Stagecoach to Purgatory

by Peter Brandvold

  Ford peered past Prophet to the window flanking the bounty hunter and said, “Speak of the devil,” as he rose from his chair.

  “What is it?” Prophet said, instinctively closing his hand over the butt of his Colt as he stepped to the window. More than one person was approaching in a hurry.

  As Prophet peered out the window, seeing several rough-hewn men in trail garb climbing the veranda steps, there was a single, loud knock on the door. Ford was just moving out from behind his desk when the door latch clicked and the door was pushed open.

  A woman in a purple, pleated gown edged with white lace strode resolutely through the door, collapsing the parasol she held in her right hand. “Hello, Jonas,” she said, taking three of those resolute steps straight up to Ford’s desk and swinging toward him as though she were about to challenge him to a fistfight. She swung the thick waves of her dark brown hair back from her olive cheeks and continued with, “I thought I’d stop by to see what progress you’re making, if any, on . . .”

  She stopped talking as her glance slid toward Prophet standing by the window flanking her. She turned away from him, turned quickly back. Was it Prophet’s goatish imagination, or did a small fire flicker briefly far back in her copper eyes?

  A flush rose into her cheeks. For a second Lou thought she must have recognized him from somewhere, or thought she had, but then she gestured to him quickly with her open hand and said to Ford, “Who’s this?”

  Prophet wasn’t given to cursory niceties, but this woman rocked him almost literally back on his heels. He doffed his hat and held it in both hands before him and said after clearing a sudden small knot in his throat, “Lou Prophet . . . Miss . . . ?”

  His heart thudded as his eyes took her in quickly, not wanting to openly ogle the young woman but having a hard time not doing just that. She must have been all of twenty-one, possibly twenty-two, with a bosom half-exposed by the deep dip of her gown’s corset. She wore a black silk choker around her long, fine neck, and it was trimmed with a square diamond set in gold.

  While her breasts were full, they were not overly large. Her waist was narrow, her hips gently rounded. While she was dressed like a West Texas queen, and was probably the wife or daughter of a powerful man—a rich man, judging by the fineness of her attire—something told Prophet she felt just as at home in the rough trail gear Louisa was wearing, firmly in a Texas saddle.

  Her face was delicately sculpted, almost doll-like, but her eyes, nose, and chin were as resolute as her walk. Her jaws were set for hard commands, her gaze for cajoling.

  “The bounty hunter,” she said, fighting back the flush that had risen into her cheeks and was the only sign of unrestraint. She looked him up, then down, then up again, her gaze brushing across the Colt he had his gloved right hand on.

  She glanced at Louisa. “Miss Bonaventure’s partner. I see you’re finally here.”

  “You see right, Miss . . . ?” Prophet tried again.

  Since she didn’t seem in any hurry to introduce herself, Ford did it for her. “This is Mrs. Dahlstrom, Lou. As I was about to explain, Mrs. Dahlstrom’s—”

  “Oh, call me Phoebe, Jonas,” the young woman said. “We’ve known each other all our lives, for heaven sakes!”

  Ford smiled stiffly, cleared his throat tolerantly. “As I was about to explain, Phoebe Dahlstrom’s husband was killed recently.”

  “Murdered,” Phoebe corrected for Prophet’s benefit. “By George Hill.”

  “Allegedly,” Ford corrected the young woman for her own benefit.

  “You’re reading for the law, now, Jonas?” she snorted. Turning to Prophet, she said, “It is my firm belief that George Hill, a prominent businessman here in Carson’s Wash, hired Charlie Butters to murder my husband.”

  “Just to play devil’s advocate,” Prophet said, “why would Mr. Hill do such a dirty low-down thing, and why do you think it was Charlie Butters who did it for him?”

  “I seen him. I was there. I know what Butters looks like.”

  This from one of the five men who’d either followed Mrs. Dahlstrom into the marshal’s office or were hanging back, as two were, arms crossed as they held up both sides of the doorframe. They were all dressed like ranch hands in wool shirts, billowy neckerchiefs, battered Stetsons, and brush-scarred chaps. To a man they wore at least two pistols.

  The man who’d spoken was roughly six feet, with wide shoulders and a modest gut. He had long, sandy red hair and matching mustache and spade beard. His blue eyes were small and flat beneath thick, sun-bleached brows.

  “This is my foreman, Melvin Handy,” said Phoebe Dahlstrom. “He and Lars Gunderson were leading my father out to where a mountain lion had killed two steers. They’d stopped to drink from a spring when a man fired a rifle from a stand of mesquites.”

  “It was Butters,” insisted Handy. “I know what Butters looks like. I seen him in Dodge City back a few years ago, and it was him, all right. Little pinched-up face, short, greasy yellow hair. Got a bull-horn tattoo on his throat, the name Audrina written inside it, and a silly braid hangin’ down his chin.”

  “Charming,” Louisa said, coolly ironic as always. “I’ve always wanted to have my name inside a bull-horn tattoo on a man’s neck.”

  Ford chuckled as he and Louisa shared an amused glance.

  Phoebe Dahlstrom was staring up at Prophet. She had to tilt her head back to do so. She held her lids ever so slightly closed, giving her an insouciant, vaguely sneering look, as though she were looking up at some barbaric creature of the wild but was doing her level best at lowering herself to make conversation with it. “There you have it, Mr. Prophet. Butters is why you are here”—she slid an accusatory glance toward the marshal—“since Jonas got himself shot by Butters. And two of his deputies killed.”

  “Now, Phoebe!” Ford said.

  Not letting him continue, and returning her haughty gaze to Prophet, she hurried forward with: “I understand you captured that killer once before. It is my hope that, with Miss Bonaventure’s help, you can do so again. I want Butters and George Hill brought to justice for murdering my husband.”

  “Why do I feel like a dog just sicced on a calf-killin’ coyote?” Prophet said, smiling ironically, offended by her tone and demeanor and mesmerized by her eyes and a couple of other attributes he was in prime position, tall as he was, to have a full, downward-slanting view of.

  She gave an ironic smile of her own, revealing even white teeth behind sensuous lips. “If you bring Butters to justice, Mr. Prophet, I am in a position to reward you most generously.”

  Louisa snorted.

  Mrs. Dahlstrom looked at her sharply, with exasperation. “I meant a monetary reward!”

  Louisa gave her an arched brow.

  Mrs. Dahlstrom’s entire face turned the red of an expensive French wine. Flustered, she said, “A monetary reward for both of you. Five hundred dollars.”

  “I accept,” Prophet said. “After all, I do this for a living.” He glanced at Ford. “Although I’d do it as a favor to you, Jonas.”

  “As would I,” Louisa said. “But I hunt killers for a living, as well, and I, too, accept your offer, Mrs. Dahlstrom.”

  The rancher’s young widow gave her chin a cordial dip.

  “Now, I’d like to repeat a question I asked before,” Prophet said after throwing back the last of his whiskey and setting the glass on Ford’s desk. “Why do you think George Hill wanted your husband killed, Mrs. Dahlstrom?”

  Again, the conversation was interrupted by commotion from the street. The crunch of footsteps rose, and a man’s deep voice yelled, “Ford? Marshal Ford? If you’re holding a meeting concerning the murder of Max Dahlstrom . . . and his poor, grieving widow is present . . . how dare you not make sure I’m in attendance, as well?”

  Prophet turned toward the open doorway, as did everyone else in the marshal’s office. Between the two Dahlstrom men standing on the veranda, their backs now facing Prophet, Lou could see a beefy gent in an ice-cream suit, checke
d vest, and brown top hat moving toward them. He walked down the center of the dusty street inside an evenly spaced procession of four other gents—burly fellows armed with shotguns and what appeared to be hide-covered bung starters.

  All four of the burly gents in the entourage were Prophet’s size or larger. To a man, they looked like bare-knuckle fighters—the kind of men Prophet had seen on the waterfronts of coastal cities or rollicking river towns like Kansas City.

  Prophet turned to Jonas Ford, who was making his way to the door, his expression that of a man who’d just eaten an entire lemon.

  “George Hill, I presume?” Prophet said.

  “Oh, nuts,” was Ford’s only reply.

  Chapter 4

  Prophet followed Jonas Ford out onto the veranda fronting the lawman’s office.

  “What can I do for you, George?” Ford asked the beefy man in the ice cream–colored suit now standing with his four even beefier men in the street just beyond the veranda’s bottom step.

  “You can answer my question, Jonas,” Hill said, lifting a fat stogie to his mouth and taking several puffs.

  He had a fleshy, darkly tanned face with a single, insinuating, flat brown eye. His other eye, the left one, had a black patch over it. His lips were thick and leering. A thatch of thin, dark brown air peeked out from beneath his top hat. “Why wasn’t I informed a meeting was taking place?”

  “The meeting doesn’t concern you, Mr. Hill.” This from Phoebe Dahlstrom, now stepping out of the marshal’s office, as well. Standing to Prophet’s right, between him and Ford, she glowered down into the street at the five brutish men staring back at her.

  Goatish lust floated into the gazes of the four toughs surrounding Hill, like thin clouds passing over the moon and tempering its light.

  The pretty young widow continued with, “I was merely inquiring about the whereabouts of Mr. Prophet, whom I know Jonas . . . er, um, Marshal Ford . . . summoned here to track the man you hired to kill my husband.”

  Hill bunched his lips angrily but as though not noticing, Phoebe added, “I see that Mr. Prophet is here now, so I am confident that he and Miss Bonaventure will be running him down soon, and we’ll get Mr. Butters’s side of the story. Surely he won’t wish to hang alone when it would be so much more comforting to have someone hanging beside him. Especially when that man is as culpable in his crime as Butters himself is. That man, of course, being you.”

  Prophet had to hand it to the woman. She wielded her pretty tongue as well as any border bandito wielded a razor-edged stiletto. He could almost feel the blade going in and twisting.

  “You got no right to accuse me of Max’s murder, young lady! No right at all! I’m tired of hearin’ it, and if you don’t stop, I’m gonna hire me a lawyer and sue your bloomers off !”

  The men around him gave slant-eyed grins. Two chuckled dryly.

  As Phoebe’s men walked up behind her or to stand to either side of Prophet and Ford, their backs and shoulders defensively taut, she said, “Everyone in town knows that you two openly fought in your saloon the night before my husband was murdered. He accused you of stealing his beef and trying to convince the smaller ranchers to form a pool to stand against him. You knew of his plans to fence in his range, and several detestable nesters along with it—several deplorable nesters with whom you are in league to drive my husband off his land!”

  “You got that backwards, just like you’ve always had everything else! It wasn’t me that was tryin’ to drive your dearly departed husband out of this country! It was your husband who’s been trying to drive me out of this country by burnin’ me out and jumpin’ my minin’ claims for years. And you know as well as I do it all started back nigh on twenty years ago, even before he cut out my eye!”

  Oh, crap, Prophet mused. Some bailiwick I’ve just been lured into.

  He glanced at Louisa who, returning his look, corroborated his sentiment by dipping her chin and arching her brows.

  “Maybe we oughta just get this over with right here an’ now, Mrs. Dahlstrom,” said Phoebe’s foreman, Melvin Handy, stepping forward and sliding his revolver from its holster. “Maybe Butters deserves to swing all by his lonesome.”

  Ford cursed and turned angrily to Handy. “Mister, you put that pistol back in its holster right now, or I’ll throw you in the lockup!”

  “Well, hell,” Handy said, indicating Hill’s men, who all stood taut and ready, nostrils flaring. “They’re all armed!”

  “Do it now, Handy!”

  Handy glanced at Phoebe Dahlstrom, who gave him a slow blink.

  Handy sighed and slid his hogleg back into its holster but did not snap the keeper thong back over the hammer, Prophet noticed.

  Ford turned to Hill and the other men in the street. “George, no meeting was taking place. At least, nothing formal. As you can see, no attorneys are present.”

  “Ain’t that convenient?” Hill drawled, smirking.

  “As Mrs. Dahlstrom just told you, she’d come over to see if Prophet had arrived. And he had. I’m sure he and Miss Bonaventure will be hitting the trail shortly. I hope to have Charlie Butters arrested and this mess cleaned up within a day or two. If you have no culpability in Mr. Dahlstrom’s death, then you have nothing to worry about.”

  “Fancy talk, Jonas,” Hill said. “The General would be right proud of your back-East learnin’. I don’t care how much readin’ for the law you do at night, on your own time. I know how things work out here. I know how many friends the Dahlstroms have. Everyone knows the General . . . and his son . . . was and is two of ’em.”

  Hill slid his oily gaze from Ford to Phoebe Dahlstrom then glanced around at his men and said, “Come on, boys. Let’s head back. We got a saloon to tend.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Ford said.

  Hill turned away then stopped and looked back. “You keep this in mind, Jonas. I don’t care what Butters says. I did not hire him to kill Max. If he says I did, he’s lyin’. Someone put him up to lyin’. If he killed Max, it wasn’t for me.”

  “Spit it out a little clearer, George,” Ford said.

  “What I’m sayin’ is this: If you come to arrest me, you’ll be grabbin’ the devil by the tail, an’ you best be ready for the fight of your life.”

  His men all sealed the threat with a dull-eyed, smirking gaze at Ford and Prophet.

  Hill gave a resolute dip of his chin and started walking east along the street, his bulky men lumbering after him.

  No one on the veranda said anything for a full minute.

  Then Phoebe Dahlstrom sighed and turned to Ford. “I’ve taken a room at the Rio Grande Hotel until this matter is cleared up, Jonas. Until George Hill swings from a gallows rope. So, you’ll know where to find me to inform me of any new developments.”

  She glanced at Prophet, then at Louisa, then slid her oblique gaze back to Prophet once more, her eyelids closing slightly. “Good luck out there. Please take him alive. I want him to be able to say George Hill’s name loudly and clearly . . . so there is no mistake.”

  With that, she glanced at Handy and the other men, opened her parasol, lifted her skirts above her ankles, revealing side-button, black patent shoes, and stepped gracefully down the veranda’s three steps and into the street. Her men followed her in the direction of the hotel, to the east.

  She had a long stride with her narrow back set straight, her nose high, like a prow determinedly cleaving the water of a turbulent ocean. Her dark brown hair danced across her shoulders, copper highlights glinting in the West Texas sun.

  Staring after her, Jonas Ford said, “Imagine hating your father as much as that woman hates hers.”

  Louisa frowned at the town marshal. “What do you mean, Jonas?”

  Ford glanced at her. “I didn’t tell you? George Hill is Phoebe’s father.”

  Prophet twisted a finger inside his ear. “Say that again, would you, Jonas? I reckon my ears are packed with trail dust. I thought you said . . .”

  “That George Hill was Phoebe D
ahlstrom’s father,” Louisa finished for him.

  “You both heard right.” To Louisa, Ford said, “I’m sorry. I thought I mentioned it. I don’t know how I could have left that out.”

  Prophet whistled and glanced west along the curving street, toward where Mrs. Dahlstrom and her entourage were just now approaching the Rio Grande Hotel—a humble, three-story, mud-brick affair with a large, shaded front porch. As the pretty widow climbed the veranda steps, one hand on the rail, she glanced back toward the marshal’s office then turned her head sharply forward and, chin up, entered the hotel.

  Prophet turned to Ford. “Why does she hate him so much?”

  Ford sighed. “That’s a long story. How ’bout if I explain it later? I have to make my rounds. I’m a bit shorthanded these days.” He looked at Louisa. “Say, this evening at dinner? The Rio Grande has a fine dining room for a town so humble. Carson’s Wash is a good stopping point for freight trains headed between El Paso and Abilene, and those freighters figure they need a good meal by the time they make it this far.”

  Prophet had a feeling he wasn’t really the one being invited, which is why he hurried to beat Louisa to a response: “Why, thank you for the kind offer, Jonas. I’ll be there!”

  He slid his grin to Louisa, who returned it with a pasteboard one of her own.

  “It’s settled, then,” Ford said, also smiling stiffly. “I’ll meet you, uh, both, there!”

  He pinched his hat brim to Louisa, dropped into the street, and began making his rounds.

  When Ford was gone, Prophet glanced at his partner. “You fancy that boy, do you?”

  “He’s no boy,” Louisa said, drawing out the word boy and staring after Ford with her mouth corners raised. “And what’s not to fancy? He comes from a good family, is well educated, has good taste in clothes, is not one to frequent pleasure parlors, and takes a bath at least once a month.”

  “Still,” Prophet said, “I think he’s an all right fella.”

  He glanced at Louisa, who drew her mouth corners down. “Speaking of a bath . . .” She scrutinized her fellow bounty hunter’s sweat-soaked, dirt-streaked buckskin tunic and his face covered with a couple layers of West Texas trail dust clinging to a two-day’s growth of beard shadow. “There is a bathhouse behind the hotel.”