Prophet remained in Bitter Creek for a few days to help clean up after the fire.
To his surprise, most of the townspeople, including Frieda Schwartzenberger, decided to stay and rebuild and to run the town the way a town should be run—with a democratically elected mayor and town council and a marshal hired for the benefit of all. Bitter Creek was their home. They had nowhere else to go.
Only the businesses along Main Street had burned. Still, it would be a long rebuilding process. The night before Prophet decided to leave, a town council was elected. During the council’s first meeting, held in Frieda’s cafe, Ralph Carmody was elected mayor and his grandson, Ronnie Williams, recovering nicely from the bullet wound in his side, was named town marshal.
Prophet’s going-away gift to the town was his reward money, found in Ralph Carmody’s charred bank vault. The twenty-five hundred dollars, combined with the small fortune found on Henry Crumb’s getaway horse, would give the town the financial boost it needed toward getting back on its own two feet.
Prophet’s going-away gift to Frieda was a private, carnal love dance carried out under the second-story eaves of Gertrude’s Good Food. A three-quarter moon slanted milky light through the window over the bed, limning Frieda’s heels crossed over the small of the bounty-hunter’s broad back.
Frieda’s next-door neighbor—a widower farmer named Frank Roderus—was awakened three times in two hours by curious feral-like love screams carried on the wind. Thinking them only wild cats, he grunted, spit, and sank back onto his pillow.
Prophet was saddled up and riding the eastern trail from Bitter Creek when the sun rose from behind a hat-shaped rimrock and spread its pink light across the sage. Three hours later, he paused to let Mean draw water at a trailside spring. Suddenly, the dun raised its head and whinnied.
Prophet’s hand touched his Colt while his eyes roamed the eastern horizon, finding a horseback figure silhouetted against the sky. The rider came on slowly. Prophet sat, his right hand caressing his pistol grips.
You never knew who you were going to run into out here. Prophet just hoped whoever it was wasn’t trouble. He’d had enough trouble over the past few weeks. He wanted to go about his business unharassed, maybe wander down toward Glenwood Springs and wallow in the healing waters for a time.
As the rider approached, the lines around Prophet’s eyes deepened gradually, the eyes themselves taking in the black Morgan and the female form of the rider, the ratty brown poncho, the long hair curving over slender shoulders, and the tan felt hat with chin strap.
She was fifty yards away when he muttered disbelievingly, “Louisa?”
Suddenly, she heeled the Morgan into a run. Mean whinnied again and rippled his withers at the Morgan’s familiar scent.
Prophet grinned as her haughty hazel eyes and dimpled chin came into focus. It really was her. He thought by now she’d be in Denver City. “Louisa.”
Louisa reined the Morgan to a halt, neck-reining the black horse quarter-wise to Prophet and Mean. She furrowed her blond brows, pursed her rosebud lips, and placed one churlish fist on her hip. “Lou Prophet, where have you been?”
“Louisa, what in the name of the hounds of hell are you doin’ out here?”
Her voice was matronly admonishing. “I sent telegram after telegram to Bitter Creek and received not one reply.”
“The telegraph office was out of commission for a while.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve been in Bitter Creek this entire time!”
“Well, yeah, that’s—”
She pooched her pink lips in disgust. “So you found a soiled dove and decided to while away a couple of weeks under the sheets?”
Prophet opened his mouth to object, but she cut him off. “Lou Prophet, you are the vilest, laziest creature the Good Lord set forth on this land. Living only to drink the devil’s juice and couple with fallen women!”
Prophet found his ears warming like a scolded schoolboy’s. “Louisa, that just ain’t true. I been—”
Louisa slapped her hands to her ears. “Please don’t assault me with the craven details!”
Prophet glared at her. “Louisa, I’m trying to tell you, I been—”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Please stop!”
Finally, he sighed and leaned over his saddle horn, jutting his chin and screwing up his eyes. “Louisa,” he shouted, “would you please just tell me what in the hell you’re doin’ here!”
She removed her hands from her ears and opened her eyes. “When I couldn’t contact you through the telegraph from Denver City, I decided to start scouring the countryside for you. Bitter Creek was the last place I saw you.”
He grinned, happy to see her, churlish as she was. “So, now you found me. What’s up?”
“We have a job to do, Lou Prophet. It’s a big job. Too big for me alone.”
Prophet shook his head. “No jobs for me. Not for at least a month. I’m wrung out.”
“I told you I didn’t want to hear the details of your devil party.”
He started to snarl a rebuttal, but again she cut him off. “Quit horsing around, Lou. We have trouble in the Southwest.” She reined the Morgan around and canted it back the way she had come. “Come on,” she yelled behind her. “I’ll tell you about it on our way to Cheyenne!”
“Cheyenne?” Prophet snorted.
“We’ll pick up the train there!”
“Train?”
Prophet glared at her bobbing back. Finally, he shook his head, kneed Mean into a trot, and yelled, “Louisa, you’re a caution—you know that?”
He sighed and cursed and patted Mean’s neck. “No rest for the weary, Mean. Not when that girl’s anywhere within three territories …”
Grudgingly, he galloped Mean and Ugly into Louisa’s sifting dust.