Hell's Angel Read Free Page A

lone coyote’s keening cry beckoned him. Ahead on his left, lantern light guttered, and he was about to turn away from it when he saw a figure kneeling on the rear stoop of a small, adobe house. Another silhouette, this one with a rounded figure and with long hair—a girl—crouched over the one kneeling and leaning forward, loudly convulsing.
    Prophet drew up to the rear of the house, a few yards away from the stoop, and rested his hand on the butt of his Winchester ’73 jutting up from the sheath under his right thigh. The girl was speaking softly in Spanish to the young man airing his paunch in the wiry brush of the neglected yard.
    A spindly looking creature, the kid had long, copper red hair, and he was dressed in only threadbare balbriggans and socks. He looked up, and the long strands of his copper red hair fell away from his face, revealing what appeared to be a palm-sized S that had been burned into his left cheek, at a slight angle tilting from the bottom corner of his right eye to the upper right corner of his thin-lipped mouth.
    In the light of the lantern that the girl held, Prophet saw the kid curl his lip and say raggedly and with a good degree of self-deprecation, “Haven’t learned how to mix tanglefoot with tobacco and women yet, but I’m workin’ on it!”
    â€œDon’t be in a hurry, Red.” Prophet stared at the S-brand on the kid’s face that looked familiar, shuffling through memories. “Have we met?”
    The kid regarded him skeptically, cautious as a desert coyote. “Have we?”
    â€œWhat’s your name, kid?”
    The pale, gaunt-faced younker gave a wry grin. “What’s yours?”
    Prophet returned the smile. Hoof thuds sounded from the other end of the shack, and men’s voices rose. He could hear the squawk of tack, the rattle of bit chains, and he cursed under his breath.
    Someone must have seen him light out from the livery barn.
    He looked at the scrawny, redheaded kid still grunting sickly on his knees and said, “Do a fellow gringo a favor—will you, junior? If anyone in dove gray inquires about a man named Prophet . . .”
    â€œI hear you,” the kid said, tilting his head toward the shack behind him, listening to the thuds of approaching riders rising in the south.
    Prophet booted Mean and Ugly on along the broad alley he’d been following, angling northwest, letting the sure-footed horse pick its own way through the darkness. When he was sixty or so yards from the shack, he hipped around in his saddle to see several riders stopped near the edge of the lantern light. They wore gray uniforms and gray hats with black visors.
    The kid was standing and pointing straight out from the rear of the shack, and Prophet could hear his voice speaking Spanish about as proficiently as Prophet himself would.
    When the Rurales veered off to the northeast, Prophet heaved a relieved sigh, muttered, “Thanks, junior,” and booted Mean on out of the village, following an angling horse trail northwest into the hills toward the Rio Bravo that cut through the desert along the southern edge of the boot heel of Texas, too damn many miles beyond.
    He was climbing a long hill when the drum of hooves sounded behind him.
    Glancing back, he saw two riders galloping down a hill about fifty yards behind. In the darkness he could see their pale uniforms and the silver insignias on their sombrero brims reflecting starlight, gray dust rising behind them.
    Prophet stopped Mean just beneath the brow of the hill and slid his Winchester from its saddle boot. He cocked a round, aimed, and fired two shots quickly, watching the gray dust fan up on each side of the riders. They drew so sharply back on their reins that the horses ground their rear hooves into the tough terrain and skidded several yards before stopping.
    Prophet triggered two more rounds in front of the riders then heard them both curse in Spanish. He watched