Riding With the Devil's Mistress (Lou Prophet Western #3) (18 page)

Taber and Silver walked to
their own mounts tied to the hitch rack around the corner, and
climbed into the leather. They moved deliberately, not in any
hurry. They didn
’t want the lawmen to know they were being
trailed.

An hour later, when they were
about eight miles northwest of Luther Falls, Taber glanced at
Silver, forming a gap-toothed grin.
‘What do you say, Billy? Circle around
‘em, set up an ambush?’

The Indian
didn
’t say
anything. He just gigged his horse to the right of the oxcart trail
they were following and spurred him into a gallop.

‘
Well,
goddamnit... wait for me, ye crazy Injun!’

UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES,
Prophet would have turned Carlton Mack
’s possessions over to the local law.
But since the sheriff was dead and the office hadn’t yet been
filled, Prophet stopped at the school and gave the horse to a
scrawny lad with a club foot. He gave the rifle and pistol to the
two oldest boys, then turned to leave, offering a wink to the
pretty teacher, whose spelling lesson he’d interrupted and who
regarded him with a wistful glimmer beneath mock-stern
brows.

He gigged Mean and Ugly north
of town, giving the horse his head, for he wanted to make it to
Fargo before dark. Following the fresh hoof prints in one of the
several oxcart trails that lead out of Luther Falls,
he
’d
traveled about eight miles when he stopped suddenly, hearing
gunfire.

Pricking his ears and gazing
across the prairie before him, he could tell the shots originated
from dead ahead. His first thought was of a stage holdup, but
scouring the ground with his eyes, he saw no fresh tracks of the
kind made by steel-rimmed wheels. There were the light, neat
tracks of a
slow-moving farm wagon, and those of several horses. But no stage.
The shots weren’t those of hunters, either, for there were too many
rounds fired too quickly, with a definite air of anger and
aggression.

Curious and cautious, Prophet
gigged his horse ahead, scowling over the
line-back
’s
ears. At length, several smoke puffs appeared above the tawny grass
straight ahead of him. He moved Ugly to the right of the trail,
heading due north, splashing through a slough. After a couple
hundred yards, he swung west again, intending to stay outside of
firing range.

When he figured he was close enough to the
shooters to glass them without getting shot, he dismounted, grabbed
his field glasses, and peered southwest. Focusing the instrument,
he brought two groups of shooters out of the prairie. One was
hunkered down in the trees lining a stream bed. The other lay about
fifty yards straight east of the stream, on the trail meandering
across the naked prairie, with not a tree or rock for cover.

The second group appeared to involve three
men firing over the tops of their dead horses. Two were spread
about ten yards apart. The third lay about twenty yards behind and
north.

Watching for several minutes, Prophet
concluded there were two men in the trees, and that they must have
bushwhacked the other three. One of the three appeared to lie dead
behind his dead horse. As Prophet watched, another took a bullet in
his shoulder and slumped down behind his saddle. As the man twisted
around to lie on his side, the sun winked off something on his
shirt.

Prophet glassed the man
thoroughly, and cursed. Sure enough, it was deputy Montgomery. The
other two were Fontana and Mcllroy. What was left of them, that
was. Whoever was in the trees—and who else could it be but members
of the Red River Gang?—had drygulched them. Mcllroy was the only
deputy still returning fire, with only
his six-shooter. It appeared his
horse had fallen on his rifle.

It wouldn
’t be long before he ran out of
shells or the two in the trees surrounded him and turned him into a
sieve....

‘
Kids,’ Prophet groused, replacing the glasses in his
saddlebags.

Mounting up, he rode another
hundred yards north, so the men in the trees
wouldn
’t see
him, then swung back west. Riding hard, he splashed across the
stream and traced a broad arc around the two drygulchers in the
trees. When he figured he was about a half mile straight west of
the drygulchers, he found what passed for a hollow in this
godforsaken pancake land, and hobbled his horse.

Then he grabbed his rifle and
began running back toward the stream defined by the line of gray
trees chaperoning it across the prairie. He didn
’t run far, however, for gopher
holes had pitted the ground, threatening a broken ankle.

Walking fast, with an eye on the trees, from
which sporadic gunfire still resounded, he made the grove and
crouched behind a box elder, staring westward through the branches.
As he looked around through the shady grove, he realized the
gunfire had stopped. From far ahead came the wan sound of
laughter.

Clutching his rifle before him,
Prophet made his way through the trees, ducking under branches and
trying as best he could to avoid those on the ground. When the
light at the other side of the trees grew more distinct between the
trunks and branches, he paused, looking around warily, to make sure
a trap had not been set for him. One or both of the drygulchers
could have seen him when he
’d ridden in from the east. Savvy to his plan,
they could be waiting for him, having done away with all three
deputies.

Then more laughter rose from
dead ahead, negating the speculation. Prophet heard what sounded
like an Indian
war whoop, rippling cold reticence along his spine and
pricking the hair between his shoulder blades. Moving quickly
forward, he came to the edge of the woods, then crouched behind the
bole of a tree and stared out on the prairie beyond.

The three dead horses lay fifty
yards out. Deputy
Fontana lay with the horse farthest on Prophet’s right,
both dead. But near the middle horse, all hell was taking
place.

One of the deputies—Montgomery,
it appeared—was on his knees. His shoulder and arm were covered
with blood. His hat was off, and his face was bloody as well, as
though he
’d
been slashed with a knife. A short, stocky, dark-skinned man with
long black hair was dancing some bizarre Indian dance around him,
screeching and hooting like a devil.

About twenty yards to the
north, a big white man in a buffalo coat and wool cap was jerking
Deputy Mcllroy to his knees and pistol-whipping the lad. The
deputy
’s
face was a dark-red oval, except for his teeth, which glistened
whitely through a grimace.

‘
There
you go, marshal-boy—how’s that one feel?’ the big man bellowed as
he let Mcllroy have it again with his pistol barrel.

Mcllroy gave a cry as he fell sideways. Then
the big man reached down and, grabbing his shirt collar, jerked him
back to his knees.

Meanwhile, the Indian was still howling and
dancing around Montgomery, who knelt in the grass with his head
lolling back on his shoulders.

Cursing under his breath, Prophet raised his
rifle to his shoulder. He planted the bead on the big man, but just
as he did so, the man bent suddenly and jerked Mcllroy to his feet
again, placing the deputy between Prophet and himself.

His effort thwarted, Prophet winced and
dropped his rifle barrel. He turned to the Indian, hoping for a
better shot.

He had not yet brought the
rifle to his shoulder when the Indian suddenly lunged at
Montgomery, straddling the deputy
’s back and jerking the deputy’s head up
with a fistful of hair. With two quick, smooth motions, he ran the
blade of a big knife across the young deputy’s throat, then scalped
the lad, blood flying as though splashed from a barrel.

Dead, the deputy slumped to the
ground while the Indian raised the lad
’s bloody scalp in the air, giving a
shrill, red-faced victory shriek.

His face bunching with
exasperation, Prophet planted his rifle bead on the
Indian
’s
forehead, muttering, ‘Why, you murdering son of a bitch!’ and
pulled the trigger. The Indian gave a start and shuffled backward,
his hand coming down and releasing the scalp. His other hand rose
to his face, weakly searching for the neat hole Prophet had drilled
through his cheek, just below his left eye. Then the savage
shuffled farther backward, stumbled, and fell on his ass with a
grunt.

Prophet turned the rifle on the
other man, whose head was whipping around in shock, trying to
figure out who had shot his compadre. He clutched young Mcllroy
before him,
shield like, so Prophet couldn’t get a decent
shot.

The man backed up, a fistful of
the sagging deputy
’s collar in his hand, and stared savagely at Prophet, whom
he’d picked out of the trees at the edge of the grove. Bringing his
pistol to the deputy’s head, he shouted, ‘I’ll kill
him!’

Prophet knew he would. He also
knew he didn
’t have any time to spare. He brought the gun up, trying to
find a shot that wouldn’t take out young Mcllroy. But then the
young deputy gave a sudden yell, and plunged to his knees, leaving
the big man open.

Prophet fired once, taking the
man through the chest. He jacked and fired again, drilling another
hole through the man
’s throat, then another through his head. Wailing and
shooting his pistol in the air, the man backed up and fell to his
knees. He fired one more shot into the ground, then sighed heavily
and collapsed on his face.

Prophet lowered the Winchester and stepped
out of the trees, looking carefully around to make sure no more
gunmen were about. When he was relatively sure the two drygulchers
had acted alone, he walked over to Mcllroy, who cursed and sobbed
as he climbed unsteadily to his feet. His face was bruised and
bloody from the pistol-whipping, and his sweat-soaked, orange hair
lay matted to his head. Confused and unnerved, he scoured the
ground with his eyes as though looking for something, muttering
curses all the while.

‘
Easy,
son,’ Prophet said.

The lad whipped his head
around, looking at Prophet as though startled. Finding the bounty
hunter, the red-haired deputy
’s blue eyes narrowed with recognition.
‘You.’

‘
Sit
down. You need tendin’.’

‘
Those
sons o’ bitches killed my partners.’ He resumed his reckless
search, nearly stumbling over the hooves of his fallen
horse.

When he found what he was
looking for, he stooped to retrieve his silver-plated Colt
‘Storekeeper’
six-shooter. Straightening, he aimed the short-barreled pistol at
the dead man on the ground and tried to fire, but the gun was
empty. The lad sobbed hoarsely from deep in his chest, big tears
rolling down his blood-smeared, freckled cheeks.

‘
Here,’ Prophet said, offering his own Peacemaker butt
first.

The deputy took the gun and
fired three rounds into the big man
’s forehead. Then he walked over and
emptied the gun into the Indian. He backed up three steps, gazing
at the carnage all around him—at his fallen comrades—and dropped to
his knees, his face chalky and expressionless. His head hung, his
chin to his chest.

He looked so much like a
war-addled soldier that Prophet wanted to weep. Instead, he found a
canteen that hadn
’t been smashed by a fallen horse, and dropped it beside
the lad. ‘Here you go, son. Have you some water. I’m gonna fetch my
horse, find one for you, and be back in a few minutes.’

The deputy did not reply.

Prophet walked back through the
trees, retrieved Mean and Ugly, then found the
gang-members
’ two horses tethered in the trees, and returned to the
scene of the slaughter. Mcllroy was swabbing his face with a
handkerchief he’d soaked from the canteen. Flies whirred around the
blood-soaked bodies of the dead men and horses.

‘
You
can ride one of these two horses,’ he told the deputy. ‘We’ll lay
your friends over the other and take them to Fargo, ship them back
to Yankton on the train.’

Grimly, the young man nodded.
He glanced at Montgomery, winced, appeared about to tear up again,
then checked himself, and resumed swabbing his face from the
canteen. Meanwhile, Prophet hefted the dead men over the back of an
Appaloosa, covered them with the outlaws
’ bedrolls, and secured them with
rope.

When he was finished, he
offered the reins of the second outlaw horse, a mouse-brown
gelding, to Mcllroy, who climbed wearily to his feet and silently
accepted. Just as silently, he climbed into the saddle, grunting as
though, in the last hour, he
’d aged fifty years and grown a ton.

Prophet in the lead and trailing the pack
horse, they headed northwest on the oxcart trail, and the wily
bounty hunter kept his eyes skinned for another possible ambush. He
doubted it would happen—if the gang leader had sent more than two
men after him or the marshals or whoever in hell they were after,
they all would more than likely have been at the stream—but it was
better to err on the side of caution.