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

by Peter Brandvold

  Feeling self-conscious, she stood and looked around, wiping the tears from her cheeks with her hands. She was alone in the barn, but she heard two men talking and laughing near the open paddock doors. Distant wagons squawked. Men called, and dogs barked.

  Louisa looked around the barn once more, seeing only thickening shadows and stabled riding stock, several buggies lining the outer walls, tack hanging from joists. Several nearby horses had craned their necks to watch her with a caution similar to the Morgan’s.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said softly. ‘It was just a little tumble I took there.’ She chuckled and looked at the hay at her feet. ‘Must’ve ... must’ve stepped in some dung and lost my footing.’

  She patted the Morgan and whispered reassuringly in his ear. The horse sniffed her suspiciously, then, encouraged, lowered its head and went back to work on the oats.

  Knowing she couldn’t stay here alone in this darkening barn, Louisa brushed the hay from her hair, donned her floppy hat, and headed for the front doors. She felt doubt rear its ugly head again, however, when she wondered where she’d go or what she’d do.

  She needed to eat, but where? She didn’t know the town, and it was getting dark. Not that she was afraid, but she didn’t want to draw attention to herself by having to shoot someone bent on assailing a young lady all alone in a perdition like Fargo.

  Then she remembered Prophet, and she felt heartened. The big, rangy bounty hunter with the self-assured twinkle in his eyes and that sapsucker grin on his face was really the only thing she had by the way of a friend. In spite of her distrust of people in general and men in particular, she found herself looking forward to seeing him again.

  Besides, they had a common goal. Working together to reach that goal made sense.

  He’d be here soon. She had to watch for him....

  Chapter Nineteen

  WITH HERQUEST for Prophet in mind, Louisa stepped through the door and looked up and down the dark street lit here and there by saloon lights. Piano music clattered tinnily in both directions, and an approaching train gave a deafening hoot.

  Louisa turned to the stableman in the paddock. He was hammering a shoe on a horse’s hoof by lantern light, a quirley jutting from between his lips. A stout man in a muddy duck coat watched, a tin cup in his hand. They were talking softly.

  ‘Excuse me?’ she hailed the men, clearing the frog from her throat. ‘By which route would a man coming from Luther Falls enter Fargo?’

  The stableman looked at his friend conspiratorially, then at Louisa. Something in his manner was different from before, and then she saw the whiskey bottle standing on a bench.

  The stableman dropped the horse’s hoof and straightened, turning to face her. He took the tin cup from the other man, who was also looking in Louisa’s direction, a faint grin stretching his mouth.

  ‘You got a man comin’, Missy?’ the stableman said. ‘I thought you was all alone.’ He took a quick drink from the cup.

  ‘I’ve a . . . business associate on the way,’ Louisa said. ‘So I guess no, sir, I’m technically not alone. Now would you answer my question, please?’

  She didn’t like the smoldering gazes directed at her. The lantern buried the men’s eyes in shadows, but Louisa felt the stares raking her body, undressing and ogling her. She been accustomed to such looks from men since practically her thirteenth birthday, for she’d filled out well, and there had been a time she’d been flattered by such attention. No longer. She knew the dark side of it now. It was one of the reasons she’d avoided the cesspools of humanity known as frontier towns. For there, men lurked, waiting and watching for somewhere to poke their prods, like these men here, their lust stirred from the sips they’d been taking from the cup.

  All men were louts and hardcases underneath, and when they smiled at a girl or showed her sympathy, it was the smile of a snake in the grass, intended only to weaken and disarm. They had to be watched—all of them. None were to be trusted. Not even her friend, Lou Prophet, she reminded herself.

  The stableman sipped from his cup again, made a rasping sound, and said, ‘A man comin’ from Luther Falls would no doubt ride in from the east on Main. That’s the street over yonder, paralleling the Great Northern rails.’ He stared at her again, tipping his head slightly to the side.

  ‘Just one more question,’ she said, despite the discomfort she felt in the presence of these two. ‘Is there a safe place to eat on Main Street?’

  ‘There ain’t no safe place in Fargo after dark, Little Miss,’ the stableman said while his friend stood silently at his side, shorter and stouter and weaving ever so slightly.

  ‘You might try the Chinaman’s,’ the other man said in a deep, thick rasp. He pointed with one short arm. ‘It’s beside the old express office, one block that way, and one block that way.’

  ‘Much obliged,’ Louisa said, bowing her head slightly, and walking off in the direction the man had pointed.

  Behind her, the stableman said something she couldn’t hear, in a humorous, conspiratorial tone. She’d be sleeping lightly tonight, with her .45 in her hand.

  Walking briskly and avoiding the leering gazes and indecent proposals muttered by the drunken dregs of male humanity loitering upon the boardwalks outside the saloons, Louisa found the Chinaman’s place, Hung Yick’s Food, beside the boarded-up express office. She ordered the pork special with sauerkraut and ate sitting at a corner table at the back of the room, pleased that she was the only customer and that the Chinaman and his pudgy son were either too ignorant of English or too busy cleaning up for closing to engage her in conversation.

  While she ate, she kept a constant eye on the street for Prophet. Not seeing him, she finished her meal, paid for it, and quietly left, resuming her brisk, chin-up pace back to the livery barn.

  She’d have to wait for daylight to find Prophet. Remnants of her bout with terror and loneliness lingered, and she wanted very much to see the sly frontiersman with his easy ways and humorous eyes—in spite of knowing that, as a man, he would eventually disappoint her—but she knew now that it wasn’t to be. He’d probably get to town late tonight and shack up with the first whore he ran into.

  Denying a vague feeling of jealousy, she approached the barn looming darkly against the starry sky. She opened the small door and stepped inside, smelling the ammonia, and felt around for the lantern she’d seen earlier on a post.

  ‘Hello, Little Miss.’

  She stopped and gave a sharp intake of breath, startled. The voice had come from her right. Turning that way, she saw only a vague shadow before a small, sashed window violet with starlight. She’d recognized the stableman’s voice, thick with drink.

  ‘Would you light a lamp, please?’ she said. ‘It’s dark in here.’

  She could hear the man breathing sharply through his nose. He seemed to be hesitating. ‘You said you’d pay extra ... you know ... for housing ye here tonight.’

  Oh, cripes!

  ‘Will fifty cents do?’ she asked with disgust.

  ‘I thought we could work it out another way.’

  Louisa stared through the darkness between them, not so much frightened as revolted. ‘Are you married, sir?’

  Another pause during which she could hear him breathe. ‘What... what’s that got to do with it?’

  She gave a caustic chuff. ‘I’ll give you fifty cents. Take it or leave it.’

  ‘Nan,’ the man said. She heard him move closer.

  ‘Stay away from me,’ she said.

  ‘Listen, Little Miss, I just want one tiny little favor, that’s all. Then I’ll leave ye alone, see?’

  ‘Stop where you are, Mister. I’m warning you.’

  He was close enough to her now that she could smell the sharp tang of the sour mash whiskey on his breath.

  ‘Just one little favor, Miss . ..’

  Holding her ground, Louisa reached for her six-shooter through the fold in her skirt. Raising it and ratcheting back the hammer, she said with disgust, ‘ ‘Pears you’
re in a tolerable stampede to get to hell, sir.’

  Just when she was about to fire, a voice sounded outside. ‘Louisa?’ Short pause. ‘Louisa Bonny-venture— you in there?’

  It was Prophet’s Southern drawl. Louisa’s heart quickened.

  ‘I’m in here, Lou!’

  The small door beside the large ones opened, and for just a second, the outline of a big man in a flat-crowned hat was silhouetted against the more luminous night outside. He stepped to the side, instinctively avoiding targeting himself, and said, ‘Well, why in the hell don’t you have a lamp fired?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask my friend that question.’

  A phosphor flared in Prophet’s hand. He raised it, shedding a gaunt, flickering glow over Louisa, who saw that the stableman had gone. She heard him shuffling around in the tack room—doing what, she had no idea.

  Prophet looked around, then at Louisa. ‘What friend?’

  She’d never been so happy to see a man before in her life. She could have run to him and hugged him. Retaining control, she merely holstered her revolver and shrugged. ‘He must have had some other business to tend to. How did you know I was here?’

  ‘I saw you pass on the street awhile ago. Me and the deputy were at the undertaker’s. I got my horse and followed you.’ He looked around again, the heavy brows under the crown of his weathered hat puckered in a frown. ‘What the hell’s goin’ on?’

  ‘The proprietor of the barn and myself were just discussing terms for sheltering the Morgan and myself.’

  ‘In the dark?’ Prophet had found the lamp on the post. He raised the window and lit the wick.

  ‘Well, after he’d had his fill of the devil’s bile, it seems he decided he wanted—’

  A loud throat-clearing sounded from the tack room, and the stableman appeared, tucking his shirt in his pants. His face was drawn and flushed.

  ‘Now just wait a minute here, Little Miss—I was just funnin’ ye, see?’ He was gazing impatiently at Prophet. ‘Who might you be and what in the hell do you want?’

  Prophet’s eyes dropped to the man’s open fly. Instantly knowing the score, he jerked a wry look at Louisa, then back to the stableman. He chuckled and shook his head. ‘Name’s Prophet. I’d like to stable my horse for the night, and if your fly was a barn door, amigo, all the horses would be headin’ for the Dutch clover by now.’

  Louisa snickered. The man looked down, winced, and turned away as he buttoned his fly.

  Prophet opened the big doors, led Mean and Ugly inside, and told the man to stable the horse with plenty of oats and water, gave him the customary warning about the horse’s predilection for biting and kicking when bored, and turned to Louisa.

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘Where we going?’ she asked, following him northward on Broadway.

  ‘I’m gonna locate the biggest damn steak and bottle of whiskey I can find this time of the night in this backwater hellhole, and you’re gonna tell me what we’re doin’ here.’

  ‘I already ate,’ Louisa said, jogging to keep up with Prophet’s long-legged stride.

  ‘I’ll buy you a sarsaparilla.’

  They walked through ankle-deep mud toward a long tent paralleling the railroad tracks. The tent was lit from within, and the smell of charred beef issued through a tin stovepipe. The silhouettes of reveling men danced behind the canvas.

  Louisa said, ‘Who’s the deputy you mentioned, and what were you two doing at an undertaker’s?’

  Prophet did not reply. Following him into the tent, Louisa stopped by the door and looked around at the dozen or so tables occupied with big, dark, hard-looking men in coveralls and stovepipe boots. They were railroaders, she knew, of just about every nationality you could think of, including Chinamen and Negroes. Probably just getting off the day shift or about to start the night shift. In spite of the grease and sweat stench of the men, the smell of the steaks being grilled over barrels at the back of the tent was heavenly.

  Several men looked at her with surprise and their customary, automatic lust. Wrinkling her nose, Louisa hurried toward Prophet, who’d gotten in line with a tin plate. She followed him, feeling the eyes of the crowd on her. When Prophet had a big T-bone on his plate, smothered with potatoes and onions, he turned to her.

  ‘Sure you don’t want a steak?’

  When she shook her head, he ordered a shot of whiskey and a mug of beer from a wiry, apron-clad Chinaman tending the keg.

  ‘You have sarsaparilla?’ he asked the apron.

  The Chinese looked at him, too puzzled to frown.

  Prophet turned to Louisa. ‘I don’t think they have sarsaparilla. You’ll have to have a beer.’

  ‘I don’t like beer.’

  ‘It ain’t American not to like beer,’ he said. To the Chinaman, he nodded. ‘Give her a beer.’

  They found an unoccupied bench and sat at a table. Prophet wasted no time throwing back the whiskey, then plunking the empty glass down and sawing into the T-bone draped across his plate, buried in the greasy potatoes and fried onions.

  Louisa sipped her beer and made a face. Licking the foam from her mouth, she said, ‘Leave it to men to like such a putrid concoction.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Prophet said with his mouth full.

  Louisa sipped the brew again, not liking the taste any better but not minding the headiness it instantly offered. She admonished herself to go slow, however. She certainly didn’t want to become one of the boisterous apes rousting about the tent, many of whom still watched her, glassy-eyed. One such gent caught her eye, stuck his fat, wet tongue out, and ran it slowly along his mustachioed upper lip.

  Louisa rolled her eyes and looked away.

  ‘Shoot,’ Prophet said between fork loads of food, oblivious to the stares Louisa was getting.

  ‘Huh?’ she said, taking another dainty sip of her beer.

  ‘Tell me what in the hell we’re doin’ here.’

  Above the din, she told him about the Red River Gang’s plans for a raid on Fargo.

  ‘So what are they plannin’ to hit?’ Prophet asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Louisa replied, glancing around the room, absently wondering why God—if there was a God, which she’d seriously come to doubt—had ever come up with the idea for men. ‘I figured we’d find that out once we got here.’

  ‘Any ideas?’

  ‘I got in too late to see much—much of any importance, that is. They must be gonna hit a bank or something. I can’t think of anything else here. As a matter of fact, I can’t think of any reason why anyone would want to come to a town-sized privy like this. Why, if I had my druthers and access to a good wagonload of dynamite, I’d...’

  ‘All right, Miss Bonny-venture—thanks for the commentary. These boys may not look like much at the moment, but they’re what built this country. They and others like ‘em. Breakin’ their backs while their rich employers back East rake in millions while swilling Eye-talian wine and eating duck ala whatever.’

  ‘No wonder everything’s going to hell in a hand basket. Anyway, tell me about the deputy and the undertaker’s.’

  Prophet told her about the three deputy marshals two of the Red River Gang ambushed between Luther Falls and Fargo, and how only one survived.

  ‘His name’s Mcllroy, and we hauled the other two here to town and dropped them off at the undertaker’s before reporting the whole bloody mess to the sheriff. The bodies will ship back to Yankton when the undertaker’s done with them—along with Mcllroy, I hope. He’s still in shock over the whole thing, and he was too young to be sent here, anyway. They all were. I’d like to find the senior marshal that sent them, and thrash the living daylights out of the son of a bitch.’

  ‘Where’s the deputy now?’

  Prophet swallowed a mouthful and washed it down with a long swig of beer. ‘We parted at the undertaker’s. I hope it’s the last I’ve seen of him. I think he headed for a sawbones to get his face cleaned and sewn.’

  ‘Did you tell the sheriff about
the gang?’

  ‘I told him they were in the area. He just shook his head, turned a little peaked, and said he’d put a few more deputies on the streets. I’ll talk to him again in the morning. Maybe he has some idea about what the gang might have targeted here in town.’

  Prophet forked more steak in his mouth and looked at Louisa, who sat staring at her beer, a third of which was gone. Her cheeks were flushed.

  ‘Grows on you, don’t it?’

  ‘It’s awful. I’m just drinking it to be polite.’

  ‘Your manners are right impeccable. How was your trip up from Wahpeton?’

  Louisa shrugged and grinned wistfully. ‘Lovely. And the gang has dwindled by two more.’

  Prophet looked at her with his jaw hanging. ‘How in the hell... ?’

  ‘A lady doesn’t give away her secrets.’

  Prophet sighed, shook his head, finished the last couple bites of food, and drained his beer in a single gulp. ‘Come on,’ he said with a belch, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’

  ‘Wait—I haven’t finished my beer.’

  Prophet got another beer and finished it about the same time Louisa finished hers. Then they got up—Louisa a little unsteadily—and left the tent.

  ‘Where we goin’, anyway?’ Louisa asked him.

  ‘I got a hotel.’

  ‘I don’t waste money on hotels. I’m sleepin’ with my horse.’

  ‘You’re not sleeping with your horse. Besides that, you need a bath. You smell as bad as I do. Come on.’ He tugged on her arm, but she resisted.

  ‘Wait—I need my saddlebags.’

  Prophet looked at her, frowning. ‘I reckon you do,’ he grumbled. ‘All right...’

  When they’d retrieved her saddlebags from the livery barn, where a mild-mannered half-breed Indian sat playing solitaire in the office, they headed for the hotel Prophet had checked into after riding into town earlier.

  They were taking a shortcut between two clapboarded warehouses when two figures appeared at the end of the alley. From their dark outlines, they were big men, and they were holding something in their arms—either guns or clubs.