Staring Down the Devil (A Lou Prophet Western #5) (15 page)

Prophet paused in
an alley between a drugstore and a tack shop to watch several
townsmen, including two men wearing five-pointed sheriffs stars,
run down the middle of the street and turn a corner, heading for
the saloon tent.

When the men were
gone, Prophet waited for an oar wagon and two beleaguered-looking
horseback drifters to pass, then hefted his saddlebags on his
shoulder, adjusted the Winchester in his right hand, and walked
across the street, the ten-gauge Coach gun dangling from the
lanyard down his back.

“What’s all the commotion?” he asked the old gent sitting on
the Gay Inn’s front porch, smoking a pipe.

“You
got me,” the gent said. “I heard two blasts come from thataway, and
seen men runnin’. Probably a couple miners fightin’ over whores
again.” The geezer wheezed a laugh and stuck his pipe back in his
teeth.

Prophet wagged his head with disgust. “What’s the world comin’
to, with men fightin’ over whores?”

“Oh,
I’d say about the same thing it was comin’ to about six thousand
years ago,” the old gent speculated, sucking his pipe stem and
exhaling smoke from his nose, gazing across the street with a
self-satisfied expression on his craggy face.

Prophet chuckled. “I reckon you’re right, old son.”

He stepped inside
the hotel and paused in the small lobby. An oak desk with
cubbyholes and gold key rings behind it sat to the right of the
front door. Between the desk and the cubbyholes sat a slender black
man on a high stool, reading a Bible open on the desk. He appeared
to be in his mid-twenties. His elbows were propped on the desk,
pinstriped sleeves rolled up his arms; his brow furrowed and his
lips moved as he read, concentrating hard.

Sensing someone standing there, the clerk looked up, his eyes
expectant. “Help you, mister?”

He
stopped, his features frozen. Then his shoulders sagged and his
mahogany, moon-shaped face acquired a pained expression, as though
he’d just seen the last person he’d wanted to see in the
world.

“Oh,
no!” he exclaimed through a half sob, half-shaking, half-nodding
his head with great flourish, as though to emphasize his
grief.

Prophet smiled. “Hi, Henry.”

“Oh,
no,” the clerk repeated, still wagging his head. “Oh, Lordy, tell
me it ain’t Lou Prophet standin’ there.”

Prophet walked to the desk, let his saddlebags roll off his
shoulder onto the hardwood surface, and stuck out his meaty hand.
“How ye been?”

Reluctantly the desk clerk shook Prophet’s hand. It wasn’t
really a shake — more of a halfhearted squeeze — before he let his
arm drop to his side, hanging off his slumped right shoulder. His
brow was still furrowed, his full cheeks still bunched with
despair.

Prophet fashioned an injured look across the desk. “Henry, if
I didn’t know better, I’d say you weren’t happy to see
me.”

“I
ain’t happy to see you at all, Lou Prophet,” Henry whined. “Why,
you almost got me killed! More than once, too!”

“Oh,
come on now, Henry. Don’t you think you’re gilding the lily just a
little? I saved you from prison time. I didn’t have to vouch for
you after that holdup you and your gang pulled — tellin’ the jury
you didn’t know what your friends were going to do when they walked
into that Billings bank. You thought they were going to make
a deposit and were just holdin’ their
horses!”

Prophet chuckled and shook his head.
“Now
that
was
gildin’ the lily, but I perjured
myself
because I liked your ma and sensed you had promise.”

Henry’s ma ran a Billings boardinghouse, the best in town and
one which Prophet frequented whenever he was in the area. He
sometimes stayed over just for Begonia Appleby’s delicious Southern
cooking — honest-to-God soul food — a treat which he had few
opportunities to enjoy and which always harkened memories of his
boyhood before the war.

Henry
Appleby gazed at Prophet pointedly, his black pupils yawning with
antipathy. “You convinced me to testify against that gang, Lou
Prophet! And when they broke jail, they ran me through three states
before I finally lost ‘em . . . for the time being. No doubt
they’re still lookin’ for me. Hell, they’ll probably be lookin’ for
me till the day I die. That’s why I’m here — as far as I could get
from Montana without slip-pin’ over into Mexico. I reckon Mexico’s
next, though, as soon as I see Mad-Dog and Dead-Eye and their
passel of polecats ridin’ into town.”

Prophet glanced away with chagrin. Fingering the flap on his
saddlebag, he grumbled, “How was I supposed to know they were going
to break jail?”

“I
warned you they were gonna break jail, didn’t I? I know those boys.
There ain’t a jail made they can’t break.”

“You’re a hell of a lot better off here than you would be
breaking rock in the territorial pen, old son. And for that you
have me to thank, you ungrateful little snot. Now give me a room.
I’m tired.”

His
brows ridged with thought, Henry reached under the desk, produced a
ledger book, and set it on the desktop with a pencil. He shrugged
remorsefully. “I ... I reckon I do have you to thank for that,
Lou.” He opened the book and turned the pages. “I mean ... I reckon
I would be in jail ‘bout now if you hadn’t lied for me. And Mama —
she’d have been shamed some-thin’ awful.”

“Yes,
she would,” Prophet agreed, picking up the pencil as Henry turned
the book around to face him. “Imagine her, havin’ to explain an
incarcerated son to her boarders.” Prophet shook his head and
sighed as he licked the pencil and signed his name.

“You’re right,” Henry admitted. “You got me off that racket,
and I should be grateful.”

“Yes,
you should.”

“I’m
sorry. Thanks, Lou. I don’t know how I can ever repay
you.”

Prophet swung the register around and hefted his saddlebags
off the desk. “I’m sure I’ll think of something someday. For now,
just get me a room near those two Russians that checked in a little
while ago, will you?”

“That
what they were — Russians?”

Prophet nodded. Henry slid off his chair and turned to
retrieve a key from a hook. “Why you ridin’ with
Russians?”

“I
guided ‘em down here. Don’t tell anybody, Henry, but —” Prophet
stopped as a thought occurred to him. A question. He assumed Henry
had been here for a while. A savvy young man who had been in and
out of petty trouble most of his life, Henry had no doubt sized up
the town and its primary booster, Leamon Gay.

Henry
dropped the key in Prophet’s open hand. “But what?”

“Say,
Henry, you know this Leamon Gay fellow?”

Henry
stared at Prophet levelly. After a wary pause, he said, “Not
personal. I know of him. Why?”

“You
know where he lives?”

The
desk clerk stared at Prophet with dark suspicion. “Yeah,” he said
slowly. “I know where he lives. Why you askin’?”

“Ever
been there?”

“Why
you askin’?”

“Oh,
come on, Henry. You ever been there?”

Henry’s voice rose, a note of the old despair returning.
“Yeah, I been there. So what? I work for the mercantile weekends,
and once in a while I deliver goods to the place. So what?” Henry’s
upper lip trembled slightly, and his eyes bore into Prophet’s like
obsidian arrowheads.

Prophet’s eyes lighted, and he grinned cunningly as he grabbed
the young man’s arm. “Henry, you’re a peach. Give me a few minutes
of your time, will you?”

Henry
wrenched his arm free of Prophet’s grip and stepped back from the
desk. “What?”

“Just
five minutes, Henry, just five minutes,” Prophet beseeched the
young clerk. “For the guy who saved you from the pen and saved your
mama from a shame no woman should bear. . . .”

Henry
scowled and canted a squinted eye askance, the epitome of suspicion
and fear. “What you up to, Lou Prophet?”

“Just
five minutes.” Prophet pulled the young man around the desk and
onto the lobby floor. Henry held back, reluctant, telling Prophet
he could not leave the desk unattended.

“Just
five minutes for the guy who saved you from the rock quarry,
Henry,” Prophet said.

Spying
a blank placard hanging behind the desk, Prophet turned it around.
“Back in One Hour,” it read.

Slinging his saddlebags over his shoulder, Prophet ushered the
young clerk up the narrow staircase to the second story, ignoring
Henry’s protests and complaints. “If you got something with Mr.
Gay, Proph, please don’t involve me. I beg you, man. I’m too young
to die. Hell, I’d rather the old gang get me than Gay and his boys.
. . .”

Henry
was practically sobbing by the time Prophet knocked on Sergei’s
door, the number of which he’d noted in the register book. When the
Russian answered the door, Prophet said, “Meet me in the
countess’s

room.”

He
didn’t wait for the Russian to respond. The young, protesting desk
clerk in tow, he turned to the door across the hall and
knocked.

The
countess answered, looking fresh after a sponge bath and a change
of gowns. Due to the heat, she wore a sleeveless little
form-fitting shirtwaist with ruffles across the bosom. Her hair was
down, parted in the middle, with ringlets dancing about her cheeks.
She looked as scrumptious as Prophet had ever seen her. But he had
serious business to attend.

“Can
we come in?” he asked her. Not waiting for her reply, he pushed
open the door and shoved Henry before him into the room.

“Hey,
hey, Lou — what’s goin’ on?” Henry complained. He was nearly
sobbing. “I can’t ... I can’t be in a lady’s room. Oh, for mercy
sakes!”

“Oh,
Henry, straighten up and grow some horns, will you?” Prophet
admonished the lad as he deposited his saddlebags and arms in a
corner. To the countess, who stood near the door looking
incredulous, he said, “This is my old friend Henry Appleby. We go
back, Henry and me. Henry — the Countess Natasha
Roskov.”

“Oh,
shit, Prophet — sorry, ma’am,” the desk clerk said, flashing an
apologetic glance at the countess, “but I can’t be in the room of
no white countess — whatever a countess is. Jeepers!”

The
door opened and the burly Sergei entered, his wet hair and goatee
freshly combed. He, too, had changed his clothes and was looking
dapper and fresh. His face registered disapproval at the presence
of the two other men in the countess’s room.

“What
is going on here?” he asked, scowling.

“Come
on in and sit down, Serge,” Prophet said.

“This
is the countess’s own private room,” the Cossack protested, his big
face flushing with fury.

Ignoring the remonstration, Prophet introduced the Russian to
Henry, whom he shoved into one of the two chairs before the open
window, sliding the countess’s open trunks out of the way with his
foot. He gave the lad a drink of water to calm him, then turned to
the countess, who stood holding one post of the four-poster bed,
her heavy brow ridged skeptically. Sergei stood beside her, as
though to defend her from a sudden attack from the crazy bounty
hunter and distressed desk clerk.

Prophet threw back his own glass of water, then, standing by
the window, hoping to catch a breeze, he told the countess and
Sergei about what he’d learned from the gambler. Daws.

“Marya
is living with Leamon Gay!” the countess exclaimed, slapping an
exasperated hand to her throat.

“It
might not be her,” Prophet said. “That’s what we have to find out.
If it is her, we have to know if she’s there because she wants to
be or if he’s holding her for

some
reason.”

“I
guess we should just ride up there and ask,” the Cossack suggested.
“That would be easiest, no?”

Prophet nodded and poured another glass of water from the
pitcher on the washstand.
Thoughtfully, he
moved back to the window,
stepping over and
around trunks.

Finally he shook his head. “That might be the easiest way, but
not the smartest. If he’s got her there against her will, we’d only
be tipping our hand, letting him know we’re here to get her back.”
He paused and gave
his back to the window.
He looked at Sergei.
“I’m thinkin’ we sneak
up there after dark and reconnoiter the situation.”

Sergei crossed
his bulky arms over his chest, pursed his lips thoughtfully, and
nodded. The countess stared at Prophet, her eyes wide and
expectant, thrilling to the possibility that her sister had at last
been found.

Prophet swerved
his gaze to Henry, sitting in the spool-backed chair looking warily
up at the trail-dusty, unshaven bounty hunter.

Henry’s black face bunched around itself.

“Oh,
man! I done heard enough.” Climbing to his feet, he added, “It’s
just like I thought — you got trouble with Mr. Gay, an’ I don’t
want no part of it!”

Prophet grabbed the kid’s arm and shoved him gently back in
the chair. “Hold on, hold on. All I want you to do, Henry my child,
is to tell us where we’ll find Gay’s lair and draw us a sketch of
the compound. I’ll also need to know if he has guards and how
many.”