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

chase the damp chill from his
bones. While the pot gurgled and sighed in the coals, he produced
the bacon Cordelia and Annabelle had packed for him, and started it
frying in his skillet. When the bacon was done, he fished the
strips out of the grease, packed them and several extra dollops of
grease from the pan in three fresh biscuits, and his supper was
made.
    He ate hungrily and washed his makeshift but
delicious meal down with tar-black coffee, watching the rain,
hearing the drops clatter on the tarpaulin. What was foremost in
his mind, though, was the image of Sheriff Arnie Beckett riddled
with bullets, and the dying mercantile proprietor feebly trying to
hold his innards in place and begging Prophet to save his
daughter.
    That he ’d do, by Ned. If it was the last
thing he did in this world.
    Most of
Prophet ’s
man hunting jobs had been pure business transactions which he’d
carried out with cool objectivity. He’d rarely been a witness to
the deprivations his quarries had committed and which had led to
their being wanted by the law.
    This was different.
He ’d seen
what the Red River Gang had done, the brutality they’d carried out
with the abandon of boys teasing a schoolyard snake. He’d seen the
men and horses they’d killed, the property they’d destroyed, and
the girl they’d carted off like the candy Handsome Dave Duvall had
hauled out of the store.
    And because
he ’d seen it
in person, without being able to do a damn thing about it at the
time, his hunt for them was personal. He figured all or most of the
men already had high bounties on their heads, but he didn’t care
about that. What he wanted first and foremost was to free the girl.
Then he wanted to see the renegades either behind bars or
dead.
    How he ’d execute such a task, he wasn’t
sure. There were at least twelve of them and only one of him.
Eventually, lawmen would be alerted to their trail, but the group
had no doubt cut the telegraph lines out of Luther Falls, so for
the next few days, at least, Prophet would be on his
own.
    For probably a hell of a lot
longer than that. He doubted this godforsaken part of the country
had any badge-toters with enough rawhide to face down the Red River
Gang. Federal marshals would probably be called in, but that would
take days, and it would take the marshals at least a week to get
here, even longer to pick up the gang ’s trail.
    No, Prophet was alone for now, on the trail
of twenty ruthless killers. And he had no inkling of a plan....
    ‘ But
then again, I’m not much of a planner, anyway,’ he said to himself,
setting his cup on a rock and fishing in the breast pocket of his
buckskin tunic for his Bull Durham and rolling papers.
    He smoked and watched the rain, and after
dark he checked on Mean and Ugly, banked the fire, and rolled up in
his soogan. The next day dawned clear and cool and fresh-smelling
after the rain. Prophet woke to geese honking on the river and
ducks jawing at the geese.
    He got up and ate a hurried
breakfast, downing several cups of coffee and smoking several
cigarettes before rigging out Mean and Ugly. He ’d taken down his lean-to and
was all packed and mounted by the time the sun poked its bright
orange top above the western hills.
    Fortunately, the rain
hadn ’t
lasted long enough to obliterate the renegades’ trail. It had made
it fainter, however, and Prophet had to be extra vigilant, keeping
his eyes glued to the grassy sod. He couldn’t just rely on the
flattened grass trails normally left by horses, for the wind and
rain themselves had flattened plenty of grass. Several times he had
to stop and dismount to spy hoof prints or horse apples in the
sod.
    About nine o ’clock in the morning he
approached a creek meeting the river from the south, and stopped
suddenly when he smelled smoke from a cook fire. He reined the
line-back dun to a halt, sniffing the air and looking around.
Shortly, he reined the horse to his right, into the trees along the
river. He