PROPHET BROKE THE sign of the other three riders about fifteen minutes after he and Louisa had shot the drygulcher. They followed the trail along a creek bottom, over a divide, and into another watershed, gradually tracing a southeastern route toward water-scored country that lay like toothy shadows before them.
McIlroy rode the bay easily. He claimed his leg felt fine, but Prophet could tell by the occasional flush in his cheeks that he was lying. As Zeke had pointed out, the leg probably wasn’t broken, but sometimes a severe sprain or a twist could hurt just as bad.
‘Thanks for shooting that varmint when you did,” Prophet told Louisa when they’d stopped to rest their horses in a small box canyon shaded by cotton woods. McIlroy was sitting with his back to the rock wall, eyes closed, resting his leg, a dozen yards away.
Louisa looked at Prophet as though she hadn’t understood what he’d said.
“You know—the fat kid with the Spencer repeater,” he said. “If you hadn’t shot him when you did, I’d be wolf bait ‘bout now.”
She turned her hat over and wiped the moisture from the sweatband with a lacy white handkerchief trimmed with green leaves—an heirloom, no doubt. “You would have done the same for me, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Well, what’s the point in thanking me, then, Mr. Prophet?”
“Hey, what’s all this Mr. Prophet stuff? I thought we were friends.”
Louisa shrugged and set the hat on her head, shaking her hair back from her shoulders. “I guess you could say I’ve been reevaluating our relationship,” she said with characteristic presumption. “We’re partners, yes, but friends—well, I haven’t decided if I want to be your friend any longer, after the trickery you pulled in Bismarck.”
“Is that a fact?” Prophet said, staring at her with anger flushing his cheeks.
Finally, he grabbed her, pulled her to him brusquely, and kissed her. It wasn’t a slow kiss, but it wasn’t fast, either. He let his lips linger for about two seconds, noting how she’d stiffened in his arms after giving a sudden gasp of surprise.
But she didn’t resist him.
When he eased her away from him, he found himself wanting more. So that’s how those full lips felt... tasted. He’d never kissed lips so soft and sweet and pliable ... so utterly delicious. They were like the softest peach he’d ever tasted in his Georgia boyhood.
Why, he wondered, as he stared at her, trying for something to say, had he been resisting her for so long? Why had he been trying for so long to keep his distance?
Two reasons occurred to him. One: she was just a kid. Two: he was a rapscallion, born and bred.
Besides, it was just better—easier—to keep things simple.
But as much he wanted them to be, things just weren’t that simple anymore. And he knew from the way she’d screamed when she’d thought the beefy kid was going to plug him with the Spencer that she felt the same way.
Finding no words, he just stared at her, flushed and grim and confused, for another couple of seconds. She stared back, flushed and befuddled. Then he sighed and turned toward his horse.
“Come on,” he said gruffly, trying to cover his emotions. “They’re not far ahead of us. Let’s ride.”
They rode for another hour. As the sun was setting, Prophet reined his horse to a stop. He looked around, smelling the air like a dog.
“What is it?” McIlroy said, gazing around cautiously.
“I thought I smelled woodsmoke. Lost it now.”
Louisa said, “I smelled it, too.”
Prophet sat the dun for nearly a minute, sniffing the air and looking around apprehensively, his rifle resting across the pommel of his saddle. Finally, he said, “Come on, but be careful.”
They rode along a narrow, meandering river for another half mile. It was full dark when Prophet, smelling the woodsmoke again, stopped his horse and slipped out of the saddle.
“Wait here,” he told the deputy and Louisa.
He handed his reins to McIlroy, then walked around a bend in the river, staying near the woods and moving slowly. Behind him, Louisa and McIlroy watched him until he disappeared in the darkness. Five minutes later, they watched him return from the trees, walking quickly but softly, with a grace odd for a man his size. The sliver of moon rising in the east winked light off Prophet’s Winchester.
“What is it?” Zeke asked.
“A cabin,” Prophet said. “Smoke coming from the chimney.”
“You kidding?”
Prophet shook his head. “It has to be a trap. I want you two to stay right here with your guns out and cocked. I’m going to check around the woods real good, see if they’ve laid a snare for us. Keep your eyes and ears peeled for anything.”
“There he goes, telling me what to do again—me a deputy United States marshal,” Zeke complained to Louisa.
“Yes, he likes telling people what to do,” Louisa remarked as Prophet slipped away, quickly disappearing in the darkness.
The bounty hunter made a careful reconnaissance of the woods before the cabin, moving slowly, taking his time to stop and wait and watch before moving on, ready for anything. When he was certain no traps had been set before the cabin, he made a wide sweep around it, at one point making noise enough to attract would-be attackers.
Nothing happened. The only sounds were owls and coyotes and burrowing night critters. The cabin itself was dark and silent, though Prophet could see a thin column of smoke rising from its tin chimney pipe.
Why hadn’t Duvall posted a night watch? Could he actually believe Prophet hadn’t been able to follow his trail? And where were the riders’ horses? In his reconnaissance, Prophet had seen no sign of the mounts.
The bounty hunter hunkered down behind a cottonwood and stared at the boxlike cabin that had been erected at the base of a high bluff, with brush and trees nearly concealing it from the view of anyone passing along the river. Discontentedly, he rubbed his jaw. He didn’t like it. This was too easy. He felt as though he’d been led here, and if that were true, he’d been led into a trap, sure enough.
Unless Duvall only wanted him to believe it was a trap, as a way to befuddle and confound. While Prophet was standing around here, wondering if he’d been snookered into a fox trap, Duvall could be hightailing it down the trail, pushing for the Indian nations or wherever the hell else he aimed to disappear.
The way Prophet saw it, he had two options. He, McIlroy, and Louisa could storm the cabin and risk getting caught in a trap, or they could wait around out here a few hours and see what happened. The second option meant losing a few hours’ trail time, but...
Prophet’s thoughts were stifled by the sound of the cabin door opening. He watched as a figure appeared on the narrow stoop. The man made a coughing sound as he hacked phlegm up from his lungs. He stopped at the edge of the stoop, a wiry, youthful-looking figure clad in only short summer underwear and socks, his longish hair in disarray. The kid fumbled with his fly, then stood there as Prophet heard the tinny trickle of urine hitting the ground.
Prophet lifted his rifle, uncertain what to do. If he took this kid out now, that would leave only Duvall and one other man in the cabin. But if he waited until later, when all would probably be asleep, he, McIlroy, and Louisa could take them all by surprise.
Deciding to wait, Prophet watched the kid tuck himself back into his underwear, turn with a weary grumble, spit once more, and disappear back inside the cabin.
“Well, I’ll be goddamned,” Prophet said under his breath. “They really are inside the cabin.”
He looked around, wondering again if he could have walked into a trap. But the only sound was a cricket and a light stir of leaves at the very top of a nearby tree. If this were a trap, surely Duvall or the other rider would have sprung it by now.
Doubt lingered in Prophet’s mind as he made his way back to Zeke and Louisa.
“What did you find?” Zeke asked as Prophet approached.
“As far as I can tell, they’re all in the cabin.”
“They didn’t post a watch?” Louisa asked.
“Not as far as I can tell, and I scoured every inch around the place. I don’t like how it sounds, but I say we go in.”
Zeke nodded and gripped his rifle. “Sounds good to me.”
“Sounds too good to me,” Louisa said darkly, lost in thought.
“Something don’t seem right to me, either,” Prophet said. “But I knew when I started out in this trade there’d be risks involved. I don’t feel like waiting around till daylight. What do you two think?”
“I say we take them now,” Zeke said.
Louisa nodded. “I agree. It’s time. It’s long been time.”
Prophet turned to his horse, which Zeke had tied to a tree with the other two. He slid his Winchester into the saddle boot, as this looked like a close-range operation, and retrieved his Richards from the saddle horn. He slung the lanyard around his neck, holding the short-barreled barn blaster under his arm as he headed out toward the trees and the cabin.
Zeke and Louisa followed, stepping carefully, making little noise as they walked through the darkness of the woods. The only light was that shed by the crescent moon and a few stars not obstructed by clouds.
Several times, Prophet stopped, as did the others, and they crouched and listened. Satisfied they were alone, they moved out again, Prophet in the lead’, gripping the Richards before him.
When they finally approached the bluff behind the cabin, they stopped once more to listen. Then Prophet said softly, “The cabin’s about fifty yards on the other side of this bluff. We’ll skirt around the base of the bluff and approach the cabin from the right rear side. Zeke, you go around behind the cabin to the left. Louisa and I will take the right—after I’ve stopped up their stovepipe.”
“Smoke ‘em out?” Zeke asked.
Prophet nodded. “We’ll meet at the front door.”
“You got it,” Zeke whispered.
“Let’s do it,” Prophet said, moving forward, around the rocky base of the bluff, pushing quietly through the shrubs.
When Prophet saw the dark outline of the cabin before him, something moved to his right, screeching. Giving a start, he brought the Richards up, his thumb ready to pull the rabbit-eared hammers back. Then he heard the wind of the beating wings.
“Owl,” he said to Louisa and the deputy. “Just an owl.”
Behind him, Zeke gave a relieved sigh.
Prophet watched the giant owl wing out across the stars and lose itself in the darkness around the butte.
The three continued on to the cabin. Prophet could hear snores resounding within. Still unable to believe Duvall’s carelessness and hoping he’d tracked the right trio of riders— he’d been sure the hoofprints had matched those of Duvall’s gang—he tore up a handful of grass and motioned to Zeke for a lift.
The deputy crouched, lacing his hands together. Prophet set his boot in the deputy’s makeshift step, stretched, and grabbed the overhang as Zeke heaved him onto the roof from below.
Quietly, Prophet crawled forward on hands and knees, testing the weight of the roof lest it should collapse beneath him, which had happened, to his everlasting chagrin, while trying to surprise a group similar to Duvall’s. He’d lived to tell the tale, but things had gotten a mite hairy after he’d plummeted into the badmen’s lair, waking the sleeping crew, and he doubted the good Lord would help him out of another cockamamie jam like that one.
When he reached the stovepipe from which smoke issued, he quietly stopped it up with the grass, packing it good until not even a hairlike thread of smoke escaped the pipe. Then he carefully crawled back to the rear of the cabin and lowered himself over the side, dropping to the ground with an unavoidable thump. Crouching, he made a face as he listened to the sounds within. One of the snores ceased for a moment, then continued.
Prophet breathed a sigh of relief and turned to Louisa, who stood at the cabin’s corner with her revolver raised.
“In a few minutes, the smoke should get pretty thick in there,” he whispered with a smirk, brushing past Louisa toward the front door.
He, Zeke, and Louisa had stood around the front door, backs pressed to the cabin, for nearly two minutes before one of the snorers sputtered. “Hey,” he said. “What’s goin’ on?”
Another snorer ceased snoring and gave a sigh. “What... what the ... what the hell’s all the smoke about?”
He coughed. “Goddamn—my eyes! Open the damn door for chrissakes!”
“Open the door?” the other man said. “Hell, let’s get the hell outta here. Somethin’s burnin’!”
“Grab your gun, Howard! It could be a trap!”
Feet pounded the board floor, shaking the walls. The door burst open, and two men ran out in a gauzy shroud of eye-watering smoke.
“Hold it there!” Prophet and Zeke yelled at nearly the same time.
The two men heard the yells, but they did not heed the warning. They twisted around, revolvers in their hands, but before either could fire, Prophet cut one down with the Richards, and Zeke fired two rounds into the other with his Winchester.
Prophet’s man was dead before he hit the ground.
Zeke’s man rolled around, groaning and kicking his legs.
Surprised and confounded to see only two men, and neither one Duvall, Louisa bounded into the cabin a second before Prophet had the same idea. He stepped in behind her, gazing through the smoke.
“How could he not be here?” Louisa said, cupping her mouth and nose with her left hand as she peered through the smoke wafting from the sheet-iron stove in the room’s center.
“Well, that explains the missing horses,” Prophet said.
He turned and went out. Zeke was standing over the wounded rider. Prophet walked over and crouched down.
“Where’s Duvall?” he asked the wiry lad with two holes in his chest.
The kid only spat curses, fuming as blood spurted from his wounds.
“You’re dyin’. Might as well come clean and give us Duvall,” Prophet urged.
The kid fell silent, and a befuddled expression arranged itself on his face as he slid his eyes around as if looking for something ... someone. Then a thought appeared to dawn on the lad, and he cursed once more.
“That son ... that son of a ... bitch,” he said, and died.
Prophet and Zeke looked around. Louisa stood by the smoky front door, doing likewise.
“What do you think?” the deputy asked Prophet after a while.
“I think he gave us all the slip, his partners here included,” Prophet said. “Made off with all three horses.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah, I’ll say shit,” Prophet agreed. “Three horses means he can ride all day and all night. He’s probably got a good three hours on us, to boot.”
“We’ll never catch him now,” Louisa said thinly, staring at the ground. “We’ll never catch him now.”
Prophet looked at her. “Yes, we will.” Then he gazed off through the smoke billowing against the stars.
“Yes, we will,” he repeated, though it sounded hollow even to himself.