Free The Devil’s Laughter: A Lou Prophet Novel by Peter Brandvold Page A

the tank, then picked up his canteen and dunked it under the tepid water. It bubbled as it slid down the canteen’s neck. When the vessel was full, he corked it, looped the leather lanyard over his saddle horn, and grabbed his rifle.
    â€œFollow me,” he said, leading Mean around behind the rock tank. “And be damn quick about it.”
    â€œDon’t get bossy, goddamnit.”
    â€œChrist, girl—what a tongue you’ve grown!”
    â€œStill wouldn’t hold a candle to yours.”
    â€œDamn near as bad, and it ain’t proper, you bein’ a girl an’ all.”
    Several arrows zipped through the air around him and clattered off the rocks. Prophet wheeled and fired at the shadows moving amongst the rocks around them. Louisa did the same, losing her footing as her pinto jerked warily, and stumbled over a rock.
    â€œThis doesn’t look good, Lou.”
    â€œNothin’ looks good in Mojave country,
chiquita
.”
    He snapped three more shots, then rammed his rifle’s butt against Mean’s left hip.
“Hyah, you cayuse!”
he wailed.
    The hammer-headed dun didn’t need any more convincing. As more arrows clattered around his prancing hooves, and as two Mojaves opened up with rifles, Mean whinnied shrilly and galloped on up the path, shaking his head angrily and trailing his reins. Prophet ran past Louisa and the pinto, and dropped to a knee, shouting, “Head on up the ridge! I’ll cover you!”
    Louisa pumped and triggered her Winchester, evoking at least one cry from the rocks behind them, then wheeled and ran, leading the pinto on up and over the rise. Behind her, Prophet laid down a barrage of covering fire.
    The Indians were spread out in the rocks on the fire side of the tank, some high atop the surrounding ridges,some low. He wasn’t sure how many, but as he fired he felt the wind of several bullets and arrows curling the air around him, heard the spangs as bullets and wooden missiles hammered the rocks.
    Maybe as few as seven, possibly as many as ten. Two seemed to have rifles.
    When his Winchester’s hammer pinged on an empty chamber, Prophet rose, wheeled, and ran, crouching low and tracing a slightly zigzagging course up the narrow, meandering passageway up the rock-strewn slope. The two rifles cracked behind him, blowing up gravel around his heels. Arrows made soft screeching sounds, like the rush of fast birds whipping past, before they hammered the rocks, some breaking with crunching noises.
    â€œHurry, Lou!” Louisa shouted from between two rocks at the top of the ridge.
    Prophet sawed his arms, pounded his legs. His breath raked in and out of his lungs. The wind felt like thick copper in his throat. He silently scolded himself for his tobacco habit. Weak lungs were not conducive to a safe run through Mojave country.
    â€œI am hurryin’,” he said between gasping breaths as he threw himself atop the ridge and rolled several yards down the other side as a bullet kissed the seam of his left denim pant leg.
“Ow!”
    The exclamation wasn’t so much for the slight bullet burn as the sharp rocks galling his arms and legs and the rap of his left hand against the side of a boulder.
    â€œYou hit?”
    â€œNah, just gettin’ old.”
    As Louisa fired from between the rocks, Prophet gained his hands and knees and crabbed back to the top of the ridge, doffing his hat and pressing his left shoulder up to a boulder to Louisa’s left. Still trying to regain his wind, he slipped cartridges from the loops of his shell belt and slid them through his Winchester’s loading gate.
    â€œGoddamnit,” Louisa bit out. Her rifle jerked and roaredonce more. “They keep comin’. How many are there, anyway?”
    Prophet slipped the last shell into his rifle, racked one into the chamber, and edged a look around the side of his covering boulder.
    Three Mojaves were running amongst the rocks,