LOOMIS ROARED ABOVE the roar of the flames. “Drop your guns and any more dynamite, or this boy dies!”
“You’ll kill him anyway.”
Loomis stopped and halted the boy. The gold-plated Colt held to Keith’s head shone coppery in the light of the fires. “You want to see him die right now?”
“All right, all right,” Prophet said, holding out his hands. He dropped the shotgun and unbuckled his gun belt, letting it fall at his feet.
Loomis started toward him again, shoving the boy ahead. Keith was stiff and pale but for a bruise around his right eye, swelling the lid. Prophet ground his jaws together. Loomis would pay for that, the son of a bitch.
“Kick the gun belt away,” Loomis said.
Prophet did as he was told, then stood there, watching Loomis come on, the wagon shed throwing up cinders to his left. Loomis wasn’t wearing a hat, and his round, bald pate was glistening with sweat. His slick black mustache dropped down both sides of his mouth. His eyes were large and as black as his vest and pants.
He grinned crookedly, showing his big white teeth. “We meet at last, you son of a bitch.” He came to a stop about ten feet away. Sweat cut gullies through the dust on Keith’s young, frightened face.
Loomis glanced around with his eyes. “You did quite a job here. All my men are dead... except for the two cowards that just rode out of here. I’ll have them hunted down later.”
Prophet shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know I’d blame them. They gave a pretty good fight.”
“Not good enough, though. There was around twenty of them ... one of you.”
“Got lucky, I guess.”
Loomis shook his head, grinning at Prophet with an expression of wonder and total disdain. “No, you’re good. Very good. Better than any of them. Too bad we weren’t on the same side. We could have raised hell, you and me.”
“One pact with the devil’s enough.”
“What’s that?”
“Never mind. Why don’t you turn the boy loose now? I’m the one you’re after.”
Loomis tilted his head to look Keith over. “You like this boy, eh?”
Prophet didn’t say anything. His knees were weak with anxiety as he watched the cocked hammer of Loomis’s forty-five, the bore snugged up against Keith’s right ear.
“You like him, eh, your lover’s brother?” Loomis continued in a slow, menacing, mock-casual tone. “Well, that’s too bad. Because he’s going to die.” Loomis lifted his head to regard Prophet directly, his face turning hard. “Slow. Just like his sister and his brother, only his sister’s gonna die even slower... much slower.”
“Why?”
“Because they gave you shelter. And because it hurts you to know it’s gonna happen.” Loomis grinned that lopsided grin, his eyes flinty and flat as coal under water.
“Leave them out of it, Loomis. I’m the one who killed your son. He had it coming, and someone else would’ve done it sooner or later, but I’m the one who pulled the trigger.”
“Yes, you’re the one,” Loomis said. “And you’re the one who’s going to die slowest of all.”
With that, he lowered the barrel of the revolver, taking aim at Prophet’s left knee. As Loomis snapped the trigger, Keith yelled, “No!” and nudged the gun. It barked its slug into the dust a half inch from Prophet’s left foot.
Raging, Loomis slapped Keith hard with the back of his left hand. As Keith spun, flying, Prophet dove forward. His left hand closed on Loomis’s gun wrist, jerking the weapon. It barked off another wide round. Before Loomis could thumb the hammer back again, Prophet bulled the rancher over backward, and the gun flew.
Surprisingly strong, Loomis rolled Prophet onto his back, punched him savagely several times, stunning him, then crawled to his gun. Knowing he was doomed if he didn’t fight off the cobwebs in his brain and take action fast, Prophet gained his feet and dove. He landed on Loomis’s back as the rancher wrapped his right hand around the grips of the forty-five.
With his left fist working like a steam-powered piston, Prophet delivered several sharp, powerful blows to the back of Loomis’s head. They dazed the rancher enough that Prophet was able to roll the man onto his back and wrestle the gun up to his face, snugging the barrel under his chin.
Purple-faced, Loomis cursed and raged and tried with all his strength to wrestle the gun out of Prophet’s grip. It didn’t work. At last, Prophet had the upper hand.
With both hands, the bounty hunter held the gun to Loomis’s chin as he rasped into his face, “You know why you’re so filled with hate, Loomis... why you’re so bound and determined to kill the man who killed your scoundrel son?”
Prophet swallowed, his breath
coming hard as he fought to keep the gun snugged against the underside of
the rancher’s chin. “Because you’re the one who made him the way he
was.” Enraged, he heaved his body against Loomis’s. “You’re the man
responsible for his death. Not me. You taught him that bein’ a man
meant bein’ a bully, that bein’ strong meant never ownin’ up to
your losses. But you don’t want to face that. And that’s why I have
to kill you ... because if I let you live ... you’ll go after
Layla and her brothers.”
With both thumbs, Prophet ratcheted back the forty-five’s hammer. Hearing the click, Loomis’s eyes grew wide. He rasped through gritted teeth, “No ... please ... I... see.” But his eyes stayed hard. Deep in their depth, they were grinning.
Prophet shook his head. “You never would. That’s why I’m putting you down ... like a dog.”
Loomis’s face turned pale, his eyes opening even wider, lips stretching back from his large, hard teeth. “No! I—”
Prophet squeezed the trigger, the gun’s report muffled by Loomis’s face, the bullet going in cleanly and exiting the top of his head with a spray of blood, brains, and bone.
The man’s body relaxed. Turning away from the carnage of the rancher’s face, Prophet left the gun on Loomis’s chest and climbed heavily to his feet. Turning to Keith, he saw the boy sitting on his butt several feet away, knees drawn up to his chin, face etched with mute horror.
Prophet walked over to his gun belt, stooped, and wrapped it around his waist. Picking up his shotgun, he heard Keith say something.
“What’s that, son?”
Still sitting, Keith pointed toward the house. “She’s ... in there.”
Prophet frowned. “What’s that? Who is?”
The boy only looked at him with dark eyes.
“You stay here,” Prophet said, holding his shotgun in both hands and starting toward the house, its dark windows reflecting the geysering flames.
Cautiously, Prophet climbed the stone porch and threw open the door. He stood in the foyer, glancing around the rooms opening on either side. A few lanterns spat smoke. Nothing moved.
“Anyone here?” he called.
When no one answered, he looked through the first story. Finding nothing, he strode to the bottom of the stairs. He wrinkled his nose at a faint, rank odor hanging in the warm air.
Clutching the ten-gauge before him, he made his way slowly up the stairs. The smell grew stronger, ranker.
He followed it to a room at the end of the hall. The door was open about two feet. With the barrel of the shotgun, Prophet nudged it wide. The odor hit him like a fist. Wincing and squinting his eyes, wanting to cover his nose, he tensed when he saw the woman hanging from a rope looped over a ceiling beam.
She was in her mid-fifties, dressed in a black dress, black shawl, and shiny black shoes. Her long black hair was streaked with silver. Her face was round and puffy and blue, and her swollen purple tongue protruded from the right corner of her mouth.
Her eyes were open and staring at the chair she’d upended when she’d kicked it out beneath her.
“Jesus Christ,” Prophet rasped, shaking his head. He wondered how long she’d hung there, how long Loomis would have let her hang without cutting her down. He must have kept Keith in one of the rooms up here, and the boy had seen her when he’d passed in the hall.
He turned and headed downstairs. As he walked to the door, he stopped and looked at the lantern on the table.
With the shotgun, he knocked it onto the floor, breaking the bowl and spreading flames across the floor to the curtains over the window.
In a few minutes, the house would be engulfed, and there would be nothing left of this hell.
He walked outside and headed for the stables across from the bunkhouse. He turned out all the horses but the one he saddled for Keith. Then he led the horse over to the boy, who was still sitting in the middle of the yard, watching the flames lick through the house’s tall windows.
“Come on, son,” Prophet said quietly. “Let’s get you out of here.”
When the boy was mounted, Prophet led the horse eastward out of the yard, toward his own horse tied to the dwarf pine across the creek.
Behind them, the conflagration lit up the sky, sending smoke and cinders toward the stars.
When they came to within a hundred yards of the Can-ranch, Prophet halted his horse and turned to the boy. Keith reined his own mount to a stop and watched Prophet expectantly. He hadn’t said a word the entire trip. Neither had Prophet.
Now Prophet said, “This is where we part, boy. Go on home.”
The stricken lad’s voice was barely audible. “Where ... where you goin’, Lou?”
“Away.” Prophet sighed. “Your ranch ... your life ... it’s no place for me. You tell your sister I love her, will you?”
“Why don’t you tell her, Lou?”
Prophet shook his head. “It’d just be hard on her. I’ve been hard enough on her. On all of you.” He jerked his head eastward down the trail. “Go on. Go home. She’s waitin’ for you.”
The boy stared at him for a long time. Then he gently heeled his horse down the trail, watching Prophet over his shoulder.
Layla was pacing on the porch and smoking a cigarette when she heard the horse. She grabbed her rifle and ran into the yard. “Who is it?”
“It’s me... Keith,” the boy said as he approached on the tall, brown horse.
“Keith!” Layla cried “Thank God!”
The boy slipped out of the saddle and ran into his sister’s open arms. Crying with joy and relief, she knelt and kissed him and hugged him, rocked him gently in her arms. “I’m so happy you’re safe! Oh, Keith!”
“I’m okay, Sis,” Keith said in a small, faraway voice.
She held him away and looked him up and down. “You’re not hurt?”
“Not too bad.”
“You’re sure?”
He nodded. “I’m sure.”
She gazed at him, smiling, unable to believe he was actually back.
“Where’s Lou?” she asked him at last, frowning down the westward trail.
The boy looked down. “He ... he’s gone.”
She snapped her head around. “What?”
“He left,” Keith said slowly. “He said ... he said ... to tell you ... he loved you.”
Layla stared at her brother for a long time. She didn’t say a word.
“I’m sorry, Layla,” Keith sobbed. “He said he couldn’t stay.”
At last, Layla swallowed and dropped her gaze. She cleared her throat. Her voice shook slightly when she said, “You better go inside and get cleaned up for bed. Charlie’s in there. He’s been worried sick, but he finally fell asleep about a half hour ago. You wake him up and show him you’re back.”
Keith just looked at her.
“Go on now. I’ll be all right.”
Silently, Keith headed for the cabin. When he’d stepped inside and let the screen door slap shut behind him, Layla climbed to her feet and walked out to where the westward trail left the yard. Crossing her arms over her breasts, she cupped her elbows in her hands and stared at the pale ribbon of trail meandering between the buttes humping darkly against a sky awash with stars.
She sobbed and sniffed, sucking back tears. Her heart was an anvil in her chest. Her throat was swollen until she almost couldn’t breathe.
“I know you’ll be back for me, Lou Prophet,” she said thinly. “Someday ... I just know you will...”
Riding through the black buttes of the badlands, threading his way southward and steering by the stars, not knowing or caring where he was going, Lou Prophet was thinking the same thing.