Hell's Angel (24 page)

Griselda glanced at Prophet, but if she recognized him, he couldn't tell. She turned with the dwarf and, keeping one arm around his shoulders, began walking with him through the crowd toward the stairs rising at the back of the room. An odder pair, Prophet had never seen. The girl herself was petite, likely no taller than five-one or so, but still the dwarf's bowler hat came up little higher than her elbow.

The dwarf was soon lost amongst the tables. Griselda faded into the wafting tobacco smoke.

Prophet stared after them.

Should he follow them or hightail it? He had no way of knowing when the real Thursday would come around, but Prophet doubted he'd hit him hard enough to lay him out for over an hour. He needed to get back out there, grab his weapons, and head for the hills.

But as he looked around, he saw several pairs of eyes on him.

If he turned and walked out now, he'd only attract even more attention to himself. Besides, if he could get Moon in a room alone . . . ?

Prophet brushed his hand across his Colt's walnut grips again for comfort as he began pushing and sidestepping through the crowd toward the stairs.

32

PROPHET REACHED THE
top of the stairs, the din of the saloon hall receding behind him. He looked to his right and left, just then realizing that he had no idea which room he was looking for though the real Thursday likely would.

A door closed on his far left, at the end of the hall dimly lit by smoky lanterns. There were more jostling shadows than light.

Prophet started that way, boots thumping on the bare pine planks. Nothing about the dwarf's
baglio
was in any way ornate. It was a large, cheaply made barrack built simply and unashamedly to serve the basest needs of men. Behind the doors around Prophet, bedsprings squawked, girls moaned, and men grunted. There was the occasional clink of a bottle against a glass and a man's rough voice.

Behind one door, Prophet heard a girl sobbing.

He pulled up in front of the door he'd thought he'd heard close and tipped his head to listen. On the other side of it, the dwarf was talking in a pain-pinched voice. The girl said something. Prophet's heartbeat quickened.

He glanced down the hall on his left just as a door opened and a fat man in a badly weathered, Texas-creased Stetson, trail-worn buckskin shirt, and patched duck trousers came out, his cartridge belt looped over a thick shoulder. A freshly rolled quirley dangled from between his lips, dripping ashes into his beard.

The man closed the door behind him, staring straight ahead, puffing the quirley and buttoning his fly.

He turned toward Prophet and scowled. “What the hell are you lookin' at?” His fleshy, weathered face acquired a surprised expression. “Oh, sorry, Captain. Didn't recognize you there for a minute.”

He grinned and jerked a thumb over his shoulder, indicating the closed door behind him. “Nice batch of female flesh you brung in. I don't mind payin' double for the new girls, not when they're as tight as that one was!”

He chuckled and began walking down the hall toward the stairs.

Prophet released the keeper thong from over his Colt's hammer and drew the weapon. He clicked the hammer back and knocked twice on the door.

The dwarf said, “Thursday?”

“Who else?”

“Come on.”

Prophet opened the door and stepped into the room. Moon sat on the bed on the other side of the room, which was large by frontier standards, though sparsely, crudely furnished. The girl stood before the dwarf, unwrapping the bloody bandage from his hand.

Prophet closed the door. The dwarf stared at him. “You ain't Thursday.”

“You ain't as stupid as you look, Moon.”

The girl whipped her head toward Prophet. They both dropped their eyes to the cocked revolver in Prophet's hand. Her lower jaw drooped as her eyes rose to Prophet's.

“Oh, shit.” She stepped back away from the dwarf, turning toward the big man who'd just entered their room.

The dwarf pointed with his good hand. “I know you!” His colorless little eyes rolled around in their wrinkled sockets as he tried to remember where he knew Prophet from.

“I'm the one who didn't pay for his water, couple days ago. Remember? The one you fed to the desert.”

Prophet's voice was unusually low and hard. He gripped the gun tightly in his fist, keeping his finger taut against the curved trigger, enjoying the feel of it, wanting to squeeze it a little harder so he could really feel it and watch his bullet blow a hole through the dwarf's already bruised forehead.

“Shit,” the dwarf said. “You been leadin' them women against me!”

“Ah, hell, them two don't need me to lead 'em nowhere, least of all against you, you sick little fucker!”

Griselda shuttled her shocked, wary gaze from Prophet to Moon and back again. Cunning sparkled in her eyes and she stepped farther away from Moon. “Don't shoot him until we have the combination to his fancy safe!”

The dwarf jerked his own shocked, exasperated face to the girl. He and Prophet said at the same time,
“What?”

“He has a safe in the next room.” Griselda jerked her chin toward a door to Prophet's left. “In there. Only he knows the combination. You can get it out of him, big man.” She smiled, flushing, as her eyes flicked up and down the bounty hunter's brawny frame. “You can get it out of him if anyone can!”

Moon said, “Griselda, you double-crossing bitch!” The dwarf leaped down off the bed and pointed at her, aiming along his upslanted arm as though it were a rifle. “I knew you was up to somethin'!”

“You're even wiser than your years, Mordecai!” She laughed before turning back to Prophet. “When we have his money, we'll be richer than our wildest dreams!”

“I can dream pretty wild,” Prophet muttered, shocked at the unexpected turn of events though he wasn't sure what he
had
expected.

He'd had only a vague idea of what he'd do once he got up here. One half-formed idea involved shooting the little bastard and getting him out of the way once and for all. Another consisted of kidnapping both him and the girl and holding them hostage until the dwarf's men released the slave girls.

He hadn't counted on the girl turning on the dwarf and wanting to throw in with Prophet in torturing the little demon to get the combination to a safe out of him!

The dwarf ran over to the girl, lowered his head, and bulled into her, driving her back against the dresser.

“Hey, now!” Prophet said, taking one step forward but feeling helpless. “This will not do!”

Ignoring him, the girl grunted and cursed and fought against the little man, who punched and kicked her until his injured hand thudded into the dresser with a wooden knock.

The dwarf loosed a girlish squeal, gave his back to Griselda, and bent forward over his wounded hand. His ears turned as white as fresh linen, and saying nothing, making no sound whatever, he walked slowly back toward the bed.

“What's the combination, Mordecai?” the girl demanded, leaping on the dwarf from behind and driving him straight down to the floor with another squeal, fighting for his injured hand. “Tell me the combination, or I'll make you wish you was
dead
!” She looked at Prophet. “Help me. We'll split if fifty-fif—”

She stopped and shifted her gaze to something behind Prophet. Just then, Prophet heard the door latch click. He glanced behind him to see the Rio Bravo Kid enter the room, his two matched pistols in his hands. The Kid had a hard, indignant look on his clean-shaven face beneath the brim of his hat that still sat at a slightly odd angle to compensate for his still-swollen temple.

Prophet started to swing his own Colt toward the Kid but stopped when the Kid said, “Uh-uh.”

His voice was dull, distracted. He stood in front of the door, staring at Griselda sprawled atop the quietly mewling dwarf on the floor. Moon lay sort of curled around his injured hand, shielding it from Griselda's evil intentions.

“Kid!” she said, brightening phonily. “I didn't think you was
ever
gonna get here!”

The Kid was staring at Prophet. “Drop that gun, mister bounty hunter.”

Prophet looked at both the Kid's cocked revolvers. They were aimed at Prophet's belly. With a fateful sigh, Prophet depressed his own Colt's hammer and tossed the pistol onto the bed in front of him.

“Well, I never,” the Kid said with dull menace, looking genuinely shocked and grieved, shaking his head slowly. “I never seen the like of you, Griselda May. We grew up together, you an' me. I thought you loved me, wanted to spend the rest of your life with me.”

“I do, Kid!”

The dwarf turned his own red face and rheumy eyes toward the Kid. “You stupid shaver. She was playin' both ends against the middle.” He looked at Prophet. “And then this big, stupid,
wild card
came walkin' into the room!” He lowered his chin to his injured hand and gave another wounded-dog-like howl.

“I know, Mr. Moon,” the Kid said. “I was right outside. I heard it all through the door.”

Griselda gained her feet. Her hair was disheveled, her cheeks flushed. “Kid, I was just wantin' the big fella here to torture the safe combination out of Mordecai. You don't think I was really gonna
run off
with him, do you? Come on, Kid—I love
you
like I could never love
anyone
!”

“You bitch!” the dwarf shouted, sobbing now. “I loved you, Griselda.
Truly
I did! And look how you
done
me!”

“You pathetic little bastard.” Griselda laughed.

“Shut up, Griselda,” the Kid said, moving forward now, stepping wide around Prophet, keeping one gun aimed at Griselda, the other at the bounty hunter. “I don't wanna hear one more word outta you!”

When the Kid turned his full attention on Griselda, pointing both his cocked revolvers at her, Prophet saw an opening. He flung himself sideways into the Kid. One of the Kid's pistols barked a half second before Prophet hammered his right elbow into the Kid's belly.

Pivoting, he brought up his other arm and smashed the elbow into the Kid's face.

The Kid twisted around, clawing at the dresser, but merely pulled four empty busthead bottles and several shot glasses down with him as he fell to the floor and rolled onto his back, eyelids fluttering as consciousness left him.

Prophet heard the dwarf's strained, half-crying voice behind him. “Oh, Lordy, Lordy, Lordy!”

Hatless and breathless, down on one knee, the bounty hunter swung toward the room. Griselda sat on the floor near the front of the bed, a strange, wide-eyed look on her face. Her legs were stretched before her, knees bent slightly. She held both hands over her bloody belly.

Holding his injured hand up tight against his belly, the dwarf crawled toward her. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, his face pinched and red with sobbing.

“Griselda . . .”

“Shit,” she whispered and fell straight back against the floor.

“Griselda!” the dwarf howled, pressing his forehead against her small, pert bosoms. “We coulda had a good life together, you an' me, if you hadn't been such a double-crossin' bitch!”

Prophet stared at them lying there on the floor together, the dead girl in the dwarf's arms. He almost felt sorry for the tragic pair, and he probably would have if one hadn't been as evil as the other. The Rio Bravo Kid was out like a light, chest rising and falling slowly behind his pinto vest to which his deputy sheriff's badge was pinned.

Prophet cursed and grabbed his hat. He stuffed it on his head, rose, and walked over and scooped his Colt off the bed. He clicked the hammer back, walked over to the dwarf, and pressed the barrel against the back of the sobbing demon's head.

“Ah, go ahead,” the dwarf cried into the dead girl's chest. “Go ahead and put me outta my misery, big man! I fell in love with the wrong girl, that's all!”

As much as he wanted to, as much as he knew he should do it, Prophet couldn't squeeze the trigger. He pulled the pistol back, grabbed the little man's shirt by its collar. “You're ridin' with me, Moon.”

The din of the revelry from below had been vibrating through the floor. Now a man's enraged shout cut through the clamor. Prophet hadn't been able to hear what the man had said, but the sheer volume with which he'd said it caused him to tense.

The din died down, and then another man shouted,
“Upstairs with Mr. Moon!”

“Hell!” Prophet glanced in frustration at Mordecai Moon now grinning up at him, though tears were still rolling down his cheeks. The whites of the dwarf's colorless eyes were red from crying.

“That's where you're headed, big man,” the dwarf said with quiet delight. “In about three shakes of a whore's bell!
Hell!
”

As though to corroborate the dwarf's estimation, boots hammered the stairs, causing the floor to leap beneath Prophet's feet. He backed away from Moon, cursing in frustration. That he'd come so far only to turn back now, leaving the girl dead but Moon alive, was almost too much to bear. Still backing toward the door, he raised the Colt once more, clicked the hammer back, and aimed at Moon's forehead.

Grinning broadly, Moon raised his arms above his head and shrugged his shoulders, eyes flashing in mocking delight. It was an open challenge. He knew Prophet wouldn't be able to shoot a man in cold blood, one who wasn't even wearing a gun, and he was taking great delight in the frustration he saw on the bounty hunter's face.

Louisa could do it, Prophet thought. And she
would
do it. He should, too, but there was something in him whose seed had been sown during the war that would not let him draw his index finger back tight against the trigger and kill an unarmed man despite all the voices in his head urging him to do so.

“This ain't over, Moon.” His words sounded hollow even to his own ears as he lowered the pistol and turned to the door.

Prophet turned, grabbed the doorknob, jerked the door wide, and hurled himself out of the room and into a hail of gunfire.