The Cost of Dying Read online

  “Roscoe!” screamed the girl who’d been crouching behind the piano. “Stop this! Stop this right now! You know I’m not your girl! I’m not anyone’s girl lessen they got the jingle for an hour’s tussle!”

  She came out from behind the piano and holding her hands up, palms out, placatingly, she began moving down the room toward the balcony, tripping occasionally on chair legs. “I’m sorry if you got the wrong idea about me . . . us . . . but that’s how it is!”

  “No, it ain’t how it is!” Roscoe bellowed at her, angling his pistol away from Prophet now. He aimed at the girl and the fire of rage burned in his cheeks and eyes. “I told you you was mine, Dora May! When I was in Tucson you was supposed to stay true. I told you I’d marry you . . . make an honest woman out of you . . . soon as I built up a grubstake! You told me you’d stay true, Dora! Damnit, you did, an’ then I find out from Blue Nelson you was gigglin’ an’ carryin’ on with a pair of fellas from the Triple-Six-Connected! Both at the same time! Upstairs!”

  He aimed his pistol at the dead man on the floor to Prophet’s right and yelled, “And Lonnie Hanks was one of ’em!”

  He triggered another shot into the dead man. The dad man jerked with the impact.

  Dora screamed and stopped, burying her face in her hands. “I’m a whore, Roscoe! A whore!”

  “You’re a dead whore—you two-timin’, four-flushin’ bitch!” Roscoe tightened his index finger around the Colt’s trigger, his iron-hard jaws dimpling with rage as he aimed at the girl.

  Prophet didn’t see that he had any choice. It was either the girl or Roscoe Rodane.

  He tripped both of the Richards’s triggers and Rodane was picked straight up and thrown back against the wall behind him but not before he triggered a bullet into the table near Dora. The girl screamed, leaped to one side, tripped over a chair, and fell to the floor.

  The blast from Prophet’s shotgun echoed around the room.

  Silence fell in behind it, thick and intimate with the funereal weight of death.

  “There.” Prophet lowered the smoking barn-blaster and swung around, muttering oaths under his breath as he retraced his path to the door. “Now, maybe the whole town can get some decent shut-eye . . . includin’ me.”

  “He, uh . . . he dead?” asked one of the ranch hands, rising from behind the overturned table. He looked up and down the big man before him clad in only longhandles so badly faded they were a washed-out pink, boots, cartridge belt, and hat.

  “Oh yeah,” Prophet grumbled, chuckling his satisfaction. “The only place he’ll be caterwaulin’ from here on in is in the devil’s own hell. I just hope Ole Scratch can shut him up before I arrive . . .” he added with a wry curl of his nose.

  He glanced at the men and the girl, including the man behind the bar, slowly gaining their feet around him. They were all looking at him as though he were a two-headed panther. “You folks really oughta get some decent law in this town. No lawdog worth a good pair of socks would let a man raise that kinda hob at this time o’ night.”

  “Mister?”

  Prophet had turned back to the batwings, putting his left hand atop the left door, about to push it open, but now he turned back to the craggy-faced gent standing behind the bar, regarding the big bounty hunter in hang-jawed, brow-furled dismay.

  “What is it?” Prophet asked grumpily.

  The barman looked at Prophet, nervously fingering a button on his wool waistcoat, then turned away to uncertainly regard the others. “Nothin’,” he said weakly.

  Prophet gave a satisfied chuff then pushed through the batwings and walked out into the now-silent street. The dog wasn’t barking anymore. The night, finally, was silent. Just as a night should be.

  The big bounty hunter clomped back through the Three-Legged Dog, under the bar of which the dog, who was not only three-legged but apparently deaf, as well, was still sleeping on its straw mat beneath the bar. Now both remaining customers were sound asleep on their folded arms. Prophet could hear the proprietor, Jimmy Rodriguez, sawing logs in his bedroom partition behind the bar.

  “You’re welcome, fellas,” Prophet said with another wry chuff, congratulating himself once more at rendering the night fit for slumber.

  He climbed the creaky stairs and returned to Jasmin’s crib. A candle burned, showing the girl piled beneath the sheet and thin quilt, in the room’s dense shadows. She was a long lump capped with a spray of thick, chocolate hair concealing her pillow. The pretty puta lay curled on her side, apparently sound asleep.

  Prophet skinned out of his duds, wrapped his cartridge belt and .45 around a front bedpost, within easy reach as was his custom, then crawled beneath the covers. The puta stirred, rolled toward him, blinking her eyes.

  In a sleep-raspy voice, she said, “Did you take care of Dora’s problem, Lou?”

  “I took care of Dora’s problem, all right.” Prophet kissed the girl’s bare shoulder then gazed down at her, incredulous. “You been sleepin’?”

  She smiled serenely, closed her eyes. “Mhmm. I knew you would take care of the problem, Lou. A big, capable man like yourself.” She wrapped her arms around him, kissed his lips. She opened her eyes, smiled into his. “Now, about that reward I promised you.”

  Giggling, she pulled her head down beneath the covers.

  “Oh, you don’t have to go to any troub . . .” Prophet’s resolve waned. “You don’t have to . . . well . . . what the hell?” he added with a heavy sigh and a dry laugh.

  * * *

  Prophet had no idea how long he’d been asleep again when, again, he was pulled out of a deep sleep by Jasmin’s urgent voice. Again, the girl shook him and said, “Lou, wake up! Wake up, Lou! ¡Mierda! You have to wake up!”

  “Ah, Jesus—now what?” Prophet opened his eyes and saw that the sky out the window behind the pretty puta was awash in the gray light of dawn. “Ah hell,” he added. “It’s mornin’, I reckon, ain’t it?” He raked a big paw down his sleep-worn face. “That had to be the shortest night’s sleep—”

  “Lou!”

  “What is it, darlin’?”

  Jasmin’s wide-eyed face was only inches from his, where she knelt there on the floor beside the bed. “You didn’t tell me you killed Roscoe Rodane, you crazy gringo!”

  “Didn’t I? Well, you asked me if I took care of Dora’s problem, and, yeah”—Prophet chuckled and scrubbed his hand down his face once more—“I took care of her problem, all right. I reckon I just assumed—”

  “Lou!”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you know who Roscoe Rodane is? Was?”

  “A caterwauling fool is what he was. And I reckon if I didn’t blow some daylight through him, Dora would be snugglin’ with the diamondbacks and you’d be out one best friend!”

  “Oh, Lou—you sweet stupid gringo cabrón!” Jasmin rose from her knees and again began scrambling around the room, gathering Prophet’s clothes. “Out! You must go! You must go now, or you will not live to see another sunrise. Sunrise? Hah!” She spread her arms and threw a caustic laugh at the ceiling. “You won’t live to see high noon of this very day!”

  “Wha—huh?” Prophet said, scowling at her from the bed.

  The pretty puta threw his longhandles and socks at him. She stopped off the near corner of the bed and, clad in only a thin cream nightgown and spruce green wrap, bent forward at the waist and thrust an arm out to indicate the Buzzard Gulch Inn. “The man you killed last night . . . when I only wanted you to slap him around a little or punch his lights out and send him to bed . . . was the law here in town! He was a deputy sheriff—none other than the son of the sheriff of Pima County. The very prized and precious son of Sheriff Dan Rodane, Lou, you big crazy gringo! ”

  The name cut through the last fog of sleep slithering around behind Prophet’s eyes. He stiffened. “Dan Rodane . . .”

  “Dan Rodane!”

  “Damn, I knew that name rang a bell.” Prophet tossed the covers aside and dropped his feet to the floor. “I reckon I was
too drunk last night to ponder on it overmuch . . . or even to recognize it. But, yeah, now I recognize it, all right.”

  He looked at Jasmin still glaring down at him urgently, bent forward at the waist, every muscle in her lithe, buxom body drawn taut as freshly stretched Glidden wire. “Are you sure ole Roscoe is the son of Dan Rodane?” Prophet asked her.

  The pretty puta swallowed tolerantly and spoke with strained patience. “Lou, there is no question. When I found out you had killed Roscoe last night, you fool, I also learned that one of Rodane’s cronies rode to Tucson to alert the sheriff. You can bet that if Sheriff Rodane is not already in town ransacking Buzzard Gulch for the man who killed his precious son, he will be here soon!”

  She scooped one of his boots off the floor and threw it at him. “Go!” She grabbed his other boot and threw that one at him, too. “Go, you big galoot! He will hang you from the nearest cottonwood in Buzzard Gulch!”

  Prophet heaved himself to his feet and scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, yeah, I reckon he will, all right.”

  Jasmin threw his pants at him. As his boots had done, they bounced off his broad, hairy chest to land on the floor at his feet. “Hurry, Lou! There is no time to lose! You are too good a man . . . and too much fun . . . to get your neck stretched for killing such a scalawag as Roscoe Rodane. Now, I sent a boy for your horse. He is to meet you in the back alley.”

  “Ah, you shouldn’t have done that,” Prophet said, stumbling around now, pulling on his longhandles.

  “Why not?” the girl fairly screamed at him.

  “Mean an’ Ugly was aptly named, Jasmin. He’s liable to tear that poor boy’s arm off or, leastways, rip a seam or two out of his shirt. I hope he has at least one ear left after Mean’s done with him!”

  Holding his buckskin tunic, Jasmin frowned at him. “That big ugly cayuse of yours doesn’t cotton to strangers?”

  “That big ugly broomtail of mine don’t cotton to me!”

  Prophet gave a wry chuckle then leaned forward as Jasmin wrestled the tunic over his head, having to rise up on the toes of her bare feet to do so, for the pretty puta stood a whole two heads shorter than Prophet’s six feet four.

  Prophet was glad his hangover had all but dissipated overnight. His head ached dully, and his mouth was dry, but a few breaths of fresh air and a canteen of water would set him back right again. So, scrambling around the room, getting back into his clothes, and buckling his cartridge belt around his waist, went far smoother than it would have otherwise.

  Jasmin met Prophet at the door and rose up on her toes again to smooth his short, sandy brown hair and to set his battered, bullet-torn, bleached-out, funnel-brimmed Stetson on his head. She pinched his nose and kissed his lips. “Go with God, Lou! Ride to the border and keep riding and don’t come back for a good long time!”

  “Mexico, huh? Yeah, well, I reckon another winter’s comin’ on up north, so I reckon it’s a good time to go. Just wish it was under better circumstances, though. I like crossin’ the border when I want to, not when I have to!”

  “When are your circumstances ever good, Lou?”

  Prophet winced. “You got a point.” He grabbed the girl, drew her to him, and kissed her passionately. “Take care of yourself, Jasmin.”

  Quickly, she drew the door open and waved him through it. “Go, Lou! ¡Rápido!”

  “I’m goin’, I’m goin’.”

  Crouching beneath the weight of his saddlebags, ancient gray Confederate war bag, Winchester ’73, and Richards twelve-gauge, his Colt Peacemaker thonged on his right thigh, his bone-handled bowie knife sheathed on his left hip, Prophet hurried down the stairs. He paused when the puta called from her room’s open door, “Lou?”

  “What is it, honey?”

  “Thanks for killing that drunken bastardo!” she rasped out from the side of the hand she held over her mouth. She winked and gave a throaty laugh.

  “Anytime,” Prophet said with a snort. He hurried downstairs and out through the rear door.

  Just as Jasmin had said he would be, Prophet’s mulish but loyal line-back dun stood in the rear alley, reins drooping to the trash-littered ground. Prophet looked around for the boy who’d fetched him. That must be him, running down the alley to Prophet’s right, rope-soled sandals slapping his feet. The boy, a young Mexican, cast a wary glance behind him then disappeared around the side of one of the main street buildings.

  Prophet looked at Mean and Ugly, who regarded his rider with a sheepish cast to his eyes.

  “You devil—I hope you didn’t hurt that kid!”

  As Prophet tossed his saddlebags over the mount’s back, behind the saddle, Mean pawed the ground and gave a self-satisfied whicker.

  Quickly, Prophet slid his Winchester into the scabbard strapped to the saddle. He hooked his war bag over the saddle horn then swung up into the leather.

  He froze, looked around, frowning.

  A low thunder was building. At first it seemed to be coming from his right, then his left—the rataplan of many galloping horses. The din grew quickly, injecting ice into the bounty hunter’s veins. The growing din seemed to be coming from all around him until a horse and rider bounded out from around a building fifty yards away to the north, on Prophet’s right.

  The rider was a big man in a calico shirt and suspenders and a big Boss of the Plains hat. He wore a thick, gray mustache on his Indian-dark face, and a shiny silver star on his shirt.

  “There!” he barked, jerking his chin toward Prophet.

  Several other riders bounded around from behind the same building, and they all galloped toward Prophet behind the badge-toter, Dan Rodane himself.

  Prophet jerked Mean to the right. Instantly, he drew back on the reins as more riders exploded out from behind another building to the south, about thirty yards away.

  “Holy crap in the nun’s privy!” Prophet wailed at his horse. “We’re surrounded, Mean!”

  He jerked the reins hard right again and put the spurs to the hammerhead’s flanks. Mean and Ugly gave a shrill whinny and exploded off his rear hooves, leaping into an instant gallop straight west, first cleaving a break between a cow pen and a board-and-batten tinker’s shanty then weaving around a few scattered mud-brick cabins on Buzzard Gulch’s ragged perimeter.

  The horse leaped a dry wash, bulled through a stand of dusty mesquites turning silver now as the dawn grew, and then the dun and Prophet were damn near literally flying through the prickly chaparral of the open desert, hearing the nettling thunder of a good dozen or so riders nipping at their heels, whooping and hollering like the devil’s slavering hounds.

  Pistols crackled.

  Rifles belched.

  Bullets buzzed around Prophet’s head, snapping creosote branches and spanging off rocks.

  “I’ll be damned,” he said to his horse, casting a quick, anxious glance over his shoulder, “if them boys don’t mean it, Mean!”

  Chapter 3

  Thunder rumbled but no storm was approaching. The Arizona skies were as clear as polished blue glass in a corner of which the sun hung like a vast bell of molten gold.

  Colter Farrow slowed his horse and looked around, frowning.

  As the rumble grew around him, as though an army were descending on him, a wet snake slithered in his belly. He could feel his coyote dun stallion tense his muscles beneath the saddle. The mount’s name, Northwest, stemmed from the direction the prized mount always used to point his head while grazing back home in the mountain pastures of the Lunatic Range.

  The horse lifted its head, sniffing the air, the cinnamon mane buffeting softly in the hot, dry Arizona breeze. It whickered edgily deep in its chest.

  Colter leaned forward to pat the right withers reassuringly. “Easy, Northwest. Easy, now—might only be cowpunchers hazing beeves to fresh pastures . . .”

  The redheaded gunslinger’s own belly knew it wasn’t true. Colter had been on the dodge too long for his instincts not to have grown as sharp as a freshly edged Green River knife.
r />   The rumbling grew louder and louder until Colter could feel the ground vibrating beneath Northwest’s shod hooves. Colter looked around wildly. When he saw a churning cloud of tan dust rise from the incline to his left, from below the long, sage-and-cactus-spiked bench he’d been traversing for most of the past two hours, that snake in his belly coiled again quickly.

  “Go, boy!” he yelled, nudging the stallion’s loins with his spurs. “He-yahhh, boy. He-yahhhh! Split the wind, Northwest!”

  He’d just spied a whole army of riders exploding up onto the bench on his left, a good dozen men spread out side by side and silhouetted by the brassy sun, as he swung the coyote dun hard right.

  “There!” one of his pursuers shouted. “There! There! There! ”

  Leaning low over the coyote dun’s buffeting mane, Colter said, “Well, so much for my original theory. They’re not cowpunchers after all!” He glanced over his shoulder as the swarm of silhouetted riders, the sunlight glinting off their sidearms and rifles, bounded after him, within a hundred yards and closing.

  The redheaded pistoleer didn’t have time to count his shadowers, but he was sure there were a dozen or more men in hot pursuit. A couple snapped shots at him but they were still too far away and moving too hard for accuracy though there was always a chance of a lucky shot.

  Colter kept his head down and gave his own mount free rein, and together they stormed across the barrel of the bench, heading for the low country. Colter might have been outnumbered, but he had a good horse, one of the best mounts that had ever been raised in the Loonies, as the Lunatics were locally called.

  His pursuers had obviously been galloping after Colter for quite a distance, climbing up from the lower desert at a hard run. That meant that not only was Colter likely riding the best horse on the bench at the moment, but his mount had a fully stoked firebox, as all morning Colter had been holding the frisky beast to nothing faster than a trot, saving it for just such a situation as this.

  Colter tossed another glance behind him. Sure enough, he and Northwest were pulling ahead.

  “Good boy, Northwest,” Colter said, keeping his head low, his voice quavering as the horse’s scissoring hooves sawed away at the ground. “You’re beatin’ them scalawags. What we’ll do is drop into the lowlands yonder then climb that next bench to the north. That’s a steep climb over there, and I’ll bet silver dollars to horse fritters that that will be the end of our shadowers. They’ll likely get a bad case of homesickness after that climb, and we’ll be on our way to Mexico while they’re back wherever they came from, pinchin’ the parlor girls an’ throwing back shots of Taos lightnin’!”