The Graves at Seven Devils by Peter Brandvold Page B

just tryin’ to get your goat!”
    Whipple bunched his lips and puffed his cheeks as he stormed forward, bringing his right ham-sized fist up from his heels. Prophet ducked. The fist whistled through the air over Prophet’s head. As Whipple continued wheeling sideways with the swing’s momentum, Prophet bolted up and forward and slammed his own right against the man’s left ear.
    â€œUhhn-ah!” Whipple gritted his teeth with fury and brushed at the two-inch gash angling down from the top of his ear and from which thick red blood issued. It glistened in the midday light as it dribbled down over the lobe.
    â€œTold ya!” Mrs. Sanderson crowed, packing her pipe. “Never fight a doomed man!”
    â€œMercy,” Prophet said, sidling around the cursing Whipple. “I bet that hurts like hell!”
    Just as Prophet had hoped, the man came at him, swinging from his heart instead of his brain, and within two seconds he’d swung twice, one fist again cleaving the air over Prophet’s head while the other merely grazed the bounty hunter’s chin.
    Prophet got inside and landed one punch to the man’s right-side ribs and another to his left.
    Whipple staggered backward, trying to get away. Prophet followed, keeping his own rage on a short leash, funneling all his strength to his fists, and laid a right uppercut to the big man’s jaw.
    Whipple hit the ground on his back.
    â€œCome on, Whip!” Cisco cried. “I got a gold cartwheel ridin’ on ya, bud!”
    Prophet didn’t want the man to get up again. As Whipple began pushing himself up off his back, Prophet dove on top of him, snaked his hands around the man’s bull neck, and began pressing his thumbs against his rock-hard Adam’s apple.
    Whipple gritted his teeth and made gurgling sounds, spit bubbling out from between his lips, snot blowing from his nose. The big man wrapped his hands around Prophet’s wrists, tried to pry the bounty hunter’s hands from his neck. The others whooped and yelled, and Mrs. Sanderson cackled like a crazed hen, thoroughly enjoying the show. Prophet levered himself forward off his knees, tightening his grip on Whipple’s neck and grinding the back of the big man’s head into the ground.
    â€œGosh, Whip,” Prophet said, stretching his lips back from his teeth, the cords standing out in his neck, “I hope the loot ole Frank was carryin’ wasn’t part yours. That was one helluva lot of dinero!”
    Whipple managed to pry Prophet’s grip loose enough to rasp, “We planned . . . that job . . . for four months . . . you son of a bitch!”
    â€œDoesn’t that piss-burn ya?” Prophet inwardly cursed as the big man continued to pry the bounty hunter’s death grip loose. “Hell, you coulda lived in Mexico for years on all that gold!”
    Whipple took a deep breath, pinched his eyes, and arched his back as he heaved straight up against Prophet’s weight. “Kill . . . you . . . b-b-bastard!”
    As Prophet’s hands began rising from the big man’s sweat-slick neck, he realized the folly of his ways. That his plan had backfired was literally hammered home when Whipple slammed his right knee into the bounty hunter’s groin.
    Prophet groaned. His hands slipped off the big man’s neck and a half second later he found himself on his back, his balls burning and throbbing, his gut churning with nausea. He tried to lift his own right fist, but Whipple, straddling Prophet now, rammed two vision-dulling right jabs against Prophet’s left cheek.
    Prophet fell slack as his lights went out briefly. When his lids fluttered open again, he saw Whipple, still on top of him, reaching down toward his right boot. The hand came up again, and a savage smile took shape on Whipple’s chapped lips as he held a wide-bladed, horn-handled bowie knife out for Prophet’s inspection, as though it were a weapon