The Devil's Lair (A Lou Prophet Western #6) (5 page)

This time it was a pistol shot that
interrupted the sentence. The report was followed by a scream.

The marshal whipped his gaze
toward a saloon up the street, before which a half-dozen horses
stood tethered to the hitch rack. A man
’s laugh cut the air.

Whitman
’s face creased with disgust. “Ah,
shit!”

“
What is it, Marshal?” Prophet
asked, following the lawman’s gaze.

The pistol spoke again, causing the horses
before the hitch rack to start and pull at their reins. The girl
screamed again.

Whitman shook his head angrily
and began walking toward the saloon.
“Just one of them firecrackers goin’ off
under my saddle blanket,” the marshal said with a taut sigh. As he
angled across the street, Prophet saw that while the man had grown
paunchy on town food, his shoulders were still wide, the arms
thick, his gait certain despite a slight hitch in his right knee.
The marshal unholstered his six-shooter and flipped it butt-forward
in his hand.

“
Need any help?” Prophet called
behind him.

The marshal threw an arm out dismissively,
mounted the opposite boardwalk, and limped toward the saloon,
swinging the six-shooter like a club.

Prophet stared after the man for a moment,
then shrugged and turned into the bathhouse.

Marshal Whitman opened
his eyes with a
start, his breath catching in his throat. He lay on the cot in the
empty jail cell, staring at the low timbered ceiling,
listening.

Satisfied he
’d only dreamt the clomp of
horse hooves and sudden blasts of gunfire, he lifted his head to
peer through the open cell door into the main office. His deputy,
Eddie Phipps, sat at the desk that Whitman had hammered together
from the bed of an old Texas seed wagon.

A single bull
’s-eye lantern glowed dimly. The
deputy leaned back in the swivel chair, arms folded across his
chest, boots propped on the desktop. His hatless, carrot-topped
head drooped toward his chest.

“
Eddie, goddamnit!” Whitman
yelled, his voice caroming off the chinked log walls.
“Wake
up!”

The deputy bolted upright, reaching for the
old Remington on his hip while dropping his booted feet to the
floor with a crash and several squawks from the swivel chair. Eddie
froze, hand on the holstered revolver butt, looking around as
though the room were on fire.

“
What is it, Marshal? Is it them?
Is it them?”

“
No, it’s not them, you idjit.
You went to sleep!”

High-pitched, mocking laughter
rose from the cell beside Whitman
’s.

“
Is it them? Is it them?” the
voice mocked before breaking into more laughter.

“
Shut up, Scanlon,” the marshal
barked. “If I want any shit out of you, I’ll squeeze your
head!”

In the shadows of the next cell, Rick
Scanlon lay on his cot, one elbow propped beneath his head,
casually dragging on a quirley and blowing smoke at the
ceiling.

He cackled mockingly.
“If I didn’t know
better, Marshal, I’d say your deputy was a mite off his feed this
evenin’. But then again, who wouldn’t be feelin’ jittery ... the
night they was gonna die?”

Ignoring the young roughneck, Whitman
dropped his feet to the floor with a weary grunt and rose. Cursing
under his breath, he spit into the sandbox, stretched his
suspenders up over his shoulders and sagging belly, and limped into
the main room.

“
Get up,” he told the young
deputy.

“
Sorry, Marshal,” Eddie said. “I
was just gonna close my eyes for twenty seconds.”

“
Twenty seconds, uh?” Whitman
grumbled. “Why in the hell you so damn sleepy? You’re s’posed
to
sleep
during the
day.
I hired you to work the damn
night
shift.”

“
Haven’t been able to sleep too
good during the day,” Eddie said. “Reckon it takes a while to get
oriented differ’nt.”

Whitman reached for his gunbelt,
which was coiled over the hat tree behind the front door, and
wrapped it around his waist. He canted his head at the cell
he
’d just
vacated. “Go lay down. If you’re sleepy, for chrissakes, go to
sleep.”

“
I thought you wanted me to keep
watch.”

Whitman barked,
“But you ain’t
keepin’ watch. You’re sleepin’. I’m awake now anyhow. Go lay down.
I’ll wake you if I need you.”

“
Hee-hee,” Scanlon chuckled
within the wavering shadows of his cell. “Hey, what’s that?” he
said dramatically. “Did I hear my pa comin’ to my rescue?” He
laughed again.

“
And you shut up in there, or
I’ll take a horsewhip to you,” Whitman yelled, poking an angry
finger at the cell door.

As the deputy slouched into the
empty cell, removing his jacket and gunbelt, the young hardcase
said,
“Ah,
come on, Marshal. What’re you holding me for anyway? So I got a
little frisky over at the Mother Lode. It’s been a tough
week.”

“
A little frisky, eh?” Whitman
said, removing his six-shooter from his holster and checking the
loads. “You call ordering your men to tie the whores into chairs so
you can shoot apples off their heads a little frisky’?”

Scanlon said,
“It was all in good
fun, Marshal.”

“
I don’t think the whores saw it
that way.”

“
That’s the trouble with the
whores in this dump,” Scanlon said. “They ain’t only ugly, they got
no sense of humor.”

“
Well, you better hope Mr. Crumb
has a sense of humor. He runs a pretty tight ship—you know
that.”

“
I ain’t gonna be in here long
enough for ole Crumb to play his judge-and-jury games, old man,”
Scanlon scoffed. All the humor had leeched from his voice. “I’m
gonna be outta here in an hour, maybe two. And you and your deputy
there are gonna be swinging’ from that Cottonwood down by the
creek.”

His voice remained hard, but
Scanlon raised it a notch for the frightened
deputy
’s
benefit. “Just a-swingin’ and a-kickin’ and a-tryin’ to suck air
through your windpipes. Only no air’s gonna come,
’cause—”

“
I told you to sew it, Scanlon!”
Whitman shouted, turning toward the dark cell in which the hardcase
lay smoking.

Scanlon chuckled softly.

“
Don’t listen to him, Eddie,”
Whitman said. “We’re the law in this town. His old man respects
that. Deep down he does.”

There was a slight pause before
Eddie said,
“I ain’t worried, Marshal.”

Scanlon hooted softly.

Whitman glanced into the
cellblock furtively,
then stole out from behind his desk, quietly sprang the front
window shade to the left of the door, and peered into the
night-shrouded street. Looking first right, then left, and seeing
that all was quiet, he gave a quiet sigh.

No sign of old Sam
Scanlon
’s
boys.

The marshal directed his gaze
left again. The Mother Lode up the street was closed, the wind
shepherding leaves along the street, up the boardwalk, swirling
them at the base of the saloon
’s big, plate-glass window. That’s where the
trouble had started a few hours ago. Where it always started with
Old Man Scanlon’s firebrand son.

The trouble was, neither Scanlon
nor his son had any respect for the law—at least, not for the law
in Bitter Creek. And because they didn
’t, none of their men did
either.

Well, that was about to change, goddamnit.
Right here and now ...

Hearing soft footfalls, Whitman
felt his heart leap. Giving a start, he turned his startled gaze up
the street to his right. A rider materialized out of the darkness,
riding a tall black Thoroughbred. As the horse approached,
Whitman
’s
heart lightened. It was only the girl who’d ridden to town with
Prophet and the dead Thorson-Mahoney Gang—that girl bounty hunter
who looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

She rode straight-backed, chin
jutting tensely. Her hat was tugged low over her forehead. The wind
nipped at the brim and at the girl
’s baggy, brown poncho. Her honey-blond
hair bounced on her shoulders, fanning out behind her in a wind
gust.

The high-stepping
Thoroughbred
’s hooves clomped in the street, barely audible below the
wind keening in the jailhouse’s chimney pipe.

Where in the hell was she going
this time of the night, Whitman wondered, turning his head to
follow the girl past the jailhouse and down the street. Leaves
funneled between the blacksmith shop and the
ladies
’
millinery, churning into the street behind the horse.

And then the horse and the girl turned the
corner around
the Methodist church and disappeared

Whitman stood wondering after the girl,
unconsciously grateful for the distraction. Where would she be
riding on a cold, windy night? Hell, it was a good sixty miles
to—

“
Any sign of my old man yet,
Marshal?”

Whitman jumped, startled, his
heart leaping violently. Bunching his face with anger, he turned to
the darkened cell.
“Boy, you’re gonna get a horsewhippin’ if you don’t keep
that trapdoor shut!”

Scanlon
’s self-satisfied chuckles sounded
softly from the shadows. Whitman ground his teeth together and
resisted the urge to poke his Colt through that closed cell door
and commence firing. A few years ago, when he was young and a tad
wild himself, he might have done just that. If he did it now,
however, he knew the outlaws in this woolly country would declare
open season on him.

Whitman stoked the old potbelly stove and
put coffee on to boil. When the water was bubbling, his night-shift
deputy was snoring softly. Scanlon was too, thank Christ.

Whitman retrieved the coffee can from the
cupboard above his desk and dumped a fistful into the water. He was
about to add one more when a sound rose from the street beyond the
front door.

Whitman froze, his fistful of coffee poised
above the bubbling pot. The thuds of shod hooves sounded again.
Saddle leather squawked—several sets.

Whitman opened his hand to let
the coffee fall into the
percolator, then hurried to the window. Peering
out, he felt his back draw taut and his chest grow
heavy.

Six or so riders trotted in from
the right, materializing like ghosts from the darkness. The
half-dozen silhouettes pulled to a halt in the middle of the
street, directly before
the jailhouse.

In the middle and slightly forward of the
group sat Big Sam Scanlon—a tall, bulky figure wearing a
wide-brimmed black hat. His gray mustaches curled out from both
sides of his mouth, bone-white against his shadowed face. He wore a
fox-fur coat buttoned up to his throat. His mountain-bred mustang
skitter-stepped beneath him, but settled when Big Sam drew the
reins taut.

The butt of a Spencer rifle
jutted up from beneath Sam
’s left thigh, within easy reach.

Regarding the jailhouse sternly,
Big Sam barked,
“Whitman!”

The marshal
’s heart turned a somersault. He
wheeled to the gun rack, calling, “Eddie!”

The deputy came instantly awake,
his feet thudding to the floor. His voice owned a nervous
trill.
“Is it
them, Marshal?”

“
It’s them,” Whitman said,
grabbing his double-barreled Greener from the rack and breaking it
open. “Get your ass up here.”

From the locked cell, young
Scanlon
’s
mocking cry lifted on a laugh. “Is that my pa, Marshal? Told ye he
was comin’!”

Ignoring the hardcase, Whitman
turned to Eddie, who was pulling his gunbelt on.
“You stay here. Grab
a Winchester and whatever you do, don’t let those bastards in the
building. You been practicing your shooting in that ravine, haven’t
you?”

“
You bet, Marshal,” Eddie said,
trying to steel his voice as he grabbed a carbine from the wall
rack.

Standing at his cell door,
lacing his fingers together
around the bars, young Scanlon cackled like a
witch. “Ah, come on, Marshal. Why don’t you just let me go? You
ain’t got no help but that kid, and Crumb’s cowering under his
bed.”

“
Sew it, Scanlon!”

“
You don’t wanna die tonight. You
don’t wanna get little Eddie’s neck stretched tonight …”

“
Don’t listen to him, Eddie,”
Whitman said. “We’re the law here. People gotta respect that or
we’re no better’n the brush wolves.”

“
I hear you, Marshal,” Eddie
said. “He don’t scare me a bit. He keeps up his talkin’, I’m liable
to shove this carbine down his throat.”

“
Now you’re talkin’,” Scanlon
said with a laugh.

“
Whitman!” Big Sam Scanlon called
again, louder this time.

A horse chuffed. The
rancher
’s men
were talking quietly amongst themselves.