“Then why didn’t you tell me about it?” Louisa asked Prophet. “You’d have to tell me sooner or later, idiot.”
Prophet nodded. “That was a mistake, I admit it. Just figured you’d think you was missing out on something, and I thought it best to ease you into a quieter life. But now you know, so why don’t you ride on over to the bathhouse, and I’ll be over just as soon as I get settled up with Don Encina and Sheriff Severin here.”
A bell rang behind Prophet, and he glanced over his right shoulder to see the bank’s front door open and a young man in a tailored brown suit step in, donning a brown derby with a silk band. He had a worn leather valise clamped under one arm.
“Oh, here you are, Pa,” he said to Encina but without the older man’s accent. “I was just going to head over to Mr. Walthrup’s office to have him notarize these . . .” His gaze slid to Louisa like steel to a magnet, and his brown eyes narrowed charmingly, cheeks dimpling.
Quickly, he doffed his hat and stepped up beside his father, giving the girl a bow not unlike the old man’s though a tad less formal. “Oh . . . hello. Didn’t realize we had a visitor.”
“Visitors,” Prophet grunted. “There’s two of us.”
The man glanced at Prophet but, disregarding the big bounty hunter out of hand, returned his gaze to the girl, still obviously awaiting an introduction. “Miguel,” his father said, clamping an arm over the young man’s shoulders, “our new gold guard has arrived . . . with his lovely young companion, Miss Louisa Bonaventure. Senor Prophet, Senorita Bonaventure, my son, Miguel Encina. He pretty much runs the bank for me while I come in only to make a pest of myself.”
“Mr. Prophet,” Miguel Encina said, reaching across his father to shake the bounty hunter’s hand. “How nice to make your acquaintance.” He sidled up to Louisa’s pinto and extended his hand to the girl, his eyes twinkling like a sky full of stars after a hard, cleansing rain. Louisa, Prophet noticed, had colored up when the young man had stepped out of the bank, and her cheeks were still mottled red now as she removed her right glove and let the handsome young banker squeeze it gently.
“Mr. Encina,” she said with a nod and a slow blink of those pretty hazel eyes that she wielded with as much facility as her matched Colts.
“Miss Bonaventure, I couldn’t be more pleased to make your acquaintance.” The younger Encina dropped his gaze to the pistols prominently displayed on the girl’s hips and glanced at Prophet. “Are you here with Mr. Prophet to . . . ?”
“Guard the gold shipments?” Louisa said with a casual spread of her lips, not pulling her hand away from young Encina’s lingering, gentle shake.
“Si.”
“Ah . . . well,” the young man said, obviously pleased. “We could use another guard, wouldn’t you say, Father? Especially when we have another here as qualified as Miss Bonaventure. . . .”
The elder Encina narrowed his eyes and dipped his chin approvingly.
“I have Mr. Prophet’s contract inside, awaiting his signature. I can draw up another one straightaway, and you could sign yours, too, Miss Bonaventure.” Miguel Encina glanced at Prophet. “Do you have a few minutes?”
Louisa’s smile brightened as she swung gracefully down from her saddle. “Certainly, Mr. Encina.”
Prophet rolled his eyes.
8
APPARENTLY FORGETTING ABOUT the papers he’d needed notarized, the handsome young Encina ushered Prophet and Louisa into his private, richly appointed office at the rear of the bank, beyond the three teller cages and the desk of a loan officer and accountant, and next to his father’s office. The elder Encina still considered himself the bank’s president, Prophet saw, as a varnished, gold-lettered plaque hanging from a brass nail on his door bore the label, while Miguel’s read VICE PRESIDENT.
The younger Encina was a handsome, well-attired gent who seemed very comfortable in his own skin but not arrogant. In fact, he was downright polite and deferring, and the warm smile never left his eyes, nor did the boyish dimples leave his cheeks as he got Prophet and Louisa settled into comfortable, upholstered chairs fronting his desk while he went about drawing up a fresh contract for Louisa.
Prophet figured most of the young man’s graciousness could be attributed to Louisa herself. God knew, with her cool, effervescent beauty and tomboyish charm, she’d caused more important men to piss in their boots and choke on their food. Still, the bounty hunter, who owned the southern sharecropper’s—as well as western frontiersman’s—suspicion of men with more money and better manners, found himself liking the kid. And he was only slightly chafed by the younker’s obvious admiration for his pretty, young partner.
For years, Prophet had been looking for a young man whom Louisa could settle down with. Why not the moneyed banker’s son?
The girl’s obvious attraction to young Encina was a little harder to take. It twanged several chords of jealousy deep within Prophet, but he’d known he’d have to work through that sooner or later. The truth was, while they’d partnered up right well, and he truly did love the girl, and he knew she loved him, they were meant to be together no more than a lovely young mustang filly was meant to be paired for life with a crotchety Missouri mule.
“I don’t think we need to make this too complicated,” Miguel said, lifting the paper on which he’d written out a contract and blowing on the ink. “I could have my secretary type this up on her typewriter machine, and get a witness, but I reckon it’s just for the filing cabinet.”
He gave Louisa another winning smile as he slid the contract onto her side of the desk. Then, almost forgetting Prophet, he pulled another paper from under his desk blotter and, chuckling with boyish chagrin and sliding his fetchingly bashful glance between the two bounty hunters, said, “And this is yours, Mr. Prophet.”
“Obliged.”
“Not at all.”
When Louisa had signed her contract with her customary flourish, then raised the paper to blow on it, she gave the pen to Prophet. The bounty hunter took the pen awkwardly in his left hand then shifted it to his right. Damn, if he didn’t hate scratching his signature with folks staring at him, making him feel the school dimwit.
He looked at Louisa, then at Miguel, who leaned forward over his entwined hands, his expression affable and patient. Prophet grunted and frowned his discomfort, dipping the pen in the silver-plated inkwell sitting between two Tiffany lamps on the young banker’s desk.
Miguel, suddenly realizing the bounty hunter’s angst, leaned back in his chair and ran his hands through his thick mop of brown, curly hair and lifted his mock-casual gaze to the ceiling. Louisa wasn’t as polite. She regarded Prophet with barely concealed disdain.
“It would go easier if you’d take your glove off.”
Prophet looked at his right hand. With another grunt, he set the pen down, started working the tight doeskin glove off with his teeth, then pulled it off with his other hand and set it down beside him. Taking up the pen again, he glanced at Louisa, who was still giving him that haughty, impatient scowl, and he frowned at her.
“Don’t you know it ain’t proper to look over a fella’s shoulder?”
With a huff she leaned back in her own chair and let her gaze follow the young banker’s to the pressed tin ceiling. When he was sure neither was watching him, Prophet leaned forward over the edge of the desk, lowered his head, pressed the tip of his tongue against his bottom lip, and carefully and anxiously scrawled his name onto the line of the contract indicated.
Scrawling his name was always a difficult maneuver; while he could empty his Winchester and Colts with finesse, for some vexing reason a pen or a pencil always turned his fingers to lead.
He’d learned to read well enough in the Georgia mountains he hailed from to decipher wanted posters and even newspaper articles, if given enough time, but he’d never learned to properly write his name, and he cursed himself now for not practicing. He could sense these two younkers sneering at him though neither said a word, but Louisa was breathing extra loudly and shaking her crossed leg.
When he’d crossed the T on his last name, his hand relaxed, and his tongue slipped back into his mouth. He sighed as though he’d jogged a fair stretch, set down the pen, lifted the paper, turning it upside down, and held it sheepishly across the desk to Miguel. The young banker offered another winning smile as he accepted the contract and, politely not looking at it, dropped it with Louisa’s into a drawer, closed the drawer with a flourish, and leaned forward in his chair, smoothing his blotter with his soft banker’s hands adorned with clean, immaculately trimmed nails.
“Well, now that that’s taken care of, will you both be ready to start as soon as tomorrow? Say, seven o’clock?”
“Fine as frog hair,” Prophet said.
Louisa nodded. “How many other riders?”
“Three. They’re expecting a new ramrod, and that man will of course be you, Mr. Prophet.”
“Best not remind him of that too often,” Louisa said.
Miguel smiled, flushing again as his gaze washed over Louisa like a soft summer rain. “You two have been together for a while, I take it?”
Louisa glanced at Prophet. “It’s been a few years, hasn’t it, Lou?”
Prophet felt a bittersweet pang of nostalgia, knowing—or at least hoping—their partnership was coming to a close. He wasn’t sure he intended to give up bounty hunting for good, but he knew it was time for Louisa to hang up her guns. “Three years, four months, twenty-seven days.”
“You two must mean a lot to each other?” Miguel said, pressing his fingers down hard against the blotter and looking up at Louisa from under his brows.
She glanced at Prophet, the skin above the bridge of her nose wrinkling slightly. She smiled and bit her upper lip, which quivered slightly with emotion, and Prophet moved in quickly to buoy the mood with: “I reckon you could say I been Louisa’s big brother, past couple years. I look out for her, and she looks out for me. Time to settle down now, though. Gold guarding’s enough excitement for me. Hell, I might just find me a little shack and settle down right here in Juniper, run a few chickens, and get me a coon for a pet.”
Miguel’s eyes were on Louisa. “Is that your intention, as well, Miss Bonaventure? Settling down here, I mean.”
“If I’ve learned one thing, Mr. Encina,” Louisa said, lifting her gaze to his, her eyes clear and bold once again, “it’s to never intend much of anything. I just ride. But I guess for now I’m going to stop riding for a while, since Lou wants it so consarned bad, and I guess you could say I’m ready to try something else. I suppose gold guarding will be a sort of gentle easing into an easier life for both of us.”
“I hope you like it here. It’s a nice town—I assure you.”
“We’ll see,” Louisa said, glancing at Prophet as she gained her feet and donned her hat.
Miguel climbed to his feet then, too, and extended his hand to Louisa. “So very nice to meet you, Miss Bonaventure. I’ve heard a lot about you.”
He extended his hand to Prophet as the big bounty hunter heaved himself up from his chair and stuffed his battered Stetson on his sweaty, dusty head. “And of course I’ve read about you, too, Mr. Prophet. The trails from the mines have been quiet of late, and I’m sure when word gets around that you and Miss Bonaventure are working for us now, they’ll be even quieter.”
“Hope so.”
“May I inquire where you’ll both be staying? The Muleskinner’s Inn is where the other guards flop between jobs, but . . .” The young banker’s concerned eyes swept from Prophet to Louisa. “. . . But . . . um . . . it’s really not a place I think you’d enjoy, Miss Bonaventure. It’s a bit on the rustic side. May I suggest the Golden Slipper? It’s near the opera house, on its north side, in fact. A lovely place run by a German couple from Denver, and it’s where the opera companies stay whenever they’re in town. In fact, one such company should be here yet this afternoon, for a performance this evening. I’m sure they’ve reserved rooms for themselves, but the Slipper has at least thirty.”
Prophet glanced at Louisa. She returned it. They normally slept together, in the same room, and he could tell she was reluctant to sleep alone. But that wouldn’t do here in Juniper. Especially when Louisa had already gotten a young man on her string.
Quickly, Prophet said, “The Golden Slipper, huh? Well, that sounds just your style, Louisa. And if the Muleskinner’s Inn don’t sound like mine, I’m a monkey’s uncle!” He laughed and hoped Encina didn’t see the look of consternation on Louisa’s face. “If you could point me in the right direction, I’ll go on over and toss my gear down.”
“I’ll be happy to, Mr. Prophet,” the banker said, moving out from behind his desk.
“The way I see it,” the bounty hunter said as the younger Encina showed him and Louisa out of his office, “you best call me Lou or Prophet. The last Mr. Prophet I knew I left back in Georgia before the Little Misunderstandin’.”
“In that case, I’m Miguel.”
“But you sign the checks.”
“Please, Lou,” the young banker said when he and Louisa were standing outside his open office door, looking up at the bounty hunter, who was a good head taller than he, “it’s Miguel. And I hope it’s all right if we, too, can be on a first-name basis, Miss Bonaventure.”
Louisa flushed again, and Prophet was vaguely conscious of a little jab of jealousy in the pit of his belly. He’d be damned if the girl wasn’t tindering a fire for their young employer. “Of course,” she said, dipping her chin and sliding a lock of wind-tussled blond hair away from her eye.
Miguel bowed again and lightly tapped his shoes together like a French soldier. “Louisa it is.”
He gestured for her and Prophet to lead the way to the door, and when they’d all filed onto the boardwalk fronting the bank, Miguel pointed out a tall, narrow, false-fronted building on a side street about a block south of the main one. It was one of the older, shabbier buildings that Prophet had seen so far, and it announced itself as THE MULESKIN-NER’S INN in sun-blistered green letters.