Chapter 18
Prophet awakened with his bladder on fire.
He imagined it swelling to the size of an overfilled gut flask, straining its seams. He had to piss like a grizzly bear that had drained a rain barrel before nodding off and had held it all winter.
He tossed the covers aside, dropped his feet to the floor, and looked around. The room was in a shadowy red glow, as though a massive wildfire were raging just outside the room’s windows. He wasn’t even sure where he was, for his mind was still fogged with sleep. He knew only that he had to drain the dragon before it drained of its own accord.
He leaned down and reached under the bed. His hand found a porcelain pot. He dragged the pot out by its handle, rose from the bed, aimed, and let go.
He lifted his chin to the ceiling and gave a long, ragged sigh as his stream hit the pot with a ping and then a steadily deepening zinging sound as the pot filled.
The door latch clicked. Prophet jerked with a start but kept the stream going. He flung his right hand out, instinctively reaching for a gun though he had no idea where his Peacemaker or Winchester were, then lowered the hand when Lola came in.
Seeing her, it all came to him in a rush. The stagecoach, Mary, the ambush at Porcupine Station, the notch cave . . .
“Sorry to interrupt,” Lola said, setting a food tray on the dresser by the door then walking over to him as he continued to fill the thunder mug. She smiled down at his workings.
“A lady would avert her gaze,” Prophet said.
“I’m no lady,” Lola said.
“Is that the sun setting out there? Have I slept all the way since last night?”
“Last night?” Lola snorted. “You slept all through yesterday, last night, and today!”
His head no longer ached. At least, not near as badly as before. He could feel the pinch and rake of the stitches that Buster had sewn into his temple, closing the notch. He only vaguely remembered that—both Buster and Lola crouching over him while Buster, bright eyed from coffee but still a mite tipsy from tangleleg, had sutured closed the wound. Prophet had slugged down half a bottle of brandy and passed out.
“You sit back down,” she said. “Are you hungry? I brought you some bread and stew. I also have coffee and brandy.”
Prophet rubbed his belly. “Yeah, I reckon I could eat a bite. Now that I think on it, I’m right hungry. As empty as a dead man’s boot, in fact.”
Lola set the tray on his lap. On the tray was a wooden bowl filled with steaming beef stew swimming in thick, brown gravy showing the whites of chopped potatoes, the orange of carrots, and the green of beans. A plate containing two slices of grainy brown bread sat beside the bowl. There was also a tin cup filled with coffee and a corked whiskey bottle.
“Holy cow,” Prophet said. “I didn’t know you could cook. Didn’t know that was in the actress’s bag of talents.”
“I had to learn, after coming here,” Lola said, popping the cork on the bottle and splashing a goodly portion into the coffee. “I have a garden out back. It’s so dry around here it’s tough to keep it growing without hauling water from the rain barrel two, three times a day. But Roy always liked his vegetables, so I tended the garden for him.”
Prophet dug into the stew, dipping the bread into the gravy as he ate with his fork, following up each forkful with a bite of the bread. Lola sat on the edge of the bed beside him.
“Who’s Roy?” Prophet asked her.
“My husband.”
He jerked a wide-eyed look of shock at her.
“Don’t choke, Lou. Yes, I married.”
Prophet glanced at the door, a pang of consternation joining his other various miseries.
Lola chuckled. “Don’t worry, he’s not about to kick the door in, Lou. While I’m sure you’re accustomed to that sort of thing, he’s totally incapable.”
Prophet gave a sheepish shrug while arching a quizzical brow.
“Roy is dead.”
“I’m sorry, Lola.” Prophet swallowed a mouthful of stew and said, “Hearin’ that you got yourself hitched is even more surprising than finding you here in hell. Er . . . Jubilee, I reckon it’s called, though back along the trail I found myself feelin’ like I was headed fer hell.”
“Hell is a good name for this place now. I’m one of the last few folks still residing here. There’s me and Tad Demry, who runs the stagecoach station, and Demry’s lone hostler, Buster O’Brien.”
“A hostler and a sawbones,” Prophet said. “Buster’s right talented.” He shoved in another forkful of food, chewed. “How did you come to marry this Roy feller?”
Lola looked off for a time, sighed, then walked over to where a small liquor cabinet hung on a wall. Glasses lined the two upper shelves, and three cut glass decanters lined the lower one. The decanters were empty, but Lola grabbed a glass off the shelf, returned to the bed where Prophet continued to eat, watching her, and poured whiskey into her glass.
He’d seen that look on a pretty woman’s face before. The look of a run of bad luck and broken dreams, hopes unfulfilled.
Prophet’s heart ached for the girl. Woman, rather. She was a girl no longer, but a woman who was running out of options.
She sat back down on the edge of the bed, sipped from the glass, and set the glass on her thigh.
“I was working in Cheyenne.” She glanced at Prophet, giving a wan smile. “Never quite made it to San Francisco or New York.”
“Few do, Lola,” Prophet said, setting his fork down. He’d had enough. Besides, he wanted to give his old friend his full attention. “Those are faraway places. Ain’t no shame in not makin’ it to the top. Few are cut out for it. I reckon I should know that much.”
“I’m not complaining,” Lola said. “Nothing quite so unattractive as a failed actress whining about not being ushered around on the arms of royalty. I met Roy there, in Cheyenne. He’d come to a few of my shows. He traveled to Cheyenne every couple of months on business. He took me to dinner a few times.
“His wife had died a couple of years ago, and he was living here in Jubilee, running the Lazy Day, and he was lonely. He offered his hand and, realizing I wasn’t as talented as I’d once thought I was, and had become the age when I was probably soon to be culled from the saloon’s herd of dancers, I accepted.”
She looked at Prophet quickly. “Not that that’s the only reason I married Roy. He was a good, sweet man. Very kind. Very gentle. And he gave me a good home here . . . until he died eight months ago. Stroke, Buster thought. Roy hung on for a day and then he died quietly in my arms.”
“I’m very sorry, Lola.”
She shrugged. “I reckon I’ve become accustomed to hard luck. Anyway, I’ve stayed on here, not having anywhere else to go. Hardly anyone lives here anymore, but business is still good enough now and then, with passing trail traffic, to keep me going. It’s not to my advantage that the stage line is pulling out, of course, but I’ll make do. My overhead is low.”
Prophet reached up and caressed her shoulder with his big right hand. “Why did you call me here, Lola?”
She sighed, turned her head to kiss his hand on her shoulder. She looked at Lou again, and her eyes were cast with fear. “Trouble, Lou. The kind I was hoping you could solve, but now . . . now I know who you tangled with. It should have occurred to me when you came in later that same night as Vance Dunbar came through with a bullet in his arm, but . . . for some reason I didn’t put you and him together.”
Prophet squeezed her shoulder gently. “Lola, what is it?”
On the street outside, a horse whinnied. It had seemed to come from outside the saloon.
“That’s strange,” Lola said, frowning at the curtained window that had turned dark now since the sun had finished setting. “I don’t usually get any business on weeknights. None besides Buster and maybe the men from the—”
“Help me!” a girl’s pleading cry rose from the street. “Someone . . . please, help!”
Prophet jerked his head up.
“Oh my!” Lola said, rising from the bed. “That’s a girl. I didn’t think there were any girls left in Jubilee.”
Prophet slid the tray onto the bed beside him. “I recognize that voice.”
As though she hadn’t heard him, Lola strode quickly to the door. “You stay where you are, Lou. You’re in no condition to be getting out of bed. I’ll see to the girl . . . whoever she is,” Lola added as she left the room.
“Someone, please help me!” Mary called again from the street. “Is anyone there?”
Her voice was filled with anguish.
Heart thudding, Prophet dropped his feet to the floor, heaved himself out of bed. His head swam, the pain in his temple kicking up again. He felt disoriented and weak, a little sick to his gut. But he had to get outside and help Mary.
Stumbling around, he found his clothes neatly piled on a shelf in a large, oak armoire standing against the wall opposite the bed. His guns were in there, too—the Peacemaker and shell belt, his Winchester and scattergun.
He stepped into his balbriggans then shrugged into his shirt and drew his freshly washed and dried denims up his legs. He could hear Lola striding across the wooden floor downstairs, heading for the batwings, but now only silence rose from the street.
Prophet stomped into his boots and then, strapping his pistol belt around his waist, headed out of the room, sucking a sharp breath through gritted teeth when pain lanced through his head from the bullet tear in his temple.
The narrow, murky hall pitched around him.
He steadied himself with one hand on the wall and then hurried over to the stairs. As he dropped down the steps, holding on to the railing, he could hear Lola’s voice outside. It was accompanied by the thuds of several horses and the loud voices of angry men.
As Prophet gained the bottom of the stairs and headed toward the batwings, a man outside loudly ordered, “Just leave her where she is, Mrs. Knudsen. She’s goin’ with us and there ain’t no ifs, ands, or buts about it!”
“Oh, there’s a few, I think!” Prophet said, pushing through the batwings and cocking his .45.