“You mean you have to play it out.”
Nodding, he said, “’Fraid so.”
She dropped the rag in the basin and gave a sigh, nodding, then stood and went looking for her salve. When she returned, she opened the tin, dipped her right index finger in the jell-like substance, and brought it to Prophet’s face. He shrank back and put his hand on her wrist, inspecting her finger.
“What’s that?”
“Boiled honeysuckle flower in bear grease. Pa learned it from the Indians. Heal you right up.”
He shrugged and let her apply it to his cuts and abrasions. He stared into her face while she worked. The light from the window danced in her clear, blue eyes. Her blond hair, swept back in a ponytail, framed her oval, angelic face. God, she was beautiful!
“I’m sorry about all this,” he said.
“It ain’t your fault.”
“Well, I feel like it is. I’ll make it up to you... if I can.”
She took her hand away from his face and looked at him curiously. “How ... ?”
Yes, how? Could a man like him ever be any good for a girl like her? Him, a bounty hunter with a pact with the devil?
“I don’t know,” he sighed. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
She thought about this, then put the lid on the salve and stood. “I’ll fix you some breakfast.”
When he’d eaten the eggs, fried venison steaks, and corn cakes, and washed it all down with coffee, they both went out to the stoop, where they sat side by side in silence. Just being together felt good, and neither felt the need to say anything more. They each knew the future was out of their hands, and the only significance was the moment: the light washing over the barn roof and the camp-robber jay that lighted on the porch rail and demanded a handout.
When Prophet finished his cigarette, he stood and donned his hat. “Reckon I better let you do your chores,” he said. “I think I’ll feed and curry my horse, then head down to the creek for a bath.”
“Lou?” she said as he walked away.
He turned back to her, eyebrows raised.
“Whatever happens, I’m glad you came back ... even if it’s only for a while.”
He fashioned a lopsided smile and touched his hat brim. Then he turned and headed for the corral.
When he’d grained and curried Mean and Ugly, then tossed him a few forkfuls of hay, he grabbed his saddlebags and his rifle and headed behind the barn to the creek. On the sandy shore, cleansed and buffed by the recent rain, he undressed, tossing his clothes in a pile, gun belt on top. After rummaging in his saddlebags for a sliver of soap, he waded into the creek, sank to his butt, then stood and scrubbed himself hard but taking it easy on his aching face.
It was a warm morning, with high, puffy clouds and penetrating sunshine. The water ran clear and green between the six-foot cutbanks. A muskrat slapped the water on the other side of a bend. The grass and leaves rustled in the breeze.
When Prophet was finished scrubbing and soaping, he sat down in the water to rinse himself. He didn’t get up right away, preferring to sit there and feel the running water push against his body, as if washing all the invisible blood away.
The truth was, he liked bounty hunting. He didn’t like killing, but then again, he’d never killed unless he had no choice. In recent days, he’d had no choice. Besides, he wasn’t the one doing the hunting. He was the hunted.
Why was he trying to explain it to himself now? Why was he feeling guilty for the life he’d lived?
Because he was in love with a woman, and the life he’d lived did not mesh with loving a woman.
After a while, he stood and started toward the bank. To his right, something moved in the brush, and he turned that way, startled and flushing.
Layla appeared around a Russian olive. Seeing him standing knee-deep and naked in the stream, she turned away quickly, using a hand to block her view, her cheeks colored with embarrassment. “Oh... sorry. I thought you’d be done by now. I brought you a shirt, another of Pa’s. I let out the shoulders.”
“Obliged,” he said. “I don’t reckon I could’ve gotten the blood out of the other one.”
“I’ll just set it here,” she said. But she didn’t do anything.
Still standing in the stream, Prophet watched her. “I’m not the right man, Layla.”
She turned and regarded him boldly, a fiery passion in her eyes. “I know it ain’t right, our not bein’ married an’ all, and my bein’ promised to Gregor ... but I feel plumb crazy inside, Lou Prophet. Crazy with want for you.”
He shook his head. “I’m not the right one.” In spite of himself, he was growing aroused.
“I’m not saying you are or you aren’t, but I’d make love with you again if you wanted.” Her eyes dropped momentarily. “And I know you do ... as much as I do.”
He stared at her for a long time, growing hard, unable to control himself. Then he waded to shore, put his hands on her shoulders, squeezing, and pulled her toward him, and kissed her. It was a long, passionate kiss, their tongues and lips entwined.
When it was over, he hurriedly undid the buttons at the back of her dress and slowly slipped the dress and the camisole down her slender shoulders until the vibrant young breasts, pale and round and pink-nippled, bobbed free. He cupped the breasts in his large, brown hands and gently worked the jutting nipples.
Layla’s eyes fluttered shut, and she swooned. She opened her eyes again and gazed at him smokily. Then a hint of a smile pulled at her lips, and, placing her hands on his broad, wet chest, she slowly dropped to her knees.
Neither she nor Prophet were aware of Gregor Lang crouched in the shrubs only thirty feet away.
On his way to town for supplies, Lang had stopped at the cabin for a cup of coffee with his bride to be. When his calls to the cabin had not been answered, he’d tied his mule to the corral and looked around. While doing so, he’d heard the faint sound of Layla’s voice on the breeze and followed it to the creek, where he crouched now, the fire of horror, outrage, and jealousy consuming his soul.
He watched for nearly a minute, his heart pummeling his sternum like a hammer on a wedge. Finally, he drew his eyes from his bride to be and the naked stranger and fixed on the gun belt coiled atop the man’s clothes. Lang’s impulse was to grab the gun and shoot both the heathen fornicators, but try as he might, he could not move.
His eyes were drawn to them again, Layla crouched as if in worship before the stranger, the stranger’s head thrown back, his fists in her hair. For some reason Lang could not explain—did not want to explain—he found it impossible to turn away. Only when the stranger gave a groan and stumbled backward, sinking to the ground, did Lang turn and steal away toward the ranch yard.
Numbly, he untied the reins from the corral and climbed atop the oblivious mule. He kneed the animal eastward, toward town.
But he no longer had any intention of riding to Little Missouri.
It had not been a conscious decision. And though he was not sure why exactly, he’d decided he would ride instead to the Crosshatch.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“HOHO, HERE WE go!” the ever-ebullient Jason Anders bellowed as he jerked his trousers up and bent down to pick up an end of the aspen log. “This one here’ll be the last of the day,” he said as he lifted his end while Charlie lifted the other.
Keith was gathering kindling in the creek bottom behind them.
“Still a lot of sun yet, Jason,” he called to the stocky, gray-bearded man as he and Charlie made their way to the wagon, the log riding their shoulders.
“I know, but it’ll take you and Charlie a good hour to get back home, and I don’t want to make you late for supper.”
Charlie glanced over his shoulder at the old man behind him. “Layla said it’d be all right if we stayed overnight at your place, Jason.”
“She did, did she?” the old man said, chuckling. He knew the boys liked staying at his place whenever they got the chance. They enjoyed his stories about the old days trap
ping in the mountains, about the Crow Indians Anders had once lived with, and about the buffalo, once so plentiful but growing fewer and fewer every year.
“Well, I’d like that, I would,” Anders said under the weight of the aspen log, “but I think it’s best you go on home. I don’t like the idea of your sister spending the night alone. Now, if all three of you wanna come back sometime, sleep on the floor of my cabin, that’d be fine.” He gave a devilish chuckle. “Maybe I’ll even let ye sample some of my plum wine.”
He chuckled again as Charlie dropped his end of the log atop the pile they’d already stacked in Anders’s wagon. The old man shoved his end even with the tailgate, puffing and red-faced as he heaved.
“Whew! That’s tough work,” he said, producing a red handkerchief from his back pocket and dabbing his face. Like both Keith and Charlie, the bachelor rancher was shirtless, and his leathery skin and the tufts of bristly gray hair on his chest glistened in the bright sunlight washing through the trees.
“You should let me carry the heavy logs, Jason,” Keith said, as he dropped an armload of kindling in the wagon. “I’m able.”
“Yeah, I know you are, lad. But next year you’ll be even more able.” Anders ruffled the boy’s hair. “I don’t wanna play you out too soon!”
“Well, we’ll follow you back to your ranch, help you unload,” Keith said.
“Sounds good, boy.”
Anders reached for the shirt he’d hung over an aspen branch but stopped when he saw riders approaching from the north. There were seven or eight of them following a trail along the base of a rocky butte. It wasn’t hard to recognize the black-clad Loomis riding out front atop his steeldust.
“Now where in the hell’s he headed?” Anders muttered aloud.
“Loomis,” Keith said darkly.
“Yep.”
The riders appeared about to pass on by. Then one of the riders saw the wagon and called to his boss. Loomis turned toward Anders and the boys and reined up, raising a halting hand to the others.
He paused for a moment, scrutinizing the three woodcutters, then spurred his mount in their direction, his riders following close on his heels.
Watching the men approach, Keith pointed and said, “Hey, that’s Mr. Lang. What in the heck’s he doin’ with Loomis ?”
Anders did not reply. Looking edgy, he watched the riders descend the ravine and come on through the brush. Loomis drew rein under a cottonwood, and Anders stepped out in front of the boys, flapping his shirt out, then pulling it on over his head—a torn, washed-out cotton tunic with rawhide ties at the neck. The two geldings harnessed to the wagon shook their manes and nickered nervously.
Anders donned his floppy-brimmed hat and gave Loomis a curt nod. “Afternoon, Loomis. What can I do fer ye?”
He cut his eyes at Gregor Lang, whom he knew only to hail on the trail now and then. Of opposing temperaments—Anders liked to drink and kick up his heels a bit— they were not friends. In fact, Anders had never cared much for the Bible-slapping Scotsman, and couldn’t understand why Emil Carr had wanted his daughter to marry the grim man.
“I’m still looking for the man who murdered my son,” Loomis said coldly, staring straight into Anders’s eyes. Cutting his look at Keith and Charlie, he said, “I’ve been told he’s at the Carr ranch.”
“Who told you that?” Keith said angrily.
Sitting his mule far right of the others, as though at once separate and one with the group, Gregor Lang glanced down, frowning sheepishly.
“Why, the good Mr. Lang did,” Loomis said, giving the Scotsman a condescending, lopsided grin. “Says he saw him there just this afternoon, frolicking with your sister down by the creek.”
Keith looked both puzzled and angry. “Mr. Lang?”
Anders reached out and placed a gnarled hand on the boy’s shoulder. To Loomis, he said, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but whatever it is, you leave that girl alone.”
“Anders, this is none of your affair,” Loomis said in a threatening voice. He looked at Keith and then at Charlie, who stood back by the wagon box, his expression fearful and confused.
“Boys,” Loomis said, “is Lang telling the truth? Has Lou Prophet been holing up at your place?”
“No!” Keith spat. “Mr. Lang’s an old liar.”
Lang looked up quickly, jerked out of his reverie. “He was there this afternoon. They were... they were down by the creek.” His voice rose, deep and quavering. “Doing the devil’s deed.”
One of Loomis’s riders chuckled. “Doin’ the devil’s deed,” he said, glancing at the others, who, too, were grinning.
“How ‘bout you there, idiot,” Loomis said, lifting his gaze to Charlie. “Has Lou Prophet been holing up at your place?”
Charlie jerked a frightened look at Loomis, working his lips, his eyes wide, the sweat running down the dirt and sawdust streaking his face and bare, hairless chest. He fidgeted, sliding his eyes to Keith and Jason Anders, muttering, “I don’t, don’t—”
“I don’t, I don’t’ what?” Loomis mocked. “Is he there or isn’t he?”
“No, he’s not!” Keith yelled, bolting several steps toward Loomis. “And even if he was, it wouldn’t be any of your goddamn business!” His face and eyes aflame with exasperation, the boy turned to Lang. “Mr. Lang, you’re a goddamn, no-good traitor!”
Lang’s own eyes blazed as he lifted a condemning finger at Keith. “You hold your tongue, boy. Your sister’s been—”
“Oh, shut up, Lang,” Loomis said tiredly. Then, turning to the rider beside him, said, “Lasso the squirt, Quint. We’re takin’ him back to the Crosshatch.”
“You’re what?” Anders said, stepping up beside Keith and pushing the boy back behind him.
“You heard me, Anders. I’m taking the boy. I was heading for the Carr ranch to take Prophet myself. But this’ll bring him to me. Now get out of the way. Like I said, this is none of your affair.”
“You’re not taking this boy, Loomis!”
“Get out of the way, by God!”
Shaking out a loop from his lariat, the rider edged his horse toward Anders, who was shielding Keith with his body.
“Loomis,” Lang said haltingly, “you can’t... no ... this isn’t right....”
“Lang, I told you to shut up.”
“No, I didn’t want this “
Shaking his head and scowling, at the end of his patience, Loomis casually drew one of his gold-plated pistols, thumbed back the hammer, raised it at Lang, and fired.
“No!” Lang yelled.
At the same time, the bullet took him through the chest. He leaned back in his saddle, clutching his reins, chin rising, mouth and eyes wide. His startled mount turned sharply right to run away, and the sudden move threw Lang’s already dead body out of the saddle. It hit the ground in a twisted heap. The mule headed down the trail, kicking and braying.
Loomis turned to Anders, who watched him, red-faced with indignation. “Get away from that boy, Anders, or you’ll get the same as Lang.”
Anders turned around and pushed Keith toward the creek behind them. “Run away, boy! Both of ye! Run!”
Loomis leveled his pistol at Anders’s retreating back and shot him through the spine. The gray-bearded man fell forward with an angry yell. Keith, who’d started to run away, turned back around at the shot.
“Jason!”
The boy stopping to stare in horror at the dying Anders gave Loomis’s rider all the time he needed to drop the loop over Keith’s head and shoulders and draw it tight, pinning his arms to his sides.
Keith fought the rope, spewing epithets at the rider, but the man only laughed and jerked the boy to the ground.
“No ... goddamn you ... lousy sonso’bitches!”
Meanwhile, Charlie had run toward Keith but stopped and fell to his knees when Loomis leveled his gun at him. He grabbed his head in both hands and stared at the rancher in confused terror, his mind refusing to comprehend all that had happened in only seconds,
knowing only horror.
While Loomis’s rider dismounted and tied Keith’s hands and feet together like a calf for the branding, Loomis told Charlie, “Go on home, idiot. Go on home and tell your sister and Prophet what happened here. You understand, idiot? And tell Prophet if he wants the boy, he’ll know where to find him.”
With that, he swung his steeldust around, set his jaw, and rode back northward, his riders following. Rung over the rump of a horse, Keith wailed and screamed.
Behind him, Charlie knelt by the wagon, staring after his brother until the boy and theriders had disappeared around the butte, only their dust and Keith’s echoing screams lingering over the trail.
Chapter Twenty-Three
DROWSY FROM AN afternoon nap, Prophet propped himself on an elbow in Layla’s bed in the cabin and looked at her lying naked beside him. They’d spent most of the day making love, and he felt pleasantly tired, dreamily fulfilled.
Wan afternoon light angled through the window, and a lone fly buzzed against the glass. The cabin and yard were cloaked in midsummer languor.
Layla slept on her back, lips slightly parted. Prophet reached over and gently swept a lock of her lovely hair back from her cheek. Absently, tenderly, he ran his finger down the curve of her neck, across her chest, along one lovely round breast to a nipple.
The nipple stirred under his touch, swelling a little. He leaned over and kissed it.
Lifting his head, he sighed luxuriously. He could get used to a permanent woman, a permanent home. There was no question that he loved her....
He glanced at her face and saw that her eyes were open. She was smiling.
“Did I wake you?”
Still smiling, eyes slitted, she nodded. She slid over to him, put her arms around his neck, and snuggled against his chest. “I never knew it could be like this, Lou.”
“I never knew, either, Layla.”
“Oh, what are we gonna do?”
“Take it an hour, a day at a time, I reckon.”
“But I love you so.”
“I love you, too.”
She entwined her legs with his and squirmed against him, flattening her breasts against his chest, kissing his ears and neck.
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