Lou Prophet 2

by Peter Brandvold

  When they returned from the creek and had dressed in clean denims and cotton shirts, Layla sent them away with glasses of lemonade and orders not to get dirty. Then she heated water for a proper bath, bathed in the washtub, fixed her hair, and dressed in a pair of fresh drawers, petticoats, camisole, plain brown calico dress, and black shoes with spindly, two-inch heels.

  She hated how confined and prissy she felt in such garb, and she couldn’t imagine how women who routinely decked themselves out like this got anything done. She’d better get used to it, however. That’s how Gregor’s late wife dressed, and he’d expect Layla to dress the same.

  She supposed she’d have to give up the smokes, as well.

  Around five-thirty, she stuck the chickens and pie in the oven. Nervously smoothing her apron and feeling wobbly in the prissy shoes, she stepped onto the porch and gazed east, looking for Gregor. Not seeing him, wishing he’d just come and get the visit over with, she stepped off the porch and walked across the yard toward Keith and Charlie playing cribbage under the big cottonwood shading the stock tank.

  Chickens clucked and scratched nearby. Herman was stretched out in the shade, the furrow Loomis’s rider’s bullet had made in his scull scabbing over nicely. He thumped his tail as Layla approached but was in too heavy a dolor to lift his head.

  Charlie balanced the cribbage board on his right thigh. His blond brows ridged with consternation as Keith moved his peg, counting the holes as he went.

  “You’re cheatin’ again, Keith,” Charlie complained.

  “You laid a ten down, right?” Keith said patiently. “Well, I laid down a five. That’s fifteen. Count ‘em— fifteen.”

  “Layla, he’s cheatin’,” Charlie said as she came to a stop.

  Keith looked at Layla indignantly. “I ain’t cheatin’.”

  “I don’t care who’s cheating,” Layla scolded, feeling brittle. “If I hear any arguing when Gregor gets here, you’ll both be sleeping in the barn tonight. Understand?”

  “B-but he’s cheatin’, Layla,” Charlie beseeched his sister. “He put his peg up too far—”

  Layla tried for some moral authority. “Charlie, like Poppa always said, if he’s cheatin’ you, he’s only cheatin’ himself. Now isn’t that right?”

  “Well...”

  She glanced reproachfully at Keith and tried to sound like their mother. “No decent young man could get any real satisfaction out of cheating his brother at cards.”

  Keith lowered his eyes and pursed his lips sheepishly.

  “But,” Charlie said, “he said whoever loses the game has to empty the slop buckets the whole next week, an’—”

  “Keith!”

  “It’s just for fun,” Keith objected, shuffling his cards with an air of chagrin.

  “Keith, I told you not to play for chores. What’s that spot on your shirt?”

  Keith dipped his chin to look at his shirt front. “I—I don’t know—guess it must be lemonade.”

  “I told you to be careful. Go inside and change it.”

  “My other one’s dirty.”

  “Oh, shit!”

  Layla brought her hands to her temples, pressing back her hair. As much as she loved her brothers, she was tired of playing mother to these boys. She wished her own mother were alive. She wished her father were alive. She wished they were all together again, and she could dream about marrying a handsome cowboy on a tall, black horse.

  “Gregor won’t see the stain, Sis,” Keith said. “Heck, I can hardly see it.”

  “I can see it,” Charlie said.

  “You can not!”

  “Both of you, shut up!” Layla fairly screamed.

  They gazed back at her, eyes dark with dismay and concern. Suddenly seeing herself how they saw her, her heart swelled, and tears veiled her eyes. Her face softened, though the lines of weariness remained, and she dropped to her knees, suddenly not caring about her dress or her stockings. She brought her hands to her face, kneading the scowl lines she knew had been deepening in recent months, ever since she’d promised herself to Gregor.

  How old she felt. Like a dry reed in a stiffening wind.

  “I’m sorry,” she said weakly, regarding them both sympathetically. “I sound like an old crone.”

  “You sound okay, Layla,” the tender-hearted Charlie said softly.

  Layla draped her left arm over his knee and looked up at his big, boyish face with its smattering of man’s beard stubble, the eyes customarily vague and uncertain. “Thanks, Charlie, but I know I’ve been as skittish as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs these last few weeks.”

  “Is it Gregor?” Keith asked.

  Layla looked thoughtfully off, not saying anything.

  “You don’t have to marry ole Gregor Lang,” Keith said, his voice acquiring an edge.

  “Yes, I do, Keith,” Layla said. “Papa wanted me to, and I know it’s the right thing for all of us. You boys will have a father again, and I...” She drew a deep breath. “I’ll have a husband.”

  “Gregor’s old,” Keith groused.

  “Yeah, Gregor’s old,” Charlie agreed.

  Layla smiled wanly. “He’s only forty-two.”

  “That was how old Momma was when she died,” Keith pointed out.

  “Yeah ... it was,” Charlie said, looking down at his big hands, sadly remembering their mother.

  “Well, Momma didn’t die of old age, Keith,” Layla said. “She had the lung fever.”

  “She was still old, and Gregor, he’s—”

  “Keith,” Layla gently chided him. She didn’t need their help in regretting her situation. But, then again, it was their situation, too.

  The young man gazed at her beseechingly. “It’s just, Layla, if you marry Gregor, you ain’t gonna seem like our sister anymore. You’ll be like our mother—like the way you been lately ... only worse.”

  “Well, you boys need a mother.”

  “Maybe,” Keith agreed, “but we don’t need you bein’ our mother. We like you bein’ our sister.”

  Layla had to admit that she, too, would have preferred just being their sister. But life wasn’t as simple as it once was. Their parents were dead: first their mother, then, only a year ago, their father. One of them had had to step up and take control of the household, and since Charlie was really more of a boy even than Keith, the logical choice had been Layla.

  Gregor Lang was just the next step in the cold equation.

  Layla did not try to explain this, however. She knew neither boy would understand—not yet, anyway.

  She said, “Keith, why don’t you bring up some more stove wood? The kitchen box is almost empty.”

  Keith got up lazily, a frown lingering on his face. As he passed Layla, a childish urge came over her. As if of its own accord, her arm reached out and grabbed the cuff of his right pant leg, tripping him. Keith gave a yell and hit the ground on his hands and knees.

  “Hey! What’d you do that for!”

  Layla was as surprised as Keith was.

  “I... I...” She tried to explain, but then a sudden giddiness came over her, her adult anxiety of only a moment before slipping blissfully under a wave of youthful release. Hearing Charlie’s hoots and squeals and seeing the look on Keith’s face as he lay sprawled there on the hard-packed ground, his longish hair hanging in his eyes, she covered her mouth, laughing with devilish pleasure.

  The frown slipped from Keith’s face, quickly replaced by bright-eyed mischief. He lunged for his sister, yelling, “I’m gonna twist your titty for that! I’m gonna twist your titty for that!”

  “Oh, no you’re not!” Layla returned, laughing and fighting him off.

  Then Charlie joined the fray, whooping as he helped his sister against the monkeylike Keith, all of them rolling with abandon on the dusty ground, like they used to play only last year, before their father died. Herman barked, wagging his tail. As Keith tried to pinch her breasts, Layla fought him off and tried to tickle him. Meanwhile, Charlie wrestled Keith away from
his sister, helping Layla twist the youngest onto his back and pin his anus with her knees, all of them giggling and laughing and espousing childish epithets, and Keith crying, “Leave me be ... I’m gonna twist her titty!”

  Something blocked the sun, sliding a shadow over them. Herman whined and hid under the porch. It occurred to Layla that she’d heard the slow clomp of horse hooves, but she’d been having too much fun to pay attention. Now, realizing the shadow had been made by the horse she’d heard, she froze.

  She looked at Keith beneath her, his left arm pinned by her knee. The boy gazed wide-eyed at something or someone above and behind her.

  With a shrinking feeling, her ears ringing, it dawned on Layla who that someone was ... the only person it could be....

  Chapter Fifteen

  LAYLA’S HEART SANK and her face burned as she turned to peer up at the hatted figure of Gregor Lang riding his old, knobby-kneed, gray brown mule. Her mouth opened slightly, but no words came. No one said anything until Charlie looked at Layla, smiling innocently, and said, “Gregor’s here, Layla.”

  Layla remained frozen for several seconds. Then, slowly, she climbed to her feet, lowering her head and dusting herself off. Her brothers did likewise, sheepishly. None of them said anything until Lang said in a gruff, even voice, “I’ll take my mule over to the barn. Maybe the boys can unsaddle him for me, turn him into the corral.”

  Layla turned to her brothers. “Keith, Charlie ...” she said. Then, face scarlet, she headed for the house.

  On the porch, Layla brushed the flecks of hay and dirt from her dress and hair, all the while cursing herself for being such an idiot, for letting Gregor see her acting like a ten-year-old. If the Scotsman had had any doubts about her ability to be a good wife to him, they’d just been validated by the barbaric display he’d witnessed under the cottonwood.

  Had he heard Keith yelling “titty”? Oh God!

  Layla wasn’t sure she really cared. But then she remembered her father.

  She went inside, found her brush, and brushed her hair out carefully. As she returned it to the window shelf, she heard boots on the stoop and knew it was Gregor. She closed her eyes, trying to calm herself. Then she stood and headed for the screen door, one slow, ladylike step at a time. She held the hem of her dress to just above her ankles, and fiddled obsessively with the red ribbon she’d tied in her hair.

  When she came to the door, she saw Gregor sitting on one of the stoop’s homemade chairs. He’d crossed his legs, placed his bowler hat on a knee, and was smoking his corncob pipe like a man waiting for a train. The sleeves of his clean, white shirt were rolled up his pale, freckled arms. His thinning hair, the color of cured hay, was carefully combed across his pink scalp.

  The smoke from his pipe wafted through the screen, and the aroma made Layla think sadly of her father, who had also smoked a pipe. In fact, Emil Carr had often spent Sunday afternoons right here with Gregor, smoking and talking about cattle prices, the weather, and the coming winter.

  Layla’s heart fluttered as she opened the screen and turned to her prospective husband, watching him cautiously.

  “Something sure smells good,” he said, turning to her with a mild smile.

  The remark was so unexpected that Layla hesitated, unsure how to reply. Wasn’t he going to say anything about the roughhousing beneath the cottonwood?

  She cleared her throat. “It’s just chicken,” she said haltingly, unsure of herself. “It should be done in a half hour or so.”

  “Smells good. You must be cooking lots of onions with it.”

  So they weren’t going to talk about it.

  “Charlie and I went out and dug wild onions up a few days ago,” she said, her relief tempered by the oddness of the exchange. “Would you like some lemonade?”

  Gregor gave a nod, blowing smoke around his pipe stem. “That would be fine.”

  “I’ll bring you a glass.”

  He nodded.

  She turned back into the cabin, feeling shaken, feeling befuddled and actually worse than if he’d reprimanded her for the horseplay. Well, if he wasn’t going to mention it, fine; she wouldn’t, either.

  She poured them both a glass of lemonade, put the glasses on a tray, and carried the tray onto the veranda. She set the tray on the rail, handed Gregor a glass, then sat in one of the homemade, hide-bottom chairs beside him, her own glass in her hand. She felt tensely, painfully uncomfortable, as she always did in the presence of this pious, reticent man. She’d thought she’d eventually grow more comfortable with Gregor, but it certainly hadn’t happened yet, and she wondered now if it ever would.

  Gregor sipped the lemonade, smacked his lips. “Well, I suppose you know Loomis is on the rampage again,” he said with a sigh.

  “Uh... yeah, I heard.” Layla didn’t want Gregor to know she’d picked up Prophet along the trail and had doctored his wounds. She wasn’t sure how her future husband would feel about her harboring a stranger, especially one who was on the run from Gerard Loomis.

  “This man he’s after killed his son.”

  “Yeah. In Little Missouri, wasn’t it?”

  “In the saloon there,” Gregor said with a nod. “No doubt drink was involved. It usually is, and always causes trouble.”

  “Yep.”

  “Smoking and drinking: vices of ole Lucifer himself.”

  “You can say that again.”

  Gregor sipped his lemonade. “Gravelly Hugh came by my place on his way back from the railroad this morning. He’d been by the Loomis place—he cuts firewood for the Crosshatch, you know. Well, he said this fella Loomis is after is still in the country.”

  Layla shot a surprised look at Gregor. “He is?”

  Gregor nodded. “Gravelly said the man set fire to one of Loomis’s barns last night and shot up a couple of his riders.”

  “He did!”

  Gregor looked at her, frowning, vaguely puzzled. Layla checked her emotions. “I mean ... how ... awful. Was he sure it was the man who shot Little Stu?”

  “’Parently. Not only that, but Gravelly said this man shot three of Loomis’s men in the Pyramid Park, right back where the whole trouble started in the first place.” Gregor shook his head disapprovingly. “No doubt it was alcohol again.”

  “No doubt. Where do they think Prophet is now?”

  Gregor turned to her with surprise etched on his fair, sunburned features. “Prophet? That his name? Now ... how would you know that?”

  Layla’s shoulders jerked with a shudder. “Oh ... uh ... I think Loomis mentioned it when he rode through here the other day, lookin’ for him.”

  “Oh. Never mentioned it to me. Well, anyway... I guess they don’t know where he is. Could be anywhere, I reckon. If I were him, though—and with ole Loomis as mad as Gravelly said he is—I’d just ride out of here and keep on ridin’. I don’t know what he’s tryin’ to prove, hanging around here causin’ trouble.”

  Layla couldn’t believe Prophet was still in the country. What was he doing here? She thought he was heading for Montana. She hadn’t realized it consciously, but she’d missed the brawny Confederate, and the idea of seeing him again made her feel giddy with both fear and expectation. Had she fallen in love with the man?

  Feeling guilty about her feelings for Prophet, with Gregor sitting right here beside her, and also worried that he’d get himself killed, she changed the subject. “I’ll get supper on the table, if you want to call the boys.” Then she gathered their glasses and headed inside.

  It was, as always, a quiet meal. Gregor did not believe in conversing at the table. The food was passed, plates filled, and the only sounds after that were the soft clatter of forks and knives, of chewing and swallowing, of glasses lifted and set back down, throats cleared.

  Meadowlarks trilled outside, and the roosters crowed. The cottonwood over the stock tank rustled in a vagrant breeze.

  Layla feigned a quiet calm, but inside was a tumult of emotion. Prophet was still in the country. Why? Had Loomis’s men disc
overed him heading to town and given chase, effectively trapping him in the badlands? Or had he just decided to settle the trouble once and for all?

  It would not be unlike him. She’d known him only a few days, but she sensed in him a man who was not used to running from his problems, a man who would always fight when wronged, no matter how high the odds were stacked against him.

  Or... had he stayed for her? Maybe he felt the same way about her as she felt about him. The thought made her throat constrict and, busying herself with her food, she quickly banished it from her mind.

  About three-quarters of the way through the meal, the heavy silence suddenly struck Keith as amusing, and he snickered, smiling down at his plate.

  Almost grateful for the distraction, Layla said, “Keith, you hush.”

  The boy bit his lip, but to no avail. He glanced at the sober-faced Gregor Lang, going about his meal very seriously, with no expression whatsoever, and another chuff escaped Keith’s lips. It was followed by several more in quick succession. Layla looked at him severely.

  “Keith, what is wrong with you?”

  Charlie glanced at Keith, and then he, too, laughed, opening his mouth and guffawing, as though at a joke he suddenly understood.

  Gregor Lang’s expression did not change. He dipped his fork into his gravy-drenched potatoes and brought the fork to his mouth, his eyes riveted to his plate. His features were grave, ashen.

  “All right, both of you, out!” Layla scolded. “Outside!”

  Laughing, Keith ran out the door.

  “But, I—I ain’t done yet,” Charlie protested, one cheek bulging with half-chewed food.

  Lang suddenly lifted his head from his plate and skewered the lad with a look of extreme acrimony. “Out!”

  There was a sudden silence, as though a bomb had just exploded. Frozen, Charlie looked at Lang as though stricken, shocked, as was Layla, by the sudden, clipped outburst. Then he stood and, staring bewilderedly at Lang, followed his brother out the door.

  Layla watched Charlie pass through the door and disappear outside. She turned to Lang, who had returned his attention to his plate, as though nothing had happened. Anger nearly blinded her; no one spoke to her brothers that way! But she knew if she said anything, she would yell, and it would all be over.