Free Helldorado by Peter Brandvold

man whom Louisa could settle down with. Why not the moneyed banker’s son?
    The girl’s obvious attraction to young Encina was a little harder to take. It twanged several chords of jealousy deep within Prophet, but he’d known he’d have to work through that sooner or later. The truth was, while they’d partnered up right well, and he truly did love the girl, and he knew she loved him, they were meant to be together no more than a lovely young mustang filly was meant to be paired for life with a crotchety Missouri mule.
    “I don’t think we need to make this too complicated,” Miguel said, lifting the paper on which he’d written out a contract and blowing on the ink. “I could have my secretary type this up on her typewriter machine, and get a witness, but I reckon it’s just for the filing cabinet.”
    He gave Louisa another winning smile as he slid the contract onto her side of the desk. Then, almost forgetting Prophet, he pulled another paper from under his desk blotter and, chuckling with boyish chagrin and sliding his fetchingly bashful glance between the two bounty hunters, said, “And this is yours, Mr. Prophet.”
    “Obliged.”
    “Not at all.”
    When Louisa had signed her contract with her customary flourish, then raised the paper to blow on it, she gave the pen to Prophet. The bounty hunter took the pen awkwardly in his left hand then shifted it to his right. Damn, if he didn’t hate scratching his signature with folks staring at him, making him feel the school dimwit.
    He looked at Louisa, then at Miguel, who leaned forward over his entwined hands, his expression affable and patient. Prophet grunted and frowned his discomfort, dipping the pen in the silver-plated inkwell sitting between two Tiffany lamps on the young banker’s desk.
    Miguel, suddenly realizing the bounty hunter’s angst, leaned back in his chair and ran his hands through his thick mop of brown, curly hair and lifted his mock-casual gaze to the ceiling. Louisa wasn’t as polite. She regarded Prophet with barely concealed disdain.
    “It would go easier if you’d take your glove off.”
    Prophet looked at his right hand. With another grunt, he set the pen down, started working the tight doeskin glove off with his teeth, then pulled it off with his other hand and set it down beside him. Taking up the pen again, he glanced at Louisa, who was still giving him that haughty, impatient scowl, and he frowned at her.
    “Don’t you know it ain’t proper to look over a fella’s shoulder?”
    With a huff she leaned back in her own chair and let her gaze follow the young banker’s to the pressed tin ceiling. When he was sure neither was watching him, Prophet leaned forward over the edge of the desk, lowered his head, pressed the tip of his tongue against his bottom lip, and carefully and anxiously scrawled his name onto the line of the contract indicated.
    Scrawling his name was always a difficult maneuver; while he could empty his Winchester and Colts with finesse, for some vexing reason a pen or a pencil always turned his fingers to lead.
    He’d learned to read well enough in the Georgia mountains he hailed from to decipher wanted posters and even newspaper articles, if given enough time, but he’d never learned to properly write his name, and he cursed himself now for not practicing. He could sense these two younkers sneering at him though neither said a word, but Louisa was breathing extra loudly and shaking her crossed leg.
    When he’d crossed the T on his last name, his hand relaxed, and his tongue slipped back into his mouth. He sighed as though he’d jogged a fair stretch, set down the pen, lifted the paper, turning it upside down, and held it sheepishly across the desk to Miguel. The young banker offered another winning smile as he accepted the contract and, politely not looking at it, dropped it with Louisa’s into a drawer, closed the drawer with a flourish, and leaned forward in his chair, smoothing his blotter with his