The Devil and Lou Prophet (21 page)

Gritting his teeth, Prophet returned
his gaze westward. The man with the big gun in his arms had
stopped, crouching. He stayed that way for over a
minute.

“
Come on, come on,”
Prophet silently
beseeched the man. “It was nothing. Just a prairie dog. He saw a
hawk—that’s all. Come on.”

The man began walking again, moving
slowly this way. He disappeared twice around rocks and shrubs, then
appeared again, about thirty feet away. Now Prophet could hear the
man’s boots grinding gravel; he could hear the anxious rake of his
breath in his lungs.

The man approached to within twenty
feet of Prophet, bending to study the prints of shod hooves in the
powdery dust. He straightened and moved forward, to within twelve
feet. Then he was so close that Prophet could have spit on him. He
walked on by, slowly following the trail.

When he’d given his entire back to
Prophet, he stopped suddenly, like a man startled. He’d either
smelled Prophet or felt Prophet’s eyes burning a hole through his
back. Before the man could react, Prophet stood and thumbed back
the shotgun’s left hammer. The metallic grating and punctuating
click echoed in the heavy silence.

Prophet said quietly, “You know what
an eight-gauge loaded with buckshot will do to a man at this
range?”

The man froze.

“
Let the hammer down on
your long gun there and, with one hand, hold it out to me. No,
no... don’t turn this way. Just do what I told you, and make it
snappy.”

The man cursed through a heavy sigh.
There was a slight metallic click as he off-cocked the buffalo gun.
Holding it out to Prophet, he said nothing.

Prophet took the gun and, crouching,
keeping his eyes on the rifleman, set the rifle on the
ground.

“
Now, slowly,” he said,
“unbuckle that gunbelt and let it fall.”

“
What are you gonna do?”
the man asked grimly, the flatness of his voice belying his
fear.

“
I’m gonna blow a hole
through your back big enough to run a train through if you don’t
drop that gunbelt.”

Slowly, with another curse, the man
did as he was told, the gunbelt dropping around his boots. Prophet
ordered him to kick it away. He said, “You got any more guns on
you?”

“
That’s it.”

“
Well, I don’t believe you.
Undress.”

“
What!”

“
Strip down to your
skivvies.”

“
I ain’t—!” The man stopped
as he turned his head slightly and saw the wide bores of the
eight-gauge yawning behind him. He sighed, shook his head, shrugged
out of his coat, and started unbuttoning his shirt. Five minutes
later, he was standing in the trail, facing Prophet in his
undershorts, threadbare wool socks, and bowler hat. Prophet was
going through his boots and clothes.

“
Yeah, I reckon you were
telling the truth,” the bounty hunter quipped. “You weren’t
carryin’ any more guns.” As he spoke, he withdrew a razor-sharp
stiletto from a sheath sewn into the man’s right boot. Holding the
slender blade up to his face for inspection, he said, “But that
there, I bet you wouldn’t even feel it goin’ in—till it plucked
your heart.”

The man said nothing.

Prophet tossed the dagger away and
stood. “What’s your name?”

“
Dick Dunbar.”

“
Dick, I should kill you
right now—you realize that, don’t you?”

Facing him in his ridiculous garb, the
man said nothing. As the sky lightened, the grim expression on his
dust-smudged face grew plainer.

“
Yeah, you realize that,”
Prophet said. “But I’ll tell you what I’m going to do instead,
Dick. I’m going to let you ride back to Billy Brown and tell him I
want the bounty on the girl. When I get the bounty, the girl’s
his.”

Still, the man said nothing, but
Prophet watched his eyes narrow curiously.

“
I’m tired of this shit,”
Prophet explained. “Tired of busting my ass for a measly hundred
and fifty greenbacks. When McCreedy offered me this job, he never
told me about you fellas. I don’t give a shit whether or not this
girl makes it to Johnson City. I’m a bounty hunter, for chrissakes.
I take the best I can get, and I have a feelin’ I can get a might
more than a hundred and fifty dollars from Billy Brown. Tell him I
want two thousand five hundred.”

Prophet paused, reading the man’s
grim, befuddled expression.

“
Tell him I want two
thousand five hundred, and I want it tomorrow at noon in the old
mining cabin at the west end of Miner’s Gulch. There’s an old
miner’s shack there. When I get the money, he gets the girl. You
got that?”

Brows furrowed, the man
nodded.

“
Tell Billy I want him to
deliver the money to me personally. I don’t deal with middlemen. If
he’s afraid of me, he can send his second-in-command. But I want
him alone. If I see more than one man, the deal’s off. The girl
goes free to tell her tale. You got that?”

The man gave a grim nod.

“
Good. Now get
dressed.”

When the man had dressed, Prophet
followed him back to his horse and checked the man’s saddlebags for
more guns, finding an old army-issue forty-four the man was using
as a backup, and another knife. Confiscating the weapons. Prophet
turned to the man. “Mount up and ride. Remember what I told you,
Dick. Two thousand five hundred, and the girl is
Billy’s.”

“
You’re a son of a bitch,”
the rider mumbled, forking leather.

“
What’s that?”

“
Nothin’.”

“
That’s what I
thought.”

When the man had gone, Prophet tossed
Dunbar’s weapons behind a rock—all but the Big Fifty, that is. The
heavy Sharp’s in hand, he headed back to the camp.

He stopped suddenly as he approached
the horses. The girl stood before him, holding her pocket pistol
straight out before her, aimed at Prophet’s face.

“
You’ll never get away with
it, you son of a bitch!”

“
Hey ... easy,” Prophet
said, spreading his hands. “Put that thing down.”

“
I’ll put it down, all
right. After I kill you, you lying, cheating, low-down,
bounty-hunting bastard!”

“
I... I take it you
overheard,” Prophet mused.

“
I’ll say I overheard.
Gonna take the best price you can get, that it, Mr. Prophet?” Her
voice was thin and quaking, but tight with outrage. “Two thousand
five hundred is a little better than a hundred and fifty. What does
it matter if I live or die? At least you’ll have your bounty, and
that’s everything, isn’t it?”

“
Now just a minute
...”

She cocked the gun and steadied it. “Just
when I was beginning to think you were a man of integrity …
”

“
What you heard me say lo
that man was a lie. I wanted him to believe I’d exchange you for
the bounty so I can get all Brown’s men together, and spring a trap
on ’em.”

“
Oh, of course—Billy
Brown’s gang. You expect me to believe that?”

“
Not only Brown’s gang, but
Billy Brown himself. Owen’s gonna have lo set him free by noon
today if we don’t get there. That means he’ll be free to supervise
the exchange himself, and I have a feeling that, after the thorn
you’ve been in his side, he’ll be there. Probably want to drop the
hammer on you himself.”

Lola watched him, pondering this.
“You’re lying. Not even you would come up with something that
crazy.”

He took two steps toward her. “You’ve
been with me long enough to know I’m not the kind of man who’d turn
a woman over to Billy Brown. Not for any amount of money ... not
after all the people who’ve died ... after all we’ve been through,
the last three days....”

“
I heard he has twenty-five
men riding for him.”

“
And I figure about
twenty-six will be at Miner’s Gulch tomorrow, including Billy
himself.”

The gun came down several inches. Lola
furrowed her eyebrows. “Why ... ?”

“
I have a feeling Owen has more
than his hands full with that gang. I know we have. Well, I have a
sure-fire— or, pretty sure-fire—plan to wipe them out, including
Billy.”

She dropped the gun to her side.
“You’re crazy, Prophet.”

Prophet nodded and exhaled a ragged
sigh. “Maybe so. That’s why you’re free to go if you want. There’s
no way I can force you to do what I have in mind for tomorrow. You
give me the word, and I’ll take you to the stage station over in
Skowfield, buy you a ticket for Denver. Then I’ll go over and help
out Owen myself.”

“
What about the
subpoena?”

Prophet shrugged. “It’s just a piece
of paper. Paper burns right easy, gets lost.”

She brushed a strand of hair from her
eyes and inclined her head, appraising him, a soft light entering
her eyes. “You mean it?”

“
Damn tootin’. You’ve been
through enough.”

She lifted her dress, resheathing the
pistol, and walked away, running her hands through her hair. Two
minutes later she turned to him and shook her head. “I don’t know,
Mr. Prophet, I must be crazy, but I feel inclined to join you to
this ... Miner’s Gulch, or whatever you call it.”

“
You sure?”

“
I reckon I’ve done enough
running from Billy Brown. If I don’t play it through, I’ll never
know if I need to keep looking over my shoulder or not.”

Prophet found himself walking toward
her. He stopped and gazed into her eyes, lifted to his. “You got
sand,” he said with a smile.

They stood staring into each other’s
eyes while the first birds cooed and the horses craned their necks,
watching them. Finally, she leaned into him, slowly wrapped an arm
around his neck and lifted her head to kiss him. It was a quick
kiss, ending when she grew tentative and self-conscious.

He held her, however, and brought her
back to him. It was all the encouragement she needed. She brought
the other arm up, and held him tightly while they kissed, long and
deep, exploring each other’s mouths with their tongues. She swiped
his hat off, ran a hand through his hair. He released her arms and
brought his hands up to her face, caressing her cheeks while he
kissed her, liking the swell of her breasts against his
chest.

Finally, knowing this was neither the
time nor the place, they separated. Their bodies were heavy with
want and reluctant to part.

Prophet cleared his throat. “Well,” he
said, grinning self-consciously. “You ... kiss right well ... Miss
Diamond.”

She smiled and looked down. “You, too
... Mr. Prophet.”

“
I reckon we’d better
go.”

“
I reckon.”

He reached for her, kissed her once
more with the hunger of a man who hadn’t kissed a woman in a long
time. Then he released her again, and, amazed and befuddled by his
feelings, turned to the horses.

“
Well, I reckon ... ” he sighed.
“Miner’s Gulch ... ”

Owen McCreedy say in one of the
ladder-back chairs by the window and watched the wood-framed clock
above his desk. Carved and carefully decorated, the clock had been
imported from Switzerland by his great-grandfather. His mother had
h
auled it
from their original home in Massachusetts to Nebraska, and it was
the only thing of hers Owen still owned.

It shouldn’t hang in this little
jailhouse, he mused. It should be in his living room at home, but
his wife’s family clock hung there, above the mantel. Owen had once
thought his mother’s clock lent his shabby little office a touch of
sophistication. He saw now, however, that teak-wood and brass and
hand-tooled detailing looked about as appropriate in this room,
with its rusty stove, battered roll top, mud-brick walls, and
grungy puncheon floor, as would a tea set of Bavarian china. It
served only to make the place look even more dour in
contrast.

Why he was thinking this at the
moment, however, McCreedy couldn’t explain. Maybe because he didn’t
want to think of the time the clock registered—two minutes to noon.
Two minutes till the time he was under orders from the judge to
release Billy Brown if the girl had not shown, which she hadn’t.
No, she and Prophet had not shown, and in two minutes, Owen
McCreedy would have to produce his keys from his desk drawer and
open Billy Brown’s cell, endure the grins and taunts and muttered
threats and watch the little Irish bastard saunter out of the dingy
little jailhouse with its out-of-place Swiss clock, free as the
breeze.

McCreedy sipped his coffee and watched
the minute hand click another minute closer to noon. It dawned on
him now why the clock no longer looked appropriate in here. Once,
it had represented all his hopes and dreams for the office of
sheriff. Now it symbolized only failure— the naiveté of those
dreams in a town dominated by a bottom-feeding scoundrel like Billy
Brown.

Billy had won. Prophet and the girl
probably lay dead in a ravine somewhere.

And that damn clock was coming
down....