The Devil's Lair (A Lou Prophet Western #6) (16 page)

Frieda appeared behind him, clad
in a checked robe and
wielding an iron fry pan. “Take that, you crazy
pup!” she cried and swung the pan forward, connecting solidly with
the back of the kid’s head.

Prophet winced as the young man fell
face-forward on the wet puncheons, out like a blown candle.

The door to
Prophet
’s
right opened suddenly. Prophet turned to see another kid, around
sixteen, bolt forward with an old .38 held before him. Seeing his
comatose partner on the other side of the tub, the kid froze and
stared.

“
Leo!” he screamed.

“
Hold it right there, kid,”
Prophet said, standing and bringing his .45 to bear on the
youngster.

The kid turned to see the tall,
naked bounty hunter standing before the stove. The
kid
’s eyes
found the .45’s yawning maw.

His hand opened and his .38
dropped to the floorboards. The kid stumbled back, arms spread and
eyes wide, as though he
’d just stepped on a coiled rattler.

Then he stood there, shivering,
face bleaching, staring at Prophet
’s .45. Piss dribbled down his leg to
puddle around the soles of his frayed brogans.

Prophet had just held up his left hand to
calm the kid when the youngster gave another shrill cry, turned,
and bolted out the door. Prophet stepped to the door and looked
out. The kid was running straight out through the weeds behind the
cafe, toward the willows and cottonwoods lining the distant
ravine.

The kid ran hard, throwing his arms up
high.

“
Ja!”
said Frieda, throwing her head back
and cackling. “Look at him go!”

Prophet sat in
the jailhouse and
studied the badge in his hand.

The young man
who
’d tried
to ambush him, whose name Frieda had informed him was Leo Embry,
was sleeping in one of the three gloomy cells behind him. He was
too unconscious to even snore, but Prophet heard him utter a
painful groan now and then.

The local medico, a portly,
rheumy-eyed Dr. Beamer, who stank of stale beer and laudanum, had
checked the kid out and wrapped a white bandage around
Embry
’s head,
then smacked his lips with the anticipation of an imminent libation
and angled across the street to the Mother Lode.

Frieda had tattooed Embry with
such force that the doctor thought he
’d probably sleep until tomorrow, or wish
he’d had. He had a bump on the back of his head the size of a
hickory knot. The doctor said he’d probably have a headache as
momentous as three military hangovers, and Beamer looked and
smelled like a man who knew what he was talking about.

Prophet hadn
’t consciously decided to take
the marshal’s job until he’d carried the kid halfway to the
jailhouse. Drunk or not, he’d already accepted the position, and he
couldn’t renege on the agreement.

Also, without
Crumb
’s two
hundred dollars, he’d be flat broke until his reward money came in.
He might as well wear a badge than swamp saloons or shovel shit in
the livery barn.

Besides, somebody
didn
’t want
him taking the job. And that didn’t sit well with the bounty
hunter. He didn’t want the job himself, but he’d like to know who
was willing to drill him to keep him from taking it.

Somebody besides Leo Embry.
Frieda had told Prophet that Embry was merely a wet-behind-the-ears
farm boy who fancied himself the next Billy the Kid.
She
’d seen
the boy shoot in competition at summer picnics, and she doubted he
could hit a tomato can if the can was privy-sized and Leo was
sitting inside.

Whoever had shot at Prophet from
the bank roof knew what he was doing. If Prophet
hadn
’t turned
as the man had fired, his shoulders would be looking mighty funny
now, minus their head. He didn’t think Ronnie Williams was
responsible. Why save Prophet’s life only to take it
later?

There was someone else in town
who, for whatever reason, didn
’t want Prophet wearing a badge. Someone good with
a rifle, or at least someone who’d hired someone good with a rifle.
Someone smart enough not to have hired an ineffectual miscreant
like Leo Embry to do his dirty work.

Who?

Prophet tossed the tin star in the air, then
pinned it just above the left breast pocket of his buckskin
tunic.

He had to chuckle as he caught a
look at himself in the cracked mirror over the washstand behind the
door. He wished Louisa could see him now. He wondered what his two
lawman friends, Owen McCreedy and Zeke Mcllroy, would say.
They
’d both
have a good laugh, after all the problems Prophet had had with
badge-toters over the years.

Well, he
wouldn
’t be
toting the Bitter Creek marshal’s badge for long. As soon as Henry
Crumb got back from his trip and the reward money arrived, he’d
stuff a few fresh reward posters into his saddlebags and light a
shuck for the owlhoot trail. By then, his bushwhacker would
probably have attempted another bushwhack, and he and Prophet would
have settled the matter once and for all

He glanced into the far west
cell. Leo Embry lay flat on his back, one arm hanging straight off
the cot and bobbing as he breathed. The kid
’s mouth was twisted painfully. The
window over Leo’s head was a barred, rectangular square of brassy,
afternoon light, causing the bandage on the kid’s bruised skull to
glow as if from the misery within.

Satisfied the kid would be out for several
more hours, Prophet grabbed his shotgun, donned his hat, and headed
outside to familiarize himself with the town.

He was approaching the stage depot a few
minutes later when five horseback riders rode toward him,
silhouetted against the west-angling sun.

Prophet stopped and scrutinized the group as
it passed the livery barn on the right side of Main and approached
the harness shop on the left. They rode slowly on tall, muscular
horses coated with trail dust—five hard-faced men wearing dusters,
crisp Stetsons, and cowhide boots into which the cuffs of their
black trousers were stuffed.

As the riders approached
Prophet, several dusters blew back, revealing gold watch chains and
well-tended pistols in oiled, hand-tooled holsters. Prophet saw a
couple of shoulder rigs in addition to the hip holsters. Winchester
rifles protruded from saddle boots jutting up beneath the
riders
’
thighs.

A vein in
Prophet
’s
right temple twitched. These men looked to be every bit as much
trouble as those in the Thorson-Mahoney and Scanlon Gangs. Each had
the icy, arrogant look of an accomplished cold-steel
artist.

One of riders on the right side
of the pack saw Prophet,
and looked startled when he saw the badge on the
bounty hunter’s chest. He swatted the man beside him and indicated
Prophet with a nod.

The other man turned his flinty
gaze to the town
’s new lawman. Both men curled their lips into smiles and
rode on.

As the group set a couple
brindle curs to barking, the druggist, Polk, appeared under his
store
’s
wooden awning. The lean, mild-faced druggist regarded the group
with interest. Several of the riders turned to him as they passed.
The druggist held their gazes, then—was that a nod?

Prophet
’s brows furrowed as he watched the
riders ride away, wondering at the unspoken communication between
them and Polk. If that’s what it had been. What business could they
possibly have with the mild-mannered druggist?

Prophet was shuttling his gaze
from the five-man group to the druggist when Polk turned toward
him. Prophet knew the man had spotted him, but Polk jerked his head
down, pretending he hadn
’t seen Prophet, and stepped back inside his
store.

Prophet glowered eastward along Main,
baffled. When the five riders turned into the hitch rack before one
of the brothels, he nudged his hat up to scratch the back of his
head. He turned and continued walking west.

“
Marshal!” a shrill cry rose on
his right. His right hand slapped the grips of his .45 and he
turned.

But it was only the half-breed whore, Mad
Mary, walking toward him between a billiard hall and an old, gray
cabin. She drew a tattered, multicolored cape about her shoulders,
giving Prophet a glimpse of her slack, brown breasts, permanently
extended nipples drooping groundward.

Behind her, a young
cowboy—apparently too young and down-at-the-heel to afford one of
the town
’s
more comely doves—was buttoning his baggy jeans. He glanced at
Prophet, sheepish, then crouched to retrieve a worn pistol
belt.

Wrapping the belt around his
lean hips, the young
drover turned to the saddled horse standing ground-reined
nearby. He swung into the saddle and, tossing one more sheepish
glance behind, gigged the mouse-colored dun into a gallop across a
hay field, heading north toward the creek and the low hills
beyond.

“
Miss Mary,” Prophet said
greeting the whore. They hadn’t been introduced, but he’d seen her
on the street, and during the long posse ride he’d heard several
townsmen joking about her.

Walking toward him, she shook an
admonishing finger and grinned, showing only two or three
discolored teeth around her deeply-lined witch
’s face framed with long, coarse
hair the color of a soiled gun rag.

“
Wendigo here in Bitter Creek.
Yes, yes, yes! Wendigo here, and he no like lawmen!”

Shaking her head and cackling,
she brushed past him and angled off across the street, holding her
ragged skirts above the men
’s high-button shoes she’d scavenged from some
trash heap. One shoe was missing a heel, and it gave her a limp. A
bearded farmer in a buckboard had to pull up to avoid hitting the
whore.

“
Damnit, Mary, I’m gonna flatten
you yet!”

When she
’d disappeared between the bank and
the feed store on the other side of the street, the farmer cursed,
returned his corncob pipe to his teeth, and shook the reins over
his sway-backed mule, continuing east along Main.

Wendigo here and he no like
lawmen!
What
had she
meant
by that? Did Mary know who’d tried to ambush him?

Beyond the livery barn, Prophet
angled north, crossed a shallow ravine, and climbed a flat-topped
hill of red gravel, sage, and yucca. It wasn
’t an overly high hill, but a steep
one, and at the top he paused to catch his breath and curse himself
for all the whiskey and cigarettes he mindlessly
consumed.

He was swinging back to take a slow gander
at the town when something caught his eye.

He turned northwest and tugged his hat brim
low to shield his eyes from the fiery sun slipping into a notch
between two rimrocks. On a mesa a hundred yards away lay a small
cemetery in tall bromegrass, shaded by a single cedar. Several
mourners stood before a fresh grave and a rough pine coffin, facing
a minister holding an open Bible. Nearby were two buggies, a
buckboard, and three saddle horses.

Prophet studied the solemn scene
from under his Stetson
’s funneled brim, recognizing Fianna Whitman
standing stiffly before the preacher.

The only other figures he could identify
were those of the banker, Ralph Carmody, and Sorley Kitchen, the
retired ranch cook who now painted houses and repaired pots and
pans for a living.

The funeral had to be that of Marshal
Whitman.

Prophet wondered why so few
mourners had shown up. He counted less than a dozen people standing
with the lawman
’s daughter. The preacher bent to scoop a handful of soil
from the mound beside the grave. When he’d said a few more words
and had traced a cross in the air, the mourners turned and started
to walk slowly toward the horses and wagons.

Only a couple of people spoke to Fianna
before she lifted her black skirts above her shoes, mounted a
canopied buggy, and started along the faint cemetery trace toward
the main trail to town. She looked terribly sad and alone, riding
singly in that black, yellow-wheeled buggy. It pecked at Prophet
for a long time. He turned it over in his head—just one more
peculiarity in a town that seemed to grow them like weeds.

Finally, when the mourners had
dispersed, he turned back to the task at hand. He wandered his gaze
slowly down the town
’s main drag with its high false fronts and livery
corrals.

He gave the town a slow study,
picking out the places a
man might use to effect an ambush—the highest
buildings, the narrowest alleys, the shadow pools around outside
stairwells. A ravine angled behind the jailhouse to intersect with
the main trail on the town’s eastern edge. A sharpshooter could lay
in there while Prophet was entering or leaving the jailhouse and
pick him off cleanly.

He identified a few more spots to keep an
eye on during the day, a few to avoid at night, and several horse
trails a drygulcher might use for escape routes.

As the fast-falling sun gilded
the Main Street storefronts, he headed back down the hill, loosing
gravel behind his softly singing spurs, one hand on the butt of his
.45, Mad Mary
’s shrill warning echoing in his ears.