Riding With the Devil's Mistress (Lou Prophet Western #3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

to the Sawmill Saloon, he saw
Sheriff Beckett sitting in the sun outside the jailhouse.
    ‘ Mr.
Prophet,’ the sheriff greeted him. ‘Haven’t seen much of you
lately. Thought maybe the widow had done run you out of town.’
Beckett laughed.
    ‘ No
... not yet,’ Prophet said with a baleful sigh, shoving his hands
in his pockets. ‘She’s workin’ on it, though.’
    Bathing his face in the warm
midday sun, the sheriff glanced up at the bounty hunter. ‘Yeah, she can be
mighty tough. It’s either her way or no way. Think that might
be why she
hasn’t remarried. Tends to scare men off with all her rules and
regulations. Why, you so much as clear your throat wrong over at
the big house, and she’ll read you from the book till you’re blue
in the face.’
    ‘ That
she will, Sheriff. That she will.’
    ‘ Been
toeing the line over there?’
    ‘ I
guess you could say that.’
    ‘ Must
be doin’ all right,’ Beckett mused, looking Prophet over
humorously. ‘Otherwise, she and ole Annabelle would have sent you
out on a long, greased pole.’ He laughed again and shook his
head.
    ‘ Yeah,
I guess I’m doin’ somethin’ right, Sheriff,’ Prophet grumbled with
an unreadable irony. ‘Say, how long do you think it’ll take for my
money to travel from Dodge?’
    ‘ Well,
it’s a fair piece, and this time of the year the roads can be a
little muddy. I’d say a week at the earliest.’
    ‘ A
week, eh?’ Prophet mused with an air of disheartenment. He’d
figured it would take that long but was hoping he was wrong. He
wanted to exit these parts before Cordelia decided she needed a new
roof. He didn’t think that even at his relatively youthful age he
could roof her house and grease her wheels at the same time. ‘I
reckon if it rains, or if there’s some official holdup, which there
usually is, it could be two or even three weeks before I can start
looking for my reward money.’
    ‘ I’d
say that’s about right.’
    Prophet sighed. ‘Thanks, Sheriff.’
Favoring his back, he started toward the saloon.
    ‘ What’s your hurry?’ Beckett called after him. ‘The widow’s
treating you all right over there, isn’t she?’
    Prophet gave the man a
dismissive wave and continued across the street to the Sawmill,
where he enjoyed the free sandwiches, pickled eggs, nickel beers,
and several three-for-a-nickel cheroots. There were no gamers,
however. Just two regulars—retired sawyers by their ratty
clothes and
missing fingers—playing backgammon beside the woodstove. The
bartender fold Prophet the gamblers were still out chopping trees
and wouldn’t be in until after six or so.
    ‘ That’s all right,’ Prophet said, shoving his chair out,
extending his legs, crossing his ankles, and lacing his fingers
over his belly. He smiled at his third beer sitting before him,
beside his empty plate. ‘I’ll wait for ‘em right here.’
    He was halfway into his fourth beer when he
heard a commotion down the street. A man yelled, a woman screamed,
and then two pistol shots sounded.
    Prophet looked at the bartender, who was
sitting beside the chess players, reading the paper. The man had
looked up and was staring out the window with a curious frown.
    ‘ What
was that?’ Prophet said. In ranch country, it could’ve been cowboys
hoorawing the town, but since this was mainly a honyonker and
woodcutting area, and since the weekend was still three days away
...
    ‘ I
don’t know.’
    Two more pistol shots split the midweek
somnolence, and Prophet got to his feet and walked to the door,
followed by the bartender in his sleeve garters and the two old
backgammon players. Across the street, the dentist stepped out of
his establishment to gaze around curiously, as did the blacksmith
and the barber and the little gray-haired lady who ran the fabric
shop.
    They, like Prophet and the
others from the Sawmill, turned their gazes eastward down the
town ’s main
drag, where at least twenty men on horseback were milling around