‘None o’ your goddamn business,’ the outlaw groused, wincing as more pain lanced his arm.
Prophet stood and walked over to the man. ‘I bet I could make that arm hurt worse,’ he speculated.
The man looked at him with bright fear in his eyes.
‘I bet all I’d need to do,’ Prophet said, lifting his right hand to the wounded man’s right wrist, ‘is give your arm a little yank.’
He tugged on the man’s sleeve. The man yelled, ‘No! No, goddamn you!’
Prophet looked into the man’s face, smiling wistfully. ‘Well, sure enough, I could. Now, tell me, why would those four that split off from the main group be headin’ south?’
‘I don’t know,’ the man yelled, his face bleached with misery.
‘Oh, come on,’ Prophet said. ‘I think you do.’
He reached up and gave the man’s right wrist a pull. The outlaw whipped his head up, howling. Panting, he said, ‘Ow! Goddamn you, it hurts! Oh, Jesus, don’t do that!’
‘Tell me where those four went. What’s south of here?’
‘I don’t know ... well... goddamnit... I reckon they either cut out for Campbell or Tintah. I reckon Campbell, seein’ as how there’s a saloon there an’ all...’
‘You think they just split off for a drink?’
The scowling firebrand considered this and shrugged. ‘I reckon they’re thirsty. Ole Newt and Barry—they can’t be without a drink for long, an’ they ran out of whiskey around the fire last night. Campbell’s only about three miles south. Wahpeton’s still another ten miles or so west.’
Prophet ran his thumb along the line of his unshaven jaw, considering this. He should probably follow the main group, but he didn’t want any of these gunnies getting away. The four would more than likely rejoin the group later—probably in Wahpeton—but that wasn’t certain.
On the other hand, if they were drinking heavily in Campbell, they shouldn’t be all that hard to take down. It might only take him an hour or so. As far as the kidnapped girl was concerned, she could be with the four as easily as the larger group.
Deciding to go after the four, Prophet unsheathed his bowie and cut the ropes tying the man’s feet to his stirrups and his wrists to the horn. ‘Get down.’
‘Huh?’
‘Get down.’
‘Wha.. . what the hell... ?’
Prophet grabbed the man’s arm.
‘Oh, no! Not my arm! Jesus, I heard you!’
Holding his arm stiffly at his side, the outlaw climbed down from the saddle. Prophet led him over to a tree, pushed him down, and tied his arms behind the trunk, the man screaming and cursing him all the while. Apparently, the position wasn’t very comfortable for his wounded arm, but Prophet didn’t care. The man had been with the group who’d murdered innocent people and taken a helpless girl hostage. Screw his arm.
When he’d tied the man’s feet together so he couldn’t move around too much and work his hands free, Prophet led his horse to another tree, tied him there, then mounted Mean and Ugly, who’d been waiting, ground-hitched nearby, the dun’s white-ringed eyes on the speckle-gray.
‘Let’s go, hoss,’ Prophet told the horse, reining him away.
‘You just gonna leave me here?’ the outlaw called.
‘That’s right.’
‘I’m gonna bleed to death, you damn fool.’
‘Shoulda thought of that before you raided Luther Falls,’ Prophet yelled over his shoulder, kicking Mean and Ugly into a gallop.
Following the tracks of the four horses, he traversed a grassy swale and splashed through a slough, scaring up ducks and geese. A few minutes later, he came to a railroad bed on which no tracks had yet been laid, and followed it west until, mounting a rise, he saw several buildings, including a brick depot lined out below.
Heeling the dun toward the fledgling town the railroad surveyors had probably platted last summer, Prophet pulled his shotgun over his chest and worried a thumb over the hammers. He entered the town at a slow walk, eyeing the buildings still smelling of pine resin. Seeing the five horses, including a black Morgan, tied before the two-story, high-fronted structure touting itself as the Philadelphia Hotel, Prophet reined Ugly that way, dismounted, and tied him to the rack’s far end.
‘Now don’t bite anybody,’ Prophet scolded the horse, turning to the building’s door.
Removing the thong over the hammer of his .45 and holding the shotgun across his belly, he opened the door and stepped inside, raking his eyes quickly around the long, narrow room. In the shadows before him, about twenty yards away, three hard-looking gunmen stood along the bar, facing the wall to Prophet’s right. Facing the toughs was the bartender. They’d all turned their heads to look at Prophet, and the expressions on the blunt faces of the hard cases were both curious and guarded—especially when they saw the barn blaster hanging from the lanyard around the bounty hunter’s neck.
Prophet took them all in, watching their hands. Above him, he heard something thumping the ceiling and the muffled sounds of a girl or young woman protesting what could only have been the advances of a man. There was the sound of a slap and a shrill cry.
Prophet smiled. ‘Sounds like someone’s havin’ a good time, anyway.’
‘That’s just the whore,’ one of the men at the bar explained. ‘When she’s drunk, she likes it a little rough’s all.’
‘I see,’ Prophet said. ‘Would you bring me a shot and a beer?’ he asked the barman. He turned and sat down at the nearest table, removing his hat and tossing it on the table before him.
Without saying anything, the barman set a shot glass on the counter and uncorked a whiskey bottle. The three toughs were scrutinizing Prophet through slitted eyes. One man eyed the shotgun with a half smile on his face. He was a fiery-eyed little terrier with sandy blond hair falling out of his slouch hat. His right hand was on his gun butt, and Prophet saw that he’d removed the safety thong from the hammer.
It was fairly obvious why he was here, he supposed, armed for bear as he was. These three shouldn’t be much trouble, however, grouped up along the bar. He’d wait for his drink and for one of them to make the first move....
The fiery-eyed little terrier said tightly, ‘What’s the matter—you don’t want to stand at the bar and drink with us?’
Prophet smiled at him. ‘No, I don’t.’
The others didn’t say anything. The barman brought the beer and the shot, setting them on the table before Prophet and collecting the coins the bounty hunter had tossed down by his hat. The man moved quickly, nervous about getting caught in a crossfire. In a moment, he was behind the bar, backed up to the mirror, his uneasy gaze sliding between Prophet and the three men before the mahogany.
Overhead, the sounds of the fight had died.
‘That ain’t very nice,’ one of the men at the bar said.
‘Sorry,’ Prophet said, lifting the shot glass to his lips and tossing back half the whiskey. ‘Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s just that, well’—he set the glass down and looked at the three from under his brows—’I never cottoned to drinkin’ with wormy dog shit.’
Upstairs, someone screamed. Prophet couldn’t tell at first if it was the girl or the man. That’s how shrill the scream was. When it became obvious the long, echoing cry belonged to the man, the three at the bar slid their eyes to each other, befuddled. The cry was so enduring, expressing such pain and horror, that it put even Prophet on edge.
‘Sounds like your friend’s getting more than what he paid for up there,’ Prophet said at last.
‘Benny, go see,’ the little man ordered.
‘What about him?’ Benny said, eyeing Prophet.
‘Forget him for now,’ the little man returned. ‘Go see what in the hell’s wrong with Barry.’
Upstairs, the cry seemed to grow even louder. ‘Ahhhhhhh! No! Ahhhhhhhhhhh! Nooooooooo-hoh-hoh-hoh!’
Wincing with apprehension, Benny sidled away from the group and walked to the stairs at the back of the room.
‘Barry, what the hell’s happenin’ up there?’ he yelled. Receiving only more yelling in reply, he placed a hand on the railing and started up the stairs.
Meanwhile, the two other men stared at Prophet, hands on their guns. ‘Probably just stubbed his toe,’ the little man said.
‘That can sure grieve ye,’ Prophet replied.
It was not the little man who drew first, but the man standing to his right. He crouched of a sudden, bringing his six-shooter up and out of its holster. He took too much time, however. All Prophet had to do was thumb back the shotgun’s hammers, which he did, turn the barrel a little, and trip the right trigger.
The gun’s enormous bark was followed by a loud yelp. The gunman jerked so far backward that he smacked the back of his head on the bar top, breaking his skull with an audible crack. At the same time, the terrier crouched and drew. He, too, was too slow, and a half second later he lay on the floor across his friend, their blood mingling and running in several thick streams across the warped wood floor.
A shot sounded upstairs. A man yelled, and then two more shots followed in quick succession. Something hit the upstairs floor so hard that the hanging lamps danced, swaying shadows.
Prophet looked at the ceiling, then at the barman. ‘You want any of this?’ he said, nodding at the two dead men on the floor.
The barman shook his head. ‘I just serve ‘em liquor— that’s all.’
‘Smart man,’ Prophet said.
He breeched the shotgun and replaced the spent shells. Then he scraped his chair back, stood, stepped over the dead men, and walked to the stairs. Grabbing the newel post, he gazed up uneasily, the shotgun in his right hand.
He sighed and started up the stairs, taking one step at a time. He tried to figure out what in the hell had been going on up there, but nothing washed.
When he made the landing, he paused, brought the shotgun up tighter to his side, extending the barrel before him. Slowly, he poked his head around the corner, gazing up the last flight of stairs to the second story.
No one was there. He could hear a man’s muffled groaning. The air was fetid with gunpowder.
Prophet started climbing again, one step at a time, hearing the groans and the creaking of the steps under his boots. He was halfway to the top when a hatted figure suddenly appeared with a gun.
‘Die, devil! Die!’ rose a girl’s shriek, followed by three swift gunshots.
Prophet ducked and threw himself to the side as one bullet ripped his hat off and another singed his cheek. Losing his footing, he fell back down the stairs, hearing the whine of a bullet slicing the air over his head and chunking into the landing wall, at the foot of which he piled up like dirty clothes.
‘Lady, hold on, goddamnit!’ Prophet yelled, scrambling to his feet. ‘I ain’t one o’ them!’
He looked up the stairs. A fair-faced girl stood there in a black, round-brimmed, bullet-crowned hat and a tattered wool poncho. Blond hair fell over her shoulders, but what interested Prophet most was the fact that she was busy reloading her silver-plated revolver.
‘Hold your skirts, kid—I ain’t one o’ them!’ he yelled again as he started up the stairs, tripping in his haste and pushing himself off his hands.
The girl thumbed the last cartridge into the cylinder and was bringing the gun up, thumbing back the hammer, as Prophet reached her. Knocking the gun aside with his left hand, he bulled into her, throwing her backward off her feet. He went down on top of her and tried wrestling the gun out of her iron like grip. She cursed and punched him with her left fist, hard.
‘Goddamn you! Goddamn you!’
Flinching and cowering, Prophet crawled up her body and gained his knees. Finally, he managed to restrain her left arm with his right knee. It took both his hands and the strength of Goliath to peel her fingers open and to finally remove the revolver. When he did, flinging it away, she erupted with a whole new string of curses, and her knees went to work, pummeling his back. Her right hand came up, thrashing him and opening a cut on his lip.
‘Goddamn it!’ he complained, lowering his head against the renewed onslaught and pinning her right fist to the floor with his left knee.
Now he was high enough on her body that her knees could no longer reach him. She still writhed beneath him, but to no avail. Her face was red with hate and anger, tears of heart-searing rage watering her hazel eyes. He held on and waited for her to wear herself out.
Which she eventually did, but it took awhile. Finally, her muscles relaxed and her eyes focused on him through an acrimonious haze.
He said, ‘Will you listen to reason now?’
She lifted her head and scrunched her eyes up angrily. ‘Do I have a choice?’
He climbed to his feet, her gun in his right hand. ‘Ow,’ she said, sitting up and massaging her wrists. She looked at him accusingly. ‘If you ain’t one o’ them, who are you?’
‘Lou Prophet. Bounty hunter. I was in Luther Falls when they robbed the mercantile. Been tracking the group till these four broke off and headed here.’
He looked down the hall behind him and saw the body of the man who’d come up looking for Barry. Prophet looked at the girl and jerked his thumb at the dead man. ‘Your work?’
The girl didn’t reply to this. ‘You take care of the other two downstairs?’
‘Yup. What happened to... ?’ Prophet moved down the hall, at the end of which was an open door. He stood in the doorway and looked into the room, where a nude man lay thrashing around on his belly, his hands cupping his groin. He was crying into a pillow. The bed was soaked in bright red blood.
Prophet turned to the girl at the other end of the hall, who was busy straightening her skirt and adjusting her poncho. ‘What the hell did you do to him?’
‘Gelded him,’ she said matter-of-factly.
Prophet looked into the room again, then returned his dubious eyes to the girl. ‘Jesus.’
‘Yep. I doubt he’ll be showin’ off his one-eyed snake anymore.’
Prophet sighed, shook his head, and started back down the hall. The girl stopped in front of him, extending her open hand. ‘I’ll take my gun back now.’
Absently, still thinking about the man in the bedroom, who had been punished thoroughly enough by Prophet’s standards, he slapped the gun in the girl’s hand. He gave her a long, amazed stare, then started back down the stairs.
Chapter Eight
THE BARMAN WAS waiting at the bottom of the stairs. ‘What the hell happened up there?’ he asked Prophet.
‘You don’t want to know.’ Pushing past the man on his way to his table, Prophet said, ‘Got a sawbones around here?’
‘No. Mrs. Jergens handles most of the medical problems.’
‘Well, you better get her,’ Prophet said, retaking his chair at the table upon which his beer and half a shot of whiskey still sat.
‘I’ll send someone for her, and get some help hauling these bodies out.’
‘There’s one more upstairs,’ Prophet said as the barman headed for the door.
When the barman had gone, Prophet threw back the last of his whiskey and chased it with a healthy swig of the flat beer. He heard steps on the stairs, and the girl appeared at the newel post, gazing at the two dead men on the floor before the bar. Her expression was one of interest and mild admiration, not of the horror that would have been etched on the faces of most girls her age— most women, for that matter.
‘Nice shootin’,’ the girl told him at last.
Prophet grunted. ‘Can I buy you a drink?’
The girl walked toward him, blond curls bouncing on her shoulders, chin thong swinging against her poncho. She stepped over the bodies, sidled over to a table to Prophet’s left, grabbed a glass from it, and brought it over. She set the glass on Prophet’s table and sat down in the chair across from him.
‘Already have a drink, thanks.’
‘Sarsaparilla?’
‘Yep,’ the girl said when she’d taken a sip.
Prophet gave a sardonic ch
uff. Looking at her sitting there sipping her red bubbly water, all peaches and cream skin and blond hair and milk teeth, she could have been on her way home from Sunday school. You never could’ve guessed she’d sunk three .44 pills into one bad-man and left the other minus his oysters.
‘Figured a girl like you’d drink rye straight up with a blood chaser.’
The girl’s face was expressionless. ‘Nope—just sarsaparilla for me, please. That stuff you’re drinkin’ tastes like badger pee and fuzzies the brain.’
Prophet looked at her without saying anything for several seconds. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Louisa.’
‘Louisa what?’
‘Why?’
Prophet shrugged. ‘Why not?’
‘I don’t like men knowin’ anymore about me than they have to for civilized conversation.’
‘Okay,’ Prophet said with a sigh. ‘Then I suppose telling me what you’re doin’ here and why you killed those two men upstairs is out of the question?’
‘Yep.’ She drained her glass and set it back on the table. Standing, she said, ‘It was nice meeting you, Mr. Prophet.’
‘Where you goin’?’
‘After the others.’
‘How do you know where they are?’
‘Because I’ve been following them for most of a year.’
Prophet frowned, incredulous. ‘You have?’
‘Yep.’
‘Then I suppose you know they raided Luther Falls yesterday afternoon.’
‘That’s right.’
‘Where in the hell were you?’
‘Outside of town, in an old barn. I trailed ‘em to the outskirts of town. I would’ve warned the sheriff—if there is a sheriff—but I didn’t know where they were headed until they were almost there.’
Prophet stared at her again, as if at a puzzle he couldn’t begin to fathom. ‘Why is a nice-looking little gal like yourself tracking a herd of gunnies like them?’
‘I have my reasons.’ She turned and started for the door. ‘Now I best get after the others.’
When she’d left, Prophet sat there, his head swirling. Finally, he finished his beer, got up, and walked outside. The girl was heading out of town on the black Morgan that had been hitched to the rack. When she made the outskirts, she heeled the gelding into a gallop, and was soon swallowed up by the brown grass and rolling prairie, heading north.
Riding With the Devil's Mistress (Lou Prophet Western #3) Page 6