“Yet you struck Albert and provoked him.”
“Only after he slapped me.”
“Albert isn’t accustomed to anyone defying his will.”
“And I ain’t used to folks slappin’ me,” Preacher said. “I don’t care for it.”
To his surprise, Gretchen laughed quietly.
“You two are like unstoppable forces of nature, bound on opposite paths,” she said. “It was inevitable that you would clash, since the two of you are so much alike.”
Preacher stiffened and said, “Now hold on there.” He didn’t cotton to anybody saying he was like an arrogant, stiff-necked Prussian nobleman. The way he saw it, he and Albert Stahlmaske were about as unlike as any two fellows could get.
“It’s true,” Gretchen insisted. “Both of you have a strict code of honor, and you’ll allow no one to besmirch it. You stride through the world like giants, better than any of those around you.”
“I never said that,” Preacher insisted. “I’ve never tried to be high an’ mighty in my life.”
“That’s just it.” She smiled at him. “You don’t have to try. You just are. So danke, Herr Preacher. Thank you for the life of my betrothed.”
“Yes’m,” Preacher replied. “You’re welcome, I reckon.” He didn’t know what else to say.
“If you will excuse me . . .”
“Sure.” Preacher nodded and tugged on his hat brim. Gretchen turned away and went back to her cabin.
That was mighty strange, Preacher thought. He felt an instinctive liking for Gretchen Ritter. She seemed a little more down to earth than the rest of her party.
He sensed that something wasn’t right between her and the count, though, and he hoped whatever it was wouldn’t lead to even more trouble before this ill-fated journey was over.
The count wasn’t exactly friendly toward Preacher at dinner that evening, but he was civil enough. The two of them would never be friends, Preacher knew, but if they could make it to the mouth of the Yellowstone without trying to kill each other again, he’d consider that a successful trip.
There were no trees along the stretch of river where the Sentinel had tied up tonight, so Preacher decided to stay on board. He spread his bedroll among the crates of supplies on the cargo deck and turned in, with Dog and his weapons beside him as usual.
By staying on the boat, Preacher thought he might be making it easier for whoever had tried to kill him. The sooner he drew the varmint out of hiding, the better. He even stayed awake for a while after the riverboat had gotten dark and quiet, just in case anybody tried to sneak up on him, but no one came near him on the deck.
One of the crew always stood watch in the pilot house during the night to raise the alarm if Indians or river pirates attacked. Preacher thought that was a good idea, but he suspected the sentries sometimes dozed off at their post. Standing watch was boring, especially out here in the middle of nowhere.
Luckily, Dog was a light sleeper and had the keenest senses Preacher had ever encountered, so the big cur was like a second and even more effective guard.
All Dog had to do was lift his head from his paws where it had been resting, and Preacher was awake. He hoped like blazes that Sarah Allingham wasn’t skulking around again, hoping to convince him to take a tumble with her. That wasn’t going to happen, no matter how tempting she thought she was.
And to tell the truth, she was pretty damned tempting, Preacher thought as he pushed himself up on an elbow to take a look around the cargo deck.
He didn’t see anyone moving, but a soft sound made him look up toward the passenger deck. Someone who seemed to be wearing slippers cat-footed along up there, sneaking along the line of cabin doors. Preacher spotted the skulker, but the shadows were too thick for him to identify him or her.
He lifted one of his pistols and pointed it toward the stealthy figure. He was in fairly deep shadow himself and didn’t know if the lurker was aware of his presence. His muscles were tense as he waited for the explosion of a shot.
Instead, he heard a faint knock. Whoever was skulking around up there had stopped at one of the cabins and knocked on the door.
The door opened, allowing a faint glow to spill out. The way the light flickered, Preacher knew it came from a candle. A stray beam touched something bright and shiny as the mysterious figure entered the cabin.
That was blond hair that had flashed for a split-second in the light, Preacher realized. Only two people on the Sentinel had hair that fair: Sarah Allingham and her mother.
He could see well enough to count the cabin doors. As he did, he recalled which of the passengers went with that particular cabin.
Count Albert Stahlmaske.
“Oh, Lord,” Preacher said. One of the senator’s ladies had just slipped into the count’s cabin in the middle of the night, and there wasn’t much doubt about the reason for this nocturnal visit. There was some scandalous behavior going on, and that could only increase the chances of all hell breaking loose before the riverboat reached its destination.
But Preacher was damned if he was going to go up there and pound on the count’s door like some outraged father or cuckolded husband. As long as the people involved didn’t try to kill each other, their private goings-on weren’t any of his business.
He had promised his old friend he would do his best to help get the passengers where they were going safely. He hadn’t said anything about making sure they behaved themselves.
With a disgusted grunt, Preacher set his pistol down, rolled onto his side, and went back to sleep.
CHAPTER 15
The next couple of days passed peacefully enough. After everything that had happened the first day and a half on the river, that was a relief, Preacher thought. No one tried to kill him, and the countryside through which the riverboat passed seemed empty and tranquil.
Preacher knew there were Indians out there, but they avoided the river when the Sentinel steamed by. No doubt they heard the rumbling engine and the noisy splashing that the paddle wheel made and wanted nothing to do with the white man’s great smoking river beast.
He still didn’t know whether it was Margaret or Sarah Allingham who was carrying on with the count. Neither woman showed any signs of conducting an affair. It didn’t really matter, of course. Either possibility likely would cause trouble if the senator ever found out.
In the middle of the third day after the duel, the boat’s engine started making a racket that even Preacher could tell wasn’t right. Up in the pilot house, Captain Warner spun the wheel and angled the Sentinel toward the shore.
Simon Russell came along the deck and told Preacher, “Something’s wrong. I’m going to find out what it is.”
He started up the stairs to the pilot house. Preacher followed, giving in to curiosity. He hadn’t been up there yet, and he wanted to sample that view Warner had mentioned.
It was a good one, Preacher discovered as he and Russell entered the pilot house. With windows all around, the tall structure commanded a view of several miles on both sides of the river. He needed to spend more time up here, Preacher told himself.
Captain Warner glanced around at the two men with a disgusted expression on his beefy face.
“Just got a shout from the engine room, as if I needed one,” he told them. “Those repairs we did back in St. Louis didn’t hold. We’re gonna have to put in to shore for a while.”
“Do we need to turn back?” Russell asked. He looked and sounded as if that possibility didn’t appeal to him at all.
“Not hardly,” Warner replied with a wave of the hand he lifted from the wheel. “We can take care of the problem just as well here as we could back in St. Louis. Anyway, we’d have to fix it before we could turn around and go back, so there’s no real point to that. Don’t worry, Simon, this is just a minor setback. It sounds worse than it really is.”
“I hope you’re right about that,” Russell said dubiously. “I realize, problems with the boat are beyond my control, but it’ll still reflect bad
ly on me with the company if we have to abandon the trip.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Warner promised. “This boat is going to be fine. Hell, she’s practically new. Never been this far up the river before. There are always little problems with a new boat. It just takes time to work them all out.”
“All right, do whatever you need to do.”
“We will.” As Warner maneuvered the Sentinel closer to the riverbank, he asked, “What do you think of it, Preacher?”
“Pretty interestin’,” the mountain man said. “You were right about bein’ able to see a long way from up here.”
“You have to in order to pick out any problems up ahead in the river. Think you’d care to be a riverboat pilot? Once we’re back in a wide, clear stretch of river, I could let you handle the wheel for a while if you’d like.”
Preacher laughed and shook his head.
“You’d be temptin’ fate if you let me do it,” he told the captain. “No need for that.”
“Well, if you change your mind, let me know. There’s no other feeling like it.”
Preacher didn’t doubt that, but there was no feeling like waking up on a crisp, clear, high country morning, either, and he wasn’t going to trade that permanently for anything.
The terrain through which the river passed had gotten a bit more rugged with limestone ledges cropping out here and there along the wooded banks. Away from the stream, the countryside was still mostly grassy flatlands. Warner steered the boat to a spot between two of those ledges. Crewmen leaped ashore to tie it up.
Warner went down to the engine room to supervise the repairs while Preacher and Russell stopped on the passenger deck. The other members of the party had emerged from their cabins when the boat began to put in to shore. Now they gathered around curiously.
As the nominal leader of the group, Senator Allingham asked, “Why have we stopped, Simon? I hope there’s nothing seriously wrong.”
“Captain Warner assures me that it’s just a minor malfunction of the engine, like they had to deal with back in St. Louis,” Russell explained.
“Will we be stopped here for long?” Stahlmaske asked.
“I don’t really know. Would you like for me to find out?”
“Very much so,” the count replied. “If we’re going to be here for awhile, I’d like to take our horses off the barge and go for a ride.”
Preacher didn’t think that was a very good idea. When Russell glanced at him, he frowned to show his disapproval.
On the other hand, he couldn’t really blame Stahlmaske for feeling that way. He had been stuck on this riverboat for several days, too, and was getting a little restless himself. He knew Horse would relish the opportunity to stretch his legs a little.
The problem was that it would be more difficult to protect the travelers if they were away from the riverboat.
“Well, I don’t know if we’ll be here long enough for that,” Russell said. “I doubt it.”
“Find out,” the count snapped. “I came on this journey to see your country and report my impressions back to King Friedrich Wilhelm, not to be stuck in a cabin all day or stand at the railing watching an endless current of muddy water flow past.”
He had a point, Preacher thought. And Russell knew that Stahlmaske was too stubborn to back down, so he nodded and said, “I’ll go talk to the captain.”
Preacher didn’t want to pay a visit to the smoky, stinking engine room, so he stayed where he was instead of accompanying his old friend down to the lower deck. He approached the count and asked, “How’s the arm?”
The two of them had been keeping a wary distance from each other since the duel. Stahlmaske flexed his arm, nodded, and said, “Fine, of course. It was a mere scratch, nothing more.”
Preacher knew the wound had been more serious than that, judging by the amount of blood that had soaked into the count’s shirtsleeve. But he didn’t mention that, just nodded and said, “I’m glad to hear it.”
“Perhaps if we leave the boat for the afternoon we can do a bit of hunting, nicht wahr? You American frontiersmen are all skilled hunters, eh, like your Daniel Boone?”
“Well, I never met ol’ Dan’l, just heard stories about him, but it’s true that those of us who make our livin’ by trappin’ are pretty good hunters. We have to be, otherwise we’d be liable to starve to death.”
“And is there game in abundance in this area where we find ourselves?”
“Plenty,” Preacher replied with a nod. “Mostly deer and antelope.”
“What about the bison?” Roderick asked with his usual eagerness. “We’ve heard that there are huge herds of the beasts covering half the continent.”
Preacher chuckled.
“There are plenty of buffalo, but not quite that many. Most of ’em are farther west, but I reckon you might run across some in these parts. We’re bound to see a few herds before we get to the Yellowstone.”
“I would like to take part in a buffalo hunt,” the count declared. “I think that would be very exciting.”
“That depends. Get a stampede started and it can be pretty dangerous, too.”
“Do you think danger frightens me, Preacher?”
“No,” the mountain man said. “I don’t reckon it does.”
But maybe it ought to, Preacher added silently. A man who felt no fear was usually a fool and often wound up dead because of it.
Sarah Allingham spoke up, saying, “I’d like to go riding, too.”
“Nonsense,” her mother said immediately.
“I’ve ridden horses in Washington, Mother, and you know it.”
“I thought that was a bad idea, too,” Margaret said. “And this wilderness is certainly not Washington. It wouldn’t be safe.”
“It will be if Preacher comes along,” Sarah insisted. “That’s what he’s here for, isn’t it, to keep us all safe?”
Preacher’s eyes narrowed. He’d thought he was coming along on this journey to fight Indians or river pirates, not to play nursemaid to a bunch of spoiled pilgrims. Obviously, though, that was how some of them regarded him. It was enough to make him want to take Dog and Horse and clear out right now.
But he couldn’t do that without breaking his promise to Simon Russell. Being true to his word, though, didn’t mean he had to go along with every crazy notion these folks came up with.
“I reckon the ladies better stay here on the boat,” he said in a hard, flat tone that brooked no arguments. “If any of you gents want to ride out a ways and maybe hunt a little, I suppose we could use some fresh meat. We won’t be gettin’ very far from the river, though, and you’ll all have to do like I tell you.”
“I’m agreeable with that,” Allingham said.
Stahlmaske nodded curtly and said, “I will defer to your experience in these matters, Preacher . . . within reason. But do not forget, I am a soldier and a hunter myself.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Preacher said. “And all this depends on whether or not we’re actually gonna be here long enough to go to the trouble.”
“Perhaps Herr Russell will return soon and let us know.”
It was a few more minutes before Russell returned from the engine room. During that time, Roderick, Heinrich, and Hobart talked excitedly about riding out away from the river and hunting. At least, that’s what Preacher thought they were talking about, judging by the occasional English words they used. Most of the conversation was in German.
He went over to Gerhard and asked the count’s uncle, “Are you comin’ with us, Herr Stahlmaske?”
Gerhard gave him an acerbic look through the spectacles that perched on his nose.
“I most certainly am not. My days of galloping about the countryside and shooting at wild animals are long since over, thank God.”
“I hope mine never are,” Preacher said honestly. “The day I can’t go lookin’ for some sort of excitement is the day they can lower me in the ground.”
Russell came up the stairs from the lower deck an
d rejoined the group.
“Captain Warner says we’re going to be here for a couple of hours, at least, while his crew works on the engine,” he told them. “So if you want to take a short ride away from the river, Count, I suppose that’ll be all right.”
“Excellent. I have hunting rifles and fowling pieces for everyone. I’ll have my servants bring them out, then they can prepare the horses for riding.”
Preacher planned to put his own saddle on Horse. He wouldn’t ask any man to do a chore like that for him. That would have rubbed him the wrong way. Clearly the count had a different opinion of the matter.
“How many of us are going?” Stahlmaske went on. “You, Senator, and you, Herr Russell?”
Allingham nodded and said, “I wouldn’t miss it.”
“And I reckon I’d better come along, too,” Russell said. Preacher figured he didn’t want to let his charges out of his sight.
“Seven of us, then,” Stahlmaske said with a nod as he looked around at his brother, the Ritter twins, and Preacher. “A large enough party to handle any sort of trouble we might run into, eh?”
Preacher hoped he was right about that.
CHAPTER 16
Horse was ready to get out and run. Preacher could tell that from the way the big stallion acted as he saddled up. Some of the Sentinel’s crew pulled the barge right up against the bank, and once the gate was lowered the horses had no trouble jumping to shore, where Gunther, Ludwig, and Egon were waiting to get them ready to ride.
Roderick emerged from his cabin wearing buckskin trousers, a fringed buckskin jacket, and a broad-brimmed gray felt hat that was too large for his head. Preacher looked away so the young man wouldn’t see his grin. Somebody back in St. Louis had seen Roderick coming, that was for sure.
Heinrich and Hobart wore buckskins, too, although like Roderick’s outfit they were too fancy to be the real thing. The twins’ hats fit a little better, though.
Senator Allingham and the count wore sturdy clothes, nothing gaudy like the younger men. And Preacher and Russell just wore their usual garb.
When Ludwig and Egon brought out the rifles, Preacher wasn’t surprised to see that they were on the fancy side, too, with lots of polished wood and gleaming brass fittings. What the weapons looked like didn’t matter all that much as long as they shot straight and true. Preacher was willing to bet these rifles were pretty accurate. The count wouldn’t settle for anything less.
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