The Devil's Lair (A Lou Prophet Western #6) (10 page)

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.

“
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 barrel. 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 Sam
’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.