But not this one. He reached behind him, ripped the ’hawk from his back with a gasp, and slashed it through the air at Preacher’s head. Preacher had to jerk away from the blow to keep the keen-edged blade from cutting his throat.
Missing with the tomahawk caused the ambusher to stumble a little. Preacher drove in low, tackling him around the waist and bearing him over backward. Both men crashed to the ground. Preacher got his left hand on the man’s right wrist, clamping the fingers around it to keep the man from slashing at him with the tomahawk again. With his other hand he reached for the man’s throat.
The ambusher threw his arm up to block that move, and then went for Preacher’s eyes with his clawed fingers. Preacher pulled his head back. The man’s fingernails raked down his cheek.
They rolled over in the dirt and garbage of the alley as they grappled. It was dark as a pit in here, and the man’s breath stank as he panted in Preacher’s face. To Preacher, it almost seemed more like he was wrestling with a demon than with a man, but he knew his opponent was human. He got confirmation of that when he drove his knee into the man’s groin and the man screamed.
The ambusher didn’t stop fighting, though. If anything, the agony he had to be in gave him the strength of a madman. He got a hand on Preacher’s throat and closed it with crushing force. They rolled again, and Preacher came to a stop with his back pinned against the wall of a building. He had no room to maneuver, and the roaring in his head and the flashing lights behind his eyes told him that he would pass out in a matter of moments. He knew that if he lost consciousness, his attacker would choke the life out of him. He had to take a risk or die.
Preacher let go of the hand that held the tomahawk. Moving with all the speed he could muster, he cupped both of his hands and slapped them against the ambusher’s ears as hard as he could. The man cried out again as pain burst inside his ears, filling his head, Preacher hoped.
Grabbing the front of the man’s buckskin shirt, Preacher heaved him aside. Preacher heard something fall, and as he scrambled up, he put his hand down for balance and felt the handle of the tomahawk under his fingers. He snatched up the deadly weapon and dove toward his opponent, landing with his knees in the man’s midsection as the man writhed in pain on the floor of the alley. Preacher’s left hand drove against his chest, holding him down. The tomahawk rose in Preacher’s right hand. He didn’t hesitate. This son of a bitch had called the tune. Now he could dance to it.
Preacher brought the tomahawk down with devastating force.
The sound of the blade striking home and the way the man’s body jerked violently told Preacher that the blow had found its target. That single spasm was the last move the man made. He lay there limp and motionless as Preacher wrenched the tomahawk free.
A little out of breath from the struggle, Preacher climbed to his feet. It was too dark to see back here, and he wanted to know who he’d been tussling with. He bent down, found one of the man’s legs, and dragged the corpse toward the street, where there was a faint glow from lamps and lanterns in nearby buildings.
Preacher stopped and let go of the leg when he reached a spot where he could make out the man’s features. The lifeless limb dropped with a thud. Preacher knelt and studied the gory wreckage of the ambusher’s face. The tomahawk had hit him between the eyes and cleaved his head wide open. Despite that terrible damage, Preacher recognized Merrick Foster.
He was somewhat surprised that the attacker turned out to be Foster, but not too much. Foster certainly had a grudge against him after their encounter at the Harts’ wagon camp earlier that evening. Preacher had thought that the ambusher would turn out to be one of the men he was looking for, but this made sense, too.
And he felt a grim sense of satisfaction that the Indian woman Foster had assaulted and the partners he had left to die had been avenged. If anybody ever deserved such a grisly fate as Foster had received, it was him. He’d had it comin’, Preacher thought.
With that, he cleaned the blade of the tomahawk on Foster’s shirt, then rose from his kneeling position and slipped the weapon behind his belt. He left the body where it lay, just inside the alley mouth. St. Louis had a constable, Preacher supposed, and he could have reported the incident to that official, but he had no desire to deal with the law. That was another of civilization’s trappings that Preacher had little use for.
Instead, he walked away, heading for Fargo’s tavern and a good night’s sleep.
* * *
When the boardinghouse landlady brought breakfast up to Schuyler Mims and Colin Fairfax the next morning, she could hardly wait to tell her reclusive boarders all about the latest gossip.
“Chopped wide open, his head was,” she said with a grin. “The fella that found him said he looked like somebody took an ax to him.”
“You’re sure it was Merrick Foster?” Fairfax asked, frowning.
“Oh, yeah. The undertaker came and got him, but not before quite a few people saw the body. Lots of folks along the riverfront know Foster.” The coarse, middle-aged woman got a cunning look on her face. “Includin’ you two. Why, it was just yesterday that Foster come up here to pay you a visit. I’ll bet that whoever chopped his head open would like to know about that.”
Fairfax’s face hardened into a dangerous mask. “You’re playing a dangerous game, woman,” he snapped as he took a step toward her.
She cringed away, but even as she did so, she reached into a pocket of her apron and brought out a wicked-looking knife. “Come any closer and I’ll cut your jewels off,” she threatened. “You don’t have to worry. I ain’t gonna tell nobody that Foster was up here.”
“Do you know what we talked about with him?”
The landlady shook her head. “What d’you think I do, lurk around with my ear up against the door?”
“I wouldn’t put it past you,” Fairfax sneered. “What do you want from us?”
“Just a little extra coin when you leave,” the woman said. “Whatever you think is fair. I reckon I can trust you, just like you can trust me.”
Schuyler and Fairfax exchanged a glance that showed they didn’t trust her at all, but neither man really wanted to go to the trouble of killing her, let alone having to deal with the questions that her death was liable to raise.
“All right,” Fairfax said after a moment. “Go ahead and keep your mouth shut, and if you do, there’ll be something in it for you.”
The landlady smiled, but she didn’t put the knife away. “I knew you two were gentlemen,” she simpered. “I’ll be goin’ now.”
When the door had closed behind her, Fairfax waited a minute, then jerked the door open again, just to make sure the woman wasn’t eavesdropping. He looked back and forth along the corridor and saw that it was empty.
With a sigh, he shut the door and turned to Schuyler. “Foster failed us.”
Schuyler nodded. A sad expression played over his face for a second. Foster had been more of an acquaintance than a friend, but even so, Schuyler wouldn’t have wished such a horrible fate on him. Or on anybody else, for that matter.
“We knew there was a chance Preacher would get him,” Schuyler said. “Poor bastard.”
Fairfax snorted in disgust. “We’re the poor bastards. Now we have to go through Preacher to take over that wagon train.”
“He’s only one man. If Beaumont gives us enough men to ambush the wagons, Preacher won’t be able to stop us.”
“Of course not,” Fairfax said, “but it would have been easier without him along.” He sighed. “Ah, well, I suppose one can’t have everything. Now that Foster’s dead, maybe that will lull Preacher’s suspicions. Perhaps he won’t be expecting any more trouble.”
Schuyler said, “I got a feelin’ that Preacher’s the sort of gent who always expects trouble.”
* * *
Preacher didn’t lose any sleep over killing Foster. When he rose the next morning, he set out to spend one final day searching St. Louis for the men who had murdered Abby.
Not
surprisingly, he had no luck. Those two bastards had either left town or found themselves a hole and pulled it in after them.
He stopped by Joel Larson’s office at the fur trading company, and borrowed a pen and a sheet of paper to write the letter to Jonathan Brant, as he had promised Jake. Then he sealed it and gave it to Larson, who said, “Don’t tell me what’s in this letter, Preacher. I have a feeling I wouldn’t want to know. But I’ll see that it’s given to Brant in a few days.”
“I’m obliged,” Preacher said with a nod. He didn’t really care if Brant ever found out where Jake had gone, but he had given the boy his word.
When evening came again, he paid another visit to the wagon camp just outside the settlement, to make sure that the Harts and their men would be ready to leave at first light the next morning.
All the preparations for departure had been made, but a new and unexpected problem seemed to have developed. Preacher heard angry voices coming from inside one of the wagons, and when Preacher asked Jake what was going on, the boy grinned and said, “Corliss and Miss Deborah are havin’ a spat. A big one, sounds like.”
That was true enough. Preacher recognized the raised voices. They belonged to Corliss Hart and Corliss’s fiancée, Deborah Morrigan.
Preacher jerked a thumb toward the wagon where Corliss and Deborah were arguing and asked, “What are they squabblin’ about?”
“I can answer that,” Jerome said as he came up to Preacher and Jake. “Deborah has decided that she wants to come along with us, and my cousin had totally forbidden it.” Jerome shook his head sadly. “Corliss doesn’t realize that it’s unwise to attempt to forbid a woman to do anything she has her mind set on.”
“Damn right,” Preacher muttered. He didn’t have a lot of experience with women, but at least he knew that much.
“How come?” Jake asked.
Preacher looked down at him. “How come what?”
“How come you can’t tell a woman what to do? The man’s supposed to be the boss, ain’t he?”
“Well, yeah, but, uh, a lady’s got certain arguments she can use that are hard for a fella to get around.”
“What sort of arguments?”
Preacher looked at Jerome, who shook his head as if to say that he wanted no part of this discussion.
“Well, she can cry and suchlike,” Preacher said. “Most fellas can’t hardly stand to see a woman cry, especially if they cares about her. You didn’t like it when your ma cried, did you?”
“I don’t hardly remember my ma,” Jake said. “And I don’t remember her ever cryin’. What else does a woman do when she’s arguin’?”
Preacher scratched at his beard. “If she’s mad at a fella, she won’t . . . uh, she won’t let him . . . she don’t want to ... well, be friendly to him, I reckon you’d say.”
“I wouldn’t want a woman to be my friend. From the sound of it, they’re all a mite crazy.”
“You feel that way now,” Preacher said, “but chances are there’ll come a time when you don’t.”
“No, I’m pretty sure I’ll always feel that way,” Jake said with confidence.
“We’ll see,” Preacher said. Corliss and Deborah were climbing out of the wagon now, and he wondered if they had solved anything. From the tense, strained expressions on their faces, Preacher sort of doubted it.
“Ah, there you are, Preacher,” Corliss said when he spotted the mountain man. “I was hoping you’d stop by tonight. Please, inform Miss Morrigan that she can’t come along with us.”
Preacher looked at the young woman and said, “It can be mighty dangerous out there on the frontier, ma’am.”
Deborah pointed at Jake. “You’re taking a little boy with you. How dangerous can it be?”
“Hey!” Jake protested. “I can take care of myself.”
“It’s different where women are concerned, ma’am,” Preacher said.
“What about the women who come west with their families to settle?” Deborah countered. “I’ve heard it said that within a few years, there may be thousands of immigrants heading for the Pacific. That means women and children, too, and they’ll be crossing the same plains and mountains that Corliss and Jerome are traveling to now. What about those women?”
In a grim tone, Preacher answered, “I reckon we’ll just have to wait and see how that goes. But if it was up to me, I’d say it’d be a whole heap better if all those folks stayed back East.”
“But the march of civilization isn’t up to you, is it?”
Preacher shook his head. “No, ma’am, it ain’t. It sure ain’t.”
“This argument is pointless,” Corliss said. “You’re my fiancée, Deborah, and I say you’re not going. That’s the end of it.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why you got such a crazy idea in your head to start with. The plan all along has been for you to stay here in St. Louis until Jerome and I have the trading post well established.”
“And how long is that going to be?” Deborah demanded.
“That’s difficult to say,” Corliss replied with a shrug. “A year, maybe two. I can’t imagine that it would take any longer than that.”
“So it doesn’t bother you for us to be apart tor that long?” Tears began to roll down her cheeks. “That doesn’t bother you in the least?”
“I never said that—!”
Jerome caught Preacher’s eye and angled his head away from the arguing couple. Preacher nodded and followed Jerome toward the other side of the camp, putting a hand on Jake’s shoulder and taking the boy with him.
“I told you,” Jake said with the air of one wise beyond his years. “It just don’t pay to have a woman as a friend.”
Eleven
Preacher said good-bye to Ford Fargo that night because he intended to gather his gear and take it out to the wagon camp, spending the night there to insure that there would be no delays the next morning.
“What about those two fellas you been lookin’ for, Preacher?” Fargo asked as they stood at one end of the bar, lingering over cups of beer.
“I’ll find ’em,” Preacher said. “I’ll settle the score for what they done to Abby and what they tried to do to me. But it’ll have to wait a while. Those Hart cousins need a good guide to get them where they’re goin’.”
“And you’re the best there is at things like that,” Fargo declared. “Still, I hope the whole bunch of you don’t get your hair lifted.”
Preacher grinned across the hardwood at the tavern keeper. “You and me both, Ford. I’ve talked to all the drivers the Harts hired. They’re a mite short on frontier experience, but they seem like tough enough fellas, and they’ll be willin’ to fight if they have to. They know what they’re gettin’ into. And they’ve got plenty of rifles and powder and shot. Unless we run smack-dab into some damn big war party, I reckon we’ll be all right.”
Fargo lifted his cup and said, “Here’s to luck then.”
Preacher hoisted his own cup and responded with a grin, “We can always use plenty o’ that, too.”
He left the tavern a few minutes later with his rifle cradled in one arm, his possibles bag slung over his shoulder, and his pistols, knife, and tomahawk in their accustomed places behind his belt. Armed for bear, he was—and for any other troublemakers, too.
The argument between Corliss Hart and Deborah Morrigan was long since over by the time he got back to the wagon camp, which lay quiet under the stars in the black, arching summer sky. Deborah, unhappy with the outcome of the argument, was back in her hotel room, Preacher supposed. One of the sentries confirmed in a low-voiced conversation that Corliss had taken her back into the settlement earlier, then returned to the camp and turned in for the night. Everyone seemed to be asleep except for the two guards who had been posted to watch over the wagons. Preacher heard loud snores coming from several of the vehicles. He spread his soogans under one that was quiet and stretched out to get some sleep. As was his habit, he dropped off quickly. On the frontier, a man learned to sleep when he could.
/> Sometime later, far into the night, Preacher rolled over and was instantly awake. He didn’t know what had disturbed his slumber, but he trusted his instincts and knew he wouldn’t have roused unless there was a reason. Picking up one of the pistols he had placed close beside him, he slid out from under the wagon and got to his feet. He stood there for a long moment, looking and listening.
Nothing unusual seemed to be going on. Preacher had taken off his boot-topped moccasins when he turned in for the night. Now he padded across the camp in his stocking feet. He circled around the dozing oxen and stepped over a wagon tongue. One of the drivers was supposed to be standing guard right in this area. He was the one Preacher had talked to earlier, a tall, wiry-haired man named Gil Robinson. Preacher’s eyes narrowed as he realized that he didn’t see Robinson anywhere.
Then he spotted a dark shape against one of the big wagon wheels. Preacher’s jaw tightened in anger. He stepped over to the wheel and knelt down. His free hand clamped over Robinson’s mouth and nose as the man leaned his head back against one of the spokes and snored softly.
Robinson jerked and tried to flail his way up at Preacher’s unexpected touch. Preacher dug the barrel of the pistol into the soft flesh of Robinson’s neck under his chin. That made Robinson freeze.
“If I was an Indian or a highwayman, you’d be dead right now, mister,” Preacher whispered in Robinson’s ear. “Because this would be a knife instead of a pistol, and your throat’d be cut from ear to ear.”
Preacher eased off the pressure on the gun and took his other hand away from Robinson’s mouth and nose. The man gasped for air. After a minute, he managed to say, “I . . . I’m sorry, Preacher. I never meant to go to sleep.”
“Most folks don’t mean to die from bein’ careless neither, but it happens,” Preacher said.
“It won’t happen again. I swear it.” Robinson let out a little groan. “Are you gonna tell Corliss and Jerome? They’ll fire me if you do.”
“I ought to,” Preacher said, “but I reckon I won’t since that’d mean they’d have to find another driver to hire, and that would be another delay.” Now that he had made up his mind to return to the mountains with the wagon train, Preacher found himself surprisingly eager to get back to the frontier. “I won’t say nothin’, but you’d damned well better not let your guard down again, Robinson.”
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