Preacher's Justice

by William W. Johnstone

  Preacher walked into Portsmouth, arriving around eight o’clock, just as the town was beginning its daily activity. Though it was much smaller than St. Louis, it had a cosmopolitan air about it with its businesses and enterprises. Merchants were in front of their establishments, industriously sweeping their porches. Freight wagons were already rolling in and out of the town, some of them queuing up at the river’s edge in preparation for meeting the next arriving boat.

  Preacher walked by Dunnigan’s Mercantile store and saw that Mr. Dunnigan, wearing an apron, was putting together a display of some of his goods. Preacher recognized Dunnigan right away because the merchant hadn’t changed that much over the last fifteen years. Preacher smiled as he recalled that he had worked for Dunnigan one summer, sacking potatoes.

  “Good morning, Mr. Dunnigan,” Preacher said, touching the brim of his hat.

  “Good morning, young man,” Dunnigan replied cheerily. It was obvious that Dunnigan didn’t recognize him, and Preacher didn’t say who he was because he didn’t want to have to go into a long explanation as to where he had been all these years. “Looks like it’s going to be a nice day,” Dunnigan added.

  “Yes, sir, it does indeed,” Preacher replied, continuing on toward the bank.

  The bank was on Front Street. It was closed, but on the front door was a sign that said it would open for business at nine o’clock. Looking through the window of the bank, Preacher could see the clock inside. It was now eight twenty-three.

  For the next few minutes, passersby saw Preacher standing in front of the bank. From all outward appearances, he seemed totally relaxed, with his arms folded across his chest and one foot raised and pressing against the front wall. In truth, he was keenly alert, both mentally and physically, for whatever challenge he might have to face.

  Shortly before nine, a fancy carriage, accompanied by a rider on either side, turned onto Front Street and came toward the bank. The carriage stopped in front and the passenger climbed down.

  “Will you be needing the carriage this morning, Mr. Blanton?” the driver asked.

  “No,” the passenger answered. The man was grossly overweight, with large jowls and several chins. He had virtually no neck, so his bald head seemed to rest, like a cannonball, on his round shoulders.

  “Very good, sir. I’ll be over at the livery if you do need me.” The driver clucked to his team and the carriage pulled away.

  The fat man looked at Preacher, curious as to who he was.

  “Are you Klyce Blanton?” Preacher asked.

  “I am he, sir. Why do you ask? Are you waiting for the bank to open?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’m always glad to do business,” Blanton said as he unlocked the bank door. “But the bank doesn’t open for another fifteen minutes.”

  “I’ll wait,” Preacher said, making no effort to move.

  “What sort of business do you have with the bank?” Blanton asked.

  “I’m here to give you some money,” Preacher said.

  Blanton smiled broadly. “Well, now, if you are here to give me money, I think we can make an exception and let you in a little early. Come on inside, Mr. . . . ”

  “Preacher.”

  “Preacher? Your name is Preacher?”

  “Preacher will do.”

  “Well, Mr. Preacher, come on inside and we’ll do some business.”

  The two men who had accompanied Blanton, both armed and rough-looking, tied their horses off at the hitching rail, then went inside as well. One of them sat in a chair by the front door, while the other walked toward the back office with Preacher and Blanton. This one settled in a chair just outside the door to Blanton’s office.

  “These two rather formidable-looking gentlemen are my bodyguards,” Blanton explained when he saw Preacher looking at them. “A man of my prominence can’t afford to be without protection. Now, I believe you said something about being here to give me money?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, then, Mr. Preacher, come on into my office and we’ll take care of business. Are you opening an account with us?”

  “No,” Preacher said. “I’m here to pay off a loan and pick up the paper you hold on a farm.”

  The smile left Blanton’s face and his eyes narrowed. He stroked his multiple chins as he stared at Preacher.

  “What makes you think you can just come in here and buy up a loan?” he asked. He pointed to Preacher’s buckskin clothes. “I can tell you aren’t from around here, but that’s not the way business is done.”

  “I’m not buying up a loan,” Preacher said. “I’m paying one off. I want it returned to the borrower, free and clear.”

  “Why would you want to pay off someone else’s loan?”

  “It’s the loan my pa borrowed against his farm,” Preacher said. “I want him out from under that debt.”

  “Who is your father?”

  “Sylvanias Coopersmith,” Preacher said.

  As Preacher said the name Coopersmith, he realized that it was the first time he had so much as spoken the name in over fifteen years. When he left home he had purposely dropped his last name in order not to bring any discredit on his family.

  Blanton shook his head. “Are you trying to pull something on me, mister? I know Sylvanias Coopersmith’s son, Morgan, and you aren’t Morgan.”

  “I’m his other son, Art.”

  “I thought you said your name was Preacher.”

  “That’s what folks call me, and I’m comfortable with it,” Preacher replied.

  “You know I think, mister? I think you are a liar,” Blanton snarled.

  As quickly as a striking snake, Preacher pulled his knife and stuck the point of it into Blanton’s left nostril. He sliced the side of the nostril, not a very large cut, but one that went all the way through. It was not only painful, it produced a lot of blood.

  “Ahhh!” Blanton shouted, grabbing his wounded nose. “Colby!”

  The bodyguard who was posted just outside Blanton’s office came running in through the door, his pistol in his hand. Spinning toward him, Preacher threw his knife, and the point of it punched through Colby’s sleeve, pinning his gun hand to the wall just inside the door.

  The other bodyguard came running in as well, but as soon as he stepped through the door he was greeted with Preacher’s drawn pistol, charged, cocked, and leveled right at him. The second bodyguard stopped dead in his tracks and threw up his hands. “No, wait! Hold it, hold it!” he called out in quick fear.

  “Mr. Blanton, you might want to rethink what you just said,” Preacher said calmly. “You see, where I’m from, a man’s word is his bond. When you call someone a liar, you commit a serious offense against his person.”

  Blanton held his hand cupped under his nose and the palm was pooling with blood.

  “What?” Blanton replied, his voice strained with pain and distraction.

  “Whenever someone calls me a liar, I take it real personal,” Preacher said.

  “I . . . I didn’t mean that I actually thought you were a liar. I just didn’t realize that Mr. Coopersmith had a son other than Morgan,” Blanton whined.

  “I thought that might be the case,” Preacher said. He looked at the two bodyguards, who were glaring at him with anger. “You,” he said to Colby. “Bring my knife to me. And be careful how you do it.”

  Still glaring, Colby pulled the knife from his sleeve and the wall, then brought it back to Preacher, handing it to him handle-first.

  “Thank you. Now, I’d like for both of you to put your pistols on Mr. Blanton’s desk,” Preacher said, motioning with his own pistol.

  Still glaring at him, the men started across the room with their pistols.

  “Uh,-uh,” Preacher said. “Carry them by their barrels.”

  Both pistols were cocked, and the men stopped, then started to ease the hammers down.

  “No, I want you to leave your guns cocked,” Preacher said.

  “Are you crazy? You expect me to hold
a cocked pistol by the barrel?” Colby asked.

  Preacher smiled coldly. “Yes, I do,” he said. “That way I know you will be careful.”

  Slowly, gingerly, the two bodyguards turned the pistols around and held them by the barrel. As Preacher had ordered, the pistols were still cocked. Then, carefully, the men walked the rest of the way across the floor and put the pistols on the desk.

  “Thank you. Now, if you would, I want both of you to go over there and sit on the floor facing the wall.”

  “Mister, just who the hell do you think you are, ordering us around like this?” the other bodyguard asked angrily.

  “I think I’m the one with the loaded gun,” Preacher said. “Now, do what I told you to do.”

  Reluctantly, but clearly with no choice, the men complied.

  Turning his attention back to Blanton, Preacher saw that the banker was now holding a handkerchief to his nose. The slice on his nose was still bleeding, though not as profusely as before.

  “I am Sylvanias Coopersmith’s son,” Preacher said. “I admit that I haven’t been much of a son to him.” Preacher was speaking as conversationally as if nothing had happened. “But I am his son nevertheless, and I’m here to pick up the paper you are holding against the farm.”

  “I’ll get the paper for you,” Blanton said. “You can have it. Just don’t kill me.”

  Preacher shook his head. “No, you don’t understand,” he said. “I don’t want you to give it to me. That would be the same as bank robbery and as soon as I left, you would just send the sheriff out there and take my father’s farm. I’m not here to steal the paper, I’m here to pay off the loan. This is strictly a business operation.”

  “Is it your business to cut a man’s nose off?” Blanton asked.

  “Oh, but I didn’t cut your nose off, though I could have if I had wanted to. So tell me, Blanton, are we going to talk business or not?”

  Blanton pulled the handkerchief away from his nose. The bleeding had stopped, though there was quite a bit of blood on his face and the front of his shirt and vest. Blanton studied the handkerchief for a moment, as if unable to believe this had happened to him in his own bank. Finally, he looked up at Preacher.

  “You do understand, don’t you, that the entire amount is due? That includes principal, interest, and transfer charges.”

  “Transfer charges? What are transfer charges?” Preacher asked.

  “There were expenses involved with transferring all of the loans from the previous mortgage holder over to me,” Blanton explained.

  “Seems to me like that would fall under the cost of doing business. By rights those are your costs, not the costs of your borrowers.”

  “All right. You are the one holding the gun. If you say no transfer charges, then there are no transfer charges.”

  Again, Preacher shook his head. “No, if these transfer charges are part of it, then I’ll pay them as well. I told you, I intend for this to be all legal and proper. How much does my pa owe you?”

  Blanton opened a drawer and pulled out a file. “It looks like your father, and I see here that your brother Morgan has signed as well, owes this bank a total of six hundred and twenty-seven dollars. “You have six hundred dollars and twenty-seven dollars on you, do you, Mr. Preacher?”

  “I have these bank drafts,” Preacher replied. Preacher showed him Blanton six documents, drawn for one hundred dollars each. “And I have twenty-seven dollars in cash,” he added.

  Blanton shook his head. “You don’t have six hundred dollars. What you have are bank drafts, and they aren’t worth the paper they are printed on unless you can get a bank to honor them.”

  “These drafts are drawn against the River Bank of St. Louis,” Preacher said. “Any bank in the country will honor them.”

  Closing the file, Blanton returned it to the drawer from which it had come. “I have no intention of honoring them,” he said cryptically. “Unless, of course, you force me to honor them. As I said earlier, you are the man with the gun, and I never argue with a man who is holding a gun on me.”

  Preacher stared at Blanton, so angry with the fat man that his temple began to throb. Blanton was a quick learner. He had already learned how to play Preacher against himself. By saying that the only way he would honor the drafts would be for Preacher to force him to do so, he meant that he was inviting Preacher to take the deed by force. That was something Preacher had already said he would not do, because a deed taken by force, even in exchange for valid bank drafts, would be reported to the sheriff as soon as Preacher left.

  “Very well, I will find a bank to honor it, and I’ll bring cash.”

  Despite the wounded nose, Blanton actually allowed a smile to play across his face. He believed that he was in control now. This was business, and nobody was better at business than Klyce Blanton.

  “You go find a bank, Mr. Preacher, or Coopersmith . . . whatever you are calling yourself,” Blanton said. “But when you do find one, understand this. I want the money in gold coin. I’m not interested in paper.”

  “Why not? I know that you deal in paper money,” Preacher said.

  “It is my option to ask for payment to be rendered in gold,” Blanton said. “And that is what I intend to do, unless you force me to do otherwise.” Blanton continued to play the hand he had been dealt. He knew, now, that Preacher wasn’t going to force him into any deal that might later compromise the transaction. “So, if you want your papa’s loan back, you are going to have bring me six hundred twenty dollars in gold,” Blanton said. He snorted what might have been a chuckle. “You can bring me the seven dollars in paper money.”

  “I’ll be back,” Preacher said as he left the office.

  Blanton followed Preacher to the door of his office, then stood there and watched as Preacher left the bank.

  “You two worthless pieces of shit can get up now,” Blanton said dismissively, speaking to his bodyguards, who were still sitting on the floor over in the corner of his office.

  The two men stood and retrieved their guns.

  “I’m going after the son of a bitch,” Colby said, starting toward the door. “I’ll teach him to treat me this way.”

  “No,” Blanton said, holding his hand out to stop him. “You and McDougal follow him, but don’t do anything until he gets the money.”

  “Then what?” Colby asked.

  “I don’t want him to make it back to the bank with it.”

  “What do you want us to do?”

  “I don’t want him to make it back to the bank with the money,” Blanton said again, this time more pointedly than before.

  “All right,” Colby said.

  FIFTEEN

  Preacher had no intention of letting Blanton take the farm away from his father. If the bank demanded cash money in order to retire the debt, then Preacher would come up with the cash. Whatever it took to get control of the farm returned to his father, Preacher intended to do.

  The first requirement would be to find a bank that would honor the drafts from the River Bank of St. Louis. That in itself should not be hard, though it might be somewhat more difficult to find a bank that would pay in gold coin, rather than paper money.

  This was Preacher’s original home place, but he had grown to adulthood somewhere else. Because of that, he really knew very little about this area. In order to find a bank that would meet all the requirements, he would have to have help from someone, and he knew exactly who that someone would be. He walked down the street to visit with his brother-in-law.

  Preacher thought his brother-in-law’s establishment would be closed at this time of the morning, so he was surprised to see that Vaughan Roberts had already opened the Riverman’s Inn for business. When he stepped inside, Vaughan looked up at him from behind the bar. Vaughan smiled, and called a greeting.

  “Good morning, brother-in-law.”

  “Good morning,” Preacher replied. He looked around the Inn, and saw that there were several people sitting at the tables.

 
“I wouldn’t have expected you to have this many customers at this time of day,” Preacher said. “Seems a little early to be drinking, doesn’t it?”

  Vaughan chuckled. “Not if you’re drinking coffee,” he replied.

  “Coffee?”

  “In the afternoon and at night, we are what some may call a tavern. But you notice we call it an inn, not a tavern, so we open in the morning and have quite a brisk breakfast trade. A lot of men, especially the bachelors, come in here for coffee and strudel. Your sister makes the best strudel in the county, and has proven it by winning prizes at the county fair.”

  “I didn’t know that about her,” Preacher said. “Actually, I’m ashamed to say, I know nothing about her, or any of the rest of my family.”

  “You have a wonderful family, I’m happy to say.”

  “Tell me about them,” Preacher said. “Last night, I’m afraid that all I did was fill everybody in on where I’ve been and what I’ve done for the last fifteen years.”

  “All right, I’ll start with your sister Betty. She was a schoolteacher until she got married, and she was a very good one. But as I’m sure you know, the school board has a strict rule against teachers being married so when she and Jim got hitched, she had to give up her job. There were a lot of disappointed families in the area, families whose older sons or daughters had been in Miss Coopersmith’s class, and who wanted their younger children to have her as well.

  “Betty’s husband, Jim, publishes a newspaper, and even the governor has read and commented on some of his editorials. There are some who think Jim should run for office, but he insists that he can do more good as a newspaperman by, in his words, ‘being the watchdog of the public.’

  “Your brother Morgan, like your father, is a farmer. He works hard, is honest in his dealings with others, and there is no finer man in the county. His wife, Ann, happens to be my first cousin, so if I tell you what a wonderful person she is, you’ll just say I’m being prejudiced.”

  “No, I would say who has a clearer idea than you,” Preacher replied. “Thank you for filling me in on all of them, Vaughan. But I must say that, after seeing how well they all turned out, it’s clear to me that I am the black sheep of the family,” Preacher said. He was only half-jesting when he made the comment.