Chapter 19
Prophet woke up alone, which surprised him. He must have slept so deeply after his and Marisol’s last frolic that he’d slept right through her leaving.
She’d probably left to avoid anyone finding out that the don’s daughter had spent the night with a guest. Not any guest, either. A burly, unwashed, ex-Confederate bounty hunter from north of the border. Ye gads—the woman’s reputation would have been muddied from hither to yawn!
Lou didn’t blame her one bit. If he were she, he wouldn’t have wanted anyone to know about him, either. He gave a wry chuckle at the notion while he took a whore’s bath from the porcelain washbasin sitting atop the marble washstand. Lemony morning sunlight angled brightly through the open doors facing the courtyard. The air was cool and winey fresh, and it fairly bubbled with the piping of songbirds. Obviously, Prophet had slept far later than he normally did.
While he dressed, he reflected on the dreamlike night he’d enjoyed with Marisol de la Paz, and the reflection put him in such a good mood that he found himself whistling softly as he twirled the Peacemaker on his finger before dropping it into the holster thonged on his right thigh and donned his hat.
He left the room whistling, as well, and saw Colter just then leaving the room to his left. Colter didn’t look nearly as well rested as Prophet felt. The younker’s tattooed face was drawn and pale, and there were pouches under his eyes.
“Well, I’m glad to hear someone’s happy as a well-tuned fiddle,” the redhead quipped. He paused to gingerly set his snuff brown Stetson on his head after tucking his long, straight red hair back behind his ears.
“What’s the matter with you, Red? You look like you just tangled with two rabid mountain lions in the back of a Pittsburgh freight wagon.” Prophet smiled in sudden understanding. “Oh . . . one olla too much pulque.”
“Too much pulque and too much wine. I swear the don’s butler was bound and determined to get me drunk.”
“It’s tradition down here to never allow a guest’s glass to get empty.”
“Now you tell me. I was trying to empty my glass so I wouldn’t look like a damn tinhorn, but every time I looked at the blasted thing, it was filled again!”
Prophet laughed.
“All the noise coming from the room next to me didn’t help matters one damn bit,” Colter groused.
“Huh?”
“I thought it was you wrestling wildcats in yonder. And—pardon me if the question is indiscreet—but do you always cut loose with a blood-curdling rebel yell?”
“I did that?”
“Several times. Not that I was counting. I was trying to drown out the sounds with my pillow.”
“Jesus, if you heard . . .” Standing just outside his room, Prophet looked around warily, wondering if any of the rooms around them were occupied. He didn’t think so, as this far-flung wing of the casa appeared to be virtually abandoned, but it was a risk he shouldn’t have been taking, not that he’d known he had. The pulque must have turned him into a real animal last night.
Not that Marisol seemed to have minded . . .
Colter chuckled then winced and pressed the heel of his hand to his forehead. “Ouch!”
“Sorry, Red.”
“Oh well—at least one of us had . . .”
Colter let his voice trail off when sounds rose from the direction of the main compound. A couple of men were shouting, one farther away than the other. A horse gave a fierce whinny. It was answered by another horse farther away than the first.
Prophet and Colter shared a dubious glance then swung around and began walking along the stone path beneath the ramada encircling this rear courtyard. The sunlight bathed the courtyard in its harsh morning light, revealing the cracked and crumbling stone statues and dry fountains. Many of the trees back here appeared dead or nearly so.
Indeed, Hacienda de la Paz had seen better days . . .
The two trail partners strode to the end of the courtyard, dropped down a short stone staircase, then walked through another outside corridor between two blocks of cracked adobe also comprising the casa before turning and dropping down yet another staircase.
They soon found themselves in the front courtyard abutting the main compound, maybe a hundred feet from the main entrance. The don was standing outside the arched front doorway, leaning on his crutches, Raoul at his side.
The hacendado was yelling at someone in the yard beyond the adobe wall. Several men were yelling back frantically.
The don was asking what in God’s name was going on out there and the replies seemed garbled—at least to Prophet’s ears. The replies were also somewhat drowned by the clomping of horses and the squawking and rattling of tack.
Prophet and Colter shared another skeptical look then moved out across the courtyard and through a gate that led out into the compound. All the activity was happening to their right, maybe fifty yards away, between the far end of the adobe wall and a corral on the opposite side of the yard.
A half-dozen horses were milling around over there, stomping, bucking, and whinnying. Three vaqueros were trying to get the horses stopped while a half-dozen others watched from the side near the end of the adobe wall, the bunkhouse behind them. One of the vaqueros, a bandy-legged old man with a long gray beard, shook his head and crossed himself as he watched the commotion.
“What the hell . . . ?” Prophet muttered.
He walked along the adobe wall, frowning as he studied the horses and the three vaqueros running along beside them, grabbing at the reins. The horses were saddled and appeared to be carrying something across their backs. Something else looked odd about the mounts but Prophet couldn’t see what it was until he’d walked another thirty feet.
Then he slowed his pace, muttering to himself, absently raking a thumb across his chin. “What . . . the . . . hell . . . ?” he repeated.
“Am I still addled from that Mexican panther juice, or am I seein’ what I think I’m seein’?” Colter asked.
They both stopped and stared toward where two of the vaqueros finally got two horses settled down. Dust wafted up from the obviously terrified mounts’ hooves, so for a few seconds the horses and men were somewhat obscured. Still, Prophet could see one of the vaqueros cry out and jerk back away from the horse he’d stopped.
The man wheeled, facing the others gathered near the casa’s patio wall, and fell to his hands and knees. He violently aired out his paunch.
The other vaquero released his own horse suddenly and stepped back as the horse ran over to the corral, scraping up against the stone fence, wanting whatever was on its saddle removed. The other horses—there were six of them total, each carrying a dead man—were acting similarly, one bouncing on its front hooves and whickering.
This horse turned so that Prophet could see it more clearly, could clearly see that what lay across its saddle was a man’s body. The body of a vaquero.
The headless body of a vaquero.
The head of the body was mounted on the horn of the horse’s saddle, like some grisly trophy of a bloody battle. The head’s eyelids dropped and the lips were stretched back from teeth gritted as though still in the throes of the man’s barbaric demise.
Prophet hadn’t noticed until now that Don de la Paz and his mayordomo, Raoul, had stepped out of the patio gate to stand where they’d been standing when Prophet had first met them. Slumped over his crutches, the don yelled, “Tomás, lead that horse over here!”
The vaquero holding the reins of one of the other Arabians, and scowling at the horse’s grisly cargo, turned toward the don and said, “Are you sure you want to see this, patrón?”
“Lead it over here!” the don yelled in his raspy voice before hacking up a gob of phlegm and spitting it into the dirt.
Prophet and Colter walked slowly over to the don and Raoul. They stopped near the older men and watched Tomás lead the smoky gray Arabian with white-speckled hindquarters toward the don, a look of extreme distaste twisting the vaquero’s mouth. He was muttering, “Yi, yi, yi . . .” while shaking his head.
He stopped ten feet away from the don and regarded the old man gravely. “It is Miguel, patrón!”
Sure enough, the head of the segundo who’d led the contingent returning Juan Carlos’s body to his father was now mounted on the horn of his saddle. That meant the headless body draped belly down over the bowl-like Spanish saddle likely belonged to the segundo, as well.
“Mierda,” the don raked out, staring in wide-eyed fascination at the grisly spectacle.
For the first time, Prophet heard Raoul speak. “Good Lord in heaven, what kind of savage is that crazy demon, anyway?” he exclaimed in a voice nearly as raspy as the hacendado’s. The mayordomo crossed himself, muttering.
The old don sighed and shook his head as he stared at the head of his segundo mounted on the apple of the man’s saddle. “Don Amador, that old lion, took Juan Carlos’s death harder than I thought he would. Hmmm.” Pensively, he drummed his index finger against his whiskered chin.
Prophet stared at the grisly scene before him, his heart thumping. If Don Amador did this to the men who were merely returning his son’s body, what would he do to the man who’d actually killed him?
Nah, the bounty hunter decided. Probably best not to think about that.
“I reckon this means trouble for you, Don,” Prophet said. “I mean more trouble than what Amador sent back with these horses.”
Amador pursed his lips and shook his head. “I am not worried. Amador is even older than I, in even worse shape. So is his hacienda. We both have been pillaged and plundered by Ciaran Yeats. He doesn’t have the men or the firepower to stand against my small army of vaqueros, which it seems has just grown smaller by six after being culled by seven more only yesterday!” The don gave a dry laugh and shook his head as though in response to his blood enemy’s reply to the package Don de la Paz had sent to Hacienda del Amador. “He still has his sense of humor, though—I’ll give the old lion that much!”
The don gave quick, sharp orders to bury the bodies then turned to Prophet and Colter Farrow. “Now, then, back to the business of the day. How did you sleep, gentlemen?”
Prophet and Colter shared uneasy glances. Lou had seen his share of carnage during the war and then over his decade-long hunt for the nastiest owlhoots in the West. Still, the savagery of Old Mexico never ceased to rock him back on his heels.
Colter gave his head a single wag of amazement.
“Gentlemen, I am sorry you had to witness such nastiness even before breakfast,” the don said, “but as I was saying, back to the business of the day.”
“Right, right,” Lou said. “Back to the business of the day.”
“How did you sleep?” the don asked him, gazing directly into his eyes.
Prophet scrutinized the don’s regal, weathered features, looking for any indication the old man suspected that his daughter might have paid a visit to the bounty hunter’s room. The old man’s eyes appeared absent of guile, which was a relief. Seeing those dead vaqueros in such grisly states had left Lou feeling a little colicky. He thought he’d seen enough Mexican justice for one morning. He didn’t feel like suffering any himself.
He smiled broadly. “Slept like a log! Just like a log, sure enough! Both of us did.” He draped a thick arm around Colter’s shoulders. The redhead pulled his mouth corners down. He still appeared a little green around the gills.
“Did you come to a decision?” the don asked hopefully. “Regarding my offer . . . ?”
Prophet looked at the don. How could he say no? The old man had few men left on his roll, likely even fewer with the salt to go after a man like Ciaran Yeats. The hacendado was in failing health, of both mind and body. His daughter had been taken from him by one of the evilest men to ever ride the western frontier, north or south of the border.
Besides, Prophet had just plain taken a liking to the proud old hacendado staring up at him plaintively.
Prophet looked again at Colter. The redhead looked back at him. He shrugged as if to say, What else we gonna do for entertainment down here in Old Mexico, Lou?
“We’re gonna get your daughter back to you safe and sound, Don,” Lou said. “And we’re gonna kick Ciaran Yeats out with a cold shovel, which is better than he deserves.”
The old man gazed from Prophet to Colter and back again. He pursed his lips as though to check his emotion, but his eyes filled with tears. That forked vein in his temple bulged again, dangerously.
“I am most happy to hear that, gentlemen. Most happy!” The don looked at Raoul and stifled a sob. The mayordomo smiled at him tenderly. “Come in, come in,” the don said, brushing a tear from his cheek. “Let’s have a gran desayuno and discuss the finer points!”