Blood at Sundown

by Peter Brandvold

  “The more the merrier,” Hatchley said, casting another taunting grin toward Prophet.

  Shambeau was short but big through the chest. He wore deerskin breeches and home-sewn rabbit fur boots. His eyes were red and his broad face was ashen. “Le ciel, m’aide, mes amis! ” he said again, plopping into the seat directly across from Hatchley and pressing the heels of his hands against his temples. “My head hurts powerful bad!”

  “What you need is a shot of whiskey,” Hatchley said.

  “I’m fresh out, brother.”

  “The big man over there . . .” Hatchley indicated Prophet with his thumb. “He’s got him a fresh bottle.”

  Shambeau removed his hands from his head and turned to Prophet. “Do you really, brother?”

  “Hatch ain’t just whistlin’ ‘Dixie.’” Prophet smiled and patted the bottle he cradled in the crook of his left arm, like a toddler in the care of its doting mother. “And you two scalawags ain’t gettin’ a single drop.”

  “See how he is?” Hatchley said to his French Canadian friend. “He’s too good to share with us, and him a lowly bounty hunter.”

  “That isn’t right, brother.” Shambeau’s dark eyes were leveled on Prophet, and his tone was deadly serious. “We’re all traveling together here. I mean, there’s only three of us in the whole car. It’s cold outside. Hell, it’s cold in here! Not only that, but it’s close to Christmas—the day baby Jesus was born. If one of us has a bottle, he should share with the others to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus if for no other reason.”

  “Yeah, Henri’s got it right,” Hatchley said to Prophet. “Even if you think you’re so much better than your traveling companions, it’s only right to share, Lou.”

  “Well, I am a whole lot better than you two louse-infested polecats. And I ain’t gonna share.” Prophet caressed the bottle lovingly. “I want the whole bottle for myself.”

  “Tsk, tsk,” Shambeau said.

  “You know what you oughta do, Henri?” Hatchley said.

  “What’s that, mon ami?”

  Hatchley canted his head toward the bounty hunter sitting on the other side of the stove from him. “Kill him.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure. Kill him an’ take the bottle.”

  Shambeau arched a brow at Prophet, who grinned back at him.

  “He killed Weed,” Hatchley told Shambeau. “At Duck’s place along the creek.”

  “The woodcutters’ camp?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Weed Brougham?”

  “Shot him deader’n two-penny spike. Shot him in the back. Didn’t give him a chance. In fact, Weed was dead asleep.”

  “Well,” Prophet said, “which one was it—did I shoot him in the back or when he was dead asleep?”

  Hatchley looked at him and flared a nostril, an angry light flashing in his eyes. “Both.”

  “Oh, both,” Prophet said with a snort.

  “Sure. He was sleepin’ on his back,” Hatchley told Shambeau.

  Shambeau looked at Prophet. “That ain’t right, doin’ a man like that.”

  “No, I reckon it ain’t,” Prophet said. “You two are startin’ to make me feel down in the dumps about it now.”

  “Tue-le!” Hatchley spat out at his Canadian friend, leaning slightly forward at the waist. “Kill him an’ take his whiskey. He took a good pile of money off me an’ Weed, too. He’s probably got it in his saddlebags.”

  Prophet grinned again and patted the saddlebags piled beside him.

  Shambeau stared at him. There was very little light left in his eyes though suddenly the sun was shining again outside the train car. Apparently, there was a break in the storm. That light did not find its way into the French Canadian’s deep-set, chocolate-dark eyes, however.

  His gaze burned two holes through Prophet’s own. Or that was the impression the Canuck wanted to give, at least. He’d probably practiced that menacing look in back bar mirrors.

  The Canadian outlaw’s hands were splayed on his thighs, just beneath the butts of his pistols poking up from the pockets of his fur coat. Prophet did not look directly at Hatchley, but he could see in the periphery of his vision the killer staring at him in hushed anticipation, unabashed delight, waiting on pins and needles to see Prophet drilled a third eye.

  The train pitched and swayed as it wended its way around a long, gradual curve, the snowy prairie sliding past the frosted windows to both sides, streamers of black wood smoke slithering back from the locomotive.

  The iron wheels clacked on the rails.

  Prophet could fairly hear Gritch Hatchley’s heart beating. It was beating even faster than his own.

  Shambeau’s hands rose to his guns in a blur.

  Prophet filled his own right hand from his coat pocket and fired.

  Shambeau’s right-hand pistol roared a half an eye wink after Prophet’s, flames stabbing between Prophet and Hatchley. The bullet clanged shrilly off the woodstove. Shambeau jerked for a second time in that half an eye wink as his own ricochet punched him back in his seat after parting the fur of his coat, almost directly over his heart. The ricochet’s hole was about three inches right of the hole Prophet had just drilled in the man’s chest.

  “No!” Hatchley shouted.

  The smoking six-gun in Shambeau’s right hand tumbled straight down to the floor between his and Hatchley’s boots. He’d just gotten his left-hand Colt into that hand, but he hadn’t gotten the hammer cocked. Now as he cocked it, Prophet shot him again.

  The left-hand gun dropped to the floor beside the right-hand gun, from the barrel of which gray smoke curled.

  “No! No! No!” Hatchley bellowed. Leaning forward at the waist, he glared at the hard-dying Henri Shambeau and yelled, “You always was slower’n molasses in January, Henri, ya damn fool! Look at ya now! You’re dead, dead, dead!”

  Shambeau sat shivering and bleeding from the mouth. He opened his mouth as though to speak but only more blood came out. He looked at Prophet then sagged to his left, turned, and dropped to the floor where he lay jerking at Hatchley’s feet.

  “Ah hell!”

  “Doggone it, Gritch,” Prophet said, twirling his smoking Peacemaker on his finger then shoving the pistol back into his coat pocket, “your luck has purely gone south.”

  “Hell!” Hatchley kicked the dead Canuck. “Hell! Hell! Hell!”

  Prophet glanced out the train window to his left and right. They were passing woods to his left. On his right, a snowy slope dropped away to the north, toward what appeared to be a broad, snow-and-ice-covered lake rimmed with winter-naked trees. He looked away then turned back toward the lake. He saw what appeared to be three horseback riders riding out onto the lake, which the train was curving along the shore of.

  “Who in the hell would be out here in this weather?” he muttered to himself.

  Chapter 35

  Gritch Hatchley was sagging forward in his seat, snarling and pulling at the cuffs fixing his wrists to the iron seat frame behind him.

  He snarled and grunted and groaned, long hair hanging down against both sides of his face. He was staring at the dead man’s guns lying near his own boots, beside the body from which a steady stream of blood issued from each hole in the dead man’s coat.

  Prophet rose from his seat and kicked both guns away. “There, I’ll get them out of your hair, Gritch. They’re only badgering you. There, now—you just sit back and rest easy.”

  “Hell! Hell! Hell!” Hatchley bellowed like some gut-shot beast, jerking forward in his seat.

  “There you go,” Prophet said, crouching down to grab the dead man’s ankles. “Let it out. Make ya feel better.” He began dragging the dead man toward the front of the coach. “You sit tight. I’ll be back just as soon as I give your friend Shambeau here a proper send-off.”

  “Damn!” Hatchley said, pulling violently against his cuffs. “Damn! Damn! Damn!”

  “There you go,” Prophet said, pulling the coach’s front door open. “Let it all out
, Gritch.”

  He dragged the dead man out onto the vestibule, the cold wind hammering against him. Immediately, he removed his hat before the wind could blow it away, and tossed it back through the car’s open door.

  He rolled Shambeau toward the vestibule steps dropping down to the cinder-paved roadbed showing in wind-cleared patches amidst the fresh snow. The sun was bright now and the wind was still blowing, whipping the snow around in intermittent curtains that glittered like diamond-crusted ball gowns.

  As Prophet looked through one such billowing, sparkling wave of windblown snow, he saw the three riders again—three horseback men moving straight out away from him, making their way across a corner of the lake toward another line of fur- and skin-clad riders sitting their horses facing them, apparently waiting for the first three.

  The two Cut-Head Sioux hunting parties were meeting out there on the lake.

  Even though the three riders’ backs faced Prophet and they were about fifty yards away from him, he could tell that they were the three Indians he’d seen in town, Leaps High, Little Fawn, and the third, stoic young brave whose name Prophet hadn’t learned.

  The train’s whistle blew shrilly—three, short resounding wails as though in greeting to the three Indians.

  One of the three Cut-Head Sioux turned his horse around to face the train. Prophet could tell by his diminutive size that he was Little Fawn. The friendly young Indian raised an arm and waved broadly, heartily. Prophet could see the white line of the boy’s teeth as he smiled, his face forming a brown oval beneath his rabbit fur hat.

  Prophet wasn’t entirely aware of it, but seeing that guileless, life-embracing smile on the face of the young Indian made him begin shaping a smile of his own.

  The train whistled once more.

  The whistle’s echo hadn’t died before there was a belching sound.

  Prophet shuddered.

  Right away, he knew what that belching sound had been. He’d heard it before. Not long ago.

  Instantly, a chunk of ice dropped in his belly.

  He stared straight out across the lake in hang-jawed horror to see Little Fawn jerk violently back in his saddle, throwing both his arms high above his head. The boy sagged straight back against his horse’s hindquarters then rolled down the side of the mount to fall to the ground beside it.

  Raucous laughter blew back toward Prophet on the wind from the countess’s party riding ahead of him.

  Heart thudding heavily, Prophet dropped to the bottom step of the vestibule, grabbed the brass rail to his left, and leaned out away from the train, gazing up toward the fancy coach in which Rawdney Fair weather was extending his fancy shooting rifle through an open window, his round face laughing behind it.

  “I told you I could make that shot,” the fancy Dan bellowed victoriously behind the raised rear sight. Collapsing the sight with his thumb and withdrawing the big rifle from the window, he turned to the Russians and Leo gathered around him, all laughing heartily, to yell, “I told you I could make that shot, didn’t I? Pay up, now. Pay up!”

  Turning away from Prophet, Fair weather closed the window and disappeared in a glint of sunlight winking off the glass.

  Grinding his teeth with fury, Lou glanced back toward the lake falling away behind him. The other two Indians, Leaps High and the second young brave, were scrambling down from their saddles to rush over to Little Fawn, who lay unmoving in the snow beside his fidgeting horse.

  The other riders galloped toward them, whipping their rein ends against their horses’ hips, the lunging horses kicking up snow.

  Prophet swung his head around to glare toward the fancy Dan’s coach and shouted, “You son of a bitch!”

  Seething, he pulled himself back onto the passenger coach’s vestibule, tripping over the body of Henri Shambeau, who in the wake of young Fair weather’s shooting and likely killing of Little Fawn, he’d forgotten about.

  Now, cursing, Prophet pushed up off his knee and kicked the body down the vestibule steps. Shambeau rolled off the bottom step to the ground, bounced, and quickly disappeared as the train rumbled forward.

  Prophet pressed his back against the front of the passenger coach. His mind was racing. Fury was a fully stoked locomotive raging inside him. Over and over he heard the loud, concussive report of Fair weather’s fancy Scheutzen. He saw Little Fawn jerk back in his saddle and tumble to the ground. He heard the senator’s spoiled son’s cackling laughter.

  Before he knew what he was doing, rage taking over his mind, Prophet lunged forward and grabbed a rung of the iron ladder running up the front of the stock car in front of the passenger coach. He clambered up the ladder, stretching his lips back from his gritted teeth.

  As he gained the stock car’s roof, the wind hit him from the west side, on his right, like a giant fist. He staggered to his left and dropped to both knees to keep the frigid wind from throwing him off the car. The cold in the wind must have registered well below zero. It bit his cheeks like a thousand angry yellow jackets.

  It sucked the air from his lungs and chewed his fingers, which were bare, for he’d left his gloves and mittens in the passenger car.

  Knowing he couldn’t stand without the wind throwing him off the train, he crawled forward on hands and knees. He scrambled across the stock car to the far end, where he gauged the gap between the stock car he was on and the second stock car in the combination. He rose quickly to his knees and gave a loud bellowing yell as he sprang forward off his heels.

  The wind slammed him again, throwing him hard left. He dropped to his knees atop the second stock car’s far-left edge.

  Snow-covered ground streamed past him, perilously close over his left shoulder, the wind shoving him toward it like a sadistic enemy. His stomach lurched into his throat. He threw himself sharply right, into the blasting wind, and lay belly down against the car’s cold tin roof.

  Grinding his molars in desperation, he clawed his way back to the crown of the car, where he lay for several seconds, gasping and catching his breath.

  He was vaguely aware of the wind shifting, of swinging around to blast him from the front. He looked ahead. The train was making a slow curve to the west, angling around the lake’s southern end, the dark smoke spewing from the locomotive’s stack resembling a dirty scarf pluming out from where it hung on a line. It blew back toward him now, making his eyes sting.

  “Gonna get yourself killed, Prophet, you no-good crazy rebel!” he bellowed to himself, his words whipped and torn by the wind.

  With a determined grunt, he scrambled on hands and knees, keeping his head down against the headwind, to the second stock car’s front end. He stopped a few inches from the edge and peered at the passenger coach from which young Fair weather had fired at Little Fawn.

  “All right, you devil!”

  Prophet scrambled down the ladder running up the front of the stock car and dropped to the vestibule at the rear of the passenger coach. He bent his knees, letting his feet and hips take the brunt of the landing.

  Rising, he grabbed the knob of the door facing him. It turned. He threw the door open and lunged inside. He was a bull barreling through a chute, his heart thudding, the fire of his rage fighting back the cold that had so mercilessly assaulted him.

  “Lou!” the countess screamed, rising from a chair somewhere to his left.

  Prophet didn’t look at her. Since the second he’d entered the coach he didn’t look at anyone except the senator’s son, whom he’d picked out of the crowd sitting or standing in the posh parlor car, warmed by a small, ornate iron stove.

  Several Russians leaped from their overstuffed leather armchairs, exclaiming their astonishment at seeing the big, red-faced bounty hunter so unceremoniously entering their private domain.

  “Good Lord, man!” Senator Fair weather exclaimed, frowning at the intruder. He sat smoking a fat cigar with the old count.

  Rawdney Fairweather was leaning over the rifle stretched across a table before him, on an open, fleece-lined scabbard, lovin
gly running a cloth down the polished stock while holding court with several men standing around him, some still chuckling or laughing over Rawdney’s kill shot. Rawdney’s face was still flushed from his own boastful laughter. A smile still played across his thick-lipped mouth as he turned to see Prophet striding toward him.

  Prophet stopped three feet away from the murderous young dandy, yelled, “Kill-crazy fool!”

  As he raised his fist, Rawdney screamed, “Help!”

  He started to duck but couldn’t avoid Prophet’s large, clenched fist, which smashed into his left temple, knocking him back against the table.

  “Help!” Rawdney screamed again.“Help m—!”

  Prophet slammed his fist against the kid’s mouth and instantly felt the wash of warm blood as Rawdney’s lips exploded like ripe tomatoes. Lou slammed his fist against the kid’s mouth two more times—powerful, savage blows laying waste to the kid’s mouth and shattering both of his front teeth—before two or three Russians grabbed him from behind.

  Prophet turned, head-butted one and punched another, shrugging out of the grip of the third, who tripped over one of his fallen comrades. Prophet turned back to his quarry, who lay back atop the table, his hands over his face, screaming. Rage a living, breathing beast inside him, Prophet commenced throwing one blow after another at the dandy’s face, driving the mewling urchin to the floor.

  Prophet followed Rawdney to the carpet, both fists like pistons.

  Wam!

  Wam!

  Wam!

  Wam-Wam!

  “Get him, for God’s sake!” he vaguely heard the senator yell. “For the love of God, get that man off my son!”

  Several men grabbed Prophet from behind. One grabbed his hair and jerked his head back sharply. Still, he managed to shrug from their grips long enough to land two more hammering jabs to Rawdney’s face, which was by now a mask of pulp and blood.

  One of the big Russians launched himself onto Prophet’s back, grunting as he wrapped his arms around Lou’s neck and rolled over onto his own back, pulling Prophet over on top of him, belly up. The other two and then yet another big Russian surrounded them, dropping to their knees and punching Prophet’s face while others kicked him in the ribs, hips, and thighs.