“Nobody’s gonna sneak up and steal the wagons with us right here,” Robinson protested.
“All right, but if there’s any trouble, I’m holdin’ you responsible, mister,” Preacher said with a hard look.
Robinson’s gaze dropped to the ground. “All right, all right,” he muttered. “Come on, fellas.”
“Blackie, you and Lars go back on guard duty like you were before,” Preacher added.
Blackie said, “Looks like we didn’t do a very good job, since the lady and her two beaus left camp without us ever noticin’.”
“You were watchin’ for people tryin’ to sneak in, not out,” Preacher pointed out.
Blackie shrugged.
“Take the boy with you,” Preacher went on as he put a hand on Jake’s shoulder and turned him away from Corliss and Jerome, who were still brawling and wrestling, and Deborah, who looked on with a worried expression on her face as the combat unfolded before her.
“Aw, I want to stay and find out what happens!” Jake complained.
Preacher gave him a more forceful push toward the wagons. “Growin’ boys need their sleep,” he said.
“You think I’m just gonna go to sleep after this?”
Preacher didn’t know if any of them were going to get much sleep the rest of the night, but Jake was too young to stand around and watch a couple of men fight over a woman, with all the cussing and frank talk that went along with that.
Blackie put a hand on Jake’s other shoulder and said, “Come on, kid. Preacher’s the boss on this trip. We all agreed to that.”
Grudgingly, Jake allowed himself to be led away. The others all went back to the wagons, too, leaving Preacher and Deborah to watch as Corliss and Jerome continued to pummel at each other. Both men had dark streaks on their faces now from the blood that had welled from an assortment of cuts and scrapes.
“Can’t you do something?” Deborah demanded in a ragged voice. “Can’t you stop them before they kill each other?”
“They ain’t gonna kill each other,” Preacher told her. “Neither one of ’em is a good enough fighter for that. They’ll just wallop each other until they get too tired to keep goin’.”
“And what’s that going to solve?”
It wouldn’t solve anything, and Preacher knew it. Even when they wore themselves out, the anger they felt would be as strong as ever. Some things could be settled by fighting. The rivalry for a woman’s affections wasn’t really one of them. Oh, one fella might knock the stuffing out of the other, but that wouldn’t change the way anybody felt.
So maybe Deborah was right. Maybe this battle was futile. Preacher grimaced and shook his head, then decided that the cousins had pounded on each other for long enough. He moved closer, waiting for the right moment, then waded into the struggle and grabbed the collars of both men. With the strength that packed his lean, hard-muscled frame, he hauled them upright and held them apart at arm’s length.
Corliss and Jerome both continued trying to flail away, even though they couldn’t reach each other, until Preacher gave them each a hard shake and said, “Damn it, that’s enough! Settle down, the both of you!”
“He started it!” Corliss accused, panting from exertion and anger. “He threw the first punch! And he stole my fiancée!”
“You forced her away from you, the way you treated her!” Jerome shot back. “You don’t deserve to have her!”
“Both of you just stop, please,” Deborah put in in a tortured voice. “Can’t you . . . can’t you see what you’re doing to me?”
They both looked at her, puzzlement momentarily replacing rage. “Doing to you?” Jerome asked. “I’m trying to help you.”
“And I’m trying to keep this bastard from stealing you from me!” Corliss added.
“You’re tearing me apart, that’s what you’re doing!” Deborah put her hands over her face and began to sob into them. The sobs were so strong they shook her entire body.
Corliss and Jerome fell silent and frowned at her, obviously unsure what they should say or do next. Preacher let go of them, figuring that they wouldn’t start throwing punches at each other again, at least not right away.
Jerome took an uncertain step toward her. “Deborah?” he said.
“Leave her alone,” Corliss snapped. “Haven’t you done enough damage already?”
“I’m not the one who did the damage. You’are supposed to be in love with this woman, for God’s sake. If you’d just treated her decently—”
“And if you’d kept your hands off of her—”
Preacher said, “If you fellas go to scufflin’ again, I’m gonna be tempted to knock your heads together.”
Corliss glared at him. “You work for us, you know. We could dismiss you.”
“Yes, that would be the intelligent thing to do,” Jerome said. “Dismiss our guide when we’re hundreds of miles away from civilization, surrounded by untamed wilderness.”
“We’d be fine,” Corliss said. “We know we’re supposed to follow the river. And nothing has happened to us so far, has it?”
“No, nothing except an encounter with Indians who might well have wiped us out if not for Preacher’s expertise in dealing with them.”
“They didn’t seem all that hostile to me,” Corliss insisted.
“Then you’re an even bigger fool than I already thought you were! ”Jerome scrubbed a hand over his face and heaved a sigh. “Look, this isn’t about Preacher. It’s about Deborah. What are we going to do?”
“You’re going to keep your filthy hands off of her, that’s what we’re going to do!”
Jerome put his arm around Deborah’s shoulders again. Corliss squinted at them in anger and took a step forward, clenching his fists again. Preacher was ready this time. He was going to clout Corliss if the younger man tried to throw another punch.
But instead, Corliss stopped short as he saw the way Deborah turned into Jerome’s embrace and buried her face against his chest. She continued to cry. Awkwardly, Jerome patted her back with his free hand and said, “There, there, Deborah. It’ll be all right.”
Corliss frowned. “She used to turn to me when she was upset,” he said, and there was a small, wounded sound in his voice.
“Yes, well, that was before you began behaving in such an arrogant, high-handed manner,” Jerome told him. “Women are like delicate flowers—”
Deborah lifted her head, sniffled, and thumped a fist lightly against Jerome’s chest. “N-no, we’re not,” she said as she swallowed her sobs. “But we still like to be treated decently.”
Then she buried her head against him again and he continued to pat her back.
Corliss drew in a deep breath and blew it out. “All right,” he said. “Maybe I am to blame for some of the problems. But you took advantage of the situation, Jerome. You know you did.”
“That was never my intention,” Jerome said with a shake of his head. “Things just . . . happened. I didn’t plan to fall in love with her.”
Corliss turned away. “Shut up. I don’t want to hear any more about it, and I don’t want to talk about it. We’ll discuss this in the morning.”
“Yes, I think that’s a good idea. Come along, Deborah. I’ll take you back to your wagon. You need to get some rest. You’re distraught.”
“No, I’m n-not,” she insisted. “I’m just mad because things have to be so ... so damned complicated!”
Jerome looked shocked that she would use such blunt, unladylike language, but he didn’t say anything about it, which Preacher thought was probably a smart move. Deborah wasn’t in any mood to be scolded about anything, and if Jerome tried, she was liable to haul off and wallop him one.
Corliss had already stalked off toward the wagons. Now Jerome and Deborah followed, leaving Preacher standing there on the prairie. He scratched at his beard, thinking that it probably would have been a good idea if he’d had a talk with Jerome when he first discovered what was going on. He could have told Jerome to leave his cousin’s fiancée a
lone and headed this problem off.
Of course, there was no guarantee that Jerome would have followed Preacher’s advice. Fellas who were in love were known for not being able to think too straight.
Preacher waited until they had reached the wagons before he moved. While he was standing there, he listened intently, searching for anything unusual in the night sounds. Hearing nothing like that, he thought about the plans he had made for tonight. As upset as everybody was, he decided it might be a good idea to postpone his scouting mission to see if anyone was following them. If another fight broke out between Corliss and Jerome, he ought to be on hand to deal with it. Despite what he had told Deborah about the two of them not being able to kill each other, he knew that such battles between close relatives sometimes did turn deadly. He couldn’t allow that to happen here.
So he went back to the wagons instead of heading off into the night on foot. When he reached the circle, he found Jerome waiting for him. The man said, “Preacher, I’m sorry. I know I’ve caused a problem here, but I couldn’t help it. Like I told Corliss, what happened between Deborah and me just . . . happened.”
“Yeah, I know,” Preacher said. “I ain’t an expert on such things as fallin’ in love, but I do know that it’s a mite like bein’ attacked by Indians.”
Jerome frowned at him. “It is? How so?”
Preacher gave a grim chuckle. “Most o’ the time it comes outta nowhere . . . and if you ain’t lucky, you wind up with your scalp danglin’ from somebody else’s belt.”
Twenty-one
The atmosphere in camp the next morning was chilly, but it had nothing to do with the weather. Corliss Hart sat by himself on a wagon tongue, sipping from a cup of coffee and frowning. Anyone who spoke to him got a curt, unfriendly answer. He didn’t come anywhere near his cousin Jerome or Deborah Morrigan, who sat with Jerome near the campfire.
Preacher supposed that if the worst that happened was Corliss being sullen for the rest of the journey, they could put up with it. Now that the romance between Jerome and Deborah was out in the open, they seemed to have decided it no longer made sense to try to keep it a secret. They talked together openly and smiled at each other in that special way men and women do when a bond has formed between them. Preacher thought he might have a word with Jerome about trying not to throw what had happened in Corliss’s face. That would just make things worse. Also, they probably ought to clear the air about whether or not Deborah and Corliss were still engaged. Preacher figured they weren’t.
Corliss must have been thinking along those same lines, because while the men were hitching the teams of oxen to the wagons, Corliss suddenly strode into the middle of the camp and said in a loud voice, “Jerome, come out here. We have to talk.”
Jerome was checking the grease on one of the wheel hubs. He straightened from that task, looked at his cousin, and asked, “What do you want?”
“Just come here,” Corliss insisted.
Preacher was putting the saddle on Horse while Jake stood nearby and watched him, scratching Dog’s ears at the same time. They all looked around at the sound of Corliss’s voice, and Jake said, “You think they’re gonna fight again?”
“They’d durned well better not,” Preacher replied as he finished tightening one of the cinches. He turned and strode toward Corliss, trailed by Jake and Dog.
Jerome came from the other direction and got there first. “Well, what is it?” he asked, not bothering to keep the impatience out of his voice. “There’s work to do before we can get started again, you know.”
“I don’t care,” Corliss said. “I’m not going.”
Jerome’s eyes widened in surprise, as if that was the last thing he had expected to hear from his cousin. “Not going? What in the world do you mean, not going?”
“Not with you anyway.” Corliss’s face was stony with determination. “We’re splitting up, Jerome.”
“Don’t be insane. We’re partners. We’ve worked together for years now. We put equal amounts of money into this venture. We can’t split up.”
Corliss shook his head. “I don’t see why not. We’ll divide the goods right down the middle and each take three wagons.”
Preacher didn’t like the sound of that idea. Things were about to get a whole heap more complicated if Corliss got his way.
“There’s no reason to do that,” Jerome insisted.
“There’s the best reason in the world,” Corliss countered. “My engagement to Deborah is over.”
Jerome shrugged. “Well, I think that goes without saying, under the circumstances.”
“That being the case,” Corliss said, “I’m not going to travel with her, or with the man who stole her from me. And I’m sure as hell not going into business with you, you traitor.”
“Now see here—”
Corliss poked a finger hard into Jerome’s chest. “No, you see here. Our partnership is dissolved. We’ll split the goods, like I said, and take different routes. We’ll set up two trading posts instead of one.”
Jerome was starting to look a little frantic. “But we can’t do that.”
“Why not? The frontier is a big place. There’ll be room for two trading posts.” Corliss shrugged. “I think I ought to get the best spot, though, just to be fair. Since you get Deborah, after all.” He glanced around at the mountain man, then went on. “And also to be fair, I think Preacher should go with me.”
That came as a surprise to Preacher, since he didn’t think Corliss had much use for him. Just the night before, in fact, Corliss had been talking about dismissing him from their employment. That would have been a damn fool thing to do, of course—but then so was splitting up this expedition into two parties.
And the foolishness had gone on long enough. Preacher stepped forward and said in a growling tone, “Nobody’s gonna go their separate ways. That’d be a good way to get everybody killed. This bunch is really too small already. Bust it in half and you’d all be easy targets for whatever trouble came along.”
“You see, Corliss?” Jerome said. “I told you—”
“What I see is that I can’t stand to travel with the two of you, knowing how you’ve both betrayed me,” Corliss interrupted. “I don’t like to admit it, but . . . it hurts too much.” His voice caught. “My God, Jerome, can’t you see that my heart’s broken?”
Preacher didn’t figure his heart had ever been broken, although it had come mighty close when Jennie died. But he could understand that it probably stung a mite. Still, what Corliss suggested was crazy, and Preacher wasn’t going to allow it.
Before he could get back in the middle of the argument, Deborah said from behind them, “Corliss . . . your heart is broken?”
They all turned toward her, and when Preacher saw the expression on her face, he muttered a curse to himself. Deborah’s eyes were shining as she stepped toward them and went on, “Losing me has hurt you that badly?”
“Of course it has,” he replied, his voice rough with emotion. “I planned for us to spend the rest of our lives together. To have that taken away from me is almost more than I can stand.” He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “That’s why I can’t stay around while the two of you are . . . Well, I just can’t, that’s all. And since I financed this expedition in equal shares with Jerome, the only solution is to divide everything right down the middle.” His mouth twisted. “Except you, of course. We can’t do that. He’s won.”
Deborah shook her head. “No. No, he hasn’t. Not if you truly love me enough so that you’re heartbroken over losing me. I ... I thought you didn’t care anymore, Corliss.”
Jerome said, “Excuse me, but... what’s going on here?”
Jake looked up at Preacher and said, “I’m mixed up, too. Which one of ’em is it she likes?”
Preacher didn’t know the answer to that question. He wasn’t sure Deborah knew the answer.
Or maybe she did, because suddenly she stepped up to Corliss, put her arms around his neck, and pulled his head down to
hers. Their lips met in a kiss.
“Deborah! ”Jerome said. “What are you doing?”
“Oh,” Jake said. “I get it now. Miss Deborah really liked Mr. Corliss better all along, but she thought Mr. Corliss didn’t like her no more, so she took up with Mr. Jerome instead. But now that she knows Mr. Corliss still likes her, she wants to be with him again. That about the size of it, Preacher?”
“Yeah, I reckon,” Preacher said, thinking to himself that he’d rather wrestle a grizzly again than have to sort out the romantic problems of these greenhorns. It was enough to make a man feel like he ought to go back to the mountains and never come out again.
Jerome looked like he’d been walloped over the head with a singletree. He stared at Corliss and Deborah as if he couldn’t comprehend what was happening right before his eyes. Preacher almost felt sorry for the poor son of a bitch . . . almost.
“There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” Jake said.
Preacher looked down at him. “What’s that?”
“How come they like to kiss that way? That can’t be any fun, can it?”
“I reckon if you live long enough, you’ll find out, younker.”
Jake shook his head. “I’ll never live long that I’d want to kiss a girl.”
Preacher put a hand on Jerome’s arm. “Come on. Like you said, there’s work to do before we get them wagons rollin’ again.”
“But . . . but . . .”
“You’re not gonna start up that crazy talk about splittin’ up the expedition again, are you?” Preacher asked in a hard voice.
“No . . . No, I suppose not.” Pain shone dully in Jerome’s eyes. “But if things were different—”
“If things were different, we wouldn’t be out here in the middle o’ nowhere havin’ to depend on each other to survive. But that’s the way it is. Ever’body’s got a job to do, and that’s what’s gonna keep us alive.”
Jerome took a deep breath and watched as Corliss and Deborah walked off, hand in hand. “You’re right. Of course, you’re right, Preacher. I was a fool, wasn’t I?”
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