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

“
Step right up here, Mr. Prophet,” the
old
mountain man said, his right fist full
of bills.
Turning to the bear sleeping in
the corner, he said, “Curly, get up here now. You got work to
do!”

“What’s the matter with him?” Prophet asked, indicating the
man passed out on the floor behind Dyson’s chair. The man had a
pained snarl on his face.

“Oh,
he’ll be all right,” Dyson chuckled. “He just wasn’t ready for
Curly’s turnip twist, is all.”

“You
mean he wrestled the bear?”

“Always does.” Dyson chuckled and wagged his head, thumbing
through the bills, his grizzled gray hair falling from beneath a
greasy wool hat with a narrow, upturned brim.

Men
and pleasure girls had gathered
around
Prophet. The bartenders had paused
to watch
from behind the mahogany. When he’d entered the room from the
gambling den, the room had erupted in applause, and Tillie had
marched him over to the mountain man’s corner, cheerily leading her
lamb to the slaughter.

“What
the hell’s a turnip twist?” Prophet wanted to know, scowling with
apprehension.

“Curly, get up now, damn ye!” Dyson said, prodding the bear
with his gnarled hickory cane. “You got work to do.”

The
bear’s head lolled, and it swiped at the cane with a heavy paw.
Dyson prodded the animal again, and the bear lifted its head, its
deep brown eyes blinking and clearing as it rose out of its
stupor.

Again, Dyson
prodded the beast. Prophet watched skeptically as the animal yawned
and stretched and slowly gained its feet. It ambled over to Dyson
and regarded Prophet dully.

It was
a big bear, but Prophet had seen bigger. Prophet weighed about
two-twenty in his birthday suit, and all his horse riding and
owlhoot chasing had chiseled every pound to hard muscle. The bear
weighed probably double that, but Curly had big jowls and flabby
shoulders and hips, and he
moved awkwardly,
swaying on his back hips,
as though his
bones were stove up from lying too long on the cold saloon floor.
Also, he had a sizable paunch. Glancing at the floor where the bear
had been lying, Prophet saw a pie tin of what looked like
beer.

Prophet grinned as he stared into the bear’s glassy eyes.
Curly was not only fat and stove up. He was drunk, to
boot.

Dyson
gave the bear’s rear a swap with the cane and said, “Don’t just
stand there, Curly. Have at it. And keep your claws in. And for god
sakes leave the poor man’s nose alone.”

“Nose?” Prophet crouched as he moved toward the bear, feeling
like an idiot, not quite sure what to do with his hands. He’d never
wrestled a bear. Maybe he should have sought the counsel of someone
who had. . . .

“And
leave off with the turnip twist!” Dyson ordered as the bear
shuffled toward Prophet.

Prophet looked at
the mountain man, who reclined in his chair like a lord, his boots
crossed on the table on which his money, beer glass, and notebook
lay.

Anxiously Prophet asked, “What the hell’s a turnip
twist?”

Several onlookers chuckled and elbowed each other. Dyson’s
brows furrowed. He scribbled something in his notebook.

Whatever a turnip twist was, it was too late for Prophet to
back out now. The bear had closed on him, the animal’s eyes dark
and dumb but deep with feral purpose. He smelled of beer and the
wild, musky-sweet smell of bear.

“Go,
Lou!” Tillie Azure cried from a group of several other doves,
clapping her hands. “I know you can do it. See, he’s not a very big
bear at all, and he’s been drinkin’ all afternoon!”

Prophet moved in.
His best strategy would be to act quickly and take the bear by
surprise. As the beast rose up on its hind legs, Prophet ducked
under its nailing paws, pivoted around behind it, and jumped onto
its back, crooking his arms around its neck.

The
bear cried out with surprise as Prophet tightened his hold on its
neck and dug his boots into Curly’s gut. Giving another cry, the
beast lost its balance, stumbled heavily, and fell with a
boom.

“Go,
Lou!”Tillie cried.

Gaining confidence, Prophet scrambled onto his heels, bolted
off his feet, and dived onto the bear’s shaggy belly, pinning one
hairy leg with both his knees while holding the other down with his
arms.

Curly gave an
angry wail, jerking all his limbs at once, and suddenly Prophet was
airborne, flying head over heels, brushing an onlooker, and
plunging through a chair. He hit the floor hard on his ass. Staring
at the rafters, he gulped air into his battered lungs.

“Lou-oo!” Tillie complained with more disgust than concern.
Several others, including Dyson, yelled and clapped for the
bear.

“Get
that son of a bitch, Curly!” a man yelled. “Get that son of a
bitch!”

Prophet turned to
see the shaggy beast awkwardly gain its feet, head swinging,
smacking its lips as though hungry, its eyes as dark and dumb as
before but with a vague glitter deep in the pupils, like a small
flame at the bottom of a well. It lifted its front paws eagerly,
giving Prophet an indignant glare.

Knowing he couldn’t remain on the floor without the bear
sitting on him or worse, Prophet gained his feet, staggering, red
flares flashing behind his eyes. The bear approached, chuffing and
growling and working its nose.

Prophet raised his fists, intending to smack the bear, which
stood about Prophet’s six-four. But the idea somehow seemed
ludicrous. Who in the hell ever heard of punching a bear? What in
the hell would you aim for — its nose? You’d only break your hand
if you tried smacking that thick skull.

The hesitation
was a mistake.

As
Prophet tried to skip around the brute, the bear turned quickly,
lunging and bowling into Prophet with what felt like the weight of
an overloaded dray. Prophet went down, the back of his head
slamming the puncheons and igniting a chorus of hoarse trumpets in
his ears.

Sucking back the
pain, he scrambled to his haunches. The bear got down on all fours
and rammed Prophet with his shoulder. The weight and force was too
much. Flat on his back once again, his head feeling like a smashed
pumpkin, Prophet again found himself staring at the
rafters.

“I
give ... I give . . .” he mumbled, trying to be heard above the
crowd’s din.

The
bear rested its forearms on Prophet’s chest, forcing the air from
his lungs. Prophet struggled against the enormous weight,
desperately kicking his legs. The great beast lowered its head, its
eyes dark and flat and gold-flecked with rage. The toothy mouth
opened, then closed over Prophet’s nose.

“Owwww!” Prophet yelled as the teeth dug in. By instinct and
reflex more than cunning, he brought his right boot up hard into
the animal’s crotch.

The
bear opened its mouth, releasing Prophet’s nose. It tipped its head
back and cut loose with an indignant roar so loud that the hanging
lamps shook.

The
crowd fell silent as Curly sank to his butt, stubby back legs
straight out before
him, and dropped his
paws to his injured groin. With a more hurt, indignant look than
Prophet had seen on the face of man
or
beast, the bear wailed again, its eyes glaring at the rafters, its
head wagging from side
to side as if asking
why, why, why?

Prophet scrambled back on his butt and glanced around. The
crowd regarded the
bear sadly. Several
incriminating looks were
directed at
Prophet. Heads wagged.

“Jesus, what an awful thing to do!” someone
exclaimed.

“He
kicked him in the balls,” someone else said, as though he could
hardly believe his eyes.

As
Curly wailed again, still holding his crotch, Prophet said, “Well,
what in the hell did you expect me to do? The damn brute tried
bitin’ my nose off!” He grabbed the appendage in question and his
fingers came away stained with blood — not a lot, but enough to
know his kick had been justified.

“Oh,
Lou!” Tillie cried, gazing at Prophet reprovingly. “How could
you?”

“What?” Prophet raged. For god’s sake, the bear had tried to
bite off his nose.

“Lou!”
Tillie cried again, stomping her foot. Turning to Dyson, who’d come
out of his chair to check the damage to his bear, she said, “I’m
sorry, Mr. Dyson. I never
should have
suggested an uncouth brute like that” — she jerked her head at
Prophet — “wrestle poor Curly. I just didn’t know he’d fight like a
damn . . .
girl!”

With
that, Tillie lifted her skirts, wheeled, pushed through the crowd,
and marched haughtily up the stairs at the back of the room. The
other girls gave Prophet angry glares and followed Tillie’s
lead.

“You
okay, Curly?” Dyson asked the bear, hunkering down to get a look at
the brute’s crotch.

The bear only
glowered at him and snorted, then pushed the man away and climbed
to all fours. Wobbling like an off-balance Gypsy cart, it ambled
back to its place in the corner, gave one last bereaved sigh, and
lay down. Kicking one leg out, it planted its snoot on the floor
and snorted, staring balefully at a knot in the worn
puncheons.

Prophet looked around the room in exasperation, unable to
believe all the nasty looks directed at him. “What in the hell did
you expect me to do?” he yelled, his indignant voice breaking on
the high notes.

“I
know what you can do, mister,” a burly man in miner’s garb
declared, stepping forward. “You can get the hell out of here right
now.”

“Yeah,
you’re not welcome in the Slap & Tickle anymore, Prophet,” one
of the bartenders told him.

“Now,
wait a minute . . .”

Before Prophet
could say more, three other men came forward. Two took his arms and
two took his legs. Deaf to his objections, they carried him like a
battering ram across the room and through the batwings.

“Now
maybe you’ll think twice before fightin’ cheap again!” one of the
men said as he and the others threw the bounty hunter headfirst
into the street.

It had been
raining, and the mud was a foot deep, laced with a healthy dose of
horse dung. Prophet slid halfway into the street before he came to
a stop. He lifted his face from the mud and dung, spitting the foul
ooze from his mouth, blinking.

A pair
of lady’s cloth boots and the hem of a heavy wool skirt, held above
the mud, appeared before him. To the right was a pair of men’s
ankle-high, calfskin shoes below the hemmed cuffs of pin-striped
trousers. A black frock brushed the man’s knees.

“Well,” said the woman with cool disapproval, “that was a very
attractive display.” She spoke in an Old World brogue, pronouncing
her w’s like v’s.

“Yes,
very attractive,” said the man. His voice bore the same accent as
the woman’s. “Very attractive indeed, Countess. Are you sure he is
the one we are looking for?”

“No,”
the woman said crisply. “But bring him anyway.”