ONCE AGAIN CURSING the day he ever laid eyes on Louisa Bonaventure, Prophet rode hard toward the cabin. Mean was as durable a mount as you’d find in the West, but even the hammer-headed line-back was starting to blow and shake his head with exhaustion. Mcllroy’s horse was giving out, too, and had slowed to a floppy-footed canter a good hundred yards behind. It had been a long day for both horses.
Prophet was glad when the cabin appeared in the cove in the hills, its lanterns still lit and splashing their dim buttery light on the yard and over the back of the Morgan standing before the door.
A gun barked from within, stunning the quiet night.
Cursing, Prophet reined Mean to a sliding halt and slipped out of the saddle while drawing his six-shooter. Crouching, he dropped the reins and ran toward the cabin.
When a figure appeared in the door, he stopped and raised the Colt. But then he saw the long hair falling to the slender shoulders. Exhaling a sigh of relief, Prophet lowered the gun to his belly.
‘Louisa, goddamnit! Why won’t you ever listen to me?’
‘He’s not here,’ was all she said, standing on the stoop and looking around.
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’
‘What were you shootin’ at?’
‘One of ‘em was still breathing.’
Prophet stared at her, always surprised at the matter-of-factness with which such a harmless-looking young woman went about her killing. Shaking his head, he walked to the door and looked inside the cabin.
‘You sure?’ He raked his eyes around the blood-splattered room littered with bodies. ‘He’s got to be here. I woulda hit him with my sawed-off when I first came through the door.’
‘See for yourself,’ Louisa said levelly.
Prophet walked around the room, stepping over bodies, broken chairs, cups, bottles, and the overturned table. Sure enough—the girl was right. Handsome Dave wasn’t here.
Standing frozen in the middle of the room, glancing around disbelievingly, Prophet heard a muffled cry. He jerked around, saw the door to the other room, and remembered the English women. Moving to the door, he opened it and saw the two disheveled women lying in heaps along the back wall.
‘Sorry, ladies,’ he said, shucking his bowie knife. ‘Damn near forgot about you.’
‘Who are you?’ one of them asked.
‘Name’s Lou Prophet, and what I’m doin’ here’s a long story. Suffice it to know you’re safe. We’ll take you back to your party in the morning.’
The woman sobbed as Prophet cut the ropes binding her wrists and ankles. ‘Who were those men? Who were those . .. godawful. .. men!’
‘That was the Red River Gang. And I mean ‘was.’ They’re all dead, except one, that is.’ He frowned, perplexed, at the idea that Dave Duvall had somehow slipped away.
Prophet heard boots thumping the floor behind him. Squatting beside the second woman, who was crying uncontrollably into the first woman’s low-cut neckline, Prophet turned his head. The deputy was moving toward him while sweeping his gaze around the carnage-filled cabin.
‘Is he here?’
‘Nope,’ Prophet said crisply, sheathing his knife and moving out the door. ‘I must not have shot him because he was too close to Louisa; the ten-bore would’ve taken them both. He must’ve found him a good hiding spot after I nabbed the girl, and waited till we were gone to hightail it.’
Prophet cursed loudly, wincing and shaking his head. ‘Take care of the women, will you? I’m gonna go out and see if I can track him.’
The young deputy glanced at the women, frowning. ‘Now, wait a minute, Prophet. I’m a deputy U.S.—’
But Prophet was already outside, moving off the stoop and starting toward the corral off the lean-to, where the six remaining horses milled, pricking their ears, wide-eyed at all the commotion. Seeing a figure walking toward him from the south, Prophet stopped and turned that way. It was Louisa, walking fast if a little stiffly.
‘I found a single set of horse prints branching off the main trail,’ she said, turning toward the Morgan. ‘He must’ve made like he was riding with the others after us, then branched off at the last minute. Probably figured we were laying for him.’
Approaching the Morgan, she turned out a stirrup and began to mount.
‘Where are you goin’?’ Prophet asked her.
She reined the exhausted beast toward him, scowling. ‘After Duvall!’ she said, as though answering the dumbest question she’d ever heard.
‘Not on that horse, you’re not,’ Prophet said. ‘Look at him. He’s ridden with me and Mcllroy all the way from Fargo. He won’t last another mile.’
Louisa jerked her head around, looking for a fresh mount. Prophet shook his head. ‘All these horses have had it. They need grass, water, and a good night’s rest.’
‘Well, the Morgan’ll just have to do,’ Louisa said, giving the horse the spurs.
The black gave a halfhearted lunge off its back feet, but the gallop quickly wilted into a half-hearted canter. The Morgan blew and shook its head, flinging lather in the moonlight. At the edge of the yard, it stopped and turned broadside to Prophet.
‘Goddamnit,’ Louisa said, her soft voice clear in the quiet yard, the moon nearly straight overhead. She looked around at the darkness around the cabin and corral, then turned to Prophet.
Her voice was small as she gave into her frustration and weariness. ‘He killed my family.’ She took her face in her hands and sobbed, slouched in her saddle.
Prophet walked to her, reached up, put his hands around her waist, and slipped her, crying, from her saddle.
‘He won’t get far, Louisa,’ Prophet assured her. ‘His horse is as tired as ours. Tomorrow, we’ll track him.. . together.’
‘He killed my ... he killed my whole family,’ she cried against Prophet’s shoulder, releasing a flood of tears, her body racked with anguish.
Prophet held her tightly, surprised at how slight and slender she was, for all her vim and vinegar. He stood there, holding her, and let her cry.
Prophet awoke at dawn the next morning and lifted his head from his saddle. He looked around the camp he and Mcllroy had set up in the tall grass behind the cabin, away from the main trail.
The fire ring was a mound of gray ashes, the coffee pot cold. Directly across the dead fire lay the deputy, curled under his blanket. To Mcllroy’s left lay the two British women, nestled under the blankets Prophet had gleaned from the soogans he’d found in the lean-to. They’d both murmured in troubled dreams all night, but at the moment the women appeared to be resting contentedly.
So not to disturb them—he’d let them sleep another hour—Prophet turned quietly to his right, looking for Louisa where she’d spread her blankets the night before not far from his side.
All that was there, however, was a rectangular patch of matted grass. Louisa, her saddle, and her soogan were gone!
Resisting the urge to cuss aloud, Prophet tossed his blanket aside and climbed to his feet, looking around. There was no sign of her. Grabbing his gunbelt and hat, he headed around the cabin to the corral.
The horses snorted as he approached and looked over the top corral slat, sweeping the remuda with his gaze and setting his jaw when he saw the Morgan was gone.
Saddled up and gone, with Louisa on his back...
‘The girl gone?’
Prophet turned to see Mcllroy walking toward him, wrapping his gunbelt around his waist, his dusty, wrinkled frock coat flapping like huge bat wings.
‘Yeah,’ Prophet groused, drawing the word out for emphasis.
‘She’s hell in a saddle, isn’t she?’
‘I could tell you stories.’ Prophet stared down at the fresh tracks leading from the corral and southward out of the yard. To Mcllroy, he said, ‘See the Englishers back to Fargo, will you, kid? I’m going after Louisa.’
Prophet started toward the lean-to for his saddle, but stopped when Mcllroy place a freckled hand on his shoulder. ‘Hey, wait a minute, Prophet. First off, I’m no kid. Second, it’s my official duty to track Handsome Dave Duvall.’
‘Yeah?’ Prophet said, a cunning twinkle in his eyes. ‘Who’s gonna see the Englishers back to Fargo?’
Mcllroy stared at him. Then he sighed. ‘I don’t suppose you ... ?’
Prophet shook his head, grinning. Placing his own paw on the crestfallen deputy’s shoulder, he said, ‘Now you see why freelancing’s the only way to go? I’m not responsible to anyone but myself.’ Seeing Mean and Ugly staring at him over the corral fence, Prophet added, ‘Oh, and my horse, of course.’
He patted the deputy’s shoulder and headed into the lean-to. Ten minutes later, he led the saddled horse out of the corral, Mcllroy opening the rickety gate for him.
‘Well, it was nice ridin’ with you, Zeke,’ Prophet said, turning out a stirrup and poking his boot through. ‘Maybe see ya around sometime.’
‘You mean that?’
Prophet looked at the young man, Mcllroy’s face shaded by the brim of his snuff-colored Stetson. ‘Mean what?’
‘That it was nice ridin’ with me. I mean, not that I care what an old, down-at-heel bounty hunter has to say, but— you know—since you been down the river a few times ...’
‘Hey, I ain’t as old as I look, kid,’ Prophet said with mock severity, leaning out from his saddle. ‘But after the sand you showed in the cabin last night, you can ride any river with me you want—though I’d just as soon you pocketed that shiny silver star when you did.’
With that, Prophet reached out and tugged the deputy’s hat brim over his eyes, then kneed Mean and Ugly into a canter.
He stopped when he heard a female voice call, ‘Say, there . . . can one of you direct us to the lavat’ry?’
The duchess stood beside the cabin, holding the hand of her glum friend. Both women were wrapped in their blankets, their tangled hair drooping past their shoulders, the hems of their expensive gowns soaked from the morning dew.
Prophet chuckled and glanced at Mcllroy. ‘The deputy’ll direct ye straightaway,’ he hollered to the women.
Craning around to grin at the deputy, he touched his hat brim in a mock salute, gave a laugh, and gigged his horse southward out of the yard. Mcllroy watched him—a big, broad-shouldered man with a sawed-off shotgun hanging down his back, riding an ornery line-back dun.
‘Be seeing you again soon, Prophet,’ the deputy said with a dry chuckle. ‘Lord help me....’