Schuyler and Fairfax were both out of breath as they turned to face an astounded Shad Beaumont. Schuyler leaned over and put his hands on his thighs as he drew in great drafts of air. Fairfax asked, “Was that enough of a demonstration for you, Mr. Beaumont? We told you we can take care of ourselves.”
“I’d say you damned sure can,” Beaumont replied as he jerked his head in a curt nod. “I wouldn’t have guessed that anybody could handle those two bruisers like that. Can you shoot?”
“We’re expert shots,” Fairfax answered without hesitation, not mentioning anything about how Schuyler had missed Preacher on the river the day before or their failed attempt to kill the mountain man at the tavern. There was nothing wrong with their marksmanship there; they would have ventilated the son of a bitch if that whore hadn’t jumped up and gotten in the way of the pistol balls.
“All right, I reckon maybe I can use you after all,” Beaumont said.
Schuyler straightened, having recovered from his exertions. He waved a hand toward the fallen bodyguards and asked, “What about those two? I ain’t sure we want to work for you if they’re gonna be holdin’ a grudge against us.” He ignored the warning glance Fairfax sent in his direction. “I don’t want to spend my days and nights havin’ to watch my back for fear o’ them tryin’ to get even with us.”
“Don’t worry about that.” Beaumont said. “Their services are too valuable for me to dispense with them, but I’ll give strict orders that there won’t be any reprisals. They followed my orders, and you two gents just defended yourselves. There’s nothing there for anyone to be angry about.”
Fairfax wasn’t so sure. He’d be holding a grudge if he’d received a thrashing like that. But he supposed that with Beaumont’s fierce reputation, the bodyguards would go along with whatever he said.
“You have any problem with following orders?” Beaumont went on.
Fairfax shook his head, and Schuyler said, “You just tell us what to do, Boss, and we’ll do it.”
“Even if it’s against the law.”
Schuyler shrugged. “I reckon if we didn’t figure on breakin’ the law, we wouldn’t have asked you for a job in the first place.”
Beaumont threw back his head and laughed. “No, I suppose not. All right, you’re hired. I have a job in mind where I can use the two of you, if you’re interested.”
“Oh, we’re interested, all right,” Fairfax said. “Just tell us who you want killed.”
* * *
Abby’s funeral at the public cemetery on the outskirts of the settlement was surprisingly well attended. Ford Fargo was there, of course, and so were the half-dozen girls who worked at his tavern. Fargo must have closed the place down for the funeral, Preacher thought, which was an indication of just how highly the tavern keeper thought of Abby. In addition, several roughly dressed rivermen were there at the cemetery. They were probably tavern customers who had been with Abby and were fond of her.
Preacher didn’t feel guilty about what had happened. He had never been one to blame the victim. Abby’s death was the fault of the two sons of bitches who shot her, and nobody else. But he regretted that she had lost her life by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Fargo, who stood beside the open grave where the crude wooden casket had already been lowered, was talking when Preacher sidled up to the rear of the little group of mourners. Fargo was reminiscing about what a cheerful and enthusiastic worker Abby had been. “She was a gal who would do just about anything you asked her do,” he said.
One of the rivermen snickered, and looked like he was about to make some ribald comment about Fargo’s choice of words, but Preacher tapped him on the shoulder before he could say anything. When the man glanced around and saw the cold, dangerous stare Preacher had fixed on him, he swallowed and ducked his head, making it clear by his attitude that he would keep his mouth shut after all.
Fargo gave Preacher a grateful glance and went on. “All of us will miss Abby, who had a smile and a kind word for just about everybody. She was one sweet little gal, that’s for sure.” He bowed his head and started to pray. “Lord, some would claim that folks like us don’t have any right to ask any favors of You. But I recollect what it says in the Good Book about how when Your Son was down here on earth, he spent quite a bit of time in places like mine, talkin’ to folks like us. I’m hopin’ that you’ll bear that in mind when I ask that You have mercy on poor Abby and let her into Your house up there in Heaven. She may not have been what folks would call a good girl, but I can promise You, there wasn’t a smidgen of evil in her. She had a good heart. Amen.”
Several of the mourners muttered, “Amen,” including Preacher.
Fargo picked up a handful of dirt from the pile of it beside the grave and dropped it onto the casket. The clods thudded against the lid. One by one, the women came forward and did the same, followed by some of the men. The rest looked uncomfortable with the idea, and started to drift off toward the river. The sun was high overhead, and the air was hot. At this time of day, folks wanted a drink, or something to eat. That was true of Preacher, too, but he wasn’t going to leave just yet. He lingered while the others all walked, and after a few minutes only he and Ford Fargo were left standing beside Abby’s grave.
Preacher picked up a shovel he saw lying on the ground nearby and began filling in the hole. While Preacher was working, Fargo asked, “Did you have any luck findin’ those bastards who done this?”
“Afraid not,” Preacher said with a shake of his head. “I didn’t turn up anybody who knew them.”
“Those skinned-up knuckles of yours look like you might’ve asked the questions sort of emphati-clike.”
Despite the grim circumstances and surroundings, Preacher had to chuckle at that. “One fella took exception to tellin’ me what I wanted to know.”
“I’ll bet he was sorry he did that.”
“Wouldn’t know. He was sorta quiet when I left.”
Fargo laughed, too, then grew more solemn as he said, “At least Abby got a proper send-off. I think that’s important. I hope wherever she is, she knows that we done all we could for her.”
“I reckon she does,” Preacher said. He finished shoveling the dirt into the grave, leaving it slightly mounded. It would settle with time. The wooden headstone on which Abby’s name had been carved would stand for a while, but eventually it would be gone. The time would come when nobody even remembered Abby, and people might not even be able to tell that there had ever been a grave here.
That was the fate of most folks, Preacher reflected, but at least Abby would be remembered for a while and her bones would rest together in one place. He figured that when he crossed the Great Divide, his body would probably lie unattended on the prairie or in the mountains until scavengers came along and disposed of it, scattering the bones to kingdom come, where sun and wind and weather would strip everything from them and polish them until they were all that was left of him, not even a memory.
But to a man like him, who lived so close to the earth, that didn’t sound like such a bad way to go.
He was just tamping down the mound of dirt with the shovel when a footstep sounded behind him, and a voice said, “Excuse me. I’m looking for a man called Preacher.”
Six
Preacher turned, still holding the shovel, and saw a man in tight gray trousers and a black swallowtail coat standing there, holding a beaver hat. The man was about Preacher’s age, clean-shaven so that it was apparent he had a rather heavy jaw. His hair was dark and thick. There was nothing of the frontier about him, but he was sturdily built, as if he had done at least some hard work in his life.
“I’m Preacher,” the mountain man said. “What can I do for you?”
The stranger made a vague gesture that took in their surroundings and said, “I hate to intrude on your grief, sir, but it’s rather important that I talk to you. My name is Corliss Hart, and I have a business proposition for you.”
Preacher frowned. “I already sold the
load of plews I brought in to Joel Larson.”
“I don’t want to buy your furs,” Corliss Hart said with a shake of his head. “I’d like to hire you.”
“To do what?”
“I’m in need of your services. I should say, my cousin and I are in need of your services.”
Preacher wasn’t in a very good mood, but he managed to restrain the impatience he felt. “Services as what?” he asked, wishing that Hart would get to the point.
“As a guide for a party heading west,” Hart said. “I’m told you’ve performed such a function in the past.”
“Yeah, but not always of my own choosin’,” Preacher said, thinking about how he had gotten roped into helping out those troublesome pilgrims a couple of winters earlier when a bunch of angry Arikara warriors were after them. Then, just a little more than a year ago, he had been forced by circumstances to help out an artist fella from back East who had come to the frontier to paint portraits of the Indians, only to wind up in a whole heap of trouble.
“We’re prepared to pay you, of course, and I think you’ll find that my cousin and I can be quite generous.”
“It ain’t a matter of money. I got things to do here in St. Louis.” Preacher was thinking about the two men who had killed Abby. Even though he’d had no luck in locating them so far, he was far from ready to give up. In fact, when the Good Lord made him, He hadn’t put much “give-up” in Preacher’s nature.
“Well, our wagons aren’t leaving for a few days yet,” Corliss Hart said. “Perhaps that would give you time to conclude whatever business you have here, and then you could go with us.”
“Wagons?” Preacher repeated with a frown. “You ain’t talkin’ about immigrant wagons, are you?” More and more people were heading west to settle, and Preacher didn’t like that trend. There was talk that big wagon trains full of immigrants would start rolling toward the Pacific Northwest in the next few years. The whole frontier was going to fill up before you knew it, he thought.
“No, Jerome and I are businessmen, not colonizers like Stephen Austin down in Texas. We have six wagons full of supplies that we brought out here from Chicago. We plan to travel to the Rocky Mountains, find a suitable location, and set up a trading post. We need an experienced man not only to guide us, but also to advise us on the best location for such a business venture.”
Preacher didn’t know whether to laugh or curse. There were some trading posts in the mountains already, but they were few and far between and had all been set up by tough men who knew what they were doing. The chances of a couple of greenhorn merchants from Chicago succeeding at such a venture—or even surviving for very long, for that matter—were slim.
But everybody had to start somewhere, Preacher supposed. When he had set out on his own as a boy, he was a greenhorn, too. All he’d had going for him were his grit and determination and willingness to work and learn. He had been lucky enough to fall in with some fellas who could teach him how to get along on the frontier. Maybe Corliss Hart and his cousin Jerome would be fortunate in that regard, too.
But they might have to find somebody besides Preacher to give them a hand, because he figured on being busy, at least until he found the men he was looking for. After that, if Hart and his cousin hadn’t already left with their wagon train, maybe he would consider hiring on with them. Their money would spend as good as anybody else’s.
“Sorry,” he said with a shake of his head. “I might be done by the time you’re ready to leave, or I might not, so you’d best find somebody else.”
“Are you sure? We were told that no one knows the mountains, and the area between here and there, better than you do.” Corliss Hart fidgeted with the hat he held in his hands. “And we were also told that you’re probably the toughest man between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean.”
Preacher had to chuckle at that. “I wouldn’t know. I ain’t fought everybody between the Mississippi and the Pacific Ocean. Leastways, not yet. Gimme time.”
“You won’t reconsider?”
“Nope.”
Fargo put in, “You might as well give up, mister. Preacher’s the stubbornest man on the frontier, that’s for sure.”
“I reckon I’ll take that as a compliment,” Preacher told the tavern keeper with a smile.
Hart sighed. “Very well. If you change your mind, we’re staying at the Excelsior Hotel.”
“All right,” Preacher said with a nod. He didn’t think it was very likely that he would be visiting the cousins.
Hart turned and trudged back toward the main part of the settlement, putting his hat on as he did so. Fargo watched him go and said, “That fella looked like he had plenty o’ money, Preacher. Job might’ve paid pretty well.”
“Time enough to worry about that after I’ve settled the score with the two skunks who did for Abby.”
“Once you sink your teeth into something, you don’t let go easy, do you?”
“Not hardly,” Preacher said.
* * *
He spent the rest of the day circulating through the waterfront taverns, and there were plenty of them along the river. In each place, he nursed a beer and bought drinks for anybody who was willing to talk to him and answer his questions. But he didn’t find anyone who recognized the admittedly vague descriptions of Abby’s killers.
Irritated by his lack of success, he was on his way back to Fargo’s place late that afternoon when he heard a voice behind him say, “Hey, Preacher! I been lookin’ for you.”
Preacher stopped short and turned around. He recognized the voice as Jake’s, and sure enough, the round-faced youngster stood there a few feet away.
“Good Lord, son,” Preacher said. “I been lookin’ for you, too. I reckon we must’ve kept on missin’ each other.” He stepped over to Jake and placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I’m sorry you had to see that ruckus between me and your pa this mornin’.”
“I’m not,” Jake said as he looked up at Preacher. “I was glad to see you whip him like that. I just couldn’t believe it at first. I never seen anybody knock him down before. But he had it comin’. He thrashes me all the time on account of I’m sinful, he says. Seems to me like beatin’ on somebody smaller’n you would be just as sinful as anything I ever done, though. Maybe even worse. I reckon I hate him.”
Preacher frowned and said, “You don’t want to go talkin’ like that about your own pa.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
“Well, maybe what he does to you ain’t right, but I’m sure it’s because he loves you and thinks that’s what he oughta do to help you grow up proper.”
“Yeah, but that don’t make it hurt any less when he takes a strap to me.”
Jake had a point there, Preacher thought.
“If that’s the way you feel, how come you run off like that?” he asked.
Jake hung his head and didn’t meet Preacher’s eyes. “It made me feel so good every time I saw you wallop him that I reckon I was ashamed of myself. I mean, a boy ain’t supposed to like it when he sees his own pa bein’ whipped, is he?”
“I guess it depends on the circumstances, and how that pa treats his boy,” Preacher said with a shrug. He wasn’t used to having conversations like this, and didn’t feel too comfortable with it himself.
“Yeah, that’s what I finally decided, too. So then I figured I ought to find you and thank you for what you done, and ask you a question.”
“What sort o’ question?”
“Are you goin’ back to the mountains?”
Preacher nodded. “Yeah. Not right away, but sooner or later I will.”
“When you go . . . can I go with you?”
That question took Preacher by surprise and made his thick, dark eyebrows rise into twin arches.
“Go with me?” he repeated. “You mean to the mountains?”
“Yeah. I’ll make you a good partner if you’ll just give me a chance. I can pull my weight, I swear. I know how to shoot a rifle already, and I’ll bet if you’d t
each me, I could learn how to handle a beaver trap with no trouble. I’m pretty smart, if I do say so myself.”
“I’ll bet you are,” Preacher said, “but that don’t mean you’re ready to go to the mountains. Hell, you ain’t but what, ten years old?”
“I’m eleven, nearly twelve.”
“Well, that ain’t anywhere near old enough.”
Jake gave him a shrewd look and asked, “How old were you when you left home, Mr. Preacher?”
“I told you, you can forget about callin’ me Mister,” Preacher said. “And it ain’t any o’ your business how old I was when I went out on my own. I was older’n you are now, I can tell you that much for damn sure.”
As a matter of fact, he’d been only two years older, but he wasn’t about to tell Jake that. The boy already had too many damn fool notions in his head.
“It ain’t fair,” Jake complained. “If I stay here, my pa’s just gonna beat me worse an’ worse. He’ll be mad ’cause you whipped him, and he’ll take it out on me from now on.”
Preacher scowled. “Maybe I need to have another talk with him and let him know that wouldn’t be a good idea. I reckon he might listen to me.”
“Yeah, for a while, because he’d be scared of you. But you said it yourself, Preacher. You’ll be goin’ back to the mountains. Once you’re gone, Pa won’t be scared no more, and then he’ll thrash me within an inch o’ my life if I do the least little thing wrong or do somethin’ that he considers a sin. And you won’t be anywhere around to stop him.”
Preacher’s scowl darkened. The little varmint had another point.
But even so, the frontier was no place for him. Preacher had to find another solution.
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll take you to see a friend o’ mine named Ford Fargo.”
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