“The old woman said to change it every night for the first five days, then every three days after that.”
He squatted next to her, but she only continued to stare wanly into the fire, as if she hadn’t heard him.
“Come on,” he urged.
Finally, she scowled and shrugged her poncho and dress off her shoulder, grabbing her hair away. While Prophet removed the old bandage and began swabbing the wound clean with the whiskey and cloth, Louisa said grimly, “He’s long gone by now, isn’t he?”
“Handsome Dave?”
“Of course I mean Handsome Dave,” she snapped, still angry at Prophet for his bad moral fiber in general and for sleeping with Sunshine in particular.
“I reckon he’s a ways ahead of us, all right, but we’ll find him. Someone in Bismarck will have seen him—someone in a saloon or a livery barn or a hotel, say. I’ll check around while you relax in a feather bed and get your strength back.”
“I’ve had all the idleness I need, and my strength is back.” She winced as the whiskey burned her wound, which was healing nicely. The old lady had stitched her up as well as any sawbones from a big Eastern college. “I’m just worried that snake has slithered away for good.”
Prophet splashed more whiskey on the cloth. “He may have slithered away, but a man like Dave Duvall can’t hide. He likes attention and commotion. Even if we don’t hear from him in the next few weeks, you can bet we will before winter. He’ll find another gang and rob a train or shoot a lawman or slash a sporting girl, and the word will get out, and we’ll be on him again.”
“What if a lawman gets him first? I don’t want some badge-toting imbecile to get him. I want to get him. Me.” She poked herself in the chest and stared into the flickering fire angrily, gray eyes flashing, hair bouncing on her shoulders.
“You will get him, Louisa,” Prophet assured her, a smile brightening his gaze. Angry or not, it was good to have her back to her old, determined self. Even while he was being distracted by Sunshine, he’d missed her.
There was a lull in the conversation while Prophet bandaged her shoulder. When he was done, he replaced her arm in the leather sling and began to move away. She stopped him with a look.
“What are you going to do after Duvall is dead?” Prophet grinned again, this time without mirth. “Once Duvall has been taken down and, if at all possible, turned over to the authorities, I’m going to do what I always do at the end of one job: go on a bender, then start looking for another.”
“You’re going to hell when you die, Lou Prophet.” “I told you ol’ Scratch is already waitin’ for me.” She shook her head. “Such foolish talk from a grown man.”
“If chasing Dave Duvall ain’t like chasin’ the devil all the way to hell, I don’t know what is.” Prophet stared pensively off. He sighed and turned to Louisa. “What are you going to do?”
She shrugged and sank back against her saddle. She removed her revolver from the holster beneath the poncho, hefting it in her hand and pondering it. “I haven’t given much thought to that.”
Prophet poured himself a fresh cup of coffee and sank back against his own saddle. “I suspect you’ll go back to where you came from,” he said. “You’ll settle in with a good family and marry one of them neighbor boys that was sparkin’ you before. You’ll have a passel of kids and raise some chickens and go to church picnics in the summer. Eventually, you’ll forget about all this, and you’ll have the kind of life a girl like you was meant to have.”
Prophet had been staring into the shadows across the fire. When Louisa did not respond, he turned to where she sat to his right. As if she hadn’t heard him, she continued methodically taking her revolver apart and cleaning each part with a white cloth soaked in oil. Her nostrils flared prettily, and her lip curled, but she said nothing.
He sighed and sipped his coffee. A more baffling girl he’d never seen.
“Good night,” Prophet said finally, rolling up in his blankets.
“Lou?”
He turned to her. She was running the oily rag down the barrel of her Winchester.
“What?”
“How come T.. how come you’ve never tried anything with me like you were doing with Sunshine? You know, to satisfy your man’s lustful desires.” She set the rifle aside and looked at him.
Prophet’s brows furrowed, and he felt the heat rise in his neck. “Well,” he said haltingly. “Well, ‘cause I figured you wouldn’t have it.”
“Well, I wouldn’t, but I was just wondering. You think I’m pretty, don’t you?”
Prophet grinned. Squinting one eye, he said, “Louisa Bonny-venture, I hesitate to tell you this out of fear of it going to your head, but I reckon you’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever laid eyes on, and that’s a fact.”
She stared at him, expressionless. Then she smiled shyly and ground a furrow in the dirt with her boot heel.
“But I figured you’d shoot me if I tried anything.”
“Well, I reckon I would at that,” Louisa speculated. “So you better mind yourself.” She paused, working her heel in the furrow. “But if you got real desperate, at the end of your obviously short tether, you might ask me politely, and I might think about it. Somewhere down the road, that is ...”
“Somewhere down the road,” Prophet said.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe.”
“That’s right.”
“Thanks, Louisa. That’s mighty generous of you.”
“That’s all right. Thanks for changing my dressing.”
“De nada. Good night.”
Prophet rolled over and closed his eyes, grinning.
He’d almost drifted off when her voice rose again. “I mean, I’ve never done it before. But I suppose I should know the experience sometime before I die, and I don’t know any man better than I know you … ”
Her voice trailed off, and the night sounds lifted.
“You will, Louisa,” Prophet assured her, suddenly feeling sad for the girl. “Someday you will.”
Chapter Six
HANDSOME DAVE DUVALL wasn’t nearly as handsome today as he normally was.
As he reined his trail-weary paint down a hogback near the Missouri River, a heavy layer of clay-colored dust coated his flat-crowned black hat and black cotton duster. His four-day growth of chestnut beard was dusty and seed flecked, and his peeling, sun-seared face bore the scratches he’d received two days ago when he’d ridden through briars just after ambushing the little bitch who’d been trailing him.
Who was that little minx, anyway? Duvall wondered now as he stopped his horse at the river, releasing the reins so the horse could drink. As the outlaw studied the milky brown water sliding between chalky, eroded buttes, he worked his weary mind over the blonde.
And who in the hell was the man she rode with, the big man on the dun? He had appeared armed for bear with a short-barreled shotgun, a Winchester, and what had looked like a Peacemaker revolver through Duvall’s field glasses.
A bounty hunter, no doubt—Duvall had seen no badge— who’d picked up the trail of Duvall’s gang in Fargo.
Dave’s face and neck warmed with anger and confusion as he thought of the man and remembered the shoot-out— his whole outfit cut down in the darkness, wiped out by the bounty hunter and another man Duvall had never gotten a close look at. Having savvied the trap, Duvall was the sole survivor. If he was going to stay that way, he needed to lose the bounty hunter and get the hell out of the territory.
But first, Dave needed to rest himself and his horse. To that end, he reined the paint away from the river, traced a cut through the buttes, and continued south. He had a destination in mind, and when he reached it later that afternoon, after having followed a circuitous route around Bismarck and Fort Lincoln, he halted the horse on a low hill.
With his field glasses, he studied the buildings beneath him. Flanked by the river, they included an L-shaped log house with a sod roof, a log barn, several sheds, a sawmill, and two corrals. The ragged wheeze of a two-man
saw rose to Dave’s ears above the breeze rustling the grass and the birds chirping in the cottonwood snag to his left.
A brown-haired young woman appeared on the house’s veranda. She stepped off the veranda with a lunch basket and” headed across the yard to the mill, cream-colored skirts swishing about her legs. Dave waited, watching, until the woman stepped out of the mill and started back toward the house without the basket.
Watching the woman, Duvall grinned. Tired as he was, lust stirred him. And then he knew he was all right. The bounty hunter and the little blonde bitch might have set him back a bit, but by god, Handsome Dave Duvall was still a force to be reckoned with!
“Giddap, horse!” Duvall yelled, spurring the paint over the ridge and down the hill.
With the last bit of juice left in the horse’s tired heart, the outlaw cantered up to the tie rail before the house and swung out of the saddle, feeling fresher suddenly than he’d felt in days.
After all he’d been through—the ambush and the four-day run from the north—it only took one woman seen from a distance to make Duvall feel spry!
He looped the reins over the tie rack, bounded up the squeaky steps, crossed the porch, and noted the wood shingle hanging on the door in which Clawson’s Rodehouse had been burned. He grinned, spun the knob, and pushed into the dark, low-ceilinged room, his spurs clinking on the rough, sawdusted planks.
Looking around at the half-dozen tables decked out in red-and-white checked oilcloth, he called softly, “Margie?”
“Be out in a minute. Have a seat anywhere,” came a woman’s weary voice from another room.
Duvall grinned again, walked to a table, and sat down. His ass was sore from riding, but it still felt good to sit on something besides a saddle or the hard ground. The table was set, and when he’d taken his hat off and run a rough hand through his sweat-matted hair, Duvall thumbed a spoon around the oilcloth while listening to pans clattering in the back.
The saw had grown silent for a while, but its rhythmic rasp resumed now in earnest, deepening as the blade bit deep into a log. Its din nearly covered the drone of the flies against the sack-curtained windows. A fat liver-colored cat sat on a chair not far from Duvall, cutting its keen attention between one of the flies and the newcomer, its eyes big and coppery in the sunlight from the window.
“Here, pussy-puss,” Duvall called to the cat.
He patted his thigh but turned when a door opened to his right and the brown-haired girl with vanilla skin entered holding a black coffeepot in one hand, a bluestone mug in the other. Striding toward his table, she said, “Sorry, but I just took a pie out of the oven, and—”
She stopped suddenly as her eyes picked Duvall out of the shadows surrounding his table several feet from the nearest window.
Duvall grinned his trademark Handsome Dave grin, his bristly cheeks dimpling, brown eyes flashing as they dropped to the low-cut, Spanish-style dress with short, puffy sleeves that revealed a good bit of the girl’s cleavage. “Hi, Margie.”
The girl’s chocolate eyes blinked astonishment, her jaw sagging. “Dave? Duvall?”
“Been a while, hasn’t it?”
“Why, Dave!” Margie’s face flushed as she stood fidgeting, sliding her eyes around self-consciously. “What on earth ... what on earth are you doing here?”
“Oh, it’s a long story, Margie,” Duvall said balefully, rubbing his hands over his tired, dusty face, then swiping them through his hair. “A long, awful story, and I really, really need some good food and rest. I remembered your old man bought this place from Childress. I was hopin’ I’d find you here.”
The girl stared at him with a hard-to-read expression, then gave a start as she regained her wits, and moved to Duvall’s table, setting the cup before him and filling it from the pot. “Yeah, Pa died last year. Now—”
Duvall gently took her wrist in his hand. “How long’s it been, Margie? Three years? Why, last time I saw you, you were just a girl.” Duvall let his smoky eyes run down the young woman’s curvaceous figure deliciously clad in the light cotton dress, and back up again, lingering in the valley between her breasts, which was lightly peppered with freckles. “Now, why, you’re a full-blown woman. Every inch.”
“Dave, I—”
“Come on, Margie, let me look at you,” Duvall urged, drawing the girl onto his knee. Stiffly, she obliged him, looking at him askance and quickly sliding her eyes away, appearing only semi reluctantly trapped.
“My, my, you are some kinda woman” Duvall said softly, seductively, as he ran his hand along her neck, lightly fingering the auburn curls hanging over her collar. “You know, since we last parted, I haven’t met a girl—a woman—who could do half of what you did for me, Margie. Even back then, when you were just a little girl still cypherin’ and readin’ out of little yellow books with pictures, you had a stranglehold on my soul. I felt your fire burn all the way down to my toes.”
His eyes closed, Duvall lightly nuzzled her neck, making light sniffing sounds and puffing her ringlets. His hands gently kneaded her supple thighs through the dress. She appeared drugged, her head sagging slightly back and to the side, her eyes heavy.
“Oh, nanny, Margie—what you did to me! I still dream about you, ‘most every night. And I wake up calling your name in my sleep....”
“Dave, please,” she said, halfheartedly attempting to stand. His hands on her thighs, he held her in place, and she swooned back against him as his tongue flicked out and traced a semicircular trail along her neck, just below her ear. His hands held taut to her thighs, his thumbs inching inside, making her squirm.
“Dave, please,” she said, breathless. She squirmed around and ran her hands through his thick, wavy hair, then pulled them back quickly, as though from a hot stove. “Dave, things are ... different now....”
Just then the door opened, laying a prism of afternoon light on the sawdusted floor. A broad, stoop-shouldered man in coveralls and floppy hat stood silhouetted in the doorway, his face cloaked in shadow. Another, shorter man in a cloth cap stood behind him, rising up on his tiptoes to see over the bigger man’s shoulder.
“What in the hell’s goin’ on?” The man’s voice grumbled up like oil bubbles from deep in the earth.
Margie yanked away from Duvall’s grip and stood, stumbling over Dave’s left boot, then sidestepping away, smiling with embarrassment and nervously smoothing her sweat-damp dress across her thighs.
“Jack!” she said, twittering. “Jack, Dave’s here.”
There was a silence as the two men stared at each other. Dave’s cheeks were still dimpled with his grin, though not as deeply as before. Jack took two slow steps into the room. The man behind him took his place in the doorway, peering in warily.
Jack said, “Dave Duvall?” His deep-set, heavy-browed eyes slitted.
“Hi, Jack. How you been? Long time no see. Didn’t expect to find you here.” Duvall chuckled. “I mean, I know you was seein’ Margie back in Julesburg, but I never knew...”
“We got married, Dave,” Jack said. He stood about ten feet before Duvall, his high-topped Wellingtons shoulder width apart. His jaw was a straight, grim line.
“Well, that amazes me,” Duvall said with another chuckle. “So you took over Margie’s old man’s sawmill. That it?”
“That’s it, Dave. I’m a changed man. I ain’t like I was when I rode with you an’ the boys. I work an honest job now, cuttin’ wood for the steamboats and servin’ vittles to folks travelin’ the post road yonder. I work hard, and so does Margie. Honest hard. Neither one of us are like we was before.” Jack turned to Margie, who was staring at her shoes. “Ain’t that right, Margie?”
She jerked her head up and glanced at Dave. Turning her gaze to Jack, she said hurriedly, “That’s right. I ain’t like I used to be.”
Duvall turned to her, said brashly, “You mean, you ain’t whorin’ anymore, Margie girl?”
Margie turned to him as though startled. “Dave, please ... I—”
“No, s
he ain’t whorin’ no more, Dave. And that’s the last time that word will be spoken in my house.”
“By who? You?”
“By anyone.”
Duvall shook his head with mock exasperation. “Boy, that sure is paintin’ with a broad brush, don’t you think, Jack?”
“And Margie is off limits.”
“There you go again—another damn rule. Next, I s’pose you’re gonna tell me when I can sip my coffee and shake the dew from my lily.”
Jack didn’t say anything. The man in the doorway swallowed so hard that everyone in the room could hear it.
Duvall sighed and canted his head to one side. “You don’t understand, Jack. Margie and I had something special. I mean real special—like I could feel it before I even met her.”
Jack’s upper lip curled. “Special, huh?” he snarled.
“Real special. Like I think Margie felt it before she met me. Like I think she’s been feelin’ it every day we been apart. Like I know she’s feelin’ it right now, while she’s standin’ there listenin’ to us talk.”
There was a long silence. Then Jack’s eyes narrowed and his lips formed a tight circle. “Why, you—”
“It’s so special, Jack, what Margie and I feel between us, that there ain’t nothin’ can keep us apart. Now, whether you like it or not, I’m going to take your wife into your bedroom and diddle the holy hell out of her.”
“You son of a bitch!”
Duvall gained his feet and swung his duster back from the two matched pistols on his hips. “And you and I both know there ain’t one goddamn thing you can do to stop me.” He took three steps toward Jack, who didn’t move a muscle. “’Cause you and I both know I can beat the holy hell out of you!”
Simultaneous with “hell,” he rammed his left boot hard into Jack’s groin. As Jack doubled over with a guttural cry, Duvall lifted his left knee, which met Jack’s face with an audible crack of Jack’s nose.
Jack bellowed like a pole axed bull and tumbled over backward, toppling two chairs and a table. Margie screamed, covering her mouth. Duvall squatted down beside Jack, lifted Jack’s head with a fistful of hair, and went to work on Jack’s face with his right fist.
Lou Prophet 4 Page 5