She’d bought the coach from the Ellison-Daniels stage line in St. Louis and outfitted the rig to her own specifications. That’s how she and Sergei had traveled to Denver and how they intended to travel throughout the West, Sergei in the driver’s box, she in the coach reading and napping and sipping afternoon cordials while smoking her French cheroots.
Prophet thought it the most decadent thing he’d ever seen. The Russians acted like they were on some extended rich man’s picnic. Already one of the stage horses had thrown a shoe, another had almost pulled the whole contraption — countess and all — into a ravine, and Sergei had almost snapped an axle when he’d rammed the coach into a rock.
To top it all off, neither the countess nor Sergei had told Prophet why they were looking for the countess’s sister. All he knew was that Marya Roskov was somewhere in Arizona and that the countess Natasha wanted to find her and bring her back to Boston.
That was all he knew and, as the countess had informed him in her highfalutin tone, all he needed to know for now. If it hadn’t been for the thousand dollars he’d already pocketed and his humiliating morning with Louisa Bonaventure, Prophet would have told these uppity royals where they could drive their wagon. Before he started a job, he wanted to know what the job — the whole job — entailed.
He wasn’t sure, though, that in this circumstance he really wanted to know. Deep down, he had a bad feeling. Anyway, he’d be south for the winter. He’d never liked snow.
It was seven o’clock in the morning of their fourth day on the trail. From his watch atop a nearby ridge overlooking their camp, Prophet thought he’d seen movement. He’d worked his way over to investigate while the countess and Sergei slept.
“Shoulda woke ‘em up,” Prophet thought. “Let them do a little worryin’ for a change. Damn foreigners . . .”
He came to the end of the crevice and stepped into a box canyon of sorts, lined with strewn boulders appearing milky in the dawn light.
Prophet looked around, listening. It was too quiet. He half-turned to his right in time to see a figure leaping from the rocky escarpment above him. He didn’t have time to raise the Winchester before the Indian was on him, plunging a knife toward his chest.
Prophet dropped the Winchester as he reached for the knife, the force of the leaping savage bowling him onto his back. The Indian landed on top of him, howling, cursing, and punching Prophet with his left fist while trying to wrench his right free of Prophet’s grasp.
Prophet fought for the knife, but the young Ute had an iron grip. Holding the kid’s right hand with his own left, Prophet dropped his right hand to his Colt, whipped it out of its holster, and stuck the barrel in the kid’s ribs.
The brave froze, staring with sudden terror into Prophet’s eyes.
“You done bought it, kid,” Prophet said through gritted teeth.
The shot was muffled by the brave’s belly.
The kid jerked, giving a startled cry and groan. He slumped sideways. Prophet gave him a shove, scrambling to his feet.
Two more braves appeared before him, crouched and fiery-eyed, long black hair whipping in the morning breeze. They wore cotton shirts, hide loincloths, and beaded moccasins. One was a few inches shorter than the other’s five-eight or-nine. The shorter brave wore a soldier’s faded blue kepi.
Prophet brought the gun up.
Seeing the Colt, the braves hesitated. They were armed with nothing more than the knives in their hands. Prophet hoped that, seeing the score, they’d have sense enough to run.
Their doubts did not last, however. Black eyes dancing with fury, they leaped toward the bounty hunter at the same time. Prophet stepped back, crouching, and triggered the Colt twice, the reports echoing off the rocks. Screaming, both braves stopped, jerked back, and fell. The blood bubbling from their chests turned bright red in the climbing morning sun.
“Damn younkers,” Prophet griped, scowling at the bodies.
He leaped atop a boulder pile and swept his gaze around, looking for more would-be attackers. He saw little but rock, purple shadows, and sage tufts, but there had to be a larger band around here somewhere. He just hoped they hadn’t heard his pistol shots. If they had, there would be more braves here in a minute.
Deciding he had little time to spare, Prophet left the bodies where they lay, and hurried back the way he had come. He slipped and slid in the gravel as he descended the last ridge, and saw that the Russians were up and about — Sergei building a breakfast fire and the countess sitting on a canvas chair by the coach, brushing her hair to a keen shine.
“Load up,” Prophet said as he approached, a little breathless. “We got Injun trouble.”
“Injun trouble?” Sergei said, squatting by the fire.
“That’s what I said.” Prophet grabbed his saddle. “Load up, and be quick about it.”
“Are you sure, Mr. Prophet?” the countess asked him. “It seems so peaceful out here.” She looked around with an ethereal expression, appreciating the morning with its birds and freshening breeze.
“I take it you didn’t hear my pistol shots?” Prophet asked, his irritation building.
Sergei and the countess looked at each other blankly. “We heard nothing,” the countess said.
“Three braves jumped me a couple of ridges over. I don’t know if they’ve been following us or just happened onto me this morning, but we need to assume the worst — that there’s a larger band nearby — and fog it out of here.”
He turned toward his horse, his saddle in one hand, rifle in the other.
“Lou, are you sure you did not fall asleep and were dreaming?” Sergei asked with a patronizing smile. “I mean, we heard no shots. . . .”
Prophet turned to the big Cossack, anger burning his gut. “For one thing, mister, I don’t fall asleep on night watch. For another, I don’t dream up trouble for the fun of it. Now, if you didn’t hear those pistol shots — good. Maybe no one else did, either. But it would be pure loco to assume they didn’t. So if you and the royal wouldn’t mind” — he glanced at the countess still sitting in her canvas chair, ivory brush in her hand — “haul ass!”
Face red with exasperation, Prophet whipped around and stalked off toward his horse. Sergei glanced at the countess Natasha and shrugged. “I think our Mr. Prophet is dreaming, for I heard nothing and I have the ears of a young wolf,” he told her in French. “But let us humor him this morning, eh, ma cherie?”
“I suppose that would be best,” she agreed, rising, the corners of her mouth turned down. “But we’ll have to stop for tea later. I simply cannot live without my tea. ...”
They rode that day and then another, and Prophet, keeping a keen eye on their back-trail, saw no more Indians. He knew the Russians thought he’d been imagining things, and for that reason he almost wished they would see some Utes — a whole warrior band bearing down on them from a rimrock, arrows notched and lances ready to fly.
But that would have been cutting off his nose to spite his face. . . .
These Russians could sure be irritating.
That night they camped in a narrow canyon sheltered by pines and junipers and cooked the deer Prophet had shot earlier.
The next morning Prophet climbed a hill above the canyon and raised his field glasses. Slowly he made a hundred-and-sixty-degree scan of the surrounding countryside — broken prairie bathed in morning sunlight, with the first front of the Rockies looming sagely on his left, their peaks mantled in snow.
A chill wind whistled through a scraggly pine. Prophet lifted the collar of his sheepskin coat. It was cold this high in the foothills, and it was bound to get higher and colder before they descended into the Arizona desert.
Swinging his gaze back to the camp, he watched with disbelief as Sergei washed the coach with a sponge and soapy water from a wooden bucket. White sleeves rolled up his arms, a stogie jutting from his mouth, the Russian scrubbed away as though on a general’s polished rockaway.
Meanwhile, the countess reclined against one of her h
alf-dozen steamer trunks beneath a fringed silk parasol. She smoked a cheroot while reading a leather-bound book the size of a hatbox.
“Jesus H. Christ,” Prophet grumbled.
Why did he always find himself in the most outlandish situations? Was it that pact he’d made with the devil years ago, after the War? He’d vowed to shovel all the coal ole Scratch desired down below, as long he could live and drink and fornicate to his heart’s content on this side of the sod, forgetting all about those he’d seen killed and mangled at Chickamauga and Ringgold and Kennesaw Mountain.
“Maybe I shoulda read the fine print in the contract,” Prophet mused, watching the Russian washing the coach. “I shoulda known that deal was just too good to be true.”
He lowered the glasses and started down the ridge.
Ed Champion trotted his coyote dun over the lip of the ridge and descended the draw. The horse snorted and blew as its hooves bit deep in the loose clay. At the draw’s brushy bottom, Champion reined the horse right and soon smelled the fire and the aroma of scorched coffee.
Wade Snelling stood before the fire, his Spencer rifle in his hands, a wary expression on his face. When he saw it was Champion, his shoulders relaxed and he told the others squatting around the fire, “It’s Ed.”
“What took you so long, hoss?” Earl Cary said to Champion, lifting his little round pig eyes over the rim of his smoking coffee cup.
“Took me awhile to find their camp. That bounty hunter has them bedded down in a little ravine. I think it’s doable, though.”
“You sure, Ed?” Bobby St. John asked snidely. “Sure you don’t want to wait another week or two? Maybe they’ll ride up to us and invite us to all their money and whatever gold they have, and, hell, maybe they’ll throw in the girl while they’re at it.”
Champion scowled. “You think I’m overcautious, that it, Bobby?”
“Oh, I didn’t say that, Ed,” the one-eyed St. John said. From his perch on a rock, he grinned into the fire.
“I didn’t see any reason to rush things,” Champion said. “They’re goin’ in our direction, for chrissakes. Why not wait till the opportunity seems right? That Prophet — he’s savvy. I can tell by the ground he chooses for camping every night. And the Russian don’t look like no tit-suckin’ calf, neither.”
St. John sipped his coffee, adjusted the patch over his right eye, and continued grinning into the fire.
“Buford, bring me a cup o’ that coffee,” Champion demanded, still steaming over St. John’s jibe.
The bastard didn’t have any respect for Champion — that was obvious. St. John was too new to the group to realize what happened to those who questioned Champion’s authority, not to mention his brass. Well, maybe he’d just find out — sooner rather than later.
When young Buford Linley had brought Champion a mug of coffee, Champion took a sip, blowing ripples. “Well, what’d I just say?” he yelled. “We’re gonna do it. Now! Move your sorry asses! You, too, St. John!”
All the boys around the fire jumped to their feet and hustled over to their horses tied to a picket line several yards away. All but St. John, that was.
The one-eyed cowboy from Texas sat on his haunches another thirty seconds, took another two ponderous sips from his coffee, then tossed the dregs in the fire. Only then did he stand, stretch, kick one foot out as if to clear the creaks from his knee, and saunter over to his horse. He dropped the cup in his saddlebags.
Champion watched him, his broad nostrils flared in a snarl. “Proddy son of a bitch,” he muttered, lifting his hat and running a hand brusquely over the bald dome of his head. “He’s gonna rue the day he ever galled my ass . . . that’s for damn sure.”
A few minutes later all the men were mounted. They gathered around Champion, who was still drinking his coffee.
He said, “They’re in a little ravine about two miles south. Follow me and stick close and for god’s sake keep your traps shut, and no smokin’.” He looked at St. John. “Understand?”
St. John looked back at Champion and smiled, showing all his teeth.
The others said they understood, casting cautious glances at the silent St. John, then shuttling them back to their leader. With a grunt, Champion tossed out his coffee grounds, stowed the cup in his saddlebags, and reined his horse back the way he’d come.
It was getting dark, the first stars appearing. The eight-man party rode slowly up the side of the ravine, onto the ridge, and out across the rolling prairie, heading south. Fifteen minutes later Champion reined his horse to a stop at the mouth of a dark ravine opening onto a gurgling creek swathed in beech trees.
Quietly he told the men his plan. Then he and young Buford Linley rode out of the ravine, turned left at the creek, and followed the meandering game trail downstream. They rode side by side in silence as the last light bled from the sky and a beaver slapped the water, flushing a grouse from a thicket.
As they rode, Champion released the hammer thong over his Colt and loosened the revolver in his holster, getting set for the dance, as they say, and imagining what that pretty little Russian bitch would feel like under his blankets tonight.
Chapter Six
As hard as Prophet, the countess, and Sergei rode that day, they made little better than twenty-five miles, the bounty hunter guessed. If it hadn’t been for the plodding coach and the countess’s frequent stops, they could have gone twice that distance.
Near dark, they made camp in a grove of scrub oaks along a creek. While Sergei built a fire, Prophet scouted around, making sure they were alone, then led Mean and Ugly down to the creek. He picketed the dun in the tall grass near the water and far enough from the bays that Mean couldn’t pick any fights.
He was brushing the line-back dun when he heard grass rustling and turned to see the countess making her way toward him. She was strolling, her hands clasped behind her back, enjoying the evening.
She approached him slowly and stopped a few feet away, a pensive little smile on her lips. Prophet turned back to his job, grooming Mean with the curry brush and picking the loose hair from the bristles. He was disgusted with this pair’s uppity airs and didn’t feel like being friendly. If she wanted to talk, she could start the conversation herself.
Silently the countess watched him curry the horse. He was definitely a strange one to her. She’d been in the West only a few weeks; still, she’d thought she’d seen every kind of man there was to see out here — farmers, miners, Indians, cattlemen, river men, train men, and townsmen. But she hadn’t, until the other night when he had been unceremoniously shown through the doors of the Slap & Tackle Saloon, laid eyes on anything like Lou Prophet.
In his dusty trail garb, his buckskin shirt straining across the slabbed muscles of his chest, and his perpetual wolfish half-grin, he reminded her of Sergei’s people. The Cossacks of southern Russia were fierce warriors and expert horsemen, on the order of the best of the American Indians. As honorable as they were savage, as cunning and shrewd as they were chivalrous, they would fight to the death any man who moved against them, or threatened their territory or way of life, or slandered their bloodlines.
They liked stories and strong drink, and they loved to laugh. Also, they were the gentlest, most creative lovers on earth.
The countess knew this from firsthand experience, though not from Sergei, whom she loved like a brother. But a few years ago, when she still owned the innocence of youth and was traveling with her father to the remote regions of the Caucuses, she’d been in love for three blissful days with a stocky, sunburned farm boy named Mishenka.
Lou Prophet would be a lover not unlike the rustic Mishenka, she thought now as he moved toward her. Against her will, she imagined how it would feel, running her tongue over his lips, to be wrapped in those muscular arms, to feel those taut buttocks in her hands as he thrashed between her legs. . . .
My god, it had been so long since a man had shared her boudoir!
She shook her head to clear the lust fog. Reminding herself what sh
e had walked over here for, she extended a worn piece of paper that fluttered in the chill breeze. “Tell me what you think of that, Mr. Prophet.”
He turned to her, frowning. When he’d set the brush on the horse’s back, he took the leaf and leaned against Mean, tilting the page to the weak light.
It was a map of sorts, inexpertly drawn in pencil on cheap tablet paper. Jagged lines presumably marked mountains, serpentine lines must have been creeks or washes, and the bold X, of course, marked some meaningful spot.
At least, it must have been meaningful to someone. To Prophet, it was just an X amidst squiggly lines on cheap tablet paper.
He shrugged and said as much to the countess.
“My sister sent it to me.”
“Why?”
“For safekeeping.”
“What is it?”
“It is a map, is it not?” the countess said, arching her brows patiently. “Marya says it marks the location of a secret treasure her friend had discovered in the desert.”
Prophet looked at the paper again and nodded passively. So-called treasure maps were a dime a dozen in the West. Most were sold by confidence men to unsuspecting tinhorns. In the Southwest you could find them in dozen bundles for less than a nickel.
“Where did it come from?”
“The postmark on the envelope was from Broken Knee, Arizona.”
“Broken Knee? Never heard of it.”
The countess looked at him hopefully. “But you can find it, can’t you?”
“Probably,” Prophet allowed. “Is that where your sister is?”
“That’s where the map came from,” the countess said with a dainty shrug. “I don’t know where else to look.”
Staring Down the Devil (A Lou Prophet Western #5) Page 4