Riding With the Devil's Mistress (Lou Prophet Western #3)

by Peter Brandvold

  Leach shook his head. No, he’d never known what fun was until he’d joined up with Dave and the boys. He guessed he could no more give out on the gang than a child could give up candy. But boy, oh boy, did he need to grind his heels in now and sleep off some of that redeye!

  He gigged his horse back on the trail, where Matt Sully stood beside his mount, bent over, hands on his knees, heaving as though hacking up his innards.

  ‘You find him?’ Leach asked.

  Sully lifted his waxen face and growled, ‘Who?’

  ‘That Ralph you keep calling for.’

  Leach smiled in spite of his swirling bowels and throbbing eyeballs. But when Sully barfed again, the green bile from his tormented guts splatting on the grassy turf, Leach lost his own cookies—or whatever was left in there— down the side of his saddle.

  ‘Goddamnit!’ he groused. ‘Look what you made me do to my stirrup!’

  The tall, greasy-haired Sully donned his battered, rain-stained hat, and legged it over his saddle, hunkering over his horn as though chilled. ‘Come on,’ he rasped. ‘Let’s head for that tree yonder ... get some shut-eye.’

  Spatting the foul taste from his mouth, Leach followed Sully toward a large cottonwood poking up in the west. It was the only landmark out here, and the only tree they’d seen since crossing a creek about five miles back. This flat land was all stirrup-high grass and sky, and Leach vaguely wondered how, on a cloudy day, you ever knew which direction you were headed.

  Bees buzzed and the hot sun beat down, making Leach’s head thunder even worse. He was glad when he and Sully finally made the cottonwood, which offered sizable shade on the south side of its trunk. The wind in its leaves made a cool, fresh sound, sporadically distracting Leach from his misery.

  The outlaw tore the leather from his horse in a daze. When he’d hobbled the animal beside Sully’s, he grabbed his bedroll, spread it out beside the tree, lay carefully down on his back, crossed his arms over his chest, and tipped his hat over his eyes.

  Sully did likewise, and both men were sound asleep in minutes.

  A half hour later, Leach opened his eyes and lifted his head. He looked around at the sun-washed grass. ‘What was that?’

  He looked at Sully, who lay on his side, sweating, his eyes pinched shut, his lips moving as he dreamed.

  ‘Hey, Sully,’ Leach said, nudging the other man’s arm.

  Sully opened his eyes angrily. ‘Leave me alone, god-damnit!’

  ‘Didn’t you hear it?’

  ‘Hear what?’

  ‘I don’t know—that’s what I’m askin’ you.’

  Sully grunted with exasperation, then closed his eyes and repositioned his head on his saddle. ‘Shut up and let me sleep. I know one thing—I’m goin’ back to Wahpeton first chance I get, and I’m gonna make that apron guzzle a whole bottle of his own busthead... see how he likes it.’

  With that, Sully fell back asleep.

  Leach looked around again. Only the sound of the wind in the cottonwood and grass broke the quiet. Occasionally a fly buzzed and one of the horses tore at the grass or snorted, but that was all. Finally deciding that he must have dreamed the sound that had awakened him, Leach eased his still-aching head back onto his saddle, and closed his eyes.

  But then he heard it again—a sound like a girl singing far off in the distance. Leach couldn’t make out the words, but it sounded like a song a child might sing on a playground. It owned a haunting, dirge like quality, and it came and went on the breeze.

  ‘Damn it all!’ he groused.

  He looked around again, shielding his eyes against the afternoon sun with his hand, blinking against the drum throbbing within his skull. All he saw were the horses and the wind-ruffled grass. Finally, with another curse, he gained his feet and scoured the distance in a full circle with his eyes. He expected to see a farm somewhere along the horizon, where kids might be playing.

  But nothing ...

  What the hell... ?

  He was about to sit back down when heard the keening sound again. Swinging around, he looked to his right and saw a tree way off in the distance. It had to be a half mile away, all alone amidst the tawny, sunburned grass.

  The singing, if that was what you’d call it, seemed to originate from over near the other tree.

  Leach swung his gaze back to Sully, who slept with his eyebrows rumpled and a heavy sheen of sweat above his mouth. No use trying to wake him. He’d just curse some more and go back to sleep. But there was no way Leach could relax, not hearing that damn ghost sing her damn song in his ear, just loud enough to give him the willies.

  Who in the hell was she, anyway? Where in the hell was she?

  Wrapping his gunbelt around his waist and cinching the buckle, he started walking toward the other tree, which appeared a thin shadow from this distance. Every once in a while, just when he was about to turn back, he heard the girl’s high, sonorous voice. She seemed to be calling to him, beckoning him toward the cottonwood growing slowly on the horizon, all alone in the sea of ruffling, shadow-swept grass.

  When Leach was within fifty yards of the cottonwood, which looked like a mirror image of the one he and Sully had chosen for their naps, he stopped. A black horse stood beneath the tree, its reins tied to the trunk. The horse nickered when it saw Leach, and twitched its ears. The horse blew and shook its head, watching Leach warily.

  Leach scowled, peeling his lips back from his teeth. ‘Now what in the hell...’

  He saw something hanging from the branch above the horse. Unable to make out what it was from this distance, he walked forward several more steps. He stopped again, feeling something wet and cool skitter along his spine.

  What hung from the branch above the horse was a noose. A hangman’s noose ... swaying in the wind....

  Suddenly, a figure stepped out from behind the tree. Leach’s heart jumped into his throat, and he reached for his six-shooter, but stopped when he heard a hammer ratchet back.

  ‘Uh-uh,’ the girl said.

  Leach froze, lifted his head to look at her. She was, indeed, a girl—a fair-faced, blue-eyed blonde, hay-colored hair ruffling in the wind. She held a silver-plated revolver on him. Had him dead to rights, too.

  Leach screwed up his face at her, befuddled. ‘What... what you doin’ out here, Missy?’

  ‘Waitin’ for you, sir.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yeah, you.’ She raised the gun higher, then moved her head to one side a little, indicating the noose. ‘That’s for you.’

  ‘Me?’ Leach smiled nervously. He suddenly wondered if this were a joke the gang was pulling on him, to razz him about his hangover. But who was this girl? Where in the hell had they found her... ?

  No. Couldn’t be.

  ‘You murdered my family,’ the girl said tightly, her pretty eyes squinting mean. ‘You played a part in it... I remember you. I remember your face from your dodger, too, Eddie Leach.’

  At the sound of his name, Leach’s face flattened out, and his eyes gained a fearful cast. ‘What are you talking about, girl?’

  ‘I’m talking about Roseville, Nebraska. Last year, about this same time. A little farm on Pebble Creek. My mother and father. My two sisters and my brother. You killed ‘em all after you savaged my mother and sisters.’

  Leach was amazed at how steady she held the gun while she spoke with such passion. The barrel was aimed directly at his heart. He was trying to think back to a year ago, trying to remember a place called Roseville.

  The girl read his mind. ‘Oh, you won’t remember it, I’m sure, Mr. Leach,’ she said, her voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘I’m sure there are far too many such atrocities in your history to remember just one family on Pebble Creek. Just take it from me—you were there. You and the others in your gang took my family away from me forever, and now you’re gonna pay for it. Climb up on that horse and put your head through that noose.’

  Leach could barely feel his hangover anymore, barely register the throbbing in his brain. Fear had ov
ercome him. Fear and exasperation that this little snot-nosed girl thought she could get by with such a thing.

  Anger flattening his eyes, he snarled, ‘I... I ain’t climbin’ up on no horse... and I ain’t stickin’ my neck through no noose, Little Miss.’

  ‘You’ll die now, then.’

  She closed one eye, sighting down the barrel.

  He threw up his hands. ‘Wait, wait, wait!’ he cried. ‘Wait a minute now. You don’t wanna do this.’

  ‘I’m going to give you to the count of three,’ the girl said. ‘Then I’m going to sink one forty-five-caliber slug through your lung and leave you to choke to death on your own blood.’

  Gazing at her with astonishment, Eddie Leach realized she would do exactly what she’d promised.

  ‘And if you call out to your friend,’ she added, again reading his mind, ‘the last word will not have died from your lips before I’ve killed you deader than a widow’s husband.’

  His voice gaining a beseeching tone, he said, ‘Well, what good’s it gonna do me to get on that horse? You’re gonna kill me one way or another!’

  ‘It will give you several more precious seconds to breathe the air and reflect on your life. Maybe even a minute or two. We humans do cling to life so, when the chips are down. Seconds can feel like hours.’

  ‘Jesus God, kid, you’re one crazy little bitch!’

  Her voice remained maddeningly level. ‘It’s your choice. You can die slowly now, choking on your own bodily fluids, or you can have the few extra minutes it takes you to climb into the saddle and tighten the noose around your neck.’ She licked her lips, inclined her head slightly, and gazed down the barrel at his chest. ‘I’m going to start counting now. When I get to three, I’m going to shoot you in your right lung.’

  She stared at him.

  ‘One, two—’

  ‘All right, all right!’ Leach cried, flabbergasted, his head pounding now even harder than before.

  He was stuck between a rock and a hard place. There was no way out. All he could do was hope that some miracle happened between now and the moment he stuck his head through that noose.

  Matt Sully heard the yell and opened his eyes. Slowly, he sat up and looked around.

  ‘Hey, Leach?’

  Eddie Leach was nowhere in sight.

  ‘Who in the hell yelled?’ Sully asked himself, wincing against the throbbing in his head.

  He was sure it was a yell he’d heard. A loud one, coming from a long way off. And, come to think of it, the voice had sounded like Leach’s. Was that why Sully’s heart was pounding?

  Sully stood, grunting, and shielded his eyes against the bright sun, scanning the grassy terrain around him.

  ‘Leach?’ he yelled.

  He yelled it several times. There was no more reply than the breeze rustling the cottonwood and the nicker of Leach’s horse standing with Sully’s nearby.

  Sully saw the tree standing in the direction from which he thought the yell had come. Corroborating his assumption was a silvery trail of bent grass leading that way. Hitching his gun belt on his hips, Sully began following the path toward the tree.

  When he was about a hundred yards from the tree, Sully stopped. Something appeared to be hanging from it. Something long and shaped like a body.

  Frowning curiously, feeling a sluggish reticence nip at his already seared bowels, Sully drew his revolver and resumed walking toward the tree. The closer he got, the more reticent and fearful and cautious he became.

  Approaching the tree, he stared up at the body with wide-eyed horror and indignation. ‘Leach?’ he whispered.

  His mind swirled and wheeled and tumbled back over itself. Was he dreaming? Was Eddie Leach really hanging there from that tree, his neck stretched a good foot, out here in the middle of nowhere?

  Who? Why? How?

  Sully heard feet crackle grass behind him, but before he could wheel around, he felt the cold steel of a pistol barrel jammed against his neck. He froze, bile flooding him, his knees turning to glue.

  ‘Kneel,’ came a girl’s voice.

  ‘Wha ... wha . .. ?’

  ‘Kneel down.’

  ‘Why ... who ... ?’

  ‘Kneel down!’

  The man knelt down. Louisa Bonaventure snugged her silver-plated revolver up to the back of his head and fired two bullets through his skull. Then she wheeled, holstered her revolver, and walked away through the grass.

  Behind her, Sully’s body tipped onto its side. Eddie Leach moved gently at the end of his rope.

  Chapter Seventeen

  DRYING DISHES IN the kitchen of her brothel three miles south of Fargo, Cora Ames looked out the window into the backyard, and shook her head. The two French girls were running around bare-breasted again, while several of Cora’s other girls hung the wash on the lines strung between the cottonwoods along the Wild Rice River.

  All the girls were dressed skimpily, in wrappers and pantaloons and such, their hair uncombed or in curlers, but those two French girls just loved to waltz around naked as the day they were born.

  Frowning, Cora opened the outside door and yelled, ‘Babette, Joelle! You’re going to catch your death of cold runnin’ around like that! I declare, have some sense!’

  The girls ceased their nymph like frolic in the high, green grass, and turned to regard Cora beseechingly. ‘Oh, please, Cora!’ Joelle cried. ‘We have been bundled up all winter. It feels so good’—the auburn-haired waif with big brown eyes sensuously cupped her tiny breasts in her hands and rolled her head to one side—’to have the air against our skin!’

  ‘I’ll give you something against your skin if you catch colds and can’t work!’ Cora replied with several angry shakes of her small, plump fist. ‘Now put some clothes on and help the other girls hang the wash!’

  ‘Oh, Cora!’ Joelle complained.

  ‘Don’t ‘Oh Cora,’ me, girl. Just do as you’re told!’

  ‘Oui, Madame,’ Babette said, crestfallen, as she and Joelle reluctantly headed for the brightly colored wrappers they’d tossed on a tree stump.

  Sighing with dismay—those two were going to be the death of her yet!—Cora returned to the kitchen. As she set the plate she’d been drying in the cupboard over the sink, a girl’s voice sounded from the parlor.

  ‘Miss Cora—riders!’

  Cora checked the clock above the cupboard. It was only four o’clock—too early for the hands from the bonanza farm over west. Those boys would be planting their wheat and potatoes until sunset. The cowboys from the nearby ranch were tied up with calving.

  Frowning, Cora set down her towel and walked into the parlor, where the rawboned but pretty German girl, Guida, was sitting on the red plush sofa, absently stroking the kitten in her lap while she read an illustrated newspaper, moving her lips to sound out the English which still befuddled her. Marci, an orphan from Illinois, stood before the window, barefoot and in a Chinese kimono—a gift from a railroad man. She had a dust rag in her hand and a sleeping cap on her head.

  Turning to Cora curiously, she said, ‘A whole pack of men on horses . ..’

  Cora sidled up to the girl and gazed out the window. Sure enough, a band of riders was pounding down the road from the west, heading this way. When the men had moved close enough for Cora to get a look at the two lead riders, her stomach tossed and sweat popped out on her lip.

  ‘Girls,’ she said without moving her eyes from the window, ‘fetch the others and go upstairs.’

  ‘Huh—what?’ Marci said, bewildered.

  ‘Do as I say,’ Cora said. ‘Stay there until I tell you it’s safe.’

  Guida said from the sofa, ‘Miss Cora, what is wrong . .. ?’

  ‘Just do as I say!’ Cora snapped, a slight trill in her voice.

  Both girls jumped and hurried from the room. When Cora heard the back door close, she moved stiffly to the foyer, her slippered feet heavy with fear, and stepped onto the porch, closing the door behind her. She walked to the porch steps and stopped beside the
sign nailed to an awning beam, which read COWBOYS AND FARMERS—SCRAPE THE DUNG FROM YOUR BOOTS BEFORE ENTERING.

  She adjusted her gray flannel wrapper over her giant bosom and folded her arms over her chest, trying to keep from shaking. Every vein in her body filled with dread as she watched the ragtag team of hard-featured horsemen canter into the yard, scattering chickens. They reined up before the porch, dust billowing, horses blowing and shaking their bridles and bits.

  ‘Hello, Miss Cora!’ Handsome Dave Duvall greeted the woman exuberantly, checking his mount down before the tie rail. ‘We’re back!’

  Cora Ames set her jaw to hide her fear as she stared back at the handsome rake in his dusty black frock coat, string tie, and black hat. With his piercing gray-green eyes, dimpled chin, and brushy, upturned mustaches, he was indeed a handsome devil. But a devil he was nonetheless, and the worst Cora Ames had ever laid eyes on.

  As her eyes skidded apprehensively between Duvall and Dayton Rowers, equally as bad, she wished she still had the big Indian, Leonard Two Horses, riding shotgun around the place.

  Finding her tongue at last, she said, ‘Dave Duvall, you and your men are not wanted here.’

  Duvall frowned. ‘Huh?’

  ‘In light of what happened during your last visit, I’ll have to ask you to leave.’

  ‘Leave?’

  The puzzled frown still etched on his whiskered, handsome face, Duvall turned to his partner. Flowers sat beside Duvall on a skewbald horse lathered with sweat and peppered with dust and weeds.

  Flowers was as ugly as Duvall was handsome, with his long, horsey face, red-rimmed hound-dog eyes, and long, greasy hair hanging straight down from his frayed bowler. His pallid, large-pored skin was pitted and scarred, and a brown, teardrop-shaped birthmark resided to the left of his hooked nose, a black hair curling out of it. The sight of the man made Cora weak with revulsion and horror, and it was a hell of a job to not show it.

  Flowers returned Duvall’s look with a grin, and shrugged.

  Duvall turned back to the madam holding her ground on the porch. ‘Cora, I don’t have the foggiest idea what you’re talkin’ about.’