Prophet glowered at him. To the bounty hunter’s chagrin, the liveryman didn’t know how close to the real story he was. “Just rope my hoss, Roy!”
“Sure, sure,” the older man said, dropping the stick in the grease bucket. “I’ll rope your horse for you, Lou. Wouldn’t want you to get yourself shot. You’re one of my best customers—when you’re flush, that is. Hah!”
He grabbed a lariat off a nail and pushed through a side door into the corral. Finally catching his breath, Prophet turned to stare out the barn doors in the direction from which he’d come.
The sun was just now rising above the horizon, casting long shadows and lemony light along the cobble streets of the growing cow town. All was quiet on the north side of Cherry Creek, save for one of the city’s street urchins hawking the Rocky Mountain News from the corner of the next block over. From his angle, the bounty hunter could make out a corner of the sandstone bulk of the Larimer Hotel. All was quiet even there.
Ominously so . . .
What story was the governor’s daughter, for the benefit of her beau not to mention her precious reputation, telling Finnegan and the other policemen?
The same lie she’d been screaming when Prophet had skinned out the Larimer’s back door, most likely. He supposed he shouldn’t be too hard on the girl. She obviously had desires she couldn’t keep a lid on. Prophet often had the same problem. Clovis’s desires drove her to luring unsuspecting strangers not unlike Prophet himself into her bed.
We all have our quirks, Prophet supposed, but being stricken with such carnal compulsions was no excuse to go screaming “rape” the minute someone found her out, even if it was her jealous betrothed. There was no excuse for that kind of bad behavior. Hell, rape was a hanging offense! What that girl needed was a willow-switch thrashing to her naked backside.
Prophet entertained that satisfying image as, snarling oaths under his breath, he walked back into the barn’s shadows and entered the little room where Stover kept his office, which was nothing more than a cluttered rolltop desk, a cot, a monkey stove beside a coal bunker, and a small iron safe on the floor. Prophet always stowed his gear here when he was in town, as he didn’t cotton to lugging his saddlebags, war bag, blanket roll, sawed-off Richards coach gun, and sheathed Winchester ’73 around the bustling streets of Denver.
Of course, upon arrival, he could always take a hansom cab to a hotel and stow the gear there. But that would have required planning. Prophet was a man who flew by the seat of his pants. He often didn’t know where he’d end up hanging his hat for a night or two until the time came. And when it came, he was more often than not three sheets to the wind and hardly in any condition to care for his gear.
Besides, hauling his trail possibles around all night would have put one hell of a crimp in his spine and made it damn near impossible to enjoy whatever dove he ended up settling in with.
So he always stowed his gear in a corner of Stover’s office, and it was from this corner that he retrieved it all now—saddlebags, rifle scabbard, bedroll wrapped inside his greased-canvas rain slicker, and the Confederate gray war bag he’d owned since he’d signed up to fight with the Old Man. Slinging the Richards over his head and right shoulder by its wide leather cartridge lanyard and resting his rifle on his shoulder, he turned to leave the office, and stopped.
Men were talking out in the barn.
Prophet’s heart hiccupped. He recognized Stover’s raspy wheeze caused by the corncob pipe he always smoked. He also heard the sonorous Irish rhythms of Sergeant Finnegan Walsh!
Blood singing in his ears, Prophet stepped back into the office and drew the door partially closed.
“No, I ain’t seen hide nor hair of that miscreant, Sergeant,” Stover said.
“I thought ole Proph usually stabled his horse with you, Roy,” Walsh returned, the rebuttal tinged with skepticism.
“Not usually, Sarge. Sometimes. When he’s feelin’ partial toward them French girls Ma Anderson has up the creek a ways, he stables that hammerheaded cayuse of his in her stable—you know the one behind her cribs? Ma lets Lou stable that broomtail for free as long as he stays a coupla nights, don’t ya know.”
Prophet imagined the wink Stover sent up to Walsh, who was likely sitting a horse out front of the barn. The bounty hunter could hear several horses snorting and blowing in that direction.
“That’s just fine with me, too,” Stover added. “Proph named that horse right when he named him Mean an’ Ugly. Someone must not’ve told that beast he’s gelded. Whenever he gets in my corral, he stomps around with his tail up, picking fights with any stallion in sight and harassing the mares somethin’ terrible. And you can’t turn your back on him less’n you want him to tear the seam out of your shirtsleeve. Oh, he’s a devil, that one!”
Prophet couldn’t help snorting at the correctness of the liveryman’s observation but he wished to hell the man would stop flapping his lips and send Walsh and the other local constabularies on their way.
“All right, then, Roy-o,” Walsh said, “I’ll leave you to it. We’ll check out Ma Anderson’s place. If you see that catamount, you tell him to turn himself in to me. That’s the only way we’re gonna get this mess cleaned up, and the sooner the better!”
There was the stomp of hooves telling Prophet the policemen were about to ride away, but the stomping stopped when Walsh, to Prophet’s tooth-grinding dismay, said, “Say, what did that rascally ex-reb do, anyways, Sarge?”
Walsh hemmed around for a minute then said, “Let’s just say it’s a little matter concerning the governor’s daughter.”
Prophet heard Stover suck a sharp breath. “Ah, nah—Prophet didn’t walk into her trap, now, too, did he?”
“’Fraid so, and she’s howlin’ up a storm, and the lieutenant govna’s son is, too, which makes this all one hell of a big mess. So, you tell that ugly Southern rebel to haul his arse over to headquarters so we can get the matter cleaned off the books before the newspapers have a heyday with it.”
Hooves thudded.
As the policemen rode away, Walsh must have yelled back over his shoulder, “You tell him the sooner the better, too, Roy-o!”
“I will, Sarge,” Stover called. “You can bet the seed bull on that!”
When the hooves had dwindled to silence, Prophet stepped out of the liveryman’s office, grunting under the weight of his gear as well as the anvil-like heft of his dilemma.
Walsh stood staring out the open barn doors. He turned as Prophet approached and said, “You dunderheaded fool!”
Prophet stopped to scowl at the bearded old-timer sucking once more on his pipe. “She’s done this sorta thing before?”
“Of course she has! Don’t you know that? Hell, most of Denver knows about Miss Clovis’s reputation—everyone but the governor himself, most like! Him and the missus see that hydrophobic polecat of a daughter of theirs with rose-colored glasses. She invites all breed to that room of hers up in the Larimer, and if all don’t go exactly the way she wants, she starts screamin’, ‘Rape! Rape! Oh, he’s rapin’ me! Please help!’
“Last time it was some army lieutenant one of the hotel maids caught her with. She tried that on some poor shotgun rider for the local stage company who didn’t know who she was till he found himself bendin’ her over some rain barrel out behind the hotel, and a coupla drummers happened on ’em an’ recognized Miss Clovis for the governor’s daughter. ‘Rape! Rape! Oh, this ugly cur is trying to have his way with me!’
“That poor fella ended up spendin’ several months in jail, and the lieutenant was court-martialed. Of course, it was all taken care of right quick, without either case ever even goin’ to a jury, and, of course, without the name of the accuser being shared with the newspapers. All so the little miss’s reputation wouldn’t get soiled and the governor and his wife wouldn’t be embarrassed!”
“Well, hell,” Prophet griped, indignant, “why in the hell didn’t you warn me about her, Roy?”
Stover took his pipe in his hand
and opened his mouth in exasperation. “I thought every man within two hundred miles any direction from Denver would have done heard about Miss Clovis and taken heed. Hell, ever’body’s heard about the governor’s daughter—randier’n a she-griz with the springtime craze! Stalks the streets around the stockyards where the gov can’t see, flouncin’ around like an alley cat in heat!”
“Well, I never heard nothin’ about that!”
“Only because you’re a damn fool!” Stover raged, his raspy voice cracking on the high notes.
With a disgusted chuff, Prophet hauled his gear through the side door into the corral. Mean and Ugly stood ground-reined, facing Prophet, an eager look in his dark copper eyes though he was twitching his ears curiously, pondering no doubt the nature of its rider’s argument with the liveryman and likely wondering if the tiff had something to do with what he, Mean and Ugly himself, had done.
Which it usually was only this rare time it was not.
“Besides,” the liveryman said, following Prophet into the corral to continue the squabble, “who in the hell would ever think a reprobate like yourself would ever get that close to a girl like that, anyways?”
Prophet had draped his saddlebags across Mean’s hind end and was now lashing his bedroll to the cantle of his saddle. “Just so happens the governor and his wife invited me to sup with ’em last night.” He gave a curl-lipped jeering glance at Stover, who was bent slightly forward at the waist and pointing the stem of his pipe at Prophet, as though it were a cocked .44. “You ever have the opportunity to sup with the governor, Roy?”
“Pshaw!” Stover said, his ears red with enmity. “Wouldn’t accept such an invitation. What in the hell would I have to talk to the governor about?” His thin brows curved down over dark, withered sockets as he grew fleetingly pensive. “Say, what in the hell did you have to say to him, anyways—an ex-rebel bounty hunter gassin’ with the governor of Colorado? Must have been one hell of a short conversation.”
“Hell, no!” Prophet shoved his rifle down inside his wool-lined saddle sheath strapped over the fender of his right stirrup, butt jutting up within easy reach of a quick grab. “He asked my opinion about several things. Laws and policies an’ such, and he seemed right interested in what I had to say, too. I’d love to tell you all about ’im, Roy, but since you didn’t warn me about his randy polecat of a daughter, I best be on my way before the sergeant heads back in this direction.”
He swung up into the saddle. Stover lifted the loop of rusty wire over the end pole of the corral gate and swung the gate wide. “Damnit, Lou—you best stay away from Denver for a long damn while. If you get caught, it’s gonna be your word against Miss Clovis’s, and I don’t care what kind of a high-up chin session you had with her pa, you’re liable to do some serious time in the state pen . . . you sorry son of a bitch!”
“Ah, hell, I reckon I know that by now.” Prophet felt real regret. He didn’t know what he’d been thinking—accepting that key and tramping off to the girl’s room. The room of the daughter of the governor of Colorado! How was anything good going to come of that?
But then he gave a wry snort, remembering the good that had come of it—at least the good that had come before young Miles Swarthing came knocking . . .
“Damn, she must’ve been a sweet ride,” Stover said, shaking his head as he gazed up at the sheepishly grinning bounty hunter. “You done been run out of Denver, but you’re still lit up like a sunset!”
“I reckon it just hasn’t sunk in yet,” Prophet said, flipping a silver cartwheel to the liveryman for services rendered. “There you are, Roy. Keep the rest. Buy yourself a noon ale over at Paddy St. John’s and bid the fellas a long farewell for me, will you?”
He neck-reined Mean into the street.
“Oh, mule fritters—say, Lou!”
Prophet drew back on Mean’s reins. “I don’t got time to swap any more insults with you, Roy. I—”
Stover held up a white envelope that glowed golden now as the morning’s buttery light hit it. “The postman Ernest Myers brung me this damn near two weeks ago, knowin’ how when you’re in town you usually stable that mean ole hay burner of yours with me. I plumb forgot about it until I rolled out of the hay this mornin’ and seen it on my desk.”
Chapter 4
Prophet looked skeptically at the envelope flopping around in the liveryman’s arthritic brown hand. He didn’t normally get mail. “What is it?”
“What does it look like, ya damn fool—it’s a letter!”
“I can see it’s a—” Prophet cut himself off, casting an anxious gaze in the direction that Walsh and the other policemen had gone, looking for him. “Well—fork it over and I’ll look at it later!”
He snatched the envelope from Stover’s hand, stuffed it into a pocket of his vest, and nudged Mean with his spurs. “See you when I see you again, Roy!”
“Good luck, Lou. Try keepin’ your pecker in your pants for a change!” The man’s voice faded as he added, “You’ll live a lot longer that way!”
Stover laughed as Prophet galloped straight south along a dirt street. It wasn’t long before the stables and ancient, sagging shanties of Denver’s outskirts gave way to rolling, brush-covered prairie. On his right Prophet could see a locomotive chugging on a route parallel to his own, the giant, diamond-shaped black stack issuing a large dark banner of wood smoke trailing off over the tender car and passengers and freight cars rumbling along behind.
Prophet wished he were on that train, heading south toward New Mexico. Then, again, when Walsh realized he’d been led astray, he might figure that Prophet had indeed hopped that very Denver & Rio Grande flier. He might send telegrams southward toward Pueblo and Trinidad, putting the authorities down there on his trail.
The bounty hunter shook his head as Mean lunged through the prairie brush. Another fine fix Prophet was in. This one was even finer than most. He’d been accused of rape by a governor’s daughter. A governor’s daughter! Denver had always been a destination for him when he had no other—a general hub, a home of sorts where he rested up and frolicked between bounty hunting jobs. Now there was no telling when, if ever, he could return.
And in the meantime, his ugly mug would no doubt be plastered across the West on wanted circulars!
As Denver became a smaller and smaller smudge on the prairie behind him, he became more and more aware of the direness of his situation. He was a hunted man, little different from the men he’d made a career of hunting. Also, he had a thousand dollars in his wallet—half of which belonged to Louisa—but would he ever see the Vengeance Queen again? He’d likely have to hole up in the Indian Nations with the other owlhoots on the dodge from the law, or change his name and take up some other occupation. His infamous mug would likely be recognized on the trails he usually haunted.
When he figured he was a good five or six miles south of Denver, Prophet swung north, following what appeared to be an ancient Indian hunting trail meandering across the near-featureless prairie. He rode slumped in the saddle, weary and sad as well as frustrated and angry.
For a brief time he considered riding back to Denver and trying to clear his name with the local police, even if it meant going to trial, but then he realized what would likely happen if he pitted his word against that of the governor’s daughter . . .
Ten or twenty years of hard labor in the Colorado State Pen.
For a crime he hadn’t committed.
As Stephane had said, if anyone had been raped last night, it was him!
But then he realized that self-pity and general moroseness were not going to get him out of his current tight spot. Besides, he had no one else to blame but himself. How long did he think he could keep living the lifestyle he’d been living, hunting badmen for enough money to carouse carelessly to his heart’s delight, before that life would turn into a coiled diamondback and sink its teeth into his backside?
Well, that time had come. The snake had bit him hard. Dark poison surged in his veins. Now he had to c
onfront the cards his own careless betting had dealt him and figure out a new way of life as a wanted man.
Self-pity wasn’t going to help, but he rode for the rest of the day, slumped in the saddle, licking his proverbial wounds. He continued to follow the old Indian trail on its leisurely course generally to the northeast. Having followed such trails many times before, he knew they usually led to rivers. This one would lead to both forks of the Platte. Probably also to the remains of some ancient tipi town. Round indentations in the sod would be all that remained of the hide tents that had been erected to form a hunting camp from which the braves would ride out each day, stalking the buffalo herds that had once blackened this vast, blond, cerulean-capped prairie bordered by the majestic, ermine-tipped Rockies in the west.
Lou Prophet liked it out here. He liked the space and the silence punctuated by the rasping breeze and piping meadowlarks. Maybe he’d put too much stock in stomping with his tail up in towns like Denver, bedding down with questionable women . . . and governors’ daughters. Maybe he was better off out here.
What he didn’t like, however, were the ghosts of the dead that haunted this remote prairie. He was reminded of them when, late in the shadowy afternoon, crossing a dry, shallow gully, he came across several human bones embedded in the sand scalloped by many spring floods.
He recognized one such bone as a human arm to which a few blue wool remnants of a cavalry uniform still clung. A little beyond the gully he found an Indian spear with a moldering gray shaft. A few bits of feather remained attached to the bottom of the shaft, near the obsidian spear point.
Some likely nameless, long-forgotten skirmish had been fought out here many years ago, probably even before the War of Northern Aggression. Due to circumstances that would forever be lost to time, at least one dead from each side had never been recovered. There were many more bones strewn around this slice of the Colorado prairie. Prophet had seen his share. The Utes, Prophet knew, believed that when their dead had not been given a proper send-off to the Land Beyond, the spirits of those dead warriors inhabited living coyotes and gave voice to their grief in the yips and yammers that haunted the western frontier on any given night.
Stagecoach to Purgatory Page 3