The Devil and Lou Prophet (23 page)

Lola’s question had come out of
nowhere, surprising him. Since their brief passion earlier, they’d
been shy around each other, and hadn’t said much.

He glanced back at her for several
seconds, then returned his eyes to the game trail they were
following south. “Me ... I’m a Georgia farm boy,” he said,
accentuating his accent. “Ah come west to make a name for m’self, I
did.” He chuffed a laugh. “Quite the name I’ve made.”

“
You fight in the
war?”

“
I was with Hood at Utoy
Creek and with Longstreet at Ringgold Gap—practically fighting in
my own backyard. Lost a cousin and a good many friends in both
battles. Pickett’s Mill and Lovejoy’s Station took two more cousins
and an uncle.”

There was a silence punctuated by the
sounds of their horses breathing against their bits, squeaking
saddle leather, and hooves clacking along the rocky trail. It was
awkward for her to be suddenly liking this man.

“
What brought you to bounty
hunting?” she asked.

“
Fell into it when a buddy
of mine was killed in Abilene, Kansas. I’d been drinking for about
three days straight, and finally went back to the cow camp. Well,
ole Clay never made it back. Turned out a couple of Mexicans killed
him in an alley and took his gambling winnings. I’d seen them
earlier, sort of knew who they were, and I tracked ‘em down in
Texas, along the Brazos, and killed ‘em both.”

He glanced at the girl to gauge her
reaction, but she was staring blandly at the bobbing head of her
horse.

He continued, “Well, I brought them both
back to Abilene and found out they each had a bounty on them— five
hundred dollars. I collected the bounty, decided that two days work
for a thousand dollars was a hell of a lot easier than riding herd
for thirty a month and found, and ... well”—he smiled
half-heartedly—”here I am.”

“
Yes,” she said dryly. “And
here I am.”

“
Sorry about
that.”

“
No, you’re not, and you
know what?”

“
What’s that?”

“
Neither am I... any
longer.”

Staring straight ahead, he
smiled.

“
What do you do with your
money?” she asked.

“
Have fun.”

“
What’s that?” she called
behind him.

He stopped his horse and swung around
to face her.

“
After the war, I made a
deal with the Devil. I told ole Scratch if he let me have enough
fun to forget all my armless and legless friends and family and
that awful death-stink, why, I’d shovel all the coal he wanted down
in Hell.”

“
The Devil and Lou Prophet
on the same side—Lord help us all.”

Prophet laughed.

“
That’s me—what about you?”
he asked after they’d started moving again.

She told him about her years learning
acting from East Coast thespians, about her journey west and the
unfulfilled dreams of playing in the big houses in San Francisco
and Denver. About playing vaudeville and Shakespeare in backstreet
taverns where the cowboys and miners and every jasper in between
drank and gambled and howled, eyeing her lewdly and mouthing
obscenities.

“
We might as well have been
reciting the alphabet as Shakespeare, for all the appreciation we
got,” she griped. “But you know what?”

“
What’s that?” he said over
his shoulder.

“
I’m going to make it big
someday. Lou.”

“
Lola. I wouldn’t put it
past you.”

Two hours later they came to a
picturesque creek flowing through a narrow valley, heavily forested
on one side, grassy on the other. The black water slid almost
soundlessly in its deep bed, on the banks of which Indian
paintbrush and balsamroot grew thickly.

Prophet halted his horse where the bank
dipped low to the water and there was a brief, sandy shore and a
fallen aspen, the break charred from a lightning strike. Squirrels
and mountain chickadees chattered in the branches.

“
What a heavenly place,”
Lola said. “Are we stopping here?”

“
Why not?” Prophet said,
heavily dismounting. “I don’t know about you, but my butt feels
like I been straddling an anvil for seven days
straight.”

“
Oh, god!” Lola cried,
concurring. Wincing against the pain, she climbed out of the
leather. “How far do we have left?”

“
Oh, about two
miles.”

She looked at him with wide-eyed
surprise. “Really?”

He pointed above the grassy hill on
the other side of the creek. “See those two peaks up yonder—the
pointy one and the one that looks like ... uh … ?”

“
A breast?” she finished
for him, narrowing her eyes and giving him a schoolmarm’s tolerant
smile.

“
Yeah, that’s the one.
Well, Miner’s Gulch’s just on the other side of those.”

“
Isn’t it dangerous, being
this close? What if Billy sends out riders to scour the area for
us?”

“
He’ll be expecting us on
the north side of the canyon, over there. We’re on the south side.
We made a wide circle around Johnson City, which is right over
there, about seven miles as the crow flies.”

She smiled at him admiringly. “You are
truly a man of the country, aren’t you, Mr. Prophet?”

He smiled back. “I’ll take that as a
compliment, Miss Diamond.”

“
As it was meant, Mr.
Prophet.”

With a sigh, he turned to unsaddle his
horse. When he had the leather off both mounts, he led them down to
the creek for water, then picketed them on the other side, where
the grass grew so thick it slumped under its own weight.

She sat on the opposite bank, feet
drawn up, watching him, liking the tall, gangly ruggedness of the
man. liking the way his shoulders pulled his sweaty shirt taut
across his back, liking the way he talked gently to the horses as
he carefully rubbed them down with handfuls of grass. She’d never
expected to fancy such a man, having favored only those men of the
city she’d considered cultured. She doubted Lou Prophet had ever
read a book in his life—beyond a few Bible verses as a
boy.

She removed her straw hat and shook
out her hair. What would her mother think? She wasn’t sure what she
thought herself—only that she had found herself feeling very close
to this man who had nearly gotten her killed. But if it hadn’t been
for him, she’d still be running from Billy Brown, feeling like a
rabbit stalked by a pack of angry wolves. As it was now—hell, she
was gunning for Billy Brown!

Prophet waded back across the creek,
the water rising to his waist. “I’m gonna go see what I can find
for supper,” he said as he climbed the bank, heading for his
shotgun. “You still have your pea-shooter, don’t you?”

“
Don’t worry about me,” she
said, patting her thigh.

He shook his head and walked west
along the creek, then followed a twisting game trail up the
mountain on his left, ducking under branches, the needle-carpeted
turf crunching softly beneath his boots. Topping the mountain, he
discovered a brushy cut in the valley on the other side. Descending
the cut, he flushed a covey of grouse and brought down three with
both barrels of the eight-gauge.

The buckshot tore one of the birds
nearly in two. One was little better off. but the third bird was
only winged. He chased it down, wrung its neck, and, the three
birds in tow, headed back up the mountain, then down through the
woods toward the creek.

Approaching their encampment, he
stopped suddenly when he saw Lola’s green dress, chemise, bloomers,
and pistol sheath lying in the grass near the creek. Then he heard
a splash and Lola’s voice, gently chiding: “You’re back awfully
soon.”

His eyes found her in the water, about
thirty yards up the creek, where the bank spread briefly and the
cool, black water deepened in a gently swirling pool. He spread a
toothy grin.

“
A gentleman would avert
his eyes,” she said.

“
I ain’t no
gentleman.”

“
Turn away—I’m
bathing.”

“
I’ll join you,” Prophet
said, sitting down to remove his boots.

“
No!”

Her protests fell on deaf ears. In a
minute, Prophet had set the birds on the aspen and peeled out of
his grimy clothes, tossing away his ragged underwear, and, naked as
the day he was born, strode off the bank and into the water,
lifting his arms and wincing against the cold.

“
Good Lord—this must be
snowmelt!” he shrieked.

“
You just stay down there,”
she ordered, petulant, only her head and neck above the water.
“This is my pool.”

“
Ah, that feels good!” he
cooed, diving in and coming up, shaking his head like a wet dog.
“Ohhh, Lordy, I needed that!”

He put his head down and splashed
toward her. When the sandy bottom dropped away into the pool,
Prophet dove deep, opening his eyes and watching her lovely,
delicate body grow toward him, her arms covering her breasts. She
turned and tried to swim away, but he grabbed her foot and pulled
her back.

Resurfacing, he heard her admonishing
protests: “Lou Prophet, a lady is bathing.”

“
She sure the hell is!” he
laughed, trying to embrace her.

She shrieked and kicked away from him,
splashing, but it was only a half-hearted attempt, and in a moment
she was in his arms, relaxing in his embrace, letting his lips find
hers, throwing her arms around his shoulders. When he drew his lips
away, she brushed water from her eyes, a coy smile working at her
lovely mouth.

“
Mr. Prophet, you are an
ill-mannered man.”

“
A reprobate.”

“
An unguarded lady is
unsafe in your company.”

He was nuzzling her neck, biting her
ear. She giggled. He said. “Don’t worry. This cold water’s about
rendered me harmless.”

She couldn’t help imagining her
mother’s disapproval—her cultivated daughter frolicking in a
mountain stream with a frontier bounty hunter! It passed quickly,
however, and was replaced by an enormous sense of freedom and
happiness, a transcendent appreciation for this big, muscular man
in her arms. How far she’d come from the frightened, angry,
miserable young woman she’d been less than twenty-four hours
ago....

Sorry, Mother...

She reached for Prophet’s member. “Oh,
my! The cold does have a rather... stifling effect.”

“
Yep, I don’t think ...” He
stopped as she stroked him.

“
Getting
better?”

He didn’t say anything. Finally,
wordlessly, he pulled her to the bank, watching her breasts rise
above the water, the water dripping over them in small cascades,
streaming down her belly. He backed her against the sandy bank,
only her upper body out of the water. She sat in the sand, the
water washing over her legs. He held her arms gently above her head
as he kissed her and gently spread her knees, working his hard
belly between them ...

“
I’m afraid, Lou,” she
said.

“
Don’t be
afraid.”

“
What if I’ve fallen in
love with you?”

He looked at her. “If you have, you
won’t be for long. That’s just the way it’s always been with
me.”

She gazed deeply into his
eyes.

“
Tell me to quit and I’ll
quit,” he said.

She placed her hands on both sides of
his head, and covered his mouth with hers, drawing her knees up to
his sides....

They made love for most of the rest of
the afternoon.

When the sun had sunk behind the
mountains, filling the valley with a cool, early night, Prophet
built a fire, roasted the birds, and boiled coffee. They talked
lazily as they ate, and when they’d finished eating, they made love
again by the fire.

They lay in each other’s arms, the
fire snapping and hissing beside them, shunting shadows against the
forest, and he quelled her fears about tomorrow, telling her
exactly how it would be and what she would do, but reminding her
over and over that she had only to give him the word and they’d
head to the stage station at Skowfield.

Finally, she drifted off to sleep, and
Prophet lay there, liking the feel of her curled up next to him,
her head on his arm, staring up at the soft night sky, the clouds
drifting like smoke under the stars. It would’ve been a perfect
night without the anxiety about tomorrow, his reluctance at using
as bait for Billy Brown this woman he’d just made love
to.

Feeling an urge for a cigarette, he
gently slipped his arm out from beneath her and rose, covering her
again with the blanket. He dressed in his jeans, boots, and socks,
and threw a blanket over his shoulders, then retrieved his makings
sack from his shirt. Taking a seat on the aspen, he plucked a paper
from the canvas sack and drew a line across it with
tobacco.

As he rolled and lit the cigarette and
then sat smoking it, staring across the moving water reflecting the
umber glow of the dying fire, he thought about tomorrow.