The Devil's Lair (A Lou Prophet Western #6) (19 page)

As he ran his big hands across her narrow
shoulders, he removed the nightgown and the wrapper in one fell
swoop, laying her out naked and pale before him—a long, willowy
length of curving woman.

Her slender legs kicked as she
begged him to take her. Her pale, almond-shaped breasts were
exposed by the last of the day
’s feeble light washing through the room’s single
window, the nipples erect.

“
Please,” she whined, grappling
with his cartridge belt, shoving at it, pulling, trying to get it
off. ‘Take me!”

He heaved up on his knees,
removed the belt, and dropped it to the floor. She was already
pulling at the buttons of his denim jeans. He nudged her hands
away, opened his jeans, slid them and his underwear down to his
ankles. She reached for his member, ran her hands up and
down its iron
length, pressing it against her belly and sobbing,
“Now!”

And then he was lying between
her raised knees, propped on his arms, thrusting. She locked and
unlocked her ankles around his back, pulled at his hair, clawed at
his shirt, crying,
“Harder! Harder!”

As he lay toiling between her
knees, grunting, wheezing, and reeling, he knew he was making a big
mistake. At any time, the man who
’d been trying to ambush him could sneak
into the house, or crazy Wallace Polk could return to finish the
job he’d started.

This was the crazy kind of thing that got
bounty hunters killed. Thinking with your pecker was a good way to
get your head shot off.

But knowing that and being able
to do anything about it were two different things. Prophet had made
the same mistake before. But as he toiled and sweated atop Fianna
Whitman
’s
writhing body, feeling her skin stick to his, her mouth drawing
wide and taut with every plunge of his body into hers, he knew he’d
make it again.

And he
’d continue to live as long as his
luck held. When his luck ran out, he’d die. It was as simple as
that.

But there were worse ways to
go
…

He reflected on that as, ten minutes later,
Fianna lay curled against him, sleeping with her head on his chest,
one naked knee curled over his.

He
’d pulled up his jeans, but he hadn’t
buttoned them yet. He would in a minute. But first he’d lie here,
make sure she was fast asleep before he slipped away. He didn’t
want to wake her, but he also needed rest.

Yep, there were worse ways to go, all right.
But now that his passion was spent, he lay here in the dark room,
atop the quilts, listening for any strange sounds that might mean
the drygulcher was near... or that Wallace Polk had returned.

The only sounds were two dogs
barking desultorily and
a cow complaining in a pasture south of town. The
house creaked when the breeze kicked up, fluttered the lace
curtains out from the window. A wagon passed near the house,
clattering over ruts.

The girl opened her mouth as she
slept, and a thin trickle of drool puddled on
Prophet
’s
chest.

He stared at the ceiling, running the night
through his head, trying to figure out what had driven Wallace Polk
and Fianna Whitman to nose dope.

Prophet suspected that, in her
case, it had something to do with her father, possibly about how
he
’d acquired
his relative wealth as well as the grisly way he’d died. He might
have been taking graft from saloon owners or confidence men,
possibly whiskey traders, gunrunners, or rustlers. It was a common
enough practice amongst poorly paid Western lawmen. If so, he and
Fianna had been living on dirty money.

But what about Wallace Polk? What had rubbed
his fur in the wrong direction?

Prophet wasn
’t finding anything out lying
here—not that he really wanted to. He’d leave the town to its
secrets once his reward money arrived and Henry Crumb
returned.

And good riddance to Bitter
Creek and its dunder-headed, drygulching
townsfolk
…

Prophet slipped out from beneath the girl,
covered her with a quilt, and dressed quietly in the dark room. A
few minutes later, he stepped out the front door and stood in the
yard before the porch. Gazing cautiously around the yard, he
expected to see a gun blossom somewhere off in the darkness that
had closed over the town.

After a quiet minute, he built and lit a
quirley and headed back toward the main drag. He was nearly halfway
there when he had a feeling he was being followed.

Twice he stopped, taking cover in the
shadows of a chicken coop and under an outside staircase, watching
and listening, smoking the quirley cupped in his left palm.

He saw nothing but the wind nudging
shutters, a stray cat slinking behind an empty whiskey barrel, and
Mad Mary coupling with some wheezing oldster in the alley behind
the post office.

As he crossed Main, someone blew
the glass out of the jailhouse only a foot right of his right
shoulder. He hit the ground a second after the
rifle
’s bark
had reached his ears.

Prophet rolled behind
the stock trough and
clawed his Colt from his holster.

He peered over the
trough
’s lip,
casting his gaze across the street. Seeing no movement nearby—just
the three dark hulks of the Main Street businesses directly across
from the jailhouse—he looked to his right.

Nothing there but a few horses
tethered to the hitch rack before the Mother Lode, the light
gilding the worn ranch saddles. Two doors beyond the Mother Lode
was the town
’s second saloon, the American. Smaller and with no whores
or faro tables, it did less business. Still, three cow ponies and a
buckboard were tied out front.

But there were no men in the street. No
scudding shadows. No vagrant light winking off a rifle breech.

Prophet cursed. If the bastard
wanted him dead so damn bad, why didn
’t he show himself and fight like a
man?

Hoping to attract another shot
that would give the shooter
’s position away, he leapt to his feet, stood
still for a second, then bolted left and dropped to a knee, holding
the revolver out before him.

Nothing.

Cursing like his grandfather used to curse
at cotton-mouths in his fishing hole, he ran directly across the
street. He pressed his back to the front wall of the women’s
millinery, looked around, and moved slowly to the building’s west
front corner.

He stole a look around the corner to the
rear.

Seeing nothing but trash littering the sage
between the millinery and the harness shop, he eased slowly back
toward the rear. He was halfway there when a dark figure came
around the rear corner, heading toward him.

Prophet’s heart surged. He dropped to a
knee. “Hold it there!”

The figure stopped and threw up his hands.
“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!”

Prophet jogged toward him, Colt
extended.

“
Don’t shoot!” the man repeated
as Prophet approached. “I’m an innocent man!”

He was bulky and bearded, wearing a
tattered bowler and a duck vest. An old, war-model Colt hung on his
right hip. But there was no rifle. And Prophet’s bushwhacker had
definitely fired a rifle.

Prophet lowered his .45. “What the hell
were you doin’ back there?”

“
You the new marshal? Oh, shit.”
His voice was deep and gravelly, as though he’d smoked cigars since
he was ten. “Well... uh, I wouldn’t want this gettin’ back to my
wife, but uh ...”

“
Come on!” Prophet urged. “Out
with it!”

He jerked his thumb over his right
shoulder. “You know, Mad Mary ...”

“
Ah,” Prophet said dryly,
remembering the oldster he’d seen wrestling with the whore a few
minutes ago.

“
I seen a man run back this way,
though,” the old man said. “Kinda interrupted me, if you know what
I mean. And at my age, when you’re interrupted, it ain’t all that
easy—”

“
Which way’d he go?” Prophet
shouted, peering into the darkness over the man’s left
shoulder.

“
Straight back toward the
windmill yonder.”

Prophet ran that way, past a woodpile and
the remains of one of the town’s original tent shacks.

“
Now, Marshal, don’t go
blabberin’ about seein’ me back here!” the old man called, his
voice fading in the distance. “My wife wouldn’t
understand!”

Prophet ran along the south side of a
post-and-rail corral, hearing the windmill clatter ahead.
Approaching the windmill and stock tank, he slowed, swung his Colt
from left to right. There wasn’t much out here but a few widely
spaced houses on brushy lots, a few small barns, corrals, and
gardens amongst the rocky knobs and cedar clumps.

It was all cloaked in darkness, with no sign
of the gunman.

Prophet walked to the other side of the
stock tank and stared off into the ravine curving along the south
edge of town. Nothing there either.

Once again, the man was gone.

Prophet brought his gaze in closer to his
boots, hunkered down on his haunches, saw several fresh hoofprints.
He studied the tracks by lighting several matches one after
another, but saw nothing to distinguish the sign. No loose nails,
splits, or shoe cracks.

He ran his sleeve across his mouth, stood,
and holstered his pistol. He felt like raging into the darkness,
daring the son of a bitch to get back here and fight like a man,
but what good would it do?

Turning, he headed back toward Main, entered
the jail-house, and fumbled around in the dark to light a lamp.

“
What was that shootin’
about?”

Prophet held the lamp high, casting the glow
into the cell where Leo Embry stood, a few feet back from the door.
The bandage on his head shown bone-white and rumpled against his
youthful face with its grim eyes and smattering of red pimples
around his mouth. His lips formed a sullen line.

“
Bullet ricocheted off the wall
and buzzed around in here like a bee.” Leo’s tone was
indignant.

Prophet set the lamp down, grabbed the key
ring from the desk, and opened the door. He had enough on his mind
without having to worry about Leo Embry. Swinging the door wide, he
stepped aside and said tiredly, “Get out of here, kid. If I see you
in town again, I’m gonna cut your ears off.”

When the kid just stood there, slow to
comprehend, Prophet yelled, “Go on! Git! Get on back to where ya
came from and stay there! You’re no more a gunfighter than I’m a
Baptist missionary.”

The kid gave a surprised start, eyes
snapping. “Y-you’re gonna let me go?”

“
Shake a leg before I change my
mind.”

Springing into motion but wincing painfully,
Leo grabbed his hat off the cot and set it tenderly on his head.
Leaving the cell, he sidestepped Prophet like a wounded bear, then
made a beeline for the main door.

With one quick, skeptical glance over his
shoulder, he turned right and disappeared, leaving the door
standing wide open behind him.

Prophet shut the door and sat in Whitman’s
squeaky chair.

Who in the hell was trying to shoot him?

He doubted it was a professional. A
short-trigger artist would have gotten in close and stayed there.
Not taken a shot, then run with his tail between his legs. It was
definitely someone good with a rifle, someone who lived around
here. A stranger would stand out during the day. Another relative
of someone Prophet had lately taken down?

No way to know till the man showed
himself. Prophet just hoped he’d be alive to see the son of a
bitch. What he needed at the moment, however, was a bellyful of
vittles. The commotion had made him hungry.

He walked over to
Gertrude
’s
Good Food, where the cheery Frieda served him a fried steak with
potatoes, a hot buttered roll, green beans, and several cups of
tar-black coffee. She didn’t do much flirting, what with several
traveling salesmen at nearby tables, but her suggestive gaze held
Prophet’s several times, and she brushed her plump hip against his
arm more than once.

He knew she wanted him to hang
around for some more slap
‘n’ tickle, but he had too much on his mind.
Besides, he’d done enough rolling in the hay for one
day.

He was tired. Tired and weary and wanting to
get shed of this town in the worst possible way.

Shouldering his shotgun and leaving Frieda a
sizable tip from the two hundred dollars Crumb had left, like
cheese in a trap, he left the cafe and walked back toward Main
Street, where he checked both saloons. Quiet.

Wondering about the five gunmen
he
’d seen
ride into town earlier, he headed for the whorehouse they’d
visited. Hidden in the shadows east of the shabby, clapboard house
unidentified by a sign, he watched a short black man in a knit cap
leading the gang’s five horses along the street, toward the stable
in the backyard.

Inside, someone was playing a piano. The
laughter of men and women trickled through the windows. Shadows
moved behind the drawn shades.

It looked like the curly wolves
were staying put for the night. That was all right with Prophet. He
didn
’t want
any more trouble. Hopefully, the gang was just passing through, and
they’d mosey on down the trail first thing tomorrow
morning.