The Devil and Lou Prophet (28 page)

“
Hey,” McCreedy called
after him, “you don’t think Fitzsimmons let the cat out of the bag,
do you?”

“
Little Fitz?” Prophet
said, feigning surprise as he half-turned toward the sheriff. “That
walking, talking, star-toting symbol of rock-hard justice?” Prophet
turned and continued toward the livery barn. “Not a
chance.”

It was a lonely, uneventful ride to
Henry’s Crossing, and Prophet spent most of the trip feeling sorry
for himself and missing Lola. Never before had he known nights so
long and quiet, the sky so full of stars twinkling mockingly far
above—millions of miles away and no one to share them with. No Lola
to skinny-dip with and make love to.

Lordy, how a woman could infect a
man’s mind. He felt heavy and dismal.

“
You gotta get out of this
rut,” he told himself. “You need another job.”

He decided to start perusing wanted
dodgers once he’d taken care of his business in Henry’s
Crossing.

To that end, he rode down the little river
berg’s main street four days after leaving Johnson City. Amid the
din of passing freighters, their dry wheels creaking and mules
braying, Prophet rode up to the livery barn where he’d stabled his
ornery hammerhead, Mean and Ugly. He arranged for a boy to return
the horse he’d borrowed from old man Hill at the Backwater station,
with a twenty-five-dollar token of appreciation, and sprung Mean
and Ugly, who’d become sleek off all the oats he’d been fed, but
was as mean and ugly as ever. He took several nips out of Prophet’s
arm as the bounty hunter saddled him and strapped his soogan behind
the saddle.

The horse even bucked a couple times
on the way over to the sheriff’s office. “So that’s what it’s gonna
be, huh?” Prophet said with disgust, wrapping the reins around the
hitching post. “Well, we’ll see about that.”

He turned and knocked on the office
door.

“
It’s open!” came the sharp
reply.

Prophet stepped inside and closed the
door behind him. He looked at Fitzsimmons, who sat behind his desk,
all decked out in a new black suit with wool vest and gold watch
fob. The slouch hat lipped back on his head was new, as well—crisp
as a newly minted coin. The gun snugged on the sheriff’s scrawny
hip was silver-plated and factory engraved, the grips mother of
pearl. The holster was hand-tooled. It looked as though it had just
been sewn. It was one of those breakaway contraptions favored by
gunslicks.

Prophet whistled. “Well, well... look
at you.”

Fitzsimmons flushed. He was in the middle
of his dinner, a china plate containing a T-bone steak, greens, and
baked potato on the desk before him. A checked napkin was draped
over a knee. When he’d seen Prophet, his fork had froze halfway to
his mouth, a new ring winking on his pinky.

“
You musta hit the mother
lode!” Prophet cried, shaking his head and running his eyes up and
down the sheriff’s new duds.

Fitzsimmons studied Prophet sourly,
eyes befuddled. He worked his mouth, his gray, upswept mustache
moving back and forth. “Where in the hell did you come
from?”

“
Surprised to see me,
Fitz?”

“
Well... I...
I—”

“
No doubt you are, since
you sold me and Lola out to Billy Brown.”

Suddenly, the blood ran out of
Fitzsimmons’s face, like water through a sieve. He set his fork on
his plate. “What... what are you talkin’ about?”

“
I’m talkin’ about you
tellin’ Brown’s man that McCreedy sent me after the girl.” Prophet
dropped into a chair before the sheriff’s desk. “I figure some of
Brown’s riders happened by one day—maybe Mr. Bannon himself—lookin’
for the girl, and told you he’d set you up right sweet if you gave
him a whistle if you saw her. Ain’t that how it worked?”

Fitzsimmons came half out of his
chair, bristling. “I did no such—”

“
Then how did the man who
hopped the stage with us know she and I were here? The only people
who knew were McCreedy, his deputy, the sheriff who found her in
the first place, Lola, myself... and you.”

The sheriff opened his mouth to
protest. Prophet stopped him.

“
Now, I know McCreedy
didn’t do it. Neither Lola nor I did. I met Perry Moon, and that
kid wouldn’t tell a lie to save to his soul. I’ve never met the
sheriff who told McCreedy about seeing the girl passing through his
town, but it just plum don’t make sense that he would have told
McCreedy and Brown. So that just leaves you, Fitz.”

The sheriff sat slowly back in his
chair, staring at Prophet guiltily. His mouth worked, but no words
came out. Sweat beaded his forehead.

“
Innocent people died
because of you, Fitz,” Prophet said. “For that, you should be
hung.”

Prophet let the words hang in the five
feet of dry air between them. The sheriff bowed his head to look at
his hands. Suddenly, he convulsed in a sob.

“
He set you up right well,
I see,” Prophet continued. “You buy your wife a new outfit, too?
Maybe do some work on the house?”

Fitzsimmons lifted his gaze to
Prophet. His eyes were angry. “You don’t know what it’s like,
workin’ for this town. No one takes me serious. They laugh ‘cause
I’m old. Don’t think I’m worth a dime, so they hardly pay me a damn
thing.”

Prophet didn’t say anything. His chest
rose and fell angrily, remembering the burning stage.

Haltingly, Fitzsimmons said, “So ... yeah
... when Brown’s men came to town lookin’ for the girl, I told ‘em.
Hell, I didn’t know what was goin’ on. I didn’t know they were
gonna try to kill her.”

“
But you had to suspect as
much. You didn’t care if they killed me.”

Fitzsimmons’s nose wrinkled and he
turned away. There was a long silence, Fitzsimmons staring at the
wall, Prophet staring at Fitzsimmons.

“
Well, I suppose you’re
gonna tell the council... have me fired and put away,” the old
sheriff said with a sigh.

Prophet considered this. He knew
that’s what he should do. Innocent people had died because of the
old sot. But then, ruining Fitzsimmons, who really couldn’t have
known what the effects of his transgressions would be, wouldn’t
bring those people back. And why put the old bastard’s
long-suffering wife through even more?

“
Here’s what I’m gonna do,
Fitz,” Prophet said at last, getting out his making sack and
producing a paper. “I’m gonna keep my mouth shut if you do two
things.”

He glanced at the hawk-nosed old man
as he drew a line of tobacco across the paper. The sheriff didn’t
say anything, but watched him with a mix of derision and
expectation.

“
First,” Prophet said, “I
want you to donate a hundred dollars to the Queen Bee. Give the
hundred to Miss Angie. She’ll spread it around to the other girls
equally without saying anything to the madam.”

He was working the paper around the
tobacco. Fitzsimmons’s cheeks were bunched, his lips pursed,
scowling.

“
Then,” Prophet continued,
“I want you to donate another hundred to those three orphans
working over at the Mulligan Stew.” Fitzsimmons began breathing
heavily through his nose, face flushing again. Prophet ignored him.
“Spread it out evenly. Make sure each kid gets his fair share. They
get paid peanuts over there, if that.” He twisted the ends of the
cigarette and stuck the quirley between his lips. “Sound
good?”

Fitzsimmons climbed halfway out of his
chair and pounded a fist on his desk. “Two hundred and fifty is all
Brown gave me in the first place!”

“
Then it almost works out
perfectly, doesn’t it?” Prophet said, smiling grandly. He scratched
a lucifer on the desk and touched it to the cigarette, inhaling
deeply.

Fitzsimmons crouched there, washed-out
eyes bright with hate. Prophet thought his swelling nose would
explode.

“
You do it, Fitz,” Prophet
warned. “I’m gonna talk to Miss Angie and those three orphans next
time I’m in town. If you don’t, I’ll not only thrash the shit out
of you, I’ll go to the city council and spill the beans—the whole
pot.”

He gave the sheriff a wink. Then he
climbed to his feet and started for the door, hearing the sheriff
rasping heavily, hatefully behind him.

On his way to the door, Prophet
stopped. A dodger on the bulletin board had caught his eye. He
moved toward it, squinting his eyes. “Five hundred dollars—dead or
alive,” he read aloud, with a thoughtful air.

He plucked the dodger off the board
and turned to the sheriff sitting back in his chair, looking as
though the sky had just fallen. “This hombre still on the loose,
Fitz?” Prophet asked him.

Not looking at him, not looking at
anything in particular, the sheriff lifted a heavy hand from his
chair arm and dropped it. “Reckon,” he grumbled.

“
Thanks, Fitz,” Prophet
said, grinning and tipping his hat.

He stepped outside, reading the dodger
in his hand. “Five hundred dollars—dead or alive.” He turned to his
hang-headed horse. “Well, Mean and Ugly,” he said, folding the
dodger and stuffing it into his back pocket, “I believe it’s time
for you and me to get reacquainted.”

He untied the reins from the
hitch-rack and climbed into the leather. When he’d pulled into the
street and gigged the hammerhead into a trot, a girl yelled his
name.

He looked around and saw a scantily
clad young woman standing on the second-story veranda of the Queen
Bee, leaning on the railing and smoking a thin cheroot. Her long
black hair was pinned in a loose bun atop her head. The breeze
parted her powder blue duster invitingly.

“
Hello, Miss Angie,”
Prophet called.

“
Don’t Miss Angie me, Lou
Prophet,” she scolded. “You’re in town and you haven’t come to see
me!” She set her lips in a pout.

“
Oh, I’ll be back, Miss
Angie,” Prophet replied. He lifted his hat to her, grinning his
charming grin. “Don’t you worry—I’ll be back soon!”

Cantering west out of town, feeling
suddenly lighter, feeling spry—amazing what the prospect of a
five-hundred-dollar bounty could do for a man’s soul— Prophet
lifted his head and sang, “Jeff Davis built a wagon and on it put a
name, and Beauregard was driver and Secession was the
name....”