Riding With the Devil's Mistress (Lou Prophet Western #3) (19 page)

They rode for nearly a half
hour before the deputy said,
‘Thanks for your help back there, Mr. Prophet.’
He’d gigged his horse up beside the bounty hunter and looked at him
sincerely. Both his eyes were swollen, but the cuts had
dried.

Prophet nodded.
‘I take it they
took you by surprise from those trees?’

‘
We
didn’t have a chance,’ the deputy said grimly.

They
’d have had a chance if they’d kept
their eyes better peeled, but they were young and inexperienced,
and that’s what happened when you sent three younkers out after
cutthroats like the Red River bunch. But Prophet didn’t give voice
to such thoughts.

‘
It’s
all right, son,’ he said instead. ‘We’ll get your face sewed up by
a sawbones, and you can head back to Yankton with your
comrades.’

His jaw set hard as a steel
rail, the deputy said,
‘I’m not going back to Yankton until I’ve
completed my business here ... or died trying.’

‘
That
ain’t wise.’

‘
You
going after them?’

‘
Yes.’

‘
Then
I’ll ride with you.’

Prophet wagged his head.
‘Nope.’

The deputy flashed an irritated
look at him.
‘Because of how we treated you back at the Ryan
place?’

Prophet chuckled and shook his
head.
‘Son,
I’ve been treated worse by better than you!’

‘
Well
what’s the problem, then?’

‘
I
work alone, that’s all.’

‘
DAVE,
ME AND Sully are easin’ back. We can’t take this heat and
dust.’

Handsome Dave Duvall turned to
the short, wiry man who
’d ridden up beside him in the pack heading north
for Fargo. Duvall laughed. ‘Eddie, you look as green as Kentucky.
How much o’ that bull piss you swill, anyway?’

‘
I
musta downed at least a bottle my ownself,’ Eddie Leach complained.
‘I just can’t ride no more for a while. Me an’ Matt, we’re gonna
throw down somewhere and sleep it off. We’ll meet up with yous at
Cora’s later tonight or early tomorrow.’

‘
Well,
if you don’t, you’re gonna be out one hell of a poke,’ Duvall
warned.

‘
We’ll
be there, Dave,’ Leach said, wincing at the blacksmith hammer
working with fierce abandon at the tender nerves in his
brain.

He reined his horse out from
the pack, letting the group canter past him on the trail. Several
of the men, nearly as sick as he from all the forty-rod
they
’d
swilled the night before and had been unable to sleep off like
they’d planned, sneered at him and cursed, their faces pallid and,
in several cases, the green-yellow of a stormy summer sky. But they
were tough hombres, as tough as Leach had ever seen. They’d
probably stomp some more again tonight.

Just the thought of it made
Leach
’s
bowels roll and his head throb mercilessly. He used to think he
could keep up with these boys, but maybe he couldn’t. Maybe it was
time to try some other group without quite so much vim and vinegar,
so many reprobates fresh from federal lockups.

But, then again, Leach had
never had so much fun terrorizing folks, smashing into homes and
looting trunks and mattresses, raping women and girls, beating and
shooting men. He
’d even run a man through with a pitchfork! Then there was
this girl he’d whipped to death with his belt, just after he’d
...

Leach shook his head. No,
he
’d never
known what fun was until he’d joined up with Dave and the boys. He
guessed he could no more give out on the gang than a child could
give up candy. But boy, oh boy, did he need to grind his heels in
now and sleep off some of that redeye!

He gigged his horse back on the trail, where
Matt Sully stood beside his mount, bent over, hands on his knees,
heaving as though hacking up his innards.

‘
You
find him?’ Leach asked.

Sully lifted his waxen face and
growled,
‘Who?’

‘
That
Ralph you keep calling for.’

Leach smiled in spite of his swirling bowels
and throbbing eyeballs. But when Sully barfed again, the green bile
from his tormented guts splatting on the grassy turf, Leach lost
his own cookies—or whatever was left in there— down the side of his
saddle.

‘
Goddamnit!’ he groused. ‘Look what you made me do to my
stirrup!’

The tall, greasy-haired Sully
donned his battered, rain-stained hat, and legged it over his
saddle, hunkering over his horn as though chilled.
‘Come on,’ he
rasped. ‘Let’s head for that tree yonder ... get some
shut-eye.’

Spatting the foul taste from
his mouth, Leach followed Sully toward a large cottonwood poking up
in the west. It was the only landmark out here, and the only tree
they
’d seen
since crossing a creek about five miles back. This flat land was
all stirrup-high grass and sky, and Leach vaguely wondered how, on
a cloudy day, you ever knew which direction you were
headed.

Bees buzzed and the hot sun
beat down, making Leach
’s head thunder even worse. He was glad when he
and Sully finally made the cottonwood, which offered sizable shade
on the south side of its trunk. The wind in its leaves made a cool,
fresh sound, sporadically distracting Leach from his
misery.

The outlaw tore the leather
from his horse in a daze. When he
’d hobbled the animal beside Sully’s, he
grabbed his bedroll, spread it out beside the tree, lay carefully
down on his back, crossed his arms over his chest, and tipped his
hat over his eyes.

Sully did likewise, and both men were sound
asleep in minutes.

A half hour later, Leach opened
his eyes and lifted his head. He looked around at the sun-washed
grass.
‘What
was that?’

He looked at Sully, who lay on his side,
sweating, his eyes pinched shut, his lips moving as he dreamed.

‘
Hey,
Sully,’ Leach said, nudging the other man’s arm.

Sully opened his eyes
angrily.
‘Leave me alone, god-damnit!’

‘
Didn’t you hear it?’

‘
Hear
what?’

‘
I
don’t know—that’s what I’m askin’ you.’

Sully grunted with
exasperation, then closed his eyes
and repositioned his head on his saddle.
‘Shut up and let me sleep. I know one thing—I’m goin’ back to
Wahpeton first chance I get, and I’m gonna make that apron guzzle a
whole bottle of his own busthead... see how he likes
it.’

With that, Sully fell back asleep.

Leach looked around again. Only the sound of
the wind in the cottonwood and grass broke the quiet. Occasionally
a fly buzzed and one of the horses tore at the grass or snorted,
but that was all. Finally deciding that he must have dreamed the
sound that had awakened him, Leach eased his still-aching head back
onto his saddle, and closed his eyes.

But then he heard it again—a
sound like a girl singing far off in the distance. Leach
couldn
’t
make out the words, but it sounded like a song a child might sing
on a playground. It owned a haunting, dirge like quality, and it
came and went on the breeze.

‘
Damn
it all!’ he groused.

He looked around again, shielding his eyes
against the afternoon sun with his hand, blinking against the drum
throbbing within his skull. All he saw were the horses and the
wind-ruffled grass. Finally, with another curse, he gained his feet
and scoured the distance in a full circle with his eyes. He
expected to see a farm somewhere along the horizon, where kids
might be playing.

But nothing ...

What the hell... ?

He was about to sit back down when heard the
keening sound again. Swinging around, he looked to his right and
saw a tree way off in the distance. It had to be a half mile away,
all alone amidst the tawny, sunburned grass.

The singing, if that was what
you
’d call
it, seemed to originate from over near the other tree.

Leach swung his gaze back to
Sully, who slept with his eyebrows rumpled and a heavy sheen of
sweat above his
mouth. No use trying to wake him. He’d just curse some more
and go back to sleep. But there was no way Leach could relax, not
hearing that damn ghost sing her damn song in his ear, just loud
enough to give him the willies.

Who in the hell was she,
anyway?
Where
in the hell was she?

Wrapping his gunbelt around his
waist and cinching the buckle, he started walking toward the other
tree, which appeared a thin shadow from this distance. Every once
in a while, just when he was about to turn back, he heard the
girl
’s high,
sonorous voice. She seemed to be calling to him, beckoning him
toward the cottonwood growing slowly on the horizon, all alone in
the sea of ruffling, shadow-swept grass.

When Leach was within fifty yards of the
cottonwood, which looked like a mirror image of the one he and
Sully had chosen for their naps, he stopped. A black horse stood
beneath the tree, its reins tied to the trunk. The horse nickered
when it saw Leach, and twitched its ears. The horse blew and shook
its head, watching Leach warily.

Leach scowled, peeling his lips
back from his teeth.
‘Now what in the hell...’

He saw something hanging from the branch
above the horse. Unable to make out what it was from this distance,
he walked forward several more steps. He stopped again, feeling
something wet and cool skitter along his spine.

What hung from the branch above
the horse was a noose. A hangman
’s noose ... swaying in the
wind....

Suddenly, a figure stepped out
from behind the tree. Leach
’s heart jumped into his throat, and he reached
for his six-shooter, but stopped when he heard a hammer ratchet
back.

‘
Uh-uh,’ the girl said.

Leach froze, lifted his head to
look at her. She was, indeed, a girl—a fair-faced, blue-eyed
blonde, hay-colored hair ruffling in the wind. She held a
silver-plated
revolver on him. Had him dead to rights, too.

Leach screwed up his face at
her, befuddled.
‘What... what you doin’ out here, Missy?’

‘
Waitin’ for you, sir.’

‘
Me?’

‘
Yeah,
you.’ She raised the gun higher, then moved her head to one side a
little, indicating the noose. ‘That’s for you.’

‘
Me?’
Leach smiled nervously. He suddenly wondered if this were a joke
the gang was pulling on him, to razz him about his hangover. But
who was this girl? Where in the hell had they found her...
?

No. Couldn
’t be.

‘
You
murdered my family,’ the girl said tightly, her pretty eyes
squinting mean. ‘You played a part in it... I remember you. I
remember your face from your dodger, too, Eddie Leach.’

At the sound of his name,
Leach
’s face
flattened out, and his eyes gained a fearful cast. ‘What are you
talking about, girl?’

‘
I’m
talking about Roseville, Nebraska. Last year, about this same time.
A little farm on Pebble Creek. My mother and father. My two sisters
and my brother. You killed ‘em all after you savaged my mother and
sisters.’

Leach was amazed at how steady she held the
gun while she spoke with such passion. The barrel was aimed
directly at his heart. He was trying to think back to a year ago,
trying to remember a place called Roseville.

The girl read his mind.
‘Oh, you won’t
remember it, I’m sure, Mr. Leach,’ she said, her voice heavy with
sarcasm. ‘I’m sure there are far too many such atrocities in your
history to remember just one family on Pebble Creek. Just take it
from me—you were there. You and the others in your gang took my
family away from me forever, and now you’re gonna pay for it. Climb
up on that horse and put your head through that noose.’

Leach could barely feel his hangover
anymore, barely register the throbbing in his brain. Fear had
overcome him. Fear and exasperation that this little snot-nosed
girl thought she could get by with such a thing.

Anger flattening his eyes, he
snarled,
‘I... I ain’t climbin’ up on no horse... and I ain’t
stickin’ my neck through no noose, Little Miss.’

‘
You’ll die now, then.’

She closed one eye, sighting down the
barrel.

He threw up his hands.
‘Wait, wait, wait!’
he cried. ‘Wait a minute now. You don’t wanna do this.’

‘
I’m
going to give you to the count of three,’ the girl said. ‘Then I’m
going to sink one forty-five-caliber slug through your lung and
leave you to choke to death on your own blood.’