“All right,” Prophet said quietly. “It’s more than you deserve, but here you go.”
He drew his Colt and drilled a neat, round hole through the outlaw’s forehead. Duvall slammed back against the ground, dead.
Prophet turned his horse around and rode back toward the farm.
Epilogue
PROPHET WOKE THE next morning as a pearly dawn glow touched the farmhouse window. He looked around at the dusky sitting room, where he and Louisa had bedded down on the floor. It was only him here now, however. Louisa was gone, her pillow still bearing the imprint of her head.
McIlroy was in one of the two bedrooms, where he’d slept after the woman, Maggie Delaney, had dug the bullets out of his limbs, dressed his wounds, and put him to bed. Mrs. Delaney and her son shared the other bedroom, which she had shared with her husband until Handsome Dave had come calling.
If only Prophet and McIlroy could have gotten to Duvall sooner, Maggie Delaney’s husband would be in his bed right now, and not in the grave Prophet had dug in the meadow behind the house.
Prophet tossed his single blanket away and climbed to his feet. Hearing something outside, he moved to the window and looked out.
Louisa was standing in the shadows by the barn. Her black Morgan, an inky shape in the gloomy light, stood with its saddle and bridle on. Louisa appeared to be strapping her rifle boot to the saddle.
What in the hell was she up to now?
Prophet stepped into his jeans and, forgoing his boots and shirt, walked outside, crossing the hard-packed yard in his bare feet, the dirt still cool and damp from the dew.
“Louisa, what are you up to now?”
She turned to him, then turned back to the tie straps on her rifle boot.
“I’m pulling out. I meant to be out of here before you woke.” She shrugged her shoulders slightly. “I figured it would be hard, saying good-bye to you, Lou.”
Prophet looked at her, frowning. “Where are you heading, Nebraska?”
Shaking her head, Louisa turned to him. “No.”
Prophet waited. When she didn’t say anything, he said, “Where, then?”
She shrugged again and looked off. “Here and there. Wherever the badmen are.”
Prophet’s features soured with even more bewilderment.
“I’m gonna try my own hand at bounty hunting, Lou,” Louisa said, smiling and gazing into his eyes with resolve. “I’m gonna hunt men like Duvall... men who’ve murdered families like mine. Men who’ve caused heartache in innocent folks like me and the others Duvall and his gang turned into widows and orphans. I don’t know where I’ll start yet, but I’ll start somewhere.”
Prophet shook his head. “Louisa, that’s plumb crazy. Bounty huntin’ ain’t no life for a girl. You go back to Greenburg and settle down with that Nugent kid. He’ll set you up with the kind of life you were meant to have.”
It was Louisa’s turn to shake her head. “No, Lou. I’d like to do that, but I’m not fit to be anyone’s wife, not after what I’ve seen and done. This seems like the only life for me now. Maybe later I’ll settle down with a man like Riley, but for now I have to ride the owlhoot trail. Call it a calling, if you like.”
Prophet couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Before he could espouse more words of objection, Louisa put two fingers on his lips.
“I know it sounds crazy, but what else do I know how to do that might make some change in the world?”
Prophet took her hand in his and held it while he said, “Stay with me, then, if you want to hunt bounties. You’ll be safer with me than on the trail alone. You’re a girl, for chrissakes—a beautiful girl!”
Again, Louisa shook her head. “I have to ride alone, Lou. I can’t be dependent on you or anyone else. Maybe someday I’ll feel secure enough to depend on someone, but not yet. If what I’ve lived through has taught me one thing, it’s that.”
He was about to speak again, but she stopped him with a kiss, throwing her arms around his neck and mashing her lips to his. It was a long kiss, and she seemed reluctant to break it off. When she finally did, tears filmed her hazel eyes.
“Good-bye, Lou,” she said, her voice cracking. She turned abruptly and climbed into the saddle. She looked at him and said, “Maybe we’ll run into each other down the trail again, eh?”
Tears rolling down her cheeks, she gigged the Morgan into a trot away from the barn, leaving the yard, heading west.
She called over her shoulder, “Say good-bye to Riley for me, will you?”
“Louisa, goddamn it!” Prophet called after her.
Only her horse’s hoof beats answered, softening with distance.
Frustrated, Prophet rammed the back of his fist into a corral post and stared through the dust she’d kicked up in the yard.
“Fool girl,” he called. “You’re gonna be the death of me yet!”
He stood there, in his bare feet and sleep-mussed hair, staring west for a long time after she’d disappeared.
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