‘SHIT!’
Prophet reined Mean and Ugly to a halt in a cottonwood copse along the grassy, southern bank of the Otter-tail River. The sun was going down, but making the sky even darker was a plum-colored storm curtain beating in from the west.
The curtain was streaked with pearl rain. From the size of the cloud topping the storm, it was a mean one, too, and would no doubt obliterate the tracks of the men Prophet was following, had been following for the past hour and a half, since leaving Luther Falls in a wind-splitting gallop.
‘Lou, you be careful,’ Cordelia had admonished him from her front porch as he’d sprinted off down the street toward the livery, saddlebags over his shoulder. ‘That’s the Red River Gang!’
He hadn’t had time to go back and have her fill him in on just who in hell the Red River Gang was, but the tall Scandinavian who ran the livery barn had given him the quick lowdown while saddling his horse. Turned out the Red River Gang was a group of renegades led by Handsome Dave Duvall and Dayton Flowers—both murdering outlaws whom Prophet had heard of down in the Indian Nations. Wanted by federal marshals out of Fort Smith, they’d fled the southern plains to the north, where they’d been running hog-wild for the past six months, raiding settlements up and down the Red River between Wahpeton and Grand Forks in eastern Dakota Territory.
‘They always raided more into Dakota than Minnesota,’ the liveryman had groused as he cinched Prophet’s saddle. ‘No one ever expected ‘em to show their ugly souls in Luther Falls. I mean, there ain’t nothin’ here worth thievin’!’
Well they had a girl and some candy and the satisfaction of having turned a quiet little town upside down, and that’s probably a good day’s work for that bunch, Prophet thought now, as he sat watching the storm growing on the horizon.
‘Shit!’ he repeated, knowing he was going to have to seek shelter soon, probably throw a lean-to together to keep from getting soaked.
He looked westward, the direction the gang’s tracks led. It was a vast, flat, brown prairie out there, relatively featureless but for the Ottertail River twisting through, sheathed in high brush and cottonwoods. The gang was following the river toward the Dakota border, and Prophet figured they’d hole up, too, probably in a bend much like the one Prophet sat along now, cursing the weather and the lateness of the hour.
If he stopped now, he wouldn’t be able to get started again till the morning. No point tracking those men in the dark and risk losing their trail—a trail that would prove hard enough to follow after that squall hit.
He turned his horse back into the trees, dismounted, and stripped the gear off Mean and Ugly, and hobbled him. There was plenty of tall grass around, and the river offered water, so he knew the horse wouldn’t wander far. It was starting to rain, and the wind was kicking up by the time he’d rigged a lean-to with the tarpaulin in which he’d wrapped his bedroll. He’d chosen a campsite in a slight hollow with a big, uprooted cottonwood along one side, and the shelter kept him from getting soaked, although wind prevented him from building a fire.
Fortunately, the heaviest wind lasted only ten minutes or so. When it had tapered off, Prophet went out in the spitting rain to gather dry wood, returning with several small branches that had been sheltered by heavier limbs. He piled the wood outside the lean-to, then carved out a small hole in the center of the shelter, surrounded it with rocks he gathered from the riverbank, and built a fire.
He didn’t dally in starting a pot of coffee heating, with which he’d try to chase the damp chill from his bones. While the pot gurgled and sighed in the coals, he produced the bacon Cordelia and Annabelle had packed for him, and started it frying in his skillet. When the bacon was done, he fished the strips out of the grease, packed them and several extra dollops of grease from the pan in three fresh biscuits, and his supper was made.
He ate hungrily and washed his makeshift but delicious meal down with tar-black coffee, watching the rain, hearing the drops clatter on the tarpaulin. What was foremost in his mind, though, was the image of Sheriff Arnie Beckett riddled with bullets, and the dying mercantile proprietor feebly trying to hold his innards in place and begging Prophet to save his daughter.
That he’d do, by Ned. If it was the last thing he did in this world.
Most of Prophet’s man hunting jobs had been pure business transactions which he’d carried out with cool objectivity. He’d rarely been a witness to the deprivations his quarries had committed and which had led to their being wanted by the law.
This was different. He’d seen what the Red River Gang had done, the brutality they’d carried out with the abandon of boys teasing a schoolyard snake. He’d seen the men and horses they’d killed, the property they’d destroyed, and the girl they’d carted off like the candy Handsome Dave Duvall had hauled out of the store.
And because he’d seen it in person, without being able to do a damn thing about it at the time, his hunt for them was personal. He figured all or most of the men already had high bounties on their heads, but he didn’t care about that. What he wanted first and foremost was to free the girl. Then he wanted to see the renegades either behind bars or dead.
How he’d execute such a task, he wasn’t sure. There were at least twelve of them and only one of him. Eventually, lawmen would be alerted to their trail, but the group had no doubt cut the telegraph lines out of Luther Falls, so for the next few days, at least, Prophet would be on his own.
For probably a hell of a lot longer than that. He doubted this godforsaken part of the country had any badge-toters with enough rawhide to face down the Red River Gang. Federal marshals would probably be called in, but that would take days, and it would take the marshals at least a week to get here, even longer to pick up the gang’s trail.
No, Prophet was alone for now, on the trail of twenty ruthless killers. And he had no inkling of a plan....
‘But then again, I’m not much of a planner, anyway,’ he said to himself, setting his cup on a rock and fishing in the breast pocket of his buckskin tunic for his Bull Durham and rolling papers.
He smoked and watched the rain, and after dark he checked on Mean and Ugly, banked the fire, and rolled up in his soogan. The next day dawned clear and cool and fresh-smelling after the rain. Prophet woke to geese honking on the river and ducks jawing at the geese.
He got up and ate a hurried breakfast, downing several cups of coffee and smoking several cigarettes before rigging out Mean and Ugly. He’d taken down his lean-to and was all packed and mounted by the time the sun poked its bright orange top above the western hills.
Fortunately, the rain hadn’t lasted long enough to obliterate the renegades’ trail. It had made it fainter, however, and Prophet had to be extra vigilant, keeping his eyes glued to the grassy sod. He couldn’t just rely on the flattened grass trails normally left by horses, for the wind and rain themselves had flattened plenty of grass. Several times he had to stop and dismount to spy hoof prints or horse apples in the sod.
About nine o’clock in the morning he approached a creek meeting the river from the south, and stopped suddenly when he smelled smoke from a cook fire. He reined the line-back dun to a halt, sniffing the air and looking around. Shortly, he reined the horse to his right, into the trees along the river. He dismounted and tied the horse to a branch.
Shucking his Winchester, he started walking westward through the trees, stopping every now and then and listening for voices. He couldn’t believe the Red River Gang would be holed up this late in the day, but if they were as cocky as they’d appeared, maybe they were careless enough to make stupid mistakes....
Prophet moved forward, holding his Winchester across his chest, avoiding branches and deadfalls which would make noise if stepped on. He kept his ears pricked, listening, and sniffed the air as he followed the smell of the fire.
When he’d walked a hundred yards, he stopped and crouched down, his eyes widening. About twenty yards ahead, blue smoke curled through the branches of the box elders and cottonwoods. There were no voices, which might mean the gang had left their camp without extinguishing their fire, but Prophet wasn’t taking any chances.
He ducked behind a tree, laid out a course that would bring him to the camp while zigzagging between trees, and started off, quietly levering a shell into his rifle breech. When he came to the last tree in his course, he crouched low, removed his hat, and slid a look around the Cottonwood’s wide bole.
His heart tapped rhythmically when he saw a man sitting on the other side of a smoky fire, his back to a natural levee. He was half-bald and unshaven, and his head was thrust back, his face bunched, as if in pain. A wool blanket was draped across his shoulders.
Prophet looked around, but it didn’t appear to be a trap. Nearby was a single horse, but there were no other riders in the area.
Thumbing the hammer of his Winchester back, Prophet stepped out from behind the tree. ‘Keep your hands where I can see them, old son.’
The man gave a start, his head snapping level. The blanket fell from his shoulders as he grabbed at the pistol on his right hip with his left hand. It was an especially awkward maneuver, because he wasn’t wearing a cross-draw rig.
‘Stop!’ Prophet shouted, squeezing off a shot and ripping a widget of sod and leaves from the levee about six inches to the man’s left.
That froze him, and he looked at Prophet belligerently. ‘What the hell do you want?’
For a minute, Prophet wondered if the man was just a farmer or some drover riding the grub line. But then he saw the blood on the man’s right arm, which was red from his shoulder to his wrist.
‘I want you, if you’re part of the Red River Gang,’ Prophet said, taking another cautious glance around, making sure he and the wounded man were alone.
‘The Red River Gang?’ the man said with a caustic laugh. ‘Who in the hell are they?’
Prophet studied the man and knew he was one of the dozen he was looking for. He glanced at the arm. ‘What happened there? You take a bullet?’
The man looked at his own arm and laughed again. ‘Yeah, I was out huntin’ and wouldn’t you know it—I dropped my damn gun, and it went off on me. Hit me in the shoulder, bored a route down the bone, and came out my wrist.’
‘You dropped it and it hit you in the shoulder, did ye? That’s some fancy gun you have there.’ Prophet couldn’t remember hearing or seeing any of the townsmen return fire. He had a feeling he’d hit this man himself, with that old Colt Navy the hat maker had given him.
‘It’s the darnedest thing,’ the man said, shaking his head.
Prophet walked slowly up to him, pointed the barrel at his face, reached down, and lifted the revolver from the man’s holster. It was a Colt Army with gutta-percha grips. Prophet wedged the gun in his belt and said, ‘Get up.’
The man lifted his eyes to Prophet and snarled, ‘Go to hell, you bastard. Can’t you see I’m bleedin’ to death here?’
‘I’m taking you to the sheriff over in Wahpeton. Maybe, if the man’s nice and doesn’t mind wasting town funds on the likes of a shit dog like yourself, he’ll hire a sawbones to tend that arm. Have you good as new for the hangman.’ Prophet was seething, and he had to try with all his might not to drill a slug through the man’s skull and leave him here for the hawks. ‘Get up.’
‘Sheriff? What sheriff? I didn’t do nothin’.’
‘Get up!’
‘Can’t you see I’m—?’
‘If you’re not standing in three seconds, I’m sending you to the smokin’ gates.’
‘All right, all right,’ the man said with a sigh. ‘But I’m tellin’ you, Mister—you’re makin’ a mistake.’ Painfully, without Prophet’s help, the man donned his hat and gained his feet. ‘I don’t know what you think I did, but I’m innocent as the baby Jesus.’
Prophet went around behind the man and patted him down, finding a knife in a sheath down his back and a hideout gun in the well of his left boot. He also found three new gold watches in his jeans pockets, a new pocket knife, and several shiny trinkets.
‘Innocent as baby Jesus, eh?’ Prophet chuffed. ‘Move!’ he ordered, pushing the man toward his horse.
The dapple-gray was unsaddled, so Prophet tacked it up while the man watched with an angry sneer on his pain-ravaged face. He was slick with sweat, and Prophet didn’t doubt an infection had set in. He had a mind to put him out of his misery and leave him here, but a coldblooded killer the bounty hunter was not.
When Prophet had the man on his horse, he tied his wrists to his saddle horn and bound his feet to his stirrups. He led the dapple-gray back to Mean and Ugly, who nickered at the strangers and lifted his tail aggressively at the dapple-gray.
‘Friendly horse you have there,’ the outlaw remarked.
‘Ain’t he?’ Prophet said, yanking the line-back’s head away from the dapple-gray’s ass, and mounting up.
Trailing the outlaw, who grunted and groaned in pain, his head either sagging to his chest or tipped back on his shoulders, Prophet tracked the main group along the river. He had a feeling they were headed the same place he was headed—the little town of Wahpeton, which sat at the point where the Ottertail and Bois de Sioux rivers converged to form the Red on the Dakota line, about ten or fifteen miles away.
If that’s where they were headed—and there wasn’t much else to head for out here—they and Prophet would be meeting real soon.