Staring Down the Devil (A Lou Prophet Western #5)

by Peter Brandvold

  “I should have been there,” Sergei said. “Together, we would have taken the room apart.”

  Prophet shook his head and rubbed the back of his neck. “Too risky. If we were both in the hoosegow, who’d look after the countess?”

  Sergei’s silhouette nodded. “Now what happens?”

  Prophet sighed. He inspected the goose egg on his forehead with his fingers. It was two eggs, rather — one big one and one small one. The smaller one felt the most tender, shooting sharp pains into his eyes when he touched it.

  His cheeks balled with pain, he said, “It looks like they’re escortin’ me out of town.”

  The Russian’s reply was matter-of-fact and more of a statement than a question. “They are kicking you out of Broken Knee.”

  “According to the sheriff, I should feel lucky. But don’t worry. I ain’t givin’ up. I’ll be back. You and the countess just sit tight up there in the Gay Inn. I’ll figure something out yet.”

  Sergei shook his head disapprovingly.

  “It ain’t my fault,” Prophet groused. “You and the countess thought it would work,

  too.”

  Sergei said nothing. He shook his head again and, grumbling, walked away.

  Prophet rasped after him, “Hey, where you goin’?” Nothing chafed him more than the Cossack’s haughty attitude. “I wasn’t the only one thought it would work!” Prophet called too loudly.

  Sergei did not reply. Prophet heard only the Cossack’s boots grinding gravel as he disappeared around the corner of the jail-house.

  “Proddy son of a bitch.”

  Prophet turned from the window and dippered himself some water from the wooden bucket in the corner. He sat back down on the cot, its wall chains complaining against his weight, and fished in his shirt pocket for his makings sack. He was glad the sheriff had left it alone, for Prophet liked to smoke while he thought, and he had a heap of thinking to do now, in spite of the big heart thumping in his noggin.

  How in the hell would he be able to help Sergei and the countess get Marya back after being banished from town? It wasn’t like he and Sergei could just storm the hacienda. And they couldn’t sneak in again, after they’d been spotted there once by the hacienda guards.

  Damn . . .

  The sun had risen, flooding Prophet’s cell with brassy sunshine, when the cell block door opened. . . . The sheriff appeared carrying a key ring and looking grim.

  “Well, son,” he said as he stepped before Prophet’s cell, “I wasn’t expectin’ this, but I can’t say as I’m surprised.”

  “About what, Sheriff?”

  The sheriff nodded to indicate the front of the jailhouse. “Mr. Gay’s outside, waitin’ for you in his buggy.”

  “In his buggy?” Prophet asked, puzzled. “Why?”

  The sheriff poked the key in the lock and turned it. He shook his head. “It don’t look good.”

  “What don’t look good?”

  “I reckon I shoulda hustled you out of town before Gay got to thinkin’ about it.”

  Prophet was exasperated. “About what!”

  “About what you did last night to his men. He musta got to thinkin’ about it and decided you couldn’t go unpunished. Sets a bad precedent. I’m sorry, old son. He’ll probably have his men haul you out in the desert and put a bullet in you. I’m sure it’ll be fast, though.”

  The sheriff swung open the door and drew his Remington, aimed at Prophet.

  “You mean you’re gonna turn me over to him? So he can kill me?”

  “Like I said, I’m sorry. Ain’t much I can do about it, though. This is Gay’s town.”

  “And you’re just his jailor.”

  The sheriff nodded grimly. “He pays well, so . . .”

  “You dance to his music.”

  The sheriff waved the gun, and Prophet stepped out of the cell.

  “Right on through the cell block door there,” the sheriff ordered, falling in behind Prophet, poking his back with his gun barrel to remind him he was covered.

  Prophet did as he was told — what else could he do? — and walked into the sheriff’s office furnished with a couple of shabby desks and a sheet-iron stove. Two young deputies sat around one of the desks. Seeing Prophet, they smirked and rocked back in their chairs, self-satisfied.

  “Reckon this is the end of the line, old son,” one of the deputies said, fingering his sparse blond mustache and hitching his holster on his hip.

  “Shut up, Jerry,” ordered the sheriff. “Right on outside,” he said to Prophet.

  The bounty hunter stepped out under the brush arbor shading a strip of packed earth before the adobe jailhouse. Gay’s phaeton sat in the street. Gay sat on the rear leather seat, resembling a whiskey peddler in a black-checked suit and bowler, his bleached hair hanging straight to his shoulders. Wire-rimmed spectacles were perched on his long, hooked nose. His raptorial features combined with the suit made him look ludicrously evil, an obvious pimp and panderer, crafty vermin who had outrun the law long enough to get rich enough to buy it. He obviously enjoyed playing the role of rich hooligan and boomtown lord.

  Four bodyguards — the same ones from last night — sat on their horses around the phaeton. One had a white bandage wrapped around his head and tied under his jaw.

  Another sported a swollen eye as purple as spoiled fruit.

  Another’s arm hung in a sling.

  The fourth was sitting on a small, red pillow and leaning slightly forward in his saddle, as if to lighten the load on his crotch.

  They scowled at Prophet as though staring into the sun. Gay studied the bounty hunter like a three-card draw.

  The sheriff came out behind Prophet. “Here he is, Mr. Gay,” he said, pointing out the obvious. “I reckon he’s all yours,” he added with a note of genuine regret in his voice.

  Gay studied Prophet another moment. “Who are you?” he asked tonelessly.

  “Me?” Prophet said, hesitant, tipping his head to the side to work the kinks in his neck. “I’m Lou Pepper.”

  Gay stared as though considering a stucco wall, then blinked his raptor’s eyes once. “Where are you from and what have you done?”

  Prophet considered his story a moment, then licked his lips and canted his head the other way. “I’m from Georgia and I’ve done just about everything there is and a little

  more.”

  “Can you shoot as well as you can fight with your fists?”

  Prophet flicked his eyes at Gay’s scowling guards, nodded, and let his upper lip rise, grinning. “Almost.”

  Gay lifted a gun and cartridge belt off the seat beside him, and slung it toward the bounty hunter. The belt landed in the dust at his feet. It was Prophet’s gun, cartridge belt, and bowie knife.

  He looked at Gay, wary. The man said, “You got a horse?”

  Prophet hesitated. “Yeah . . .”

  “Strap your gun on and get it. Then meet me at the mine office. You’re hired.”

  Gay propped a French calfskin boot on the back of the seat before him. “Let’s go,” he told the driver.

  The driver clucked to the horse, and the phaeton clattered away, two guards riding point, two riding drag. All four stared resentfully back at Prophet.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” said the sheriff. “You gotta be the luckiest sumbitch alive.”

  Prophet snorted with relief and stared with wonder at the dwindling caravan, “Took the words right out of my mouth.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  An hour later Prophet and Sergei reined their horses to a halt on the mine road.

  Before them sat the mine’s dark gash in a high cliff face, chalky tailings tonguing below the entrance. On a slope far below sat what Prophet figured was the mine office — a barrack-like stone structure with a red tile roof. It was flanked by stables and a wagon shed as well as an enormous corral for the mules that pulled the big Murphy ore wagons to the stamping mill.

  Wagons pounded down the switchbacks from the mine, contributing to the brass
y dust hanging heavy in the scorched, dry air.

  Mules brayed and blacksnakes popped. A couple of brindle hounds barked at the wagons. At a stone repair shop to Prophet’s right, a smithy reshaped a bent wheel rim while a mule skinner and a shotgun guard sipped coffee from tin cups and offered counsel.

  Prophet gave Sergei a meaningful look, then gigged Mean and Ugly toward the office, turning to avoid a booming wagon and cussing mule skinner. As he and Sergei neared the office, Prophet saw the four bodyguards whose skulls he’d dusted last night sitting in a row of hide-bottom chairs on the porch, shaded by a tin-roofed awning.

  They squinted out from under their hat brims as Prophet and the Russian approached the hitch rack. The guards looked none too happy to see Prophet, who grinned and nodded affably.

  “Howdy, boys. Doin’ all right?”

  “Buddy, you think you’re smart. Don’t get too smart,” warned the man Prophet had kicked in the balls.

  “Who — me? I’m just a simple Georgia boy tryin’ to make a livin’.”

  A few minutes later a runty clerk ushered Prophet and Sergei into Gay’s office at the building’s rear. Gay sat behind a big oak desk, smoking a hefty cigar and going over a ledger. His sleeves were rolled up his long, pale, knife-scarred arms.

  “Who’s this?” he asked, regarding the Cossack disdainfully.

  “Friend of mine,” Prophet said. “Met him on the trail over east. Can you use him, too, Mr. Gay? He’s short but a broad son of a bitch. Look at him.”

  Gay studied the Russian, obviously impressed by his looks. “Can he fight like you?”

  Prophet laughed. “Well, now, I wouldn’t say he can fight like me. Not many can. But he can hold his own in a Dodge City barn dance — I’ll give him that.” He glanced at Sergei, who flashed him an indignant look.

  Gay walked around the desk, his cigar smoldering between his slender fingers. He stopped a foot away from Sergei, squinted into the Russian’s emotionless brown eyes. Sergei stood stiff-backed, tense as a private given the twice-over by a general.

  “What’s your name?”

  Prophet cleared his throat. “Uh — he don’t speak, sir. He’s mute. He can write, though. That’s how I found out his name is Dick.” If Gay heard Sergei’s accent, he might tie him to Marya.

  “Dick?”

  “Dick.”

  “Dick what?”

  “Uh, Dick Lubowski.”

  “Lubowski.”

  “Dick here — he’s been a bar bouncer and a bodyguard to several governors. Why, he even escorted an English prince West on a huntin’ trip. Saved the royal from a scalpin’ — held off twelve Injun bucks with nothin’ but a six-shooter and a bowie knife!”

  Gay stared into the Cossack’s eyes, his nostrils twitching as though testing the air for the smell of dung.

  “Mighty impressive credentials,” he grumbled, and poked the cigar back in his mouth for several thoughtful puffs, his cold eyes narrowing.

  “He ain’t real smart, though,” Prophet added. He noted a slight flush rising in Sergei’s cheeks. “No, he ain’t a whip like me, but then we can’t all be good with our fists and smart.”

  Gay’s eyes flickered toward Prophet, and a sneer yanked at his mouth. “He’s not as bright as you? What a pity.” Gay puffed the stogie. “Well, I haven’t seen him fight, but I’d like to see how well he takes a punch.”

  Gay had barely finished the sentence before he pulled his arm back, making a fist, then swung it forward. Prophet winced and blinked. When he looked again, he saw the stubby, hairy fingers of the Cossack’s left hand wrapped around Gay’s wrist, Gay’s fist barely touching the Russian’s belly. Gay’s hand was turning pink. He gave a restrained yelp as he pulled back on the captured limb, shuffling to his right.

  Prophet elbowed the Cossack. “That’s enough, Dick. I think he gets the point.”

  A few minutes later, massaging his right hand with his left, Gay led Prophet and Sergei outside, where the four bodyguards were still sitting in a grim line on the porch.

  “Harland, DeBocha — you’re fired,” Gay said crisply. “Clean your things out of your quarters and get the hell out of town.”

  The four men looked at one another, then at their boss, dumbly. “Huh?” one of them grunted, outraged.

  “You heard me. Scram! These men have won your jobs.”

  “He surprised us last night, Boss!” said the guard with shaggy muttonchops and a white bandage around his head. His bib-front shirt was open to the thick matt of dun-colored hair on his chest. He wore an ivory-gripped Colt in a well-worn shoulder rig.

  Gay wasn’t swayed in the least. “All the more reason for you to scram.” The outlaw bent over slightly at the waist. “Scram! Outta here! Go! Vamoose!”

  Scowling with fury at Prophet and Sergei, the two men scuttled like two scolded dogs down the porch steps.

  “Give your shotguns to these two,” Gay ordered, indicating Prophet and the Russian.

  The men stopped, glanced at each other. The man with the muttonchops and shoulder rig tossed his shotgun to Prophet. With a curse, the other man — the man with his arm in a sling — tossed his two-bore to Sergei, who grabbed it with one hand. Then both men turned, untied their horses from the hitch rack, mounted up, and rode away cursing and shaking their heads, their faces aflame with malice.

  Muttonchops hipped around in his saddle. Glaring at Prophet, he said, “You ain’t seen the last of us, you son of a bitch!”

  He gigged his horse after the other man, and, passing an oar wagon, they galloped down the mountain trail, their dust sifting behind them.

  “Well, then,” Gay said, snapping his jacket down and turning to the two bodyguards sitting in their chairs and eyeing their new colleagues skeptically. “Dwight Rosen, Mel Clark — meet Lou Pepper and Dick Lubowski.”

  Prophet grinned at the two men, and pinched his hat brim. “Hidy-ho.”

  The guards stared at him and Sergei with ill-concealed disdain.

  The two new and the two veteran guards loitered around the mine office porch the rest of the day.

  After supper at the Inn, Gay and the bodyguards rode up the mountain to the hacienda with its buffer of armed sentinels waving and nodding from the rocks along the mountain. When the phaeton had pulled up to the front patio, which was guarded by a beefy gent smoking a cigar and holding a shotgun, Gay climbed out of the buggy and turned to his four bodyguards.

  “Clark, Rosen — show Pepper and Lubowski where they’ll be sleeping.” With that, Gay headed inside and promptly disappeared — either to Marya’s room or his office, Prophet assumed.

  “You do it,” Rosen told Clark when Gay was out of hearing range. “I’m getting a drink.”

  Clark cussed at his partner’s retreating back, then led Prophet and Sergei through a side entrance under a deep-set portico.

  They swung down a dimly lit hall around the north side of the house. They skirted a graveled courtyard with a few benches with rotten wood and rusty iron frames, and a dry adobe fountain with dead leaves and sand piled around its base.

  Clark stopped before a stout, wood door with chipped green paint and a tarnished brass latch. The door and five others faced the derelict courtyard that had probably been the sight of many Mexican fandangos in the house’s rich Mexican history before Gay and his outlaws had moved in and trashed the place.

  “So poor ole Dick can’t talk, eh?” Clark asked conversationally, one hand on the door’s latch.

  “You’d have a longer conversation with a barn wall than ole Dick here, God bless him,” Prophet said, cutting his eyes at Sergei, whose nostrils flared disdainfully.

  “He lose his tongue to Injuns, or some pigtailed girl cut it out?” Clark asked with a mocking chuckle.

  Prophet wagged his head. “You best be careful what you say about ole Dick. Just cause he can’t talk don’t mean he can’t cut loose with a haymaker that would shatter your jaw like china.”

  They were clomping down the flagstones, spurs chinging. Clar
k stopped abruptly and turned to the Russian. He was an inch or so taller than Sergei. He puffed up his chest and gritted his teeth.

  “Oh, yeah? You a tough guy, Dick?”

  Sergei dully returned the man’s stare. Prophet watched uneasily, hoping the Russian didn’t forget himself and speak.

  Sergei knew what the price of that would be, however. He maintained his composure. Clark broke the stare.

  “Don’t seem all that tough to me,” he snarled, running his filthy sleeve across his mouth, turning, and continuing down the courtyard, chuckling. It seemed to make him feel better after what had happened last night and then Prophet and Sergei being rewarded for it with jobs.

  The hardcase stopped and threw open a door. “This is it, boys. Home sweet home — for as long as you’re gonna be here, anyway.” He chuckled again with meaning. “Me and Rosen bunk in the next room there. When he ain’t upstairs with his little honey, Mr. Gay stays in that room yonder.” Clark gestured to a door just around a corner of the courtyard. A broken sculpture of a Spanish conquistador stood to the door’s left, chipped saber raised.

  “Gay has a woman here?” Prophet asked, fashioning a curious frown.

  “Sure he does. Always keeps at least one around. Sometimes two. He’s had as many as three in the house at a time, but it don’t work too well with this many men around, if n you get my drift.”

  “Who’s the girl?”

  “That, my friend,” Clark said, “is none of your business. She don’t wanna be here, though — he keeps her locked in a room upstairs — so if you see her tryin’ to sneak out, stop her. Those are orders straight from the boss hisself.”

  Prophet sensed Sergei’s muscles tightening. Ignoring him, Prophet said, “I don’t reckon I care what Gay does with his women, as long as I get paid. . . .”

  “That’s right,” Clark agreed. “Just do your job and keep your mouth shut. And you see any strangers around, shoot first and ask questions later. Someone tried sneakin’ in the other night.”

  “That right?” Prophet asked, moving into the room and scraping a match alight on his pistol belt. “Bandits?”

  “Prob’ly,” Clark said, nibbling his scarred upper lip. “There’s always someone out gunnin’ for Mr. Gay. But your main job is to guard him when he leaves the hacienda. Inside the house, he’s well protected by the other guards spread out across the mountain. But it never hurts to keep your ears pricked and your eyes skinned.”