THAT NIGHT PROPHET dropped a chunk of wood on the cook fire, sending sparks rising toward the near-dark sky.
“I just can’t believe that son of a bitch was right there in Greenburg, under our noses all the time.”
“What I want to know is why no one questioned who he was,” McIlroy said.
He was hunkered on his haunches, staring angrily into the fire, a cup of coffee in his freckled hands. His hat was off, and his red hair was sweat-matted to his head. They’d endured a long, hard ride from Greenburg and had stopped only when it got too dark for tracking. They figured Duvall was at least an hour ahead of them.
So close, yet so far.
“He must’ve killed the real preacher somewhere outside of town and donned his clothes. The church must’ve hired the poor man sight unseen. Desperate for a parson, I guess.”
McIlroy cursed and gritted his teeth. “Wormy son of a bitch. Cagey bastard. I bet Duvall was laughing at us all the while:’
Prophet reached for his canteen. “I just wish we could have gotten on to him before he killed that girl.”
“How many more is he gonna kill before we finally catch him, Proph?”
“None, if I can help it,” Prophet said, lifting the canteen to his lips.
The deputy looked at him, his eyes wide and dark even with the flames dancing in them. “I just want you to know, I’m not taking him alive. It goes completely against all I was taught and the morals I was raised with, but I just don’t see any reason why that hellcat should stand trial.”
“Glad to hear you say that,” Prophet said. “Because I’ve been plannin’ on beefing that bastard ever since he ambushed Louisa.” The bounty man shook his head. “That ain’t normally my way. In this job it just can’t be, or you turn into what you’re chasing. But this ... this here’s different. You and me, we’re that son of a bitch’s judge, jury, and executioner.”
“Me, too,” someone said from the shrubs.
In an instant, Prophet and McIlroy had their revolvers in their hands, ratcheting back the hammers and jerking their heads toward the voice.
“Don’t shoot—it’s me,” Louisa said, pushing through the brush, her figure taking shape in the fire’s dancing glow.
“Jesus Christ,” Prophet complained, depressing the hammer and slipping the Peacemaker back in his holster.
“You two make enough noise to wake the dead. You’re lucky I’m not Duvall.”
“Are we?” McIlroy said with a wry curl of his upper lip. “I’m not so sure.”
“Where in the hell did you come from?” Prophet glared at her, embarrassed by being snuck up on like that, by a girl, of all people, and by her most of all.
“My tracking skills are improving,” she boasted, tossing down her saddlebags and bedroll, fanning the fire. She slipped into the bushes again and returned with her rifle sheath and saddle. “Riley and I were out for a Sunday ride in the country when we saw you two chasing the man in black. Who is he?”
“Duvall,” Prophet said.
She looked at him, her eyes wide and expectant. “Really?”
“Who did you think we were chasing, the tooth fairy?” Prophet grunted. “Where’s Riley?”
“I left him in Greenburg.”
“That poor son of a bitch,” Prophet chuckled to McIlroy. “He must feel like a hog’s supper, chewed up and shit out the other end.”
“Did you expect me to forget about Duvall?” Louisa said as she knelt to retrieve a tin cup from her saddlebags. “You should know me better than that by now.”
“No, but I was hoping,” Prophet admitted. In spite of a slight, needling jealousy, he would have liked nothing better than for her to have stayed in Greenburg with Riley Nugent, safe and sound and building a new life for herself. Like she said, he should have known better.
When Louisa had poured a cup of coffee, she sat down against her saddle and nibbled a strip of jerked beef. “So tell me where you found Duvall. Did he finally show up in town?”
“Yeah, he showed up, all right” McIlroy said. “But not finally.”
Louisa gazed at him, one eyebrow raised.
Prophet told her all about it. By the time he was finished, Louisa was looking around as though for a hog to kick, her face flushed, nostrils wide with exasperation. “That son of a—”
“Yeah, he’d be good buzzard bait if a buzzard could stomach him,” Prophet said.
“You sure you haven’t lost him?” Louisa asked.
Prophet stared at her, indignant. “Two things that rankle me the most is being left afoot and cheeky women.”
With that, he stood and grabbed his rifle. Stalking off through the brush, he grumbled, “I’ll take the first watch.”
Dave Duvall halted his horse on the wagon road and stared ahead through the dark, where buttery light shone in the night. He studied the light for a few minutes, then gigged the dusty, sweaty Appaloosa forward.
He was tired, and his ass was sore. It didn’t take much sitting to get one’s seat unaccustomed to riding.
As the lights neared, they separated, becoming two windows in a square, two-story log cabin. Nearby, a log barn loomed darkly against the starry sky.
Duvall gigged his horse into the yard, his horse fiddle-footing when the cabin door squeaked open. A man appeared on the narrow stoop, silhouetted by the doorway. He was a tall man but thin in the shoulders. He appeared to be wearing an undershirt and suspenders, the sleeves rolled to his elbows.
He hefted a shotgun in his arms and swung the barrel toward Duvall.
“Stop right where you are,” he called. “State your name and business.”
Duvall stopped the Appaloosa about twenty yards from the stoop. “Hello, neighbor,” he called more loudly than he needed to, for it was a quiet night with only the chirping crickets. “My name is Brother Doolittle. I’m a messenger of the Good Lord. I was just passin’ through, and I saw your light. I don’t s’pose you’d have a morsel to spare, and possibly a bed? A straw pile in the bam would more than serve. I’d be happy to help out with chores in the mornin’, as a way of repaying your kindness.”
Seeing the white collar, the man lowered his shotgun. “Sorry, Parson,” he said. “I’ve been havin’ trouble with rustlers lately. Can’t be too careful.”
He turned to yell through the door, “Maggie, we have any vittles to spare for a travelin’ preacher?”
A woman replied, but the sound was too faint for Duvall to hear what it was.
The man turned back to Duvall. “The wife says we always have vittles to spare for a man of the cloth, Reverend. You can stable your horse in the bam yonder, and come inside. We have an extra bed since Maggie’s pa died.”
“That would be most kind of you, my good man,” Duvall said, turning his horse toward the bam. Smiling to himself, a devilish plan forming in his mind, he added, “Most kind of you, indeed. Bless you.”
Prophet, McIlroy, and Louisa rolled out of their soogans before daylight and were mounted and following Duvall’s trail southeast as dawn pearled the eastern sky. They rode for two hours before they stopped to water their horses at a stream. Continuing, they picked up a wagon trail.
They followed the trail to a fork.
“Shit,” Prophet said. “Another damn fork in the road.”
“Can’t you tell which one he took?” McIlroy asked.
Prophet shook his head. “There’ve been a couple riders through here in the past few hours, on both forks. He’s done a good job of making his tracks blend with theirs.”
“We’ll split up, then,” Louisa said, impatience in her voice. “I’ll take the right fork.”
“I’ll go with her,” Prophet said. “Don’t take any chances, Zeke.”
“I’ll wait for you if you wait for me.”
“Deal,” Prophet said, spurring Mean after Louisa, who was already a good ways down the trail’s right fork.
McIlroy gigged his chestnut down the left fork. A half hour later, he came to a cross trail. One set of fresh horse tracks gouged the dirt, and as far as the young deputy could tell, the shoe prints had the markings of Duvall’s horse.
Releasing the thong over his revolver, McIlroy turned his horse onto the intersecting trail. He’d ridden twenty minutes when he saw a cabin, barn, and corral in a wooded crease in the buttes before him.
The house was shaded by several poplars and ash. Cows milled about the place, grazing the rich bluestem. What brought McIlroy to a halt, however, was a commotion by a big tree by the barn. From this distance, he couldn’t tell what it was, but it looked damn peculiar.
He reined the chestnut into the brush and dismounted. He tied the horse to a sapling, retrieved his field glasses from his saddlebags, then climbed a butte, keeping the right shoulder of the bluff between him and the ranch. Halfway to the top, he hunkered down and raised his field glasses over the butte’s sloping shoulder, focusing on the ranch yard.
When he brought the scene into focus, he stiffened, his breath freezing in his lungs.
A woman in a long skirt and torn blouse stood under the tree. Her hair was disheveled and her face was bruised and smudged with dirt. On her shoulders stood a young boy of around seven or eight. The woman was balancing the boy on her shoulders, wavering from side to side with the burden. She couldn’t waver too much, however, for there was a hangman’s noose around the boy’s neck, and the end of the noose was tied to a branch of the tree. The boy’s hands were tied behind his back. If the woman gave way beneath him, the boy would strangle.
The woman was crying. So was the boy, his face contorted with terror.
Not far away from them, a man lay face down on the ground, blood staining his shirt. Three horses stood with their heads over the corral, staring and twitching their ears curiously at the woman and the boy.
Bringing his glasses back to the woman, McIlroy saw her knees buckling, giving and stiffening, giving and stiffening, her hands desperately gripping the boy’s black shoes atop her shoulders.
“Oh, my god!” McIlroy said to himself, his gut filling with bile. It could have been a trap, but he didn’t care. He had to save the boy.
Lowering his glasses, he ran back to his horse, dropped the glasses in his saddlebags, mounted up, and gigged the chestnut into a gallop. He drew his revolver as he approached the yard, clicking back the hammer and looking around for Duvall. He didn’t see anything but the dead man, the woman, and the boy. Seeing McIlroy, the woman’s crying grew louder.
“Help me ... please!” she wailed. “Oh, god, help me!”
McIlroy steered the horse toward her. As he approached the tree, he reined the chestnut to a stop and retrieved his Barlow knife from the small sheath on his belt. Reaching up with his left hand, he cut the rope above the boy’s head.
As the boy fell into the woman’s arms, a shot rang out. McIlroy felt the icy burn in his shoulder as the impact of the bullet knocked him sideways from the saddle.
“Run!” he yelled to the woman as he hit the ground.
The woman grabbed the boy, and they ran, screaming, behind the barn.
McElroy’s horse whinnied as another shot rang out, and galloped off, kicking. The deputy turned toward the cabin. A bearded man in black stood in the doorway, aiming a rifle at McIlroy. The gun cracked, smoke puffing, just as McIlroy raised his revolver.
Duvall’s slug tore through McIlroy’s other shoulder, and he dropped his gun with a yell.
“Ah! Goddamn you, son of a bitch!”
“You’re gonna die, lawman,” Duvall yelled.
“Maybe, but I’m gonna make sure you’re right behind me,” McIlroy retorted, reaching for his gun. But before he could get off a shot, Duvall’s rifle cracked again, and the bullet plunked into the deputy’s thigh.
McIlroy yelled again as he dropped the revolver and writhed in excruciating pain.
He cast his gaze back toward the cabin. Laughing, Duvall shucked another shell in the rifle’s chamber and moved in for the kill.