Staring Down the Devil (A Lou Prophet Western #5) (8 page)

At
first light Prophet built a small fire and boiled coffee. He and
Sergei went over Prophet
’s map of the
Southwest, Prophet pointing out the trail he thought they should
take — a trail that joined up with a stage road near the village of
Limon, New Mexico.

The
countess appeared from the coach looking as fresh and haughty as
always in spite of last night’s festivities. Prophet smiled at her
over the rim of his coffee cup. She flushed and turned toward the
creek.

“Tell
me,” Prophet said to Sergei. “What made you savvy the trap last
night?” The bounty hunter’s pride was bruised.

The
Cossack smiled pridefully and shrugged, inflating his big chest. “I
just had a sense, my friend Prophet,” he said, flicking dead ashes
off his black cheroot. “Just a sense.”

“A
sense?” Prophet said, irritated. “That was it? You had a
sense?”

“Yes,
I had sense. Besides, it is an old trick, no? The Tartars I fought
tried such ruses all the time.”

“Well,
I sure am glad your sense proved to be right,” Prophet said wryly.
“Otherwise, I reckon we’d be cold-blooded killers.”

The
Cossack apparently found this one of the funniest things he’d ever
heard, for he threw his head back and guffawed loudly. Rising, he
slapped Prophet’s back so hard that the bounty hunter nearly
tumbled face first into the fire. Strolling off toward the horses,
the Russian began singing merrily in his mother tongue.

Prophet tossed his remaining coffee in the fire and saddled
Mean and Ugly. “A sense,” he grumbled.

A few
minutes later they were on the trail, the sun rising over Prophet’s
shoulder, extending rock and cactus shadows westward. The stage
clattered behind him, the Cossack in the driver’s box urging the
four matched bays up grades and around rim-rocks.

Prophet thought ahead, to when he’d be rid of these loco
royals and luxuriating in Phoenix or Tucson or Mexico, enjoying the
sun-washed village plazas and buxom senoritas while waiting for the
snow to melt up North.

First
he had to find the countess’s sister, which meant he had to find
some town called Broken Knee. Since he’d never heard of the place
and since the town wasn’t marked on his map, he’d have to ask
around — when he found someone to ask, that was.

“Have
you seen anything of our attackers, Mr. Prophet?” the countess
called out the stage window later that afternoon.

Drifting back to ride even with the stage, Prophet was
surprised. The countess hadn’t said two words to him since their
embarrassing moment on the ridge. She seemed to have recovered from
it now, however, for she regarded him directly out the window,
squinting against the westering sun.

“No,
ma’am,” Prophet told her. “I’ve ridden ahead and lingered behind
and made a big loop around the coach, and I haven’t seen so much as
a dust plume. But that isn’t to say those long riders aren’t
following us. I’m hoping they’ve decided we’re more trouble than
we’re worth.”

“Yes,
it is better to be safe than sorry,” the countess Natasha said.
“That is the expression, is it not, Mr. Prophet?”

“That’s it, ma’am.”

“What
happened to your cheek?”

“Bullet creased it last night. Just a scratch. Goes with my
nose.”

“Your
nose is almost healed,” she said, smiling amusedly at the faint
tooth marks. “But your cheek — it should be covered. You’ve gotten
dust in it.”

Prophet shrugged. “Like I said, it’s just a
scratch.”

“Tonight I’ll clean it for you.”

“Better not, Countess,” Prophet said. “We get too close, I’m
liable to get Sergei’s dagger in my hide.”

She
laughed, her face opening beautifully, her cheeks coloring. Her
slanty eyes turned downright pretty. “He is a bit overprotective,”
she said above the creaking wheels and squeaking leather thorough
braces. “We were through a lot together, Serge and my family. On
his deathbed, Father made Sergei promise to keep the family
safe.”

“I
reckon you couldn’t be in safer hands,” Prophet allowed,
remembering the Cossack’s quick, decisive action the night
before.

“Yes,
though he does tend to get a bit . . . zealous, shall we
say?”

Prophet smiled. “I reckon he just wants to make sure you and
your sister make it home safe, is all.”

“Nevertheless — I will clean your cheek for you tonight.” She
dropped her chin and smiled demurely. “But I promise not to
embarrass myself further.”

Prophet looked at her, flushing. “That’s all right,” he said.
“To be frank, you can throw yourself at me anytime you want . . .
as long as he’s not watchin’,” Prophet added, tipping his head to
indicate Sergei in the driver’s box, yelling at the horses as they
climbed a grade.

The
countess lifted her slanted eyes to him again. Now her timidity was
gone, replaced with a brassiness that turned Prophet’s middle to
jelly. He noticed that her shirtwaist wasn’t buttoned up so high,
revealing a spray of freckles angling down toward her
cleavage.

“I
will take that under consideration,” she remarked.

“That
mean you’re not mad anymore?”

“I am
not mad,” she replied. “You were right, Mr. Prophet. The coach is
an unforgivable luxury, especially when I should be making haste to
reach Broken Knee to find Marya. I am afraid we Roskovs have a lot
to learn about humility and practicality.”

“Looks
to me like you’re already learning,” Prophet said with a
smile.

The
countess returned the smile, which grew thoughtful. “Do you think
Marya is alive?”

He
looked off and pursed his lips, not sure what to say. Then he
looked at her again and shrugged, trying not to look too grim. “I
don’t rightly know, Countess.”

She
nodded slowly. “Call me Natasha.”

“If
you call me Lou.”

With a
parting grin and a pinch of his hat brim, he gigged Mean and Ugly
past Sergei and the team. He scouted the trail ahead for half an
hour, then rode back to the coach. Riding abreast of the big
Russian smoking a black cheroot in the driver’s box, Prophet said,
“There’s a stage stop ahead.”

“A
what? A stop?”

“We’re
on a stage road. Stage companies have lodges here and there along
the road, where coaches can stop for the night and to switch teams.
They call these lodges stops or way stations. We’ll stay there for
the night, if the station agent will have us. It’ll be safer than
the trail, and I’m sure the countess wouldn’t mind sleeping in a
bed for a night.”

“No, I
am sure she would not,” the Cossack agreed. “To be honest, Mr.
Prophet, I would not mind a bed myself. This old Russian has gotten
spoiled since coming to your country.”

“It’s
settled, then.”

Before
Prophet could ride ahead, Sergei held up a hand to waylay him. “I
feel I must remind you, my friend Lou, that the countess is . . .
how do you say . . . ?”

“Off
limits?” Prophet asked with a tight smile.

“Yes,”
Sergei said, returning the smile as cold as a Russian winter. “Off
limits.”

“Isn’t
that rather up to the countess?”

“No,”
was the Russian’s taut reply.

“I
see,” Prophet said. Heeling the dun into a lope, he added under his
breath, “I just wonder if she does.”

“
How you doin’, Barstow?” Bobby St.
John asked the wounded rider as he pushed off his hands into a
sitting position. St. John had been drinking in Two-Boulder Creek,
and now he adjusted his eye patch over the empty socket and
loosened his bandanna.

“My
knee’s all shot to hell,” Barstow complained. “Look at me bleed!
I’m like to bleed dry!”

Barstow was a
hefty lad with straight brown hair cut high around his scalp. His
face was flushed and perspiring, his eyes bloodshot, from the pain
of his bullet-shattered knee.

“Just
hold on, Bar,” Ned Jamison said. He was sitting with his back to a
rock, cleaning his Winchester.

Two
other survivors of their failed attack last night sat nearby.
“Squirrely” Jack Nye was tending a flesh wound in his arm, and the
other man, the huge, green-eyed mulatto, Kevin Kimbreau, was
drinking coffee and eating jerky.

Counting Bobby St. John, a total of five men had survived the
attack.

“Hold
on?” Barstow raged, wincing through his pain. “You hold on, damn
your hide anyway! This hurts like hell. I need a
doctor.”

“We
ain’t got no time for a doctor,” Bobby St. John said. “We got a job
to do.”

“Leave
the damn coach!” Jamison said. “Can’t you see Barstow’s bleedin’
dry?”

“Squirrely” Jack Nye, always cool as a November breeze,
chuckled. “Hell, he’s gonna die, anyway. Why waste time gettin’ him
to a sawbones? I’m with Bobby. I say we overtake that friggin’
coach. I ain’t passin’ up that much money, not to mention that much
woman.”

Nye looked around
the group. The others looked back at him. St. John was grinning. In
spite of his earlier sentiment to the contrary, Jamison appeared to
be considering it. Like St. John, the olive-skinned Kevin Kimbreau
had already made up his mind. He sipped his coffee and chewed his
jerky, blinking dully at Nye.

“No,
goddamn you!” Barstow said. “You can’t leave me here to die! Ole Ed
wouldn’t o’ left one o’ his boys to die!”

“Champion’s dead,” St. John growled.

“Yeah,
he’s dead,” Kimbreau agreed.

“Stupid asshole fouled up good and true,” St. John continued.
“He an’ that damn kid. Liked to get us all kilt.”

“Goddamn you sons o’ bitches!” Barstow raged. “You can’t do
this to me. Me and Ed — we was the ones who started this group in
the first place! You can’t leave me here to die!”

Ignoring his friend Barstow, Jamison turned to St. John. “That
Russian and that bounty hunter — they’re a tough tangle.

“So
you’re sayin’ we should let ‘em go? Nye asked
accusingly.

“Yes!”
Barstow yelled.

Ignoring the
wounded man, Jamison shrugged his shoulders.

“I say
we get the Russian lady,” Kimbreau said. He grabbed his crotch and
flashed his big, white teeth, his green eyes flashing.

Barstow turned over on his side, grabbing his bleeding knee
and panting. “You can’t leave me,” he intoned, his voice growing
weaker.

“All
right, we won’t leave you,” St. John said. Casually, the one-eyed
Texan removed his revolver from his holster and hefted it in his
hand. He glanced at Nye, who smiled agreeably. Then St. John
thumbed back the Remington’s hammer and extended the gun toward
Barstow.

“Jesus, Bobby,” Jamison cautioned.

Barstow turned to St. John. Seeing the gun, his eyes widened
and flashed with terror. “No! What are you doin’?”

“Don’t
worry, Bar,” St. John said. “We ain’t gonna leave ye here.
Leastways, not alive. I’ll put a forty-five slug right between your
eyes.”

“Better move closer,” Kimbreau advised. “Might hit his other
knee.” The mulatto grinned.

Jamison turned his face away, wagging his head. “Jesus Christ
. . .”

“I can
get him from here,” St. John said as Barstow slid clumsily away,
digging the heel of his good foot into the sandy ground and holding
his arms over his face. He screamed and pleaded for his
life.

“Put
your goddamn hands down, Bar,” St. John urged. “I can’t get a clean
shot with you waving your arms all over the damn place.”

“Noooo!” cried Barstow.

St.
John aimed down the Remington’s barrel, his good eye hard as steel.
Finally the gun jumped and barked. A neat round hole appeared in
Barstow’s forehead, above his right eye. Barstow collapsed,
dead.

For
several seconds silence hung heavy over the group as each man
studied the dead Barstow, blood trickling from the neat hole a half
inch above his half-open eye.

“Didn’t get him between the eyes,” Nye said. “Got him above
the right eye.”

“Yeah,
you did, Bobby,” Kimbreau agreed.

“He
shut up, didn’t he?” St. John growled, flipping the loading gate
open and replacing the spent shell. “Get off your lazy asses,” he
ordered. “We got a coach to run down.”