The Devil and Lou Prophet (14 page)

Moving to a window, he pulled the
shade away and peered down into the yard. The light in the barn
went out. A moment later. Smith and Jones appeared, two dark
figures heading across the yard to the house. When they were
inside, boots clomping on the wood floor below. Prophet went to the
door, holding the shotgun in both hands out before him, and pressed
his back to the wall.

Listening through the door, he heard
the men climb the stairs.

“
Well, what the hell room’s
empty ... ?” Smith carped.

“
This one here ... the
door’s open,” Jones said.

It was the last room on the right, on
the other side of Prophet. When Prophet heard their door close, he
gave a relieved sigh and sat on the edge of the bed, listening
until the noises in the next room had died. Then he pushed himself
back onto the bed, his back against the headboard, boots crossed,
feeling the tension ease a little.

Prophet knew he couldn’t let his guard
down completely. It was when you thought you were in the clear that
all hell broke loose.

Hours passed, slow as a lifetime. The
lamp flickered and spat, then steadied for a while, flickering and
spitting again intermittently, all night long. Prophet dozed
lightly for a few minutes at a time, waking with a jerk, his whole
body tensing, whenever someone in one of the bedrooms coughed, the
old miner ceased snoring suddenly before resuming, the joists
creaked as the house settled, or a mouse scuttled in the
hall.

Prophet was grateful when the first
light of dawn smudged his window, and the birds began stirring,
their chirps and songs sounding as loud as thunder after the long,
silent night. Someone in the living quarters below must have heard
them, too, for they began moving around down there. When the first
smell of coffee wafted up the stairs. Prophet heard the old jehu,
Mike Clatsop, open his door, give a tired groan, and clomp down the
hall in his boots.

“
Stage leaves in forty
minutes, folks!” he reported in a voice about two decibels below a
yell. Then he continued downstairs.

Prophet didn’t move until he’d heard
Smith and Jones leave their room and stroll downstairs, spurs
jangling like change. Then he got up and blew out his
lamp.

His saddlebags over his left shoulder,
his shotgun hanging down his back, and his Winchester in his right
hand, he headed downstairs in time to see Smith head outside and
Jones sit down at one of the tables. Mike Clatsop must have gone
out to help the old man and the boys hitch the horses to the stage,
for he was nowhere in sight. The smell of bacon and coffee was
thick and enticing. Through the open kitchen door rose the sounds
of cooking.

“
Mornin’,” Prophet said to
Smith, who sat with his arms on the table before him, unshaven face
puffy from his good night’s rest. “Sleep well?”

Jones made a face as though he smelled
shit on his boots. “Like a log,” he drawled. “How ‘bout
you?”

“
Like a dead
man.”

Smith came the closest Prophet had
seen him to cracking a smile. Seeing the rifle and the shotgun,
Smith said. “Why, you’re loaded for bear!”

“
Never know what, or who,
you might run into out here.”

Smith smirked. “Ain’t that a
fact?”

Mrs. Hill appeared with a coffee pot
and a tray of cups. She set it all down on a table in the room’s
center. “Help yourselves to coffee, boys. Breakfast’ll be out in a
minute.”

Prophet got up, poured coffee into a
cup, and delivered the cup to Smith’s table with a grin. “There ye
are, friend,” he said. “First cup’s on me.”

Smith looked up at him dull-eyed,
contemptuous, and didn’t say anything. Prophet poured himself a cup
of coffee and sat down. He’d taken two sips when Mrs. Phelps and
her son Daniel appeared, and took a table as far from Prophet as
they could get. The old miner was about three minutes behind them,
joining them at their table.

Prophet was wondering about Miss
Diamond—had she overslept or snuck out a window?—when Mrs. Phelps
brought a plate for him and Jones. First come, first served. The
bounty man was about to get up to pour himself another cup of
coffee when he saw Smith standing in the doorway. He’d froze and
was looking toward the stairs.

Prophet turned to see what Smith was
looking at, and his pulse quickened. Miss Diamond stood at the foot
of the stairs, frozen, staring at Smith, as if some inner alarm
warned her of danger.

Prophet’s gaze shifted to Jones. He,
too, was staring at the girl, dark eyes wide with mute excitement.
Prophet’s heart pounded. A warm flush spread up his neck and into
his face. The Winchester stood against the wall behind him. His
shotgun was strapped around his neck, hanging butt-up down his
back.

He became acutely aware of the
eight-gauge. Could he get to it in time, or should he go for the
Peacemaker?

He shifted his gaze back to Smith,
whose eyes darted between Prophet and Jones as he nervously licked
his lips and slowly moved his right hand toward the revolver
hanging on his thigh.

“
What are we doin’ here,
Price?” Jones asked tightly, gritting his teeth. Jones was watching
Prophet and the girl, who remained before the stairs, frozen in
place, eyes wide with trepidation.

Smith swallowed a dry knot in his
throat. “I’ll take Prophet.” he said calmly. Then he yelled, “You
take the girl!”

Jones’s right arm jerked to his
six-shooter. Pulling the shotgun over his head with his right hand,
Prophet bounded to his feet. He got the eight-gauge out before him,
thrust his right finger through the trigger guard, eared back the
right hammer, leveled the barrels on Jones, and squeezed the
trigger.

The shotgun roared smoke and fire, and
Jones gave a high-pitched yell as the buckshot caught him in the
chest, stood him up, and Hung him back against the wall.

Prophet didn’t see him fall. He was
too busy kicking the table out to his left and diving to his right
just as Smith clawed iron and loosed two quick rounds in his
direction. The slugs tore into the wall behind his table. Prophet
hit the floor on his right side, brought the shotgun up, earing
back the left trigger, and thundered another round of buckshot
toward Smith, who yelled, dropped his gun, grabbed his right
shoulder, and sagged against the doorjamb.

“
Goddamn, you ... son of a
bitch!” he cried, his face twisted in pain, blood leaking between
the fingers of his gloved left hand.

He heaved himself off the jamb and ran
outside. Prophet climbed to his feet, shoved a table out of his
way, and ran to the door. By the time he got there, Smith had
mounted one of the two horses he’d apparently saddled and led out
from the barn. Sagging in the saddle of a skewbald gelding, he dug
his spurs into the horse’s ribs and headed out of the yard at a
ground-eating gallop.

Knowing that if the man got away he’d
summon others, Prophet dropped the empty shotgun, unholstered his
Peacemaker, and ran out to the middle of the yard. Dropping to a
knee, he fired off an entire cylinder. The last bullet took the man
just under his hat. He sagged down the side of the running horse
and rolled.

Prophet stood and stared at the dead
man through the dust churned up by his horse, which had fled out of
sight. He tipped his hat back and ran a hand down his face. He’d
gotten these two, but how many more would come?

However many it takes, the girl had
said.

With a sick feeling in the pit of his
stomach, Prophet knew it was true.

Prophet and Clatsop, who’d run up from
the corral when he’d heard the shooting, dragged the bodies behind
the barn. The boys, wizened veterans, offered to bury them beside
Frank Harvey.

Since they all, including Prophet, had
lost their appetites, they forwent breakfast and filed out to the
stage. As the old man and the two boys backed the team between the
shafts, Prophet pulled the girl aside.

“
I think we’d best light
out on our own,” he said. “Everyone in the county knows what stage
we took.”

“
I’ll
say they do,” she sniped.

Prophet glanced at the Appaloosa Smith
had tethered to the hitch-rack before the house. “You take that
horse. I’ll see about rounding up one for myself.”

It wasn’t hard convincing the old man
to lend him one of his saddle horses, tack, and a soogan. The old
station agent was shaken by the shooting, and it didn’t take a
genius to see that the sooner Prophet and the girl were gone, the
better off everyone would be.

Mike Clatsop didn’t argue with the
decision, either.

“
Prophet, I hope you make
it,” the jehu said from atop the driver’s box, looping the reins in
his arthritic old hands. “But I gotta tell you, if you’re in
trouble with ole Billy Brown, you prob’ly won’t.”

“
Thanks for the note of
encouragement,” Prophet said as he walked a saddled speckle-gray up
from the barn.

“
If I was you, I’d head
north to Canada,” Clatsop continued. “The winters aren’t all that
bad... relatively speakin’.”

“
I’ll keep that in mind,
Mike.”

Prophet mounted his horse and held the
reins tight as the stage started away from the station, Clatsop
yelling and cracking the blacksnake over the horses’ backs, the dog
nipping at the dust-dripping wheels.

“
Good riddance!” Mrs.
Phelps called to Prophet, poking her blunt face out the
window.

When the stage was gone, Prophet saw
the girl standing beside the Appaloosa. She held her carpetbag in
both hands and was regarding him with bald disdain. He didn’t blame
her. He wished he would have left her alone. It was too late for
that now, however. They were both in too deep—had too many men
after them—to back out now.

“
Well... we’d better ride,”
he said tiredly.

She lowered her gaze to her dress,
then looped the handles of her bag over the Appaloosa’s saddle.
Bending down, she lifted the hem of her dress and tore a slit up to
her thigh. When she was finished, she climbed into the saddle with
an ease Prophet found surprising for a showgirl.

She must have noticed his appraisal.
“Oh, my father kept horses, and I rode all the time!” she grouched,
brows furrowed with disdain. “Which way?”

“
This way,” he said,
reining the speckle-gray south.

They rode single-file down the stage
road for about a hundred yards. Then, by a stand of sun-dappled
cottonwoods, Prophet abruptly turned his horse off the trail and
headed east.

It was a big country they rode
through, following game trails through hogbacks and sandstone
buttes, cedar-studded rimrocks rising around them, sudden walls
shutting out the horizon. They traced the folds in the hills, one
fold after another. The sky was a vast, blue bowl. Hawks hunted the
brush and trees lining watercourses, giving their shrill cries.
Prairie dogs chortled.

The sun hot on her neck, Lola rode
behind Prophet, her anger simmering deep inside her. She was too
tired and discouraged to give voice to it now. She’d wanted to find
a saddled horse on which she could escape this insane, brutish man
... this Lou Prophet... but none had been available when she could
have used it to escape. Besides, she’d been too exhausted to make a
run for it, anyway.

So now she found herself having
escaped death once again—by a very narrow margin—and following this
madman horseback through the vast northwestern wilderness, heading
cross-country to Johnson City. She couldn’t understand why he
wouldn’t release her. Didn’t he see there was no way Billy Brown
would let them live?

Some men were as stubborn as fate, and
this Mr. Prophet was definitely one of those. After they’d camped
for the night and Prophet was asleep, she’d take one of the horses
and get away from the fool once and for all, before he got them
both killed. She’d give him the slip if she first had to knock him
in the head with a stone.

They’d traveled about forty-five
minutes when Prophet reined up suddenly and jerked his gaze
southward. Lola halted her horse, as well.

“
What is it?”

“
Did you hear
something?”

She frowned. “No.”

“
I thought I heard gun
shots.”

“
Great! Just great! They’ve
followed us!”

“
Shh.”

“
Don’t shush
me—”

His sharp look silenced her. He cast a
look south again, squinting his eyes, straining his ears. He heard
it again. Muffled gunfire. And that smudge above the butte about
two hundred yards away ... was that... ?

Sure enough ... it was
smoke.

The hair on the back of Prophet’s neck
bristled. It could very well be the stage road over
there.

“
You wait here,” he ordered
the girl, knowing full well she’d probably run. He couldn’t worry
about that now. If the smoke and gunfire were what he thought they
were, he had a far bigger problem on his hands.

He gigged the horse into a
ground-eating gallop, rising and falling over the rolling
tablelands. He crested the saddle of a low butte and reined the
speckle-gray to a skidding halt. Tossing his gaze to the
flower-speckled prairie beneath him, he saw what he’d hoped he
wouldn’t: