The Devil's Lair (A Lou Prophet Western #6) (15 page)

He wore torn denims and a faded undershirt
beneath a vest sewn from elk hide. A wool watch cap sat low on his
freckled forehead, his corn-yellow hair poking out from underneath
the cap, soft as goose down. Fine yellow whiskers ran down from his
sideburns, thinning to nothing along his jaw. A sparse yellow
mustache rode atop his mouth, barely visible until the sun hit it
right, causing individual strands to glisten.

He wore a battered .38 in a soft leather
holster flapping loose against his thigh. He kicked the ribs of his
old nag, trying to keep up with the fine, broad-chested paint of
his steely-eyed companion who rode taut-backed in his saddle, his
right hand caressing the grips of his glistening .44.

Young Gaelin had ridden out to
the little ten-cow ranch where Leo Embry worked with his uncles
when he wasn
’t practicing his fast draw against trash heap rats and
vegetable tins. Gaelin had relayed to Embry the news of the
Thorson-Mahoney Gang’s demise at the hand of a Rebel bounty hunter
named Prophet.

Embry had been young
Gaelin
’s hero
since the time, a few months back, when he’d watched Embry
pistol-whip a braggy gambler behind the Mother Lode Saloon before
sending the man, tied belly-down across his saddle, galloping out
of town.

Now the two riders ducked under a
clothesline, trotted through the wind-buffeting trash of a vacant
lot, and reined to a halt on Main Street. The older of the two
swung his hard expression up and down the street, squinting and
rolling his eyes around in their sockets.

“
He’d be in a saloon, no doubt,”
the younger man said, keeping his voice low and serious, trying to
sound as tough as his older companion looked.

“
Maybe, maybe not,” Embry
muttered self-importantly after a moment, raking his squinting gaze
along the boardwalks.

It was midday, and farm and ranch wagons
clattered along the wide, rutted Main Street, which was only three
blocks long and intersected by two side streets. Horse-backers rode
in twos and threes—drifters mostly, with a few ranch hands here and
there, heading for the harness shop, feed store, or mercantile, on
errands for their employers.

It was quiet by Bitter
Creek
’s night
standards, but several sporting girls plied their scantily clad
wares from saloon balconies. One—a toothless half-breed—stood on a
street corner, flashing her bare breasts at passing riders, a few
of whom hooted and yelled obscenities while others simply ignored
her. “Mad Mary” had been working the same corner so long that she’d
become invisible to all but strangers.

Young Gaelin Murphy stared at her, revulsion
spoking his eyes and curling his thin upper lip.

Leo Embry reached out to swat
his shoulder.
“You get you a good eyeful, Gaelin, my boy,” he said with
mocking humor. “You and her’ll be playin’ slap ’n’ tickle next
month.”

The younger
lad
’s lip
twitched as he stared. “I don’t want nothin’ to do with that buggy
half-breed. Why, she’d curl the tail of a gut-wagon
cur.”

“
No?”

The older lad
’s steely stare was fastened on
the creature performing a macabre, half-clad two-step with an
awning post. Opening her hide dress with one hand, she extended her
other arm to two passing riders, hooking her fingers and cackling
like a Halloween ghoul.

Strands of long, gray-black hair framed her
wide, flat face and the breasts that hung to her belly, like water
flasks, the nipples tilted toward her feet.

“
I’ll admit she ain’t no Lillie
Langtry, but limber your pecker up, boy,” Embry continued. “Every
kid in the
county has to give her a poke when he turns seventeen.
Those are the rules. Course I threw my guts up afterwards and was
pickin’ bugs from my crotch for the next two months, but by God, I
did it!”

Somehow, he chuckled without smiling, only
jerking his shoulders slightly and making soft snorting sounds. He
reined his horse left up Main Street, around a two-seater buggy
parked before the gunsmith shop.

Inwardly recoiling at the
prospect of coupling with Mad Mary, but figuring if Embry did it,
then by God he
’d do it too, Gaelin gigged his nag after the handsome
paint, tracing a path through the buckboards and mining drays. The
riders shuttled their gazes from one side of the street to the
other, then reined up before Hobbs’ Livery Stables and Feed
Barn.

Embry turned to Gaelin, his
expression grim.
“No sign of the son of a bitch, eh?”

Gaelin shook his head.
“Prob’ly in one of
the whorehouses.”

“
I’ll find him,” Embry said,
leading his horse up the long ramp, through the barn’s gaping
doors, and into the cool, dusky interior rife with animal
smells.

Embry called into the shadows,
down the central alley lined with three leather-topped buggies and
several
buckboards, tongues drooping to the hay-strewn,
dung-littered floor. A figure stepped out of the shadows wielding a
pitchfork—a fat youngster with freckles, deep-sunk eyes, and a
shaved scalp. He wore tattered overalls over his fish-belly-white
torso that boasted breasts the size of a chubby girl in her
teens.

“
Hey, Leo,” he said, running his
admiring gaze up and down the young gunslick’s natty duds, letting
his eyes linger on the Remington in Embry’s holster. He swallowed
with emotion. “You gonna ... you gonna ... ?”

“
You know what I’m here for,
Fats,” Embry said coolly. “You seen the son of a bitch
lately?”

Fats nodded.
“’Bout an hour ago, I seen him
headin’ for Gert’s. I told Richy Searls to give a coyote yell if he
seen him leave, and I ain’t heard nothin’ so far…”

His expression all business, Embry dug in
his pocket and flipped a nickel at Fats, who snapped it expertly
out of the air and grinned.

“
Unsaddle our horses and curry
’em good. Give ’em plenty of water and oats. I’ll be back in an
hour.”

“
Uh ... what about Mr.
Crumb?”

Embry knew the mayor was out of
town, but he said snidely,
“Fuck Mr. Crumb.”

He turned, glanced at Gaelin meaningfully,
then sauntered down the ramp, his thumbs hooked inside his
cartridge belt.

“
Be careful, Leo,” Fats called,
holding the reins of Embry’s paint with one hand and tossing the
nickel in the air with the other. “I mean, you heard what he did to
the gang ... him and that girl...”

“
Yeah, I heard what he done,”
Embry grumbled, turning at the end of the ramp and heading down
Main Street.

Gaelin hurried after him while
holding his pistol against his thigh. Gaelin caught up to the older
lad but had to jog every fourth step to keep up as
Embry
’s legs
were several inches longer than the boy’s.

“
What do you think, Embry? Can we
take the son of a bitch?”

“
My cousin went down,” Embry said
tightly, staring straight ahead, chin down, the brim of his hat
hiding his eyes. “I can take—” He jerked a look at the youngster.
“What do you mean ‘we’?”

“
I wanna help, Leo. I wanna be a
famous gunman, just like you. I’ll play your back.”

“
Play my... ?” Embry frowned,
then sneered. “You mean, back my play.”

“
Can I, Leo?”

Embry looked at the youngster
critically, enjoying the
kid’s admiring, beseeching gaze. He pretended to
think about it.

Actually, he
’d already made up his mind.
He’d never faced a short-trigger man before, and a cold knot of
fear tightened just above his belt buckle. He wouldn’t have
admitted such a thing in a million years, but he liked the idea of
having someone—even a snot-nosed brat with a rusty .38—back his
play.

“
I reckon you can tag along,” he
said finally, nodding dully. “But stay behind me, and for
chrissakes, don’t make any noise! I gotta warn you, though, it’s
gonna be bloody.”

“
Blood don’t bother me, Leo,” the
kid said, one hand on his gun grips. “You won’t be sorry, Leo—I
promise!”

Embry snorted and said nothing to his young
partner, maintaining a hard expression as he and Gaelin approached
the cafe.

Embry paused in the yard, scrutinizing the
one-and-a-half-story clapboard-and-whitewashed structure with a few
geraniums and yucca planted around the foundation, rubbing his jaw
thoughtfully.

“
What we gonna do? How we gonna
play it?”

“
Follow me and keep your mouth
shut.”

They walked Indian-file around
the south side of the building, ducking under two windows. At the
cafe
’s rear,
Embry sidled up to the first sashed window and edged a quick look
inside.

Turning to Gaelin standing
behind him, back to the shack
’s wall, he shook his head. He ducked under the
window and, young Gaelin aping his every step and move, edged to
the next window, on the other side of a small door.

Embry removed his hat, turned to the
building, and edged his left eye across the frame and over the
glass. Seeing two figures inside, he jerked his eye back behind the
wall, took a deep, calming breath, and stole another look.

Inside the small room behind the
foggy window glass, a small iron stove stood against the left wall,
topped with a
steaming copper kettle. Before the stove, two people sat
facing each other in a big, porcelain tub.

Embry couldn
’t see clearly because of the
moisture, but the two appeared to be relaxing, heads thrown back on
their shoulders. Squinting, he saw that one was the big bounty
hunter; the other was Frieda Schwartzenberger.

Leo Embry snickered. His loins
twitched. He
’d always fantasized about rolling the big, sexy German
woman, but whenever he’d tried flirting with her, she’d merely
laughed and told him to come back when the green was off his
horns.

His mouth tightened as jealousy now mixed
with anger.

Rolling his glance away from the
tub, Embry saw a pistol and cartridge belt hanging from a wall
hook, to the left of and above a sawed-off shotgun and a
Winchester
’73.

Embry turned to Gaelin, watching him
nervously.

“
Wait here,” he whispered. “Keep
your head down so they don’t see you. When you hear me kick that
inside door, you go in through there.” He gestured to the small
back door leading into the pantry. “And for godsakes, watch where
you aim that old blunderbuss of yours.”

“
You got it, Embry.”

The older lad walked around to the front and
entered the cafe by the main door. He walked through the tables
upon which midday sunlight lay, washing in through the windows
Frieda kept clean as crystal.

Pushing through the swinging door, he
entered the kitchen, saw the skinned deer carcass hanging in the
back, near a six-foot plank table, then stepped past the big black
range to a door in the left wall. His nostrils twitched at the
heavy smell of onions emanating from a stew pot simmering on the
range.

Embry considered the door for a
moment, feeling his heart thumping heavily, then quickly, his skin
tingling. He took a deep breath and smiled, hearing his name tossed
around the saloons that night. Soon, it would make it to
Cheyenne and points
north and south along the Burlington Northern Line. Everyone from
lawmen to line girls would be kissing his butt shortly.

No more brush-popping calves and
year-old heifers out at his uncle
’s ten-cow spread north of the Buckskin
Hills ... No, sir, no more of that bullshit for Leo
Embry!

Eventually,
high rollers would be calling
for him... men who needed other men turned beneath the
sod.

Eyes bright, lips pulled back from his
teeth, barely able to choke down the gleeful chuckle rising in his
chest, Embry lifted one of the tooled boots he was still paying for
and kicked the door.

It slammed back against the wall as Embry
rushed inside, gun extended. A sudden, inexplicable burning
engulfed him.

“
Ahhhhhhhhhh!”
he screamed. His
face, head, and shoulders burned as though he’d been dunked in an
acid vat.

Looking down, he saw steaming water washing
over the floorboards, soaking his boots. The skin of his scalp felt
as though it were punctured by a million sharp pins. He stumbled
forward, screaming and firing the Remington blindly, squeezing his
eyes closed against the burn.

Naked and still wet from the bath, Lou
Prophet watched from a kneeling position beside the stove. He held
his cocked .45 in his right hand.

He
’d heard the hushed voices outside the
bathhouse window and seen the figures through the cracks between
the vertical siding planks. Quickly but quietly, he and Frieda had
slipped out of the tub. She’d retreated to the kitchen while he’d
propped the boiling pot on the narrow shelf above the door,
connecting its handle to the doorknob with twine he’d found in his
jeans pocket.

Now he winced as his would-be
attacker
’s
face turned the red of a Georgia sunset. The kid dropped his
revolver, lifted his chin to the ceiling, and screamed.