Riding With the Devil's Mistress (Lou Prophet Western #3) by Peter Brandvold Page B

How’s
that?’
    ‘ ‘ Cause the whole gang’s gonna be there,’ MacDonald
said through a grin. ‘The whole damn bunch!’

Chapter Nine
    WHEN PROPHET CAME to the edge
of the woods leading MacDonald ’s horse, Louisa was waiting there astride her
Morgan. ‘Shit,’ Prophet said. ‘I was hopin’ you’d ridden on. I
don’t have time for craziness, girl.’
    ‘ I
don’t go anywhere without my revolver, Mr. Prophet.’ She extended
her hand for the gun.
    ‘ So
you can shoot my prisoner here?’ Prophet said, grabbing his saddle
horn and pulling himself atop his hammerheaded dun. ‘No,
ma’am.’
    With her customary bald
impudence, the girl said, ‘If I still wanted to kill him, I could plug him
with my Winchester. Could’ve already done it, as a matter of fact—
just as you were coming out of the trees.’
    Prophet looked at her
tiredly. ‘Where did you learn all this stuff, anyway—shootin’ and
ambushin’ and cuttin’ men’s balls off? You’re only
seventeen.’
    ‘ It’s
a tough world out here, Mr. Prophet.’
    Slouched in his saddle,
favoring his wounded arm that was giving him tremendous pain,
MacDonald looked wary. ‘Whose balls did she cut off?’
    ‘ Man
name of Barry,’ Prophet told him.
    ‘ Barry?’
    ‘ I
think that was his name.’
    MacDonald blinked with
horror. ‘That little girl cut Barry Little’s balls off?’
    ‘ He
was appropriately named,’ the girl quipped, flashing another of her
icy smiles, then gigging her horse beside Prophet, who had begun
heading west.
    They rode for an hour in
relative silence, the only sounds the chirping of birds in the
trees along the river and the painful sighs and groans issuing from
MacDonald, who rode behind Prophet and the girl on a lead rope tied
to the tail of Prophet ’s horse.
    The day was warm and bright,
and they stopped to water their horses in the river. When they were
heading out again, Prophet turned to Louisa Bonaventure with a
question that had been on his mind since he ’d found out who she was and what she
was after.
    ‘ So
Louisa, you’ve been on the vengeance trail for a year now, and
you’ve killed five of the men you’re after. What makes you think
you can get them all?’
    ‘ ‘ Cause I’ve given myself over to it,’ she said
matter-of-factly. ‘And because I don’t have anywhere else to go or
anything else to do. And because I know the souls of my folks won’t
rest until I’ve accomplished this task.’
    ‘ Why
don’t you just turn it over to the authorities?’
    She laughed caustically,
swinging her head and tossing her hair out from her slender
neck. ‘The
authorities, eh? The authorities haven’t been able to stop these
men in the five years they’ve been raiding. Not even the marshals
out of Fort Smith—Judge Parker’s boys—were able to do it. The ones
that chase them either end up dead or out of their jurisdictions,
and, lost and afraid, they head home with their tails between their
legs.
    ‘ Besides, that,’ she continued before Prophet could ask his
next question, ‘I’m better equipped than the ‘authorities’ are.
That gang can smell the ‘authorities’ from a hundred miles away.
None of ‘em has any inkling I’ve been on their trail—sometimes only
a half mile behind! Even if they did, they wouldn’t know who I was
or what I was up to. I’m just a girl, see? That’s why it’s easy for
me to sneak up on them and put a bullet in ‘em or stick a knife in
their necks.’ She sighed. ‘It takes time, though,’ she added. ‘I
swear, I have to have the patience of Job sometimes.’
    ‘ To
wait for ‘em to split up, you mean?’
    ‘ Then
to catch up with the rest again,’ she said with a nod, dramatically
blowing air through her lips. ‘They can be a trial, that
bunch.’
    Prophet was regarding her
uncomprehendingly as they rode, stirrup to stirrup, along the trail
to Wahpeton. At last, he whistled and shook his head. ‘Miss Louisa,
you’re the crowned queen of vengeance,