Little Stu was dead, gunned down in the Pyramid Park Saloon.
Layla Carr did not normally take pleasure in the misfortune of others, but the demise of Stuart Loomis, or Little Stu as he’d been called behind his back, lightened her mood considerably.
One other man had come close to raping her, and that man had been Little Stu. He’d found her watering her horse at Little Cannon Ball Creek one summer afternoon, when she was only fourteen years old, and had groped and pawed her till she’d pulled a pocket gun. Apparently, he hadn’t expected a fourteen-year-old girl to be carrying a pocket gun, but she had been, and he’d fallen all over himself apologizing and scrambling onto his horse.
A farmer’s daughter over near Dickinson hadn’t been so lucky, and neither had several other girls Layla had heard about—savaged by Little Stu and his men.
“Guess you won’t be bothering any girls now, Little Stu,” Layla said, pulling her horse back onto the trail meandering through the scrub.
As she rode, her neck stung sharply, and her face throbbed where Gerber had punched her. When the wagon trail dipped down to the Little Missouri, she stopped the horse, climbed down from the wagon, and tied the reins to a cottonwood.
She walked to the milky brown water and knelt down. Wrinkling her nose against the river’s fetid, alkali odor, she soaked her handkerchief, wrung it out, and pressed it to her neck.
Behind her, someone groaned.
Chapter Five
LAYLA JERKED AROUND, giving her back to the river. A man sat against a bluff, about twenty feet away, legs outstretched before him.
His head hung to one side, and his chambray shirt was open. A wide, bloody strip of the shirt, torn from the tail, was tied around his belly. The man’s eyes fluttered, and his chest rose and fell sharply.
He was a big man with heavy slabs of muscle through his shoulders and chest. His belly was tight and knotted, his legs long and muscular. He was a ruggedly handsome man with high cheekbones and a straight jaw, eyes set deep under blond eyebrows. His short, light brown hair was bleached by the sun. His nose was broad through the bridge, as if it had been broken several times and not set correctly.
Around his waist he wore a cartridge belt filled with .44 and .45 shells, and from the soft leather holster protruded a six-shooter with worn walnut grips. On his right hip he wore a tanned elk-hide knife sheath decorated with Indian beads, half of which were missing. In the sheath was a savage-looking, horn-handled bowie.
Layla stood. “Hey.”
The man’s eyelids fluttered, and he moved his head slightly.
Layla moved toward him, one step at a time, as though he were a rattler coiled in the grass.
“Hey,” she said, standing over him. Gently, she kicked one of his badly scuffed boots.
His eyes fluttered and opened. His right hand flicked to the revolver, then stopped when his eyes focused on her face. He swallowed, licked his lips, winced. “Wh-who’re you?”
“You first.”
“Lou Prophet.”
“You the man Loomis is after?”
Prophet tipped his head back, wincing. “How’d you know that?”
“Ran into him and his men up on the bench.”
Prophet nodded, barely.
“Why’d you kill Little Stu?”
Prophet looked at her through one eye. “You a friend of his?”
“Nope.”
Appraising her, he saw a slender girl dressed like a cowboy in cheap frontier clothes. She looked as though she hadn’t bathed or washed her hair in some time. Still, he could tell that under all that dust and sunburn was a right bonny lass. Pretty blue eyes. Well-formed mouth. She filled out that ragged shirt right nice, as well.
Aware of his scrutiny, she flushed a little and scowled. “They ain’t that far away, you know.”
In spite of himself, Prophet smiled. ‘Tell me something I don’t know.”
“Looks like you’re bleedin’ to death.”
“Like I said, miss ... tell me somethin’ I don’t already know....”
Layla stood staring down at him with consternation carved on her brow. “Loomis finds you down here, he’ll kill you for sure.”
“He finds you with me, he’ll kill us both. Better run along. But first, could you give me some water? I’m powerful thirsty.”
Layla retrieved her canteen from the wagon, uncorked it, and held it while Prophet drank. She didn’t know what to do. Helping him could get her into serious trouble, possibly killed. But could she ride away and leave a man to die?
When Prophet pulled his head away from the canteen, Layla corked it and slung it over her shoulder. Standing, she pulled his left arm. “Come on.”
“What’s goin’ on?”
“I’m gonna get you into my wagon.”
“Why?”
“’Cause I just am, that’s all.” She crouched under his arm, and he had little choice but to stand. It was either that or have his arm pulled out of its socket and the wound opened wide.
“Girl, you’re crazy! I killed a fella, and his old man’s on my ass!”
“I know who you killed,” Layla said through a grunt as she helped Prophet toward the wagon. “And I can tell by lookin’ at you, you ain’t no saint or even close. But the fact is, if I leave you here to be killed by Loomis, it’ll haunt me.”
“God-fearin’, are ye?”
“Just human, Mr. Prophet.” She eased him onto the back of the wagon bed and stopped to catch her breath. “Whew, you’re heavy!”
“You got a place around here, girl?” Prophet asked tightly, favoring his side.
“Me and my brothers have a ranch on Pretty Butte Creek. You can call me Layla. That’s my name.”
“Just you and your brothers?”
“Our parents are dead.”
Prophet absorbed this and looked at her soberly. She was shifting crates and burlap sacks around in the wagon box, making room for him. When she’d formed a narrow gully, Prophet lay back and rested his head on a ten-pound bag of flour. “You shouldn’t be doin’ this, girl,” he warned. “I ain’t nothin’ to you.”
‘Tell me something I don’t know, Mr. Prophet,” Layla said as she produced a weathered old Spencer from under the wagon seat. Jacking a shell in the chamber, then off-cocking the hammer, she sat on the seat and laid the rifle across her thighs.
“You’re right; you ain’t nothin’ to me, and to tell you the truth, you look like one of those no-accounts driftin’ through the country: a man of violence an’ licentious behavior, sure enough.”
She flicked the reins against the dun’s back, and the wagon started forward with a jolt. “But, like I said, if I left you here to die, you’d haunt my dreams at night, damn you.”
Behind her, lolling his head against the flour bag, Prophet’s face formed a scowl. “Don’t let me get you killed, girl.”
Layla reined the dun along the trail hugging the river. After a hundred yards, she turned right through the buttes and climbed onto the benchland above the Little Mo.
“Shit,” she said, casting her gaze northward and reining the dun to a sudden halt.
Behind her, Prophet’s voice was pinched with pain. “What is it?”
‘Two riders, heading this way.”
“Should’ve left me.”
“Hush!”
Layla turned the wagon around and headed back down to the river. She stopped there for a moment, considering what to do next. Deciding, she drove northward along the water for about fifty yards, then turned sharply into the river, heading toward a spur ravine on the other side.
The river was no more than two feet deep in the middle, but the horse plunged and fought through the mud sucking at its legs and at the wagon’s thin wheels. Layla’s heart pounded. If she got stuck out here, the riders would find her for sure.
“Come on, Grover, come on. Keep going, boy ... keep going.”
Behind her, Prophet lifted his head to watch the buttes behind them, expecting to see the riders descending one
of the several eroded troughs at any moment. He’d drawn his Peacemaker and held it ready, but in his condition, he’d be useless against two men with rifles. He and the girl were sitting ducks out here.
“Hurry!” he rasped.
“I am hurrying!”
“Well, hurry faster!”
“Maybe they didn’t see me.” She slapped the reins against the horse’s back. “They were at least a mile away.”
“Maybe not, but if they’re heading this way, they’ll see your tracks, and they’ll see that blood I left.”
“If you don’t shut up, I’m gonna roll you into the river!”
Prophet rested his head against the flour sack. “Now, that wouldn’t be very God-fearin’, would it?”
Finally, the horse climbed, heavy-hoofed, from the river. Raspy-breathed and blowing, its muscles rippling, it headed for the ravine. Layla steered it through the gap in the buttes.
A narrow, serpentine game trail creased the buckbrush, cedars, and boulders strewn about the ravine floor. The wagon clattered a hundred yards before the girl swung it off the trail. Setting the brake and tying the reins around the handle, Layla grabbed her rifle and climbed down.
“What now?” Prophet asked.
“How far can you walk?”
Prophet sighed.
She guided the big man through the brush, across the trail, through bullberries and cedars, and up a rocky slope. At the top of the slope, a cave opened. Inside was an uneven stone and dirt floor. Stick figures in the form of humans and deer and other quarry had been painted on the walls. Near the entrance was a ring of fire-blackened stones.
Layla eased Prophet down against the east wall. He sank to his butt with a guttural complaint and a curse, muttering, “Gonna get yourself killed, girl. Sure enough. Shoulda left me where you found me.”
Turning, she headed back outside and unhitched the horse from the wagon. She led the dun farther up the brush- and rock-choked canyon, into a hollow surrounded by rocks and willows and carpeted with deep grass. She staked the horse near a seep and, casting cautious glances down the canyon, covered the wagon with brush and cedar boughs, which she cut with her clasp knife.
She then grabbed her rifle and made her way back to the cave. Prophet slept against the wall, a grimace twisting his sweat- and dust-streaked face.
Layla was about to sit and take a breather herself when distant voices jerked her around with a startled, “Oh!”
Crouching, taking her rifle in both hands, she crept toward the cave’s opening. Peering down the canyon, she waited, listening, the muscles in her neck tightening, her pulse pounding in her temples.
For several minutes, all she heard was the wind in the willows, the murmur of the morning breeze funneling through the buttes.
A shod hoof kicked a stone. The clatter echoed off the canyon walls.
Layla tensed, squeezing the rifle, slipping her finger through the trigger guard. They must have found the blood and followed the wagon tracks across the river.
Swallowing nervously, Layla stared down the canyon, waiting.
“You see anything?” a man’s voice called.
Layla licked her lips and thumbed the Spencer’s hammer back.
A horse and rider appeared, the horse picking its way along rocks and the rough undulations of the canyon floor. The rider rode stiff-backed, reins high, swinging his head from side to side, following the wagon’s trail through the brush.
Layla stepped behind the cave wall. Her breath was short, her heart erratic. Gritting her teeth, she listened to the horse making its way along the trail, the rustle of brush, the squeak of tack.
When the sounds ceased suddenly, she stole a look outside. The man sat his horse about two hundred feet away, studying the tracks, which climbed the knoll to the cave. He knew where the tracks led and was growing wary of an ambush.
Taking a deep breath and steeling herself against her fear, Layla stepped outside. She held her rifle across her chest.
Seeing her, the man brought his right hand to the gun on his hip.
She made her voice casual. “You do that, mister, I’ll have to shoot you out of your saddle.”
He froze, his hand on his gun.
“What’re you followin’ me for?”
“I’m lookin’ for a man. Thought you might’ve picked him up.”
“Well, I didn’t see any man, much less picked one up. I’m layin’ up here for the night, on account o’ my horse came up lame.”
“Oh, I see,” the man said, smiling woodenly and nodding. “I won’t bother you then.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“You happen to see the man, squeeze off a couple rounds, will you?”
Layla didn’t say anything. The man tipped his hat, reined his horse around, and headed back the way he had come.
Puffing out her cheeks as she heaved a sigh of relief, Layla turned to Prophet, whose slitted eyes were watching her, barely conscious.
She knelt down and pressed her hand to his forehead, which was hot as a skillet. Sweat ran down his face and into the ginger hair on his chest.
She stood the Spencer against the cave wall and walked out to the wagon in the brush. Finding her war bag, one of the cheap shirts she’d bought for her brothers, and the whiskey she’d purchased for medicinal purposes, she headed back to the cave.
She’d set everything down beside Prophet when she realized she’d forgotten the canteen. She jogged back down to the hollow, grabbed the canteen out of the wagon box, and started back to the cave. Brush crackled behind her. A strong arm snaked around her neck, pinching off her wind, and a cold barrel jabbed her ear, the hammer ratcheting back loudly.
“Hello again, little missy,” a man’s hard voice whispered in her ear. “You cry out, I’m going to put a bullet in your brain.” He jerked her hard, wrenching her neck. “Understand?”
Incapacitated, her vision dimming from lack of oxygen, she tried a nod.
“Okay, then,” the man said, his sour breath in her face, “let’s visit the cave.”
He pushed her forward, keeping his arm around her neck, the gun to her ear. As they approached the cave, another man appeared from behind a rock, holding a carbine in his hands, a stocky man with a thick red mustache, two cartridge belts looped around his waist, and two revolvers tied low on his thighs. He locked eyes with the man behind Layla and followed the first man and Layla into the cave.
Prophet sat where Layla had left him. His eyes were closed, head tipped back against the wall, sweat beads rolling through the stubble on his jaw.
“Well, what do we have here?” the man holding Layla said grimly.
“The boss sees him, he’s gonna think Christmas has come in July,” the man with the red mustache mused.
“Get his gun.”
“Why don’t we just finish him right now, be done with it?”
‘The old man wants him alive.”
“The old man can kiss my ass.”
The man with the red mustache brought his carbine to his shoulder.
“No!” Layla cried.
A gun popped, the sound echoing in the cave like a cannonade. The man with the carbine flew back with a grunt. Layla twisted her body to the left, kicking and punching at the man behind her.
Another shot exploded, and the man holding Layla gave way like a wall, falling and bringing Layla down on top of him. She turned to Prophet and saw the smoking gun in his hand wilt toward the floor, his eyes growing heavy, head bobbing.
The air was thick with smoke and the rotten-egg smell of burned powder. Layla’s ears rang in the sudden silence.
She sat on her butt beside the dead men, staring at the gun in Prophet’s hand, working her mind around what had just transpired. She looked around at the dead men. Their open, glassy eyes stared, unseeing. Blood leaked from their wounds.
She turned to Prophet. His head lolled to one side, but his eyes were open.
“There’s more...” He sighed heavily. “There’s more where they came
from.”
Lay la sat frozen. After awhile, she nodded.
Chapter Six
LAYLA STOOD IN the cave entrance, staring fearfully down canyon, wondering if any other Loomis men had heard the shots. When no one came after fifteen minutes, she relaxed a little and turned toward Prophet, who slept with his chin on his chest.
She looked at the dead men, recoiling inside. Finally, she stood her rifle against the cave wall, and, grunting and cursing with the effort, dragged the man with the red mustache outside and into the brush. When she’d caught her breath, she went back into the cave for the other body.
When both bodies were hidden in the brush, she found the whiskey and returned to the cave. Kneeling down, she touched Prophet’s shoulder. He lifted his head, opening his eyes with a start.
“It’s okay,” she assured him. She uncorked the bottle and offered it to him. “Here.”
His eyes were slow to focus on the bottle. When they did, he grabbed it like a drowning man lunging for a buoy.
‘Take a big drink. I’m gonna dig that bullet out of your hide.”
He froze and turned to her, the bottle halfway to his lips. “You know how to do that?”
“Does it matter?”
He thought about this, deciding he’d die for sure if she didn’t try. “Reckon not,” he said, raising the bottle high.
While Prophet imbibed, Layla removed the blood-soaked bandage from his side, then interrupted his sedation to pour whiskey over the knife.
When she was through, he reached for the bottle. She jerked it away and corked it. ‘That’s enough. You pret’ near drank half already.”
“It ain’t half bad, for local brew,” the bounty hunter said thickly.
“Lay back,” she ordered.
Prophet stretched out along the wall, the back of his head resting on the hard stone floor.
“Can you feel the slug?”
“Snugged up against a rib.” He set his left hand on his rib cage and made a circular motion with his index finger. “ ‘Bout here.”
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