Prophet saw the short, mustached killer poke his head out from around the hotel’s far front corner. He grinned and stepped out, leveling his carbine for a killing shot.
The thunder of a rifle on the saloon porch distracted him for the half-second Prophet needed to raise his sawed-off and trip both triggers.
The short, mustached killer’s head turned bright red in the morning sun as it flew back off his shoulders to roll up against the saddle shop behind him. The killer’s headless body, spewing blood, dropped to its knees and fell belly down in the street.
Prophet swung back around to face west, where Lars Eriksson lay on his side in the middle of the street, stretching his right hand out toward his old Spencer repeater.
Marshal Roscoe Deets was moving down off the saloon’s front porch, aiming his Sharps rifle at Eriksson.
“I said hold it,” the kid warned, loudly racking another shell into his rifle’s chamber.
Eriksson turned his flushed, sweating face toward the town marshal, flaring his nostrils and curling his upper lip. “You go to hell!”
He lunged for the rifle.
Deets raised his carbine, aimed down the barrel, and drilled a slug through the side of the blacksmith’s head, just above his right ear. Eriksson gave a sigh and rolled over, blood pooling in the street beneath him.
Boots thundered on the saloon’s front porch. L.J. Tanner burst through the batwings, raising a Winchester and bellowing, “Oh, no! Oh, no you don’t!”
Deets spun around toward the saloon owner, racking another cartridge into his carbine’s chamber. Prophet whipped up his Peacemaker and before Tanner could get a single shot off, the bounty hunter and town marshal ripped several rounds each into Tanner’s chest, causing him to fire his rifle into the porch ceiling and dance a bizarre two-step, turning two complete circles before tumbling backward over the porch’s front rail, bouncing off a hitch rack with a snapping crack and piling up on his back in the street.
Prophet glanced at Deets. Lowering his smoking rifle, Deets glance back at him. Then Deets frowned and stared past Prophet toward the east. A clattering rose from that direction. A woman was loudly hurrrahing a galloping horse.
Prophet turned to see Verna McQueen’s Morgan pull the chaise onto the main street from the north, moving so fast that the chaise’s two right wheels left the ground and nearly dumped Verna McQueen herself into the street. The chaise dropped back onto all four wheels, jostling the woman violently. She recovered quickly and whipped her reins against the Morgan’s back.
“He-yahh!” Verna wailed. “He-yahhh, you cayuse!”
She scowled over the horse at Prophet.
Prophet said, “Oh, shit,” as the horse, buggy, and raging woman bore down on him. She was a half a block away and coming hard and fast, her hair blowing out behind her shoulders, dust billowing thickly up behind the fast-spinning wheels.
Prophet’s wounded leg felt as heavy as stone. He couldn’t move.
“Lou!” someone cried.
Pistols crackled.
Verna dropped the reins and sagged in the chaise’s front seat.
The horse screamed and careened sharply to Prophet’s right. The buggy fishtailed, Verna bouncing around on the seat like a rag doll in a cyclone.
The buggy’s right side bounced off the saloon’s front porch, breaking apart, wheels flying in all directions. As the buggy, now in two pieces, bounced over L.J. Tanner’s inert form and rolled past Prophet, narrowly missing the bounty hunter, the Morgan galloped off to the west, whinnying shrilly and pulling only the double tree.
“Holy shit!” Prophet said, blinking against the dust and grit in his eyes.
As the dust cleared, he saw Verna McQueen lying only four feet behind him, all blood and dust and two staring eyes. She wasn’t moving.
“Lou!” came the voice again.
Louisa came from around the far side of the millinery store, hobbling on a pair of wooden crutches and her stiff right leg. She wore her brown skirt, calico blouse, and shell belt with two holsters. She was holding one of her .45s, but now, squinting her eyes to see through the billowing dust, she holstered the Colt and continued shambling toward Prophet.
She stopped and looked around at Tanner, Verna McQueen, Neal Hunter, and Lars Eriksson. She glanced at Deets, who’d leaped onto the saloon steps to avoid being pummeled by the chaise. Now the young marshal took his carbine in one hand, ran the sleeve of his other arm across his mouth, and shook his head once.
“Roscoe!” came another female voice.
A pretty young Mexican woman came running along the street’s right side.
“Roscoe!” she shouted again, holding the skirt of her red dress above her sandals.
“I’m all right, Lupita,” Deets said, striding toward her. “It’s okay. I’m all right. You shouldn’t be out here, honey. You don’t want to see this.”
As Deets hurried over to his young wife, Louisa turned her gaze back to Prophet.
Prophet gazed up at her. “Don’t you look fit as a fiddle.”
Louisa looked at his bloody leg and pursed her lips.
“Now look at what you’ve done to yourself.”
Prophet gave a snort. Then he looked at Verna’s twisted body, and he frowned, puzzled.
“Her name was Duvall,” Louisa said. “Doc Whitfield told me.”
“Duvall?”
“It doesn’t ring any bells?”
Prophet’s eyes widened in shock. “Handsome Dave Duvall?”
“She was his sister. Tight bunch, you southern folk.”
Prophet sighed, shaking his head. “So that’s what all this was all about. Holy shit . . .”
There was a muffled crack from the east.
Prophet grabbed his Peacemaker and stared down the street. The sound seemed to have come from the bank.
Deets, who was holding his young wife in his arms, glanced over his shoulder at Prophet.
“Campbell,” Deets said. “I reckon he didn’t want to face that judge I had in mind for him. Don’t worry—Bly and Carlsruud will.” He glanced toward the barbershop, which doubled as a bathhouse. A CLOSED sign hung in its window.
Deets smiled shrewdly.
Louisa turned from Deets to frown down at Prophet. “Huh?”
“Long story,” Prophet said.
Louisa dropped down beside him, unknotted his neckerchief from around his neck, and tied it firmly around his bloody leg. “Well, I have a feeling we’re both going to have plenty of time to discuss it . . . over at Whitfield’s. Come on—let’s get you over there before you bleed out.”
“Ah, shit,” Prophet said, heaving himself to his feet. “That uppity sawbones ain’t gonna like this a bit.”
He limped down the street, angling toward the cross street and the doctor’s house. Louisa shuffled along beside him on her crutches. Whitfield came around the corner ahead of them, driving a buckboard wagon, his medical kit on the seat beside him. He scowled as he looked around, spectacles glinting in the morning sun, and wagged his head in disgust.
“There’s our ride now,” Prophet said.
“Lou?”
“Hmmm?”
“I don’t want to get shot again,” Louisa said. “It hurts like hell.”
Prophet laughed and kissed her cheek. “You’re in the wrong line o’ work, darlin’.”