Loomis glanced around, his predator’s senses alive and ready for anything, his heart tapping a steady, urgent rhythm in his powerful chest. Two veins bulged in his forehead.
“You don’t think you’re going to get away with killing my son, do you?”
His eyes swept the bank, the water, the branches dodging and sawing in the breeze, the magpies and blackbirds skittering among the firs. Behind it all, as though in a dream inlaid behind the moment, he saw Stuart lying dead on the saloon floor, a dime-sized hole in his chest.
Enraged at the thought, at the vision that would not leave him—would never leave him—Loomis bolted to his feet, grinding his teeth, and shouted, “Get out here, goddamnit, Prophet, you murdering son of a bitch!”
Although Loomis was sure he could smell Prophet nearby, could hear the man’s fearful heart beating, only the gurgle of the water answered him. A gopher skittered somewhere behind him in the brush.
Loomis stood, pushed off the beaver den, and continued on across the dam to the other side.
Prophet was here. Loomis knew he was here. The man who’d butchered his son was so close Loomis could smell the blood leaking out of him.
And he would not eat or sleep until he’d found him, tortured him, killed him, and left him to the coyotes and the crows.
Chapter Three
WHEN LOOMIS GOT up from the beaver lodge, Lou Prophet gave an inaudible sigh of relief. He’d been crouching there, only his head above the water, six inches from Gerard Loomis’s ass.
Now he sucked air through the mesh of steel-gray branches and covered the wound in his side with his hand. He was losing blood fast. He needed to get the hell out of here and plug the bullet hole before he bled dry. But he knew if he left the den now, he’d be a dead man.
Maybe, after an hour or so, Loomis and his men would think he’d left the area and would pull out. Then Prophet could leave the den, dry himself out, and fashion a compress for the wound. When it got dark, he’d try to make a break for safety ... wherever the hell that was.
This was some of the biggest, emptiest country Prophet had ever seen. At the moment he had no horse and only about a dollar-fifty in change. Moreover, he was wanted for killing the son of a prominent cattleman: a son of a bitch who, it appeared, had a good many men riding for his brand. A good many men, it appeared, who didn’t mind killing, even seemed to enjoy it.
Prophet would have to find a farm or a small ranch in the area and steal a horse. Horse stealing might only compound his problems, but the only way he could get out of the country in a hurry was by horse. He’d either have to head for a city and mix with the population or head for Montana and disappear in the mountains for a while until this hell storm blew itself out.
An hour passed, then two. The water grew cold; he shriveled like a prune. He grew tired and weak from blood loss, but he held on there, inside the den, sucking the air filtering through the branches.
He heard voices as the men returned. Then they were gone again. A horse whinnied. Another hour passed, and Prophet watched the sun slide behind the trees and the light die.
Finally it was dark. Prophet sighed with relief, inhaled deeply, pulled his head under, and swam out of the lodge. He resurfaced just outside the den.
He hunkered with only his eyes and ears above the water, and listened. Hearing nothing but the rushing water and the distant cooing of a night bird, he made his way toward the southern shore and pulled himself up the bank, grabbing shrubs and rocks.
He sat gingerly down, careful not to grunt or groan too loudly, in case one of Loomis’s riders was near. He lay against the eroded clay, catching his breath and resting.
Finally, he pulled his shirttail out of his pants and tore off a wide strip. He wrapped the strip around the wound in his side and knotted it tightly to stem the blood flow. When the job was finished, he sat back and rested again.
He was so wet, cold, and exhausted that he wasn’t sure he could continue. But he had to. He couldn’t stay here. Loomis’s riders would no doubt be back through here in the morning, and they’d scour the brush, maybe even start a fire to burn him out.
He had to find a hollow or a settler’s barn, far away from here, to hide and rest. Then he’d steal a horse and ride like hell.
He lay there, listening to the night sounds above his own involuntary shivering. He heard only the breeze in the trees, the cattails scratching against each other, and the intermittent shrieks of a hunting nighthawk. That was all. No footfalls or muffled yells.
Taking courage from that, he pushed himself to his feet, holding his aching side, and worked his way up the hill, weaving between sage shrubs and willows. At the top of the hill he stood at the edge of the woods and looked out across the tableland opening before him, rimmed with butte silhouettes and capped with hard, cold stars.
He turned his gaze to his right, westward, where a pinprick of orange light flickered in the darkness. A campfire. Possibly a base camp from where Loomis’s men were crisscrossing the area, looking for Prophet.
As if to confirm his speculation, a bridle rattled to Prophet’s left. He crouched and turned back into the trees, grabbing his six-shooter and hunkering down behind a cottonwood. The sound of two men in desultory conversation reached his ears, growing louder as they approached.
Gradually, Prophet could make out their words. “ ... one of us shoulda done somethin’ right then and there, after he killed Little Stu. Had it over and done with, so we could all sleep in the bunkhouse tonight.”
There was a pause, during which the passing horses crunched grass. “I say Stu had it comin’.”
The first rider chuckled. “Yeah, he was a pain in the ass, but that doesn’t really matter, now does it? We’re ridin’ for Loomis, so we ...” The voice trailed off as the riders passed out of hearing.
Prophet holstered his revolver and walked back out to the edge of the woods. All was quiet now. A coyote prattled in the buttes behind him. Prophet grabbed his side, pressing the wound closed, and started walking south.
An hour later he was following a buffalo trail between two eroded buttes when he again heard voices. He hunkered down behind one of the buttes and waited for the riders to pass, heading northwest, toward the base camp.
Another hour passed, and he came to a small ranch nestled in a hollow, the buttery lights of the house silhouetting the pole barn and corrals. Prophet fought off the urge to creep into the barn and hide himself in the hay. He could maybe steal a horse out of the corral in the morning—if he lasted that long—but Loomis’s men had probably been through here looking for him and put the occupants on notice.
He had to keep moving. He had to find another place, tucked away somewhere.
Beyond the ranch, he sat and rested for a quarter hour, even daring a few minutes of shut-eye. His clothes were damp and stiff, his feet were swollen in his boots, and he felt as exhausted as he’d ever felt during the war.
But his instinct for survival would not give him release. He had to keep moving.
A pale ribbon appeared in the prairie before him. A wagon trail. Prophet took it. He thought it would be easier on his feet and would keep him from walking in circles, as he was liable to do out here in this maze of buttes, chop hills, and dry watercourses, and with his brains scrambled from blood loss.
The trail might also lead him to water, maybe even an abandoned cabin where he could bed down for the night.
He followed the trace for half an hour, stumbling along with his head drooping, one hand pressed to the growing fire in his side. Then he stopped and stood for several seconds, weaving as though drunk. His energy drained out of him like liquid through a sieve.
He lifted one heavy foot, stumbled, pitched forward on the wagon trail, and passed out.
Chapter Four
THE NEXT MORNING, Dick Gerber and Boyd Kinch rode along the wagon trail a mile southwest of Bullion Creek. Both men were leaning out from their saddles, scouring the ground with their eyes, looking for the boot tracks they’d lost i
n an arroyo about a hundred yards behind them.
“What the hell! Am I going blind?” Kinch bellowed in frustration. “I can track a snake across a flat rock!”
“Oh, hell,” Gerber replied, “let’s stop and have a smoke. I’m bone tired, and so’s my horse.”
“Shit!” Kinch barked, turning his head this way and that. “That damn rain wiped out everything.”
Gerber halted his horse and crawled out of the saddle. He loosened the cinch, giving his piebald a breather.
Turning to gaze around as he fished his tobacco makings from his shirt pocket, he froze, squinting his eyes northward, where the buttes were washed with morning pink. A horse and a gray box wagon were making then-way over a saddle, the driver flicking the reins over the back of the dun horse in the traces.
“Hey, someone’s comin’,” he said.
“Where?”
“There,” Gerber pointed as the wagon disappeared into the arroyo.
Several minutes later, it reappeared, approaching along the trail cut through the bluffs, dry wheel hubs screeching, the slats in the wagon bed clattering. The horse snorted and shook its head when it saw the two riders in its path.
Recognizing the driver, Gerber grinned. He winked at Kinch.
“Good day to you, Miss Carr,” Gerber said, lifting his hat and bowing lavishly. “What a sweet surprise so early in the mornin’.”
The girl hauled back on the reins. She was a slender but ample-bosomed young woman in a sand-colored hat and baggy, blue, man’s shirt and denim breeches. Tawny hair, dull and matted, fell over her shoulders, and her blue eyes were petulant. Pretty in a hard way, she frowned at the two men before her as though she’d just discovered an enormous pile of cow dung in her path.
“What the hell do you two want?”
“Why you, darlin’!” Gerber laughed.
“Get the hell out of my way, Dick, or I’ll blow you both out of your boots.”
Gerber chuckled and glanced at Kinch. Kinch smiled and shook his head.
“Now, that’s downright unneighborly,” Gerber told the girl.
“I’ll tell you what’s unneighborly,” the girl snapped. “What’s unneighborly is how you boys have been running Crosshatch beef onto Pretty Butte range.”
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, darlin’,” Gerber said, feigning wide-eyed innocence.
“Bullshit,” the girl said, jerking a lock of hair from her eyes with a flick of her head. “Loomis has overstocked his own range, so he’s tryin’ to shove us out. Well, it ain’t gonna work. Any beef we find on our range is ours, pure and simple. If you don’t like it, you best keep your beef to home.”
Gerber tossed a glance at his partner, laughing. “What a waste, eh, pard?”
“What’s that?” Kinch said, lounging forward on his saddle, both hands resting on the horn.
“A girl that cuts a figure like this one here marryin’ ole Gregor Lang. Hell, he has to be at least fifty.”
“Big corncob up his tight Scotch ass, too,” Kinch agreed.
“Move your hammerheads out of my way!” the girl cried. “I have to get these supplies back to the ranch. I’m late the way it is.”
“You been to Little Missouri?” Kinch asked her.
“Where else would I have picked up this wagon load?”
“You seen a man along the trail?”
“What man?”
“A tall man—taller even than Kinch here. Might be wounded. He’s afoot, that’s for sure.”
The girl studied both men suspiciously. “What’s he doin’ out here without a horse?”
Gerber laughed. “His horse is dead. Shorty McClellan shot it out from under him with his Sharps.”
“What’d he do that for?”
“ ‘Cause the hombre killed Little Stu.”
The girl was shocked. “He killed Little Stu?”
“Shot him right through the brisket,” Kinch said.
“What’d he do that for?”
“ ‘Cause Little Stu was bein’ Little Stu,” Gerber said. “But the old man wants his hide just the same.”
The girl thought about this for several seconds, dully staring at the two men before her. “Well, I didn’t see him, but if I did, I’d o’ thanked him for ridding the world of that jasper Stuart Loomis. Now, I’d like to stay and chat with you boys, but like I said, I have to get movin’.”
Laughing delightedly, Gerber turned to Kinch. He swung back around, clipped the laugh, grabbed the girl’s right arm, and yanked her off the wagon seat. She screamed and hit the ground hard, losing her hat, her hair flying about her shoulders. The dun whinnied and shook its head.
“Girl, I like your sand!” Gerber said. He kicked her back down as she started to rise.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, you son of a bitch!”
Kinch tipped his head back and laughed.
Gerber said, “I don’t think it’s right, you goin’ to waste on Gregor Lang. Do you think that’s right, Kinch?”
“No, I don’t think that’s right at all, Dick.”
“Why, I bet this pretty little thing’s never even been kissed by a real man,” Gerber said as he removed his gloves.
The girl scuttled away from him on her hands and heels. “Leave me alone, you son of a bitch!”
Following her, Gerber tossed his gloves away and removed his hat, dropping it near the gloves. “Yessir, I think it’s time you been kissed by a real man.”
“No sense ole Gregor Lang havin’ all the fun,” Kinch said.
“Leave me alone, you bastards, or you’ll be sorry!”
She got her feet beneath her and was about to rise again. Laughing, Gerber again kicked her back down. “Yessir! I like her sand, Kinch.”
Kinch laughed. “Me, too, amigo.”
The Pretty Butte girl sprang to her feet and turned to run away. Before she’d taken two steps, Gerber grabbed her and threw her down. He fell on top of her and nuzzled her neck, his right hand tearing her shirt open, exposing a thin chemise and a good bit of cleavage.
“Look at those!” Kinch hooted.
As Gerber sank his teeth deep into the girl’s neck, she tried bringing her knee to his groin. Gerber held the knee down with his own, and gazed, red-faced, into her eyes. “Listen here, you little polecat, you’re gonna do us, and you’re gonna do us good, hear?”
She cursed and spat in his face. He ceased fumbling with her breasts and smacked her face with his clenched right fist. Her head whipped sideways, and her vision dimmed. The fight suddenly left her as she teetered on the edge of consciousness.
Taking advantage of her languor, Gerber crawled back on his knees, removed his gun belt, and flung it aside. He opened his pants and shoved them down his thighs. That done, with a goatish snarl, he grabbed at the girl’s denims, ripping them open and jerking them down her thighs.
A voice sounded behind him. “I see you boys are working hard.”
Gerber jerked his head around. Loomis and his foreman, Luther McConnell, sat their tail-swishing mounts beside Kinch, who regarded them cautiously. Distracted by Gerber and the girl, he hadn’t heard the two riders approach. Amused disdain narrowed Loomis’s eyes beneath the brim of his black sombrero.
Rushing with embarrassment, Kinch stood and worked his retreating member back into his underwear. He smiled sheepishly at his boss, pulling his pants up and buttoning his fly.
Loomis’s eyes turned hard. “I take it, since you two seem to have time for foolishness, that you found Prophet.”
Kinch cleared his throat. “Uh ... well... no, sir. We seen tracks over yonder—”
Loomis turned to him, and his voice was as taut as razor wire. “If you see tracks over yonder, then why in hell aren’t you over yonder?”
“Well, we seen her...” Kinch tried feebly.
“You saw this little tramp from the Pretty Butte country and figured you’d take yourselves a little break, that it?” Loomis swung his castigating gaze from Kinch to Gerber. “That
it?”
Gerber said nothing. His heart was pounding, his face still flushed with embarrassment.
Seconds passed slowly, the breeze ruffling the sage, the girl grunting angrily as she righted her clothes.
Finally, Loomis’s voiced boomed like a shotgun. “Get on your goddamn mounts and show us those tracks!”
“Y-yes, Mr. Loomis.” Kinch truckled, grabbing his reins and mounting. “This way, sir!”
As he and the other men headed west, Loomis walked his horse over to the Pretty Butte girl. He gave his flat gaze to her. She was on her knees, holding a handkerchief to the bleeding bite marks in her neck.
“That’s what you get for trespassing on Crosshatch range. I ever see you on my land again, my men’ll do what they want to you.” He studied her dully. A wolfish shine entered his dark eyes. “Good Lord, you’re a piece of work! Why on earth do you dress like a man?”
She glared at him. “This ain’t your range. It’s open range, and the only decent wagon trail to town.”
Loomis nodded and turned his horse around. “You just heed what I say; next time things ain’t gonna go so easy for you.” With that, he gave his steeldust the spurs and galloped after the others, the thuds and dust lingering in the warming air behind him.
Layla Carr watched him dwindle with distance until the tableland consumed him, her heart still thumping with outrage.
It wasn’t the first time she’d been molested by Loomis riders, but it was the first time it had gone this far. She’d have to keep her Spencer closer to hand next time she rode to town. If they tried messing with her again, she’d show them what happened when you messed with Layla Carr.
Wouldn’t they be surprised when she brought her pa’s old carbine to bear and started pumping them full of holes!
Still grinding her teeth, she removed the handkerchief from her neck and inspected it. The blood had nearly stopped. She stuffed the handkerchief in her back pocket, stood, and brushed herself off.
Glancing again in the direction Loomis had gone, she cursed and turned toward the wagon. She found a length of string in the box, tied her shirt closed, and climbed onto the driver’s seat. Releasing the brake and flicking the reins over the horse’s back, she felt a faint smile tug at her lips.
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