“He’s sure in a hurry,” Louisa remarked. She and Riley followed the rider with their eyes.
“Sure is. I wonder who it is.”
“You can’t tell?”
“Not from here. Looks like an Appaloosa. Norman Lewis rides an Appaloosa, but he wouldn’t be out here on a Sunday. Quaker, you know. He better slow up, though, or he’s liable to lose that horse in a gopher hole—and himself, to boot!”
“He sure is.”
“Well,” Riley said, gesturing for them to continue their walk when the rider had disappeared over a distant hogback.
He and Louisa walked down the hill and over another, smaller one. When they came to a winding ravine choked with shrubs and small trees, Riley led Louisa along a deer path. Louisa enjoyed the walk. In spite of its clinging, she even enjoyed wearing the dress. It reminded her of happier days. Days of church picnics, summertime walks, and afternoon swims in Sand Creek.
Birds chirped in the shrubs. A porcupine ambled toward her and Riley around a bend in the ravine. Seeing the two interlopers, it turned sharply into the brush and made a thrashing noise before it stopped, hiding.
Tempering her complete enjoyment of the afternoon, however, was the angst Louisa sensed in Riley, who hadn’t said a word since they’d stopped to watch the galloping rider. Louisa knew he was pondering a problem, and she wondered what it was.
Was he getting up his nerve to kiss her? If so, she wished he’d just get it over with so they could chat naturally like they’d been doing since they’d met. His easy, honest way of speaking was one of the things she liked most about the young rancher’s son. It reminded her a little of Lou, but without the bounty hunter’s irony and guile.
“Riley, please tell me what’s on your mind,” Louisa said at last, stopping to face the young man.
“What makes you think something’s bothering me?” he said, feigning a look of innocence. When she merely raised an eyebrow at him, he relented. “Okay, I guess it was rather obvious, eh? Well, two things really. First, I was wondering if I could kiss you?”
“Sure.”
“Really?”
Louisa shrugged. “I don’t see why not. As long as you don’t try anything else, I guess a kiss wouldn’t hurt. It might even be nice. I’ll let you know.” She smiled to indicate she was teasing.
Riley sighed. “Okay, then. Here goes.” He removed his hat and kissed her softly. He pulled away, looking at her with a question in his eyes. “How was that?”
She rolled her eyes discerningly and grinned. “Not bad.”
“Boy, I was worried. I haven’t kissed many girls, and...”
“I’m not exactly a woman of experience myself,” Louisa said, feeling a twinge of guilt as she remembered her recent night with Lou. She didn’t regret the experience, however. It was one she knew she’d remember forever, and one she doubted any other man—even Riley—would ever equal, and not only because Lou had been her first.
Riley hesitated as he faced her. “Here’s the other thing. I know we just met and all,” he said at last, “but I was wondering if you’d come to dinner out at the ranch sometime this week. I’d like you to meet my parents.”
Louisa’s stomach tightened. She’d been afraid he was going to propose something like that.
She winced as, dropping her chin, she said, “Riley, we hardly know each other. I mean, you don’t know me at all...”
“I know there’s a lot you don’t want to talk about,” Riley said. “And that’s all right. We’ll talk about it when you want. It can’t be all that horrible.”
“It’s pretty horrible,” Louisa allowed.
Riley thought about this, his hands on her shoulders, gazing into her downcast eyes. “You’re not... you’re not on the run from the law or anything, are you?”
She looked at him honestly. “No, I’m not on the run from the law. As a matter of fact, I’m not running from anything. It’s what...” She wanted to say it was what she was chasing, but decided against it.
“It’s what?” Riley urged, gently squeezing her shoulders.
She shook her head, wishing she could explain but not wanting to relive the horror. Not yet. Maybe later she would tell him the whole story, if she remained here much longer—or when Duvall was dead—but not yet.
“I can’t go into it, Riley. I’m sorry. And”—her face acquired a pained expression—”I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to visit your parents. You see, Riley, what we have right here and now is all we can expect. We shouldn’t look ahead. I stopped looking very far ahead a long time ago.”
“Are you saying we don’t have a chance for a future?”
“I’m saying we can’t expect one.”
She knew she was being frustratingly complicated, and she felt sorry for the young cowboy, but how could she make any promises to him when she didn’t know if she’d be alive tomorrow? She could run into Duvall any time, and while she fully intended to kill him with the utmost impunity, she couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t kill her first. Even if she lived, she didn’t know what kind of person she would be after Duvall was dead.
How does one go back to a normal life after what she’d seen done to her family, and after fifteen months of tracking and killing the culprits?
Looking confounded, he started to form another question, and she stopped him by placing her finger on his lips. “Sometime I’ll tell you why, but right now let’s just enjoy the day. Okay?”
Reluctantly, he nodded. “Okay.”
“Let’s keep walking,” she urged. “It’s such a beautiful afternoon.”
They walked for another hundred yards, talking about simple, everyday things, about Riley’s family and his future. His father planned for him to take over the ranch when Mr. Nugent retired, and Riley guessed that’s what would happen, although he harbored a secret desire to attend medical school in Saint Louis. He didn’t have any brothers, however, just two sisters, so his future was pretty well set. That was all right, he assured Louisa. He liked ranching, and he loved Kansas. He’d never really feel at home anywhere else.
“Yes, your homeland means a lot,” Louisa said as they neared the buggy at the top of the hill, in the shade of the lone box elder. “I’d like to return to Nebraska someday.”
“Uh-huh!” Riley intoned. “You’re from Nebraska. At least I got that much out of you.”
Louisa blushed and was about to say something when again movement in the east caught her eye. About a hundred yards away, two riders were galloping southward.
“Looks like that bounty hunter and U.S. marshal that’s been hangin’ around town,” Riley said. “Where do you suppose they’re headed in such a hurry? They’re riding as fast as that other fella.”
“They’re heading in the same direction, too,” Louisa observed, her mind beginning to race and her pulse to quicken. She watched Prophet and the deputy disappear in a crease in the hogbacks, and turned to Riley sharply. “Riley, take me back to town, please.”
She turned and, lifting her skirt, marched toward the buggy.
Riley ran up behind her. “What’s wrong, Louisa?”
“Just hurry, please, Riley. I have to get back to town as fast as possible.”
“Well, at least tell me why!”
She wheeled to him, trying to remain calm. “Riley, I know I’m being impossible, but please don’t ask me any more questions. Just get me back to town—fast!”
“Okay, okay,” Riley said with a sigh, untying the sorrel from the tree and climbing into the buggy beside Louisa. Shaking his head, he wheeled the horse around and urged it into a run.
They made it back to Greenburg in twenty minutes, the buggy’s wheels churning the powdery dust on Main Street as Riley eased back on the sweating sorrel’s reins.
“Where to?” he asked Louisa.
‘The hotel.”
Still confounded but resigned, the young cowboy steered the buggy to the hotel and stopped before the hitch rack. Louisa climbed down before Riley could make it around to
help her.
She said, “Will you please do me one more favor, Riley? Will you have my horse at the livery barn saddled, and bring him here? It’s a black Morgan. The hostler will know which one.”
Hoarsely, as though at the end of his tether, Riley exclaimed, “Your horse? Why? Where you goin’?”
Louisa felt deeply guilty about keeping the affable young man in the dark like this, but she simply had no choice. Prophet and McIlroy had been riding as though the hounds of hell were on their heels, and they were following the same trail as the man before them—the man in black. That could mean several things, one of which was that the man in black was Dave Duvall.
She had to find out for sure, and if she wanted to catch up to them, she had no time to waste explaining her motives to Riley Nugent.
“Riley, please!” she begged, tugging on the young man’s arm.
“All right, all right,” he said, throwing up his hands and reboarding the buggy. “I’ll get your horse,” he groused under his breath, “but I sure would like to know what in the hell is going on around here.”
Before he’d wheeled the buggy around, Louisa ran into the hotel. She came out a few minutes later, dressed in her trail garb—gray skirt, poncho, and black hat—just as Riley was leading the Morgan toward the hotel. She ran out to meet them. Riley eyed the Winchester rifle she slid into the saddle boot.
“You’re packin’ a rifle?”
He stood in the street looking shocked as Louisa took his shoulder and kissed him quickly on the cheek. She grabbed the horse’s reins and climbed gracefully into the leather.
“Thanks, Riley. I’m sorry about the intrigue. I hope I can make it up to you sometime. You deserve so much better.” She reined the horse around and as she started off, she looked behind her at the young cowboy watching her go. “Thanks so much for the dresses and the wonderful time. I promise I’ll pay you back ... somehow.”
She turned and heeled the Morgan into a trot.
“When will I see you again, Louisa?” Riley called.
“I don’t know,” Louisa returned, not looking back.
Then she turned the corner around the tobacco shop and was gone in a cloud of dust.
Chapter Twenty-Five
THAT NIGHT PROPHET dropped a chunk of wood on the cook fire, sending sparks rising toward the near-dark sky.
“I just can’t believe that son of a bitch was right there in Greenburg, under our noses all the time.”
“What I want to know is why no one questioned who he was,” McIlroy said.
He was hunkered on his haunches, staring angrily into the fire, a cup of coffee in his freckled hands. His hat was off, and his red hair was sweat-matted to his head. They’d endured a long, hard ride from Greenburg and had stopped only when it got too dark for tracking. They figured Duvall was at least an hour ahead of them.
So close, yet so far.
“He must’ve killed the real preacher somewhere outside of town and donned his clothes. The church must’ve hired the poor man sight unseen. Desperate for a parson, I guess.”
McIlroy cursed and gritted his teeth. “Wormy son of a bitch. Cagey bastard. I bet Duvall was laughing at us all the while:’
Prophet reached for his canteen. “I just wish we could have gotten on to him before he killed that girl.”
“How many more is he gonna kill before we finally catch him, Proph?”
“None, if I can help it,” Prophet said, lifting the canteen to his lips.
The deputy looked at him, his eyes wide and dark even with the flames dancing in them. “I just want you to know, I’m not taking him alive. It goes completely against all I was taught and the morals I was raised with, but I just don’t see any reason why that hellcat should stand trial.”
“Glad to hear you say that,” Prophet said. “Because I’ve been plannin’ on beefing that bastard ever since he ambushed Louisa.” The bounty man shook his head. “That ain’t normally my way. In this job it just can’t be, or you turn into what you’re chasing. But this ... this here’s different. You and me, we’re that son of a bitch’s judge, jury, and executioner.”
“Me, too,” someone said from the shrubs.
In an instant, Prophet and McIlroy had their revolvers in their hands, ratcheting back the hammers and jerking their heads toward the voice.
“Don’t shoot—it’s me,” Louisa said, pushing through the brush, her figure taking shape in the fire’s dancing glow.
“Jesus Christ,” Prophet complained, depressing the hammer and slipping the Peacemaker back in his holster.
“You two make enough noise to wake the dead. You’re lucky I’m not Duvall.”
“Are we?” McIlroy said with a wry curl of his upper lip. “I’m not so sure.”
“Where in the hell did you come from?” Prophet glared at her, embarrassed by being snuck up on like that, by a girl, of all people, and by her most of all.
“My tracking skills are improving,” she boasted, tossing down her saddlebags and bedroll, fanning the fire. She slipped into the bushes again and returned with her rifle sheath and saddle. “Riley and I were out for a Sunday ride in the country when we saw you two chasing the man in black. Who is he?”
“Duvall,” Prophet said.
She looked at him, her eyes wide and expectant. “Really?”
“Who did you think we were chasing, the tooth fairy?” Prophet grunted. “Where’s Riley?”
“I left him in Greenburg.”
“That poor son of a bitch,” Prophet chuckled to McIlroy. “He must feel like a hog’s supper, chewed up and shit out the other end.”
“Did you expect me to forget about Duvall?” Louisa said as she knelt to retrieve a tin cup from her saddlebags. “You should know me better than that by now.”
“No, but I was hoping,” Prophet admitted. In spite of a slight, needling jealousy, he would have liked nothing better than for her to have stayed in Greenburg with Riley Nugent, safe and sound and building a new life for herself. Like she said, he should have known better.
When Louisa had poured a cup of coffee, she sat down against her saddle and nibbled a strip of jerked beef. “So tell me where you found Duvall. Did he finally show up in town?”
“Yeah, he showed up, all right” McIlroy said. “But not finally.”
Louisa gazed at him, one eyebrow raised.
Prophet told her all about it. By the time he was finished, Louisa was looking around as though for a hog to kick, her face flushed, nostrils wide with exasperation. “That son of a—”
“Yeah, he’d be good buzzard bait if a buzzard could stomach him,” Prophet said.
“You sure you haven’t lost him?” Louisa asked.
Prophet stared at her, indignant. “Two things that rankle me the most is being left afoot and cheeky women.”
With that, he stood and grabbed his rifle. Stalking off through the brush, he grumbled, “I’ll take the first watch.”
Dave Duvall halted his horse on the wagon road and stared ahead through the dark, where buttery light shone in the night. He studied the light for a few minutes, then gigged the dusty, sweaty Appaloosa forward.
He was tired, and his ass was sore. It didn’t take much sitting to get one’s seat unaccustomed to riding.
As the lights neared, they separated, becoming two windows in a square, two-story log cabin. Nearby, a log barn loomed darkly against the starry sky.
Duvall gigged his horse into the yard, his horse fiddle-footing when the cabin door squeaked open. A man appeared on the narrow stoop, silhouetted by the doorway. He was a tall man but thin in the shoulders. He appeared to be wearing an undershirt and suspenders, the sleeves rolled to his elbows.
He hefted a shotgun in his arms and swung the barrel toward Duvall.
“Stop right where you are,” he called. “State your name and business.”
Duvall stopped the Appaloosa about twenty yards from the stoop. “Hello, neighbor,” he called more loudly than he needed to, for it was a quiet night with on
ly the chirping crickets. “My name is Brother Doolittle. I’m a messenger of the Good Lord. I was just passin’ through, and I saw your light. I don’t s’pose you’d have a morsel to spare, and possibly a bed? A straw pile in the bam would more than serve. I’d be happy to help out with chores in the mornin’, as a way of repaying your kindness.”
Seeing the white collar, the man lowered his shotgun. “Sorry, Parson,” he said. “I’ve been havin’ trouble with rustlers lately. Can’t be too careful.”
He turned to yell through the door, “Maggie, we have any vittles to spare for a travelin’ preacher?”
A woman replied, but the sound was too faint for Duvall to hear what it was.
The man turned back to Duvall. “The wife says we always have vittles to spare for a man of the cloth, Reverend. You can stable your horse in the bam yonder, and come inside. We have an extra bed since Maggie’s pa died.”
“That would be most kind of you, my good man,” Duvall said, turning his horse toward the bam. Smiling to himself, a devilish plan forming in his mind, he added, “Most kind of you, indeed. Bless you.”
Prophet, McIlroy, and Louisa rolled out of their soogans before daylight and were mounted and following Duvall’s trail southeast as dawn pearled the eastern sky. They rode for two hours before they stopped to water their horses at a stream. Continuing, they picked up a wagon trail.
They followed the trail to a fork.
“Shit,” Prophet said. “Another damn fork in the road.”
“Can’t you tell which one he took?” McIlroy asked.
Prophet shook his head. “There’ve been a couple riders through here in the past few hours, on both forks. He’s done a good job of making his tracks blend with theirs.”
“We’ll split up, then,” Louisa said, impatience in her voice. “I’ll take the right fork.”
“I’ll go with her,” Prophet said. “Don’t take any chances, Zeke.”
“I’ll wait for you if you wait for me.”
“Deal,” Prophet said, spurring Mean after Louisa, who was already a good ways down the trail’s right fork.
McIlroy gigged his chestnut down the left fork. A half hour later, he came to a cross trail. One set of fresh horse tracks gouged the dirt, and as far as the young deputy could tell, the shoe prints had the markings of Duvall’s horse.
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