The Devil's Lair (A Lou Prophet Western #6) (2 page)

“
Everyone just stay
calm and don’t try
anything funny,” the hardcase said, concentrating his attention on
the young farmer and the portly businessman, who regarded him
fearfully, hands raised.

Sensing the danger, the baby had started
wailing.

Outside, the gunfire died as the
stage slowed, the driver yelling,
“Woooo-oo-ahhhh! Wooooo-ahhhh!”

The Concord rocked and bounced as it slowed,
its leather thoroughbraces quacking like ducks. Inside, the blond
hardcase, smiling with self-satisfaction, kept his long-barreled
Remington aimed at the passengers, making sure no one went for a
gun.

Prophet hadn
’t seen a weapon on either the
businessman or the young farmer. If they were heeled, he hoped they
had sense enough to keep their iron stowed. Going for guns would
only get them ventilated.

The stage stopped so abruptly
that Prophet, Louisa, and the businessman had to grab the hanging
ceiling straps to keep from being thrown forward. Outside,
voices
rose
above the clatter of prancing horses, commanding the driver and
shotgun messenger to throw down their weapons.

Prophet rolled his eyes to the windows while
keeping his gloved hands raised.

Four riders appeared around the
stage, the blond dust sifting around them. Three aimed pistols. A
fourth man—a tall, bull-necked hombre with full red sideburns and
crazy eyes—leveled a heavy, double-barreled shotgun at the
Concord
’s
right windows.

Gents,
Prophet thought with grim
satisfaction and a healthy dose of caution,
meet J. D. Brennan of the
Thorson-Mahoney Gang.

Brennan was the
gang
’s newest
member, having escaped a federal lockup in Arkansas after
strangling three guards and slitting the throat of a fourth with a
sharpened chicken bone. The reward for him alone was five hundred
dollars—more than enough to give any bounty hunter, including the
big-spending, womanizing Prophet—one hell of a shindified night in
Denver City ... if he lived long enough to collect it, that
is.

“
You hear me, Auntie?” It was the
blond hardcase staring at Prophet hard, eyes red-rimmed with rage.
“I said, get your fat ass outside, and be damn quick about
it!”

Prophet trilled fearfully, clumsily gaining
his feet. All the passengers but Louisa had already
disembarked.

She took
Prophet
’s
hand. In a fear-brittle voice, which Prophet knew to be total
playacting—the girl had killed more men than Billy the Kid and
would not have blanched at a diamondback under her pillow—she said,
“Come, Auntie. Don’t be afraid. We’ll be all right. I promise we
will ... ”

Prophet stumbled, nearly
breaking his ankles in the hard, undersized shoes, and cooed like a
frightened crone. As the stage rocked on its thoroughbraces, he
accepted Louisa
’s hand with his left while clutching the lumpy reticule in
his right. He took mincing, old-lady steps to the door.

Finally, the hardcase behind him
grumbled,
“Oh, for chrissakes!” and swung his leg up, connecting his
polished brown boot with Prophet’s ass. Dress flapping around his
legs like batwings, Prophet flew through the door and hit the
ground on his face.

“
Auntie!”

“
Oh!” Prophet cried. “Oh! Oh!
Oh!”

He lifted his head, spit dirt from his lips,
and peered around. The other passengers stood around him, hands
raised above their heads, faces flushed with fear. All the outlaws
were mounted, forming a semicircle around the stage. The young
mother had left her baby on the stage, apparently believing it
safer there, and its hysterical cries rattled eardrums.

“
Auntie, are you okay?” Louisa
cried, dropping to her knees beside Prophet, who continued to moan
and covertly study the hardcases.

Glancing at Louisa, he saw that she was
doing the same thing—feigning concern for him while stealing looks
at the owlhoots, getting each one fixed in her mind, waiting for
the right moment for her and Prophet to make their moves.

“
Tell that old bitch to shut up!”
one of the riders yelled at Louisa.

“
Leave her alone,” a chubby,
pig-eyed young rider interjected. “She can’t help it if she’s
afraid.”

“
Good Lord, that’s an ugly
woman!” another exclaimed.

“
Didn’t I tell you?”

“
Man, I see what you
mean.”

“
Shut up—she can’t help it she’s
ugly.”

“
Shut up your ownself, Little
Mike. If she tried to snitch a bite off your supper plate, she’d
turn ugly in a heartbeat.” The rider slapped his thigh and laughed,
pleased with himself.

“
All of you, shut the hell up!”
the leader said, sitting his big Appaloosa behind the stage driver
and the shotgun messenger. Both stage men stood wide-eyed, hands
raised high, looking at Prophet expectantly.

The leader jerked his hard,
anvil chin around the group.
“Mahoney, Brennan, Little Mike—fetch the strongbox
and fetch it quick!”

“
I can’t climb up there,” the fat
man complained.

“
Get your fat ass up there,” the
leader barked, “or I’ll have Brennan carve you a new asshole with
his shotgun.”

Grumbling, the fat man holstered his
six-shooter, climbed awkwardly out of his saddle, hitched his pants
up, and tossed his reins to one of the others. He and Mahoney and
Brennan headed for the stage.

Prophet had turned onto his ass, keeping his
dress down over his legs, his veil over his face. He kept moaning
and groaning while Louisa sat beside him, patting his back and
assuring him everything would be all right.

Meanwhile, she jerked her head
around at the hard-cases, stealing cunning glances at each,
waiting
...

Horses blew and the baby cried. The stage
squawked under the weight of the three men climbing to its roof.
The farmer, his wife, and the businessman watched them
skeptically.

“
This girl here is coming with
me,” said the blond hardcase with the colored spectacles. He
grabbed Louisa’s right arm, jerking her to her feet, her straw hat
tumbling off her shoulder. “Look at her, boys—ain’t she
something?”

“
Take your hands off me, you
maggot!”

The blond hardcase
laughed.
“And
she’s got spunk too. Boy, oh, boy, is she gonna be fun under the
blankets tonight!” He slapped her hard across the face. Louisa
cursed and dropped to her knees, bowing her head, her blond hair
falling over her face.

Prophet gritted his teeth with
fury, but his voice was appropriately high-pitched and
beseeching.
“Leave my niece alone ... Don’t hit her ...
Oh, please!”
Behind the veil, his
eyes were hard. The blond hardcase was going to pay for that slap
in spades.

“
Stand up here—let me get a look
at you!” the blond hardcase barked, jerking Louisa again to her
feet.

Prophet could tell the
man
’s
strength was too much for the girl. He wanted to make his move, but
checked himself, waiting. If Louisa could hold on until the men
trying to free the strongbox on the stage roof had started climbing
down, so much the better ...

Louisa tried to slug the hardcase, but the
man was too fast for her. He grabbed her lashing fist with one
hand. With the other, he grabbed the top of her dress and jerked
his hand back, ripping the garment off her shoulder, exposing her
white chemise and a good portion of her milky cleavage.

Louisa shouted a curse not found
in most young ladies
’ vocabularies—most men’s, for that matter. Especially not
one with Louisa’s angelic face.

Jerking herself free of the
man
’s grasp,
she stumbled and fell on her ass between two horses. The startled
mounts skittered sideways as their riders laughed and whooped at
the girl’s exposed flesh.

“
Leave me alone, you blowfly!”
Louisa screamed, red-faced with genuine anger.

“
That’s quite a tongue on you,
bitch!” the blond hardcase snapped, gritting his teeth.

As he moved toward Louisa, Prophet was about
to make his move.

A gun exploded.

Prophet
’s hands froze, and he jerked his
startled gaze at the stage. The three riders were crouched over the
strongbox. In Mahoney’s hand, a gun smoked. He fired another round
at the lock, sparks flying.

“
Got it,” he said. He opened the
lid, glanced inside, and said, “Must be close to ten thousand
dollars here!”

“
Throw it down,” the gang leader
commanded. Turning to the blond hardcase, he said, “Barker, throw
the girl over your horse. We don’t have time for that
now.”

Barker cared more about Louisa than the
strongbox. Red-faced with fury, he stepped brusquely toward her and
dropped to a knee.

“
I’m warnin’ you—leave me alone,
you son of a bitch,” she spit through gritted teeth, leaning back
on her hands.

“
Leave my niece alone!” Prophet
wailed.

He glanced at the stage. The three men
rolled the strongbox to the edge of the roof and dropped it over
the side. It landed with a clanging thud, blowing dust and
frightening several horses.

His attention riveted on Louisa,
Barker didn
’t
turn.

“
I’m warnin’ you, you pile of
stinking dog shit,” Louisa said. “You touch me again, you’re gonna
be sorry.”

“
Oh, please leave her alone!”
Prophet cried.

“
Barker, we don’t have time for
that!”

Barker sprang forward, grabbed her dress
with both hands, and ripped the garment all the way down to her
waist. He frowned and stared down at the black gunbelt and
pearl-gripped Colt, which looked twice as big as it actually was on
her slender hips.

Prophet smiled ruefully, and in
his normal voice chided,
“She told you to leave her alone …”

Before the sentence had died on
his lips, Louisa had clawed the six-shooter from her holster and
compressing her lips angrily, thrust the barrel into
Barker
’s
gut.

Barker
’s face blanched instantly as he
stared, dumbfounded, at the Colt stabbing his
breastbone.

“
Die, devil!”
She pulled the
trigger.

Barker gave a jerk, his spectacles falling
down his nose, eyes and mouth springing wide, blood splashing the
horse behind him as the slug tore through Barker and into the leg
of the rider on his left flank.

As Louisa thrust Barker away
from her, she jumped to her feet. Crouching, she commenced firing
at the other
dumbfounded hardcases, who stared, frozen, their mouths
drawn wide.

Prophet waved to the stage
passengers and yelled,
“Get down! Get down!” as he thrust off his black
cape and veil and grabbed the sawed-off double-barreled shotgun
hanging from a leather lanyard down his back. Aiming the gun from
his waist, he tripped the left trigger and watched the face of one
hardcase turn to strawberry jelly.

He slid the barrel toward the
gang leader, who was holding the Appaloosa steady with one hand
while leveling his rifle. Prophet tripped the
shotgun
’s
right trigger. The Appaloosa pitched a half second after Prophet’s
buckshot tore through the man’s chest, and the man twisted and
plunged down the Appy’s hip with a groan.

Only about three seconds had passed since
Louisa had shot Barker.

Above the frightened
horses
’
whinnies and the screams and yells of the passengers, who’d dropped
and buried their heads in their hands, Louisa’s Colt blazed with
purpose—
bang! bang! bang!
—and the hardcases dropping from their pitching,
crow-stepping mounts attested to the accuracy of the girl’s
aim.

Meanwhile, Prophet dropped the barn-blaster.
He was reaching for his own Peacemaker strapped to his right leg
when he saw Mahoney, kneeling before the stage, level his pistol on
him.

As the gun blasted, Prophet threw himself
backward. He hit the ground on his shoulder, clawed the Peacemaker
off his leg, and twisted around to his belly.

He leveled the Colt and fired. His chest
sprouting blood, Mahoney flew backwards against the stage and
dropped, wracked with death spasms.

Prophet swung the gun to his left, looking
for a target. Seeing little but powder smoke and prone bodies, he
turned right.

No target there either.

The baby bawled fiercely from
inside the stage. The woman sobbed into her open hands, her
shoulders jerking. Her husband, lying
face down beside her, draped his arm
across her back protectively.

The driver and shotgun messenger lay nearby.
Hearing no more gunfire, both men lifted their sunburned faces
warily, glancing around.

Prophet looked at Louisa. She was crouched
on one knee, her second pistol—a .38 pocket gun—smoking in her
right hand. She too was looking for more targets.

Hearing a yell, Prophet turned to look back
the way the stage had come. About a hundred yards away, a horse
galloped off into the distance, its rider hanging by a stirrup,
hauled across the brush-tufted terrain like a doll dragged by a
careless child.