The Devil and Lou Prophet (25 page)

“
Beach, Gruber,” Clive
said. “Hang back in case we’re bein’ dogged.”

“
And if we are ... ?”
Gruber asked.

Clive turned to Billy, a question in
his eyes.

“
Shoot ‘em,” Billy said, as
though imparting obvious information to a simpleton. Then he
flicked away his cigarette stub. Bouncing on his right foot, he
hiked his left boot into his stirrup and grunted into the leather.
“The rest of you, let’s ride!”

While the others rode away,
disappearing around a bend in the wooded trail, Beach and Gruber
glanced at each other meaningfully, then turned and led their
horses up the spongy slope. They tied their horses in a dense stand
of mixed conifers, removed their Winchesters from their saddle
boots, then crept back down the grade, until they could see the
sun-dappled trail thirty yards away.

They sat smoking, the breeze blowing
the smoke out behind them. After about fifteen minutes, they heard
a sharp clack, like a horse kicking a rock, then a creaking saddle.
One at a time, they quietly levered shells into the breeches of
their Winchesters.

They sat there, rifles on their knees,
until the rider appeared on their left, coming along the trail
below them. He was a medium tall man in a cowhide vest and black
felt hat with a dented crown. Sun dappled the crown, making it
glow. A tin star winked on his vest.

He’d ridden about fifteen more feet
when he suddenly reined his sorrel quarter horse to a halt and
jerked a look to his right, toward Beach and Gruber. Sighting down
the barrel resting on his knee, Gruber squeezed the trigger, the
rifle cracking and bouncing with the report. The man with the star
flew off the left side of his horse and rolled down the slope. The
horse gave a whinny and bounded off its hind legs, hightailing up
the trail.

Gruber looked at Beach with a
contained grin. Then both men stood and walked down the slope,
Beach holding his rifle cautiously out before him, Gruber holding
his casually down at his side, an arrogant set to his
mouth.

They found the man about twenty feet
from the trail, lying face down between two pines, blood smudged in
the leaves and needles he’d churned up as he’d rolled. He lay at an
odd angle, his left arm pinned beneath him, hatless head turned
sideways, blood dribbling from a jagged cut on his chin, another on
his brow.

“
That McCreedy?” Beach
asked.

“
I don’t know,” Gruber
said, rolling the man onto his back.

Gruber heard the two quick reports
about the same time he saw the man lift his left hand and extend
the gun, which sent blades of smoke and fire first into Gruber,
then into Beach. Gruber twisted around and hit the ground chest
down, his face buried in leaves and the sharp tang of pine resin.
He’d just realized what had happened, when everything went
black.

Owen McCreedy lay on his hip, gun
extended, staring at the two men, making sure they were dead, and
listening, wondering if the gunfire had been heard by the
rest

of Brown’s army, wondering if Brown
had sent out more pickets.

When he was sure both men were dead,
and relatively sure no others were in the immediate vicinity, he
looked at his bloody right arm, feeling as though a hot poker had
plunged all the way to the bone. He holstered his pistol, reached
around with his left hand, and tore his right sleeve down to his
elbow, revealing the bloody hole.

Cursing the pain, he then removed his
neckerchief, and wrapped and tied it around the wound, hoping the
wrap would stop the bleeding. He knew he should go back to town and
get the arm tended by a doctor, but he couldn’t turn back now.
Brown and his men were headed after Prophet and the girl. McCreedy
knew it now without a doubt. Who else would they be after out here,
and why else would Brown have sent out pickets to ambush
trackers?

While he’d figured out who they were
after, McCreedy couldn’t figure out where they were going. The
trail they were following led to Miner’s Gulch. How would they have
gotten Prophet trapped in there? But if they had, Prophet was going
to need all the help he could get.

With that urgent thought propelling
him forward, McCreedy gained his feet. Holding his throbbing arm,
he climbed the hill to the trail and started walking in the
direction of his horse, finding the animal twenty minutes later,
grazing the sun-dappled meadow near the trail. The horse belonged
to Perry Moon, but the animal knew McCreedy, and didn’t run as the
sheriff approached, talking to the animal as gently as he could
considering the pain he was in, as well as the hurry.

Mounting up with a painful sigh, wagging
his head against the hot throbs piercing his core, he gigged the
horse into a trot, keeping his eyes peeled on both sides of the
trail so he wouldn’t get shot out of his saddle again. As he rode,
he reached back and shucked his Winchester with his good arm,
knowing he’d need it soon.

Prophe
t squatted on a butte top, one hand
on his Winchester, and smoked a cigarette. The sun was high, almost
straight up, and his sweated collar stuck to his unshaven
neck.

Below him lay the rocky floor of
Miner’s Gulch. Harsh sunlight speckled the unnamed creek snaking
through the scattered mix of conifers and deciduous trees. It
coursed around the back of the old cabin Prophet remembered from
his short stay in the country five years ago.

He watched the long-abandoned
hovel—weathered gray, doorless, no window glass, battered chimney
pipe— and felt his heart beat rhythmically beneath his sternum.
Things would be happening soon now ... very soon. Prophet would at
last meet the bottom-feeder who’d sent his firebrands out to kill
him and Lola but who’d managed instead to kill a coach load of
innocent stage passengers—a boy, two old people, and good ole Mike
Clatsop to boot.

Obviously, that was how Billy Brown
worked. He gave the word, and whomever he wanted dead was a
target—never mind the cost. Sometimes he even did the killing
himself, as had been the case with Hoyt Farley, which told Prophet
the man didn’t mind getting his own hands dirty now and then.
That’s why Prophet believed Billy himself would show today, along
with his entire army. Billy wouldn’t want to risk letting Prophet
and the girl slip away. They’d no doubt become quite the thorns in
his hide.

Prophet smiled at that thought,
enjoying what little comfort he could take from the situation. But
then, too, there had been Lola last night, naked in his arms.... He
couldn’t get his mind off of her this morning, no matter how hard
he tried to concentrate on the matter at hand. Maybe he’d slept
with whores too long. It had been a long time since he’d made love
like that... been made love to like that... with that kind of
passion.

It was almost as though they’d both
been expecting to die today....

The feel of her writhing beneath him
faded reluctantly when a magpie threw up an alarm, bounding out of
a pine branch west of the cabin. Prophet cast his gaze that way,
hunkering low and fingering the Winchester.

Through the trembling leaves he spied
riders, saw only glimpses of horses and men spreading out in the
woods before the cabin. Movement behind the cabin attracted
Prophet’s eye. More riders appeared there, moving out from the
aspens and splashing across the creek, rifles held across their
saddles, hats tilted over their foreheads. They wore cream dusters
and their faces were brown ovals beneath their hat
brims.

When they’d fanned out around the
cabin, dismounting and taking cover behind the rocks along the
stream, three men rode into the clearing before the cabin. One was
squat and wearing a suit beneath his duster, and a derby hat. A
gold watch chain winked in the sunlight. The man riding beside him
was of medium height and broad-shouldered. The third wore long red
hair down his back, and an ostentatious mustache and
beard.

The squat man held his rifle butt down
on his thigh and gave his gaze to the cabin. “Hello the camp!
Prophet, you in there?”

Prophet’s heart picked up its
rhythm.

“
Prophet, you in there?”
the squat man asked again, barking it loudly, angrily. That had to
be Billy—ornery little bulldog of a gussied-up thug.

Prophet got to his feet and extended
his rifle out before him, aiming. He didn’t want to kill Billy. Not
yet. He’d save the crime boss for later, when he was staring him in
the eye.

The gun barked.

In the canyon, Billy Brown jerked his
head around sharply as a bullet smacked the head of the man riding
beside him. A small round hole appeared about two inches before the
man’s right ear, in the shade of his hat. The man sat there for a
moment, swaying in the saddle, making wet, sighing sounds. He held
tightly to his reins. Gradually, the grip loosened, his hands
opened, and the man fell sideways out of his saddle.

“
What the hell!” Billy
cried, jerking his head around.

Prophet extended his rifle above his
head and waved it. “Up here, Billy. Come and get me, you son of a
bitch!”

He pivoted, jogged down the other side
of the butte, and jumped onto his horse tied to a shrub. Holding
his rifle in one hand, he reached out to untie the reins with the
other, then gigged the horse up a winding trail in the butte behind
him, his heart pounding, adrenaline spurting in his
veins.

Down in Miner’s Gulch, Billy stared at
the butte top which Prophet had just vacated. His eyes were like
daggers, his mouth set with exasperation. “Get after that son of a
bitch!” he ordered in his high, raspy tenor, which cracked a little
on the end note. He stabbed his horse with his spurs, and the
animal lunged off its hindquarters.

“
I’m not sure that’s a good
idea, Boss,” Clive Russo warned behind him. “That’s just what he
wants us to do.”

“
Ride, you cream
puff!”

Russo shook his head as he watched the
others fall in behind Billy, whose horse pounded through the
clearing, into the woods and up the southern butte. Reluctantly,
knowing he had no choice in the matter, the segundo joined them,
galloping to catch up with his boss.

When Prophet had crested another
ridge, he quickly dismounted and squatted down on his haunches,
bringing the Winchester up to his shoulder. He waited, hearing
Brown’s men galloping up the escarpment just north of him, the
pounding of the hooves and the clinking of rein chains and bits
growing louder.

When Prophet saw the first two riders
cresting the ridge, he aimed and quickly fired, pausing to watch
the one on the right roll backwards off his horse. Prophet shot the
other man just as he jerked a look at his fallen pard. The man fell
to the right, got his right boot caught in the stirrup, and was
dragged to the bottom of the escarpment before being deposited in a
juniper shrub.

Billy Brown rode up behind the first
fallen man, raising his rifle to fire at the opposite ridge. He
scowled, mouth bunching, eyes narrowing, looking around.

No one was there.

He lowered the rifle and waved an arm.
“Come on, you sorry bastards! After that son of a
bitch!”

Behind him, riding parallel with two
other galloping riders, Clive Russo quirted his horse and shook his
head. He had one hell of a bad case of the jitters....

As Prophet galloped his mount down the
ridge and reined him westward through a narrow gorge, the bounty
man thought. Three down, twenty-two to go.

He repeated the refrain over and over
as he left the gorge, hung a sharp right, and gigged his horse
through a valley, hoping both that Brown’s men hadn’t lost him in
that gorge and that they didn’t gain on him too quickly. They had
the advantage of riding horses they’d probably ridden for a couple
of years and knew better than they knew each other. In contrast,
Prophet was riding a horse he’d ridden for only a couple of days.
The gelding seemed to have a good set of lungs, and so far he’d
been surefooted, but it would only take one misstep on this
treacherous terrain to smoke Prophet’s hide for sure.

Crossing a saddle, he reined the horse
to the left and saw Silver Canyon open before him, its toothy
ridges looming impressively at least a quarter mile over the
rock-strewn canyon floor. When he came to the trail that had been
carved by deer and mountain goats, he gritted his teeth and reined
the horse to the right, spurring it up the mountain, weaving
between towering gray boulders and clattering over
shale.

“
Come on, horse ... gidup!”
Prophet rasped, holding the reins loose in his hands, elbows rising
and falling like wings. The horse was breathing hard and saliva
streaked from its lips, but it was lunging off its hindquarters
like a pro, as though it had been bred for these very
peaks.

“
Come on ..
. come on ... !”

Three-quarters up the switch backing
trail. Prophet brought the horse to a halt and looked down. Brown’s
men were just now riding into the canyon, dusters flapping behind
them in the wind. When they did not see

Prophet on the trail ahead, and had
lost his tracks, they slowed and milled along the canyon floor,
looking around. Several men raised their heads and spied Prophet at
the same time. They jutted their arms out, pointing.