“You made that up to try and shock me, though nothing you could say or do could ever again shock me.”
“Louisa, I swear on a whole stack of family Bibles.”
“What would you have to lose? You already sold your soul to . . .” Louisa let her voice trail off as she turned to look out the window over her right shoulder.
She turned full around and then grabbed her own carbine and pressed her shoulder against the wall, to the right of the window. “Someone’s coming.”
Prophet blew out another drag, mashed the quirley on the floor, set the Richards aside, and grabbed his Winchester. He crabbed over to the window on his side of the door, and, doffing his hat, edged a look around the frame. He saw the movement about the same time he heard the clattering of what could only be a wagon.
A mule was just coming into view along the main trail snaking through the crease between the buttes. Now the wagon the mule was pulling came into view, as well. It was a small wagon with an old, gray-bearded man sitting in the driver’s box, mule-eared boots propped against the dash.
A yellow dog sat on the blanket-covered seat beside the old man. As the mule headed for the well, Prophet saw that the wagon was full of lumpy sacks and mining paraphernalia, including pans, picks, shovels, and sluice boxes. The wagon had been painted orange at one time, but the orange had faded to a dull copper. One of the wheels was relatively new, and it sported red spokes.
The old man drew up to the well and punched the brake home. While he clambered down from the driver’s boot, the dog leaped down and immediately began sniffing the yard around the well. The mongrel had obviously picked up the scent of Prophet, Louisa, and their horses.
“Shit,” Prophet muttered. The dog would find them. The old man was probably harmless, but someone could have put him on the scout for a few pinches of gold dust.
“What the hell you smell, Skeeter?” the old man asked the dog, who was running zigzags in the yard between the well and the post headquarters. The old man studied Prophet and Louisa’s hideout suspiciously, his eyes small and dark in his craggy, leathery face beneath the brim of his low-crowned straw sombrero. He was dark enough to have some Indian blood, but something told Prophet he was just an old desert rat wizened by the sun.
The dog continued to follow its nose toward the cabin.
Prophet looked over at Louisa, and shrugged. What could they do?
But then the dog turned on a dime and went running off into the brush to the west. Shortly, a cat hissed loudly. The dog yipped and ran back to the wagon, snorting and shaking its head as though it had gotten its snout scratched. Pouring out water for the dog and the mule, the old man laughed.
“Someday, Skeeter, you’ll learn to leave them cats alone.”
When the old man had watered his animals and himself, and filled a couple of canteens and canvas water sacks, he gazed once more toward the post commander’s headquarters, shading his eyes against the glare as the sun dropped in the west. He lifted his hat, sleeved sweat from his forehead, muttered something that Prophet couldn’t hear from this distance, and then climbed back into the wagon.
As the mule swung the wagon around and headed back out to the trail between the buttes, the old man glanced once more over his shoulder. And then he and the mule and dog were gone.
Prophet and Louisa shared a glance and a shrug.
As they continued to sit in the headquarters shack, waiting, the sun dropped lower in the west. Now Prophet felt like pulling his picket pin. The idea of getting caught here at the outpost after dark held little appeal. His memory of the two cavalry ghosts was still fresh in his mind. He was about to suggest to Louisa that they pull foot, but then a horse whinnied out toward the main trail.
Hooves thudded. Two riders were approaching.
Prophet looked at Louisa. She returned the look but said nothing as she turned to edge a look out the window, caressing her carbine’s hammer with her thumb.
The visitors turned out to be two saddle tramps who paid no attention to the post headquarters building, and didn’t even look around the outpost overmuch. That didn’t mean they weren’t on the scout, but Prophet doubted it. The two tramps chuckled as they jeered each other the way bored saddle tramps do; then they mounted up and road off with nary a look behind them.
“Shit,” Prophet said when they’d drifted out of sight.
“What?”
“Night’s comin’ on.”
“Yeah, we’ll likely get some action soon.”
That wasn’t what he meant. Suddenly, he was more concerned about the ghosts that haunted this place than he was about the person or persons who’d lured them here.
He shouldn’t have been.
CHAPTER FOUR
The sun fell behind the western ridges that turned darker and darker until they disappeared against the velvet sky dusted with stars. The night grew eerily quiet. A very slight breeze rustled around the old outpost, but mostly the silence was like that at the bottom of a deep well.
Prophet and Louisa munched hard tack and jerky and sipped water from their canteens. Prophet walked into the northern bluffs to check on their horses, then returned to the cabin to find Louisa sitting on the front gallery, her carbine across her thighs.
Another breeze rose, moaning across the southern bluffs. Prophet remembered that fiddle he’d heard a few years ago—or thought he’d heard—and felt cold fingers walk up and down his spine, giving him a shudder.
“Don’t much care for this place at night,” he said, stepping into the shack’s deep shadow off the east front corner.
He’d been talking mostly to himself, as he was wont to do, but Louisa said, “You’ve been here before?”
“A few years back.”
“You spent the night?”
Quietly, looking around, he told her about that night.
Louisa chuckled as she stared at him sidelong.
“What’s so damn funny?” Prophet asked, annoyed, wishing he hadn’t told her, but he’d never told anyone before and he felt the need to get it off his chest.
“You.”
“What about me?”
“Are all southerners superstitious?”
“Ah, shit.” Prophet shrugged a shoulder, adjusting the position of the Richards hanging down his back by its leather bandolier. “I’m gonna stroll around. If someone’s lurkin’ out there I’d just as soon find them before they find us.”
“I only asked if all southerners were superstitious!”
“Just the ones who’ve watched a pair of ghost soldiers dancing cheek-to-cheek to a scratchy ole fiddle for way longer than he cared to, Miss Sassy-Britches!”
Prophet strode off to the east. Behind him, Louisa whispered, “Lou, get back here!”
“You done wore out your company!”
“Come on, Lou. I hate to admit it, but now you got me feelin’ spooky!”
“Good!”
Prophet smiled devilishly as he meandered around ruined cabins and clumps of scrub brush. The girl needed to feel spooky. She was too damned cool and sassy for her own good. Maybe some fear would humble her a little, cause her to think twice before she jeered at him for spilling his guts for something he was embarrassed enough about in the first place.
“Snotty britches, is what that girl is,” Prophet muttered. “I’ll be happy to get shed of her again. Really oughta just get shed of her once and for all.”
The girl got way too much enjoyment out of mocking him.
When he’d walked north and east, skirting the perimeter of the old outpost, he climbed a rocky bluff at the outpost’s far eastern end. He took a long, slow look around, listening intently. There were no sounds out here at all. Not even the scuttling of a breeze amongst the brush. Not even a night bird or a mouse.
He stared out across the parade ground. There was enough starlight that he thought he could see the vague outline of the post commander’s headquarters, where Louisa was no doubt feeling damned chagrined over mocking his story about the dancing ghos
t soldiers. As Prophet thought about that, he chuckled despite himself.
It was a damned crazy story. Was it true? Or was Louisa right—was he just so indoctrinated by hillbilly hoodoo that his brain had conjured those two soldiers and that fiddle music one night when he was alone out here amongst these ruins, feeling spooky and primed for feeling even spookier?
He sat down in a niche amongst some boulders and gnarled junipers, and rolled a smoke. He scratched a match to life, and, cupping the flame in his palm, lit the quirley, blowing the smoke straight down so there was less chance of anyone smelling it.
He wouldn’t have lit the smoke out here if he’d thought someone was actually going to show. He was starting to doubt it. If someone were going to show, why wouldn’t they have shown by now? Besides, he’d scouted the outpost thoroughly and he’d spied no sign of anyone.
He was starting to think those notes had been a joke, and that he and Louisa were wasting their time out here. Someone was kicked back in a saloon somewhere, having a good laugh at their expense.
Now, he just wished the stars would hurry up and wheel through their courses and that the sun would show itself in the east, so he and Louisa could haul their freight the hell out of here.
He’d just taken another drag off the cigarette when he lifted his head sharply and frowned straight out ahead of him.
He’d heard something.
He heard it again—the thud of a shod hoof kicking a rock.
Then the clomping of several sets of hooves rose quickly. Riders were moving into the canyon from Prophet’s left and about two hundred yards ahead. Their shadows jostled in the darkness, starlight winking off what were probably bits, bridle chains, and saddle trimmings, possibly spurs.
“Shit!”
Prophet tossed down his quirley, gave it a quick stamping out, grabbed his Winchester, and began moving as quickly as he could in the darkness down the side of the bluff. He looked up to see the riders moving in the direction of the post commander’s headquarters. He could hear men’s voices now and the blowing of the horses and the occasional hoof kicking more stones.
Reaching the bottom of the bluff, Prophet began jogging straight across the parade ground. There were a few boulders that had rolled down from the surrounding bluffs. He swung around the obstacles. The men’s voices grew louder. He couldn’t hear them clearly above the thudding of his own boots and the rasping of his breath.
He stopped, drawing a quiet breath through his mouth.
The voices rose more clearly. He could hear Louisa’s voice now, as well.
“Miss Louisa Bonaventure?” one of the riders asked.
Prophet moved ahead more slowly, quietly, wanting to hear above the thudding of his heart and the faint crunching of gravel beneath his boots.
“Who wants to know?” The night was so quiet that Prophet could hear Louisa as clearly as if she were only a few yards away.
“Where’s Prophet?”
“Who wants to know?” Louisa asked again.
One of the other men chuckled.
Prophet ground his teeth together. He didn’t like the sound of that. He didn’t like the sound of any of it. There had to be ten riders up there, maybe a few more, a few less. It didn’t matter. Prophet and the Vengeance Queen were outnumbered.
Prophet increased his pace as he headed toward the shack.
“What do you think you’re doin’ out here?” asked the man who’d spoken before—the group’s leader, most likely.
“Who wants to know?” was Louisa’s mocking response to that question, as well.
Oh, shit, Prophet thought. Oh, shit! He quickened his pace even more.
“Who wants to know?” asked the man who’d been doing most of the talking. “I’ll tell you who wants to know. The sons o’ bitches who’re gonna burn down your purty ass, Miss Bonaventure!”
Prophet broke into a dead run.
He tripped over a prickly pear, fell, and rolled.
“Burn down this, you smelly sons of bitches!” Louisa wailed, and Prophet heard the metallic rasp of a Winchester being cocked loudly.
A horse whinnied.
Prophet heaved himself to his feet as flames lapped in the darkness.
“Louisa!” he shouted, running.
Again, he tripped, rolled, and gained a knee. He raised the Winchester and began firing at the flames lapping from the guns of the riders clumped in front of the post commander’s building. He triggered the rifle as fast as he could, pumping the cocking lever. Empty cartridge casings arced over his right shoulder to clink onto the gravel behind him.
Men shouted, cursed, and horses whinnied.
Prophet’s rifle jammed. “Goddamnit!” he bellowed.
He could hear the squawking of tack as the riders turned their horses hard toward him. Rifles began lapping flames toward the bounty hunter, who, down on one knee, tossed away the Winchester, threw himself to his right, rolled, and lay belly flat against the ground.
He gritted his teeth as hot lead tore into the ground around him, some way too close for comfort, spraying him with gravel.
As Louisa continued to return fire, Prophet heard one of the shooters yelp.
“Eldon’s hit!” one of the others yelled.
Yet another shouted, “They got us in a whipsaw! Let’s go, boys!”
The group turned nearly as one and began galloping off to Prophet’s left. One more rifle flashed. Prophet rose, extended his Colt straight out from his right shoulder, and triggered several shots at the jostling shadows. He didn’t think he hit any of the ambushers. He was too worried about Louisa for straight shooting.
The riders’ jostling shadows disappeared into the crease between the buttes, and the hoof thuds dwindled quickly to silence.
“Louisa!”
Prophet holstered his six-shooter, picked up his rifle, and ran.
Shortly, he saw her shadow sprawled on the shack’s front gallery. She was on her back, arms thrown out to both sides, one leg bent under the other one. She’d lost her hat, and her blond hair shone like liquid gold in the starlight, splayed out around her head and shoulders.
Prophet leaped onto the gallery and dropped to a knee.
“Louisa?”
He placed a hand on her chest. He couldn’t tell if she was breathing. His hand immediately became wet with a warm, oily substance he didn’t want to believe was blood.
“Louisa?” he said, more urgently, picking her up and cradling her against him, jostling her. “Louisa, goddamnit, you say somethin’. Let me know you’re still alive. Goddamn it, Louisa!”
She groaned, turning her head slightly. Her eyelids fluttered.
“Lou,” she said, almost too softly for Prophet to hear. “Go . . . after . . . them. . . .”
“And leave you here? Forget it. How bad you hit?”
He looked at her closely, pressing his hand against the blood glistening in the starlight. It was coming from a wound just above her stomach and slightly left. He set her down on the gallery floor and ran his hands over her, finding another bloody patch on her upper right leg. She had what appeared a bullet burn across the left side of her neck.
Again, almost too softly for Prophet to hear, she said through a groan, “Nooo, Lou . . . I’m dead. Leave me. Go after . . . those bushwhacking curs and . . . kill them for me.” She coughed, winced against the agony of her wounds, and tossed her head from side to side, gritting her teeth. “Oh, Lou!”
“Louisa, you hold on, you understand!”
He ran into the shack and returned to the gallery with his saddlebags and canteen.
Behind him, she said, “Lou . . . it hurts!”
Prophet’s heart hammered so hard that it made his ribs ache. Worry ravaged him. He couldn’t lose her. Not now. Not ever. If he hadn’t gotten his stupid feelings hurt when she’d laughed at his story about the ghosts, and he hadn’t tucked his tail between his legs and stormed off to that eastern butte . . .
No point in thinking about that now.
Louis
a.
He rummaged around in a saddlebag pouch until he hauled out a pair of winter balbriggans. Quickly, he used his bowie knife to tear the long underwear into strips. He balled up one strip, lifted Louisa’s shirt and chemise, and shoved the wadded strip into the wound from which blood was pumping. Her life was pumping out of her. He had to keep it inside her.
He couldn’t lose this girl. What a fool he’d been to think he’d ever want to!
She by turns sobbed and gritted her teeth, growling and kicking like a wounded mountain lion, as he tied a long strip of the cloth around her waist and knotted it taut over the wound he’d stoppered with the wadded strip. Louisa groaned and writhed, grinding her heels into the gallery’s rotten floor.
“Hold still, goddamnit!”
He grabbed another strip of the torn longhandles. Louisa grabbed his forearm, digging her fingers in. “I’m giving up the ghost, Lou. Go after them and kill them.”
“Shut the hell up, now—I’m tryin’ to keep you from bleeding to death.”
“I’m cold.”
“I’ll get you warm in a minute.”
“I’m . . . really cold.”
“Louisa!” Prophet clamped her lower jaw between the index finger and thumb of his right hand and stared down at her eyes, which were beginning to roll back into her head. “You don’t die on me, Louisa!” He shook her head. “You stay right here—you understand? You fight it! Fight it, goddamn you!”
“. . . so . . . cold. . . . Kill them for me, Lou . . . whoever they are. . . .”
Her body fell slack against the gallery floor. When he released her jaw, her head turned to one side, and she lay still.
“Louisa!” he cried. “Don’t you dare pull foot on me!”
He lowered his head to her chest. His own heart was beating so loudly in his ears that he couldn’t hear hers.
Or . . . maybe there was nothing to hear.
“Goddamnit, Louisa Bonnyventure—if you die on me out here, I’ll tan your ass!”
To Hell on a Fast Horse Page 3
