The seven problems that were likely on the lurk hereabouts.
Likely, the whole town knew about the conflict by now. With every move he made, he’d have to watch his back. He considered probing the cook about the seven ambushers, but he suspected the gent was customarily taciturn. Now, with Prophet here, he was even more so.
Prophet finished his meal and the cherry pie and whipped cream and a second cup of coffee, all of which were figured into the fifteen-cent price for the meal. His belly was well padded but he felt only modestly better. A rat of sharp, cold dread was still chewing on him. It had nothing to do with the ambushers. They evoked only rage in him.
The dread was for his trail partner.
She’d looked bad. Really bad.
He rose heavily, donned his hat, hitched his holster up on his thigh, and tightened the thong securing it to his leg. He tossed the fifteen cents down beside his well-cleaned plates.
“Thanks partner,” he yelled to the cook. Sweeping a pile of dirt and sawdust into a tin dustpan on the other end of the room, the man did not respond.
Prophet gave a wry chuff. Despite his frustration and worry, he yawned as he strode to the propped-open door. Fatigue weighed heavy on him. The Arkansas River Saloon sat down the street a short ways from the eatery, on the other side of the street. There were two horses standing at one of the three hitch racks fronting the place—a two-story mud-brick building with a high, ornately painted false wooden façade.
A drink would file the edges off.
Prophet glanced around cautiously. Seeing no suspicious shadows lurking around alley mouths, the bounty hunter pushed away from Cartwright’s and headed across the street. He climbed the steps to the saloon’s broad front gallery and peered over the batwings.
The Arkansas River was a large ornate place with a bar and back bar that ran along the right wall all the way to the carpeted stairs at the back. The back bar mirror glittered in the umber light given off by smoky lamps hanging from wagon wheels. Game trophies and oil paintings festooned the walls.
It didn’t matter that the pictures were crude. Most men didn’t mind a crude painting if it was sporting a naked woman. One even sported three, all dancing in the desert without shoes even though cactus bristled at their feet. All three girls were appropriately well-endowed enough to cause a man filled with whiskey to consider plopping down his hard-earned cash for a tussle upstairs with one of the girls who likely worked the premises.
There was nothing on the saloon that advertised a brothel, but that didn’t mean it didn’t sell mattress dances. Most saloons did.
In fact, a pretty brunette in a dark-red corset and bustier with black trim and a small, dark-red hat was standing at the bar. She was talking to the bartender, a tall man with thin hair on top and long hair on the sides and tumbling over his collar in back. He was unshaven and he wore an eye patch. He had a lean, angular face and his lone eye was dark and glib. He immediately flushed when he saw Prophet.
There were three other men in the place. They were dressed in the shabby suits of poor shopkeepers or drummers. They were playing poker at a round table left of the bar. Like the girl’s and the barman’s eyes, their eyes were on Prophet.
Prophet smelled trouble here. But then, he’d been smelling trouble ever since he and Louisa had ridden into town. Maybe it was time he rooted out what was causing the stench and dealt with it right and proper.
Anger fanned its flames in his cheeks, but Prophet grinned affably, which was his manner, and poked his hat brim back off his forehead. He pushed through the batwings and moseyed up to the bar, about ten feet right of the girl, who gave him the cool up and down.
“Well, there, friend,” said the bartender, who didn’t sound overly friendly. “What’s your poison?”
“I’d like a whi . . .” Prophet let his voice trail off and glanced behind him as two men, one tall and one short, both sporting revolvers on their hips, pushed through the batwings. Prophet hadn’t heard the thud of hooves, so they hadn’t ridden up to the place. They’d walked, which was damned unusual for ranch hands, which was how these two were dressed.
They swaggered Indian-file to the bar. The tall one strode past Prophet and took a position to his left, on the other side of the girl. The girl tensed, looking straight ahead, nervous. The short gent wore a shabby brown bowler and had a nasty scar running from the right corner of his mouth and down his neck. Probably the stamp of a wild animal of some kind. He bellied up to the mahogany to Prophet’s right.
Prophet smiled and pinched his hat brim to both men and then turned back to the bartender. “As I was sayin’, I’d like a whiskey. Just one shot. It’s late and I’m tired and looking forward to a long night’s sleep.”
“A long night’s sleep, eh?” The bartender grabbed a shot glass from a pyramid and set it down in front of Prophet. Then he popped the cork on a bottle and splashed whiskey into the glass. “Yeah, that sounds kinda good to me, as well.” He glanced first at the man on Prophet’s left and then at the man on his right. “Don’t it to you, boys?”
“A good long night’s sleep,” said the shorter of the two in a nasal twang. “Yeah, I like the sound of that. A good, long night’s sleep.”
The man to Prophet’s left snorted a laugh.
Prophet sipped his whiskey and frowned with mock puzzlement. “I’m afraid I don’t get the joke,” he said, cutting his eyes around. “What’s so funny about getting a good, long night’s sleep?”
He looked at the bartender, who stared at him blandly through his lone, dark, mean eye. Gradually, a slight flush rose in his cheeks. Apparently, he hadn’t expected such a direct and frank reaction.
Prophet turned to the man on his right. “You—little man. What’s so funny about getting a long night’s sleep?”
The little man flushed and his small, round pig eyes darkened. He didn’t like being called little. He stared hard at Prophet for a time and then a darker flush rose in his cheeks and he opened his mouth to lick his lips. He cracked a nervous smile and slid his glance from Prophet to the bartender and back again.
“What?” he said haltingly.
“I’m just tryin’ to get the joke,” Prophet said in frustration, turning to the bartender and then to the man on his left while keeping his shoulders square to the mahogany. “What’s so funny about that? Unless it’s a secret joke that I wasn’t supposed to get. In which case I’m gonna have to assume I’m being made sport of!”
The pleasure girl stepped straight back away from the bar. She turned on a heel, strode past the man on Prophet’s left, and climbed the stairs at the back of the room. She lost a shoe about halfway up but left it where it fell, kicked out of the other one, and disappeared barefoot into the second story.
The three men playing poker gathered their cards and money and left the premises, the batwings flapping noisily behind them.
Prophet turned to the bartender. “What’s your name?”
The bartender slid his eyes to the other two and said tightly, coldly, “L.J. Tanner. I own this place and I don’t appreciate your tone. Kind of bold for a stranger.”
“Mr. Tanner . . . er, L.J.—do you mind if I call you L.J.?”
Tanner stared at him. Apprehension drifted into his eye. Tightly, he said, “All right—have it your way.”
“All right—L.J. it is. L.J., please let me in on the joke, will you . . . so I can finish my drink and go on to bed, secure in the knowledge that I, a stranger in town, ain’t just been mocked by three of the plug-ugliest peckerwoods I’ve seen in a month of Sundays?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Easy now, mister,” L.J. said, opening his hands. “Just take it easy.”
“I ain’t gonna take it easy,” Prophet said, glowering and leaning forward, one hand on the grips of his .45. “I feel as though I’ve done been laughed at . . . after I was shot at . . . after my partner, Miss Louisa Bonnyventure, was badly wounded and is now resting uncomfortably on death’s doorstep. And that just really piss-burns
me bad, see? And I’m going to need someone to apologize . . . so I can leave here and find me a haystack and get that good, long night’s sleep I was talkin’ about real innocent-like before you three laughed. If I don’t get that apology, there’s no tellin’ what I’m liable to do in the piss-burned condition I’m in . . .”
The bartender opened his hands wide and took one step back from the mahogany. “Just take it easy.”
“That ain’t what I’m waitin’ to hear.”
The barman stared at him with his one dark eye.
The man to his right stared at him, too, as did the man to his left. Prophet was watching them both in the back bar mirror, behind L.J. Tanner. They were flushed and sweating and tense as coiled rattlers. The man to Prophet’s left glanced quickly, furtively, to the little man to Prophet’s right and then he slapped the bar suddenly and said loudly, “All right, all right, I’ll give you the apology you’re lookin’—”
He stopped abruptly as Prophet wheeled to his right, the Peacemaker instantly in his hand. The little man had his own Smith & Wesson half raised. His eyes dropped to Prophet’s cocked and leveled .45.
He dropped his own gun and screamed, “No!” He stumbled back away from the bar, tripped, and fell over a chair, taking the chair with him as he fell to the floor, cursing under his breath.
Prophet wheeled. The man to his left had crouched and placed a hand on one of his two Schofields, but he froze, leaving the gun in its holster. He grinned sheepishly at Prophet and slid his gaze to the bartender. The barman chuffed with reproof through his nose, lips pressed tightly together.
Prophet backed up to where he could keep all three men in his line of sight. The little man was climbing heavily to his feet. He’d dropped his hat and his sandy hair was hanging in his eyes. His face was flushed with humiliation. He glanced at the revolver on the floor.
Prophet said, “You touch that Smithy, I’ll blow your head off, you ugly little pile of shit.”
The little man gave a soft yelp and stumbled anxiously back away from the gun. Prophet swung his Colt to the man on his left. That man, too, stepped back and raised his hands high above his shoulders, eyes wide as he regarded Prophet as though he were a wildcat who’d just moseyed in from the countryside looking hungry.
Prophet turned to the barman, who stood a couple feet back from the bar, shuttling glares from the little man to the man on Prophet’s left. “You two are useless,” the barman told them. “Useless!”
“He’s right fast, L.J.,” the little man said, indignant. “Just like what they say about him.”
Prophet glared at the barman. “So . . . you sicced these two hapless mutts on me?”
The barman glared back at Prophet, nostrils flared. “So what if I did?”
“Why?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“I’m makin’ it my business.” Prophet slid his Colt slightly to the barman’s right and quirked a wry half-grin. “How ’bout if I blow out that purty mirror you got there?”
“Christ, no!” L.J. shouted, darting forward, holding up his hands, palms out, as though to shield his precious looking-glass from a bullet. “Please! I got a thousand dollars in that mirror, and that’s the expensive liquor on the shelves back there.” His gaze now was suddenly one of beseeching, but his voice was also edged with subtle warning. “Please.”
Prophet glanced at the other two. “Were they . . . or you . . . part of that pack of chicken-livered dogs that ambushed me an’ my partner last night? Maybe all three of ya?”
“God, no!” said the tall man to Prophet’s left. “We had nothin’ to do with that!”
“We didn’t even get to town till late this afternoon. Just rode in for a drink after a long, hot ride from Abilene!”
“Shut up about your life story, Donovan, or I’ll . . .” L.J. let his voice trail off and returned his gaze to Prophet.
“What about you?” Prophet asked him, pitching his voice with menace. He narrowed one eye. “Your voice sounds mighty familiar. I got me a good ear for voices. Somethin’ tells me you were out there last night, at the Ramsay Creek Outpost.”
L.J.’s cheeks mottled red. He shook his head slowly, swallowing nervously. “No. Now . . . you got it wrong, see?”
“Do I?”
“Yes, you do.”
“You know who was out there, don’t you?” Prophet asked.
“No, sir, I sure as hell don’t.” L.J. glanced fleetingly toward the man on Prophet’s left, as if to gauge his reaction.
Prophet knew he was lying. About which part of the question, he wasn’t sure. Maybe both parts. He doubted he’d get anything out of him, however. Not now. Not yet. He had a mind to blow up the man’s precious mirror.
As he turned his pistol once more slightly to the right, the barman said, “That ain’t gonna get you any answers, goddamnit! That’s destroyin’ personal property, and by god if you do that . . . !”
“What?” Prophet said through gritted teeth. “What’re you gonna do about it?”
L.J. just glared at him, his lone eye hard, round, and cold.
Prophet glanced at the other two. The man on his left still had his hands raised. Prophet backed up six feet and wagged his revolver at the nearest table.
“I’ll take your guns. Set ’em right here. They’ll be layin’ in the street outside. If I see either one of you go for ’em before I’m well away from here, I’ll kill you. And if I ever see you again, I’ll kill you. So if you see me first, you better turn around and hightail it in the opposite direction and hope like hell I don’t see you before you get gone.”
“Fools,” L.J. said through a growl.
Donovan picked up his Smithy and, truckling like a whipped dog, staring at Prophet’s cocked Colt, set it on the table. His taller partner set both his pistols on the table, as well, and then backed away.
“You fellas got any hideouts?”
“Nope,” said Donovan.
“No, sir,” said the tall man, raising his hands again.
Prophet narrowed a suspicious eye. “You sure?”
“We’re sure,” said Donovan.
“What a couple of cowards,” L.J. said out the side of his mouth, keeping his nose wrinkled disdainfully.
“Shut up, L.J.,” Prophet said. “One more word out of you and I’m gonna shatter your mirror.”
L.J. swallowed. “Please don’t do that.”
Prophet picked up the revolvers from the table, one by one. Keeping his Colt aimed at L.J., he shoved each pistol down behind his cartridge belt.
“If I find out any of you ambushed my partner out there at Ramsay Creek, you’re gonna die. So you’d best start settin’ things in order, maybe brush off the suit you wanna be planted in. I ain’t goin’ anywhere until I know who did that piece of cowardly business under cover of darkness. Outnumbering us eight to two.”
Prophet backed to the batwings, stopping to the left of the doorway. He glanced over the louver doors to make sure no one was lurking on the porch with a gun. Glancing over his shoulder, he said, “I’m gonna find out who and why, and then the cowards behind it are gonna pay. And I ain’t just talkin’ about a blowed-out mirror, neither.”
He backed through the doors. As they slapped back into place before him, he stared over their tops at the three men standing frozen around the bar, gazing at him coldly, edgily. “One last thing before I go. If I find anyone lurkin’ around the doc’s place, there will be no warning. I will shoot first and find out who I shot after the smoke clears.”
Prophet turned, walked down the porch steps, and tossed all three revolvers into the street.
He strode west along the dark main thoroughfare, turned south down the cross street, and headed out in the direction of the river he could not see save for a few dull star reflections beyond the trees in the darkness. The town was quiet. Eerily quiet. As Prophet walked, he paused now and then to turn full around and inspect the night around him. Then he continued walking until he entered the doctor’s yard.
He walked past the side door to the rear of the house and looked into the window of Louisa’s room.
Through the thin curtain, he could see the doctor in there, leaning forward in the chair and pressing his stethoscope to Louisa’s chest. Prophet couldn’t see Whitfield’s face from this angle, but the man’s jaw looked nervously taut. Prophet tensed, then, as well.
Had she gone?
Prophet strode to the side door, hesitating. He decided not to knock, though he knew he was likely risking the sawbone’s wrath. He’d already drawn that, anyway.
“How is she?” he asked as he pushed through the curtain.
Whitefield was stuffing the stethoscope back inside his open medical kit. He scowled at Prophet, waved him out, and then, after a few seconds, he followed the bounty hunter out into the hall near the side door, dragging his bad ankle.
“You were gone longer than I figured you’d be,” Whitfield said, adjusting his glasses on his nose.
“Yeah, well, I ran into more trouble than I expected . . . over at Mr. L.J. Tanner’s Saloon.”
“Sniffing for more trouble, eh?” the doctor said in a reproving tone.
“I didn’t sniff the first bit. It came to us. Save the lectures, Doc. How is she?”
“She’s still alive. Her pulse is shallow. Her fever is down, however, but it will likely rise again. I will continue to check on her throughout the night.” Whitfield filled his lungs as he stared up at the big man before him, like an admonishing schoolmaster. “If I were you, Prophet, I’d leave this town. Your staying here isn’t doing either one of you any good. You’re just attracting trouble to my place, and I do not allow trouble here.”
Anger burning bright behind his eyes, Prophet said, “Doc, I’ll be here until Louisa’s ready to ride. And just so you know—and you might want to spread this around, though it’s probably spreading already, after my visit to Mr. Tanner’s saloon—I’m gonna find out who ambushed her. And I’m gonna find out why. And then, because I know the law here won’t do a damn thing about it, I’m gonna settle up with those men myself.”
To Hell on a Fast Horse Page 9
