“That doesn’t matter, Walter,” the woman insisted as she took a step toward Preacher. “The Lord said for us to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. The Good Samaritan stopped to help without asking who that poor man was or what had happened to him.”
Preacher hunched over more as the woman approached. “Ma’am, I appreciate the sentiment, I surely do,” he rasped, “but I’d be obliged if you and the other lady would move along and let your men-folks give me a hand. It’d be more fittin’ and proper.”
“Nonsense,” she said as she reached his side and bent down to take hold of his arm. “Let me help you up.”
She was a hefty woman, and Preacher didn’t have much choice except to go along with her. With her supporting him, he climbed to his feet. The dizziness got to him again for a second, causing him to sag against her. He put a hand on her shoulder to steady himself.
“Here now! Stop that! Good heavens, sir, have you no shame?” That was Walter again. Preacher figured he was probably Martha’s husband.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he murmured as he straightened. “I was a mite out of my head there for a minute. Didn’t mean to give no offense.”
“That’s quite all right,” she told him. “How badly are you injured? Do you need us to take you to a physician?”
Preacher felt of the wound on his scalp again. It was just a short, shallow furrow where the pistol ball had barely grazed him. That had been enough to knock him down and make him pass out for a few minutes, but that seemed to be the extent of the damage.
“I reckon I’ll be all right,” he told the woman. “That shot just nicked me, and this old skull o’ mine is pretty darned thick.”
Walter snorted, as if to say that he certainly believed that.
“At least take my husband’s coat,” Martha said.
This time Walter said, “What! Martha, you can’t just offer my coat to this…this reprobate!”
Preacher’s head felt steady enough now for him to bend over and pick up his pistols. As he straightened, he saw Walter peeling off the long black coat.
“Now we’re being robbed!” Walter said. “Here, take the coat. Just don’t hurt any of us, I implore you, sir!”
Preacher wanted to ask the fella if he was touched in the head, but he was tired of this whole encounter and just took the coat instead, saying, “I ain’t stealin’ your coat. You can come down to Fargo’s tavern any time you want and get it back. I’ll leave it with ol’ Ford.”
Walter swallowed hard and said, “That’s all right. I…I’ve heard of that tavern. I wouldn’t set foot in a place like that!”
“You wouldn’t happen to have a little boy name of Jake, would you?” Preacher muttered as he shrugged into the borrowed coat. Walter was built sort of stout, so the garment hung pretty loosely on him, but it was long enough to cover the essentials.
“What? I don’t have any children.”
“More’s the pity,” Martha said.
Preacher wasn’t so sure about that. If he was a kid, he wouldn’t want a stiff-necked varmint like Walter for his pa. But folks didn’t really get a choice about things like that, he supposed.
The important thing was that the two men who had killed Abby were long gone by now, and Preacher had no idea where to look for them. He wasn’t even sure he would recognize them if he saw them again, although he thought there was a pretty good chance he would. While he was still in St. Louis, he would be keeping an eye out for a pair of gents, one short and one tall. He thought the tall one had been wearing buckskins, and the short one had sported that beaver hat he’d caught a glimpse of going down the stairs in the tavern.
He said good night to the folks who had found him and started back toward Fargo’s, the tails of Walter’s coat flapping around his legs. He felt pretty foolish walking into the tavern that way, but even though some of the patrons looked mighty hard at him, nobody snickered. In fact, an air of gloom hung over the place, and Preacher figured out why as a couple of men started down the stairs from the second floor, carrying a blanket-shrouded shape.
“Abby?” Preacher said to Fargo.
The burly tavern keeper nodded. “Yeah. I reckon you knew she was dead when you went chasin’ out of here after those fellas. They the ones who shot her?”
“That’s right,” Preacher said. “They were aimin’ for me. Abby just happened to be in the way.”
Fargo shook his head as the men carried Abby’s body on out of the tavern. “Damned shame. She was a fine gal, for a whore. Hell, she would’ve been a fine gal even if she hadn’t been a whore.”
“Did you see the two bastards who done it?”
“Yeah, but I never paid much attention to ’em. Think I’d seen ’em somewhere before, but I ain’t sure about that. And when they ran outta here, they were movin’ so fast and everything was so confused I didn’t get a good look at ’em even then.”
Preacher bit back a curse. The two men had been close enough to him to fire at almost point-blank range, and yet they were still strangers.
Carrying his pistols, Preacher went back upstairs. Small puddles of water still lay on the floor of his room where they had splashed out of the tub during the ruckus. He grimaced at the sight of them, tossed the long black coat on the bed, and began pulling on his buckskins.
When he was dressed, he returned to the tavern’s main room and asked all the other customers about the two killers. Nobody had gotten a really good look at them, but the questioning confirmed that the taller man had been dressed in buckskins and the smaller one wore a beaver hat and a black suit that had seen better days. Those descriptions didn’t mean anything to Preacher, and they were vague enough that they might have fit almost anybody.
He had to wonder if the two men would try again to kill him. He hoped so.
Preacher was looking forward to making their acquaintance, over the barrels of his guns.
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
850 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10022
Copyright © 2007 William W. Johnstone
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
Following the death of William W. Johnstone, the Johnstone family is working with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Mr. Johnstone’s outlines and many unfinished manuscripts to create additional novels in all of his series like The Last Gunfighter, Mountain Man, and Eagles, among others. This novel was inspired by Mr. Johnstone’s superb storytelling.
PINNACLE BOOKS and the Pinnacle logo are Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 0-7860-1988-3
* The Last Mountain Man
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Rampage of the Mountain Man Page 23