The Devil's Lair (A Lou Prophet Western #6) (11 page)

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.

“
Keep moving,” he told Polk and
Carmody riding behind him. “I’ll catch up to you in a few
minutes.”

“
Where you going?” Polk
asked.

Prophet shucked his Winchester
from the boot beneath his thigh and gigged his horse toward the
hillocks rising in the east.
“To get supper,” he said, and spurred the buckskin
into a lope.

Ten minutes later, the posse men heard a
shot. Fifteen minutes after that, hoofbeats sounded behind them.
Turning in their saddles, they saw Prophet approach in the
gloaming, a small muley buck flopping behind his saddle.

He trotted past the long line of riders,
dead and alive. Taking the lead again, he lead them into a cove in
the hills bisected by a shallow stream and flanked with cottonwoods
and willows.

Prophet found a charred fire
ring between the stream
and the trees and a few prints, but he didn’t
think the camp had been used in several days, and then only by
passing drovers.

It would be as good a place as any to
bivouac for the night.

It wasn
’t long before the dead men were laid
out on the gravel along the stream and the horses were picketed on
a long line strung through the trees. The other men built a fire
while Prophet skinned and quartered the deer, and then they had all
four quarters roasting on spits made from green willow
branches.

As the night deepened and the
men ate, there was a festive quality as the day
’s events were recounted in
amazed tones. They were all tired, however—”dead-dog tired,” as
Carmody put it—and not long after they ate, most rolled up in their
soogans near the fire and sent up deep, rumbling snores toward the
stars that hung like Christmas trimmings in the tops of the
cottonwoods.

Prophet kept watch
from two
a.m.
to three, slept for
a few hours, and rolled out of his dew-damp soogan just after the
birds began chirping and the dawn made a milky smudge behind the
eastern rimrocks.

He made enough noise starting a fire and
setting coffee to boil that the others gradually woke, grumbling
against their tight muscles, sore bones, and sun-blistered faces
and necks. They rose, stomped into their boots, rolled and tied
their blankets, and leathered up their horses.

After a quick breakfast of
left-over venison and coffee, the group, including the dead Scanlon
Gang—a little stiffer, more bloated and blood-crusted—was mounted
and riding north through grass that dampened the
horses
’ hocks
and glittered like diamonds as the sun rose.

To Prophet, it was just another
day in the saddle, and he wasn
’t all that eager to return to town. In fact, if
he’d had his own horse and his reward money, he’d have lit a shuck.
The others, however, unaccustomed to having their asses chafed by
saddle leather and roughing it under the stars, were eager for
stiff drinks, hot baths, and soft beds.

No one said much until the mountains and
foothills receded behind them and the roofs and smoke-billowing
chimney pipes of Bitter Creek rose out of the ruffling prairie
grass and wind-blown sage ahead.

“
EEEEEE-howwwwwwwwwr
exclaimed young
Ronnie Williams, holding his “new” Spencer rifle over his head as
he spurred his horse into a lunging gallop over the last rise
toward town. The horses sporting the Scanlon Gang galloped along
behind, the dead men’s heads and legs bobbing stiffly on both sides
of their saddles.

The others perked up then too
and gigged their horses into trots or lopes. Prophet held his own
buckskin to a walk, however, riding easily in the saddle, his
funneled hat brim shading his face. He just
couldn
’t get
his blood up over a town, especially a town he was long past ready
to leave. A nice little box canyon somewhere in the Bitter-roots
sounded better to him about now—complete with a waterfall and good
grass for old Mean and Ugly, fresh antelope or prairie chicken, and
a bottle of Arkansas applejack in his saddlebags.

“
Come on, Mr. Prophet,” yelled
Wallace Polk over his shoulder as he rode away. “We have some
celebrating to do!”

He
’d celebrate, all right—in a dark saloon
corner with a bottle of rye. Then he’d head over to the telegraph
office and see if his money had been wired. If so, he’d buy himself
a bath, a meal, and a tall bottle of Bitter Creek’s best
rye.

He threaded his way through the shanties and
log cabins along the outskirts of the village, then turned onto the
main drag.

While the posse whooped and
hollered out in front of the mercantile, calling for all the saloon
customers and businessmen and ladies to come out and see the cats
they
’d
dragged in, Prophet rode over to the mercantile.

He turned his buckskin over to
the swamper. Then, his shotgun slung over his shoulder and his
Winchester in his
right hand, he walked back to the Mother Lode, hoping to
kind of edge around the crowd and sneak through the batwings
without being seen by the other posse boys.

He wasn
’t in the mood for a celebration.
Killing even horned devils like the Scanlon bunch left him sour,
and he was glad it did. When it didn’t, it’d be time to retire his
Greener and maybe start repairing tinware or shoeing horses for a
living.

“
Someone get the photographer!”
someone called, while the others busied themselves with cutting the
ropes holding the dead Scanlon Gang to their saddles.

The saloon was vacant, everyone
including the apron apparently having gone out to see the dead men.
Prophet helped himself to a beer. He tossed his last nickel onto
the mahogany and took a seat at a table near the back of the room.
He leaned back in his chair, sipped his beer, and looked out the
saloon
’s
dusty window at the crowd gathering around the posse on the
mercantile’s wide loading dock.

The town
’s photographer, in his cheap suit
and bowler, stepped into the street puffing a cheap cigar. He began
setting up his camera, struggling to separate the wooden legs and
get them seated in the wheel ruts.

Meanwhile, Polk, Carmody, and
the other posse men were laying out the dead Scanlon bunch in the
street, on planks propped against the mercantile
’s loading dock. The posse men
were talking like Romans at a lion social, while the onlookers and
listeners exclaimed and shook their heads with interest.

Prophet sipped his beer and smiled.

Let them have their fun. After all, the
Scanlons were a sizable gang out of their hair. One big pain in the
ass, gone. Maybe now the town could hire a marshal and a new deputy
and get back to normal.

Prophet ran a thumbnail through
the beard stubbling his jaw, remembering his curious conversation
with Whitman
the day before he’d died. The lawman had alluded to dark
trouble in Bitter Creek. Could he have meant the Scanlon Gang ...
or something even darker?

Prophet shook away the thought and sipped
his beer. Whatever the marshal had meant, it was of no concern to
Prophet. He kicked a chair out and was propping both feet on it
when young Ronnie Williams, Wallace Polk, and Ralph Carmody crossed
the street to the saloon. Carmody rose up on the toes of his dusty,
black shoes and stuck his pie-shaped, sunburned face over the
batwings, squinting into the shadows at the back of the room.

“
Ah, I thought we’d find you
here, Mr. Prophet.” The banker jerked his head, a beckoning
gesture. “Come on out and get your picture taken with the
Scanlons!”

“
You boys go ahead.”

“
Nonsense, Mr. Prophet,” objected
Polk, who pushed past Carmody and shoved through the doors. He
crossed the saloon, weaving through the tables upon which a few
half-empty beer and whiskey glasses sat. Ronnie and Carmody
followed, all three making a beeline for Prophet’s
table.

“
Boys, I don’t like gettin’ my
picture taken,” Prophet objected, grimacing as the others
surrounded him. “It’s kinda like the Injuns see it—I’m afraid that
box’ll take my soul. And since the devil already has
it...”

“
Oh, don’t be a spoilsport, Lou!”
young Ronnie cried, tugging on Prophet’s right arm while Polk
tugged on the left.

“
All right, all
right...”

Prophet didn
’t have the energy or the heart
to resist. He knew these men wanted their own pictures taken for
posterity but would have felt foolish if he—the man who’d taken
down most of the gang—didn’t get his taken too. Wearily and feeling
embarrassed about the whole thing, the bounty hunter got up and
allowed himself to be led across the floor, through the doors, and
onto the street.

He was jerked through the crowd and up the
steps to the loading dock. The rest of the posse was already
hunkered? down on their haunches, above the dead gang members
propped on the boards.

The posse men all had their
pistols and rifles out,
held across their knees or over their chests as
they stared steely-eyed at the box camera set up in the street,
though the photographer hadn’t even gone under the curtain
yet.

“
Oh, for chrissakes,” Prophet
muttered.

A few seconds later, he found
himself hunkered down, in the middle of the group, half the posse
on one side, half on the other. Ronnie knelt beside him, holding
the Sharps between his knees. Ralph Carmody crouched behind the
group, his head just behind and above Prophet
’s. He wasn’t holding his
six-shooter, but he’d folded his coat back to display it
prominently on his right hip.

“
Get your gun out, Proph,” Ronnie
said.

Prophet was staring at the
camera like it was about to fire minie balls.
“What?”

“
Swing your barn-blaster around
to the front, so the camera sees it. You gotta look
tough.”

“
That’s all right, kid,” Prophet
said, smiling woodenly as he faced the box. “You look tough enough
for both of us.”

The photographer waved all the kids and dogs
away from the shot, then ducked behind the camera while the crowd,
standing in two wedges on either side of him, watched.

Prophet saw an attractive young lady in a
black bodice and see-through wrapper eyeing him admiringly. It made
him feel self-conscious, but also heavy down in his loins. It also
made him raise his chin a little higher and gather a little steel
in his gaze as he stared hard at the camera.

“
All right, steady now, boys ...
steady ...” the photographer admonished from under the black wool
curtain. “Steady now ... steady ...” Prophet stared so hard his
eyes watered. He blinked at the same time the camera
popped and flashed.
And then all the posse members stood, several clapping him on the
back and leading him back down to the street.

“
Come on, Proph, the drinks are
on us!” Carmody insisted. “A thing like this—wipin’ out the whole
Scanlon Gang only a few days after blowing the Thorson-Mahoney
bunch back to hell where they came from—why, that’s cause for
celebration indeed. And believe you me, mister, you won’t be buyin’
one solitary drink tonight!”

Prophet
couldn
’t
argue with that. He was out of money, at least until he could get
over to the telegraph office. He’d seen the depot master in the
crowd, looking pleased as punch at the dead Scanlons, but he hadn’t
found the opportunity to inquire about the reward bounty. He’d have
a few drinks with the boys, then head that way…

He and the others were stepping through the
batwings when the good-looking girl Prophet had seen in the crowd
stepped up to him. The crowd stopped for her, as did Prophet.

She was a short but long-waisted blonde with
blue and green feathers in her hair and with a shape that would
have stopped a cavvy of galloping broncs in mid-stride.
Powder-white breasts spilled out of her black bodice like twin
scoops of ice cream, mercifully drawing the eye from her rather
heavy-handed face paint.

Her head barely rising to his
chest, she looked up at him wistfully.
“So you’re the gent that took down
the Scanlons?”

Prophet
’s ears warmed. He shrugged and was
glad to have Ralph Carmody answer for him. “He certainly was, Miss
Janice. This is the famous bounty hunter, Lou Prophet, who’s taken
down not only one but two gangs in only a few days!”