“Leo!” said the fancy Dan whose hand Prophet was grinding. “Do . . . do something . . . before he breaks my hand!”
Leo stumbled forward, eyes blazing, jaws hard. “Unhand him! Unhand him this instant or . . . or you . . . you’ll be tangling with me, as well!” He raised his fists, crouching, feinting.
Prophet squeezed the fancy Dan’s fist harder, grinding the bones more aggressively. His victim yipped louder. “No! Stay . . . stay back, Leo! This devil’s going to break my hand!”
The young peacock’s knees buckled as Prophet angled his hand back toward the his face, threatening to snap his wrist, which he could do with one small jerk toward the young man’s chin. It would be as easy as snapping a dry twig.
“Release him this instant!” demanded Leo, hoarsely.
“Prophet!” Coffer bellowed. “Let him go, you crazy rebel!” He pulled up a flap of his coat and shucked a Smith & Wesson Model 3 .44 revolver from a black leather holster.
Prophet stopped grinding the blustering fool’s bones together. He shoved the kid’s fist as well as the kid himself straight backward. The yellow-eyed, red-mustached dandy gave a cry as he stumbled, twisted around sideways, and fell to a knee.
“Big galoot!” he cried, clutching his injured hand in his left one, glaring up at Prophet.
“You’re lucky I didn’t twist that little hand of yours around behind your back and shove it up your behind. The curly wolf who caved in your fancy wheeler tried to perforate my hide. So I shot him. I didn’t have no say in where he landed.”
“Are you all right, Rawdney?” Leo asked, dropping to a knee beside the groaning fop. “Let me see your hand. Do you think it’s broken?”
“It ain’t his wheeler,” Coffer told Prophet, holstering the Smith & Wesson. “It’s the princess’s.”
Rawdney shoved the doting Leo aside and turned a glare on the marshal. “How many times do I have to tell you she’s not a princess, you old hooplehead? She’s a countess!” He turned his glowering, hard-jawed stare at Prophet. “Countess Tatiana Miranova. Daughter of Count Ilya Miranova, who, along with his daughter the countess, are guests of my father and myself!”
“I’ll be damned!” Prophet said, ironically. “Imagine that. The count and countess himself! Guests of yourn!”
The dandy heaved himself to his feet, again brushing aside his overly devoted pal, Leo. He gritted his teeth at Prophet once more. “You will be paying dearly for that carriage, you rube. As well as for this!” He held up his hand, the fingers curled toward the palm like claws. “Mark my words!”
Still holding his injured hand against his chest, like a delicate kitten, he glanced at Coffer again. “Why don’t you do your job, Marshal, and lock this brigand up? He assaulted me!” He jerked his head toward Prophet.
Coffer turned to the bounty hunter and, a vague humor gleaming far back in his brown eyes, said, “I’ll get right on that, Mr. Fair weather. Yes, sir, I’ll turn the key on this big rebel—you can count on that. Awful cold out here. You best get back inside the saloon, where it’s warm. Have you a toddy on the town of Indian Butte.”
Rawdney stared at him, vaguely incredulous, as though wondering if he were being made fun of. Maybe it was too cold for him to wait to come to a conclusion, or maybe his hand hurt too badly. Whatever the reason, he gave a shrill curse, wheeled, lips quivering with rage, and stumbled back in the direction of the hotel.
Leo shot an angry look between Prophet and the town marshal. Then he, too, wheeled and ran to catch up with Rawdney, placing a hand on his friend’s arm, guiding him gently back to the hotel. Staring after them, Prophet’s gaze flicked toward the sprawling building’s high front porch. His gaze started back toward the two popinjays then shot back to the porch itself.
Or, rather, to the rather well-set-up young lady standing atop it, staring out over the front banister toward Prophet. In fact, as the bounty hunter stared at her, he could see that her large, lustrous, ink black eyes were riveted on him. As cold as it was, his belly warmed instantly, and he felt a tingling in his frozen knees. For the first time in a long while, he felt his heart beating, sort of hiccupping inside his chest.
She was a delicate little thing, maybe five feet two inches tall. The heavy but stylish cold-weather clothes she wore made her appear even smaller inside them. Still, he could see that behind her sleek black bear fur coat was the rise of an ample bosom. She wore black fur boots that rose to her knees, clad in what appeared to be heavy deerskin lavishly embroidered. The breeches were probably lined with fleece.
On the girl’s beautifully shaped head was a large, black fur hat, the fur ruffling in the snow-laden breeze, the snow dusting it lightly. Her face was delicately carved beneath the large topper—vaguely heart shaped and boasting a short but assertive nose and plump red lips sheathing a wide, sensuous mouth. Even from this distance, Prophet could tell that the lashes of her button-black eyes were long and exquisitely curved.
“Holy moly,” Prophet heard himself wheeze out on a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding until now as he released it, growing a little faint from lack of oxygen.
“What is it?” Coffer said.
“Not what. Who?” Prophet shaped a friendly half smile at the chocolate-eyed little siren standing atop the porch. “Who, Coffer, is that?”
Prophet thought the little goddess was about to smile back at him. He thought he detected the faintest parting and curving of her lips. But then the two popinjays, one crouched over his hand, mounted the veranda steps, and she moved over to the top of the steps, saying something to the two dandies that Prophet couldn’t hear from this distance though the din in the hotel had gone silent.
He could see her lips moving, though. Seeing them moving, he couldn’t help imagining how plump and full and pliable they would feel, mashed against his own.
“Oh, that?” Coffer chuckled. “That there is the owner of the carriage you destroyed. Senator Fair weather gave it to her. It’s hers, all right. Ever since that party came up here by train from Bismarck, whenever they been in town and not huntin’ out in the hills, she’s been shuttled around in that fancy contraption, just like the queen of Sheba, don’t ya know. Not no more, though!” The marshal laughed again. “I reckon you took care of that, Lou!”
He turned to look in amazement at the big, Southern bounty hunter standing beside him. “My God, man, wherever you go, destruction follows, don’t it? Wherever you go! Sort of like the plague. Walkin’, talkin’ smallpox is what you are. And here I thought by followin’ my dear Brandy all the way up here to this frozen pimple on the devil’s backside, I’d gotten shed of you once and for all!”
“Ah, throw a rein on the drama, Shell.” Prophet dipped his chin to indicate the hotel. “That there—that’s the countess, you’re sayin’?”
“That there’s the countess, I’m sayin’,” Coffer said, following Prophet’s gaze again to the hotel. The girl was just then standing with the two fancy Dans in the middle of the porch. She held Rawdney’s hand in her own two mittened hands and was looking down at it, moving her mouth, speaking to him. Likely consoling the wretched little rube.
The bounty hunter’s wild heart fluttered once again. Oh, how he would love to hear the music of the girl’s voice in his own ears, preferably in a room of their own, a fire dancing in a big stone hearth . . .
Almost as though she’d read his thoughts, the countess turned her head to glance over the porch rail at Prophet once more. Seeing him staring back at her, she turned away quickly, but not before—had that been a slight flush rising in her perfect, alabaster cheeks?
One of the other, larger men standing on the porch opened one of the hotel’s two front doors, and the girl and the two fancy Dans walked into the hotel and disappeared, making Prophet’s heart quicken with longing. The big man who’d opened the door for them followed them inside, and the door closed behind them all.
“The countess Tatiana Miranova,” Coffer said, staring at the porch on which only big, bearded, fur-clad
men stood, smoking and talking. There was something soldierly in the big men’s bearing. “Daughter of Count Ilya Miranova,” the marshal continued. “Some mucky-muck from Russia. Big, noble family, kin to the country’s head honcho, I hear tell, though, uh, not in those exact words.
“I’ve heard the count talking of a night over there in the saloon, at the end of their huntin’ days. Little bearded blowhard. The countess, though, she seems a sweet little thing though I hear she’s got some sand in her. Loves to hunt wolves and grizzly bears. Guts and skins ’em herself.
“The count and countess and their entourage—I’ve heard them big men who shadow both her and the old man are Cossacks—tough, half-wild tribal fighters from the back country over there—are here as guests to that squarehead whose paw you mangled. And the squarehead’s old man—Wilfred Fair weather—is territorial senator from Bismarck. Rawdney’s his son. Leo’s Rawdney’s personal assistant, though I don’t even want to think what he assists him with. In my opinion, men shouldn’t pester each other like that!”
Coffer chuckled.
Continuing, he said, “Apparently, Wilfred Fairweather met the count in Washington at some big powwow the president held at the White House. Turned out the count was itchin’ to come over to the New World and hunt the game we got in these parts. He wanted to shoot buffalo but since they all been shot out, he and the kill-crazy little countess settled for grizzly bears, wolves, elk, wildcats, moose, birds of all feather, and anything else they see out in the hills and creek bottoms around Indian Butte.”
“Christalmighty,” Prophet said, shaking his head as he imagined the bloodbath. He hated sport hunting in the worst way possible. Animals should die only for their meat, not so some popinjays could mount their heads on parlor walls, showing off for their friends. “How long they been here?”
“A week. They was out farther west first, but then they heard we got some nice-sized game in these parts, so they came up here. The senator’s got him his own private train coaches—parlor cars, sleepers, gambling car, dining car. You name it, they got it.”
“When are they pullin’ out?”
“Tomorrow, I hear tell. Likely shot all the game out of this part of the territory, the square-headed devils. Those of us who live here will probably have to live on jackrabbit for the rest of the winter.”
Prophet blew a sigh of relief at his good fortune. “Do you think a raggedy-heeled fella like myself could board that train, Shell?” He winced. “Even if I wrecked the little princess’s purty wagon?”
Coffer chuckled. “I reckon you’ll have to ask them.” He chuckled again, as though imagining the scene of Prophet getting his hat handed to him by those big, bearded Russians Prophet had seen inspecting the wagon and milling on the hotel porch.
“Crap,” Prophet said.
“Not to worry, Lou,” Coffer said, clamping a hand on the big bounty hunter’s shoulder. “The spur line has one of its own passenger cars in that train’s combination. For lowly folks like yourself. You tell me if Birdie down at the depot gives you any grief over buyin’ a ticket.” He winked. “I’ll make sure you’re aboard that car when it’s time to head south. Trust me on that one, ole son!”
Coffer laughed.
When he finally sobered, he scowled at Prophet and said, “So . . . tell me, Lou—what brings you here, anyway, so late in the year? You tellin’ me you was after him an’ the gent in the princess’s wagon?” He glanced at Nettles slumped forward against the ground, turning the snow pink beneath him.
“Piper an’ Nettles?” Prophet shook his head. “Pshaw! I got bigger fish to fry here in Indian Butte.” He shuttled his gaze around the ragged-looking settlement growing darker now as the afternoon waned and the snow continued dancing on the chill breeze.
Gritch Hatchley and Weed Brougham.
Where in hell did he suppose they were holed up? Had to be here somewhere, either waiting out the weather to head north or for the train to head south. Just like Prophet himself was. If they intended to hop the train, little did they know they’d have a two-hundred-plus-pound, ex-Confederate, bounty-hunting chaperone . . .
Again, Prophet shook his head. “No, I got much bigger fish to fry here in Indian Butte, Shell. Much bigger.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“Why’s that?”
Coffer placed a boot on Nettles’s shoulder and shoved the coyote-faced bushwhacker over on his side. Nettles gave no resistance. He lay staring straight up at nothing, lips slightly parted.
“Oh, Lordy me!” Ham intoned, leaping back with a start.
“This one here’s as dead as the other one over there!” Coffer said.
Chapter 13
“Thank God,” Toni said as she and Louisa rode up out of a dry wash and saw the town of Sundown sitting along the tracks before them.
It was getting late. The sun would be gone in another hour. A light snow was falling out of a moody, purple sky.
“Here we are,” Louisa said, sizing up the town before her. “End of the line.”
The town, if you could call the small, rough collection of tracks along the twin spur line rails a town, didn’t look all that welcoming. There were maybe half a dozen shacks and shanties crouched around a few two-story business establishments and a long, low, wooden structure hugging the rails. That was likely the depot station.
Near the depot was a large pile of split cordwood for feeding the locomotives that passed through Sundown, as well as a big wooden water tank on high stilts, also for feeding the trains. The town was so new that as Louisa and Toni approached it from the north along the trail that just ahead became the town’s main street, Louisa could smell the pine resin in the green wood the place had been built from.
Squinting against the fine grains of snow catching in her eyelashes, she could see a broad, unpainted building on the far end of town, on the street’s right side. A sign poking into the street identified it, easily the largest building in town, as the TERRITORIAL HOTEL. On the town’s near end, stood the train depot and a livery barn and corral just beyond it. The small, stone, cracker box–like structure of the Stockman’s Territorial Bank sat just beyond the livery barn.
Aside from three other, much smaller business buildings between the depot and the hotel, there were five or six small, randomly arranged frame houses and a couple of log huts. That was pretty much the entire town of Sundown. All around it stretched flat, nearly featureless prairie—fawn-colored grasses slowly being consumed by the snow.
“I’m surprised this place has a bank,” Louisa muttered half to herself.
“It’ll grow,” Toni said, riding off Louisa’s right stirrup. “It’s along the spur line now, so it’ll grow. Good grazing country up here. The country’s growing. This will be a wealthy place one day.” There’d been a definite note of hopefulness in the girl’s voice as she stared ahead at the town into which they now rode.
“Yeah, well,” Louisa said, leaving her opinion of the place’s future at that. She checked down the pinto as well as the five packhorses behind her in front of the small, wood-frame train depot on her left. “You go on ahead, stable your mount at the livery barn.”
Toni stopped the calico. She’d gotten pretty good with the horse. It minded her without balking overmuch, without fighting the bit. Turning to Louisa, she said, “What’re you gonna do?”
“I’m going to see when the next train is due.” She paused, then looked at the girl. “You flush?”
Toni’s cold cheeks turned a shade darker red, and she glanced down at her saddle horn. “I’ll make do.”
“Here.” Louisa bit off a mitten and reached into a pocket of her denims. She pulled out a coin and handed it over to the girl.
Toni shook her head. “Like I said, I’ll make do.”
“You’re going to need a roof over your head tonight, food in your belly. Until you can hogtie that banker, anyway.”
“I’ll see about getting a job,” Toni retorted bitterly, offended by the Vengeance Queen’s irony.
“You can see about getting a job tomorrow. Until then, take this.” Louisa shook the hand in which she held the coin.
Drawing a deep breath, Toni reluctantly held out her own mittened hand. Louisa pressed the coin into it. Toni drew it to her, looked at it. She looked up at Louisa, frowning. “This is a double eagle. I can’t take twenty dollars from you.”
“You’re not taking it from me.” Louisa glanced at the dead men behind her. “You’re taking it from them.” That was a lie. The double eagle was from the jingle in her own pocket.
Toni studied Louisa critically. Finally, she closed her mitten around the coin, slipped it into a coat pocket. “I’m obliged, Miss Bonaventure.”
“No reason to be.” Louisa glanced up the street. Saddled horses stood at the hitch rack fronting the hotel. Returning her gaze to the girl, she said, “Watch yourself. Men here.” But then, Toni knew all too well what that meant.
The girl nodded, pressing her lips together. She batted her heels against the calico’s ribs and rode on up the gradually darkening street.
Louisa swung down from the pinto’s back and tied it and the lead packhorse to the hitchrack fronting the depot. The brick cobbles surrounding the humble building were lightly snow dusted but cleared here and there by the swirling breeze. A mountain lion hide was tacked to the building’s front wall, just left of the door. The head had been left on, and it snarled, glassy-eyed, at Louisa, long curved fangs showing inside its open mouth.
The shingle announcing simply SUNDOWN DEPOT ratcheted back and forth on its rusty chains, beneath the building’s broadly overhanging eaves.
Lifting her gaze to the stovepipe protruding from the shack’s shake-shingled roof, the Vengeance Queen saw that the place was occupied though it didn’t otherwise appear to be. Smoke lifted from the pipe to get pressed low against the roof by the breeze before it was quickly torn and dispersed. It was perfumed with the smell of cedar and pine.
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