To Hell on a Fast Horse

by Peter Brandvold

  Prophet gentled Louisa into the cot left of the door. She didn’t groan or sigh or grunt or even squirm around. She was as still and quiet as death. Her eyelids were like thin paper, the blueness of veins showing faintly through the skin. The doctor’s limping shuffle sounded behind Prophet, and then Whitfield came in carrying several towels over one arm, and wearing a stethoscope around his neck.

  Without looking at Prophet, he set the towels on a table near Louisa’s bed and said with businesslike crispness, “You’ll need to leave the room. I’ll tend to her and let you know how she’s doing as soon as I know.”

  Prophet detected a faint note of disdain in the man’s voice. He probably tended quite a few gunshot wounds out here and had built up a reasonable disgust for the folks who get involved in such shenanigans.

  “Listen,” Prophet said. “You gotta know—this girl means everything to me, Doc.”

  Whitfield glanced at the holstered Peacemaker thonged on Prophet’s thigh. “Are you threatening me?”

  Prophet didn’t know what to say to that. He supposed he was, in a way.

  “Every moment you stand here, sir, with that big gun in your holster, is a moment I could be working to save her life.”

  “You got it.”

  Prophet glanced at Louisa as he backed toward the door. Worry hammered at him, making his ears ring. Reluctantly, he pushed through the door and stopped. The boy was heading toward him with a smoking iron pan filled with utensils, including a scissors and scalpel, in his two small hands.

  “Excuse me,” the boy said.

  Prophet held the curtain open for him, and the boy slipped through into the hospital room.

  Prophet pushed through the screen door and out into the sunlit yard. The chickens clucked as they fed. A breeze had come up and was kicking dust around. Mean and the pinto stood side by side, regarding Prophet as though sensing his worry. The pinto whickered and turned to Mean as though to confer.

  Mean turned his head away, a dark, customarily surly light entering the horse’s gaze.

  Prophet walked over and stripped the tack off both horses, leaving it in the yard where it fell. There was a well between the house and the chicken coop and hog pen, with a pitched, shake-shingled roof over it. Prophet winched up a bucket of water and set it down beside the well, for the horses who’d followed him over. The pinto dipped its head to drink but Mean, in typical bullying fashion, nudged the pinto aside and dipped his own snout into the bucket.

  The pinto shook its head and loosed an angry whinny, which Mean ignored as the dun loudly slurped water.

  “Don’t worry—you’ll get your turn, Peaches,” Prophet said, smiling despite his worry about Louisa. He wondered what she’d say if she knew he’d dubbed her otherwise nameless horse with such a sissy name. Likely, she’d merely roll her eyes and call him a fool to name a horse anything but “Horse.”

  It wasn’t that she was cold-hearted, Prophet knew, though she tended to act that way. The reason she hadn’t named the horse was because her heart was so large she didn’t want it getting broken if she should lose the mount.

  “Ah, shit!” Prophet cuffed his hat off his head, letting it drop to the dirt at his boots. His knees buckled, and he knelt there near Mean and Ugly, grabbing fistfuls of his hair and tugging, trying to distract himself from his own heart, which had a large, rusty bowie knife of grief sticking straight out of it.

  He’d been wrong to threaten the doctor. But that’s how desperate he was for Louisa to survive. He’d have given his own life to see the surly, beautiful, blond-haired, hazel-eyed Vengeance Queen come walking out of that house right now, fit as a fiddle. He’d run to her and squeeze her and throw her high in the air and catch her, and grind his lips against hers.

  He’d paw her up and sniff her all over, savoring the feel and smell of her.

  Oh, Christ—why had he left her alone?

  If he’d been there with his Richards, he could have saved her.

  “You’re a goddamn fool, Prophet!” he castigated himself, raking his knuckles across his scalp. “You’re a goddamn, cork-headed fool. Now you’ve gone and killed her, and what’re you gonna do without that girl runnin’ drag on your raggedy ass?”

  Louisa Bonaventure was the only grace note in his otherwise coarse and crude existence.

  He fisted tears from his cheeks. Mean had lowered his head toward him, sniffing him as though trying to figure out what the trouble was. The pinto eyed Prophet from a little farther back, warily.

  “Ah, shit—don’t worry, Mean, Peaches. I ain’t totally loco. Not yet.”

  Prophet heaved himself to his feet and sat on the edge of the well, letting the peaked roof shade him. He dug in his shirt pocket for his makings sack and started building a smoke. He hated the rawness he felt in his chest. He’d been wounded several times over the years—back during the War of Northern Aggression and several times on the frontier. He’d had the shit nearly literally kicked out of both ends.

  And he’d just as soon have to endure that torture all over again than be dealt the kind of agony he’d been dealt here now. It made him want to cut out his own heart and chuck it into the well with a plop.

  Mean turned his head, and whickered warily.

  Prophet followed the horse’s gaze toward the main trail. A rider was just then swinging off the trail and into the doctor’s yard. Prophet recognized the shabby suit, billowy red neckerchief, and tan slouch hat of the young marshal.

  “Hell,” he said.

  He was in no mood to deal with the law.

  The young man rode up to him, his chestnut kicking up dust and giving it to the breeze. The pinto whinnied. Mean whickered. The lawman’s horse whinnied in return. His badge glinted in the brassy afternoon light. He halted his horse near the well and studied the bounty hunter blandly for a time, pensively.

  Then he looked off, looked back at Prophet, and said, “How’s she doin’?”

  “Don’t know yet. Doc’s with her.”

  The young man nodded. He was leaning forward against his saddle horn. “Got a name?”

  Prophet scowled at him. He didn’t feel like telling the man his name. For all he knew, he was one of those from this town who’d shot Louisa. He didn’t trust lawmen any more than he trusted any other man. But there was no point in making trouble until he knew for sure he was making it with the right folks.

  “Prophet. I’m a bounty hunter. So’s Louisa.” Prophet set a boot on a knee, and blew smoke into the breeze. Sweat trickled down his cheeks. “There were eight of ’em that bushwhacked us.”

  “Why’d they bushwhack you?”

  “That’s what I was hopin’ you could tell me. They’re from here. At least, they rode back this way last night. Left one of their pards lyin’ wounded up near Ramsay Creek. Said his name was Wayne. Eldon Wayne.”

  “Eldon Wayne,” said the lawman as though he knew the name. “Was he alive when you left him?”

  “Nope. I drilled a round through the bastard’s head.” Prophet touched his index finger to his forehead. “Right here.”

  The young lawman stared at him.

  Prophet stared back at him—angry and defiant.

  “He was one of those who bushwhacked my partner. I take that right personal.”

  “I understand.” The young lawman flicked some windblown grit from his lips. “I’ll send someone out for him.”

  “He live here?”

  The young lawman stared at Prophet until his stare became a glare. “Mr. Prophet, you’re not the one askin’ the questions. I’m the one askin’ the questions. I’m the law in this here town.” He touched the star on his coat. “I am town marshal Roscoe Deets, and I’ll ask the questions. Is that clear?”

  Prophet rose, rage burning hot in his cheeks. He rolled the quirley to one corner of his mouth and lowered his hands to his sides, raking a thumb against the holster on his right thigh.

  “Look, sonny, I don’t give a good goddamn about that peach tin on your coat lapel. Eight men from your
town, or from hereabouts, ambushed my partner and me last night. There’s seven o’ them cowardly devils on the lurk somewhere around here. Before I blew Wayne’s wick, he told me they were all from your fine little dung heap of a town. When I find ’em, I’m gonna kill every last one of the gutless sonso’bitches. If you think you’re gonna stop me, you got another think comin’. And you’d best go home right now and tell your purty young wife to iron your burial suit.” Prophet had seen the gold band on Deets’s finger.

  Prophet drew air into his lungs and let it out his nose.

  Young Roscoe Deets glared down at him. Deets’s cheeks were bright red, his eyes small and round in the shade beneath his hat brim. Finally, unexpectedly, the young marshal jerked his horse around and spurred him into a gallop toward the main trail. When he hit the trail, he turned the chestnut hard again, and galloped back into town.

  Prophet stared after him in surprise. He rolled the quirley from one side of his mouth to the other.

  “Now, what have we here?” he muttered.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Marshal Roscoe Deets checked the chestnut down to a dead stop on a narrow cross street with a two-story frame house on the right side of the street and a mercantile warehouse on the left. The house was his own and Lupita’s. Roscoe had built it himself just after he and Lupita married last fall. He’d knocked down an old trapper’s cabin that had occupied the lot, and he’d planted rose bushes and a couple of cottonwoods. He hadn’t yet gotten around to painting the house, but he planned on it soon.

  He was about fifty yards from the main street, Hazelton. Dust whipped up around him, powdering him. He blinked against it.

  The chestnut snorted and shook his head.

  Deets pulled his hat off his head and batted it in frustration against his thigh. He cursed loudly and then looked around, wondering if anyone had heard, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

  The house’s front door opened and Deets’s wife, Lupita, stepped out onto the porch. She was a short, busty, full-hipped half-Mexican girl—simple, kind, and eminently loving and devoted to Deets. An earthy girl five years younger than Deets, she’d grown up on a remote horse ranch with her old Mexican father and her brother. Lupita’s rich, curly, dark-brown hair fell to her slender shoulders.

  “Roscoe?” Lupita said, frowning. “Roscoe, what is it?”

  “Lupita,” Deets said in surprise. “Please . . . go back inside.” He’d stopped here instinctively in front of his home, a place of safety. He’d been a fool to do so and to let Lupita see him in the state he was in.

  “You better come in, too. You do not look so good, mi amor.”

  “Me?” Deets laughed without humor and brushed his coat sleeve across his mouth. His knees were still tingling. He’d damned near tangled with Lou Prophet, the notorious bounty hunter. “Me?” He laughed again and sucked a deep breath, trying to steady himself. “Ah, hell, no—I’m just fine. Nothin’ a couple belts won’t cure.”

  He laughed again, his nerves firing like six-shooters beneath his skin.

  Prophet had been ready to shoot him. If Deets had slid his hand toward one of his own six-shooters, he’d be dead now. As dead as Eldon Wayne lying dead out in the bluffs around Ramsay Creek.

  Wayne, dead. Killed by Lou Prophet. And now Prophet was here in Box Elder Ford with his equally famous partner, Louisa Bonaventure, otherwise known as the Vengeance Queen.

  Why?

  What was this all about?

  Why had Eldon Wayne and seven others bushwhacked the two bounty hunters up by Ramsay Creek? And why in hell hadn’t the town marshal of Box Elder Ford known about such a scheme beforehand?

  “Roscoe?” Lupita said, coming down the steps in her red dress trimmed with white lace, holding the hem above her ankles.

  As usual when she was home, she was barefoot. Deets often laughed and said it was harder keeping his young wife shod than it was a broomtail bronc. Her dress was a low-cut little number, outlining her firm, round breasts beautifully. It was the first dress Roscoe had bought her after they were married and he’d earned his first paycheck as town marshal of Box Elder Ford, Colorado Territory. That was just after he’d lost his nerve. The red frock was a little dressy for everyday wear, but Lupita knew that Deets liked the way it flattered her figure, so she wore it often.

  “Roscoe, please don’t . . .”

  Deets turned his horse into the yard that he had not surrounded with a picket fence yet, though he intended to do that, as well. A white picket fence. He stopped near Lupita, who stood at the bottom of the porch steps, arms crossed on her breasts, looking worried. She wore a thin, gold-washed necklace with a small, gold cross hanging an inch above her deep, tan cleavage.

  “Not to worry, Lupita,” Roscoe said. “I don’t know why I said that. I’m done with that. I’ll never take another drink again—you know I won’t. I just run into a little problem, and I reckon it rankled me more than I expected. But I’m gonna get to the bottom of it now.”

  “What problem, Roscoe? I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t understand it, neither. But I’m gonna understand it soon.” Deets winced. “Ah, hell—I’m sorry I worried you, Lupita. There’s nothin’ to worry about. You go on back in the house. I’ll stop back soon for some cookies and afternoon coffee, just like I always do.”

  He offered a weak smile.

  She returned it, lifting her chin. She was a stalwart girl, and her toughness, coupled with a kind heart, not to mention her lush figure, had been what had drawn Deets to her in the first place way back when she was still living out on that wild horse ranch in the Jasper Buttes.

  “All right,” she said. “You go on now and solve your marshaling problems. I will have the cookies and coffee ready by the time you get back. I have your socks boiling, so I’d best get back to work, too.”

  Deets leaned down over his left stirrup. Lupita rose up on her tiptoes, and they kissed.

  “Later, Lupita.”

  “Later, my love.”

  Lupita smiled brightly, knowing how her smile always buoyed her often-troubled husband. Deets pinched his hat brim to her and swung the chestnut back into the street.

  When he’d turned away from her, he clenched his fists and hardened his jaws. Damn his nerves! They’d turned him into a coward. Ironically, it had happened just before he’d pinned the cheap tin badge to his chest, taking the luster out of it for him. He’d wanted the job so badly, but what he’d had to do to acquire it had soured it.

  When Deets came to Hazelton, he turned left and rode down the middle of the street, nearly vacant this time of the hot afternoon. There was one wagon parked before the mercantile, and a couple of horseback riders were walking their horses through town—two Double H Connected men. Roscoe knew, by face if not by name, most folks in the town and surrounding county. Miss McQueen’s red-wheeled leather chaise was parked in front of Johnson’s Millinery & Accessories.

  As Deets passed in front of the millinery, which sat on the street’s south side, Goose Johnson himself was standing in the open doorway in his white apron and bowler hat, smoking a cigarette. Deets could hear Johnson’s wife and Mrs. McQueen talking in the shadows behind him.

  Johnson stared at Deets without expression. The lanky man had a dark look in his eyes. Curious about that, Deets swung the chestnut toward the millinery. As he did, Johnson flicked his cigarette into the street and then turned back into the store, closing the door behind him.

  Deets stopped the chestnut, which he’d named Kiowa back when he was still a drover for Old Chester McCrae on the other side of the Jasper Buttes. That was back when he’d still had his nerve. (Losing his nerve had become a dark milestone in his still-young life.)

  Deets studied the closed door. Johnson had not wanted to talk to him. Deets looked at the half-smoked cigarette smoldering in the well-churned dirt and horseshit of the street.

  He looked around. He could see a gaunt, mustached face in the window of the barber and bathhouse shop behind him. Quickly, the
face disappeared. The face had been obscured by the reflection of the sun off the dark window, but that would have been the barber, Melvin Bly. He was acting damned odd, as well.

  Deets continued to look around the nearly silent street. A few chickens were pecking out front of the Occidental Feed Barn. That was the only movement now aside from a couple of breeze-jostled tumbleweeds. The wind was picking up, moaning between the tall buildings around him, rattling a couple of shingle chains.

  It was a hot day. But Deets had a cold, dark feeling deep in his twenty-six-year-old bones. An old man kind of cold.

  What was going on?

  He booted Kiowa on up the street. He turned at the next cross street and stopped in front of a sprawling shack of gray boards and shake shingles, with a brush-roofed gallery out front. This was Eldon Wayne’s place. Wayne did everything from fixing leaky roofs to hauling wash water for the old ladies in town, and from cutting and hauling firewood to shoveling snow in the winter.

  He was a big man with a bullish personality, and he’d often worked as a bouncer in the town’s three saloons on Saturday nights when the boys from the Double H Connected were in town. He’d worked as a night deputy for the previous town marshal, Bill Wilkinson, whose name Deets wished like hell he could scour from his brain.

  Wayne had been a big man, according to the bounty hunter, Prophet. Now he was lying dead somewhere out near Ramsay Creek.

  A saddled piebald gelding stood in the shaggy front yard littered with junk of all kinds—ancient washtubs, rain barrels, hay rakes, a mound of long saw blades, several small wagons with missing wheels. There was even a pile of wagon wheels around which the bunchgrass had grown thick. The front porch of the shack, supported on stone pylons, had spikes driven into it. All manner of harnesses, chains, and hides hung from the spikes.

  As Deets pulled into the yard and weaved Kiowa through the junk and trash, he heard voices inside the sprawling shack. The voices were muffled, so he couldn’t make out specifics of the conversation until he’d tied his chestnut to a porch rail and climbed the steps to the porch.