Preacher's Fortune

by William W. Johnstone

  Unless Preacher had a few tricks of his own waiting for them. Juanita clung desperately to that hope.

  Cobey nudged his horse ahead again, around the bend and up the last slope to the shelf. The others followed. They emerged from the canyon onto the shelf. Cobey reined in as Professor Chambers rode up beside him.

  “Where are they?” the professor asked worriedly. “Weren’t they supposed to meet us here?”

  “I thought so,” Cobey said. He looked around at the other men. “Arnie, didn’t you say they’d be waitin’ for us?”

  The fat man edged his mount up on Cobey’s other side. “That’s what I thought we’d agreed to,” he said. “Maybe Preacher took it different. Maybe they’re waitin’ for us over by that cave.”

  “And maybe they’ve set a damned trap for us!” Cobey snapped. “Spread out! Keep your eyes open!”

  He rode forward slowly as the other men dispersed. All of them had guns drawn now, Juanita saw, except for Cobey. He held the reins in one hand and still had the other arm around her, holding her tightly. She was a human shield, she realized. Anyone taking a shot at Cobey would stand a greater likelihood of hitting her. Esteban and Preacher would not take that chance.

  Even Professor Chambers had a pistol in his hand. The intent, avaricious expression on his lean face made him resemble a hawk searching for prey. Juanita asked herself how she could have ever considered him a civilized man. He was a brigand, just like the others.

  They came in sight of the cave entrance, and Juanita stiffened as she realized that all the horses were gone. So were the five men who should have been there. Everyone was gone.

  Cobey had seen the same thing. “Damn it,” he grated. “Where’d they go?” Lifting his voice, he called to the others, “Watch out for an ambush!”

  No shots shattered the late afternoon stillness, however. Gradually, the men all converged on the cave. “Take a look around!” Cobey snapped at them.

  A few minutes later, Arnie reported, “There’s nobody here, Cobey. They’ve lit a shuck.”

  “I can see that, damn it! What about the treasure?”

  Arnie turned to one of the other men and said, “Get a rope and shinny down into that hole. See if they put it back down there before they left.”

  “Why me?” the man protested.

  “Because you’re the skinniest of us, Bert,” Arnie said. “Now get movin’.”

  Grumbling, the man took a rope from his saddle and tied it to his horse. One of the other men fashioned a makeshift torch and lit it, then handed it to Bert as he got ready to lower himself into the shaft. Carefully, holding the rope in one hand and the torch in the other, he backed into the hole and let himself down.

  “Weren’t the bags with the old relics in ’em already up here when we snatched you?” Cobey asked Juanita.

  She pointed with her bound hands, seeing no point in lying right now. “They were right there, along with one chest full of gold ingots.”

  “Well, what happened to all that loot?”

  She shook her head. “I have no idea.”

  A few moments later, Bert called from down in the cave, his voice echoing hollowly up the shaft. “The chests are down here, but they’re all empty! And there ain’t no relics, neither!”

  “It was all a lie,” Cobey snarled. “They didn’t rig the damn cave to blow up! They just loaded the loot and took off with it.”

  Juanita shook her head, unable to believe that Esteban would do such a thing. He would never abandon her like that, leaving her in the clutches of these cutthroats. . . .

  “Looks like that brother o’ yours is more attached to the treasure than he is to you, Señorita,” Cobey said.

  “No. No, it cannot be.”

  “What are we going to do now?” Professor Chambers asked.

  “I don’t know, but I ain’t givin’ up,” Cobey said. “They didn’t come down the canyon with that loot, so they must’ve gone somewheres else.” His voice grew fierce with anger and frustration as he ordered, “Find ’em! Find out how they got outta here! I’m gonna have that treasure, by God!” He paused and then added, “And I’ll have that bastard Preacher’s head to go with it, too!”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Preacher led the way along the ledge, with Horse right behind him. Esteban came next, followed by Dog. Preacher figured that if any pursuit started closing in on them, Dog would let him know.

  Esteban was still a little unsteady on his feet, so he held onto Horse’s tail. Horse didn’t like it, but Preacher patted him on the shoulder and spoke to him in soothing tones until the big stallion accepted the indignity. The little party of two men and two animals made its way along the ledge at as fast a pace as Preacher dared to set.

  Heights didn’t bother him much, but just to make sure he didn’t get dizzy, he kept his eyes on the trail in front of him or the wall of stone to his left, and advised Esteban to do the same thing. “I’ve seen fellas practically jump off the side of a mountain ’cause they got to lookin’ down too much. All that empty space does somethin’ to a man’s brain.”

  “Don’t worry,” Esteban assured him. “I am not looking anywhere except at the tail end of this horse of yours.”

  Preacher chuckled. “Let’s just hope you ain’t followin’ two horses’ asses.”

  After a few minutes, Esteban asked, “What do you think is happening to Juanita?”

  “I imagine she’s scared, but I don’t reckon she’s been hurt. Like I said, those sons o’ bitches stand a lot better chance of gettin’ that loot if she stays unharmed.”

  “You would truly give the treasure to them in order to save her life?”

  Preacher didn’t hesitate before answering, “Sure I would. I’d hate like the devil to just turn that much loot over to them, but to save Juanita’s life I’d do it. I don’t reckon it’ll ever come down to that, though.”

  Esteban sounded alarmed as he said, “You do not think we will recover the treasure from Father Hortensio?”

  “Oh, we’ll get it back, all right,” Preacher said confidently. “But no matter what Cobey and Chambers say, they ain’t gonna abide by any deal they make. They’ll try their damnedest to kill us, even if we swap the loot for Juanita.”

  “Then why would we even try?”

  “Because we don’t have any other choice. We got to make them think we’re playin’ along with ’em, and to do that we got to have the treasure. Then, when they try to betray us, we’ll turn the tables on them some way.”

  Esteban shook his head. “It all sounds hopeless to me.”

  “As long as we’re drawin’ breath, we got reason to hope,” Preacher told him. “I’ve gotten out of plenty of worse scrapes than this.”

  “I pray you are right, Preacher. And I pray for Juanita’s safety.”

  “That’s a good idea. You keep it up, and I’ll say a prayer myself.”

  The ledge curved on around the mountain. Shadows began to gather. Preacher felt like they had been following the narrow trail for hours, but he knew that was because his nerves were drawn taut. It really hadn’t been that long. He began to wonder, though, what they would do if darkness caught them up here in this precarious position.

  A short time later, the ledge began to slope downward. That was what Preacher had been hoping for. The ledge had to provide a way down off the mountain, otherwise it wouldn’t have done Father Hortensio and the Yaquis any good to take it. But how had they known the ledge was truly an escape route? It could have just as easily petered out and left the fugitives stranded on the side of the mountain.

  It had been a matter of blind faith, Preacher realized. Father Hortensio had trusted in the Lord to get them out of here.

  The ledge curved sharply to the left, around a blind corner. Preacher stepped around it and then came to an abrupt halt. He couldn’t go any farther. The way was blocked by a wall of rock.

  “Damn it!” The sight of the unexpected obstacle jarred the curse out of him.

  “What is it?” Esteban
asked anxiously. “Why have we stopped?”

  “Because we can’t go any farther,” Preacher explained. “There’s been a rock slide. The ledge is covered up.”

  “No! We must get through! Juanita’s life could depend on it.”

  That was true enough, but it didn’t change things. Preacher studied the rocks that blocked the trail, then turned his head to look up at the cliff where a whole section had broken off and slid down here. The scars left behind by the rock slide looked very recent.

  “The padre did this,” he said. “That’s the only explanation, because they came this way and we sure ain’t run across ’em. They got past this spot with the horses and the treasure, and then the padre started a slide somehow and blocked the trail.”

  “How could he do that?”

  “Sometimes all it takes is pullin’ one piece of rock loose. That unsettles everything enough for more to come down. Maybe he used the rope and threw a loop over some outcrop-pin’, then hitched it to one o’ the horses and yanked it outta place. That might have been enough.”

  “But what do we do now?” Esteban asked. “We cannot go back.”

  “No, that’d be a big chore, all right. There ain’t room for Horse to turn around, so he’d have to back all the way, and I don’t reckon he’d take kindly to that.” Preacher rubbed his bearded jaw and frowned in thought. “I reckon the only thing we can do is clear away the rocks so we can keep on goin’. And that’s gonna be a job, too.”

  “I will slip past the horse and help you.”

  “Not just yet,” Preacher said. “Stay where you are for now. You may have to come up and spell me later on, but we’ll wait and see about that.”

  He hung his hat on the saddle and went to work, picking up the smaller rocks and tossing them over the edge. Some of the chunks of stone were too big for him to lift, but if he cleared away most of the smaller ones he thought he could roll the larger ones off the ledge.

  It was hard work, but Preacher’s corded muscles were accustomed to such labor. The air was cool at this altitude, too, which helped. Once the sun set, it would be downright cold, but Preacher didn’t plan on stopping for long enough to let the chill stiffen up his muscles.

  He lifted and shoved and rolled and threw, and slowly the barrier of stone began to diminish. The sun went down and the sky turned from blue to purple to black, with the stars winking into life one by one overhead. Preacher continued working as the moon rose and cast a pale silvery glow over the rugged landscape. He wedged his way behind one of the larger boulders and got his hands and feet on it, bracing his back against the cliff as he pushed. The boulder rocked a little, and Preacher pushed harder. It began to move even more, and then gravity and the boulder’s own weight took over. It toppled over the edge, leaving Preacher sprawled dangerously close to the brink. He crabbed backward as a booming crash came floating up from far below. The boulder had landed.

  “A couple more o’ those out of the way, and I think we’ll be able to pick our way past,” Preacher said.

  “Yes, but this delay has given Father Hortensio enough time to get far ahead of us,” Esteban said. “I fear we may never catch him.”

  Preacher snorted. “You’re givin’ up too easy, amigo. One thing I’ve learned out here on the frontier is that if a fella keeps on goin’ after what he wants, he finally gets it more often than not. You just got to be stubborn as a mule, and don’t never give up.”

  “All right, Preacher. Perhaps you should have been a real preacher, since you are eloquent in your own rough way.”

  “Thanks . . . I think,” Preacher said with a chuckle. “I’ll leave it to other folks to spread the Gospel, though. They’re better at it than I am.” He pushed himself to his feet, this brief breather over. “Right now I got to get back to work on these rocks.”

  Cobey stalked back and forth, waiting for his men to come back and report whatever their search of the area had turned up. Chambers sat under a tree watching him, and not far away, Juanita sat on a log with Wick perched beside her. The giant was still charged with keeping an eye on the prisoner, as Cobey had ordered.

  After a while, Wick spoke up tentatively when Cobey’s pacing brought him close to the log. “Cobey, you reckon it’d be all right to take this gag off the lady now?”

  Cobey stopped and glared at him. “What?”

  “I said, you reckon we could take this gag off—”

  Cobey gestured curtly and said, “Yeah, sure. Those bastards have already flown the coop with the treasure. She can yell her head off and it won’t hurt anything now.”

  “Thanks, Cobey.” Wick turned to Juanita and began fumbling with the knotted bandanna at the back of her head.

  “Oh!” she said in relief as the bandanna came loose, allowing her to close her mouth and easing the ache in her jaws.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Wick said. “I know that must’ve hurt.”

  Juanita worked her jaws from side to side. She couldn’t even speak for a moment. When she could, she said, “Thank you, Wick.”

  He blushed and looked down at the ground. “Why, you’re sure welcome.”

  Cobey ignored them and said, “Damn it, the boys oughtta be back by now.”

  A few minutes later, in fact, the searchers did return, led by Arnie Ross. The fat man swung down from his saddle and said, “Well, we found out where they went.” He jerked a thumb toward the eastern end of the shelf. “There’s another trail over yonder that leads off around the mountain. Just a little ledge, really, about wide enough for a horse to walk on.”

  “How do you know they went that way?” Cobey demanded.

  Arnie shrugged. “Found a few tracks. And where else could they have gone? We’ve covered the whole shelf. There ain’t no other way down, at least that a horse could take, except the canyon. And we know they didn’t leave that way. Since they ain’t here anymore . . .”

  “Yeah, yeah, I guess you’re right,” Cobey muttered. He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his tangled hair. “Lemme do some figurin’.”

  Arnie went on. “The trail’s got to go somewhere. I think we ought to send a couple o’ men along it to see where it comes out. The rest can go back down the canyon to the wagons. Once we know where that ledge leads, we can pick up the trail, and one of the fellas can come back to get the rest of the bunch. It may take some time, but we’ll track ’em down one way or the other.”

  “Damn right we will,” Cobey said. “Are you volunteerin’ to follow the ledge?”

  Arnie shrugged again. “I reckon I can. Ain’t that fond o’ heights, but they don’t bother me that awful much.”

  “Take Worthy with you.”

  Arnie nodded. “All right. Come on, George.”

  The two men rode off. That left Cobey, Chambers, Wick, Bert McDermott, and Chuck Stilson, along with Juanita, to return down the canyon to the wagons. Cobey got them moving quickly, since it was already late enough in the day so that it would be dark by the time they returned to the valley of the Purgatoire River.

  Once again, Juanita was set on the back of Cobey’s horse, and he climbed on behind her. This time, when he put his arm around her, he pressed it up against the undersides of her breasts. “Looks like we’re gonna have plenty of time to get to know each other, Señorita, thanks to your brother desertin’ you like this.”

  Juanita sat stiffly in silence and stared straight ahead, ignoring Cobey’s touch and his leering comment. She was thinking about Esteban, and she was filled with fear for him. She knew that he would not have abandoned her to her captivity by choice. Something had happened to him. It must have. She hoped that his disappearance meant that he was still alive. If he were dead, his body surely would have been left behind when the others departed on the narrow ledge. But was he a prisoner, too? Who could have captured him? Were there hostile Indians in this region? Preacher had not seemed worried about such a threat.

  Of course, it might take a lot to worry a man like Preacher.

  The questions kept Juan
ita’s mind occupied so that she was able to ignore the vile things Cobey whispered in her ear as they rode down the canyon. She knew that before she escaped from this man—as she was sure she would do eventually—her honor might be forever compromised. Time would tell. If this ordeal left her indelibly stained, she would enter a convent when she returned to Mexico City. She had already given much thought to spending the rest of her life inside the walls of a nunnery. Right now that prospect seemed almost appealing.

  Darkness settled down as the group of riders followed the twists and turns of the canyon. At one point, Cobey reined in sharply as the sound of a distant crash came to them. “What was that?” Chambers asked.

  “Sounded like a big rock fallin’,” Cobey replied. “Hope it didn’t fall on Arnie and George.”

  They pushed on, and a short time later they neared the bottom of the canyon. The moon was up now, flooding the valley with pale illumination. Between that lunar glow and the light from the stars, it was almost as bright as day.

  Plenty bright enough, in fact, for them to see that the wagons were gone.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  It took Preacher another half hour to clear away enough of the rock slide so that he and Esteban, along with Horse and Dog, could pick their way along the ledge past the obstruction. It was tricky working the big stallion along an even narrower path than the ledge had provided so far, but Horse was almost as sure-footed as a mountain goat and made it just fine.

  Other than a lingering headache, Esteban claimed to feel much better now, too. Once they were past the rock slide, he moved along the ledge easily, keeping one hand against the cliff to the left.

  The trail dropped at an even steeper angle now. Preacher checked the stars now and then and could estimate the time fairly closely by their position as they wheeled through the sky. He figured it was close to midnight when he and Esteban reached the bottom of the ledge and found themselves in some knobby foothills.

  Preacher pointed and said, “I don’t reckon the river is more than half a mile over yonderways. That’s probably the way Father Hortensio and them Yaquis went, but it’ll be hard to know for sure until mornin’, when we can see better.”