Two weeks later, in his big, canopied bed in the Nuremberg, Prophet rolled over to wrap Lola in his arms. He got an armload of pillow instead. Groggily lifting his head, hair mussed and eyes narrowed, he looked around the room lit by golden morning rays slanting through the thin, crocheted curtains. He turned to the dressing room. “Lola?” No response. He hadn’t really expected any. The door was open, and he could see she wasn’t there. Casting another glance around the room, he saw that all her clothes, recently purchased over the past two weeks in Johnson City, and which, during their lovemaking, had been strewn about the carpeted Moor, were gone. Gone, also, were the new carpetbag and portmanteau she’d bought for traveling.
Planting his elbows on the bed and running his hands through his hair, he heard the words she’d whispered the other night, as they lay entangled in the darkened room. “One of these mornings I’m going to wake up and go— okay, Lou?” she’d said.
“What?”
“It’ll be easier that way.”
He’d looked at her, baffled.
She pressed her cheek to his chest. When she spoke, her voice was small and far away, like a little girl’s. “Let’s not pretend this is anything more than what it is.”
“What is it?”
She shrugged her naked shoulders. He could feel the warmth and wetness of her lips on his chest. “A fling. A wonderful, wonderful fling ...”
He’d sighed. She was right. How could they be anything more than what they were right now? She was a showgirl aiming for the big time. A man would only stand in her way. He was a reclusive bounty hunter, bound to the mountains and plains, the wild places in the West, a saddle tramp more at home atop a horse than even a saloon chair.
Her shoulders jerked twice. The spreading wetness on his chest was tears. He ran his hands slowly up and down her narrow back and supple hips. She pushed herself onto her hands and knees, and straddled him, gazing smokily into his eyes. Slowly, and for one of their last times, their most passionate time ever, they made love....
Now he rolled out of bed with a sigh, feeling hollow and lethargic, and climbed into a new pair of denims. He shaved at the commode stand. He wet his hair down and combed it, then shrugged into the shirt she’d picked out for him at the dry-goods store—a soft chambray with red piping. Everything they’d bought had been on the expense account Owen McCreedy had arranged for them, tapped directly from Billy Brown’s assets, in payment for all they’d gone through getting here.
Prophet didn’t mind taking the handout, since it was Brown’s money. Brown sure didn’t need it. The town had hanged him two days ago, and sent his disbarred attorney packing. They’d had a street dance afterward.
When he’d buttoned the shirt and stomped into his boots, he packed his saddlebags, draped them over his shoulder, and headed downstairs, lighting a cigarette. He felt distracted and lonely and just plain sad. The carpeted lobby was too bright for his mood. Sourly, he paid his bill but managed a feeble wink when thanking the porter for the extra attention—food and drink at all hours, extra pillows and baths. He slipped a gold eagle into the lad’s shirt pocket, and headed outside.
Looking to his left, he saw the morning stage to Cheyenne sitting outside the station, passengers milling near its open door. Lola stood near the rear, watching the driver load her bags into the boot. She looked lovely in her new blue traveling dress and feathered hat which contrasted with the red of her hair. She carried a ruffled parasol in one hand and a smartly beaded reticule in the other. As though she felt his gaze, she turned his way, and crossed her hands before her.
He adjusted the saddlebags on his shoulder and, puffing his cigarette, strolled across the street. She smiled as he approached, and inclined her head. “You’re going to make this hard for me, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. “Just wanted to say goodbye, that’s all.”
“I hate goodbyes.”
He let the saddlebags fall down his arm and into the dust at his feet. He took his cigarette in his right hand, stepped forward, and engulfed her in his arms. He held her tightly for a long time, sniffing her neck. He smiled.
He held her at arm’s length to gaze into her eyes. “We had one hell of a ride, didn’t we?”
Her eyes were veiled with tears, but she was smiling.
She nodded. “I had a wonderful time with you, you big lout. Even when things were looking desperate. But it’s all over now.” She gazed up the street, where several men were slowly dismantling the gallows from which Billy Brown had been hung. “I could stay another week, but why? We have to part sometime.”
Prophet nodded. “Headin’ for Denver?”
She nodded.
He squinted at her. “Good luck to you, Miss Diamond.”
She threw herself into his arms and kissed him. Her lips were full and supple; they clung to him for several seconds.
“Goodbye, Lou. I’ll never forget you.”
“I couldn’t forget you if I tried, Lola.”
“All aboard, ma’am,” the driver said.
She glanced at Prophet once more, then turned to the stage, lifting her skirts as the driver helped her board. When the door closed, and the driver climbed up to the box, Prophet stepped forward and said through the window, “Hey, you never told me your real name.”
She looked at him, giving a defiant smile. “And I never will, either.”
Prophet chuckled as the driver yelled at the horses and the stage jerked away. When it was halfway down the block, steering through the crowd of horseback riders and wagons, Lola poked her head out the window, looking back at him.
“It’s Margaret Jane Olson.” she yelled.
Prophet walked forward, cupping his ear. “What is it?”
“Margaret Jane Olson, and don’t you dare tell a soul!” She watched him, smiling brightly. She threw him a kiss. Then the dust thickened between them. She waved, the stage turned a corner, and she was gone.
Prophet stuck his cigarette between his lips and stared after the thinning dust plume, swallowing a dry knot in his throat. “Good luck, Margaret Jane,” he said, exhaling smoke.
“Too bad,” someone said behind him. “She’s as pretty as a Georgia sunset.”
Prophet turned to see Owen McCreedy standing in the shade outside the sheriff’s office, his left arm in a sling.
“You noticed, did you? What would Alice think?”
The sheriff grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “Alice ain’t here. She’s home making a rhubarb pie. I was about to head that way for another cup of coffee and a slice of that pie. Join me?”
“Nah,” Prophet said, feeling churlish, wanting a drink.
“Might cheer you up,” McCreedy said enticingly. “Besides, I figure I owe you a piece of rhubarb pie—your favorite, ain’t it?—after nearly getting you killed. Again, I sure am sorry about that, Proph. I guess I underestimated the length of ole Billy’s tentacles.”
“Wasn’t your fault, Owen. Someone got word to him that you found the girl—that’s all.”
“Yeah, but who the hell could that have been? The only ones who knew were you, me, Perry Moon, the sheriff who found her in the first place, and Sheriff Fitzsimmons up to Henry’s Crossing. I didn’t tell another soul.”
Prophet had been studying the dust at his feet. Now he turned his gaze to McCreedy, a dim light in his eyes, as though a thought had just occurred to him. At length, he stopped to pick up his saddlebags.
“Well, I’ll take my rifle and shotgun off your hands now, Owen,” he said. He’d left both weapons with the sheriff for safekeeping.
“That mean your declining my offer of a slice of Alice’s pie?” McCreedy asked as he stepped inside the jail.
“I reckon I’ll be headin’ back up to Johnson City,” Prophet said behind him.
When the sheriff appeared in the doorway with his shotgun and Winchester, Prophet laid the barrels of both across his shoulder.
“What business do you have up in Johnson City?” McCreedy asked with a probing gaze.
“I left my ugly horse up there,” Prophet said. “I better get him back before someone shoots the son of a bitch.” He turned and started for the livery barn, where he’d stabled the horse he’d borrowed from old man Hill at the Backwater station.
“Hey,” McCreedy called after him, “you don’t think Fitzsimmons let the cat out of the bag, do you?”
“Little Fitz?” Prophet said, feigning surprise as he half-turned toward the sheriff. “That walking, talking, star-toting symbol of rock-hard justice?” Prophet turned and continued toward the livery barn. “Not a chance.”
It was a lonely, uneventful ride to Henry’s Crossing, and Prophet spent most of the trip feeling sorry for himself and missing Lola. Never before had he known nights so long and quiet, the sky so full of stars twinkling mockingly far above—millions of miles away and no one to share them with. No Lola to skinny-dip with and make love to.
Lordy, how a woman could infect a man’s mind. He felt heavy and dismal.
“You gotta get out of this rut,” he told himself. “You need another job.”
He decided to start perusing wanted dodgers once he’d taken care of his business in Henry’s Crossing.
To that end, he rode down the little river berg’s main street four days after leaving Johnson City. Amid the din of passing freighters, their dry wheels creaking and mules braying, Prophet rode up to the livery barn where he’d stabled his ornery hammerhead, Mean and Ugly. He arranged for a boy to return the horse he’d borrowed from old man Hill at the Backwater station, with a twenty-five-dollar token of appreciation, and sprung Mean and Ugly, who’d become sleek off all the oats he’d been fed, but was as mean and ugly as ever. He took several nips out of Prophet’s arm as the bounty hunter saddled him and strapped his soogan behind the saddle.
The horse even bucked a couple times on the way over to the sheriff’s office. “So that’s what it’s gonna be, huh?” Prophet said with disgust, wrapping the reins around the hitching post. “Well, we’ll see about that.”
He turned and knocked on the office door.
“It’s open!” came the sharp reply.
Prophet stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He looked at Fitzsimmons, who sat behind his desk, all decked out in a new black suit with wool vest and gold watch fob. The slouch hat lipped back on his head was new, as well—crisp as a newly minted coin. The gun snugged on the sheriff’s scrawny hip was silver-plated and factory engraved, the grips mother of pearl. The holster was hand-tooled. It looked as though it had just been sewn. It was one of those breakaway contraptions favored by gunslicks.
Prophet whistled. “Well, well... look at you.”
Fitzsimmons flushed. He was in the middle of his dinner, a china plate containing a T-bone steak, greens, and baked potato on the desk before him. A checked napkin was draped over a knee. When he’d seen Prophet, his fork had froze halfway to his mouth, a new ring winking on his pinky.
“You musta hit the mother lode!” Prophet cried, shaking his head and running his eyes up and down the sheriff’s new duds.
Fitzsimmons studied Prophet sourly, eyes befuddled. He worked his mouth, his gray, upswept mustache moving back and forth. “Where in the hell did you come from?”
“Surprised to see me, Fitz?”
“Well... I... I—”
“No doubt you are, since you sold me and Lola out to Billy Brown.”
Suddenly, the blood ran out of Fitzsimmons’s face, like water through a sieve. He set his fork on his plate. “What... what are you talkin’ about?”
“I’m talkin’ about you tellin’ Brown’s man that McCreedy sent me after the girl.” Prophet dropped into a chair before the sheriff’s desk. “I figure some of Brown’s riders happened by one day—maybe Mr. Bannon himself—lookin’ for the girl, and told you he’d set you up right sweet if you gave him a whistle if you saw her. Ain’t that how it worked?”
Fitzsimmons came half out of his chair, bristling. “I did no such—”
“Then how did the man who hopped the stage with us know she and I were here? The only people who knew were McCreedy, his deputy, the sheriff who found her in the first place, Lola, myself... and you.”
The sheriff opened his mouth to protest. Prophet stopped him.
“Now, I know McCreedy didn’t do it. Neither Lola nor I did. I met Perry Moon, and that kid wouldn’t tell a lie to save to his soul. I’ve never met the sheriff who told McCreedy about seeing the girl passing through his town, but it just plum don’t make sense that he would have told McCreedy and Brown. So that just leaves you, Fitz.”
The sheriff sat slowly back in his chair, staring at Prophet guiltily. His mouth worked, but no words came out. Sweat beaded his forehead.
“Innocent people died because of you, Fitz,” Prophet said. “For that, you should be hung.”
Prophet let the words hang in the five feet of dry air between them. The sheriff bowed his head to look at his hands. Suddenly, he convulsed in a sob.
“He set you up right well, I see,” Prophet continued. “You buy your wife a new outfit, too? Maybe do some work on the house?”
Fitzsimmons lifted his gaze to Prophet. His eyes were angry. “You don’t know what it’s like, workin’ for this town. No one takes me serious. They laugh ‘cause I’m old. Don’t think I’m worth a dime, so they hardly pay me a damn thing.”
Prophet didn’t say anything. His chest rose and fell angrily, remembering the burning stage.
Haltingly, Fitzsimmons said, “So ... yeah ... when Brown’s men came to town lookin’ for the girl, I told ‘em. Hell, I didn’t know what was goin’ on. I didn’t know they were gonna try to kill her.”
“But you had to suspect as much. You didn’t care if they killed me.”
Fitzsimmons’s nose wrinkled and he turned away. There was a long silence, Fitzsimmons staring at the wall, Prophet staring at Fitzsimmons.
“Well, I suppose you’re gonna tell the council... have me fired and put away,” the old sheriff said with a sigh.
Prophet considered this. He knew that’s what he should do. Innocent people had died because of the old sot. But then, ruining Fitzsimmons, who really couldn’t have known what the effects of his transgressions would be, wouldn’t bring those people back. And why put the old bastard’s long-suffering wife through even more?
“Here’s what I’m gonna do, Fitz,” Prophet said at last, getting out his making sack and producing a paper. “I’m gonna keep my mouth shut if you do two things.”
He glanced at the hawk-nosed old man as he drew a line of tobacco across the paper. The sheriff didn’t say anything, but watched him with a mix of derision and expectation.
“First,” Prophet said, “I want you to donate a hundred dollars to the Queen Bee. Give the hundred to Miss Angie. She’ll spread it around to the other girls equally without saying anything to the madam.”
He was working the paper around the tobacco. Fitzsimmons’s cheeks were bunched, his lips pursed, scowling.
“Then,” Prophet continued, “I want you to donate another hundred to those three orphans working over at the Mulligan Stew.” Fitzsimmons began breathing heavily through his nose, face flushing again. Prophet ignored him. “Spread it out evenly. Make sure each kid gets his fair share. They get paid peanuts over there, if that.” He twisted the ends of the cigarette and stuck the quirley between his lips. “Sound good?”
Fitzsimmons climbed halfway out of his chair and pounded a fist on his desk. “Two hundred and fifty is all Brown gave me in the first place!”
“Then it almost works out perfectly, doesn’t it?” Prophet said, smiling grandly. He scratched a lucifer on the desk and touched it to the cigarette, inhaling deeply.
Fitzsimmons crouched there, washed-out eyes bright with hate. Prophet thought his swelling nose would explode.
“You do it, Fitz,” Prophet warned. “I’m gonna talk to Miss Angie and those three orphans next time I’m in town. If you don’t, I’ll not only thrash the shit out of you, I’ll go to the city council and spill the beans—the whole pot.”
He gave the sheriff a wink. Then he climbed to his feet and started for the door, hearing the sheriff rasping heavily, hatefully behind him.
On his way to the door, Prophet stopped. A dodger on the bulletin board had caught his eye. He moved toward it, squinting his eyes. “Five hundred dollars—dead or alive,” he read aloud, with a thoughtful air.
He plucked the dodger off the board and turned to the sheriff sitting back in his chair, looking as though the sky had just fallen. “This hombre still on the loose, Fitz?” Prophet asked him.
Not looking at him, not looking at anything in particular, the sheriff lifted a heavy hand from his chair arm and dropped it. “Reckon,” he grumbled.
“Thanks, Fitz,” Prophet said, grinning and tipping his hat.
He stepped outside, reading the dodger in his hand. “Five hundred dollars—dead or alive.” He turned to his hang-headed horse. “Well, Mean and Ugly,” he said, folding the dodger and stuffing it into his back pocket, “I believe it’s time for you and me to get reacquainted.”
He untied the reins from the hitch-rack and climbed into the leather. When he’d pulled into the street and gigged the hammerhead into a trot, a girl yelled his name.
He looked around and saw a scantily clad young woman standing on the second-story veranda of the Queen Bee, leaning on the railing and smoking a thin cheroot. Her long black hair was pinned in a loose bun atop her head. The breeze parted her powder blue duster invitingly.
“Hello, Miss Angie,” Prophet called.
“Don’t Miss Angie me, Lou Prophet,” she scolded. “You’re in town and you haven’t come to see me!” She set her lips in a pout.
“Oh, I’ll be back, Miss Angie,” Prophet replied. He lifted his hat to her, grinning his charming grin. “Don’t you worry—I’ll be back soon!”
Cantering west out of town, feeling suddenly lighter, feeling spry—amazing what the prospect of a five-hundred-dollar bounty could do for a man’s soul— Prophet lifted his head and sang, “Jeff Davis built a wagon and on it put a name, and Beauregard was driver and Secession was the name....”