Lou Prophet 4 Read online

  She was crying now, her lips trembling, tears rolling down her cheeks.

  “I said get over here!”

  She jumped, slid off the log, and waded slowly to the shore, eyeing him like a wounded doe with wolves circling.

  “There. That’s better.” Duvall grinned. He sat down in the sand, reclined on an elbow. “Now get out of that dress like I told you, and lay down here with the preacher.”

  “I... I don’t... want... to,” the girl sobbed.

  “Yeah, but you’re going to,” Duvall assured her, his lips spreading in a knowing grin. “ ‘Cause if you don’t, I’m gonna cut out your tongue, run a thong through it, and wear it around my neck.” He took a drink from the flask and patted the ground again. “Come on now. I don’t got all afternoon.”

  The sobbing girl stood trembling and staring, horrified. Then, slowly, her shaking hands went to work on the buttons of her dress.

  And soon the dress lay in a wet heap about her feet.

  “Come on down here,” Duvall coaxed, chuckling crazily as his flat eyes stared. “I don’t bite. Not hard, anyway.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  DUVALL STEPPED OUT of the woods a little while later, feeling nauseated and disgusted with himself. He wanted a drink, but the flask was empty. He’d had enough anyway, he argued to himself.

  That damn whiskey! If he hadn’t started drinking, he might not have attacked the girl. But now that he had— now that he’d snapped her neck like dry kindling so she couldn’t tell anyone about what he’d done to her—he had to get the hell out of here.

  “Fool!” he inwardly raged, trying to wring some wit out of his whiskey-addled brain. “Now you’ve done it, Dave! Now you’ve really done it! Everything was going so well. You could have stayed here indefinitely, but now ... shit, several people saw you enter the woods, and when they find Marliss’s body in there, they might put two and two together, and not even your handsome mug will get you out of that one.”

  Oh, it might, he reconsidered, running a hand down his bearded face. But he was too damn worked up to chance it.

  When the town got wind of a killer on the loose, it was going to start looking very carefully at its citizens, even the new preacher. Duvall doubted he could hold up to that kind of scrutiny, especially with that damn bounty hunter in town.

  A little wobbly on his feet but trying to look natural, he made his way across the meadow. He painted a preacherly, celestial smile on his face but did his best to avoid eye contact with anyone. He wanted to climb into the phaeton, which the banker, Orton Winkleman, had loaned the new parson indefinitely, drive back to the Rumisheks’ house, pack up his few things, and hightail it the hell out of here.

  “Where you going, Reverend?” someone asked him. “You haven’t eaten yet, and that turkey sure is good!”

  Startled, Dave whirled to see Mr. Rumishek himself, smoking a cigar under a Cottonwood with several other men dressed in their Sunday finest. Rumishek was a blacksmith, and he had the dark, brawny physique normally associated with his profession. Arms like young oaks, a nose as big as a wheel hub.

  “I seem to have acquired a headache,” Dave said, his heart thudding. He had only the knife on him, and if Rumishek and his buddies found out what he’d done to the blacksmith’s daughter, he’d probably be drawn and quartered and pummeled before they hung him from the nearest tree.

  “Oh, I’m sorry to hear that, Parson,” Rumishek said, taking a puff from his cigar. “I hope you’re feelin’ better real soon.”

  “I’m sure an hour’s nap will have me back on my feet,” Dave said, nervously touching his hat brim, then wheeling and heading for his phaeton, which was parked in the shade with a dozen other wheeled rigs.

  When he arrived at the Rumishek house, he parked the buggy on the street, ran inside, and hurriedly threw his few personal articles into his saddlebags. He left the house with the saddlebags and his rifle, mounted the phaeton, and turned it toward the livery barn, where he’d stabled Doolittle’s mare.

  He didn’t want to ride the heavy-footed old horse, however, so after turning the phaeton over to the hostler, he rented a good saddle horse, a high-stepping Appaloosa with a speckled rump. The hostler assured the parson that the Appaloosa was the fastest horse in his remuda, although he couldn’t help wondering why the reverend would need such a mount.

  “Just decided to go for a good, old-fashioned, hell-for-leather ride in the country, Jimmy,” Duvall said as he threw his saddlebags over the Appaloosa’s back and tied the rifle boot to the saddle. As he climbed into the leather, he added, “Even we men of the cloth like to air it out now and then.”

  “When can I expect you back, Reverend?” Jimmy asked as he threw open the big front doors.

  “Oh, I don’t know, Jimmy,” Dave said as he gigged the horse out of the barn and into the street. “Don’t be so goddamned fussy, for chrissakes!”

  With that, Dave heeled the mount into a gallop. The hostler stared after him, scrunching up his eyes and scratching his head. “Now, parsons,” he muttered to himself. “I don’t think they’re supposed to swear, are they?”

  Prophet sat on the boardwalk outside the Smokehouse Saloon, his chair tipped back against the wall, his booted feet dangling about three inches off the puncheons. Two old geezers sat beside him. They’d talked his ear off for nearly two hours before the beer and the free lunch finally knocked them out. Both men’s chins sagged against their chests, and guttural snores bubbled up from deep in their bowels to ruffle their lips.

  “I have to get out of this town,” Prophet grumbled to himself as he tipped back his soapy beer mug.

  He and Zeke McIlroy had decided yesterday that they’d pull out of town tomorrow, as it looked like Duvall was not going to show. It also looked like they weren’t going to hear about him, either. Prophet had decided that he and Zeke should split up, one go south and one go west and keep in touch via the telegraph wires.

  As for what Louisa would do, Prophet wasn’t sure. He hadn’t yet told her that he and Zeke were pulling out. She’d been seeing her handsome young cowboy, Riley Nugent, nearly every day they’d been in Greenburg. Prophet couldn’t help feeling jealous of young Nugent’s youth and promise as well as his ability to paint a happy glow on Louisa’s otherwise solemn features, but he nevertheless hoped the girl from Nebraska had found true love at last, and a refuge from a life of violence like Prophet’s.

  He’d resigned himself to the fact that she wouldn’t rest until Duvall was found, but maybe afterward, if she lived through it, she’d settle down and live the kind of life she was meant for. Life on a prosperous ranch wouldn’t be bad at all. And if the Nugents had as much money as Prophet had heard they had, why, it would be a better life than most.

  Commotion to Prophet’s right attracted his gaze. A man in a Sunday suit was running down the boardwalk, holding his bowler on his head with one hand. As the man crossed the side street and mounted the boardwalk before the Smokehouse, Prophet lowered his chair with a thump and’ said, “Where’s the fire, amigo?” His voice had been thickened from the four beers he’d consumed this slow Sunday afternoon.

  The portly man slowed, catching his breath as he approached Prophet and the old-timers. “A little girl, the Rumishek girl, was killed during the church picnic! Someone snapped her neck and threw her in the creek. Even cut off a couple of her toes. Oh, it’s awful, just awful. The family is so torn up! I have to get the undertaker.”

  With that, the man sprinted off down the boardwalk and hung a left at the corner, disappearing down the side street.

  “Good Lord,” one of the old codgers exclaimed beside him. Apparently, both men had heard the news and snapped awake. ‘The Rumishek girl? Who on earth would do such a thing?”

  “Cut off a couple of her toes?” the other one added distastefully. “Who’d do such a ghastly thing as that?”

  Prophet thought it over. Finally, he turned to the codgers. “She was missing some toes? Is that what that man really said, or was I h
earing things?”

  “No, that’s what he said, all right,” one of the codgers assured Prophet sadly. “My hearin’s bad, but I’m sure that’s what he said.”

  Thoughtfully, Prophet rubbed his jaw. After a few minutes, he got up and headed across the street. “Where you goin’, young fella?” one of the codgers called behind him.

  Prophet didn’t hear. He was lost in thought, his heart thudding in his chest. When he got to the hotel, he pushed through the door, climbed the stairs, and knocked on McIlroy’s door.

  “Zeke, it’s me. Open up.”

  There was a groan and a squawk of bedsprings. The door opened, and young McIlroy stood there, his red hair and his clothes mussed from an afternoon nap.

  “What’s happening?” he said, reading trouble in Prophet’s eyes.

  “A girl was killed at the church picnic. Someone snapped her neck and threw her in the creek.”

  “The hell! In Greenburg?”

  “That’s not all. A couple of her toes were cut off.”

  The deputy stared at him. “What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking, who do we know capable of something that hideous?”

  McIlroy thought about it. His eyes grew large as his sleep left him, replaced by a cold awareness. He nodded and said, “Let me grab my hat and gun. I’m right behind you.”

  Prophet slipped into his own room for his sawed-off two-bore, slipped the lanyard around his neck. On his way out, he considered Louisa’s door. She’d want to know about this, but she was off somewhere with Riley Nugent, as she usually was this time of the day before she started slinging drinks at the Smokehouse.

  McIlroy stepped out of his room, shrugging into his frock coat, and he and Prophet headed outside, angling across the street toward the livery barn. They saddled their mounts and asked the Sunday hostler where the church picnic was held, then rode east from town at a gallop. As they headed for the creek, they passed the undertaker driving a box wagon, a teenage boy, probably his son, riding on the seat beside him.

  It wasn’t hard to locate the picnic. Prophet and McIlroy just followed the line of buggies and wagons pulling away from the same place along the narrow strip of woods. The families inside appeared pale and bewildered, several of the women and girls sniffling into handkerchiefs.

  Only a few buggies and saddle horses remained tied to the trees at the edge of the woods when Prophet and McIlroy arrived. The two men tied their horses with the others, then strode through the woods to the clearing bordered on the east side by the creek.

  They stopped when they saw several people gathered around a blanketed figure in the grass. Prophet recognized the sheriff and his deputy, the town mayor, and one of the Main Street businessmen. Two others, a big man and the bawling woman in his arms, he did not know but assumed they were the girl’s parents.

  Prophet glanced at McIlroy, who returned the dark look, then crossed the meadow to the men standing over the blanket-draped body.

  “What happened here, Sheriff?” Zeke asked.

  “Well, that’s what we’d like to know,” Elmer Tate said. He was dressed in a cheap brown suit with a string tie hanging askew, and a matching bowler. He didn’t look at all comfortable in the getup. “This girl’s friend found her floating in the creek.”

  Overhearing, the bawling woman bawled even harder, shaking and bashing her head against her husband’s shoulder. The man whispered something to her, glanced at the sheriff, then led the woman several more yards away, where she wouldn’t overhear the conversation.

  “That’s a shame,” Zeke said solemnly. “What happened?”

  “Someone abused her and snapped her neck,” the mayor put in. He was smoking a cigar, but his face looked stricken.

  “I heard she had a couple toes missing,” Prophet said, trying to put it as delicately as possible. Most folks in small towns were not used to their citizens being murdered, and he knew he had to tread softly when speaking about the particulars.

  The sheriff looked at Prophet as though the bounty hunter had just sworn in church. With a ragged sigh, he said, “That’s right. Some creepy bastard even ... even did that to her.”

  “Can we have a look?” Zeke asked.

  The sheriff glanced at the mayor, who only shrugged. Then Tate looked over at the girl’s grieving parents, but they weren’t looking this way. Tate shrugged and nodded.

  Zeke hunkered on his haunches and lifted the blanket. Prophet crouched, running his gaze over the pale, blue form of the naked girl. Her face and arms were badly bruised, and her lips were swollen, as though she’d been hit several times. There was a cut above her left eye. Her head lay canted at an unnatural angle, her damp hair sprayed across her forehead.

  There were more bruises on her thighs, and, as had been reported, two toes were missing from her right foot, leaving bloody stubs.

  “Was she with anyone in the woods?” Prophet asked the sheriff.

  “She was off wading with some other kids,” the sheriff said, “but they said she was alone for a while after that. They said she fell in and got her dress wet, and she was waiting to dry off before she returned to the picnic.”

  “The reverend was the last one to walk out of them woods before we found Marliss,” the father of the dead girl said over his sobbing wife’s head. “He was actin’ strange, said he had a headache and was headin’ home for a nap. Thought I smelled whiskey on his breath, too. I didn’t think anything about it at the time, but...”

  “You don’t think the new preacher did this, do you, Frank?” the mayor asked, shocked.

  Rumishek shrugged, but a fierce light flashed in his eyes. “All I know is he’s got some explainin’ to do, a man of the cloth or not. It wasn’t the first time I seen him actin’ funny. I’ve smelled whiskey on his breath before.”

  Prophet stared at the agitated father. “The new reverend, huh?” he said, chewing his lip.

  In his mind he saw an image of the parson in the hotel lobby when he, Zeke, and Louisa had first ridden into town. He hadn’t looked straight at the man’s face, but as he took a second look at the image in his memory, he realized the man had been about Duvall’s size, with similar features.

  Could it have been Handsome Dave himself? Could Prophet have been that close to the man without recognizing him?

  What better way to hide than in plain sight?

  The sheriff was speaking, but Prophet talked over him, directing his question at Frank Rumishek. “Where’d you say he went, this new preacher?”

  “He’s livin’ with us till the parsonage gets built. That’s where he went.”

  “Direct me.”

  “South end of town, across from that abandoned cabin. There’s a chicken coop sitting catty-corner and a big Cottonwood right beside it.”

  To McIlroy, Prophet said, “Let’s go,” and headed back across the meadow at a purposeful gait.

  Zeke jogged to catch up to him. “What do you have on your mind, Lou? You think the preacher did it?”

  “No,” Prophet said, pushing through the low-hanging tree branches when he got to the woods. “I think Duvall did it.”

  The deputy stopped and looked at him, befuddled. “Then why are we going after the preacher?”

  “Mount up,” Prophet said as he untied Mean and Ugly and climbed into the leather. “I’ll tell you on the way.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  RILEY NUGENT WHEELED the buggy along the swale and climbed a low, tawny butte upon which one lone box elder stood, a sentinel over the hogbacks swelling in all directions.

  Beside Riley in the two-seater, Louisa looked around and formed a smile. “What a lovely afternoon.”

  “Sure is,” Riley agreed. “Why don’t we get down and take a walk?”

  “Why not?” Louisa said.

  She took his hand as he helped her to the ground. With the other hand, she held up the high-waisted skirt of the second dress Riley had bought her at the same shop he’d bought her the first one. This was a midnight-blue gown, simply
and conservatively cut but formfitting, with a white lace collar. It wasn’t the most comfortable dress Louisa had ever worn, but when she saw the look on Riley’s face when she tried it on, she knew she had to have it—with the assurance that she’d pay him back as soon as she could, of course.

  She wasn’t sure what was happening between her and Riley. It was a little disconcerting, really—this affection she felt for him, this pleasure she took in his company. Especially when she was also in love with Lou.

  Could she love two men?

  Oh, for heaven’s sakes—she didn’t have time to love even one! What was she doing here, anyway, when she should have been in Greenburg on the lookout for Dave Duvall?

  ‘Thank you,” she told Riley when her high button shoes were planted firmly on the ground. Riley had bought her the shoes when he’d bought the dress.

  He must have seen the pensive look in her eyes. “Are you okay, Louisa?”

  She smiled and looked at his handsome, young, clean-shaven face. He was dressed in a white silk shirt, black cutaway coat, and crisp black hat. He’d gone home when his father’s horses had arrived, but he’d returned to Greenburg nearly every other day to see Louisa. He’d been planning to take her to church earlier this morning, but his ranch chores had held him up, so they’d enjoyed an afternoon lunch at the hotel, then hopped into the two-seater for a leisurely ride in the country south of Greenburg.

  “I’m fine,” she said, feigning a carefree smile. “Shall we?”

  Riley offered his elbow, and she took it. “We shall.”

  They strolled a little ways down the hill. Louisa stopped when she saw something move across one of the hogbacks before them, to the east. It was a horseback rider dressed entirely in black. The horse’s legs were stretched out nearly parallel with the ground, at a hell-for-leather gallop. The man crouched low over the horse’s neck, and his elbows flapped like wings.