“Is that Mr. Fargo who owns the tavern down by the river?”
“Yep, that’s him. Maybe he could hire you to give him a hand around the place. If he does, he might find a place for you to sleep.”
“You mean I could live in a tavern?” Jake sounded astonished by the idea.
“Well, yeah.”
Jake grinned. “Where all those nice-lookin’ young women work?”
“You’re too young to be concernin’ yourself about things like that,” Preacher told him in a stern voice. He wasn’t sure he was right about that, however. Jake seemed plenty interested in the idea of being around the soiled doves who worked at Fargo’s place.
Keeping a hand on Jake’s shoulder, Preacher steered him toward the riverfront. As they walked, he said, “Now I got a question for you.”
“I ain’t sure I ought to answer it, seein’ as how you won’t let me to go to the mountains with you.”
Preacher reined in his impatience and said, “You can go back to your pa if you want.”
“No, no, what is it you want to ask me, Preacher?”
“Yesterday, when I got to the settlement and was makin’ my deal with Mr. Larson to buy my furs, you were watchin’ pretty close, right?”
“Yeah. You were carryin’ a rifle, two pistols, a knife, and a tomahawk, and you looked about as savage as a Injun.”
“Did you notice anybody else watchin’ me and Larson?”
Jake looked puzzled. “You mean like somebody skulkin’ around like a Injun?”
“That’s right.”
Jake thought about it for several seconds, making faces as if that much mental activity made his brain hurt, before finally shaking his head and saying, “Sorry, Preacher, I don’t recollect nothin’ like that.”
Preacher tried to jog the boy’s memory by saying, “These fellas I’m talkin’ about, one of ’em was tall and wearin’ buckskins, and the other one was shorter and had on an old suit and a beaver hat.”
“Nope, I just didn’t see ’em.”
Preacher swallowed his disappointment. “All right. I’m obliged to you anyway for answerin’ the question.”
So this trail was yet another dead end. Preacher didn’t get discouraged. He knew that sooner or later Fate would lead him to the two men he sought.
The tavern was already busy when they reached it. Dusk was settling down, and men who had finished their work for the day were eager to quench their thirst and maybe play a little slap-and-tickle with the serving gals. Nobody paid much attention to Jake when Preacher took him inside. While it wasn’t that common to see a kid in a tavern, neither was it unusual to come across somebody Jake’s age guzzling down a shot of whiskey. A lot of youngsters were on their own because their folks had died or abandoned them or the kids had run away. They fended for themselves. It was a hard life. The ones who toughened up quickly were the ones who survived.
“Who’s your friend?” Fargo asked when Preacher brought Jake up to the bar.
“His name’s Jake,” Preacher said.
Fargo reached across the bar to shake hands. “Well, I’m mighty pleased to meet you, Jake,” he said. “What’re you doin’, associatin’ with an old scoundrel like Preacher here?”
“Preacher’s gonna teach me how to be a mountain man,” Jake declared.
“Now dad-gum it!” Preacher burst out. “I never said any such thing. Jake got some crazy idea in his head that he was goin’ back to the mountains with me, but I never said he could. I thought maybe you could find a place for him here, Ford.”
“Here at the tavern, you mean?”
Preacher nodded. “Yeah. Got to be some chores around here he could do to pay for his grub and a roof over his head.”
Fargo scratched at his jaw and frowned in thought. “There’s always plenty o’ work around the place, that’s for damn sure. I might could use a boy to help out.” He looked at Jake. “Where are you from, son?”
“Right here in St. Louis.”
Fargo gave Preacher a surprised glance. “Is that so? You got kinfolks here?”
“Just my pa. Jonathan Brant. He works in one of the fur warehouses by the river. You wouldn’t know him, though. He’d never set foot inside a tavern. He says they’re all dens of iniquity, whatever that is.”
Churchgoers must like that word, Preacher thought, remembering how one of the men who had found him the night before after he’d been knocked out had used it.
Fargo started shaking his head. “Sorry, Preacher,” he said. “I can’t take the boy.”
“Why not?”
“You heard him. He’s got a pa right here in town. Hell, the fella works just a few blocks away! If I kept the boy here and he found out about it, he’d have the law on me, sure as shootin’.”
“You heard what Jake said. His pa wouldn’t ever find out, because he’d never come in here.”
Stubbornly, Fargo continued to shake his head. “Somebody might recognize the boy and tell his pa that he’s here. Then I’d be liable to be thrown in jail for child-stealin’! Nope, I’m sorry, Preacher, but I just can’t do it.”
Preacher glared at Jake. “Now what in blazes am I gonna do with you?”
“I told you,” Jake said, grinning up at him. “Take me to the mountains with you.”
Seven
Shad Beaumont’s house on the southern edge of town was one of the nicest dwellings in St. Louis, as befitted his status as the leading figure in the settlement’s criminal underworld. The big whitewashed building had two stories and columns holding up the porch roof over the front door. The place reminded Schuyler Mims of some plantations he had seen down in Louisiana, although not quite as fancy, of course. Beaumont’s illicit activities had made him well-to-do, but he wasn’t as rich as those cotton planters down South.
Beaumont brought Schuyler and Fairfax to the house after sending his two battered bodyguards off to seek medical attention for their injuries. Baldy and Handlebar had glared at Schuyler and Fairfax before limping off together, helping each other hobble along the street, but Beaumont again assured his two new associates that no one would seek reprisals against them.
Now he led them into a well-furnished parlor that looked fancy enough to Schuyler to have come out of a high-class whorehouse. If Beaumont lived in a place like this, Schuyler wondered, then why did he patronize dives like the one they had seen him coming out of earlier?
Because he must like places like that, Schuyler realized, answering his own question. He’d probably spent a lot of time in them when he was younger and poorer, and they still held some appeal for him.
Beaumont went over to a sideboard and said, “Would you gents like a drink?”
Schuyler licked his lips thirstily and looked at Fairfax, who nodded and said, “That would be fine, thank you.”
“Brandy?”
“Whatever you’re having.”
Beaumont poured amber liquid from a decanter into three crystal snifters that had to have come from New Orleans. He handed one to Fairfax and another to Schuyler, then raised his own.
“To our new association, gentlemen,” he said.
“Hear, hear,” Fairfax replied as he clinked his snifter against Beaumont’s. Rather clumsily, Schuyler followed suit.
The brandy was smooth as it could be. At first he didn’t think it had much kick to it, but then his insides started to glow warmly, as if the stuff had kindled a nice little fire in his belly. He took another drink, guzzling down more than he intended to. He knew it made him look like some kind of bumpkin to be drinking that way when Fairfax and Beaumont were sipping their brandy like fine gentlemen, but Schuyler didn’t care. It had been a long time since he’d had anything this good.
“You said something about having a job for us,” Fairfax prodded.
“Yes, of course,” Beaumont said. “Several wagons were ferried across the river from Illinois yesterday. I was curious about them, so I asked around. I have quite a few sources of information about what goes on along the riverfront.”
Fairfax murmured, “I’ll bet you do.” He and Schuyler both knew that a lot of people would be eager to help out a powerful man like Beaumont, in hopes that he would return the favor later on.
Beaumont ignored the interruption as if it hadn’t happened. “There are half-a-dozen wagons in the party,” he went on. “They’re loaded with all sorts of supplies and trade goods, and they’re owned by a pair of cousins named Hart, Corliss and Jerome Hart.”
“And you’ve got your eye on those wagons and the goods inside them,” Fairfax guessed.
Beaumont smiled and took another sip of brandy. “That’s right. I’ve discovered that the Harts plan to head west with their little wagon train and establish a trading post somewhere in the mountains.”
“What about Indians?” Schuyler asked. “Ain’t there a bunch o’ Indians out there that like to scalp and kill white folks just for the fun of it?”
“Not all the savages are hostile,” Fairfax said. He looked at Beaumont. “Or at least, that’s what I’ve heard.”
“That’s right,” Beaumont confirmed. “If you know which areas to avoid, you’re relatively safe from Indians. Some of the tribes are even willing to trade with white men. And with the fur industry continuing to grow, more and more trappers are heading west. A trading post like the one the Hart cousins want to establish could do a lucrative business.”
“But you plan on taking those wagons, and all the goods in them.”
“Exactly. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t reap the profits from that trading post.” Beaumont tossed back the rest of his liquor. “But I’ll need a couple of good men to run the place.”
“You want us to do that?” Schuyler asked.
“I think you could handle the job, from what I’ve seen of you so far. Some of my men would be working with you, of course.”
“How do we know we can trust you?” Fairfax asked.
The blunt question didn’t seem to offend Beaumont. He said, “We’ll have to trust each other. The arrangement will be of benefit to all of us, so none of us will have any reason to double-cross the others.” He paused. “Besides, there’s something else you’ll have to do before I’d turn such an important operation over to you.”
“What’s that?” Fairfax wanted to know.
“You’ll be in charge of getting the wagons and their cargo in the first place,” Beaumont said. “That means you’ll have to kill Corliss and Jerome Hart and everyone who’s traveling with them. Can you handle that?”
Schuyler looked at Fairfax. Taking a potshot at a fella in a canoe on the river was one thing. So was accidentally shooting a whore. But carrying out cold-blooded murder on at least half-a-dozen people and probably more, well, that was something else entirely.
Fairfax looked like he was up for it, though, so Schuyler sighed and nodded. Fairfax grinned, tossed back the rest of his brandy, and held out the empty snifter for a refill.
“Let’s drink to success, shall we?”
* * *
Jake’s bottom lip trembled as he looked at the shack. The flickering glow of candlelight showed through the oilcloth tacked over the single window.
“He’s gonna be mad because I wasn’t there when he got home,” the boy said. “If you make me go in there, Preacher, he’ll beat me. I swear he will.”
“I can stop him if he does.”
“But if he sees you with me, he’s liable to be so crazy that he’ll kill me as soon as you’re gone. I reckon he hates you even more’n the Devil right now, and my pa’s got a powerful hate for the Devil.”
Preacher muttered a curse. Circumstances had put him in one hell of an awkward situation. Living the life he led, he couldn’t take on the responsibility of caring for a kid, even a smart little whippersnapper like Jake. But he wasn’t sure he could live with himself either if he left Jake here and then discovered on his next trip to St. Louis that Jonathan Brant had indeed beaten the boy to death. Even if that didn’t happen, Jake might run away and take off for the mountains by himself. Preacher didn’t figure the youngster would last a week on the frontier without somebody to look after him.
There was an old saying about a rock and a hard place. That was where Preacher found himself now, stuck smack-dab between them.
But maybe there was another answer, he realized suddenly. Frowning, he looked down at Jake and asked, “You really don’t want to go back to your pa?”
Without hesitation, Jake shook his head. “No, Preacher, I don’t. I’m scared of him.”
“If you’re gone for a few days, will he come lookin’ for you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so, at least not for a while. He’s sort of stove up after that whippin’ you gave him. He ain’t gettin’ around all that well. I reckon any time he’s not workin’, he’ll lay around the cabin and read his Bible and feel sorry for hisself.”
“All right, then,” Preacher said. “I got an idea. You’ll have to lie low for a few days here in St. Louis, but then you’ll be able to leave, and you won’t never have to come back if you don’t want to.”
“Where am I goin’?” Jake’s face brightened with excitement, even in the gloom of falling night. “With you?”
It might come to that, Preacher thought. “We’ll see,” he said.
He turned Jake away from the cabin and went looking for the wagons belonging to Corliss and Jerome Hart.
It didn’t take long to find them. Preacher asked a few questions along the riverfront and was directed to a field on the western edge of the settlement. As he and Jake approached, Preacher saw the half-dozen wagons drawn into a rough circle with the oxen that would pull them gathered inside. Even though here on the edge of St. Louis there was no reason to circle the wagons other than to contain the livestock, it was good that the members of the party had already gotten into the habit. Out on the plains, the formation would be vital for protection in case the wagon train was attacked by Indians or outlaws.
“Who do these wagons belong to?” Jake asked.
“Some folks I know,” Preacher replied, even though the only one of the party he had actually met was Corliss Hart.
“What’re we doin’ here?”
“I thought maybe you could stay with them for a while. They’re headin’ west to the mountains to start a tradin’ post. I figure they might be able to use a smart, hardworkin’ youngster like you.”
“Really?” Jake sounded excited by the idea. “You think they’d take me along?”
“We’ll see about it,” Preacher promised.
No one challenged them as they walked right up to the wagons, and that was worrisome. Guards should have been posted, even here in town. There were dangers lurking in St. Louis, too, as Preacher knew all too well.
A cooking fire burned inside a circle of rocks, but no one was tending it. Preacher called out, “Hello, the wagons! Anybody home?”
The canvas flap over the back of one of the vehicles was pulled aside, and a hand thrust a flintlock pistol into view. “Don’t come any closer,” a voice commanded. “Who are you, and what do you want?”
“Take it easy, mister,” Preacher said with a scowl. He didn’t cotton to having guns pointed at him. Never had and likely never would. “We’re lookin’ for a fella named Corliss Hart, or his cousin. I disremember what his name is.”
The gun lowered, and the canvas flap opened wider. A small, wiry man climbed over the wagon’s tailgate and dropped to the ground, still holding the pistol although he wasn’t pointing it at Preacher and Jake anymore. The man wore high-topped boots, whipcord trousers, and a leather vest over a white shirt. He had a sharp, foxlike face and slightly wavy brown hair.
“I’m Jerome Hart,” he introduced himself. “What business do you have with us, sir?”
“They call me Preacher, and this here is Jake,” Preacher said, not answering Jerome Hart’s question just yet.
Jerome’s interest perked up. “Preacher,” he repeated. “You’re the one my cousin went to talk to.” It wasn’t a questi
on.
Preacher nodded. “That’s right. He asked me to take on the job of guidin’ you folks to the mountains and helpin’ you set up a tradi’ post.”
“But you refused,” Jerome said. “Have you reconsidered your decision?”
“No, not really.”
“Then why are you here?”
Preacher rested a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “I was hopin’ you folks could find a place for the boy here. He’s a hard worker, and he’s smart as a whip. I reckon he’d be good to have along on a trip like the one you’re takin’.”
“You think so?” Jerome lowered the hammer on the pistol and stuck the weapon behind his belt. He looked at Jake and asked, “Well, boy? What do you have to say for yourself?”
“I’d sure admire to go with you to the mountains, Mr. Hart, sir,” Jake replied. “I been wantin’ to see such things for a long time. Ain’t no mountains here in St. Louis.”
“There aren’t any mountains here in St. Louis.”
“Yes, sir, that’s what I just said.”
“No, you said, ’Ain’t no mountains.’ That’s incorrect.”
Jake took off his hat and scratched his head. “Yeah, but it’s the same thing, ain’t it?”
“Not at all. Have you ever been to school?”
“A little. Have you?”
“I taught school for several years,” Jerome said.
Preacher tried not to wince. He hadn’t known that he might be saddling Jake with a schoolteacher for a boss.
Preacher didn’t have anything against book learning. He could read and write and cipher, and figured those were good things to know. A surprising number of mountain men were well educated and well read. Some of them could quote vast stretches of the Bible or ol’ Bill Shakespeare’s plays from memory. But in Preacher’s experience, schoolteachers were often priggish and hard to get along with. Corliss Hart had seemed to be a much more easygoing sort than his cousin. Preacher supposed he had expected Jerome Hart to be the same way.
“If you went with us,” Jerome went on, “and I’m not saying that you can, I’d expect you to show some initiative and try to learn some things, Jake.”
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