“I do not plan to ‘spend any time’ with the savages, as you put it.” Stahlmaske’s voice was icy. “If I even look at them for very long, it will be over the sights of my rifle.” He picked up his glass of wine. “Perhaps they are good for something—hunting.”
The others around the table were silent. Preacher was aware that Simon Russell was looking at him worriedly. Of all of them, only Russell—and maybe Captain Warner—were aware of the serious implications of what Stahlmaske had just said.
Preacher’s first impulse was to stand up, go to the head of the table, and try to beat some sense into Stahlmaske. It probably wouldn’t do any good, but he would enjoy making the effort.
Instead, with uncharacteristic restraint that he summoned up as a favor to his old friend, he said, “That’d be a mighty bad idea, Count. We’ll be runnin’ enough risks without you takin’ potshots at folks who might not necessarily want to hurt us. I promise you, though, if you kill an Indian who’s bein’ peaceful, or even wound one, we’ll have a war on our hands.”
Stahlmaske sneered and said, “I am a soldier. I do not fear war.”
“You don’t generally fight it with women around, either, do you?”
The count’s shoulders rose and fell slightly in a tiny shrug.
“I think you worry about those savages too much. Surely one civilized fighting man is worth ten or twenty of them. But I see no need to provoke unnecessary trouble.”
“That’s good,” Preacher said.
He kept what he was thinking to himself: that if Stahlmaske did anything as stupid as killing an Indian who wasn’t attacking them, Preacher just might let the rest of the tribe have the damn fool.
The talk moved on to other topics, for which Preacher was grateful. Only one more bothersome incident occurred. The passengers were lingering at the table over brandy when Preacher felt something touch his leg. He knew that riverboats had rats on them sometimes, so he stiffened and got ready to knock the vermin away from him.
It wasn’t a rat sliding up his leg, though. It was a human foot. A woman’s foot in a soft slipper from the feel of it.
Preacher drew in a deep breath. Margaret Allingham was directly opposite him, but her daughter was beside her and Sarah was long-legged enough that she was in reach, too. Preacher studied them with narrowed eyes, but neither woman’s face offered any clue as to which of them was caressing his calf through his buckskin trousers.
As he kept his own face as impassive as possible, the mysterious foot worked its way up to his knee, then went back down. He was glad the bold touch hadn’t ventured any higher. If it had, he might not have been able to keep acting like nothing was going on.
The foot went away, and he still couldn’t tell whom it belonged to. That didn’t really matter, he told himself. He intended to steer as clear of the Allingham women as he could, especially when no one else was around. He didn’t carry on with married women, and he didn’t despoil young ones.
Several of the passengers started yawning, including Gretchen.
“I am very weary, Albert,” she told the count.
He took her hand, lifted it, and pressed his lips to the back of it.
“I’ll bid you good night, then, my dear,” he said. “And pleasant dreams.”
The gathering broke up, with everyone heading for their own cabins except Preacher, Russell, and Warner, who stopped outside on the deck. Russell and Warner packed tobacco into pipes and lit them.
“I sure appreciate you holding your temper the way you did in there, Preacher,” Russell said.
“I guess I’m gettin’ a mite calmer in my old age,” Preacher said.
“You’re not that old.”
“I wasn’t that calm inside, either. If that tarnal idiot thinks he can start usin’ peaceful Indians for target practice—”
“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” Russell promised. “I’ll speak to Senator Allingham, too, and see to it that he understands.”
Preacher nodded.
“That’s a good idea. And I’ll try my best not to pitch the count overboard.”
Warner chuckled and said, “On behalf of the American Fur Company, Preacher, I thank you for your restraint as well.”
Preacher said his good-nights to the two men, then walked along the deck to the middle of the riverboat, where the narrow stairs led down to the cargo deck. The outside lights had been extinguished now, but enough illumination from the moon and stars remained for Preacher to see where he was going without any problem.
He saw Dog, too, and when Preacher was about halfway down the stairs, the big cur, who had been lying down, suddenly leaped to his feet and let out a deep-throated growl. He was looking up, past Preacher.
That was all the warning the mountain man needed. He twisted around, and as he did so, orange flame spurted from a pistol muzzle in the thick shadows next to the cabins.
CHAPTER 10
The boom of the exploding powder and the hum of the heavy lead ball past Preacher’s ear came at the same time. He covered the rest of the distance down to the cargo deck in a single bound, and as he landed he whipped one of his pistols from behind his belt and aimed up at the passenger deck, where the gunman lurked.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have a target to aim at. The man had never been anything except a deeper patch of darkness, and now even that was gone.
“Dog!” Preacher snapped. “Find!”
Dog leaped into action. He went up the stairs in a blur. Preacher knew there was a good chance the big cur would sniff out the man who had just tried to kill him.
Only if he got a chance to do so, however, and that seemed more unlikely by the second. Doors flew open, and running footsteps slapped the polished planks of the passenger deck. People were moving down here on the cargo deck, too, as members of the crew emerged from their cabins to see what the gunshot had been about. The confusion of scents would just make it more difficult for Dog to do his work.
With the flintlock pistol still in his hand and his thumb curled around the hammer, Preacher climbed quickly to the passenger deck. Senator Allingham hurried toward him. The politician’s nightshirt flapped around his calves.
“Preacher!” Allingham said. “What happened? Was that a shot I heard?”
“Yeah, it was,” the mountain man said.
Before he could explain, Russell and Warner showed up, too. The captain was still fully dressed. Russell had taken off his coat and shirt but still wore his trousers and long underwear. They were full of questions, too, and Preacher figured he might as well answer all of them at once.
“Somebody took a shot at me from here while I was goin’ down to the cargo deck,” he said.
“Are you hit?” Russell asked.
“Nope. The ball came pretty close, but not close enough.”
“Did you see who it was?” Warner wanted to know.
Preacher pointed to the shadows where the gunman had waited for him and said, “No, it was too dark where he was. He got away in a hurry, too. Bound to have ducked into somebody’s cabin.”
Dog was scratching at one of the doors and growling. Preacher nodded at the big wolflike animal and went on, “That one, more than likely, judgin’ by the way Dog’s actin’.”
“That’s not a cabin door,” Warner said.
Now that the captain had pointed it out, Preacher could tell that the door was narrower than the entrances to the passenger cabins.
Warner continued, “If you’ll call your dog off, I’ll show you.”
“C’mere, Dog,” Preacher said. The cur returned and sat down next to him, still growling quietly.
Warner opened the door. A lamp turned low burned inside and revealed a narrow corridor instead of a cabin. It ran straight across the riverboat and ended at an identical door that was bound to open on the other side of the deck.
“The crew uses this corridor to cut through from one side of the boat to the other,” Warner explained. “Sometimes the passengers do, too, but most of them don’t r
ealize it’s here. You can see that there’s a door into the kitchen from here, too. We use it to bring in supplies without having to carry them through the salon.”
“So all the fella had to do was run through here and then he could get anywhere in the boat pretty fast,” Preacher said.
“That’s right.”
“Dog’s got his scent, though,” the mountain man pointed out. “Maybe he can track the varmint.”
“It’s worth a try,” Russell said.
Before they could go on, Count Stahlmaske came up and said, “I demand to know what this disturbance is. I was trying to sleep.”
Anybody else would have just asked a question, thought Preacher. Stahlmaske had to make a demand.
“Someone tried to kill Preacher,” Allingham said.
The count looked at Preacher and said, “He appears to be unharmed.”
“Yeah, no thanks to the fella who tried to blow my brains out,” Preacher said. “You say you were in your cabin tryin’ to sleep just now, Count?”
Stahlmaske drew himself up straighter and asked in a chilly voice, “What are you trying to imply?”
“I don’t reckon I’m smart enough to imply anything. I just want to know where you were.”
“In my cabin, as I said!”
“How about your brother and your uncle?”
“I assume they were in the cabin they’re sharing as well. You can go ask them if you wish.”
“Maybe I’ll do that,” Preacher said. “First, though . . . Dog, trail!”
Dog ran along the corridor through the middle of the boat, his nose to the floor. Preacher followed with the other men behind him and opened the door at the far end of the passage. Dog ran out onto the other side of the deck and stopped. He turned around a few times and then whined.
“Has he lost the scent?” Russell asked.
“Looks like it. Reckon too many folks have been up and down this deck today. Could be the fella who shot at me took his boots off, too. That’d help kill his scent.”
“I guess the next question you have to ask yourself,” Allingham said, “is who would want to shoot you?”
“I’ve already been thinkin’ about that,” Preacher said. He turned to the count and asked, “Where would I find that fella Gunther?”
“You believe Gunther shot at you?” Stahlmaske asked. “Bah! That is a ridiculous idea. Gunther is no marksman, I assure you. He is a brute, nothing but muscle.”
“I’d still like to ask him a question or two.”
“The count’s servants are staying down on the passenger deck,” Warner said. “I can have one of the crew roust them out.”
“Just show me,” Preacher said. “I’ll do the roustin’ myself.”
The group proceeded back down to the passenger deck. Warner pointed out the small cabins next to the engine room where the servants were staying, and Preacher recalled that Simon Russell had said something about that earlier.
Preacher pounded a fist against one of the doors. When it swung open, Egon’s startled face peered out.
“Preacher,” the man said. “What is this?”
“Sorry,” Preacher said. “I was lookin’ for Gunther.”
A big, hamlike hand came down on Egon’s shoulder and wrenched the smaller man out of the way. Gunther glared out at Preacher and said, “What do you want?”
“Did you hear that gunshot a few minutes ago?”
“I hear very little when I sleep.”
“This is true,” Egon put in. “No one can hear much over Gunther’s snoring.”
He stepped back as the big man turned and snarled at him.
“So you’ve been here all evenin’?” Preacher asked.
“Go away,” Gunther said instead of answering the question. “I do not want to talk to you.”
Egon said, “We have all been here sleeping, all three of us.”
Count Stahlmaske crossed his arms over his chest and said to the mountain man, “Are you satisfied now? Gunther could not have shot at you, just as I said.”
Gunther’s frown darkened as he looked at Preacher.
“You thought I shot at you?”
“You told me earlier you were gonna get even with me,” Preacher said.
“By breaking your kopf with my fists, not by shooting at you from the dark like some coward!”
Preacher’s eyes narrowed. He asked, “How’d you know the varmint was hidin’ in the dark when he took that shot at me?”
“Night it is! Where else would he be?”
Preacher supposed that answer made sense, but he was still suspicious.
“Are you satisfied now that Gunther did not try to kill you?” Stahlmaske asked.
“Maybe,” Preacher said. The count’s attitude got under his skin, as it had ever since he’d met the man. “I reckon the next question is what proof you’ve got you were where you say you were.”
“How dare you!” Stahlmaske said as he bristled with anger.
“Hold on, Preacher,” Senator Allingham said uneasily. “The count is a guest in our country—”
“That wouldn’t keep him from pullin’ a trigger.”
In frigid tones, Stahlmaske said, “If I were to try to kill you, it would be face-to-face, with sabers or dueling pistols or some other honorable means of settling our differences. A nobleman never hides his actions in the shadows.”
“Just because a fella calls himself noble don’t mean he really is.”
“Enough!” Stahlmaske turned to Allingham and Russell. “I will not stand for this. I demand that this insolent lout be put off the boat now!”
Russell said, “Preacher’s agreed to come along because some of the other fur company boats ran into trouble—”
“I’m sure Captain Warner and his crew can handle any problems we encounter.”
The captain spoke up, saying, “I’d like to think so, but it’s true I feel better having Preacher come along with us, Count. His reputation alone ought to make some fellas think twice about trying to bother us.”
“His reputation as what?” Stahlmaske said. “An insolent fool?”
Preacher’s jaw tightened as he struggled to control his anger. He said, “I’m gonna let that pass, Count, but don’t push your luck.”
Stahlmaske looked around at the other men and must have been able to tell they weren’t going to agree to his demand that Preacher leave. He snapped, “Very well. I see now what I must do to satisfy my honor.”
With that, he stepped closer to Preacher. In an alarmed voice, Senator Allingham said, “Count, wait a minute—”
Stahlmaske ignored him. He said to Preacher, “Even though you are no gentlemen, we will settle this as if you were. I challenge you to a duel!”
His hand flashed up and slapped Preacher across the face.
CHAPTER 11
“Preacher, no!” Simon Russell cried. He leaped forward but was too late to prevent the mountain man’s instinctive reaction. Preacher’s right fist sunk wrist-deep in the count’s belly. A split-second later, Preacher’s left crashed against Stahlmaske’s jaw and knocked the man backward.
Stahlmaske probably would have fallen off the boat and landed in the river if Allingham hadn’t been fast enough to grab his arm.
While the senator was doing that, Gunther exploded out of the cabin with a furious roar and slammed into Preacher from behind. He wrapped his arms around the mountain man and lifted him off the deck as he powered forward.
They went over the side and landed in the shallow water between the riverboat and the bank. Water flew high in the air from the huge splash.
Preacher’s head was under the surface, and he hadn’t been able to catch a breath before being submerged because Gunther’s arms were wrapped around his chest like iron bands. With the big Prussian’s weight on top of him, pressing him down into the water and mud, Preacher knew he wasn’t far from drowning. Already a red haze began to settle over his brain.
He dug his feet into the river bottom in an effort to push himself
up onto the bank, but they just slid in the slime and couldn’t get any purchase.
Preacher was damned if he was going to die here in this muck and mire. He fought with the only weapon at his disposal. He arched his spine and drove the back of his head into Gunther’s face as hard as he could.
The impact was solid enough to send a jolt through Preacher’s brain. He almost passed out, but he clung desperately to consciousness. Gunther’s grip seemed a little looser than it had been a moment earlier, so Preacher butted him again.
Gunther’s brutal embrace slipped enough for Preacher to wrench an arm free. He rammed his elbow into the big man’s belly. Drawing his knees up under him, Preacher heaved the upper half of his body out of the river. It was a feat of incredible strength, because he had to lift his enemy’s considerable weight, too.
Preacher’s ears were full of muddy water. Vaguely, he heard shouting, but he couldn’t make out any of the words or determine who the voices belonged to. At the moment it didn’t matter. He reached back with his free hand and clawed at Gunther’s face. Back east they might hold with dandified rules like no gougin’, but Preacher fought to win. If he could get a finger in Gunther’s eye, he’d pop the orb right out.
Instead Gunther let go of him and shoved him away. Preacher rolled onto the bank and came up with his chest heaving as he dragged air into his lungs. He turned and saw Gunther trying to flounder his way out of the water. In the moonlight the lower half of the Prussian’s face was black with the blood that had leaked from his smashed nose.
“Gunther!” Count Stahlmaske called from the Sentinel ’s deck. “Stop this battle immediately!”
Gunther ignored his employer’s command. Preacher could tell that the big man was too far gone in senseless anger to heed anything.
Stahlmaske, Russell, and Captain Warner stood at the edge of the riverboat’s cargo deck. Up on the passenger deck, a number of people had rushed to the railing to see what was going on. When Preacher glanced up there, he saw the rest of the Prussian contingent, along with Margaret and Sarah Allingham. The blond hair of the senator’s wife and daughter shone silver in the moonlight. They both watched raptly as Gunther stumbled ashore and charged at Preacher with his fists swinging wildly.
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