A horse whinnied—a familiar-sounding greeting. Mean and Ugly answered his old friend in kind, the report echoing off the rocks around him and rattling the bounty hunter’s eardrums. Louisa’s disembodied voice knifed out of the silent darkness. “Name yourself!” “William Tecumseh Sherman.” Prophet reined Mean and Ugly to a halt behind the pinto. “If wishes were wings.” Louisa was helping the woman in the red dress off the pinto’s back. Prophet jogged up to help, wrapped his big hands around Ruth Rose’s slender waist, and dragged her down off the horse. Ruth slumped against him, her arm bloody. She slurred her words as though drunk. “Oh, Lou—” she said. “You were alive. I couldn’t believe it!” Prophet picked Ruth up in his arms and groaned against the raking pain in his ribs. “Ah, hell, I been hurt worse fallin’ off Mean ’n’ Ugly drunk.”
