Hell's Angel

by Peter Brandvold

  Prophet bit down on the quirley in anger, then sucked the acrid but satisfying smoke deep into his lungs, blew it out through his nostrils, casting his angry gaze toward the curtained window over the bed on his left.

  No man should be charging that much for water in the desert. The idea of it graveled Prophet no end. It was none of his business, and he’d likely ride out of here tomorrow, for he’d had enough trouble south of the border to last him a good long year north of it.

  But he’d leave here hoping that Mordecai Moon eventually got his just deserts.

  He drew another lungful of air, and his thoughts drifted to the dead Texas Ranger he’d found in the desert, not far ahead of the blond younker who called himself the Rio Bravo Kid. The bounty hunter had been so preoccupied with his trouble with Moon that he hadn’t had much time to consider the Ranger. But when he’d been winching up the water bucket from the well, just before he’d been so rudely interrupted by the dwarf, he’d absently noticed several deep scuffmarks in the dirt as well as a thick, dark-brown substance that was undoubtedly blood.

  The Ranger’s blood?

  Footsteps sounded in the hall beyond Prophet’s closed door, interrupting his dark speculations. He looked at his walnut-gripped Peacemaker .45 hanging off the hide bottom chair he’d positioned within an easy reach of the tub. He took the quirley in his left hand and started to stretch his right one toward the revolver, but stopped when Mrs. Rose said, “Mr. Prophet?”

  He rested his right hand on the side of the tub and looked at the door. “Yes, ma’am. I’m still appreciatin’ the bath. Can’t tell you how good it feels after that long ride up from Mexico.”

  “I have some more hot water for you, Mr. Prophet. Can I come in?”

  “Oh, you shouldn’t have done that, ma’am. I don’t . . .”

  He let the sentence drift off when the door opened and Mrs. Rose stumbled in, wrestling with a steaming wooden bucket, water sloshing over the sides. Self-consciously, Prophet sat up straight and squeezed his legs together to conceal his equipment that the soapy water only partly covered.

  “Now, ma’am,” he said, “you shouldn’t be wastin’ water on this old bounty hunter. I’m clean enough as it is.”

  “Pshaw,” the woman said, sidestepping to the tub and raising the bucket. “I’ve plenty of water left in my barrel. Don’t get that much business, and if I took a bath every day, there’d be nothing left of me. Living out here, you become half dust, you know.”

  She chuckled as she dumped the water into the tub between his legs, and he drew a sharp breath as the plenty-hot water threatened to boil his oysters. He rose up a little, making a face.

  Mrs. Rose gasped, horrified. “I didn’t get it too hot, did I?”

  “Nah, no . . . it’s fine,” he said, quickly revising a wince into a smile and easing back down in the tub. He felt as though a rat were nibbling at his scrotum, but it would die down soon.

  “Oh, good. It’s hard to judge.” She held up a finger as she turned to the door. “I’ll be right back. I hope you’re hungry!”

  With that, she was gone.

  He sat back in the tub, frowning curiously at the door and puffing the quirley, hearing her descending the stairs to the first story. When she came back, she gave the half-open door a cursory knock and then came in holding a steaming plate, a bottle, and two water glasses. He could smell the food instantly, and his stomach rumbled audibly. His mouth watered as he flicked his gaze from the plate of steaming food to the whiskey bottle labeled Old Kentucky, and then back to the food.

  “Good Lord,” he said, letting the quirley drop from his mouth to sizzle out in the water between his knees. “What have you done there, Mrs. Rose?”

  “Ruth, please,” she admonished him gently. “I thought you’d like to eat in your room where you wouldn’t be as conspicuous as you would downstairs. Not that Mr. Moon or any of his men are likely to show up here this evening. They usually have their hands full at night, serving the men from the freight trains. A stage just pulled in, as well, so Mr. Mordecai Moon is doing a right smart business.”

  She leaned forward to hand him the plate, and he was aware that she’d changed from the more conservative, plain gray dress she’d been wearing before to a red dress that was cut considerably lower. The edges of the bodice were trimmed in white lace. A gold locket dropped down into her cleavage, as though consciously directing his eye.

  He felt abashed when, after handing him the plate, she straightened, her eyes on his, which meant she’d seen where his own gaze had strayed. “Mrs. Rose, you really shouldn’t have. A hot bath, food—”

  “And whiskey,” she said, setting the bottle and the two glasses on the dresser. She popped the cork on the bottle and filled each glass nearly half full. “Please, Mr. Prophet, the pleasure is all mine. Like I said, I don’t get much business . . . or company.”

  She shoved the cork back into the bottle and then leaned down again, lower than before, to set the glass on the floor beside the tub. In the corner of his eye, he saw her cleavage yawn, her breasts jostle.

  They were indeed lovely, as was the rest of her, he’d noticed. She was a dark-skinned, brown-eyed brunette, her skin lightly freckled. She was full-figured, and the dress she now wore accented it to damn near perfection. Her thick, attractively sun-bleached hair was piled high atop her head, with several sausage curls dangling about her cheeks.

  As he dug into the two thick slabs of roast beef and mashed potatoes drenched in dark brown gravy and complimented by a small portion of boiled greens, he reminded himself she was married. Lonely, apparently, or she wouldn’t be in a man’s room while said man sat in a bathtub naked—but married.

  She’d said something about her husband having taken ill . . .

  “These here vittles is sure a sight for sore eyes, ma’am,” he said, forking a thick chunk of meat into his mouth. “And they taste even better.”

  “I’m glad you like it, Mr. Prophet. The beef was supplied by a rancher from the other side of the Chisos Mountains. The greens came from my neighbor’s irrigated garden.”

  “Mhmmm—Mhmmmm!”

  She took the second glass of whiskey, dragged the chair over by the door, and sagged into it.

  He glanced up from his plate—he couldn’t stop himself from shoveling the food in, as he hadn’t realized how closely his belly had been snuggling up to his backbone—and couldn’t help noticing the faint longing in her brown eyes as she watched him.

  He wasn’t sure what to say, if he could say anything with all the food that was constantly in his mouth, so he said nothing but simply let her watch him eat as she sat there in her low-cut red dress, slowly sipping her whiskey and watching him.

  When he finished, he licked his fork, dropped it onto the plate, set the plate on the floor, stifled a belch, and scooped up his whiskey glass. He tossed back half the whiskey in two swallows, and then looked at her again, watching him with a hard-to-read expression.

  Longing? Sadness? Desire?

  Then her brown eyes slid slowly across his exposed chest and his shoulders, and her lips parted slightly. The color in her cheeks darkened.

  This woman, he silently, idly opined, had been alone for a long time. Her husband might be here, but she was as alone as if he’d been planted months, maybe years ago.

  She must have read his thoughts. Her eyes jerked to his with a self-conscious start, and she lifted a hand to the locket dangling against her breasts. “Good Lord, look at me—sitting here with a strange man! A naked man!”

  She stood, her cheeks flushing, fingering the locket with one hand, holding her whiskey glass in the other. “My husband is just down the hall, Mr. Prophet.”

  She stared at the curtained window beyond him, above the bed.

  Prophet sipped his whiskey. “You said he took to his sickbed.”

  She stared at the window as though it were the on
ly place she now dared place her gaze, and then walked around Prophet to the window and stood staring through the sheer curtain at the street. He watched her narrow shoulders and slender back. The dress had no sleeves, only straps, and the backs of her light brown arms were as speckled with tiny freckles as was her face and neck and what he had seen of her bosom.

  “Yes,” she said quietly, with a soundless sigh that lifted her shoulders. They lowered again slowly as she exhaled. “He’s very sick.”

  “A brain stroke?”

  She nodded, keeping her back to him. She took another sip of the whiskey. He could hear her swallow.

  “Mr. Moon came calling on us here about a year and a half ago. The little man and his big tough nuts, as Frank called them. Our tax payment was a couple of months past due. We’d had a bout of business, then . . . nothing. But the dwarf still wanted his money. The water contract money, as well. Frank tried to put him off, as he’d been doing successfully for a few months, but this night Mr. Moon threatened to tar and feather Frank if we didn’t pay up, and to burn our place to the ground.”

  She paused.

  When she spoke again, it was even softer than before. “That night, I woke up to Frank moaning and stumbling around the room. He’d had his stroke.”

  Prophet felt his shoulders slump. He stared at his hands resting on the sides of the tub. After a time, he said, “If you bought the land from Chisos La Grange, how does the dwarf think he can tax you, let alone charge you for water?”

  “Simply because he has the curly wolves to back his play here in Moon’s Well.” Ruth accentuated each word in the town’s new name with a hard irony. “We’d saved our money to buy a business, preferably in West Texas. Frank had found the place a couple of years ago and thought it would be a good place to come for his health. Frank had lung problems, and the doctors in Missouri thought the dry air out here would help. Also, the water of West Texas is supposed to be particularly healthful.”

  She chuckled with more irony at this.

  “So, after my parents died and the farm went under,” she continued, “we came out here, bought the lot for the hundred dollars, and, with the help of the Mexican tenants, built the hotel. A month after it was operational, Mr. La Grange got sick and sold his claim to Mr. Mordecai Moon for one thousand dollars. He became our landlord. We were sure, however, that our business arrangement with Mr. La Grange would be honored, so we were willing to remain here despite the town’s sudden name change. We were making money, with all the freight traffic on the trail.”

  “But then the dwarf built his own place.”

  “It went up almost overnight,” Ruth said sourly. “He employed the local Mexicans for next to nothing, and in a month the place was up and running.”

  “And he didn’t honor your and Mr. Rose’s deal with Chisos.”

  “No, he certainly did not. Not only did Mr. Moon take most of the business, he taxed us an outrageous fee for our own business and charged us for water. Of course we couldn’t afford it. I still can’t. Oh, I make every other payment, but . . . in the meantime what we owe grows. Frank and I are sinking into a deeper and deeper pit of ruin. Before Frank got sick, we could have at least cut our losses and gone home, but there’s no doing even that now.”

  Ruth turned toward Prophet and took another sip of her whiskey. The whiskey had emboldened her, and she looked right at the big bounty hunter sitting naked in the tub before her. “I guess I shouldn’t be so hard on Mr. Moon, Mr. Prophet. He has given us one way out of this mess we find ourselves in.”

  Prophet waited, but she seemed to want prompting. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear what she had left to say, but he dipped his chin, and said, “And that way is . . . ?”

  “Me going over and working for him,” she said with what almost appeared a genuine smile. But her brown eyes owned a very thin sheen of tears. She tossed the rest of her whiskey back, held the empty glass straight down at her side, lifted her chin, and swallowed.

  Suddenly, her face bunched with anger. With an enraged wail, she threw her glass against the closed door, where it shattered and fell to the floor. She stepped toward the tub. Prophet stared up at her, tongue-tied. He watched her hands unbutton the corset of her dress and then slide the dress’s straps down her arms.

  Both heavy, freckled breasts sprang free of their confines.

  Reaching up, she removed the pins from her hair. When she shook her head, the rich waves tumbled down across her shoulders.

  “What do you say, Mr. Prophet?”

  Prophet only vaguely realized that his lower jaw was hanging. He had to clear his throat to rediscover his voice, and then he said thickly, “What do I say to what?”

  “To killing him for me, of course. I’ll pay you with everything I have!”

  11

  PROPHET STARED UP at the bare-breasted woman standing before him, her face in her hands, sobbing. Her breasts jostled as she cried, the small, gold locket jerking at the top of her cleavage.

  Slowly, he rose from the soapy water, grabbed a towel off the bed, and wrapped it around his waist. He climbed out of the tub, and walked over to her, his chest and arms and even his hair dry now in the dry desert air.

  He stood before her, looking down at her, and then very slowly lifted the straps of her dress up over her shoulders. She lowered her hands and looked at him, puzzled, tears streaking her cheeks. She looked down at her breasts that were mostly covered now, the dollar-sized nipple of one exposed by the unbuttoned corset. Gazing up at him again, the skin above the bridge of her nose deeply creased, she said, “You think I’m a harlot.”

  Prophet shook his head. “No, but you would, if I took what you offered. And I ain’t an assassin for hire.”

  “What about all that I told you?”

  “Oh, he deserves to be kicked out with a shovel, I’ll give him that. But if I kill him, I’ll kill him for me.” Prophet shook his head. “I won’t saddle you with that. You’re in a bad place, but I got a feelin’ I could handle killin’ a man a whole lot better than you would. I’m a bounty hunter, Mrs. Rose. I do it for a livin’.”

  Her half-covered breasts rose and fell as she breathed, staring at him, her lips parted, the flush still in her cheeks. Her eyes held his, and as she continued to breathe heavily, he said, “What about your husband . . . ?”

  She reached down for one of his hands, lifted it to her right breast, used it to slide the corset open, and pressed it over her nipple. “You can’t betray a dead man, Mr. Prophet.”

  She pressed his hand to her breast. The nipple came alive against his palm. With his other hand, he removed the towel from around his waist. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pressed his lips to hers. They were warm and open, welcoming and pliant.

  * * *

  A couple of hours later, she lay tight against him, her head on his chest. Outside, he could hear wild laughter beneath the strains of what sounded like a four-piece band. Women screeched and men guffawed. Infrequently, a pistol barked flatly. A dog barked intermittently.

  Hooves clomped past the Rose Hotel and Saloon. There were occasional shouts of anger but mostly everything seemed friendly, albeit raucously so, over at Moon’s House of a Thousand Delights.

  During the infrequent lulls in the party, Prophet could hear coyotes yammering in the hills around the town.

  “They’re havin’ a good time over there,” he said, waking from a brief doze and lightly running his fingers across Ruth Rose’s bare back.

  He felt the warm moistness of her lips on his chest. She groaned luxuriously. “Soon they’ll be having even more fun, when the fresh batch of girls rolls in.”

  Prophet frowned.

  Ruth said, “I don’t know where he gets them, but every so often a wagon rolls in. A jail wagon with anywhere from five to ten young women in it. It’s escorted by soldiers, if you can believe that.” Ruth chuckled darkly and raked his che
st very lightly with her thumbnail. “I’ve been here for three years now, Lou, and there’s nothing I won’t believe anymore. Especially where the dwarf is concerned.”

  “You mean he buys slave girls for his place?”

  “That’s how I figure it. Of course, I haven’t heard. No one around town talks much about the dwarf’s activities. We’re all pretty well cowed by the little fellow and his tough nuts. Besides, he brings business to Moon’s Well. Men come from all over to visit his place. Sometimes the freight trains stop over for three or four days.”

  “Slave tradin’s illegal.”

  She only laughed at that.

  “Soldiers bring the girls in?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Prophet chuckled without mirth. “What a perdition you got here, Ruth.”

  “Oh, yes.”

  Prophet slid her hair back from her cheek. “Ruth, what happened to that Ranger I brought into town with the Rio Bravo Kid?”

  She rose up a little, the locket hanging down between her sloping, freckled breasts to dangle against his chest. “You don’t really want to know, Lou. What I said before, about you killing Moon? Forget it. It was just that . . . watching you out there, how badly you cowed him . . .”

  “What happened?”

  “Like you, they refused to pay for water.”

  “They?”

  “There were two. The one you found ran after the dwarf shot him. They probably tossed the other into a nearby ravine. That’s probably what the coyotes are singing about.”

  Prophet lay back against the pillow and considered that. The little man was not only evil but crazy, to mess with the Texas Rangers.

  “What if others come, looking for the first two?” he said, thinking out loud.

  “Men disappear out here all the time, Lou,” Ruth said, rolling off of him and dropping her legs to the floor. Walking over to the dresser, she said, “He has a chokehold on this town, and enough men to keep it good and tight.”