Lou Prophet 4

by Peter Brandvold

  “It’s her, all right,” Prophet answered the deputy’s exclamation.

  “What in the hell is she up to now?”

  Prophet only chuckled and shook his head as he watched Louisa work, unable to suppress the stirring in his loins. That was one sharp dress, and it displayed her figure in the most ravishing way possible. Her shoulders were lovely, her arms long and not overly delicate but more like those of a girl who’d spent the last year on the vengeance trail, wrestling the reins of a black Morgan.

  Ford told her to take a fifteen-minute break around eleven o’clock, when the drink orders had died down and the crowd had thinned a little. Prophet expected Louisa to join him and McIlroy. Instead, she removed her apron and headed to a table near the piano, which was being played unexpectedly well by an old cowboy in a battered cream sombrero.

  “Where in the hell is she going?” Zeke asked.

  Prophet didn’t say anything. He watched Louisa accept the chair held out for her by a nice-looking young cowboy in a crisp Stetson and clean trail clothes. A burning started in Prophet’s gut as he watched the two talking across the table. Louisa sipped her sarsaparilla and smiled occasionally, brightly, now and then tipping her head back and laughing. The burning in Prophet’s gut grew, and he wasn’t sure of its source.

  Yes, he was.

  The cowboy was a nice-looking kid, anyway. Closer to Louisa’s age than Prophet was. Looked like he’d been raised well. Might even have a little money, as his duds were store-bought and the lucre that hat and pistol belt came from didn’t grow on trees.

  Prophet and McIlroy had another few drinks. They didn’t talk, just watched and listened to the crowd that thinned considerably after midnight. Finally, Prophet stubbed his cigarette butt out in the tobacco-stained sawdust and climbed unsteadily to his feet.

  “Ah hell, I’m gettin’ the hell out of here, Zeke.”

  The deputy drained his beer mug. “Me, too. Time to crawl into the sack.”

  On the way to the hotel, neither man mentioned anything about Louisa. In the hall, they bade each other a solemn good night, and retreated to their rooms. Prophet shucked off his hat and shirt and washed at the basin. He kicked off his boots and lay on the bed, his head propped against the brass frame.

  He had a drink from his bottle, smoked another cigarette, and nodded off. He didn’t know how long he’d slept when someone tapped on his door.

  “Who is it?” he said, snapping his eyes open and reaching for the revolver hung from the bedpost.

  Louisa said, “Me.”

  Prophet left the gun in its holster and opened the door. She stood in the hall, a light shawl draped over her shoulders.

  “What time is it?” he asked, sleepily blinking his eyes.

  “Two or two-thirty.”

  “Kinda late, ain’t it?”

  “Riley and I went walking by the creek.”

  “Riley and you, eh?” Prophet hated the jealousy he heard in his voice. “Well, what do you want with me?”

  Louisa reached out a hand and shoved him back into the room. She stepped forward and closed the door.

  “What’s goin’ on?”

  Louisa looked up at him, the orange lamplight flickering in her eyes and across the clean lines of her face. Her lips were slightly parted. Her bosom rose and fell heavily. She dropped the shawl.

  “Kiss me,” she said.

  Prophet didn’t know what to make of that. But she stirred him. Oh, how she stirred him, standing there in that dress, her shoulders and neck revealed, her tender breasts snugged down in that soft, orange, lace-edged silk! Her eyes sparkled. She lifted her chin, parting her lips even more. A sheen of sweat formed above her left brow.

  Without even thinking about it—he wasn’t able to think about anything—Prophet grabbed her shoulders in his big, trail-roughened hands, pulled her to him, and closed his mouth hungrily over hers. Lifting onto her toes, she wrapped her arms around his neck and turned to the side, snuggling against his shoulder as he kissed her, surrendering herself to his hungry tongue and lips, to his powerful arms.

  Finally, he removed his lips from hers, swallowing, barely able to contain his want and need for her, and gently held her away. He looked her up and down, as if seeing her for the first time. He looked into her eyes, deep pools of reflected lamplight boring into him.

  Seeing that she wanted him as badly as he wanted her— not knowing or caring why, unable to think about why or any repercussions—Prophet slid her dress slowly off her shoulders. He slid it down her arms. Slowly, her bosom slipped free, and her tender breasts bobbed gently as the cotton slipped over the nipples and down her flat belly.

  Prophet sighed.

  He picked the girl up and carried her to the bed. He lay her gently on the mussed quilt and ran his hands down her slender arms, cupped her breasts in his hands and kissed them, rolling his tongue across the nipples that quickly stirred to his caress.

  She lay back on the pillow and sighed, roughly running her hands through his hair.

  “Lou,” she said in a voice thin and brittle with desire. “Show me ... show me everything.”

  He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. He nodded soberly. “I will.”

  He removed her shoes and underclothes, slid the dress down the rest of her body, revealing the long, willowy legs and the downy patch between her thighs.

  She lay quietly, the lamp’s amber glow upon her skin, and watched him undress. He shrugged out of his undershirt, tossed it aside, and kicked free of his jeans. Naked, his swollen member jutting, he moved to her. She ran both her hands over it curiously, a peculiar smile etched on her lips.

  Then she opened her legs as he lowered himself between them.

  In a few minutes they were rocking together, silhouetted by the lamplight. Her legs were wrapped around his back, her arms around his neck. The bedsprings sang quietly, the two front posts tapping gently against the wall.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  PROPHET WOKE THE next morning to Louisa massaging his dong.

  “Go away,” he said, exhausted.

  Crouched over it, she worked all the harder. “I want to do it again.”

  “No.”

  She chuckled as the member responded of its own accord.

  “Jesus, there any skin left on it?” he asked, his arm thrown over his eyes. They’d made love for at least two hours before they’d each collapsed from exhaustion.

  “I want to try it this way,” she said, climbing on top. He opened his eyes to her lovely, pale breasts in his face, pink in the dawn light penetrating the window.

  “We tried it that way—about three times,” he reminded her.

  “Oh,” she said, squirming around on top of him, her hair caressing his chest. “We did it so many ways, I guess I lost track.” After a minute, she said, “There ... that’s it.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Prophet carped, running his hands up and down her smooth thighs as she rose and fell atop him. “If I said it once, I said it a thousand times; you’re gonna be the death of me yet.”

  “Not a bad way to go, is it?”

  He looked up at her lovely face shrouded by her hair. How fresh and inviting she looked. In spite of himself, he grinned. “No, it sure isn’t.”

  They came together with a shudder, trying to keep their voices down. Prophet remembered there was an elderly couple in the room next door.

  Louisa fell forward on his chest, snuggled her chin in his neck. They dozed together, Prophet’s hands on her butt, until she jerked her head up suddenly.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Oh, my gosh!” She scrambled off the bed and splashed water into the washbasin.

  “What is it?”

  “Riley’s picking me up for a buggy ride.”

  Prophet suddenly came alive, indignant, bolting straight up in the bed. “Riley?”

  “Sure.”

  Prophet just stared as she washed and dressed. “I have to get back to my own room and brush my hair,” she said, going to
the door and throwing Prophet a kiss.

  “Louisa,” he said, astounded he was even having to give voice to such sentiment, “we made love last night. And now, this morning, you’re walking out for a buggy ride with another guy?”

  “And what grand lovemaking it was, too, Lou. You see, I wanted you to be the first. I knew, after all your experience, that you’d be the best teacher a girl could ever have.” She returned to the bed, leaned down, and kissed him hungrily on the lips. “Besides, I wanted you to be the one for sentimental reasons, I guess. And because, while I know I’ll always love you and you’ll always love me, it’s all we’ll ever really have—us being who we are.”

  She canted her head slightly as she stared into his eyes. Then she kissed him again, got up from the bed, and straightened her dress. “Thank you for the best night of my entire life, Lou Prophet.”

  She went out.

  Prophet lay there, still flabbergasted and feeling more than a little hurt. His pride was bruised. After dwelling on it for a while, he realized what really nettled him was that she’d turned the tables on him. He was the one who usually left first, after blowing a kiss from the door.

  He got up and washed. But she’d been right. He shook his head, smiling sadly as he lathered his cheeks. In spite of their love for each other, a fleeting night of blissful coupling was all they could ever really have between them. After all, he wasn’t the marrying kind. He knew that as well as he knew anything.

  Louisa needed someone like that handsome cowboy.

  He heard the squeak and clatter of a buggy in the street below. He went to the window, peered behind the shade. A leather-covered two-seater sat before the hotel, the handsome young cowboy at the reins.

  He dismounted when Louisa walked out, and helped her aboard. A minute later, he tossed the reins, and they clattered off.

  Prophet couldn’t help feeling sad and more than a twinge of jealousy. But he felt hopeful for Louisa, too.

  “Reverend, I just have to tell you”—the overwrought woman in a lemon-green dress took a deep breath and tucked a stray tuft of hair under her feathered straw hat— “that was, indeed, the most exalted discourse I’ve ever heard uttered by human lips.”

  Duvall smiled modestly, dabbed sweat from his forehead with a hanky, and placed both hands on the Bible he held before him. “I’d like to take responsibility, Mrs. Cantlinson. I really would. But I’m afraid that sermon and all my orations are the work of the Good Lord. He speaks through me. I’m only the vessel, you see. I am, as you are, as are we all, just another poor sinner begging to be saved.”

  “Just the same, Reverend, I’ve never been privy to such wisdom. It was even better than the sermon you gave earlier this morning, in church.”

  It was early Sunday afternoon, and the congregation of Duvall’s First Lutheran Church was enjoying a picnic along the banks of Little Otter Creek, about two miles east of Greenburg. Duvall’s blessing, which he’d started when the spitted turkey was deemed ready to serve with all the salads and fresh breads the women had trundled out from town in their wicker hampers, had blossomed into a full-blown sermon.

  Dave, aka Reverend Doolittle, hadn’t been able to contain his zeal. He’d started out mumbling a few solemn words of thanks to the great Jehovah, and, before he knew it, he was strutting around, shaking his Bible over his head and spewing verbal fire as the sweat ran down his face like rain from a cloudburst.

  He’d found sermonizing at once stimulating and addicting. Especially when Dave saw all the fear-blanched faces surrounding him. Men as well as women and children appeared truly awestruck and frightened when he really got tanked up to full pressure, and that fueled his fire all the more. There was nothing like seeing men of authority—the mayor, the sheriff, the sheriff’s deputy, wealthy ranchers, and even the banker—recoiling like naughty boys when Dave swung toward them, his admonishing finger scolding them for their most secret sins, their most devious trespasses.

  Head bowed and nodding gravely, Dave said, “I thank you, ma’am, for your kindness. We both thank you, the Great One and I.”

  “I just hope Homer was listening.”

  Homer was Mrs. Cantlinson’s husband, a bookkeeper and infamous carouser.

  “Oh, he was listening, ma’am,” Dave said. “I assure you of that.”

  “Do you think it had any effect?” she asked, stepping toward the venerated parson to speak privately. “I mean, do you think it will stop him from...?” She couldn’t continue, so ghastly was the thought.

  “From frequenting fallen women?” Dave helped. “I believe so, ma’am. And there’s one other thing you might try.”

  She looked at him, arching her dark eyebrows beneath the brim of her straw hat. “Oh, please, Reverend. Please, what? I’ll do anything to keep Homer from ... from ...”

  Dave draped an arm over the beefy woman’s shoulders, glanced around to make sure the other picnickers were a safe distance away, and whispered in Mrs. Cantlinson’s ear, “You might try spreading your hairy old legs for him now and then.”

  The woman’s jaw dropped as she gasped and jerked her eyes to his. Her gaze was filled with incredulity—had she heard right?—then revulsion and horror. She lifted her hand to her mouth, biting her knuckles, her jowls quivering.

  “Reverend, I—!”

  Dave was a little shocked himself. The words had slipped out, as though mouthed by an inner demon. He stuttered, trying to explain. But the woman was far too shocked to listen.

  Giving up, he merely patted her back. “Well, I seem to have gotten a little too much sun,” he said. “I think I’ll take a little stroll in the woods. Good day, Mrs. Cantlinson. Enjoy the meal. Smells good, very good indeed.”

  The woman staring in horror after him, Dave strolled across the meadow, nodding at the frolicking picnickers, pausing to tousle a boy’s hair and to admire, under the guise of a beneficent smile, the forms of two young maidens crouching to spread a blanket, drawing their bright gingham dresses taut against their asses.

  When Dave reached the woods, he followed a game trail into the dark recesses smelling of mushrooms and moist earth and fresh, green cottonwood leaves. He paused and stole a look behind him. Deciding he was alone, he produced the small, hide-covered flask from a pocket of his coat and guzzled nearly half.

  Then he walked on, trying to get as far as he could from the picnicking Christians with their mindless smiles and vacuous conversation. Where were the lions when you needed them? He’d enjoyed his charade for the two weeks he’d been in Greenburg. He had especially enjoyed the sermons. But he had to admit he was beginning to feel bored. He wondered if he’d be able to keep the act up for another two or three weeks like he’d planned.

  It was working, though. Prophet, the blonde, and the U.S. deputy marshal, whose name, Dave had discovered, was Zeke McIlroy, had been thoroughly outwitted. They were not in the least aware that Handsome Dave Duvall was right under their noses in the guise of Greenburg’s new parson, the venerable Reverend Doolittle.

  No doubt in a day or two, they would move on. And, a few weeks later, Dave himself would disappear, don another guise until he could locate another gang with whom he could ride and wreak havoc.

  “Oh, hi, Reverend.”

  Dave had been tipping back the flask again, when the voice rose behind him. He snapped the flask down, the whiskey shooting back up his throat. Coughing, he quickly capped the flask and stuffed it into his coat.

  Wiping his mouth with his hand, he turned to see Marliss Rumishek sitting on a long, gray log jutting into the creek. Her red-checked dress was drawn up her thighs as she slowly kicked her bare feet in the milky-brown water. The dress was wet. Soaked. It lay flat against her skin, like the thinnest of cotton veneers, molding to and highlighting her nubile curves deliciously.

  Her nipples protruded like thimbles.

  Dave cleared the whiskey from his throat, tried to keep the hunger from his voice. “Hi, Marliss. What are you up to, young lady?”

  “Me and some
friends were wading along the creek, and I fell in. The rest went back to eat. I’m waiting to dry off, so Ma won’t know. This is my only Sunday dress.”

  “Oh. I see.” Dave took the sandy trail down to the shore.

  “You won’t tell her, will you, Reverend? I mean, not telling her—that ain’t a sin or anything, is it?”

  “Nah, that ain’t a sin,” Dave said, chuckling. “I’ll tell you what is a sin, though, Marliss, is how you look in that dress—all wet and everything.”

  The girl cast her gaze at her breasts, then lifted her arms to cover them. “Oh. I’m sorry, Reverend.”

  “Are you really, Marliss?”

  “Huh?”

  “Are you really sorry, or did you want me to see you in that wet dress?”

  She stared at him, her cheeks flushing.

  “I mean, you’ve been wanting me to watch you, haven’t you? Isn’t that why you’re always playing outside my window and taking baths in your room, where I can see you through the cracks in the door?”

  She started to deny it, then fell silent and dropped her chagrined gaze to the water. Her bare legs hung still, sunlit water beading on them. “I guess so. I’m sorry, Reverend. It’s just that... I guess I just wanted you to like me. I didn’t mean no harm by it.”

  “I do like you, Marliss. Why don’t you slip out of that dress, and I’ll show you how much I like you.”

  She jerked her head up, shocked. “Reverend ...?”

  “You’re not just teasing me, are you, Marliss? Because that wouldn’t be very nice, teasing a man of the cloth and all.”

  “Reverend, I...” She slowly shook her head from side to side, fear growing in her eyes.

  “Come on, Marliss. Get over here and get out of that dress. Let me see you good and proper, before I give you what you been wantin’.” He reached behind and retrieved the short-bladed, bone-handled knife he carried under his belt. He flashed it at her. “Come over here, Marliss. And don’t think about screaming, because you’ll be dead before anybody can get here. Come on over here and get out of that dress, and let me have a good, long look at you. That’s what you been wantin’, ain’t it?”