Free Staring Down the Devil (A Lou Prophet Western #5) by Peter Brandvold Page A

hammer and extended the gun toward
Barstow.
    “Jesus, Bobby,” Jamison cautioned.
    Barstow turned to St. John. Seeing the gun, his eyes widened
and flashed with terror. “No! What are you doin’?”
    “Don’t
worry, Bar,” St. John said. “We ain’t gonna leave ye here.
Leastways, not alive. I’ll put a forty-five slug right between your
eyes.”
    “Better move closer,” Kimbreau advised. “Might hit his other
knee.” The mulatto grinned.
    Jamison turned his face away, wagging his head. “Jesus Christ
. . .”
    “I can
get him from here,” St. John said as Barstow slid clumsily away,
digging the heel of his good foot into the sandy ground and holding
his arms over his face. He screamed and pleaded for his
life.
    “Put
your goddamn hands down, Bar,” St. John urged. “I can’t get a clean
shot with you waving your arms all over the damn place.”
    “Noooo!” cried Barstow.
    St.
John aimed down the Remington’s barrel, his good eye hard as steel.
Finally the gun jumped and barked. A neat round hole appeared in
Barstow’s forehead, above his right eye. Barstow collapsed,
dead.
    For
several seconds silence hung heavy over the group as each man
studied the dead Barstow, blood trickling from the neat hole a half
inch above his half-open eye.
    “Didn’t get him between the eyes,” Nye said. “Got him above
the right eye.”
    “Yeah,
you did, Bobby,” Kimbreau agreed.
    “He
shut up, didn’t he?” St. John growled, flipping the loading gate
open and replacing the spent shell. “Get off your lazy asses,” he
ordered. “We got a coach to run down.”

Chapter Nine
    Prophet rode up to the stage station at nearly six-thirty that
evening. Behind him clattered the stage coated with seeds and gray
dust, the equally dust-coated Cossack smoking his cheroot in the
driver’s box.
    As Prophet was
climbing out of the saddle, a portly, gray-haired gent stepped from
the cabin onto the rickety porch. He had large, rheumy eyes and a
knob-shaped, pockmarked nose. He carried a double-barreled greener
down low at his side.
    To
Prophet’s left, the barn was quiet, its doors closed. From the log
shed beside the barn rose the tinny barks of a blacksmith’s hammer.
Sooty black smoke poured from the shed’s tin stovepipe, flattening
out against the roof. In the corral directly across the trail from
the cabin, a half-dozen horses hung their heads over the top rail
and twitched their ears at the strangers.
    “Evenin’,” Prophet said to the man.
    The
portly gent was giving the stage the twice-over. “Ellison-Daniels
Stage and Express Company?” he read, scowling.
    “Private coach,” Prophet said. “We were wondering if we might
impose on you for the night.”
    “Whose
coach?”
    “The
Countess Natasha Roskov,” Sergei said from the driver’s box, reins
hanging loose in his gloved hands. His sunburned face was
clay-colored by dust, as was his hat, a tan plainsman to which he’d
switched when the weather got warmer.
    “Countess?” the old man said, wrinkling one nostril. “What in
hell’s a countess?”
    “A
Russian noblewoman,” Prophet answered for Sergei, just to keep
things simple. “This is Sergei, uh —”
    “Andreyevich,” Sergei answered for Prophet, who had not yet
mastered the pronunciation of the Cossack’s last name. “I am the
countess’s assistant.”
    Prophet said, “We’ve all been on the trail for over a week and
sure could use a bed and some table food.”
    The
old man gave Sergei a slow, suspicious appraisal, then slid his
eyes back to Prophet, studying the bounty hunter cautiously. “Who
in the hell are you? You don’t look like no Russian. Why you ridin’
with them?”
    “I’m
their guide,” Prophet said. “I’m friendly enough. Lou Prophet’s my
handle. If we can stay, say so, Mr. uh —”
    “Fergus.”
    “Mr.
Fergus. If no, we’ll fog it on down the trail.”
    The
man studied the coach, Sergei, and Prophet once more, twitching his
bulb nose. He shrugged. “I