Staring Down the Devil (A Lou Prophet Western #5) (27 page)

“Keep
your head down!” he yelled to Marya as arrows and lances clattered
in the rocks around them.

Prophet had ripped the reins from the girl’s hands and was now
leading her galloping mount down the arroyo, swerving around
confused, riderless horses.

Sergei’s deep voice boomed above the Indian whoops and the
gunfire. “Go, Lou! I’ve got the countess!”

Prophet looked back. The hairy-faced Russian was galloping
down the arroyo, trailing Natasha’s mount, upon which the countess
rode sidesaddle, her skirts and hair whipping in the wind as she
cast anxious looks at the skirmish behind them.

Prophet didn’t have to rake Mean with his spurs; the horse
knew the score, and he’d never liked Indians to begin with.
Headlong, the horse galloped down the arroyo, its hooves slipping
slightly in the sand as he curved around rock-walled
bends.

Twisted around in
his saddle, Prophet triggered his six-shooter at the several
Apaches pursuing them on foot. A couple wielded old-style revolvers
that misfired or threw their slugs wide of their
targets.

Prophet plugged one in the belly, another in his right
kneecap. Both went down, wailing. Another stopped running and
lifted his bow. The arrow whistled over Prophet’s head. The warrior
quickly notched another and let fly. The arrow arced through the
dusty air, brushed Natasha’s right shoulder, and plunged into
Sergei’s lower back.

The Russian gave
a grieved shout and stiffened in his saddle.

“Sergei!” Natasha cried.

The
Cossack shook his head and shouted, “Keep going, Countess!
Ride!”

When they were
out of range of the Indians, Prophet holstered his revolver and
faced forward in his saddle. Mean galloped over the rocks, leaping
over cacti, shrubs, and mesquite branches.

Prophet had tossed Marya her reins, and she now rode abreast
of him, crouched over her horse’s head and flicking her reins back
over the mount’s rump, urging more speed. Her face was flushed with
fear. Having lost her hat, her blond hair flew out in the
wind.

Several yards
behind her, Sergei rode slumped forward in his saddle, head down,
his right hand reaching behind for the arrow in his back. His horse
was losing speed.

“We
have to stop!” It was Natasha, whose own horse had caught up to
Sergei.

Cursing, Prophet reined Mean to a sliding halt. Sergei’s horse
had already stopped. Natasha had ridden over and was crouched over
Sergei, speaking in Russian.

“How
bad is it?” Prophet cast a glance at their backtrail. The shooting
was growing faint. No Indians appeared to be trailing
them.

“It is
buried in his back!” the countess cried, scowling at the arrow
protruding about two inches right of his spine. “Oh, Lou, can you
do something?”

Sidling Mean up to Sergei’s fidgeting horse, Prophet said,
“How you doin’, hoss?”

“I
have been . . . better, Lou,” the Russian said in a pain-pinched
voice.

“Let
me see what you got there in your back, you big lummox. A souvenir,
eh? Well . . .”

The
arrow’s tip was buried about four inches deep. Prophet gave it a
pull, but it wouldn’t budge. Sergei lifted his head with a pained
grunt.

“She’s
in there good,” Prophet said. Glancing around, he added, “He can’t
ride much further. Losin’ a lot of blood. We have to hole up
somewhere.”

“I
know a place,” Marya said. “Follow me.

Prophet frowned
at her, skeptical.

“Follow me!” the young countess insisted.

Prophet glanced at Natasha, who returned the puzzled look. He
shrugged and grabbed the reins of Sergei’s horse.

“Hold
tight, hoss,” he told the Russian. “We got a woman driver. Let’s
see where in the hell she leads us. Can’t be much worse off than we
are now, though, eh?”

“No!”
the Cossack objected. “Leave me. Save yourselves!”

“We
aren’t leaving you, Sergei!” the count
ess
cried.

“Lou,
leave me!”

Prophet shook his head and kneed Mean into a trot, pulling the
Russian’s horse behind him. “Shut up or I just might.”

“Please go,” the Cossack said, casting a worried look behind.
“The Indians . . . they will be following.”

Ignoring the Russian’s pleas, Prophet cantered his horse back
down the arroyo behind Marya. Turning left between two boulders,
they followed what looked like a feeder ravine. It was a narrow
canyon with high walls occasionally narrowing to no more than six
feet, occasionally widening to twenty or thirty.

Cliff swallows
screeched above them. The sun was blocked by the sheer stone walls,
and the air smelled cool and earthy.

“There!” Marya cried, bringing her horse to a stop and
whipping around in her saddle. “We can hide in that cave. We can
even hide the horses.”

Prophet looked where she was pointing. A cave opened on the
cliff wall. It was a big opening — about the size of a modest
settler’s cabin.

Prophet slipped out of his saddle, dropped Mean’s reins, and
walked back to Sergei, who was crouched over his horse’s neck. His
face was sweat-beaded and pale.

“Come
on, hoss,” Prophet said, reaching up to give the big Russian a hand
down.

Marya
and Natasha had dismounted and now hurried over to help. Together,
the three of them pulled Sergei from his saddle and led him up a
slight grade to the cave entrance. Prophet paused a moment, Sergei
propped against him. He couldn’t see very far inside, but what he
could see — merely stone walls and an uneven floor littered with
bird and bat shit and slender dried leaves — looked friendly
enough. At least it was shelter.

“Let’s
set him down over here,” Prophet said, and led the Russian to the
left wall.

He and the women
eased Sergei down. Squatting on his haunches. Prophet helped him
lie prone. Sergei muttered what could only have been Russian curses
while Prophet probed gently at the Apache arrow protruding from his
back.

“What
can you do?” Marya asked Prophet. She and Natasha both sat near
Sergei, their dusty, sunburned faces wan with fear and
anxiety.

“Well,
first thing I have to do” — Prophet carefully grabbed the bloody
arrow in his right hand and snapped it off — “is break off the
end.”

Sergei
lifted his chin from the cave floor and shouted something that
sounded like
“Rumashkahaven!”
But then everything Russian sounded alike to
Prophet.

“There.” The bounty hunter nodded, satisfied. “Now, you women
gather some wood and build us a fire. Just a small one. We don’t
need much smoke with those Indians around. I’m going to get our
horses and gear.”

“Why
do I always have to be the one who gets shot, Lou?” Sergei called
as Prophet headed out of the cave.

“Reckon you just don’t live right, pard,” Prophet said with a
grin.

When
the fire had been built and water boiled, Prophet sterilized his
narrow-bladed knife, gave Sergei several sips of whiskey, and went
to work cutting the arrowhead from the Russian’s back. Sergei
tensed and grunted and took several more slugs from the bottle
while Prophet worked, cutting with his right hand and probing
around the arrowhead with the other.

The women gazed
on, faces creased with horror.

“Are
you sure you know what you are doing, Lou?” the countess asked, one
hand on Prophet’s shoulder.

“Well,
that’s the thing,” Prophet said, wincing with concentration as he
probed the flinty arrowhead, which had lodged between two flat
tendons. “I really don’t, but since there ain’t no sawbones around,
what else can we do . . . ?”

Finally the arrow
came free. Sergei gave a groan.

“There
it is,” Prophet said, setting the flint head and six-inch shaft on
the cave floor, where Sergei could see it. “There’s your souvenir,
hoss.”

The Russian
muttered another curse.

When
he’d covered Sergei with a blanket. Prophet turned to Marya. She
and Natasha
were holding each other and
speaking softly,
grateful to be in each
other’s company once again.

“Tell
me, Miss Roskov,” Prophet said to Marya. “How did you know about
this cave?”

Marya
released her sister and rested her back against the wall. She
smiled mysteriously. “Because this is the treasure
cave.”

“Huh?”
Prophet asked.

At the
same time Natasha turned to her younger sister and said,
“What?”

With
an ethereal smile Marya rose and made her way back into the cave’s
deepest shadows. “Bert told me it was back here somewhere. Around a
ledge.” Her voice grew fainter.

“Marya,” the countess called, worried.

“I’m
all right,” the girl returned, her voice sounding as though it were
coming from halfway down a well, echoing off the stone
walls.

Prophet stood and gazed anxiously into the shadows. “You
better not go back very far, miss. Never know —”

“I
found it!” Marya cried. “I did! I really did! The trunk is here,
just like Bert said!”

Prophet looked at
Natasha, who looked back at him, one eyebrow arched. Prophet
shrugged and walked back into the shadows, running his right hand
along the wall and holding the left one out before him, feeling his
way.

“It
has a lock on it,” Marya said from what he judged to be about
thirty feet away.

“Hold
on,” Prophet said.

A scream rose
behind him, freezing his blood.

He
stopped and wheeled around. “Countess?”

She
screamed again. Prophet grabbed his .45 from his holster and ran
back the way he had come. “Natasha!”

As he neared the
cave entrance, he saw two figures silhouetted against the bright
opening. One was a man. One was a woman — the countess. The man had
his left arm around her neck, holding her tight. In the other hand
he held a gun to her temple.

Still
in the cave’s shadows, Prophet dropped to one knee and extended the
Colt.

“Don’t
shoot, Pepper!” Leamon Gay yelled. “Or Prophet, I should say. Or
I’ll blow her head off.”

Prophet knelt there, gun extended, heart racing. He was trying
to figure out what to do and could come up with nothing. Damn. He’d
thought for sure that Gay had been killed by the Indians. He was
wondering how many more of his men were out there, when a shadow
appeared on the sunlit cave wall.

A man stepped
into the opening, his revolver extended. It was Clark, hatless,
clothes torn, blood streaming from a cut on his brow.

“Don’t
shoot her,” Prophet said. “There’s no point.”

“Drop
your gun!” Gay commanded.

“All
right, I’m putting it down,” Prophet said, setting the gun on the
ground by his boot.

“Now
kick it over toward me. Gently.”

Prophet kicked
the gun toward Gay. Holding his hand chest high, he straightened.
He heard footsteps and knew Marya was coming up behind him. She
stopped near his right shoulder.

“Hey,
baby doll,” Gay said, grinning.

In the
harsh sunlight Prophet saw the sweat and blood on his face. It
looked as if he’d taken an arrow in his right arm, just above his
elbow. He’d broken off the end so that only a couple inches
protruded from his bloody sleeve. He’d knotted a tattered
handkerchief above it. His broadcloth trousers were
dust-caked.

“Did
you find our treasure?” he asked Marya with mocking
humor.

“Please let her go,” Marya pleaded. “Please, Leamon . . . I’ll
do anything!”

“Marya, you will not!” the countess shot back.

“I
will, Natasha. This is all my fault. I didn’t mean to involve you
and Sergei. I should not have sent you the map! I only wanted to
keep it safe from
him!”

Before
the countess could reply, Gay said, “This is all real sweet, but I
wanna know where the treasure is. You have three seconds to tell
me, and then I paint the walls of this cave with your sister’s
brains! One . . .”

Before
Gay could get to two, Marya cried, “It’s back here!” and jutted a
hand out behind her.

Gay
stared, blinked. “Huh?”

“It’s
back here,” Marya said, quietly this time. “It’s back here in the
cave, right where Bert left it.”

Gay
glanced at Clark. Frowning he stared at Marya. “This a
trick?”

“No,
it’s no trick,” Marya said. “We’ve been circling around it. I could
not bring myself to —” She shook her head. “Please . . . just take
it and go.”

Gay
turned to Clark again. “Come on,” he said. Shoving the countess
ahead of him while maintaining a stranglehold on her neck, he took
three steps forward, as did Clark. Then Gay stopped.

“Clark,” he snapped, “kill Prophet. Get the sneaky bastard out
of my way.”