The killers’ bullets plunked into the rocks and shrubs around him, twanging and clanging with the ricochets.
Meanwhile, as Prophet hopped and fired, hopped and fired, his fellow posse members from the ridge to his left began triggering their own rifles, as did Polk and Ronnie on the ridge behind and above him. From what he could tell as he skipped around the buzzing bullets and took hasty aim from his shoulder, only Ronnie actually hit any of the outlaws. He put one bullet through a man’s right eye, dropping him like a tin can from a fence post.
As the man fell into the arroyo at the base of the cottonwoods, Ronnie gave a victorious whoop, his jubilant cries echoing above the intermittent cracks of the rifle fire.
“Don’t get cocky, kid,” Prophet muttered as he hurdled a shrub at the base of the slope. He ran twenty yards, leapt over one of the dead killers, saw another owlhoot dart out from behind a stunt pine and run toward a boulder.
Prophet stopped and fired two quick shots from the hip. The killer, a man with red hair hanging to his shoulders and clad in a tattered deer-hide vest and battered hat, dropped to a knee, clutching his left side.
He tried bringing up his big Yellowboy repeater. Guessing he’d fired all the rounds in his Winchester, Prophet took the rifle in his left hand, grabbed his Colt .45, and shot the man through the forehead.
He went over with a groan, dropping the Yellowboy and flopping around on his back for ten seconds before he wound down like a child’s toy and died.
Crouching, pistol extended before him, Prophet made several slow circles, looking around for the next onslaught.
No more men ran toward him shooting, however. Several lay dead and bleeding, one hanging over a hawthorn shrub, blood pouring from the bullet wound in his chest and from the many small puncture wounds made by the shrub’s stiletto-like thorns.
Someone was groaning and cursing just south of him. He walked that way, threading around the shrubs and cedars, until he saw the man. He was dark-haired, with an unshaven, handsome face, tall and lean, wearing black denims and a white pinstriped shirt and suspenders. He wore two holsters on his hips, positioned for the cross-draw, but only one still held a gun—a pearl-gripped Remington.
Rolling on his back, he clutched his wounded right knee and turned his dimpled chin to Prophet, screaming, “My knee! Oh, Christ, my knee! Jesus, it hurts!”
“I reckon it would,” Prophet said, glancing around to see if any more killers lurked nearby.
The brush was quiet. The bounty hunter walked over to the wounded youngster and stared down without mercy. He leaned down, grabbed the Remington from the kid’s holster, used its barrel to poke his hat back on his head, and clucked his tongue. “Yeah, I bet that hurts like hell.”
Hearing footsteps from both the west and the north, he swept his gaze that way. His fellow posse men were jogging this way, holding their rifles up defensively, gazing around at the killers lying twisted and dead over rocks and shrubs, attracting flies.
“Well, well, well,” the banker, Carmody, exclaimed as he approached, glaring down at the knee-shot youngster. “Young Rick sure don’t look very dangerous now, does he?”
“I’ll say he don’t!” the lumberman, Milt Emory, said with a nervous chuckle. “None o’ these boys do!”
“Goddamnit!” Rick Scanlon exclaimed through gritted teeth, clutching his bloody knee. “For the love o’ Christ— help me!”
“Yeah, we’ll help you, all right,” Carmody said. “We’ll help you the same way you and your old man helped Marshal Whitman and young Eddie last night.” He looked at the other men. “Someone get a rope!”
“No ,” Prophet said. “There ain’t gonna be no hangin’.”
Carmody and the others looked incredulous.
“What on earth are you talking about?” the banker exclaimed. “There’s absolutely no doubt him and these others played cat’s cradle with Whitman and young Eddie’s necks! I don’t much care about Whitman, but Eddie—”
One of the other posse members coughed loudly, cutting the banker off. Curious, Prophet frowned and turned to the man, who averted his gaze and feigned a yawn. Prophet wondered what Carmody hadn’t liked about Whitman, but there was no time to pursue the matter.
Prophet returned his gaze to the banker and shook his head. “No Judge Lynch. That ain’t the way I work.”
He might have skirted around the edges of the law at times, but there were certain lines he did not cross. In his line of work, the area between good and evil was just too gray. If you didn’t want to become as bad as the men you hunted, you had to follow a strict set of rules—including the one that said you never killed except in self-defense. Even when an outlaw was wanted dead or alive, or was as vile as Rick Scanlon.
Carmody chuffed and shook his head while Rick Scanlon begged for help.
“You’ll get help when we get back to Bitter Creek,” Prophet told the outlaw. “If you don’t bleed dry by then.”
He knelt down and was about to remove his neckerchief to use as a tourniquet when young Ronnie walked in from the north. “Hey, Mister... I mean, Proph—I looked over all these dead men, and I don’t see old Sam nowhere.”
“Me neither,” Polk said, stepping between two cedars as he approached from the east. He was breathing hard, enervated from the gunplay, as were the others. “You said there were nine sets of horse tracks, right? Well, there’s eight men here, Mr. Prophet, and none of ’em is old Sam.”
Prophet straightened and looked around, one hand on the butt of his .45, silently chastising himself. He should have counted the dead men, made sure all nine riders had been accounted for. Such sloppiness was a good way to get yourself greased.
Chapter Eight
“Everyone, fan out and keep your eyes peeled,” Prophet ordered.
He drew his gun and looked around once more, then knelt beside Rick Scanlon, who was sitting on his butt now and breathing hard, red-faced, through his teeth. “Where’s your old man, boy?” Prophet asked him.
“Go diddle yourself!”
Prophet thrust the pistol at the younker’s face with his right hand and grabbed the heel of the kid’s right foot with the other. He gave the foot a jerk.
The kid screamed and pointed. “Over the hill... he stayed there!”
“Why’d he stay there?” Prophet asked, tugging on the foot again, causing more blood to ooze from the wounded knee.
The kid gave another yell. “He didn’t think... he didn’t think you’d be all that trail-savvy.”
When the kid had started yelling, several of the other posse men had returned, running to see what was going on. Sorley Kitchen chuckled without mirth and stuck his chest out as he stepped up to the miserable Scanlon. “I guess we weren’t so easy as you thought, huh?”
The kid just cursed and groaned in response, rolling onto his back, his knee in the air.
“You men stay here,” Prophet told the others, retrieving his Winchester from the tree he’d leaned it against. Alone, he had a better chance of sneaking up on the killer gang’s leader. “I’m gonna see about old Sam.”
He started away but stopped when young Ronnie touched his arm. “Can I come?”
Prophet started shaking his head, but then he saw the beseeching look in the kid’s wide-eyed gaze. He grunted and threw up a hand. Glancing at the others as he and Ronnie started away, he said, “No lynching parties—understand?”
Carmody and the others scowled like schoolboys relieved of their snake collection. Wishing like hell he had his reward money and could just ride away from these yahoos, Prophet turned and walked through the rabbit brush, the kid following close on his heels, clutching his rifle eagerly across his chest.
“Did you see that shot I made, Proph?” Ronnie whispered as they rounded an ancient lightning-split cottonwood.
“Yeah, I seen it. You done good, kid, but don’t let the blood taste get in your mouth.”
The bounty hunter stopped, hunkered down on his haunches, holding the Winchester butt-down by the ba
rrel. He looked around, watching and listening, staring at the hill rising ahead and slightly left, where he’d first seen the sun flashes marking the killers’ intended drygulching nest.
When he neither heard nor saw anything but mountain quail piping and a big jackrabbit leaping over a juniper off to his right, he wondered if old Scanlon had lit a shuck out of here. He gestured with his left hand.
“Ronnie, you head that way around the hill. I’ll move around to the right. I’ll meet you on the other side “
“You got it, Proph.”
When the kid had drifted off, Prophet walked around the right side of the hill until pine smoke tickled his nostrils. He paused, listening, then moved ahead until he saw the smoke curling up from a small ring of rocks.
To his right, nine horses had been hobbled in a lush stand of bunchgrass growing around a spring. They were unsaddled. The tack lay in neat piles near the fire. Spying movement ahead of him and left, Prophet lifted his gaze to see Ronnie moving toward the ring, his old Spencer held out before him, his longish hair blowing back from his shoulders.
On a rock in the dying fire before him, a beat-up percolator grumbled like an empty stomach.
Prophet had taken two slow steps forward when young Ronnie yelled, “Proph—drop!”
Dusting outlaw trails had honed Prophet’s reactions to a razor edge. He dropped to his knees and was throwing himself forward when, from the upper edge of his vision, he saw young Williams raise his old Spencer and fire.
Behind Prophet, a man groaned. The bounty hunter turned on a shoulder and extended his rifle. Sam Scanlon stumbled backward, dropping his Winchester and falling to his right knee. His left hand clutched his bloody right shoulder.
He was a big bearded man in patched buckskins, wearing a battered hat over graying, curly red hair. His pointed chin wore a twisted, white scar. His brown eyes flared holy fire.
“Who the hell are you boys?” he snarled, foam flecking the fur around his mouth.
Prophet glanced at Ronnie. Excitement shone in the kid’s eyes as he held his smoking Spencer on Scanlon. “Thanks, boy.”
The kid said nothing. His chest rose and fell heavily; he ran his tongue over his lips.
Prophet got up and removed Scanlon’s two pistols from their holsters, his bowie knife from the beaded sheath at his back. “This boy who just gave you some ventilation is Ronnie Williams. I’m Lou Prophet. We’re members of the posse that just put your gang in the obituary column—all but your boy, that is. Poor Rick’s in a bad way, though. You better come with me.”
Behind Prophet, Ronnie chuckled.
Prophet tossed the old outlaw’s pistols and knife onto the ground near Ronnie. “Present from Scanlon, kid.” Gesturing to indicate the rifle leaning against a nearby tree, he added, “That Sharps over there looks right nice as well.”
Ronnie glanced at the weapons. He looked at Prophet, jaw hanging. “C-can I have those, do you think?”
“This old bastard ain’t gonna have any more use for ’em. Not where he’s goin’.”
“Holy shit!” Ronnie said.
As the kid bolted for the Sharps, the old man climbed slowly to his feet, grunting. In spite of his wounded shoulder, he swung sharply toward Prophet, bringing a right-fisted haymaker up from his feet. He yelled like a warlock loosed from hell.
The bullet had slowed him, however; he was more bark than bite. Prophet stepped back, easily avoiding the wounded man’s punch. As Scanlon stumbled past Prophet’s right shoulder, the bounty hunter jerked the butt of his Winchester up and connected it smartly with the side of the outlaw’s head.
Scanlon staggered and fell, clutching his torn ear.
He grunted and cursed, regarding Prophet with fury in his dung-brown eyes. “I’m gonna kill you for that!”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Prophet said mildly. Then, with more venom, he said, “You got two horses to saddle—one for you, one for your boy. Best get a move on. You got ten minutes. If they aren’t saddled by then, I’m gonna let the kid sight in his new rifle on your knees.”
When Scanlon had both horses saddled ten minutes later—a blue roan and a wild-eyed paint—Prophet made him lead both mounts by the reins as the three men headed east around the hill.
Prophet walked to Scanlon’s left, the boy slightly behind, admiring his new Sharps but berating Scanlon for letting sand get into the breech and for the scratches on the forestock. Scanlon cursed the kid without turning to face him.
“Pa!” Rick Scanlon cried when Prophet, the elder Scanlon, and Ronnie appeared around a cedar, the two horses walking side by side behind. “Jesus ... goddamnit, Pa!” young Scanlon wailed. “That son of a bitch put a bullet in my knee!”
Carmody and the other posse men had laid out the seven dead outlaws in a line and were sitting or standing around, smoking cigars and admiring their trophies.
“How’d these two bastards know where to find me so fast?” the elder Scanlon asked his progeny, who now sat with his back to a tree, both legs extended, clutching the bloody knee, which no one had yet bandaged.
The kid scrunched his eyes and stared at his father, befuddled.
“Oh, he told us right off,” Prophet said, grabbing the canteen looped over the paint’s saddle horn. “As soon as I gave his leg a little tug.” He popped the cork and drank.
Scanlon curled his lip and stared at his boy, who stared back at him, fearful, sheepish.
“After all I done fer you?” Scanlon raked out, showing the few stained teeth left in his jaws.
“Ah, come on, Pa,” Rick Scanlon beseeched. “They woulda found you. This knee o’ mine—goddamn if it don’t hurt worse than anything I ever had to endure before in my life!”
“Shut up, you damn sissy!” Sam Scanlon ordered his son. “You want these men to think you’re a damn Nancy-boy?”
“Don’t look to me like he was worth hanging two lawmen, Sam,” Ralph Carmody said snidely. “Why, that’s what he is exactly—a damn faggot!”
“All right, all right,” Prophet said, stepping between the men. To Carmody and the others he said, “Can you boys help the wounded youngster there onto his horse while I take a piss? We can probably get several miles back to town before sunset, but I ain’t goin’ anywhere till I empty my bladder.”
Prophet had a good stream going on the other side of the horses, when a sudden gunshot cut the air and made the horses leap.
Peacemaker in hand and fumbling his dong back into his pants, Prophet was running around the rear of the horses when another gun barked—this one a big-caliber rifle— and Sam Scanlon stood up straight. The old outlaw stumbled back against a small cottonwood. Prophet saw that he had a pistol in his hand.
Scanlon dropped the pistol as he stood there against the tree for several seconds, shaking and jerking. Then he dropped to his knees and fell forward onto his chest, revealing the fact that the back of his head had been blown out when the rifle slug had exploded inside his skull.
Raking his eyes around the shaggy circle of posse men, Prophet saw Rick Scanlon lying at young Ronnie’s feet. He was no longer sighing or cursing from the pain in his knee. The bullet in his forehead, right between his beady eyes, had ended all that.
“H-his old man grabbed Mr. Carmody’s gun,” Ronnie said defensively, wide-eyed from shock. “He shot Rick. He was gonna shoot me next... and then I shot the old man.”
Prophet saw smoke curling from the barrel of the Sharps .56, which Ronnie held in his hands. Ronnie looked at the damage the big rifle had done to old Sam’s head.
It was mostly just a pile of blood, brain matter, and broken bone. It resembled a shattered clay pot spilling Indian stew. The liver-colored blood glistened as the late-afternoon sun found it.
Ronnie made a choking sound, then turned, dropped to his knees, and vomited. Almost immediately, three or four of the other posse men were voiding their paunches as well.
Carmody held a handkerchief over his mouth as he bent to retrieve his long-barreled Smith & Wesson from Sa
m’s fingers.
Prophet inspected the scene grimly and shook his head. “I reckon y’all won’t be up for liver stew tonight.”
Prophet suggested he and the other posse members bury the bodies of the Scanlon Gang and throw a few rocks over the graves. But Ralph Carmody and the others insisted they tie the dead men to their horses and trail them all back to Bitter Creek, so that Fianna Whitman could have the satisfaction of seeing the bullet-riddled corpses of the men who’d killed her father.
“I have to agree with Ralph,” Polk said. “She and all the other citizens should see with their own eyes that the miserable Scanlon bunch is at last out of commission for good.”
“Probably help them all sleep better,” someone else suggested.
Prophet knew that the men’s reasons for trailing the bodies back to Bitter Creek had as much to do with gloating as with pacifying their fellow citizens, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. Hoisting the bloody bodies across their mounts and then tying them down so they wouldn’t fall off seemed like a lot of unnecessary work, but hell, if they wanted to do it, so be it. Maybe they were right—maybe the law-abiding people of Bitter Creek did deserve to see what had happened to their lawmen’s killers.
More importantly, maybe the spectacle would set an example for others with similar inclinations.
It took a good hour to gather all the horses and bodies and get the posse mounted and on the trail again. It was a slow-moving procession, with Prophet leading the posse back north along the canyon toward the tableland.
The stiffening dead men lay over their saddles, their horses tied tail to tail. The kid, Ronnie, held the reins of the lead horse in his right hand as he rode drag, trailing his grim cargo of dead men tied to the saddles of horses made jittery by the blood smells.
They’d ridden barely an hour and a half before the sun slipped beneath the purple western ridges, and the shadows tumbled down from the canyon’s rocky peaks, cooling the air. Swifts and swallows hunted, their wings flashing like small-caliber pistols along the canyon’s rim.
Prophet saw several small herds of mule deer foraging along the tawny hillocks at the base of the canyon’s gradually rising walls.
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