Harvey grunted and stiffened as he shuffled back against the stage.
“Everybody down!” Prophet yelled. As several more shots thundered, the slugs sizzling through the air to thump into the stage and ring off the iron-rimmed wheels. Prophet grabbed the girl and shoved her down behind a rock.
Crouching beside her, he drew his six-gun. Four more bullets spanged off the rock in quick succession, whining and echoing throughout the spoon-shaped valley. Rock shards rained. The older woman screamed, and Mike Clatsop bellowed curses from behind a boulder six feet from Prophet and the girl. The horses were fussing and stomping, threatening to bolt. The jehu drew his revolver and loosed a shot westward. Behind his rock, Prophet couldn’t see what the driver was shooting at, but he knew it was Bannon.
“Where is he, Mike!”
“Behind that rock out yonder—thirty yards, the son of a bitch!” Clatsop loosed another round. Bannon responded with two rounds of his own, but they were aimed at Prophet and the girl, not Clatsop.
“He wants you bad, son!” the jehu yelled at Prophet.
Hunkered down beside him, cowering, Miss Diamond screamed, “I told you, you stupid son of a bitch!”
Ignoring her, Prophet slid a look around his rock. There were several boulders and shrubs strewn down the side of a butte before him. He detected movement behind one and was about to shoot when Bannon bounded up from behind the rock. Prophet aimed quickly and fired. The slug kicked up dust about a foot beyond the gunman, who disappeared behind more boulders and shrubs. Prophet knew he’d be heading down the crease between the two buttes behind him. He was apparently trying to escape the scene of the botched assassination, and there was nowhere else to go.
Prophet looked at the girl, curled in the fetal position with her arms over her head. “Stay down. He could circle back.” Bounding out from behind the rock, he yelled, “Stay with the stage, Mike! I’m going after that bastard.”
He ran past Bannon’s boulder, following the flattened weeds through the shrubs and into the crease between the buttes. Bordered on both sides by more rocks, scraggly, waist-high weeds, and gnarled chokecherry shrubs, the crease led down a steep grade to an arroyo. Prophet followed the grade to the bottom of the arroyo—slowly, shrugging away tree limbs, wary of an ambush.
A spring runoff gurgled. Tracks of deer and coyote scored the soft mud. Walking with his gun held before him, Prophet came upon the prints of high-heeled boots.
Cautiously, swinging his head from left to right, Prophet followed the prints along the arroyo. Firs, box elders, and aspens grew along the sides—thick in places, thinner in others. The faint scent of pine mixed with that of the acrid water. A shrill cry rose, and Prophet ducked, jerking a look to his right. A magpie lifted off a pine branch about halfway up the rocky bank, the vacated branch bobbing behind it, the magpie careening up and behind Prophet, screeching.
Prophet swallowed, sighed, and gave his eyes back to the trail. It followed the soft sand and dirt at the bottom of the arroyo for another thirty yards, ending abruptly near a deadfall aspen. The last two boot prints stared up at Prophet tauntingly.
Where the hell... ?
He saw movement out of the comer of his left eye. Wheeling, he felt a bullet burn his temple at the same moment he heard the report and saw the smoke and fire stab from a gun. For a split second, the smoke and fire and the burning pain in his head enveloped him. It did not freeze him, however. As if of its own accord, his right hand brought the Peacemaker up level with Bannon’s chest. It jumped as it fired.
Bannon flew back against the massive, cracked wall of granite behind him, face pinched with pain. He started bringing his gun up again, and Prophet’s second shot took him through the soft skin beneath his chin, blasting through the crown of his skull, carrying jellied brains through the exit and plastering them on the granite slab above him. What remained of Bannon toppled back toward Prophet, who stepped aside as Bannon fell face first in the tracks he and Prophet had made at the bottom of the arroyo.
“There you go, you son of a bitch.”
Prophet touched his temple and saw the blood on his finger. He traced the burn along his forehead. Deciding the groove wasn’t deep enough to worry about, he dabbed at it with his bandanna as he went through Bannon’s pockets, collecting a comb, a pencil, two packs of cards, the cigarillos and cribbage board, matches, and a roll of two hundred and fifty dollars bound with a diamond-studded money clip. Gambling winnings, no doubt. There was no indication of why he was here or who had sent him.
Billy Brown?
Prophet unbuckled the man’s gunbelt, collected both Remingtons, and headed back toward the stage. He intended to give Bannon’s personal effects to the first sheriff he found. Then he’d cable Owen McCreedy a very short note: “WHAT IN THE HELL IS GOING ON?”
He’d come to the place where he and Bannon had descended the arroyo when the stage driver appeared, cat-stepping sideways down the bank, a rifle in his hands. When he saw Prophet he stopped abruptly, one foot nearly sliding out from under him. “You find him?”
“He’s dead.”
Clatsop sighed and shook his head. “What the hell?”
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Prophet grumbled as he brushed past the jehu and continued along the trail toward the stage.
As he approached the coach, he saw the older woman, the boy, and the old man lying chest down behind a wheel, worried faces lifted toward Prophet. Seeing the bounty hunter, they looked somewhat relieved but made no effort to come out from behind the wheel. The horses were skittish, but the stage’s brake had held.
Frank Harvey was sitting near the others, propped against a wheel, head inclined on a shoulder, eyes half-open, hands crossed on his lap. The snakes tattooed on both arms coiled demonically, spitting flames. Blood made a dark red bib on his chest.
“The driver said he’s deader’n a doornail,” the boy told Prophet eagerly.
“Daniel, you hush!” the old woman screeched.
“It’s all clear,” Prophet told them.
“You get him?” the old man rasped.
“Yep.”
Prophet turned to the girl. She sat with her back to the rock Prophet had flung her behind. Her elbows rested on her upraised knees, and her face was in her hands.
“It’s all right now—you can get up,” Prophet told her.
Lowering her hands, she turned to him, eyes bright with wrath. “It’s all right?”
“Yes.”
Slowly, she stood—a lioness uncoiling from her resting spot to pounce on prey. There was so much fury in her bearing that Prophet felt his muscles tighten.
“It’s all right?” she asked again, louder, voice taut as Glidden wire.
As she approached him stiffly, eyes wide, face blanched with indignation, Prophet worried about another kick. He kept his arms at his sides, ready to grab her foot if he had to.
“It’s all right? We’re all nearly killed, and you’re saying it’s all right?’
“Bannon’s dead,” Prophet said, annoyed.
“Yes, but how many more men has Billy Brown sent to kill me?”
Prophet gazed at her, frowning. He had to admit it was a good question. “Who’s Billy Brown?” he asked.
Mike Clatsop shouldered up next to Prophet. “What’s this about Billy Brown?”
The girl turned to the driver. “He’s the one who sent Bannon to kill me. Bannon and a whole lot more, I’m afraid.”
The driver’s leathery, deep-lined face turned crimson, his lips parting as if to respond, but no words formed. Watching him, Prophet said, “Would someone please tell me who the hell Billy Brown is!”
Under the stage, the old miner said, “What’s this I’m hearin’ again about Billy Brown?”
The driver turned to Prophet. “You ain’t heard of Billy Brown, Lou?”
“No!” Prophet exclaimed.
Clatsop shook his head. “Well, hell... he’s ... just plain ... bad.”
Miss Diamond turned to Prophet. “He’s a wealthy businessman in Johnson City who runs a corrupt syndicate. All the saloon-, brothel-, and theater-owners in town pay him a monthly fee or get burned to the ground ... or worse. Worse is what happened to Hoyt Farley.”
“You saw it?”
“Yes.”
“And you went to the sheriff?”
“I wasn’t that stupid. If I had, I’d be dead by now.”
“Then how does the sheriff know you were a witness to this Farley fella’s murder?”
The girl’s voice was grimly sarcastic. “I have no idea. All I know is I was perfectly safe—until you showed up, thank you very much, Mr. Prophet.”
Prophet was incredulous. “You don’t think I led them to you, do you?”
“That’s exactly what I think. I think word got out that the Johnson City sheriff hired you to bring me in. I think Billy Brown had you followed, and you led Bannon right to my doorstep.”
Incensed, Prophet stepped toward the girl, stabbing a finger at his chest. “Listen, lady—nobody follows Lou Prophet without him knowing about it. Nobody.” Prophet’s eyes were sharp, and his nostrils flared.
The girl wasn’t backing down, however. Placing her fists on her hips, she’d opened her mouth to respond when Clatsop intervened.
“Okay, okay,” he said, waving his hands. “We’d best load ol’ Frank aboard the coach and get a move on. We’re a good hour behind schedule the way it is.”
A half hour later, the stage pulled away from the stop. Frank Harvey was strapped to the top luggage rack, and Prophet was riding shotgun. The horses galloped, kicking dust in his face, and Clatsop encouraged them with his epithet-laced harangues. The bounty hunter brooded, silently cursing the girl and wondering what kind of hell he’d gotten himself into now.
Wondering which of Billy Brown’s men would appear next ... and when.