Hell's Angel (26 page)

35

ONE OF THE
dwarf's men, Leon “Blue Snake” Sumner, halted his Appaloosa and scowled up the slope ahead of him and his partner, Ralph Dodge, until the blue snakes tattooed on both of Blue Snake's cheeks slithered up high under his eyes. He cuffed his low-crowned black sombrero back off his forehead.

“What the hell is it?” Dodge had ridden on past Blue Snake but now, seeing Blue Snake stopped behind him, reined up his chestnut.

“You tell me.” Blue Snake stared up the rocky slope from which the orange sunlight and heat emanated like nearly palpable waves.

Dodge followed his partner's gaze to a woman in men's rough trail clothes and a blue bandanna sitting atop a flat boulder that was shaded by another, larger boulder farther up the slope. The boulders were the size of small cabins, and the woman looked tiny against them. That she was a woman, however, was obvious. Two large mounds pushed out her red-and-black calico shirt as she sat with her legs hanging down over the side of the boulder. A pale garment of some kind—an undergarment?—sat rumpled beside her shapely left thigh. Dodge blinked as he stared at the blouse.

It was unbuttoned, revealing the deep valley between the woman's tits!

“Hey!” Dodge said, startled and raising the Colt revolving rifle that had been resting across his saddlebow. “Who the hell are you?”

“I'm from town,” came the woman's soft-spoken reply. “And I'm hot and thirsty.” She rose slowly until she was standing at the edge of the boulder. “You fellas wouldn't have a drink of water to spare, would you?”

Dodge looked at Blue Snake, who stared up the slope as though mesmerized. “I don't know,” he said, grinning. “What's in it for us?”

Dodge laughed at that. The tug in his groin tempered his apprehension.

The woman smiled, slitting her eyes. Then she reached up and slid the blouse off her shoulders, held it out in one hand, and let it sail down onto the boulder a few feet away, near the pale under-frilly she'd already removed. “These do?”

“Oh, my Lord!” Blue Snake hit the ground running.

He bolted up the slope, slipping and sliding and falling and pushing off the ground as he dug his spurred heels into the sand, gravel, and rocks. Ralph Dodge ran up the slope behind him, both men holding rifles, their horses switching their tails warily in the trail behind them.

They were laughing and breathing hard, eyes riveted on the bare-breasted woman standing atop the boulder before them. Blue Snake frowned when the woman suddenly turned and stepped into a dark niche between the two boulders. At the same time, a big man in a buckskin shirt and faded Levi's stepped out of the niche, holding a savagely cut-down, double-barrel coach gun in both hands.

Prophet smiled as the two men ran up the slope toward him, the one with the blue snakes tattooed on his cheeks about six feet in front of the other man who was shorter and wore a fringed elk-skin vest and fringed elk-skin breeches.

“Oh, shit!” Blue Snake yelled a half second before Prophet squeezed the gut shredder's left trigger and watched the man's head turn red and bounce down the slope behind him.

The second man screamed as he watched his headless partner fall forward and drop to his knees while his shaggy head bounced down the slope on his left. Prophet's barn blaster roared a second time, punching buckshot through the second man's chest, lifting him three feet up off the slope and hurling him straight back in the direction from which he and his partner had come.

He landed on his back, turned a backward somersault, and then rolled down to where both horses had been standing only two seconds ago, before the twin cannon-like reports had sent them galloping off across a shoulder of the mountain.

Prophet breeched the smoking shotgun and glanced toward the gap between the two boulders.

“Don't come back out here,” he told Ruth, who stood in the shaded gap, holding her hands across her breasts. “This here little cannon is right efficient but what it does to a man ain't purty.”

Ruth stared at him from between the rocks. Her eyes dropped to the broken shotgun as Prophet plucked out the spent wads and replaced them with fresh from his shell belt. She lifted her eyes to his. “We work well together, you and me.”

Prophet snapped the gun closed. He reached down and picked up her blouse and chemise and handed them to her.

“But then, you and Miss Bonaventure work well together, too, don't you?” She tilted her head to one side, scrutinizing his reaction, as she dropped the chemise over her head, her breasts jostling freely until the cotton undergarment covered them.

“We used to.”

He looked around. The large gang that he'd seen galloping up the slopes from the direction of town had split off into twos and threes to scour the mountains for him and his three partners. That's when they'd split up into twos, as well, to fight the gang Apache style in the rugged foothills and rocky mesas of the Chisos Mountains.

Louisa and Colter Farrow were somewhere off to the north.

“Come on,” he said, when Ruth had buttoned her blouse. He brushed past her, took her hand, and began leading her out the backside of the niche toward where he'd tied Mean and Ugly. “Let's see if we can't run one o' them horses down for you. And then I'm gonna send you the hell on out of here.”

She stopped, jerked her hand from his grasp. “What're you talking about?”

He turned to her, standing in the shade of the boulders, wisps of hair blowing out from the sides of the bandanna tied over her head. The sun had bronzed her freckled skin, and there was an earthy light in her eyes. Her hair flowed freely across her shoulders, touched with the dust and grit of the mountains. How different she looked now from the woman he'd known their one night together in the hotel. She almost looked like a wild Apache, out here in these mountains.

“This ain't your fight, Ruth.”

She gave a brassy laugh. “It was my fight long before it was ever yours!”

“I don't want you dyin' out here.”

“That isn't your decision.” Ruth held his gaze. “You and the others might be better suited to fighting, but I'm going to stay with you, Lou, and do my part, however small it is.”

“You've already done that.”

“With the only weapons I had at the time.” She smiled broadly. “Maybe it's time for me to start shooting. You must have a gun I can borrow. A knife . . .
anything
!”

He saw that wild, confident flicker in her eyes again. It made him think of Lozen, the fierce Chiricahua warrior woman and sister to Chief Victorio. Like Lozen, Ruth didn't care if she lived or died, but she was bound and determined to go down fighting the men who'd made life miserable for her for too long and who'd murdered her husband.

Prophet couldn't argue with her fierce determination. What's more, he didn't want to.

“All right,” he said, wrapping an arm around the stalwart woman's waist and kissing her. “You got it.” He took her hand again. “Come on!”

* * *

Colter Farrow stepped around a thumb of rock, holding his Winchester straight up and down in his hands. He glanced around the rock wall on his right, then jerked his head back behind the rock and doffed his hat.

Two riders were moving along the canyon below his perch here on the side of a sun-scorched bluff. He'd just caught a glimpse of them, but now he could hear the slow clomps and occasional blows of their tired horses.

Colter reached up with his left gloved hand and slid several locks of his long, blowing red hair back behind his ear and then very slowly shoved his head forward until he could see into the canyon with his left eye.

The riders continued moving down the canyon. One was Mexican. One was a black man with a green neckerchief. They both rode slowly, holding their horses' reins taut in one hand, rifles barrel up in the other. They were coming on cautiously, looking from one side of the canyon to the other.

They'd picked up Colter's and Louisa's trail back where Colter had hoped they would, and followed them into the canyon, also as he'd hoped.

Movement to Colter's left. He turned to see Louisa move slowly amongst the boulders at the edge of the bluff and then stop about ten feet away from Colter, pressing her back against the boulder behind her.

She looked at Colter. He held her gaze, and he was thinking that she was the most beautiful, beguiling creature he'd ever known while at the same time he jerked his thumb toward the canyon and the two approaching riders.

She slid her eyes away from him as she nudged her hat back off her head, letting it hang down her back by her horsehair chin thong, and squeezed her carbine in her hands. Her blond hair fluttered about her ears and cheeks that were both the color and texture of fresh-whipped butter. They contrasted the deep hazel of her bold, lustrous eyes that always seemed to be harboring a secret and that made his groin literally ache, though he'd suspected she was Lou Prophet's girl.

Christ, who was he kidding? She may have been only a few years older than he, but she was older than her years, heart-twistingly beautiful, and tougher than a hickory knot. Besides, no girl would fall for a kid with a big, nasty, knotted-up brand on his face. That wasn't self-pity talking; that was just horse sense.

He wanted to look good for her, though. It was in his loins to do that. Hell, you never knew what might happen . . .

Louisa pulled her beautiful, hazel-eyed, fine-nosed head back from view of the canyon. Colter held his hand up to her, palm out, waylaying her, and then he slowly raised his rifle and even more slowly ratcheted the hammer back to full cock.

“Easy, Red,” she whispered.

He wasn't sure he liked her calling him that. With Prophet, it was all right—it meant they were partners. With her it sounded a tad patronizing.

“Don't you worry,” Colter said silently as he continued to raise the rifle while Louisa pressed her back against the boulder behind her, just out of view of the canyon floor. “I been to see the elephant my own self, Miss Bonaventure. You just see how it's done . . .”

That thought caused the corners of his mouth to quirk slightly upward. This girl obviously didn't need to be taught anything by anyone, much less by him. But he'd become right handy with his shooting irons over the past several years. While he'd prefer to be raising and breaking horses at home in the Lunatic Mountains where he'd been raised, instead of running from bounty hunters all up and down the frontier, in this girl's intoxicating presence he felt the swell of his young man's pride and the need to show off a bit.

He shoved his rifle barrel out away from the thumb of rock and slanted it down toward the riders who were now nearly directly below him, and quickly laid both beads on the head of the rider nearest him. As he started to draw his finger back against the trigger, a bullet screeched wickedly off the escarpment about one foot above him and to his right.

A quarter second later, a rifle cracked on the far side of the canyon, and a man over there who Colter hadn't seen shouted, “Ambush, boys!
Ammm-bushhhh!
”

36

COLTER'S RIGHT EAR
rang from the scream of the ricocheting lead. He could feel blood running down his cheek that had been cut by flying rock slivers.

But he stayed his ground and quickly laid his sights once more on the head of the rider nearest him. It wasn't as easy a shot as it would have been a second ago, before the third man had alerted the two riders, but he took it, anyway, and smiled in satisfaction as the rider who'd just started to gallop for cover flew down the side of his horse to pile up on the canyon floor.

In the corner of his left eye, Colter saw Louisa drop to one knee and face the canyon as she raised her carbine to her shoulder.

As she opened up on the man who'd been nestled in the rocks on the far side of the canyon—
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam-bam!
—Colter fired three more quick rounds, emptying the saddle of the second rider and sending his horse galloping after the first.

“Damn!” he said, staring down through his and Louisa's powder smoke at the man Louisa had shot and who now lay sprawled on his back half out of the niche he must have been hiding in.

“Teach you to stare at a girl's tits when you should be watchin' out for ambushes, Red!”

“Hey, I wasn't!”

Louisa jerked around just as Colter heard the thud of galloping horses behind them.

“Two more!” the girl shouted.

She ran back through the boulders and several yards down the back of the ridge. Colter followed her, his ears burning with chagrin, as Louisa dropped to a knee and aimed at one of the two riders galloping toward them from the south, up a shallow grade stippled with cactus.

She blew the first rider off his horse with ease. Her second shot plumed dust behind the second man. Colter raised his own Winchester quickly. The rifle leaped and roared, spitting fire.

The second rider jerked back in his saddle, dropping one of his reins and clapping that hand to his leather-clad chest, near the long, red tail of his neckerchief. As he started to fall forward, Louisa's Winchester roared, blowing the man back flat against the horse's hindquarters. He started to slide down the horse's left hip but then the horse gave a shrill whinny, dropped to its knees and turned a forward somersault.

The rider must have gotten his left boot hung up in the stirrup, because he flew like a ragdoll, obscured by flying dust, up over the horse's head before the stirrup jerked him violently down once more and out of sight beneath the horse that immediately started to rise. The man gave a shrill, short-lived scream.

As the horse shook itself, causing the saddle to slide down its side, it sidled away unsteadily, addled. The rising dust revealed its rider sprawled on his side, only the long tail of his neckerchief moving as the breeze caught and waved it.

“Damn, Red, we make a good team!” Louisa turned to Colter and planted a soft, wet kiss on his lips, her tongue gently pressing against his own and instantly warming his volatile young loins. She pulled her head away and winked one of those lustrous hazel eyes. “But the admonition of before stands. Come on—there's no rest for the wicked!”

Colter stared after her as she swung around and began running down the ridge toward the canyon floor, meandering around rocks with her rifle on her shoulder. His mind spun. He could still feel her mouth on his, her tongue pressing against his own.

Then he leaped forward and ran after her, breathing hard.

At the bottom of the canyon, one of the five men they'd shot was trying to crawl away. Louisa strode purposefully up to him, stopped, and delivered a single killing shot from her shoulder, causing the man's head to bounce violently as blood and brain matter splattered the ground beneath him.

“Holy shit,” Colter whispered, running a sleeve across his sweaty forehead. “I've never known a woman like you before, Miss Louisa.”

“And you probably don't know what to think.”

Colter looked at the man she'd just sent to Glory. The man's high-heeled, dark brown, silver-spurred boots were still kicking. “No, I reckon not.”

“Just don't fall in love with me, Red. Lou did that . . . and paid the price.”

She trotted east along the canyon floor, heading toward where they'd hid their horses. “What price is that?” Colter called after her.

“He's not done tallying it yet!” Louisa beckoned as she ran. “Come on, Red. We got more riders comin'!”

Colter heard the hooves and turned to see a triangle of riders galloping toward him from the west end of the canyon. “Shit!” The keenness of the girl's eyes was second only to her ears.

Colter followed her into a narrow canyon that fed the main one, and they mounted up and rode north out of the gap. Once they were in the open desert, Colter, riding beside Louisa, glanced over his shoulder. The riders were hot after them, maybe a hundred yards away and closing.

He looked at Louisa. She must have been reading his mind, because when she'd glanced back to see their pursuers, she turned to Colter and said, “We'll get shed of them after the next hill.”

Colter grinned and turned his head forward, tugging his hat low over his eyes to keep it from blowing off in the hot, dry wind. But when they were halfway up the next hill, winding around boulders and cactus snags, a man's voice shouted, “Keep ridin'!”

Colter and Louisa both jerked looks to their right to see Prophet wave his shotgun from a nest of rocks and scrub brush. He was kneeling on his hat. Ruth Rose was on the other side of the trail and slightly higher on the hill, aiming a rifle over the top of a low, flat boulder. Colter recognized her by her long, brown hair and yellow bandanna.

“Speak of the devil!” Louisa shouted as she crested the hill before plunging down the other side.

Behind them Prophet shouted,
“Keep a-ridin'—there's a half-dozen more o' these curs over the next ridge!”

Colter looked at Louisa as he galloped just off her pinto's left hip. She glanced back at him, scowling. “I told you he was bossy!”

She crouched low over her galloping horse's neck and batted her heels again the mount's flanks, urging more speed.

* * *

Prophet crouched against the boulder, his shotgun in one hand, his rifle in the other. He stared toward the seven riders galloping toward him in a jostling, dusty wedge—seventy yards away and closing quickly.

He looked slightly up the grade behind him and north, where Ruth hunkered behind another boulder, a rifle he'd taken off one of the men he'd killed in her hands. She'd promised she knew how to wield the weapon, had even been a fair shot back in the Ozarks from where she hailed, though it had been several years since she'd fired such a weapon.

He'd told her to take her time, line up the sights on her target, and squeeze the trigger slow.

He hunkered lower, pressing his left cheek up against the backside of the boulder to make certain he wasn't seen before he wanted to be. He'd let her take the first shot, because she'd probably only get one. He knew it was important to her to get at least one. Then he'd cut loose with his rifle and barn blaster.

He glanced toward her again but could see only her boots. She'd assumed a prone position and was probably lining up her sights on the far side of her covering boulder. Prophet gritted his teeth.

Come on, Ruth, they're gettin' close. . . .

The ground vibrated beneath him as the riders approached to within fifty yards . . . forty. . . .

Ruth's rifle cracked. At the same time the
ka-pewww!
reached Prophet's ears, he heard a metallic thunk. The rifle of one of the two lead riders flew out of his hands. He screamed and clutched his arm, releasing one of his reins and sagging back in his saddle, his hat tumbling back off his head.

Prophet rose to a knee and commenced hastily lining up his sights and firing. The spent cartridges flew up over his right shoulder as, one after another, three riders were thrown from their saddles. Another dropped down the far side of his horse and was dragged by his stirrup on up the trail behind his wildly buck-kicking mount.

Prophet heaved himself to his feet and took a step forward as three still-seated riders brought their horses to skidding stops and turned their rifles on him. The rider on the far right fired a wild shot from his shaky perch, and Prophet punched a round through his throat. As the man tossed his rifle aside as though it were a hot potato and grabbed his throat, Prophet lined up his sights on one of the other three riders and squeezed the trigger.

The hammer pinged on an empty chamber.

He tossed the Winchester aside. As the other two riders galloped toward him, bellowing curses, Prophet ran forward, reaching for his shotgun and swinging it around before him. The two riders came at him, crouched low, one firing a rifle while the other triggered his pistols one at a time.

Bullets screeched around Prophet, who ran ahead to meet the attack head-on.

He triggered his right barrel at the man on the right, blowing him straight back off his horse while triggering a shot from midair, screaming. Prophet dove forward and hit the ground on his belly as the second rider galloped past him on his left.

Prophet swung the gut shredder around and cut loose with the second barrel just as the second rider curveted his horse. The double-ought buck tore into the killer's left arm and shoulder and tore a couple of red chunks from his face.

Prophet slid the empty shotgun behind him, unholstered his Colt, raised it, and fired.

“You fuckin' son of a
bitch
!” the killer screamed, his cream duster billowing as a bullet tore into his side.

He cocked his carbine and ground his heels into his horse's flanks. The white-socked black lunged off its rear heels and galloped toward Prophet, its eyes white-ringed with fear. Prophet fired the Colt again, again, and again, watched dust puff from the rider's duster, and then he dove to his left. One of the black's hooves clipped Prophet's right heel as he hit the ground and rolled as two slugs hammered the dirt and gravel around him.

Ignoring the gnawing pain in his tender ribs, Prophet pushed to his knees. The man had stopped the black and was looking at Prophet. His duster had more red on it than white, and it sagged off his broad shoulders. Blood from Prophet's buckshot slithered down his right cheek.

Prophet shook his head. “You ain't dead
yet
?”

The man grinned, shook his head. With both hands, he raised the carbine.

The man's head jerked sharply to his right. He dropped his arms. The rifle fell to the ground. When the man lifted his head again, his brown bowler hat was gone, and the entire right side of his head was painted red and white from blood and brains.

He sagged slowly to his right. As his horse turned to start running back in the direction from which it had come, the rider fell out of the saddle, hit the ground, rolled once, and lay still.

Prophet turned to see Ruth walking toward him slowly, aiming her rifle from her hip. She held her yellow bandanna in her teeth, and it flapped around her neck in the wind that also tussled her hair, lifted dust, and tore at the lingering powder smoke.

“Now, that,” Prophet said, “was the shootin' of an Ozark Mountain gal! Good to know that about you.” He gave a devilish wink.

She smiled as she lowered the rifle and strode toward him, taking her bandanna in her hand. She frowned, stopped suddenly, and stared down at his side.

“Oh, Lou!”

“What is it?”

He looked down. Blood spotted his sweat-soaked and filthy buckskin shirt above his right hip.

“Ah, shit,” he complained. “I thought I just landed on a pointy ol' rock!”

His seeing the blood and the ragged hole in his side caused the wound to fire war lances of sharp pain all through him. Odd how that was, he absently thought as his right knee started to buckle. He chuckled, a little giddy.

Ruth lurched toward him, wrapped his right arm around her neck, and led him over to a rock. He sat down heavily, winced against the pain, and blinked to clear his spotty vision.

“Oh, Lou!” Ruth said, sandwiching his big face in her hands, her eyes shiny. “Don't you go and die on me, you big bastard!”