Chapter 21
As bullets tore into the front of the Lazy Day Saloon, cracking through the batwings and shattering the glass of the big front window, Prophet dove behind the stock trough fronting the boardwalk to his left.
He snaked his Peacemaker up over the trough and fired three shots, all missing their targets as the riders’ horses danced around in front of the saloon. He was just wishing he had his Winchester when Lola yelled through the broken-out window behind him, “Lou!”
He shot her a look. She hurled his Winchester through the window. Prophet dropped the Peacemaker and caught the rifle over the boardwalk. “Thanks, but get your head down!”
He pulled his own head down behind the stock trough as more bullets chewed into it and screeched through the air around him.
The shooting stopped.
Prophet looked over the trough. The six riders were in the midst of dismounting their leaping horses. Sand Creighton dropped his right boot to the ground but his left one got caught in the stirrup. His horse wheeled. Creighton screamed and flew sideways. His boot jerked free and he hit the muddy street and rolled.
The other riders dropped to their knees, raising their rifles toward Prophet.
The bounty hunter cursed and cut loose, the Winchester roaring savagely. He dropped two men right away, punched them back onto the boardwalk on the opposite side of the street. The three others hammered the front of the stock trough with lead. Prophet jerked his head down to keep it from getting blown off. He crawled to the stock trough’s right side, snaked his rifle around it, and dispatched two more Creighton men.
The fifth man leaped to his feet and ran for cover.
Prophet blew his legs out from under him. The man screamed and piled up in a big mud puddle. He stretched an arm out for his rifle. Lifting his head, he cast his gaze toward Prophet, his eyes reflecting the yellow light flickering out from over the batwings and through the broken window behind Lou.
The bounty hunter drew a bead on the man’s broad forehead.
The Winchester roared.
The fifth man’s head jerked back on his neck then dropped straight down to the mud puddle. Prophet saw little bubbles forming around the man’s face in the puddle as he died.
Prophet racked a fresh round. He looked around for Creighton. The fat rancher was not where Prophet had last seen him.
Prophet rose to his knees, frowning.
Creighton rose up in front of him. He’d been crawling toward the trough, dragging his belly through the muddy street. The fat, round-faced, bearded rancher wasn’t wearing his hat. He was nearly bald save for a few strands of sandy gray hair. His mouth formed a savage grimace as he extended a long-barreled Smith & Wesson at Prophet. Prophet whipped his rifle around and squeezed the trigger.
It clicked, empty.
A gun popped behind the bounty hunter. A round hole appeared in the rancher’s forehead. Creighton triggered the Smithy over Prophet’s right shoulder and into the boardwalk running along the front of the Lazy Day. His eyes rolled back into his head as he dropped forward to hang his head and arms into the stock trough, like a drunk heaving up his guts.
He shook his head and then just hung there, dead, his head in the trough.
Prophet glanced over his left shoulder. Lola stared through the broken-out window, wide-eyed, a smoking, pearl-gripped .41 caliber Colt in her hand.
“Thanks,” Prophet said.
Lola stared at the dead Sand Creighton. She looked at Prophet. “Are there any more out there?”
Prophet shook his head.
Lola gave a wan half smile as she lowered the smoking pistol. “Why don’t you come in out of the rain, then, Lou?”
Prophet nodded, rose heavily to his feet. “Yeah. Why don’t I?”
* * *
The saddlebags were where Prophet had placed them in the stagecoach’s rear luggage boot.
The coach itself had broken free of the runaway team and had landed on its side in Bull Creek, a shallow dry wash about a half a mile southwest of Jubilee. Prophet reached into the boot, dragged out his bags. He settled them onto the ground between his knees and opened the flaps. He’d placed two of the money sacks into the left pouch, the other sack in the right one.
All three were where he had left them.
He held one of the bags up to show Lola and Mary. The two women were on hands and knees, gazing down over the lip of the cutbank at him. Lola smiled. Mary’s face remained expressionless. The bright morning sun touched their hair, and the breeze, warm now after last night’s rain, tussled their hair about their faces.
“It’s all here,” Prophet said.
He carried it up onto the cutbank and stood before Lola and Mary. Mary’s father, Vance Dunbar, was resting in the box of the wagon parked on the trail about fifty yards to the east, a white-socked black gelding in the traces. The bullet he’d taken last night had only grazed the top of his left shoulder, but the past twenty-four hours had taken a lot out of him, as weak as he already was from the cancer.
He sat in the box, his back resting against its front panel, wrapped in blankets. He stared forlornly straight out behind the wagon, toward the widely scattered, bullet-shaped northern buttes. He hadn’t said a word since the last words Prophet had heard him say to his daughter the night before, which had been: “Please forgive me.”
Three men from the stage station in Deadwood were removing the blanket-wrapped bodies of Mort Seymour and J. W. Plumb from where Prophet had tied them to the top of the stage. They were just now carrying Seymour to where a small buckboard waited on the cutbank. This day marked a grave and somber end to the stage line’s route through Jubilee.
“Thirty thousand dollars here,” Prophet said, patting the saddlebag pouch hanging down over his left shoulder. “Creighton won’t be needing it where he is. Why don’t you take it, Mary? Sounds like you and your old man could use it.”
Mary turned her head to stare at where her father sat in the wagon, wearing his high-crowned Stetson, blankets pulled up to his weathered cheeks. She turned back to Prophet, shook her head. “I want nothing to do with Creighton’s money, Lou.”
“Are you and your pa going to be all right, Mary?” Lola asked her, sliding an arm around her shoulders.
Mary nodded. “He asked me to forgive him, and I have. I’ll try to make him as comfortable as I can in the time he has left. Then I’ll bury him beside Aunt Grace.”
“I reckon you’ll figure out the next step when you come to it,” Prophet said.
Mary smiled up at the tall bounty hunter. “Thank you, Lou. For all you’ve done for me an’ . . . for Pa.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Prophet wrapped his arms around her, gave her a good, long hug, and kissed her cheek. Mary gazed up at him, fondness sparkling in her eyes. She glanced quickly at Lola and then returned her gaze to Lou as she said, “Are you going to hang around here for a while? In Jubilee?”
Prophet glanced at Lola, who smiled at him a little sheepishly. His ears warming, he said, “Yeah, I reckon I will. I ain’t fully recovered yet.” He stretched his back, giving a maudlin wince and a grunt. “I’ll probably spend a few days”—he glanced at Lola again—“restin’ up before I see about heading back to Cheyenne and picking up my hoss.”
“Will you ride out and see me at the Three-Box-D before you go?”
“I’d purely admire to do that.”
“I’ll make supper and you can spend the night.” Mary’s eyes flicked toward Lola once more.
“That sounds even better.”
“Good-bye, Lou.” Mary kissed his cheek. She turned and gave Lola a parting hug, and then, lifting her skirts above her ankles, began walking back toward the wagon. She climbed up into the driver’s boot, released the brake handle, shook the reins over the horse’s back, and began rattling off along the trail to the north.
She glanced back at Prophet and Lola, and waved.
They returned the gesture.
“She’s quite a girl,” Lola said, watching the wagon grow small in the distance. She gave Prophet a light elbow to the ribs. “But, then, you probably know that better than anybody—don’t you, Lou?”
Prophet gave a guilty snort.
“What about the money?” he said as he and Lola began walking over to where their saddled horses stood ground-tied. “You might as well take it. Sounds like Creighton didn’t have any family . . .”
“I don’t want that money,” Lola said. “Why don’t you take it? That much jingle should keep you off the bounty trail for at least a month.”
Prophet made a face, shook his head. “I can’t take money I didn’t earn.”
“Well, what are you going to do with it, then?” Lola stopped by her horse and frowned up at him.
Prophet looked around. He spied a small pile of jumbled rock nearby. He walked over to it, rolled back a couple of the rocks, then deposited the money sacks into the hollow. He rolled the rocks back over the sacks. The rocks looked as though they’d never been moved.
Turning to Lola, he said, “There. If at any time in the future you need that money, you know where it’s at.”
“I won’t take that money,” Lola said. “Not knowing what Creighton wanted to do with it. Besides, it’s blood money now.”
“Just in case,” Prophet said.
“All right,” Lola said, chuckling. “We’ll call it Just in Case Loot. Only you and I know about it. It’ll be our secret.” She reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressed her breasts against his chest, and kissed him.
She pulled her head back from his, tugged on his ears. “Now, why don’t we head back to the Lazy Day? I think you still have some more recovering to do, don’t you, Lou?”
Prophet kissed her. He made a face of mock misery. “Oh, Lordy, I think you’re right. I been out in the sun too long. I think I need at least a couple of hours—maybe the whole rest of the day and night . . . maybe the whole day tomorrow, too—under the sheets!”
He had some time to kill. After all, Clovis Teagarden was probably still crying rape back in Denver . . .
Lola laughed.
Prophet helped her onto her horse, and they galloped toward Jubilee.