Preacher's Justice

by William W. Johnstone

  “Sheriff Wallace,” Billy said, greeting him.

  “Billy, this is Mr. Coopersmith,” Sheriff Wallace said. “But he goes by the name of Preacher.”

  “You’re a pastor?”

  “No. It’s just a nickname people have hung on me. I’m comfortable with it now.”

  “I see you’re keeping busy,” Sheriff Wallace said, nodding toward the ladder.

  “Yes, sir.” Billy pointed to the roof of the house. “Pa kept tellin’ me that we was goin’ to have to put shingles on the roof this summer, but I kept puttin’ ’im off ’cause I didn’t want to do the work,” he said. “But I put it off too long. Durin’ the rain last week, the roof leaked somethin’ awful.”

  The sheriff chuckled. “When shingles go bad, roofs will do that,” he said. “How are you and your sister doing?”

  “We’re doin’ all right. We miss Ma and Pa, but we’re doin’ just fine. Come on in, Suzie’s makin’ some lemonade.”

  “Thanks. Sounds good after a hot ride.”

  The three men went into the house, where Suzie greeted them with glasses of the confection.

  “I just drew the water from the well, so they should be cool,” she said, offering each of them a glass.

  “Billy, Preacher thinks he knows who the fella is that killed your ma and pa,” Sheriff Wallace said.

  Billy looked at Preacher. “You know this man?” he asked.

  “Yes. If he is who I think he is, he also killed a woman in St. Louis a few months ago,” Preacher said. “I’ve been looking for him ever since.”

  “I wish you had found him before he got here,” Suzie said, a tear sliding down her cheeks.

  “I do too, miss,” Preacher said. “And I’m very sorry for your loss. But I’ll tell you this, if it’s any comfort to you. I will find him.”

  “It won’t bring Ma and Pa back.”

  “No, it won’t do that,” Preacher admitted.

  “What’s his name?” Billy asked.

  “His name is Caviness. Ben Caviness,” Preacher said. “He’s a big man with dark hair and a crooked nose. And he’s missing his left ear.”

  “That’s him!” Suzie said, gasping.

  “How’d he lose that ear?” Billy asked. “What he’s got left is about the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “The woman he killed had a dog with her. The dog chewed the ear off.”

  “Good for that dog,” Billy said. “Too bad he didn’t kill him.”

  “There were two men who attacked the woman,” Preacher said. “And the dog did rip the throat out of the other one, killing him.”

  “Good.”

  “Billy, Sheriff Wallace said that you ran after Caviness, but he was riding.”

  “Yes. He was riding a bay,” Billy said. “If he hadn’t been mounted, he would be dead, because I would’ve caught up with him.”

  “He went that way, east,” Suzie said, pointing. “Of course, he could have turned a different direction after he was out of sight. I think about that, about him still being out there, and sometimes I’m afraid at night, afraid that he may come back.”

  “I told her I wish he would come back,” Billy said. “He got away from me once. If he comes back, he won’t get away again.”

  “He won’t be coming back,” Preacher said. “He’s heading east.”

  “You say that like you know it for a fact,” Sheriff Wallace said.

  “I do know it for a fact.”

  “Where is he heading, do you know?”

  “He is going to Philadelphia.”

  After they finished their lemonade, Preacher and the Sheriff took their leave. As they left, the sheriff saw several rusting, iron washers lying on the ground under a tree, and he chuckled.

  “You’ve got a lot of iron washers there, Billy,” the sheriff said. “What are you planning on doing with them? Going into the iron washer business?”

  “You remember, don’t you, sheriff, how Dad use to run a float line out in the river for catf ish?” Billy asked.

  “Indeed I do,” Wallace said. “I’ve had more’n one mess of your pa’s fish.”

  “Well, he used these iron washers as weights for the fishing line. He liked to gather them up, but I don’t have any use for them.”

  “You mean you don’t fish?” Sheriff Wallace asked. “I figured, as good a fisherman as your pa was, you’d be out on the river too.”

  Billy shook his head. “No. Dad enjoyed it, but I don’t. I wish I did enjoy it. I think Dad would have appreciated it if I had gone fishing with him, but I never did. I just don’t have the patience, I guess.”

  “What are you going to do with all these washers now?” Preacher asked.

  “I don’t know. Bury them, I guess.”

  “I’ll give you two dollars for the lot of them,” Preacher offered.

  Billy smiled broadly. “What? You’ll give me two dollars for this?”

  “For the whole pile,” Preacher said. “What do you say?”

  “I say that you’ve got yourself a deal!”

  Preacher gave Billy two dollars, then scooped up all the washers and put them in his hat.

  “What are you going to do with all them things?” the sheriff asked.

  “I don’t know,” Preacher replied. He smiled. “Maybe I’ll go fishing.”

  Billy and Suzie watched the two men ride away.

  “I wish I was going with him,” Billy said.

  “Why?”

  “I think he is going to catch up with this man Caviness. And when he does, I’d like to be there.”

  Suzie shivered. “Not I,” she said. “I never want to see him again. And I don’t know why you would want to.”

  “There’s something about this man that tells me that when he does catch up with Ben Caviness, he is going to kill him,” Billy said. “And I would like to be there when that happens.”

  “You mean you could watch something like that?” Suzie asked.

  Billy spat on the ground, then started back toward the ladder to resume his work on the roof.

  “Watch it?” he said. “I could do it myself.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Colby and McDougal knew that Preacher would have to go to Alexandria in order to find a bank that would honor the bank drafts, so, even as Preacher was in the Riverman’s Inn, Blanton’s two bodyguards were on their way to Alexandria. They got there ahead of Preacher and waited in the saloon, taking a table near the window so they could keep an eye on the bank, which was located just across the street.

  “You think he’ll get the gold?” McDougal asked.

  “I reckon he will,” Colby said. He chuckled. “But he ain’t goin’ to keep it long, seein’ as how we’ll just meet him out on the road somewhere between here and Portsmouth and relieve him of that burden.”

  “Yeah, well, if it was up to me, I’d do more than take the money from him. I’d kill the son of a bitch,” McDougal said.

  “And you’d get hung for it too,” Colby replied. “Hell, you’d get us both hung.”

  “I just don’t like the way he done us back in Portsmouth.”

  “Me neither. I never seen anyone move as fast as he did.”

  “Yeah, well, iffen he hadn’t already pinned you to the wall with that knife, I would’a had a shot at him,” McDougal said. “I could’a kilt him then, and it would’a been self-defense.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “’Cause I told you, you was in the way.”

  “So you say. But truth to tell, when you come runnin’ into the room, he was already standin’ there with his gun draw’d, pointin’ right at your innards.”

  “That’s the truth,” McDougal admitted. “Wait a minute, ain’t that him comin’ up the road there?”

  Colby looked out the window in the direction McDougal was pointing.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That’s him, all right. Couldn’t be nobody else, dressed like he is, with them buckskins and that hat.”

  They watched Preacher ride the length of t
he street, then stop in front of the Ohio Bank for Savings. Dismounting, he tied his horse off, then went inside.

  “Mr. Blanton was right. He come right here to this bank for his gold, just like he said he would.”

  They waited for several minutes, drinking beer and watching the bank and the street, until they saw Preacher coming back out of the bank, carrying a sack.

  “Look at that there sack he’s carryin’. Looks like he got the gold,” McDougal said.

  “Yeah, but he won’t keep it very long,” Colby said. “I’m going to enjoy takin’ it from him almost as much as I would killin’ him.”

  To their surprise, Preacher didn’t remount. Instead, he walked across the street, still carrying the sack of gold. They watched as he went into the small brick building that sat on the corner.

  “What the hell?” McDougal said. “He’s gone into the sheriff’s office.”

  “Yeah,” Colby said. “The question is, what’s he gone in there for?”

  “Maybe he’s going to have the sheriff ride back to Portsmouth with him to guard the money,” McDougal suggested.

  “No, a sheriff ain’t goin’ to do somethin’ like that. He’d have to hire him a private guard.”

  “Well, maybe he’s going to the sheriff to find out where he can come by someone like that.”

  “Yeah, that could be, I suppose,” Colby said. “But to tell you the truth, the way that fella handled himself, don’t seem to me like he would be a’needin’ no private guards.”

  They waited another few minutes, watching the front of the sheriff’s office. Then Preacher and Sheriff Wallace came out together.

  “Wait a minute, this ain’t no guardin’. This is somethin’ else,” Colby said.

  Colby was right. When Preacher and Sheriff Wallace left the sheriff’s office, they rode, not toward Portsmouth, but in the opposite direction.

  “What do you reckon this is all about?” McDougal asked.

  “I don’t know,” Colby replied. “But I reckon about the only thing we can do is trail ’em and find out what they’re up to.”

  Colby and McDougal trailed Preacher and the sheriff, always remaining some distance away so they could keep up with what was going on without compromising their presence. When they saw Preacher and the sheriff heading toward a small farmhouse, they dismounted and moved their horses into a clump of trees so they could watch without being observed.

  “You know who I think that is?” Colby said after a moment of watching Preacher and the sheriff in conversation with the person who had climbed down from the roof of the house to meet them.

  “Who?”

  “I think that’s the Potter boy,” Colby said. “You mind, it was in the paper back in Portsmouth. He’s the one somebody killed his parents.”

  “Yeah, I remember that. But what’s he’s talkin’ to Coopersmith for?” McDougal asked.

  “I don’t know, but as long as the sheriff’s there too, there’s not much we can do but just wait and watch,” Colby said.

  “So what do we do now?” McDougal asked.

  Colby stroked his jaw for a moment as he tried to determine what their next move should be. Finally, he reached a decision.

  “Get mounted,” he said. “We’re headin’ back to Portsmouth.”

  “What?” McDougal replied in protest. “Didn’t you say we was goin’ to take that gold offen him?”

  “Yes, and we are,” Colby said. “But not while the sheriff is around. I don’t know what all this is about, but I got me a feelin’ that it don’t have nothin’ to do with us. So, I figure the sheriff will go back to his office in Alexandria, while Coopersmith takes the gold back to Portsmouth. Don’t forget, he wants to pay off the loan so he can get his pappy’s farm back.”

  “Yeah, all right,” McDougal said, remounting. “Let’s go.”

  Leaving Preacher and the sheriff in conversation with Billy Potter, Colby and McDougal started back toward Portsmouth. Almost exactly halfway between the two towns, the road made a curve around a rather large outcropping of rocks.

  “Right here,” Colby said, pointing to the rocks. “It’s perfect. We can see him comin’, and he won’t see us.”

  Dismounting, they ground-hobbled their horses, then took up a position that allowed them see nearly a mile down the road.

  They waited.

  Colby slapped at a fly.

  McDougal got up.

  “Where you goin’?” Colby asked.

  “To take a piss,” McDougal answered.

  Colby had turned his attention back to the road when he heard McDougal.

  “Woo-wee, look at this,” McDougal said.

  “Look at what?”

  “I’m tryin’ to piss this here grasshopper offen a weed, but the little son of a bitch just grabbed hold and is hangin’ on,” McDougal said.

  “McDougal, you are one strange shit, did you know that?” Colby asked.

  McDougal came back to the rock, buttoning up his pants as he did so. “See anything yet?”

  “No,” Colby replied. “If I had seen something, I would’ve told you.”

  They waited for several more minutes. Then McDougal spoke again.

  “Here he comes.”

  “And the sheriff ain’t with ’im,” Colby said. He pulled a hood from his saddlebag and slipped it on over his head. “Let’s get the job done.”

  Preacher was riding back to Portsmouth when two men suddenly appeared in front of him, jumping out from behind a rock. Both men were wearing hoods over their faces, with nothing but tiny holes for their eyes. Both were armed and they had their pistols, charged and cocked, leveled at him.

  Had it not been for the fact that they were armed, Preacher might have laughed at them. The hoods over their heads did absolutely nothing to conceal their identities. Colby and McDougal were still wearing the same clothes they’d had on in Blanton’s bank earlier this morning. Preacher put up his hands.

  “All right, my hands are up,” Preacher said. “What do you want?”

  “I want you to untie that there money bag from your saddle pommel and hand it over here,” one of the men said, his voice somewhat muffled by the hood.

  Slowly, Preacher did as he was told, handing it to the one who had extended his hand. The robber tied the sack to his own saddle pommel.

  “Hand over your gun too,” that same robber said.

  Preacher gave the robber his pistol.

  “Now, get down from your horse,” the robber added, making a motion with his gun.

  “What you goin’ to do with him?” the other robber asked.

  “This is a tricky son of a bitch,” the first robber said. “I aim to make sure we get away.” He took the horse’s reins. “Let’s go!” he said.

  Preacher stood in the road and watched as the two robbers left with his horse, moneybag, and pistol. Inexplicably, he laughed. Then, with no choice but to walk, he resumed his journey back to Portsmouth.

  He had gone about a mile and a half when he saw his brother-in-law’s horse standing alongside the road, calmly cropping grass. He didn’t know if the horse had bolted, or if the robbers had let it go. Either way, the horse was clearly a welcome sight.

  “Whoa, boy,” Preacher said, speaking gently to him. He went over to the horse and patted him on the face a couple of times, then remounted and continued his journey as if nothing had happened.

  Preacher’s first stop when he returned to Portsmouth was the bank. Going inside, he headed straight for Blanton’s office.

  “Here, sir, you can’t just go barging into Mr. Blanton’s office,” one of the bank employees called out to him as Preacher walked by the teller’s cage.

  “Sure I can,” Preacher replied airily. “Blanton and I are old friends now, and he is expecting me.”

  Pushing the door open to Blanton’s office, Preacher saw the angry banker staring down at the top of his desk. Standing to either side of Blanton, with perplexed and frustrated expressions on their faces, were Colby and McDougal. On the des
k in front of Blanton was a cloth bag imprinted with the words “Ohio Bank For Savings.” It was the same bag Preacher had gotten from Burt Rowe at the bank in Alexandria, and the same bag he had given up to the highwaymen.

  Also on the top of Blanton’s desk were several of the rusting iron washers Preacher had bought from Billy Potter.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Blanton,” Preacher said cheerfully. He was carrying another sack, and from this sack, he began pulling gold coins and putting them in little piles on the top of Blanton’s desk.

  “I believe you asked for payment in gold?” Preacher said.

  “What the . . . ” Colby said with a sputter. He pointed to the gold coins Preacher was stacking up. “Where the hell did you get that gold?”

  “Why, you know exactly where I got it, Mr. Colby. You and McDougal were sitting in the saloon across from the bank when I cashed the bank drafts.”

  “What? How’d you know we was there?” McDougal asked, sputtering in surprise.

  “Shut up, McDougal,” Blanton said with an angry snarl. “Are you that damn stupid that you haven’t figured this out yet?”

  “What?” McDougal asked, still clearly confused.

  “And now, Mr. Blanton, if you please, I’d like the mortgage to Pa’s place,” Preacher said.

  With an angry look and a snort of disgust, Blanton got up from his desk and walked over to a cabinet, where he jerked open a drawer. After rifling through a few papers, he pulled one out, then came back and slapped it down on the desk in front of Preacher.

  “Here it is,” he said. “Take the damn thing and be damned.”

  Preacher looked at the document for a moment, then handed it back to Blanton.

  “What now?”

  “I would appreciate it if you would write, on the bottom, ‘This debt is paid in full,’ then sign your name, please.”

  Blanton did as Preacher asked, signing his name in a large, illegible scrawl, before returning the paper to Preacher.

  Preacher folded the paper carefully and put it in his pocket. Then, looking at the top of Blanton’s desk, he asked, almost conversationally, “Are you going fishing?”

  “Fishing?” Blanton replied.