The Devil and Lou Prophet (11 page)

That wasn’t what Owen McCreedy,
sheriff of Johnson City, was thinking at the moment.

He stood looking out the window of his
small sheriff’s office and jail, the draw ring of the shade hanging
just above his black felt Stetson. He watched Hart Baldridge
heading this way, a black-suited figure catching the golden rays of
the dying sun on his shoulder. Paper fluttered in the lawyer’s
right hand as he swerved to avoid a puddle left by the rainstorm
that had roared through town a few hours ago. Puffing proudly on a
stogie, Baldridge approached the jailhouse and bulled his way
through the door.

“
Knock-knock,” he said with
an impudent smile.

“
Why don’t you try it for
real sometime?” McCreedy said.

The fat end of Baldridge’s cigar
reddened as he drew on it, blowing smoke out the right side of his
mouth. He was a tall, heavyset, hog-jowled man with black
mutton-chops and wire-rimmed spectacles that hung perpetually down
his nose. A barber tended him daily, and he always smelled sweetly
of lavender and expensive tobacco.

“
Why bother knocking?
You’ve been watching me come for the last two blocks.”

“’
Cause it’s the polite
thing to do,” the sheriff said tensely, showing his
teeth.

He’d been as wired up as an Indian wagon
for the past week, his nerves shot from worry and lack of sleep.
Worry over the girl ... wondering if Prophet would get here alive
... worry over his deputy, who’d seen Brown and two of his thugs
leave Farley’s saloon the night Farley was killed, chasing the girl
down an alley ... and worry over himself.

McCreedy had always fancied himself a
brave man— in his prime, he’d fought Indians on the cattle trails
up from Texas—but he couldn’t sleep for thinking Billy Brown’s
hired guns were going to storm in and fill him with lead. He was
also worried they’d find his wife, whom he’d secreted away at a
friend’s farm south of town when all the trouble had started. If
they got their hands on Alice, there was no telling what those
savages might do.

Reading the sheriff’s mind with a
mocking, self-satisfied grin on his fat face, Hart Baldridge said,
“You know, you’d be doing yourself a big favor if you just forgot
about this thing. Who was Hoyt Farley, anyway, but a simpleminded
barman? You were no friend of his, he of yours.”

“
No, but he is the man whose
murder I’m finally gonna use to put away Billy Brown for good,”
McCreedy said, getting up close to Baldridge’s face in spite of the
sickly sweet stench of the man. “He’s the man whose murder I’m
gonna hang your client with ... once and for goddamn
all!”

“
Easy, easy, Sheriff,” the
lawyer said, holding up his small, fat hands, palms out, and taking
two steps back. “You’re getting very close to assault. You wouldn’t
want that additional complication, now, would you?”

“
To tell you the truth, I’d
like nothing better,” McCreedy growled.

He hated the lawyer almost as much as
he hated Billy Brown, and not only because Baldridge was
representing the cold-blooded killer and local crime boss who had
plagued McCreedy since the very day the sheriff had taken office
two and a half years ago. McCreedy hated Baldridge because
Baldridge thought he was as much above the law as Billy Brown did.
But at the same time, the attorney never hesitated to use the
statutes to his best advantage, to hide himself and Brown behind
them whenever McCreedy got too close.

“
Now, now,” Baldridge admonished.
“Temper, temper.” He thrust the stogie into his mouth and gave
several satisfied puffs, savoring McCreedy’s discomfort. He looked
around. “Say, your deputy get back yet ... from his hunting trip?”
His eyes cooled as a smirk toyed with his lips.

“
Not yet,” McCreedy
snarled.

He’d sent his deputy, Perry Moon, into
the mountains, to get him out of town. He was afraid that Billy
Brown’s men would kill the young deputy to keep him from testifying
against him, about what he saw the night Farley was killed: Billy
Brown and his thugs running out the back of Farley’s Saloon,
chasing a sobbing girl down the alley.

Apparently, the girl had witnessed the
killing. That’s why she was indispensable to the case against
Brown. The deputy’s testimony would be circumstantial. Perry had
seen Brown and his men leaving the saloon right after Farley was
killed, but he hadn’t seen the actual killing. The girl had. Only
her testimony could convince a jury beyond a reasonable
doubt.

Fortunately, she’d given Brown the
slip. Unfortunately, she’d given McCreedy the slip, as well. He’d
figured out who she was, however, when the master of a traveling
theatrical troupe reported one of his girls missing—a Miss Amber
Skye, the name the girl had been going by in Johnson City—the next
day. McCreedy had cabled every sheriff in the territory to keep an
eye out for her, not really expecting to find her.

He’d already resigned himself to
watching Billy Brown walk away scot-free from another murder, when
he got a cable from the sheriff at Millerville, reporting that he’d
seen the girl McCreedy was looking for, and that she, now known as
Lola Diamond, was en route with her troupe to Henry’s Crossing.
Remembering that his old cowpoke buddy turned bounty hunter, Lou
Prophet, had lit out for those parts, he’d sent letters to him and
to the sheriff at Henry’s Crossing. Prophet may have been a
carousing hillbilly at heart, but he was as good a man-tracker as
you’d find in the West, and he wouldn’t draw as much attention as a
lawman would. McCreedy just hoped he’d prove effective at nabbing a
female witness who, for very good reason, was afraid for her
life.

It was only after McCreedy had located
the girl that he’d arrested Brown. He thought Brown might run if he
knew McCreedy had a witness to the murder. He’d also thought that
by locking Brown up, he might be able to keep Brown from sending
someone to kill the girl. But he’d realized the folly in such a
strategy the first time

Brown’s lawyer visited Billy in jail.
Obviously, Hart Baldridge was relaying messages to Brown’s
men—messages no doubt including the one to make sure Lola Diamond
did not reach Johnson City alive.

McCreedy knew now that by arresting
Billy Brown before he had the girl under wraps, he’d telegraphed
his knowledge of the girl’s whereabouts and had inadvertently
endangered not only his case, but the girl’s life. He’d realized
this only after he’d sent Prophet the letter. For days now he’d
been haranguing himself for his error, and hoping against hope that
Prophet and the girl made it here alive. If they didn’t, it would
be McCreedy’s fault.

“
The hunting must be good
in the mountains, eh. Sheriff?” Baldridge asked jovially, referring
to McCreedy’s deputy’s prolonged vacation.

“
Must be.”

“
Any luck finding the
girl?”

“
None whatsoever, Baldy,”
McCreedy lied. He knew that Baldridge and Brown knew he’d located
the girl. He could see it in the smug expression on the attorney’s
face. What McCreedy hoped, however, was that they had not yet
learned where he’d found her. Certainly they didn’t know that
Prophet was the man—of all people— McCreedy had sent to retrieve
her. The only people who knew about that were McCreedy, the sheriff
in Millerville. Sheriff Fitzsimmons of Henry’s Crossing, the girl,
and Prophet himself.

“
Uh ... that’s
Baldridge.”

“
Sorry.”

“
Yes, I am, too ... about
the girl, I mean.”

McCreedy shrugged, not liking the
self-satisfied gaze in the attorney’s eyes. Could he and Brown have
located her, as well? McCreedy chastised himself once more for not
warning Prophet about possible trouble. “Well, I’m still hopin’
she’ll turn up somewhere,” he said, hiding his torment and feigning
resign as he looked askance at the attorney’s beady black
eyes.

“
Yes, well, maybe so,”
Baldridge said, clearing his throat. “Now then. Sheriff, I’m here
to see my client.”

“
It’s gettin’ late—I’m
about to close,” McCreedy growled, turning to the stove for a cup
of coffee.

“
I’m sorry, Sheriff, but
it’s urgent.”

“
Diddle
yourself.”

Baldridge sighed. “Sheriff, must we go
through this again? You know all I have to do is go to Judge Frye.
It’ll take some time, sure, but time you could otherwise be
spending eating a big steak and a plate of beans ... uh ... if you
still have an appetite, that is....”

McCreedy poured coffee into a stone mug
and smiled in spite of himself. “You know, Hart—you don’t mind if I
call you Hart, do you?—I’m really gonna love seeing you hang next
to Billy. You and Billy together ... one last time.”

Baldridge sighed again and rolled his
eyes. He removed the cigar from his mouth and tapped ashes on the
floor. “What’s it going to be, McCreedy? Do I get to see my client
now or thirty minutes from now—with an order from Judge
Frye?”

“
Oh, go ahead ... knock yourself
out,” McCreedy said resignedly, sipping from the cup. “You know
where the keys are.”

“
Oh, for the love of—!”
Baldridge marched over to McCreedy’s desk, found the key ring, and
opened the door to the cell block.

As he jerked the door open, McCreedy
said, “Hold it, Baldy. You know the drill.” He put down his coffee
cup and patted down the attorney, who stood with his arms held
theatrically out from his sides, head inclined, eyes rolled to the
ceiling.

“
All right—you’re clean,”
McCreedy said. “But remember to put those keys back where you found
them!” Puffing with exasperation. Baldridge bolted through the door
and slammed it behind him. Hearing his footsteps echoing down the
cell block, McCreedy turned toward the door. The disdainful grin
faded from his lips without a trace, his eyes betraying his
anxiety.

He’d waited to get Billy Brown behind
bars for a long time. But now that he had, he knew it could very
well be the end of not only him, Owen McCreedy, but his buddy Lou
Prophet and the girl, as well.