Lou Prophet 2

by Peter Brandvold

Slouched under Prophet’s heavy arm, Lay la looked at Charlie. “I am not sweet on him!”

  ‘Then how come you kissed him?” Keith asked innocently.

  “Will you two please shut up? And Charlie, will you get your ass over here and help? He weighs a ton, I swear.”

  Charlie came over and slung Prophet’s other arm over his shoulder and helped head him toward the house. The dog circled, sniffing the stranger. Lay la’s face was still crimson.

  “I told you, you were going to live to regret saving my hide, Miss Carr.”

  “And weren’t you right, Mr. Prophet!”

  Layla and Charlie guided him up the stoop and into the small, cluttered cabin and through a plank door in the back. Behind the door was a bedroom with an unmade bed, and chunks of sod had pushed through the rafters.

  There was a bureau, all its open drawers spilling clothes. The room appeared a depository for odds and ends, from tack and clothes irons to steamer kettles and boxes of canning jars. All manner of objects—animal hides, tanning tools, even an old Indian spear—poked out from under the bed.

  “Sorry about the mess,” Layla said as they eased Prophet onto the straw tick mattress sack, “but I wasn’t expecting company.”

  “Looks like the maid took the day off,” Prophet quipped.

  “Better get out of them clothes. I’ll wash ’em when I get the time.” She headed for the door. “Yell if you need anything. I have work to do.” She went out and closed the door behind her.

  Prophet struggled out of his boots, grunting and cursing, feeling as though the stitches in his side would pop loose. When he had the boots off, he struggled out of his caked, sweat-damp breeches and what remained of his shirt. In only his union suit, he slipped under the blankets and pulled up the sheets and single Joseph quilt.

  He rested his head on the flat pillow with a sigh, and slept.

  Luther McConnell was riding alone along the Little Mo when he saw the wagon tracks. It looked as though the wagon had started up out of the river valley, then the driver changed his mind, swung around, and headed back the way he’d come.

  Frowning, McConnell spurred his horse down the crease, following the tracks. At the river he reined up. The wagon appeared to have stopped here. Footprints pocked the gumbo.

  With his eyes, McConnell followed the footprints to the base of a butte. Seeing something curious, McConnell heeled his horse over to the butte, gazing down and working the chew in his cheek thoughtfully, his heart increasing its speed.

  That was blood staining the sand and sparse grass there, sure enough.

  He followed two sets of boot prints back to where the wagon had sat, then followed the tracks back along the river. When they disappeared into the thick brown water, he turned into the river and crossed it, coming out at the same place the wagon had.

  The sign was confusing here. As on the other side of the river, there appeared to be two sets of wagon tracks, each going the opposite way. What McConnell figured out, however, was that the wagon had gone up the spur draw before him, and come back out, turning south along the river.

  He started to follow the tracks south but reconsidered. Something told him he might find something interesting up the draw. The tracks leading south could wait.

  His heart thumping in earnest, and his palms growing sweaty, Luther McConnell followed the wagon tracks into the spur canyon until they dead-ended in heavy brush and bullberry shrubs.

  Dismounting and tying his horse to a willow, it didn’t take McConnell long to figure out that all the brush and cut branches had been used to cover the wagon for a time—probably overnight—and that whoever had been driving the wagon and whoever had left the blood on the other side of the river had spent the night in that cave yonder.

  Inspecting the cave and finding the boot prints, the still-warm ashes in the fire ring, and the bloody slug, he stepped onto the ledge outside the cave and stood there, looking thoughtfully around the ravine. He spat a stream of chew on a rock and drifted his gaze to his left.

  Was that a boot poking out from under that brush pile?

  He walked over, grabbed the boot, gave it a hard yank, and pulled out the body of Luke Jordan.

  “Well, I’ll be goddamned,” the Crosshatch foreman mused, allowing himself a grin through his beard.

  He rummaged around in the brush and pulled out the blood-smeared corpse of Jordan’s partner, Matthew Hack.

  “Shit!”

  He did not feel any particular sorrow over the demise of his fellow riders. Better them than him. What he did feel, however, was an urgent need to share his discovery, with his boss, Gerard Loomis, and sic their riders after those wagon tracks.

  He knew that following the tracks would lead them to the man they were hunting ... and to whoever had made the mistake of helping the son of a bitch.

  Chapter Nine

  TIRING OF HER brothers’ unending questions about Prophet—who he was, where he’d come from, why he’d shot Little Stu, and was Layla going to marry him— she grabbed a towel and a soap cake and started for the creek for a bath.

  “You guys get about your chores,” she said. “And Keith, when you’re done hauling wood, butcher a chicken for supper tonight. And you both stay away from the creek until I’m done with my bath. I catch you spyin’ on me, I’ll take a strap to you both.”

  “You’re takin’ a bath on a Monday?” Keith called from the porch, where he and Charlie had lit like a couple of crows. “Boy, you must really be gone for him!” Charlie squealed.

  Layla turned angrily around. “I am not ‘gone for him’,” she said. “Now if you two don’t get to work, you’re getting gruel for supper!”

  “Yes, Layla,” Keith said, knowing the fun and excitement were over, and it was time to harness the sorrel quarter horse for wood hauling.

  “Okay, Sister,” Charlie said, snugging his hat down lower on his head until his ears stuck out, and heading for the blacksmith lean-to off the barn.

  Layla turned to them once more. “And I did not kiss him,” she announced. “He was... he was delirious last night.”

  “You ain’t gonna marry him, then?” Keith asked.

  “Yeah, you ain’t gonna marry him, then?” Charlie echoed his younger brother. “You’re still gonna marry ole Gregor Lang?”

  “No, I ain’t gonna marry Mr. Prophet,” Layla said impatiently. “I’m still going to marry Gregor. He’s a good man. Besides, you know how Pa wanted me to. Now, get to work!”

  “Ah, Layla.”

  “Yeah ... ah, Layla ...”

  Groaning with frustration, Layla wheeled and headed around the corral and barn toward the creek. Sometimes she got so tired of being both mother and older sister to those boys—only one of whom was actually younger than she—that she felt like heading to the barn with a short rope.

  But then there’d be three graves under the cottonwood, and her brothers would be all alone. She knew Keith would probably manage; he was old for a twelve-year-old and wily as a brush wolf. But she wasn’t so sure about Charlie. The lad might have been nineteen in body, but in mind he was only about six or seven. He’d been born “touched,” as they say—a child forever.

  Layla walked along the meandering horse trail to the creek, the deep cut of which twisted through the chalky buttes, shaded here and there by willows, cottonwoods, Russian olives, and occasional shrub thickets. Her favorite bath and swimming hole was straight south of the barn. Here the water deepened in a sharp bend, opaque green, with a soft sandy bottom and hardly any weeds and only a few rocks.

  She stopped on the bank and stared into the sliding, murmuring water, wondering why she’d decided to bathe on a Monday.

  She had little time to consider the question. Something sounded behind the butte before her, and she lifted her gaze that way, as two horsemen galloped over the crest, silhouetted against the sky.

  Giving a start, she froze, staring at the two riders like apparitions from a nightmare.

  Loomis men.

  Her skin pric
kling and heart jumping, she wheeled and ran back toward the ranch yard. She heard the men whooping and splashing across the creek, then the hooves of their horses pounding up the bank behind her. One of the riders slapped her over the head with his lariat. She gave an angry cry and hit the ground.

  She jumped to her feet, her jaw set with exasperation, and lunged to punch the man. He jerked his horse sideways, reached down, and grabbed Layla around the waist, lifting her against his saddle.

  “Ow! Goddamn you ... what do you think you’re ... put me down!”

  The man only laughed and spurred his horse, holding Layla against his saddle, riding into the ranch yard. He released her in front of the barn, and she hit the ground hard and rolled.

  When she looked up, she saw through the wafting yellow dust about a dozen riders swarming into the ranch yard from all directions. They halted their sweating horses in a large, ragged circle and jerked their heads around cautiously, rifles and pistols held at the ready.

  She heard Charlie cry her name. Whipping her head around, she saw him kneeling in the dust, a lariat encircling his chest. It appeared that one of the riders had lassoed and dragged him. His hat was missing, and he was dust-coated, his face twisted in agony. He sobbed, “Layla!”

  “Get that rope off my brother!” she screamed.

  Gerard Loomis rode into the yard on his steeldust, holding a screaming Keith against his saddle, the boy’s kicking legs a good foot above the ground.

  “Lemme go, lemme go!” the boy cried, face twisted in pain and anger.

  “You want me to let you go?” Loomis said, grinning.

  He brought the gray to a halt before Layla and released Keith, who hit the ground on his feet. The boy lost his balance and, stumbling, tumbled to his butt, doing a complete backward somersault and coming up with his dirt-caked hair hanging in his eyes.

  “There. I let you go,” Loomis said, laughing, his evil dark eyes glittering.

  Layla jumped to her feet. “You bastard!” she screamed, her voice breaking with emotion. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? This is private property. You’re trespassing!”

  “Where is he?” Loomis said.

  She stared at him. “Where’s who?”

  “Prophet.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Behind her, a man coming out of the barn said, “He ain’t in there, boss.”

  “What about the other buildings?” Loomis asked the group in general.

  “Nothin’ boss,” a man said as he and another moved toward the group from the outbuildings.

  Loomis glanced impatiently at Herman, the dog, running in a semicircle around him and his men, barking hysterically and taking occasional nips at the horses.

  “Someone silence that goddamn dog,” he ordered.

  “No!” Keith cried, running toward the dog.

  “I got it, boss,” a rider said. He drew his revolver and fired. The bullet creased Herman’s skull, and the dog crouched with a squeal, wheeled, and ran behind the barn with his tail between his legs. The boy disappeared after him.

  “You son of a bitch!” Layla cried, bolting toward Loomis. One of the other men put his horse between them, shoving her back and aiming his pistol at her face.

  Beside Loomis, Luther McConnell said, “We haven’t checked the house yet, boss.”

  “Well, then,” Loomis said to his foreman, “shall we, Luther?”

  “You got it, boss.”

  Dismounting, Loomis said to the other men, “Fan out and cover us. If he’s not in one of the other buildings, he has to be in the house.” He looked at Layla. “And keep a close eye on the girl. If we find Prophet here, this ranch will be burned to the ground and she and her brothers will hang.”

  Frozen with fear, Layla said nothing.

  Loomis and McConnell drew their revolvers and walked cautiously toward the cabin.

  Mounting the stoop, Loomis listened at the door. He lifted the latch and kicked the door wide. It bounced against the wall. Catching it with his left hand, he entered with his gold-plated Colt in his right.

  “Come out here, Prophet,” Loomis called. “You’re gonna pay for killin’ my boy, you worthless rebel scum.”

  He and McConnell walked slowly through the cluttered room, looking behind the woodstove and range and everywhere else a man could hide. When it was obvious Prophet wasn’t in the main room or kitchen, both men made their way to the plank door at the back, each taking a side.

  Loomis threw the door open and crouched, ready to fire.

  He held up. The bed before him was empty, the sheets and quilt thrown back.

  “Check under the bed.”

  McConnell got down on his hands and knees and looked under the bed, moving things around with his right hand. Finally, he looked at his boss.

  “There ain’t no room for a man under here, boss.”

  Loomis sighed angrily and holstered his gun. He stared at the bed, his face turning to stone, the blood retreating. Wheeling, he stomped out of the house.

  “He’s not here,” he told the men fanned out around him. “We’ll check every ranch along the Pretty Butte. One of these goddamn nesters had to pick him up.”

  He forked leather and started away, then checked the steeldust and turned back to Layla, who stood in the middle of the ranch yard as though in a dream, staring at the house.

  “You see the man I’m lookin’ for, you best get word to me, girl. Pronto.”

  Then he rode away.

  Layla hadn’t even turned to him. She was still staring with confused relief at the house, nearly giddy with the impossible realization they hadn’t found Prophet. She’d expected to be dead by now ... or worse.

  When the riders were gone and only their dust remained, she turned to Charlie, still kneeling in the yard where they’d left him. He stared at Layla blankly.

  “You okay, Brother?” Layla called to him.

  Charlie stood slowly and brushed himself off. He didn’t say anything. Keith came up behind Layla, and she turned to him.

  “How’s Herman?”

  “He’ll be okay. He’s hidin’ behind the barn. What happened?”

  “I don’t know.” Layla started for the cabin.

  She and Keith entered the bedroom and stood just inside the door, gazing wide-eyed around the small, cramped room. The bed was empty.

  “Mr. Prophet?” Layla called, tentative.

  Silence.

  After several seconds, a muffled voice rose. “They gone?”

  “Yes.”

  There was another pause. The paraphernalia under the bed started to move outward, including Prophet’s boots, filthy denims, and gun belt. Finally, Prophet’s pale face peered out from under the bed.

  “Everybody all right?” he asked.

  Layla nodded. “More or less. How ’bout you?”

  “Peachy.”

  Chapter Ten

  LOU PROPHET WENT back to bed and slept, dreaming crazily about the battles he’d experienced during the Civil War, about his parents, his brothers and sisters, and the cousins he’d lost during the war and those who’d returned after Appomattox sporting crutches and empty sleeves. Somehow, mixed up in it all, was the showgirl, Lola Diamond, also known as Amber Skye, with whom he’d shared an adventure last year in the Beaverhead Mountains of Montana.

  He and Lola had been chased by firebrands hired by the Johnson City crime boss, Billy Brown, but in Prophet’s dream, the men chasing him and Lola had been Union soldiers dressed in blue federal uniforms and wielding Spencer rifles and bayonets.

  Then suddenly he was a boy courting his Blue Ridge Mountain sweetheart. Then, just as suddenly, he was standing by his grandfather’s freshly dug grave, with the redbuds and laurel in full flower and Cherry Creek gurgling and his grandmother weeping into her handkerchief while Uncle Cy played “In the Sweet Bye and Bye” on his fiddle.

  It was when he was in Texas, just after the war, and trailing a herd to the railhead in Abilene, that someone
placed a wet rag on his forehead, and he woke with a start, grabbing a hand. Opening his eyes, he saw a pretty, blue-eyed girl in a man’s blue shirt staring down at him. Lowering his gaze, he found her hand in his.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I was just wiping the sweat off your forehead.”

  He nodded slightly. His eyes grew heavy, slowly closing, and then he was sleeping again ... dreaming again.

  When he woke again, golden sunshine pushed through the small sashed window to his left. He could hear birds chirping and someone hammering an anvil. His bladder was full and aching. Reaching down with his hand, he found a thunder mug and removed the lid. He held the pot with one hand as he turned onto his side and opened the fly of his union suit.

  Letting go a sigh, he released a steady, heavy stream that hit the porcelain pot like thunder. It continued for what seemed like five minutes, sounding like a downpour on a tin roof, the weight of the pot straining the stitches in his side.

  Finally finished, he set the pot on the floor. Lying back, he yawned, stretching his arms above his head. He felt better. Stronger. The sheets were damp but not wet, meaning his fever had probably broken.

  He heard pans clattering in the main room, the bark of a stove lid, then footsteps. Someone knocked on the door.

  “Yeah.”

  “You finished?” the girl asked.

  Prophet knew she’d heard his pee hitting the thunder mug; they could have heard it in Little Missouri. “Yup.”

  The door opened, and the girl came in, dressed in blue jeans and a red flannel shirt. She looked better than she had when Prophet had first met her. She’d taken a bath and brushed her hair till it shone and pulled it back in a ponytail, with a few wisps curling over her forehead and beside her cheeks. The shirt was tight enough to reveal the matronly swell of her breasts and the slenderness of her waist. The jeans were faded nearly white in the knees, and her man’s boots were worn, but the contrast only highlighted her femininity.

  Prophet had a pang of lust, which was not unusual for him, even in his condition. He hadn’t had a woman since Bismarck—how many days ago?

  “How you feeling?” she asked from the doorway.