Read Online Riding With the Devil's Mistress (Lou Prophet Western #3) by Peter Brandvold - Free Book Online Page A

with the four as easily as the larger
group.
    Deciding to go after the four,
Prophet unsheathed his bowie and cut the ropes tying the man’s feet to
his stirrups and his wrists to the horn. ‘Get down.’
    ‘ Huh?’
    ‘ Get
down.’
    ‘ Wha..
. what the hell... ?’
    Prophet grabbed the
man ’s
arm.
    ‘ Oh,
no! Not my arm! Jesus, I heard you!’
    Holding his arm stiffly at his
side, the outlaw climbed down from the saddle. Prophet led him over
to a tree, pushed him down, and tied his arms behind the trunk, the
man screaming and cursing him all the while. Apparently, the
position wasn ’t very comfortable for his wounded arm, but Prophet didn’t
care. The man had been with the group who’d murdered innocent
people and taken a helpless girl hostage. Screw his arm.
    When he ’d tied the man’s feet together so he
couldn’t move around too much and work his hands free, Prophet led
his horse to another tree, tied him there, then mounted Mean and
Ugly, who’d been waiting, ground-hitched nearby, the dun’s
white-ringed eyes on the speckle-gray.
    ‘ Let’s
go, hoss,’ Prophet told the horse, reining him away.
    ‘ You
just gonna leave me here?’ the outlaw called.
    ‘ That’s right.’
    ‘ I’m
gonna bleed to death, you damn fool.’
    ‘ Shoulda thought of that before you raided Luther Falls,’
Prophet yelled over his shoulder, kicking Mean and Ugly into a
gallop.
    Following the tracks of the four horses, he
traversed a grassy swale and splashed through a slough, scaring up
ducks and geese. A few minutes later, he came to a railroad bed on
which no tracks had yet been laid, and followed it west until,
mounting a rise, he saw several buildings, including a brick depot
lined out below.
    Heeling the dun toward the
fledgling town the railroad surveyors had probably platted last summer,
Prophet pulled his shotgun over his chest and worried a thumb over
the hammers. He entered the town at a slow walk, eyeing the
buildings still smelling of pine resin. Seeing the five horses,
including a black Morgan, tied before the two-story, high-fronted
structure touting itself as the Philadelphia Hotel, Prophet reined
Ugly that way, dismounted, and tied him to the rack’s far
end.
    ‘ Now
don’t bite anybody,’ Prophet scolded the horse, turning to the
building’s door.
    Removing the thong over the
hammer of his .45 and holding the shotgun across his belly, he
opened the door and stepped inside, raking his eyes quickly around
the long, narrow room. In the shadows before him, about twenty
yards away, three hard-looking gunmen stood along the bar, facing
the wall to Prophet ’s right. Facing the toughs was the bartender. They’d all
turned their heads to look at Prophet, and the expressions on the
blunt faces of the hard cases were both curious and
guarded—especially when they saw the barn blaster hanging from the
lanyard around the bounty hunter’s neck.
    Prophet took them all in, watching their
hands. Above him, he heard something thumping the ceiling and the
muffled sounds of a girl or young woman protesting what could only
have been the advances of a man. There was the sound of a slap and
a shrill cry.
    Prophet smiled. ‘Sounds like
someone’s havin’ a good time, anyway.’
    ‘ That’s just the whore,’ one of the men at the bar
explained. ‘When she’s drunk, she likes it a little rough’s
all.’
    ‘ I
see,’ Prophet said. ‘Would you bring me a shot and a beer?’ he
asked the barman. He turned and sat down at the nearest table,
removing his hat and tossing it on the table before him.
    Without saying anything, the
barman set a shot glass on the counter and uncorked a whiskey
bottle. The three toughs were scrutinizing Prophet through slitted eyes. One
man eyed the shotgun with a half smile on his face. He was a
fiery-eyed little terrier with sandy blond hair falling out of his
slouch hat. His right hand was on his gun butt, and Prophet saw
that he’d removed the safety thong from the hammer.
    It was