The Devil's Lair (A Lou Prophet Western #6) (4 page)

He glanced at the depot master
scowling down from the boardwalk, then moved to another body, and
kicked it over onto its back. He gasped.
“Pike Thorson!”

Finished off-loading the
luggage, the driver was buckling the flaps over the boot.
“They hit us about
ten miles out, Marshal. That gent there and the girl kinda rattled
their cages a might. Took down the whole damn gang.” He grinned
big, showing the few coffee-colored teeth remaining in his jaws. “I
don’t think we’ll have any more trouble from these sons o’ bitches,
unless they come back as ghosts, that is.”

The marshal turned to Prophet.
His eyes played over the remains of the widow
’s weeds hanging off Prophet’s
big frame, as if the dress were part of some joke. “You took down
this
whole
bunch?”

Prophet lounged against the
stage
’s off
wheel, rolling a cigarette from the makings sack he’d produced from
the war bag at his feet. His big, brown fingers worked clumsily,
but they were getting the job done. He nodded to indicate Louisa
leaning against an awning post atop the raised boardwalk. “Me and
her did.”

The marshal turned to her and scowled. He
looked her up and down. Dressed in her frills, blond, hazel-eyed,
and angel-faced, Louisa could have hopped out of some German fairy
tale.

“
The hell you say!” the marshal
grunted.

Prophet grinned and licked the rolling
paper.

To the depot master still
standing in shock atop the boardwalk, not
far from Louisa, Prophet said, “We’d
like to collect on the reward, Louisa and me. I think most of the
boys only have a couple hundred on ’em, but ole Pike and Brennan
each have five. You correct me if I’m wrong.”

The depot master glanced from
Prophet to the bodies strewn about the stage and back again.
“No ... uh ...
that’s right. The express company does indeed have that much on the
gang. They’ve been ... uh ...” He chuckled with dry relief,
realizing suddenly that the gang that had been a needle in his side
for so long was lying here in bloody heaps in the street. “They’ve
been giving us trouble about every two months for the past two,
three years. Preyin’ on that strongbox that carries the mine
company payroll.”

The marshal was moving around
the stage, inspecting each body. From the other side of the
Concord, he said,
“Sure enough, it’s the whole damn gang …”

The depot master glanced at
Prophet, still vaguely troubled
and puzzled. Then he looked Louisa up and
down one more time. “Are you trying to tell me this ...
child
... helped you take
down the Thorson-Mahoney Gang?” He chuffed. “That I do not believe,
sir!”

Prophet regarded Louisa
anxiously and muttered,
“Uh-oh.”

Expressionless, Louisa lifted her cape over
the butt of the pearl-gripped Colt jutting up on her right hip. She
glanced around briefly, her gaze lighting on the battered tin cup
hanging from a nail in the awning post above the rain barrel. In a
blur of motion, she crouched and clawed leather.

The Colt roared, ripping the cup from the
nail and tossing it into the street.

The Colt spoke again.

The cup bounced ten feet in the air. As it
started down, the Colt barked a third time, throwing the cup even
higher.

At the apex of the
cup
’s climb,
Louisa pinked it once more, blowing it out and away from the stage
station and onto the stoop of an abandoned shanty across the
street.

The stage team had already been led off to
the corral, but the two dogs that had been sniffing around the dead
owlhoots ran howling off behind the bathhouse.

Louisa straightened from her crouch. She
twirled the smoking gun on her finger and dropped it neatly in its
holster.

“
Show-off,” Prophet
said.

The depot master regarded the
girl slack-jawed. He glanced at the marshal, who shrugged, then
turned to the grinning driver.
“Well, if you’ll sign the affidavit, Ham, I reckon
I’ll get started on the paperwork.”

With that, he turned and strode into the
station.

Prophet started after the man.
Behind him, the marshal said,
“What’s your name, son?”

Prophet turned. The marshal
approached him, stepping
around the stage’s lowered tongue, his brows
furrowed with wary appraisal.

“
Lou Prophet,” he said, throwing
up both hands palms out. “Better not get too close, Marshal. I’m a
bounty hunter, if’n you couldn’t tell from the death
stench.”

“
I could tell. I don’t set much
store by your ilk, but the fact is there ain’t enough badge-toters
to go around. If it weren’t for bounty men, the West would be
overrun with jaspers like these.” He nodded to indicate the dead
Thorson-Mahoney Gang. His forehead lined with incredulity, he
asked, “The girl hunt bounties too?”

Prophet turned a glance at the raised
boardwalk, but Louisa was no longer there. He looked around,
frowning. She was nowhere in sight. It was just like her to slip
off when there was paperwork to do. Nothing bored her more.

“
She does,” Prophet told the
marshal. “Louisa got started when her family was
murdered—butchered, more like— over in Nebraska. Me and her work
together on occasion.”

“
How’d you know this stage was
gonna get hit?”

“
Didn’t.”

Prophet took another deep drag
on his quirley and noted several curious locals gathering to
appraise his and Louisa
’s handiwork around the stage. “But we knew the
gang was workin’ this area, and they were due for a strike. We been
ridin’ the line between Denver and Cheyenne, and Denver and Lyons,
and come up dry.” He shrugged. “Decided to give this dogleg in the
line a shot.”

“
Why the ... uh ... getup?” the
marshal inquired, flicking a hand out to indicate Prophet’s
tattered dress.

“
We heard Thorson was putting a
gang member on the stages he struck, before he struck ’em, to make
the passengers all nice and agreeable.” The bounty hunter shrugged,
flushing and wanting nothing more than to climb out of the dress
and into a hot bath.

The marshal fingered his beard,
nodding slowly.
“You were afraid you might be recognized?”

“
You got it.” Prophet smiled
affably. He usually resented being interrogated by local lawmen.
Understandably, most resented him for doing their jobs for a lot
more money, and they used their authority to complicate his life.
But this badge-toter seemed harmlessly curious.

No more questions seemed
forthcoming, however, so Prophet said,
“Well, if you’ll excuse me, Marshal.
I reckon I probably have some forms to fill out …”

Hefting his war bag, Prophet mounted the
steps, wincing against the pain in his forever-pinched feet, and
ambled into the station house.

When, twenty minutes later,
he
’d penciled
out a report, and the depot master, Mr. Crumb, had wired his bounty
claim to the stage company headquarters in Denver City, Prophet
walked back outside, letting the screen door slam behind
him.

“
Hey, there he is,” a man on the
street shouted. “There’s the bounty hunter that blew the gang’s
lights out!”

Prophet stopped on the boardwalk, casting
his beleaguered gaze into the street. The Concord had disappeared.
In its place, a crowd had gathered—twenty or thirty townsfolk with
children, babies, and dogs.

Having hunted men for nearly ten
years, Prophet wasn
’t surprised to see the dead owlhoots all laid out,
shoulder to shoulder, to get their pictures taken by a man in a
shabby checked suit.

The crowd had formed a wedge
around the festivities, and several station hostlers hunkered
around the dead owl-hoots, mugging for the camera. The pistols held
dramatically across their chests looked as though they
hadn
’t been
fired since Gettysburg.

“
Sir!” the photographer called,
throwing up an arm. “Would you like to pose with your
quarry?”

The hostlers turned their heads
to regard Prophet, crestfallen. They didn
’t want the bounty hunter pissing on
their fire.

“
Nah,” Prophet said. “These
boys’ll make a better tintype than I would.”

Brightening, the hostlers turned to face the
camera.

Prophet donned his hat, hefted
his war bag, and turned toward the bathhouse. He was crossing the
weedy lot where two mutts were growling over a
raccoon carcass when a voice
sounded behind him.

“
Mr. Prophet?”

The bounty hunter stopped and
turned. The marshal ambled out of the crowd gathered around the
photographer
’s subjects and approached Prophet with a slight
limp.

“
What’s the matter, Marshal?
Don’t you want your picture taken?”

“
I don’t have no use for that
stuff,” the bearded man said with a dismissive wave. “I have a job
for you.”

Prophet
’s forehead lined. “I gotta
job.”

“
Bounty hunting ain’t gonna get
you far—even with that sharp-shootin’ blonde backin’ your play.”
The lawman hooked his thumbs in his pistol belt, canted his head,
and frowned with scrutiny. “Tell me, son, how old are
you?”

Prophet shrugged.
“Thirty-three,
thirty-four. Don’t know for sure. Ma and Pa Prophet had so damn
many kids in them Georgia hills, they couldn’t keep track of
birthdays.”

“
Thirty-three, thirty-four’s old
for bounty hunters. Come to work for me as my night deputy. I
already got a kid workin’ nights, but I’ve caught him sleepin’ on
the job. I’ll demote him to weekends.”

“
I told you, Marshal,
I—”

The lawman shook his
head.
“Not so
fast, son. Don’t be hasty. This here ain’t exactly a civilized
town, but I’m makin’ some headway with the owlhoots. With the help
of a big, capable man like yourself, it could be a nice place to
settle down in a few years.” He paused, glancing eastward along the
street. “You and that blonde, uh,
close!”

“
We’re business associates,”
Prophet said, as if it were any of the marshal’s
business.

The marshal winked
wolfishly.
“We got some damn nice-lookin’ gals in this here basin.
There’s a young lady that runs a cafe. A little large, but she sure
can cook, and I have a feelin’ cookin’ ain’t all she does well.”
The lawman winked and grinned with only one side of his
mouth.

Prophet opened his mouth to
speak, but the lawman cut in again.
“Fifty a month and found,” he offered.
“Now, it probably don’t look as good as that reward money you rake
in, but then you have to get awful tired of trail food. Not to
mention the prospect of gettin’ drygulched every time you round a
bend, or gettin’ your throat cut after wrappin’ up in your soogan
at night.”

Prophet waited to make sure the
man was through.
“You see, Marshal—”

“
Whitman.”

“
You see, Marshal Whitman, I made
a pact with the devil a few years back, just after I mustered outta
the War for Southern Liberty. I told Ole Scratch that if he showed
me a real good time here atop the sod for the rest of my days, I’d
shovel all the coal he wanted down below. Now, ridin’ down owlhoots
for two-fifty, five hundred, sometimes even a thousand dollars a
head, for two, three weeks work, gives me plenty of lucre for my
real good times. And believe me, Marshal, after what I seen durin’
the war, I’ve learned to have
real
good times!”

Whitman opened his mouth to
speak, but Prophet cut him off.
“And those times are expensive, Marshal.
Fifty dollars a month is a right generous offer—especially for a
town the size of Bitter Creek. It could even get me through a
single night’s celebration ... but what would I do after
that?”

Whitman stared at Prophet, lips
pursed. He shuffled his polished boots and cursed. Finally, he
nodded.
“I
reckon I see your point. And I reckon I ain’t been totally square
with you, Mr. Prophet. Fact is, this is a dangerous town. We’re
very remote, but lots of folks pass through here on their way
farther west. Bad folks.”

“
You’re in prime owlhoot
country—I’ll give you that, Marshal. I’d like to give you a hand,
but like I said ...”

Whitman waved him off.
“No. It wouldn’t be
right— bringin’ an outsider into the kind of bailiwick we have
here. It ain’t just the drifters that’s settin’ off firecrackers
beneath my saddle blanket.”

Prophet canted his head,
studying the man, who looked off as if seeing his own dark destiny
in the wheel ruts along Main.
“Bailiwick?”

Whitman turned to Prophet and
blinked, obviously distracted ... worried.
“Never mind. Thanks anyway, Mr.
Prophet. I hope you have a good time before you drift.”

Suddenly, the man smiled his
wolfish smile and tugged on his beard.
“You might want to take a look at
Miss Schwartzenberger over to Gertrude’s cafe, though.
She’s—”