Staring Down the Devil (A Lou Prophet Western #5) (23 page)

The
next morning Prophet, Sergei, and the other two bodyguards escorted
the polished phaeton down the mountain and pulled up before
Gay
’s saloon in Broken Knee. Gay had a
meeting with several of his business partners in the saloon’s back
room. He ordered the bodyguards to wait in the main room for him —
and to drink nothing but coffee.

So,
sipping coffee, playing a few rounds of
poker and billiards with the other bodyguards, including the
two men who guarded Bill Braddock, who owned another saloon in town
and was one of Gay’s business partners, the men whiled away a
couple of hours.

Around
eleven o’clock several buxom women entered the saloon, making eyes
at the bodyguards and giggling, the feathers in their hats swaying.
A full-hipped brunette greeted Clark lustily and pulled his hat
down over his eyes. Then she strolled with the other women into the
back room, where the high rollers were meeting.

Prophet glanced
at Sergei, arching his brow curiously.

“Right
on time, just like always,” one of Braddock’s men said with a
chuckle.

Clark
said, “Yeah, Miss Jenny over at the High-Time, she don’t let the
big shots wait. She sends the girls over at eleven o’clock sharp
every Friday!”

A few minutes
later the door opened and Gay appeared. The hippy brunette was on
his arm, smiling as though she were having the time of her life. A
good actress, Prophet thought. The other four men — all with women
on their arms — followed Gay out of the room.

As
they passed through the tables toward the door, Gay said, “You men
stay put. We’ll be back in an hour. And remember — nothing but
coffee!”

Then he parted
the batwings and led the chuckling, giggling procession out of the
building. They turned left, apparently headed for the Gay Inn next
door, where Gay probably reserved a few rooms.

Prophet looked at
Sergei as he lifted his coffee cup and curled his nose. Sergei
returned the glance, his gaze dark with understanding. Taking Gay
down was going to be a pleasure for them both.

Prophet was about
to stroll to the bar for the free lunch the bartender had just
spread out, when a man dressed like a mule skinner entered the
saloon, his face flushed with gravity.

“Hey,
there’s been an accident down the
street.
Someone come quick, will ye? A man
needs
help!”

“What
happened?” Clark asked.

“A man
was hit by an ore wagon. He’s in a bad way. The sheriff and his
deputies ain’t in their office. I thought maybe someone here could
help.”

Imagining the
havoc an ore wagon could wreak on a body. Prophet hurried through
the batwings and outside. He followed the mule skinner down the
boardwalk and around the corner, heading west.

Gazing
down the side street, he saw nothing but crates and barrels stacked
along the street, and bits of trash scuttling in the breeze. This
wasn’t really even a street, just a wide space between buildings.
Straight ahead lay the rocky desert spotted with sage and
greasewood and windblown trash, bald mountains rising in the
distance.

The
sound of a door slamming jerked his gaze back right, to a closed
door at the rear of a tobacco shop. The mule skinner was nowhere in
sight. He must have gone through that door and slammed it behind
him.

Baffled, Prophet looked around, feeling the hair on the nape
of his neck rise. Hearing footsteps behind him, he turned. Sergei
was moving toward him, looking around with a baffled gaze similar
to Prophet’s. Prophet noticed that none of the other bodyguards
from the saloon had joined them. He and Sergei were
alone.

“Where
is this injured man?” Sergei said skeptically, turning his head
slowly from left to right.

Prophet’s right hand went to the butt of his .45 as his eyes
scanned the rooftops. Before he could say anything, a man stepped
out from the rear of the store across the empty lot. Another moved
out from around a small goat stable, swerved to avoid a pile of
fresh manure, and moved toward Prophet and Sergei.

It was
Harland. The other man, also moving toward Prophet and Sergei, was
DeBocha. The fired bodyguards were smiling easily now, throwing
their dusters back from their gun butts. Their eyes were shaded
slits beneath their hat brims.

“I
reckon we been duped,” Prophet said, glancing behind him again,
making sure the other bodyguards weren’t back there preparing to
catch him and Sergei in a crossfire. Nope. It was just Harland and
DeBocha. The others must have gotten word of the ploy and remained
in the saloon, not wanting to buy trouble with their
boss.

Prophet swung his gaze back to the fired bodyguards. To
Sergei, he said, “How’s your fast draw?”

They were flanked
by the north side of the Gay Inn, and several windows were open. In
case anyone inside the hotel was listening, Sergei gave only a
grunt, which Prophet took for a restrained Cossack war
cry.

“You
sons o’bitches ready to die?” Harland asked, his bright green
neckerchief blowing up around his chin.

“Today’s as good a day as any — that’s
what me and the Injuns always say,” Prophet said with a wry
grin, belying his misgivings.
He’d never
been Billy the Kid with a handgun. But he was willing and accurate,
and often that counted for more than speed.

Also,
there was his Confederate battle cry — “Eeeeeee-hyah!” The piercing
yell froze the bodyguards for the split second it took Prophet to
draw his revolver, raise it, and level it at Harland. The bodyguard
was only raising his own pistol, a look of consternation furling
his brow and widening his eyes, as Prophet triggered the Colt and
watched the bullet plunk dust from Harland’s shirt on its way
through his breastbone to his heart and then out the other side,
where it chipped wood from the store wall behind him.

Before
Harland hit the ground. Prophet swung his gaze to his left. DeBocha
was crouching over the bloody wound in his belly, his hat tumbling
forward off his head. The wounded man cussed and began
rais
ing his gun again when Sergei fired his
shiny
Colt again, planting a blood blossom
in DeBocha’s forehead. The ex-bodyguard twisted around with another
cry and fell, kicking dust.

Prophet looked
again at Harland, who lay sprawled on his back, arms flung out,
dead. There was a long silence.

“Good
shootin’,” he told Sergei at last.

“Your
yell — it froze them,” the Russian said quietly.

“Yep.”

“Was
that fair fighting, Lou?”

Prophet turned and started back for the saloon. He grinned as
he passed Sergei. “Nope.”

The
other bodyguards had gathered at the corner of the boardwalk to
watch the festivities. None of them looked very pleased at the
outcome. “Sorry, boys,” Prophet said as he pushed through the crowd
and headed for the batwings.

Above the vacant
lot, in a second-story window, Leamon Gay stood naked, the brunette
beside him, resting her chin on his shoulder. She was nude, as
well. Staring down at the two dead men in the empty lot. Gay
grinned.

“Those
two might prove worthy of the salary I’m paying them yet,” he told
the whore.

In the
next room to Gay’s right. Gay’s business partner, Bill Braddock,
sat on the edge of his bed. He, too, was staring out the window,
down at the two men in the lot. Unlike Gay, Braddock was
frowning.

“I
can’t stand looking at that stuff — all that shooting,” the naked
whore said behind him. “This is a savage town.” She’d turned away
from the grisly scene and was facing the wall.

“Shut
up,” Braddock told her. “I’m trying to think.”

“About
what?”

Braddock’s voice rose with impatience. “Shut up, will
you?”

He
watched the stocky, black-haired gent, Gay’s mute bodyguard, stroll
back toward Main Street. But his mind was on the other man who’d
already left the alley — the tall, sandy-haired hombre with the
easy stride and careless manner. Braddock had recognized him — or
thought he had. He’d seen that catlike stroll before, the easy set
of those broad shoulders. The off-putting grin that only slightly
camouflaged the man’s kill-devil nature.

Braddock lowered
his head and ran his hand through his thinning gray hair. Where, oh
where, had he seen that man before? It was right at the tip of his
tongue. . . .

Braddock raised
his head, a slow grin drawing at his thin lips capped with a
pencil-thin mustache. Oh, yes. Oh, yes . . .

He
remembered the bounty hunter who’d tracked him and his partner,
Edwin Harrol, into Idaho several years ago, after they’d robbed a
bank in Bannock, Montana Territory. He’d been a relentless son of a
bitch, tracking them through a winter storm in the mountains. He’d
killed Edwin with a short-barreled shotgun. Cut him in half when
Edwin had drawn on him in a farmer’s barn outside Idaho
Falls.

Braddock had
spent a year in prison after that . . . before he and two others
had dug their way out. . . .

“Who’s
who?” the whore said, still facing the wall.

“That
man who was down there. The big, grinning bastard with the sandy
hair.”

“What
about him?”

“I
just figured out who he is.”

“Who?”

“Prophet,” Braddock said, smiling out the window. “Lou
Prophet.” Braddock chuckled, thoroughly delighted with himself.
“Gay’s new guard, Lou Pepper, is a goddamn Rebel bounty
hunter!”