Staring Down the Devil (A Lou Prophet Western #5) (3 page)

“Glad
ye think it’s so damn funny,” Prophet groused as he opened the door
and stepped cautiously onto the boardwalk.

He stayed back in
the shadows against the bathhouse until a cab appeared. He waved it
down and crawled in, keeping his hat over his eyes and slouching
down in the seat.

“The
Denver House,” he called to the driver. “Pronto, for
chrissakes!”

The Countess
Natasha Roskov and Sergei Andreyevich regarded Prophet bemusedly as
he marched across the dining room, an indignant set to his jaw. He
removed his hat and chucked it on the table.

The
countess arched her brow, a humorous light in her frosty blue eyes.
“I didn’t realize how much taller you were than Sergei.”

Sergei chuckled
into his napkin.

Ignoring them, Prophet pulled out a chair and dropped into it.
“Just out of curiosity, you understand, what in the hell do you two
want from me?”

The
countess had removed her cape to reveal a purple satin traveling
dress with white stitching at the seams. The dress was buttoned all
the way up to her throat and then some, and was secured at her
long, aristocratic neck with an ivory brooch. “Would you like a
drink? The liquor here is very good — for a frontier
town.”

“No,
thanks.”

She
turned to Sergei. “Tell him, would you, Serg? It might sound better
coming from you. Mr. Prophet is apparently aroused by
women.”

Prophet doubted that
aroused
was the word she’d meant to use. In spite of
himself, he chuckled and turned to Sergei, who ran his thumb and
index finger through his shiny, raven goatee and sipped his
brandy.

Setting the glass down before him, he entwined his stubby
fingers around it and leaned over the table. “As I mentioned
before, this is the Countess Roskov. I am Sergei Andreyevich, her
manservant and bodyguard. We are from Russia originally but now
reside in Boston. We have come west in search of the countess’s
sister, Marya.”

“We
met your friend Mr. Senate in Kansas City,” the countess said. “He
told us that you might be able to help us. He told us, in fact,”
she added, with a trace of patronizing humor, “that if anyone
could, it is you.” She glanced at Sergei, as if wondering if Senate
had been off his rocker.

“I’m a
bounty hunter,” Prophet said, giving the cravat an irritated jerk.
“I only go after people with bounties on their heads.”

The
countess studied him coolly. “Mr. Senate said that you would
probably be in Denver in the early winter. We’ve been waiting for
you for several weeks. I hope we have not waited in
vain.”

Prophet scowled. “You have. I’m a might later than I expected.
How did you find me, anyway? Denver’s become a pretty big
berg.”

“We
asked around at the — how do you say? — cathouses.” The countess’s
expression was matter-of-fact, but the knobs of her cheeks flushed
slightly. “A helpful young lady said that sooner or later we could
find you at the house where she works or in the Slap & Tickle
Saloon.”

Prophet’s cheeks warmed with chagrin as the countess
continued. “We just happened to check there after dinner this
evening, and there you were, flying out the door.”

A
smile tugged at her lips, and she glanced at Sergei Andreyevich,
whose hairy hands were still entwined around his glass. He had a
ruggedly handsome face. The carefully trimmed goatee lent a formal,
almost military touch. A humorous light shone in the broad
Russian’s lustrous brown gaze.

“Mr.
Senate described you perfectly,” the countess said, a note of
admiration tempering her amusement.

Prophet finally removed the annoying cravat and tossed it on
the table with the hat. “Sorry, I can’t help you.” He slid his
chair back and stood.

“Can’t?” she asked. “Or won’t?”

“Both.”

“Why?”

“I
told you, I’m a bounty hunter. If your sister don’t have legal
paper on her, I won’t mess with it. Just simpler that way. I like
things simple. I’ll leave the clothes at the Black Stallion Livery
Barn in the morning. It’s by the Cherry Creek bridge.”

Before
he could turn away, the countess nodded at Sergei, who removed a
fat, brown envelope from his jacket and set it on Prophet’s side of
the table.

“I can
offer you one thousand dollars at this moment,” she said. “Another
thousand when we’ve found Marya.”

Prophet looked at the envelope. As much as he needed the
money, he couldn’t do it. He didn’t work for people, only wanted
dodgers. Life was just more livable that way. Besides, these people
took too much for granted.

“Sorry,” he said again. Leaving the hat and cravat on the
table, he headed for the door.

As he
headed east toward the livery barn, he stopped in a tavern for a
bottle. Back in the fresh night air, he dug the cork from the
bottle with his pocketknife and drank, enjoying the burn of the
whiskey in his throat.

Two
thousand dollars. Damn.

He
took another drink, corked the bottle, and continued walking east
along Denver’s downtown flats. He was halfway down the block when a
string of horses appeared, walking slowly around a closed leather
goods shop, heads hanging with fatigue. At the head of the string
was a short, longhaired hombre on a tall, black horse. All four
horses behind him carried riders draped belly down across their
saddles, their heads, arms, and feet jerking stiffly as the horses
tramped through the mud.

Prophet frowned at the man on the lead horse. In the darkness
compromised by only the buttery glow from saloon windows, he
couldn’t see the man’s face, but something about the man — the set
of his narrow shoulders and the way his hands gripped the bridle
reins, chin in the air — looked familiar.

“Well,
I’ll be goddamned,” Prophet said aloud to himself, his face
cracking a grin. “That ain’t no man at all!” Stepping off the
boardwalk as the rider approached, he yelled, “Hey, you there!
Where the hell you think you’re goin’?”

Faster
than Prophet could blink, the rider brought her horse to a halt and
clawed her six-gun from her holster. Thumbing back the hammer, she
brought the revolver to bear on the bounty hunter, aiming down the
bore with one eye squinted. “Wherever I please, sir, and what are
you going to do about it?”

Prophet lifted his hands and bottle above his head, and
grinned. “Don’t shoot, Louisa. It’s Lou.”

The
girl frowned and leaned forward, her blond hair falling across her
shoulders. She wore a man’s flannel shirt, sheepskin vest, tight
jeans, and plainsman hat thonged beneath her chin. They were a
man’s clothes, all right, but the slender curves and high bosom
were all woman. Or those of a well-built eighteen-year-old
girl.

She
was close enough that Prophet could see her gazing at him,
surprised. “Lou?”

“In
the flesh, little darlin’,” Prophet said with a chuckle, dropping
his arms. “What in the hell brings you to Denver?”

“Lou!”
the girl cried, depressing the hammer of her six-gun and sliding
the pistol back in her holster. “I didn’t recognize you in that
suit.”

Quickly she slipped out of her saddle, dropped her reins, and
ran to Prophet, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face
in his chest. Her hat slid off her head and hung down her back by
the thong. “Oh, Lou, it is you!”

Prophet hugged her. “Sure is good to see you again, girl. Yes,
siree . . . mighty fine. I been worried ever since we split up back
in Nebraska.” He looked at the horses strung out behind her black
Morgan, all tied tail-to-tail. “But I guess I don’t have to ask you
what you’ve been up to.”

She
pulled away from him and followed his gaze to the dead men on the
horses. “That’s the Kelly Gang,” she said, her sonorous
schoolgirl’s voice turning hard. “Or what’s left of them. They held
up a stage near Cheyenne. They massacred all the passengers,
including the father of five children and a mother of two. I
tracked them to just north of Denver, caught them all bathing in
Stony Butte Creek.”

“They
decided not to come peaceful, I take it.”

Louisa
Bonaventure, whom Prophet had once dubbed the Vengeance Queen on
account of her quest for the gang that had murdered her family,
shook her head. “I couldn’t convince them I was serious, in spite
of the fact I had my Winchester on them and they were all standing
naked as jaybirds in the water. They just laughed and went for the
guns they’d left on the bank.” She shook her head as she regarded
the dead men thoughtfully. “It was just like shooting ducks on a
millpond.”

Prophet chuckled at the girl. She had the angelic face and
countenance of a pious farmer’s daughter from Nebraska, which she
was. Circumstances, however, had turned her into an improbably
formidable manhunter. The combination, wrapped as it was in such an
attractive package, was astounding and not a little discomfiting.
To their everlasting regret, hardcases didn’t take her
seriously.

“Law,
Miss Bonnyventure,” he said, “you are a caution!”

“Someone needs to rid the earth of evil men as these,” she
said, suddenly pensive as she studied the bodies draped over the
horses. “You can’t do it all yourself, Lou.”

“No, I
reckon not,” Prophet allowed. “Where you headin’ now?”

“I was
looking for a place to keep these men until the sheriff’s office
opens in the morning and I can file a claim for the bounty on their
heads. I need oats for the Morgan, and trail supplies.”

“I
know just the place.” Prophet untied the second horse from the
Morgan’s tail and mounted behind the dead man.

Louisa
watched him with a puzzled smile. “What on earth are you
doing?”

“Why
walk when I can ride?”

She
grunted a laugh as she appraised his garb. “Do you realize your
suit doesn’t fit?”

“I’d
just as soon not get into that, if you don’t mind. Come
on.”

“Where
we going?”

“To
the livery barn where I got Mean and Ugly stabled.”

“I
have money, Lou. We don’t have to stay in a barn.”

“Well,
I don’t, and I’m a little sensitive about it at the moment,”
Prophet said. “Come on. Let’s go bed your vermin down as well as
ourselves.”

Louisa
grabbed the Morgan’s reins and swung onto the saddle. “Lou Prophet,
are you trying to sweet-talk me into sleeping with you
tonight?”

Prophet grinned. “Is it working?”

Louisa
gigged her horse down the street. “The good Lord frowns on heathens
and fornicators, Lou.”

“Yeah,
but we’ll have a good time, anyway,” Prophet said.

Prophet and Louisa laid out the dead outlaws near a woodpile
behind the livery barn. Prophet didn’t think the Mex swamper,
stretched out in the barn’s tiny rear office, sound asleep in the
arms of a drunk dove, would mind.

When
they’d stalled the horses, Prophet led Louisa into the hayloft,
where Prophet spread his soogan. Louisa spread hers out next to
Prophet’s, and they sat down, resting against the hay mound looming
behind them.

Prophet had brought up a bull’s-eye lantern, and its buttery
glow offered the only light from its nail on a ceiling joist. The
air was rich with the smell of hay, horses, wheel grease, and wood
smoke from the stove in the Mexican’s office below. Outside rose
the night sounds of distant, muffled voices and the occasional,
artificial squeals of a working girl leading some miner off to her
crib.

“Drink?” Prophet offered, uncorking his bottle.

“You
know I don’t drink that stuff, Lou,” Louisa said. Fishing around in
her saddlebags, she produced a slender bottle. “Cherry soda. Picked
it up in Cheyenne. I’ve been saving it for a special
occasion.”

“You
sure know how to kick up your heels, girl,” Prophet said with a
grin, studying her doll-like, peaches-and-cream features in the wan
glow from the lantern.

Her
face was a perfect oval, the skin smooth as fresh-whipped cream and
tinted almond by the sun under which she rode, stalking the West
for evil-doers, like those who’d killed her family, as if somehow
she could single-handedly purge the world of villainy and even the
odds against the devil.

It was
a hopeless cause, but Prophet knew she had to make the effort. It
was all she had. He hoped she’d get it out of her system someday,
and live the kind of life a girl like her was meant to live — an
ordinary life in some small town, with a husband and kids and a
house with a porch and a lazy dog asleep by the well
pump.

“Oh,
I’m tired,” she said, unlacing her boots. “It’s been one long ride
from up north. The Indians are causing problems up there, so I had
to be extra careful. Sometimes I only rode at night. And those
boys” — she curled her button nose — “were getting a little
ripe.”

“I’ll
say they were,” Prophet said, having smelled the bodies himself. He
shook his head. Anticipating his thought, she touched a finger to
his mouth.