To Hell on a Fast Horse

by Peter Brandvold

  He backed on out the door, then turned and strode to the batwings. He stepped over the dead bartender and went out.

  As he slung the Richards over his shoulder and behind his back, a wagon moved toward him from his left. Not a wagon but a buggy. A chaise with its top down. The lovely Miss McQueen was driving, looking like the distillation of all things sweet and summery in a fetching yellow frock with matching picture hat with lime-green feathers. The dress was form-fitting, low-cut, the well-filled bodice edged in lace.

  Smiling brightly, twirling a parasol above her head in her white-gloved left hand, she turned the Morgan toward the saloon and said, “Whoa, boy,” halting before Prophet. Her smile faded somewhat, and shallow lines cut across her forehead as she glanced behind him, at the barman lying just inside the batwings.

  “Good heavens,” she said. “Is that Arnell Three-Bears?”

  “Beats me,” Prophet said. “I never had the pleasure.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Now I guess I never will.”

  She returned her eyes to Prophet, and the smile returned. Her lips slid back from white, perfect teeth. “You look like a man who could use a ride, Mr. Prophet.”

  Prophet studied her, sizing her up. His eyes kept returning to her cleavage, which was what the bodice was intended to do. She didn’t seem to mind. Prophet gave a wry chuff and, spurred by curiosity as well as his natural male attraction to an irresistible female form, he dropped down off the saloon’s gallery and stepped up into the buggy. Miss McQueen slid over for him, tucking her frock beneath her bottom as she did, favoring him with her beguiling smile and flickering eyes.

  “Where to?”

  Prophet set the Richards on the floor behind his boots and dug his makings sack out of his shirt pocket. “Oh, I don’t know. The doc said my partner made it through the night and her fever was down. I reckon I don’t need to pester Whitfield about her again for a few hours.” Opening the tobacco pouch and digging out his wheat papers, he said, “Surprise me.”

  She smiled again, turned her head forward, and shook the reins over the Morgan’s back. “I know a beautiful place.”

  Prophet looked at her breasts jiggling around inside the corset, the lace edging ruffling in the wind blowing over the Morgan. “I bet you do,” Prophet said, chuckling and dribbling tobacco smoke onto a wheat paper troughed between his fingers. “I bet you do . . .”

  Miss McQueen laughed as she put the Morgan on down the street, heading east. As Prophet rolled his smoke, he saw several men slowing on the boardwalks on both sides of the street and casting him and the woman incredulous stares. Prophet pinched his hat brim to one man and then raked a thumbnail across a match. He leaned forward to cup the flame to the quirley.

  Miss McQueen didn’t say anything as she drove the chaise on out of Box Elder Ford. The trail soon narrowed and became a shaggy two-track as it curved through the trees paralleling the river on Prophet’s right. Cottonwoods and box elders stood tall on both sides of the trail, the leaves flashing in the sunlight as the breeze rattled them.

  They drove for fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, bouncing along the trail, which was badly rutted in places. Occasionally they jounced over exposed tree roots. The trail curved south with the river, and soon the town was out of sight behind them and the buttes that formed a wall along the river’s far shore.

  Miss McQueen turned her sparkling smile on Prophet once more as she abruptly steered the Morgan off the trail. There was no trail here—only tall, green grass waving in the breeze and shaded by the deciduous forest. Cottonwood seeds danced in the winey air and fell in the grass like a light snow dusting. She pulled up to within twenty feet of the river, which was wide and flat and the color of coffee with a good dollop of cream in it. Prophet saw that there was a deep, horseshoe-shaped gouge in the near bank, and here the water gently swirled. It looked darker than the rest, deeper, and it was well shaded by the trees leaning out over the bank.

  “Here we are,” Miss McQueen said.

  Prophet climbed down off the chaise. He took a last drag off his quirley, dropped the butt onto a patch of bare ground, and mashed it out with his boot heel. He walked over to where Miss McQueen still sat on the buggy’s front seat as though waiting, and raised a hand to her. She placed her hand in his with a cordial nod and rose from her seat.

  Placing his hands on her slender waist, he lifted her down to the ground and she stood before him, her breasts brushing his belly. Staring up at him, she said, “You’re tall.”

  Still staring up at him, she reached behind her head, removed a few pins, and doffed her picture hat. She set the hat on the buggy seat and shook out her rich, dark-brown hair. It spilled beautifully down across her shoulders, glistening in the sunlight.

  She took his hand and began to lead him away from the buggy but then stopped abruptly, reached into a canvas satchel under the seat, and pulled out a small, tin, hide-covered flask.

  “You come prepared,” Prophet said.

  “We should have a wicker basket filled with cold chicken and pickled eggs, not to mention a bottle of French wine, but I guess this will do . . . for now.”

  Miss McQueen removed the cap and took a sip. She closed her eyes as she swallowed, then stretched her lips back from her teeth as the firewater hit her belly. She extended the flask to Prophet, who took a drink.

  “Brandy,” he said, running the back of his hand across his mouth. “Good stuff.”

  “Good,” she said, saucily turning away and striding into the grass, heading toward the river. “But I can do better.”

  The rich, wavy tresses of her hair slid across her slender back as she moved off through the brush. Tufts of downy cottonwood seed clung to it.

  Prophet glanced at the coach gun, which he’d left under the chaise’s front seat. He brushed his hand across the walnut grips of his Peacemaker and started following Miss McQueen into the tall grass, deciding he wouldn’t need the barn blaster out here. He’d made a good many enemies in town—at least, he’d enflamed those who were already his enemies—but they’d likely stew on their troubles for a good, long time before they decided to do anything about them.

  He wondered with amusement how many, if any, would spill their guts to the young marshal. Probably none. They were arrogant bastards, to a man. To their way of thinking, the fact that they had money and were considered “important” townsmen put them above the law. They’d try to find another way out of their situation.

  Prophet’s musings ended abruptly when he saw Miss McQueen sitting near the water on a tree stump. She lifted one knee, hiked up her skirts, and began rolling a stocking down her leg. She tossed her garter belt, and Prophet snagged it out of the air. He twirled the lacy garment on his finger and then draped it over his gun butt. He removed the cap from the flask and took another drink, keeping his eyes on the woman, who’d removed both her stockings now.

  She was barefoot in the grass, the cotton dancing in the air around her.

  She rose from the stump and began unbuttoning her dress as she regarded Prophet demurely. He sat back against another stump and felt a warm wave of passion roll through his loins on the crest of the brandy flush. Sitting there, sipping the brandy, he watched her skin out of the dress and a thin, lacy chemise.

  Wearing only a pink, whalebone corset, she turned around to face the river and glanced coyly over her right shoulder at him.

  “A little help, Mr. Prophet?”

  Prophet walked over to her, gave her the flask, and began unlacing the corset. When he was half done, she chuckled, “You’ve done this before.”

  “Oh, a time or two.”

  “I like a man who knows his way around a corset.”

  “I like a woman who knows when to get shed of such contraptions.”

  He peeled the shell-like garment from around her waist and tossed it into the grass. She turned to him, splendidly naked, her full, proud breasts thrusting toward him. She lifted her hands to them, massaging them gently as she backed away through the grass.

&nbs
p; She had her chin down and she was giving him that phony, bashful smile again, the sun glinting in her brown eyes.

  At the edge of the river she stopped, lowered her hands from her breasts, winked at him, then twisted around, sprang off her well-turned calves, and dove off the bank and into the pool.

  She knifed the water cleanly, hardly lifting a wave.

  The pool wasn’t more than ten feet wide. She came up only a few feet from where she’d gone in, brushing water from her eyes and sliding her wet hair back behind her ears. She glanced over at him. Blowing water out her pooched lips she swam across and out of the hole and into the river.

  Gradually, the water grew shallow, and she was crawling. She turned over on her back and raised her arms behind her, stretching them over a sun-bleached log suspended between stones. The water was not deep enough to cover her.

  Her breasts rose above it, floating, cherry nipples tipped to the sky. The water gleamed over the lower points of her body and around her, like a massive sequined gown.

  She kicked a foot, splashing. “You coming in?”

  “Why not?” Prophet looked around carefully, scrutinizing the trees on both sides of the river.

  “What are you looking for?” Miss McQueen asked. “I don’t think anyone else knows about this hole. I’ve been riding out here from time to time all summer and I’ve never seen any sign of anyone else. It’s my secret place.” She smiled coquettishly. “Or . . . I guess it was my secret place.”

  Prophet scanned the area once more. He didn’t trust anyone around Box Elder Ford. Not seeing anyone creeping up on him through the trees, he doffed his hat and unbuckled his gun belt. He coiled the belt around the holster and set it on the stump.

  He kicked out of his boots, shucked out of his pants, shirt, and summer drawers, and stood on the bank overlooking the pool—a big, naked man, lumpy with muscles, lightly haired, his manhood awakening. He was sunburned where his clothes didn’t cover him—mainly his neck and head. The rest of him was floury white.

  The woman kicked her foot again and laughed. “I’m glad to see at least a part of you isn’t shy.” She pronounced “shy” like “shaw.” The same way he’d pronounce it. He’d noticed that, unlike his own, her southern accent came and went. It usually came when she was feeling frisky.

  Prophet looked down, chuckled, shrugged, and dove into the pool.

  The water was tepid but refreshing. He felt the sweat and dirt of the trail melt away. Lifting his head out of the water, he swam over to her. The sandy bottom rose and he walked up the sloping shelf until he was on all fours, crawling to her.

  Watching him, arms hooked over the log, she opened her legs and began mewling before he’d even mounted her.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Verna McQueen groaned and clamped her teeth down on Prophet’s shoulder.

  She writhed beneath him, shuddering.

  A few minutes later, spent, Prophet rolled off of her. He lay with his head angled back against the log, half floating in the shallow water, the sand making a smooth, comfortable bed beneath him. She rolled toward him, lifted her right leg over his, and kissed his chest, pulling his right arm around her shoulders.

  “You’re a man, Mr. Prophet. It’s nice to have a man around here.”

  “There’s plenty of men around here, Miss McQueen.”

  “There’s plenty of men around here, sure enough,” she said, her accent still slow and soft and lilting as she continued to press her lips against his chest, her right hand trailing down past his belly. “But no men.”

  “Why do you stay here, then?” Prophet asked her, probing her gently while staring at the sky over the river and enjoying the delicious sensation of her warm, wet, supple body folded against his. “A woman who looks like you, with your . . . talents . . . could pretty much go anywhere, have any man she wants.”

  She looked up at him, frowning. “Settle down, you mean?”

  Prophet chuckled and pressed his lips to her forehead. Her breasts felt good, her nipples like delicate rosebuds pressed against his belly. “I reckon you do have a certain freedom. And the money can’t be bad. But—hey, girl—we all get old.”

  “Don’t I know it?” she said, turning her mouth corners down. “But I intend to enjoy myself while I can. Make a good livin’ . . . doin’ what I do”—she smiled and lowered her head to press her lips against his private parts—“while I can. Besides,” she added, resting a cheek against his stomach and still fiddling with him down there, “I’ve been a lot of places—a girl on her own. I like bein’ settled in one place. Bein’ well liked.”

  “Forgive my indiscretion, but how long have you been . . . uh . . . doin’ what you do?”

  “Few years. I was married once, for a little while. He died when a freight wagon ran him over on a trail one night—drunk as a lord. A wealthy Texas rancher, he was. He plucked me out of an Abilene saloon. His sons didn’t like me, so after he died so tragically they ran me off the place. Ungrateful bastards. I think they themselves yearned for me. They were ashamed of themselves.” She giggled. “And they, of course, thought I was out for their old man’s poke. Which, I guess I was in a way, but rest assured, Mr. Prophet—”

  “Might as well call me Lou, Verna, since we’ve become such pals, an’ all, and we’re both former graybacks.”

  “Rest assured, Lou, I made that old man very, very happy.” She reached up and pinched his nose, crossing her eyes delightfully as she laughed.

  “I don’t doubt it a bit, Verna,” Prophet said. “I surely don’t. I also reckon there’s no place you could go you wouldn’t be well liked,” he added, groaning against her ministrations. “By the men, that is. The womenfolks—now, they could be a problem.”

  “Not so far they aren’t,” Verna said. “I think for the most part they like to get their men out of their beds a night or two every week.” She chuckled. She lowered her mouth over him and after a while she lifted it and turned to him. “You’re an old Reb, Mr. Prophet. It is an honor. I just want you to know that. I come from the Rebel country myself and how well I remember the men. They are . . . and you are . . . like no other.”

  She lowered her head again. After a few minutes, Prophet ground his heels into the sand, shuddering.

  “Where’d you grow up down south?” she asked him when she’d rested her head against his belly, dreamily lolling against him in the water.

  “North Georgia.”

  “Came west after the war, eh?”

  “Nowhere else to go.”

  “So you came out here to hunt bad men for a livin’. No . . . not for a livin’ . . . for that fork-tailed, yellow-toothed demon, Ole Scratch!” Verna laughed and rubbed her cheek against his belly, staring up at him dreamily.

  Prophet smiled curiously at her.

  “Oh, I know all about you, Lou Prophet. I’ve read about you in the newspapers. You and your comely young partner, Miss Bonaventure, or ‘The Vengeance Queen,’ as the scribblers call her.”

  Prophet rested his head back against the log. “No kiddin’. Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “You’re right famous—don’t you know that?”

  “I don’t read the newspapers much. Few are handy where I go. When I’m in a town I got better things to do than read newspapers.”

  “I bet you do,” Verna said, chuckling as she snuggled against him.

  “Verna?”

  “Yes, Lou?”

  “Since you probably know most of the men in Box Elder Ford, maybe you can help me solve my not so little puzzle.”

  “What puzzle is that, Lou?”

  “Why did those sumbitches, Hunter and Tanner and the others, bushwhack me an’ Louisa out at the Ramsay Creek Outpost?”

  Verna didn’t say anything. She stared down at Prophet’s chest for a time, her eyes long, slanted, and thoughtful. Then she stuck out her tongue and touched it to the skin just below his left nipple. “Mmm. You taste like an old Rebel. Like well-aged bourbon.”

  Prophet glanced down at her, frow
ning again. “Answer me.”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Lou.” She sat up and stared down at him, her eyes suddenly grave. “You must’ve wronged ’em somehow.”

  “How?”

  She hiked a bare shoulder and looked off toward the buggy parked up on the bank, shadows and sunlight flickering over it and the grazing Morgan. “Oh . . . how would I know, Lou? You’re a bounty hunter. Maybe you crossed paths with one of ’em . . . sometime in the past. And they got the others to throw in against you.” She ran her right hand down her arm, looking away dreamily, the water rippling around her bare thighs. “Yeah . . . that must be how it is.”

  She turned to him, concern pinching the bridge of her nose. “Could be any one of ’em. Who knows? Lou, you’re in grave danger here. I feel it in my bones.” She placed her hand on his belly. “Are you frightened?”

  “Frightened?” Prophet sat up and looked around, making sure he and Verna were still alone out here. “Nah, I ain’t frightened.” It was a lie and he knew it, but he didn’t want to think that those cowards could have that effect on him. “I’m piss-burned about what they did to my partner. Piss-burned at their cowardly act.”

  “How did they ever know you were going to be out at the Ramsey Creek Outpost, Lou?”

  Prophet looked at Verna staring curiously at him. He’d almost forgotten about the scrap of paper someone had slipped under his door in Colorado Springs. “Someone sent me a formal invitation. Louisa, too. The notes were worded the same but in different hands.”

  Verna shook her head. “Quite the mystery, isn’t it, Lou?” She leaned down and kissed his nose. “But don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll figure it out. And whoever’s responsible for such a nasty deed will get their just desserts!”

  She climbed to her feet and cupped her breasts in her hands, smiling down at him beguilingly. “I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink. Did you leave any brandy in the flask?”

  “Oh, there might be another shot,” Prophet said, staring at her thoughtfully as she turned, dropped into the pool, and swam to the bank. She pulled herself up onto the grass, rose, and scooped the brandy flask off the tree stump. She raised it. “Cheers!”