Lou Prophet 2

by Peter Brandvold

  He swept her hair back from her face with both hands. “Again?”

  She nodded and rolled onto her back, grinning. He leaned down to kiss her but stopped.

  “What was that?” he said.

  “What was what?”

  The hard thuds of galloping hooves rose amid the quiet. A horse blew.

  “That,” Prophet said.

  She didn’t have time to answer. An anguished cry rose from the yard. “Layla!”

  Prophet looked at her. “It’s Charlie,” she said, hurriedly wrapping herself in a sheet and dashing out the door.

  Prophet climbed into his jeans and followed her into the yard, where Charlie was trying to dismount his foaming, blowing horse. He’d gotten his foot caught in a stirrup, however, and now he fell face first in the dust. Layla ran to him.

  “Charlie!” she cried. “What’s wrong? Where’s Keith?” She shot a look up the westward trail, then back to Charlie, who climbed to his knees, caked with dust.

  “Loomis,” the man-child yelled, red-faced with hysteria. His voice caught in his throat, and he lowered his head, swallowing and trying to catch his breath.

  “What about Loomis?” Prophet said, kneeling next to Layla.

  Charlie lifted his head, trembling. “L-Loomis has him!” His voice broke and tears poured from his eyes. “He took Keith ... told me ... told me to tell you.... Jason ... Mr. Lang ... he shot ‘em!”

  Prophet shot Layla a puzzled expression. “Loomis shot Anders and Lang?”

  Layla put her hands on Charlie’s shoulders, gave him a shake. “Charlie, please, what are you saying?”

  “Loomis shot Mr. Lang!” Charlie wailed. “Then he shot Jason, an’ he ... an’ he took Keith.”

  “Charlie, where did this happen?” Layla said, her voice quaking.

  “Back ... back where ... we was cuttin’ wood!”

  Prophet said, “Why did he take Keith?”

  Charlie gasped for breath, his face pale now and washed with tears. “’Cause he said... you was here. If you want Keith... you gotta fetch him from the Crosshatch.”

  Prophet’s heart throbbed in his throat, and every nerve in his body was on fire. “How did he know I was here?”

  The boy put his head down and sobbed.

  “Charlie,” Prophet said, grabbing the young man’s arms, shaking him, “how did he know I was here?”

  Charlie’s head lifted as though yanked by a string. He looked at Prophet through tear-filled eyes. “Mr. Lang said ... he seen you....”

  Prophet looked in horror at Layla, who returned the gaze. Absently, absorbing the information as he gave voice to it, he said, “Lang must’ve come by... seen me... here ... with you.”

  Layla’s expression was one of disbelief. “And gone to Loomis?” She shook her head slowly.

  Prophet got up and ran into the house. He came out a few minutes later, fully dressed and carrying his rifle, his sawed-off ten gauge hanging down his back.

  He knelt down beside Charlie and Layla. Layla was holding her brother in her arms. Charlie was still sobbing. Layla just looked pale and terrified, still not quite believing what had happened.

  “Charlie,” Prophet said, “will you show me where all this happened?”

  The young man sobbed quietly against Layla’s shoulder. Gently, she pushed him back to face her. “Charlie,” she said softly. “Charlie, you have to tell us where this happened... so we can help Jason and Mr. Lang.” Her voice quivered fearfully.

  Charlie’s distant gaze slid slowly to Prophet. He blinked and sniffed. “I’ll show,” he said, nodding. “I’ll show ... you.”

  “Good boy,” Prophet said, standing and heading for the corral.

  “What about Keith?” Layla called to him.

  Prophet turned. “First I’ll see if Anders and Lang can be helped. Then I’ll get Keith.” He looked at her seriously. “I don’t think they’ll hurt him. I really don’t. It’s me they want.”

  “Then you’ll be riding right into their trap.”

  “What choice do I have?” Prophet turned away.

  “Wait. I’m coming with you,” Layla said, and bounded for the house.

  “No!” Prophet yelled. But she’d already disappeared inside.

  He saddled his own horse and a fresh one for Charlie. Knowing there was no use trying to convince her to stay, Prophet went ahead and saddled a horse for Layla, as well. Anders and Lang might need her doctoring, anyway. She could tend them while Prophet headed for the Crosshatch.

  He was leading the saddled horses across the yard when Layla appeared, dressed in boots, jeans, cotton shirt, and flat-brimmed hat, and carrying a rifle. She slid the old Spencer into her saddle scabbard and turned to Charlie, who stood in a daze, regarding the horse Prophet had saddled for him.

  “Come on, Charlie,” she said, gently guiding him to the horse. “Show us where you were cutting wood, okay?”

  “They took Keith “

  “I know, Charlie. Lou’s gonna get him back for us. But first we have to see if Jason and Gregor need our help. Okay?”

  The boy nodded, accepting his reins from Prophet, and he poked a boot in his stirrup.

  “There you go. That’s it,” Layla said. Then she turned and ran to her own horse, climbing nimbly into the saddle.

  Prophet did likewise, swinging Mean and Ugly westward. He glanced at Layla meaningfully as they followed Charlie out of the yard at a gallop.

  Charlie led them along twisting horse trails through several ravines and across two skunky-smelling creeks. Finally they crossed a rocky saddle and descended a crease choked with brush and sprinkled with cottonwoods, several of which had died years ago when the creek flooded, providing well-seasoned firewood for Jason Anders.

  But he wouldn’t be needing it anymore, Prophet saw when he rolled the old man over. The bullet in his back had drilled through his heart and out his chest, bibbing his shirt with dark red blood.

  Prophet turned to Layla, who was checking Lang, lying twisted on the horse trail skirting the buttes. He didn’t have to inquire about Lang’s condition. He knew the man was dead from the way Layla knelt on one knee, staring down at the body with her head bowed, silently sobbing, shoulders jerking.

  When she looked at Prophet, smoothing her hair from her eyes with her gloved hands, inquiring with her expression about Anders, Prophet shook his head. Then she let go an audible sob. It rolled up from deep in her chest, and she buried her face in her hands.

  Prophet glanced at Charlie, who sat his horse stiffly, staring round-eyed at the bloody heap of Jason Anders. Walking over to Layla, Prophet knelt down and took her in his arms. She sobbed against his shoulder, trembling.

  When she finally caught her breath, she said, “Keith ... they’ve probably killed him, too!”

  “No,” Prophet said, shaking his head. “I don’t think so. I’m the one they want. Keith’s just the bait.” His heart was breaking, knowing he’d brought this pain to her and her family. He was the reason Lang and Jason Anders were dead. If only he’d gone to Montana like he’d planned, none of this would have happened.

  “But they could’ve killed him,” Layla cried. “You wouldn’t know ... thrown him along the trail...”

  He knew she could very well be right, but he wasn’t going to let her know he thought so. “He’s alive, Layla,” he insisted, squeezing her shoulders. “And I’m gonna get him back!”

  “Then Loomis’ll kill you, too ... an’ you an’ Keith and Jason an’ ...”

  “Layla, pull yourself together now. Take Charlie home, and both of you stay put. I’m gonna follow Loomis’s tracks to the—”

  She’d lifted her head, squinting her eyes defiantly. “I’m going with you.”

  “No way.”

  “He’s my brother.”

  ‘Take Charlie home and stay there.”

  “You can’t stop me. I’m going with you, and I’m going to kill that son of a bitch ... slow!”

  “I know how you feel, but I can do this much easier al
one. I’ve done it before. You haven’t.” He stopped and stared at her, trying to send the message home with his eyes. “You want him back, don’t you?”

  She didn’t answer, her eyes still defiant. He gave her a shake. “Don’t you?”

  Slowly, she nodded, her resolve softening.

  He stood and walked over to the wagon filled with firewood. The two horses stood hang-headed in the traces, looking at once harried and tired. Prophet unbuckled the lines and removed the collars, letting them go. As they lumbered over to the tall grass, Prophet climbed atop Mean and Ugly and swung the horse around to Layla.

  “Where’s Jason’s ranch?” he asked.

  She pointed halfheartedly. “Just up the trail and north, around a bend in the creek.” She looked at him. “Why?”

  “Just got an idea,” Prophet said, kneeing his horse westward along the trail.

  “Lou?” she called to him.

  He stopped the horse and turned to look at her. She stared at him, shaking her head. Her face was white, her expression at once horrified, puzzled, and sad. She was in shock.

  “It’s all right,” he said. “I’ll be back later tonight. With your brother.”

  Then he spurred the dun down the trail and around the brushy base of a stubby butte.

  He found Anders’s ranch ten minutes later, between two hogbacks. It was a shabby little cabin with a sunken sod roof, a connecting stock shelter, and a windmill out front, its wooden tank filled with mossy brown water. In the pole corral, three swaybacked horses stood with their heads over the gate, inspecting Prophet as he entered the yard.

  He brought his horse up to the corral and dismounted, tying the reins to one of the posts. Since Anders wouldn’t be here to feed and water the horses, he opened the gate and hazed them outside. They didn’t go far, just to the edge of the yard, where they stopped and looked back as Prophet made his way to the cabin.

  He ducked through the low door and looked around. There were only two windows and an uneven dirt floor, with a small table, a few hand-hewn chairs, and a squat iron stove. Traps hung everywhere, as did the hides of everything from wolves and grizzlies to rabbits and badgers. The air was pungent with the smell of skunk oil, which the old man had probably used in his lanterns.

  Prophet looked under the bed and in every nook and cranny he could find in the cramped hovel, then went outside. Turning left, he headed for the shelter, found a door in the east wall, and opened it. The twelve-by-six-foot room was filled to the ceiling with odds and ends: iron and leather in all shapes and sizes. On the floor, under a half-dozen moth-eaten horse blankets so mildewed they made Prophet’s lungs constrict, the bounty hunter found what he was looking for: a wood box marked TNT.

  Something had told him he’d find it. Most ranchers had a few sticks of dynamite lying around to blow out stock ponds and tree stumps and to move rock now and then. There were eight or nine sticks in the box, with a dozen or so fuses. Prophet grabbed the sticks and fuses, walked back to his horse, and stuffed the booty in his saddlebags.

  With a grim, determined set to his jaw, he mounted up, rode back out to pick up Loomis’s trail, and followed it north, keeping an eye skinned for a possible ambush. He didn’t think that was likely, though. He sensed that Loomis wanted to meet him in person, on Loomis’s home turf.

  Prophet wouldn’t have had it any other way.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  WHEN PROPHET WAS certain that Loomis’s trail led to the Crosshatch, he turned east through a series of deep-cut gullies and came up on the ranch from the east. It was a long, difficult trek, riding this way, and he didn’t make it to within viewing range of the headquarters until the sun was nearly down.

  He knew Loomis would have men posted around the entire yard, but he still thought that approaching from the back side, away from the direction in which the house and bunkhouse faced, would give him an advantage.

  Dismounting and tying Mean and Ugly to a dwarf pine, he grabbed his spyglass from his saddlebags and climbed a butte. Near the crest, he removed his hat, knelt, and crawled until he could peer over the top without being outlined against the darkening eastern sky behind him.

  Propping his elbows in the grass, he glassed the Crosshatch headquarters spread out in the valley to the west, bordered by chalky buttes on the north and south and by grassy camelbacks in the east and west. A creek curved at the base of the southern buttes, joining with the wide, flat river in the west.

  The house faced the river at an angle. The bunkhouse, blacksmith shop, corrals, and barns—including what remained of the one Prophet had burned—flanked the house in the northeast. Cattle peppered the shallow bowl of the valley behind the corrals.

  Once he’d gotten a cursory handle on the ranch’s layout, he gave the headquarters another, slower glassing, noting two slender brown figures atop the house, another on the bunkhouse, and two more on each of the remaining barns. The sun was sinking quickly, taking the figures with it, but Prophet had no doubt they were riflemen on the lookout for Prophet’s arrival.

  He moved the glass south, and after some focus-adjusting, saw another dark spot on a butte top. There were no doubt more of these spotters where Prophet couldn’t see them. The thought had no sooner passed through his understanding than a shadow moved at the bottom right of his magnified sphere.

  He focused the spyglass on his own end of the headquarters, near the creek’s thin cut, and saw a mounted rifleman making his way eastward along the creek, in Prophet’s general direction. Another spotter. The position of this particular rider presented Prophet with his first obstacle, which he’d have to overcome before he could approach the ranch.

  Before deciding how to accomplish that task, he glassed around some more, trying to identify any more riders at this end of the ranch yard. Finding none, he lowered the glass and rubbed his jaw with his gloved right hand, pondering the situation.

  Coming up with an idea, he scurried down the butte and gathered a few slender branches and some dry brush from a narrow gully. He then scouted a good position for a fire, and built a small one in a notch between two buttes, in a slight depression he scooped out with his hands. Here the curious, flickering light would likely be spotted by only the rider on this end of the valley, and Prophet doubted he’d take the time and effort to summon help before investigating.

  When the flames were going good, he hid behind a rock about fifteen yards down a slight grade from the fire, and waited. The sun was down, salmon scalloping the sky, when he heard the clomp of a horse.

  He waited until the rider had ridden up within ten yards of the fire and stopped. Then Prophet grabbed his knife from his belt sheath, jumped out from behind the rock, and tossed the knife end over end. It was too dark to see the knife go in, but the guttural “Ohhh!” the rider gave before rolling out of his saddle told him he’d hit his mark.

  The man’s horse whinnied and scrambled away. When Prophet had made sure the man was dead, he quickly smothered the small flames with sand and ran toward his horse. He grabbed the dynamite from his saddlebags, wedged the sticks behind his cartridge belts, and stuffed the fuses in his pockets.

  Shotgun hanging from the lanyard down his back, he gave Ugly a parting pat, as if for luck, and scrambled westward toward the ranch.

  There was only a thin, burnt orange line of sun left in the west when he ran through a gully and came to the creek. He knelt down, watching and listening, hearing nothing on the night breeze but the distant munching of cattle and yammering of coyotes back in the buttes.

  The reeds along the creek made a faint rasping. If there had been a rider within a hundred yards of him, he was relatively certain he would have heard him, the night was so quiet.

  Slowly, he crossed the creek, not lifting his boots from the water as he walked, then climbed the opposite bank. Stopping to look around again, making certain he was alone, he stole across the valley, which rose slightly now, toward the corrals.

  He was in the open, with little cover, and he felt the tension tight
en the muscles in his jaw and at the base of his neck. All those pickets perched atop the house and bunkhouse had to see was a shadow, and he’d be grease for the pan.

  In the back of his mind, he wondered where Keith was. Where had Loomis sequestered him? No doubt in the house, where Loomis could keep a personal eye on him without too much inconvenience. Maybe the bunkhouse, but Prophet didn’t think so.

  Anyway, he’d try the house first.

  When he came to the first corral, empty of horses, he knelt down behind the split logs. What he needed to do first was get those pickets off the roofs. The best way to do that was create a diversion.

  “Hey, Bryce, that you?”

  The voice had come from behind him, deep and raspy. He tensed suddenly, warning bells going off in his brain, blood singing in his ears. His thoughts whirled.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” he said in what he hoped wasn’t a too slow nor too anxious a response. “Who’s that?”

  “Murphy.” Prophet saw the dark figure of the man to his left, coming around the corral. He heard his footsteps as Murphy approached, holding a rifle against his chest. “See anything?”

  Prophet tried to calm himself, to think rationally, to come up with an effective plan for dealing with the man.

  “Nothin’.”

  “You got a light?”

  “Yeah.”

  A big man, an inch or two taller than Prophet, Murphy stepped toward the bounty hunter, an unlit quirley angling from the black slash of his mouth. Several feet away, the man slowed, hesitating.

  Come on, Murphy. Keep coming.

  Murphy stopped. “Hey ... you’re not—”

  Knife in his hand, Prophet lunged forward. As he plunged the curved tip of the razor-sharp blade into the man’s gut, angling it up toward his heart, he covered the man’s mouth with his left hand, working his right leg behind Murphy’s left. The man went down hard, his cry muffled by Prophet’s hand, his rifle clattering on the hard-packed ground.

  Prophet removed the blade from the dead man’s gut and crouched there, listening. When no one came, he wiped the blade on the man’s denims and stood with a sigh.