore shoulder, how hard could it be to accompany some
showgirl down to Johnson City? Prophet could catch up on his
shut-eye between relay stations.

“
A right purty one,” Fitzsimmons
said, slapping the subpoena against Prophet’s chest. “And a right
ornery one to boot ... or so I’ve heard.”

“
Ornery, huh?” Prophet
said, taking the paper. “Will I have your help corralling this
little tomcat in the stage?”

Fitzsimmons’s eyebrows furrowed and his
chin lowered. “Uh ... well, I’d like to help you out there, Lou.
Really would. But if the townsfolk see me helpin’ a bounty man cart
off a showgirl ... well, you know ...”

“
Guess it wouldn’t look too
dignified, eh, Sheriff?” Prophet said sardonically.

“
Well, dangit, a lawman has to
look professional, you know. And I have a feelin’ more than one or
two people around here aren’t going to want to see ... ”
Fitzsimmons ended the sentence abruptly, looking off and gritting
his teeth as though he wished he hadn’t said as much as he
had.

Prophet thought he understood.
Handling the girl would no doubt require finesse. Some of the men
in town would probably try to intervene, if they had the chance.
Not to mention the people the girl worked for. But Prophet, unlike
the hapless Fitzsimmons, knew how to work around such obstacles.
He’d been doing so for a good many years, and prided himself on his
cunning.

“
Well, it’s about a two-day
stage trip,” Prophet said. “I reckon we can start after I’ve
collected my fee for these hombres—and still get to Johnson City by
the nineteenth.”

“
The show’s supposed to be
through the weekend,” Fitzsimmons warned tauntingly, “so you’re
gonna make her and her handler a might angry.”

“
Well, I guess I should expect to
put up with a little hardship,” Prophet said, trying to get the old
man’s goat as he started off again with the horses. He smiled and
shook his head.

But as he stopped and waited for a
passing string of freight wagons, he pondered the fact that, while
he’d tracked enough thieving and murdering men to fill a good-sized
prison, he’d never hunted a woman before. Especially a showgirl
with a good many surly fans, not to mention a male handler or two.
On the surface, such a job appeared relatively easy. But Prophet
knew from experience to look beneath the surface ... and he wasn’t
sure he liked what he saw.

Besides, he didn’t like the desperate,
cryptic tone of Owen McCreedy’s letter. Prophet knew there was a
lot the sheriff of Johnson City hadn’t told him, and he wondered
why.

As he headed down the street, he
turned a look behind to see Fitzsimmons staring after him with a
big coyote grin on his face.

Two days later. Lou Prophet awakened
in the Queen Bee to see a lovely brunette standing naked before
him. Biggest tits he’d ever seen, much less squeezed.

“
How in the hell old are you,
anyway, Sally?”

The girl looked at him as she bent over to
step into her bloomers, the enormous breasts hanging straight down
before her like oversized hot-water bottles. Her face paint was
smudged, her hair was a mess, and sleep lines creased her face, but
she still looked glamorous for a whore in these parts.