“I’m just sayin’ it’s a good idea to be careful, especially when you’re dealin’ with somebody you don’t know much about.”
“Aaron and I didn’t know anything about you when we met you,” Charlie pointed out.
“And maybe you’d have been better off if you hadn’t run into me,” Preacher said.
Without hesitation, Charlie shook his head. “No, I don’t believe that. Even with the way everything worked out, I’m richer for having known you, Preacher, and Aaron was, too. He said as much to me more than once.” His voice caught a little. “I . . . I don’t think he would have traded the time we spent in the mountains for anything.”
“Well . . . I hope that’s true. Come on. Let’s amble toward Trammell’s. It’ll be gettin’ close to dinner time when we get there.”
At the restaurant, a waitress showed them to a table and brought them cups of coffee while they waited. When they sat down, the midday crowd hadn’t arrived yet, but as time passed, more and more people came into the place.
Not Lucy Tarleton, though.
Charlie’s forehead creased in a frown again. “I hope everything is all right. I expected her to be here by now.”
“Maybe her aunt ain’t feelin’ well,” Preacher suggested.
“Assuming she even has an aunt. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? That she lied to us? To me?”
“Well, we ain’t met the old lady,” Preacher pointed out, “but that don’t mean she ain’t real. I’m just sayin’ there’s all sorts of things that could’ve happened to delay Miss Tarleton.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Charlie said grudgingly. As the time continued to pass with no sign of Lucy, though, his distress grew.
Finally, after taking out his pocket watch and checking it, he said, “I’m going to the hotel to make sure she’s all right.”
“All right,” Preacher said as he started to get to his feet. “I don’t reckon that would hurt anything.”
Charlie waved him back into his chair. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather you stay here. That way, if I miss her and she does show up, you can tell her where I am and that I’ll be back shortly.”
Preacher sat back and shrugged. “If that’s what you want me to do.”
“It is. Thank you, Preacher.”
“Nothin’ to thank me for. I ain’t doin’ nothin’ except sittin’ here drinkin’ coffee.”
Charlie hurried out of the restaurant. The waitress came over and asked Preacher, “Is anything wrong?”
“Nope. My friend’ll be back.” Preacher paused, then added, “He’s just young and maybe thinks a mite too much.”
The hotel where Lucy Tarleton and her mysterious aunt had a room was just in the next block, Preacher reminded himself. He didn’t figure Charlie could get into any trouble in broad daylight, in the middle of St. Louis.
* * *
Charlie stared across the counter at the hotel clerk. “What do you mean, there’s no Miss Tarleton staying here?”
The clerk apparently couldn’t resist the temptation to smirk, as hotel clerks tended to do. He said, “I’m sorry, sir,” without sounding as if he meant it, then added, “Perhaps you got the young lady’s name wrong.”
“No, it’s Miss Lucy Tarleton, I’m sure of it. She’s staying here with her aunt.”
The clerk raised an eyebrow and asked, “And the aunt’s name?”
“I . . . I don’t know,” Charlie had to admit. “Miss Tarleton never mentioned it.”
“Well, then, I don’t see how I can help you.”
The man’s smugly superior tone made Charlie want to lunge across the desk, grab his shirtfront, and hold a knife to his throat. See if he felt like smirking and sneering then! Charlie had fought white renegades and Blackfoot warriors and survived all those adventures with Preacher. No blasted hotel clerk could look down his nose at him and get away with it!
But Charlie didn’t do that, because worry and confusion over Lucy occupied his mind instead. Had she lied to him? Had Preacher been right to be suspicious of her? As much as he admired the mountain man, Charlie had to admit he hoped Preacher had been wrong in this case.
He muttered his thanks and walked out of the hotel, seeming to feel the clerk’s arrogant gaze on his back. When he reached the street, he started to turn back toward Trammell’s, but then he stopped short. He remembered how he had told Lucy about hiding the money from the furs in his room.
He didn’t want to consider even the possibility that she might be a thief, but something was wrong, no doubt about that. There might be many excuses for Lucy being late to arrive at the restaurant, but not for her lying to him about where she was staying. He wanted to find out the truth before he saw Preacher again. Maybe he could regain some respect in the mountain man’s eyes if he got to the bottom of this.
With that thought in mind, he turned his steps toward the inn where he had spent the night. If Lucy really was after his money, maybe he could catch her there. And if she wasn’t, he could at least get the pouch of coins and make sure it was safe.
Within a block, he was running.
CHAPTER 6
The inn, a narrow, one-story building, had no real amenities such as a bar or dining room, just a desk up front and rooms where the guests stayed lining either side of a long hallway. Charlie had a room on the right side of the corridor, almost all the way in the back.
A slatternly older woman sat in a rocking chair behind the desk, a big orange tomcat in her lap.
Charlie asked her, “Has a young woman been here? Brown hair, very attractive?”
“Lookin’ for you, you mean?” The woman laughed. “Nobody like that. Could’ve come in the back, though, I reckon.”
A back door opened into an alley behind the place, Charlie recalled. People could come and go that way without being seen. He supposed some people preferred that arrangement.
He turned and hurried along the hall, ignoring the questions the old woman called after him. At one point, she screeched indignantly, “This is a decent place, you know!”
Charlie had begun to doubt that. He also thought that he had been a fool to leave his money here. He’d been trying to be safe, and instead he had done one of the worst things he could possibly do.
But maybe he still had a chance to make things right.
He saw the closed door of his room as he approached and thought for a second that all his wild imaginings had been just that—crazy thoughts with no basis to them. But then he heard a noise inside, not a loud crash, but still the sound of something falling over.
Charlie grasped the door knob, twisted it, and threw the door open. With his heart pounding, he stepped into the room and said, “Lucy, I can’t believe—”
He stopped short as he saw that Lucy Tarleton hadn’t broken into his room, after all.
Edmund Cornelius stood there instead, and in his left hand, the gambler held the leather pouch containing Charlie’s money.
A bitter curse ripped from Cornelius’s throat. He glanced toward the single small window, looking for a way out, perhaps, then said, “Lucy was so sure you wouldn’t come back here this soon, blast her!”
For a second, Charlie’s spirits had soared at the sight of Cornelius, even though he knew the gambler meant to steal all his money. He had enjoyed the card game the night before, but he felt no real affection for the man. For that precious instant, Lucy had been blameless again in his mind.
Then it had all come crashing down once more because of the man’s startled exclamation, even worse because it meant that Cornelius and Lucy had been working together all along. They had moved in on him like a pair of wolves stalking and then attacking a helpless sheep.
That described him pretty well, he thought.
Rage and humiliation roared up inside him like a flooding river. He took a step toward Cornelius.
The gambler held up his right hand, palm out, and said, “Hold on there, boy. You don’t want to do this. It’s only money. You can earn more.”
> “You . . . you . . . She tricked me!”
Cornelius laughed. “You think you’re the only man who’s ever been tricked by a woman? It’s what they do! They tell you what you want to hear until they get what they want, then they snatch it all out from under you! You’re not too young to learn that. You’ll be better off in the long run if you do.”
Charlie stuck out his hand and said, “Give me that. It’s mine.”
Cornelius appeared to be a well-built man, as far as Charlie could tell, but he had been in numerous desperate fights during his time in the mountains. He had killed men. He could handle one gambler—
Cornelius lunged at him, snake-quick, as the man’s empty hand darted under his coat and came out holding a dagger. Charlie felt the blade’s bite in his midsection, also like a snake, and reeled back. Cornelius crowded in and struck again.
Charlie gasped in pain as the cold steel invaded his body. He flailed out at the gambler but couldn’t seem to put any real strength behind the blows. Cornelius stabbed him yet again. Charlie’s knees buckled.
As he fell, Cornelius kicked him in the face. The brutal attack knocked Charlie onto his back. The hot, wet, terrible pain in his middle swelled enormously until it threatened to swallow him whole. It hurt so bad he hadn’t really noticed that much when Cornelius kicked him.
Something moved between him and the light from the window. Charlie forced his eyes to focus and saw Cornelius leaning over him. The knife moved toward Charlie’s throat, as if the gambler intended to slash it and end his life. But then Cornelius stopped and chuckled.
“No need,” he said. “You’ll bleed to death soon. And in the time you have left, you can think about what a fool you are, boy. That’s what she called you, you know—a fat fool.” He straightened, bounced the pouch of coins on the palm of the hand not holding the knife. “Feels like not quite as much as I’d hoped, but it should be plenty to get us to New Orleans.”
Cornelius wiped the blade on Charlie’s coat, then sheathed it under his coat and moved to the door. He opened it, looked back, and said, “Good-bye, Charlie.”
Then he stepped out and closed the door behind him, leaving Charlie lying there on the floor in the dingy rented room, bleeding his life out as the light faded more and more.
* * *
As Preacher sat in the restaurant and sipped his coffee, his instincts told him that Lucy Tarleton would not show up. He couldn’t have said why he felt so sure about that, but he didn’t doubt it for a second.
Charlie would be upset with him if he left, though, so he stayed there for a while, until his gut began to insist something bad had happened. Preacher didn’t make a habit of sitting around brooding. He stood up, dropped a coin on the table to pay for the coffee, and stalked out of the restaurant.
It took him only a minute to walk to the next block and find the hotel where Lucy and her aunt had a room. When he went inside and asked the clerk about them, however, the man scowled.
“Why do people keep coming in and asking about a woman who doesn’t exist, as far as I know?”
“What do you mean by that?” Preacher asked.
“You’re the second fellow to inquire about someone named Miss Tarleton. If she’s real, she must be telling lies about where she’s staying, because she’s not here.” The man’s lips curled. “Perhaps she’s the sort of woman who doesn’t want a man to know where to find her once their business is concluded.”
Even though Preacher had harbored similar suspicions about Lucy, he didn’t like hearing this oily varmint saying the same thing. In a hard voice, he said, “Who else asked about her? A stocky young fella with a short brown beard?”
“That’s right,” the clerk admitted. “Is he a friend of yours?”
Preacher ignored that question and asked another of his own. “You told him Miss Tarleton ain’t here?”
“What else could I tell him? It’s the truth. No one by that name has ever stayed here, as far as I recall.”
“Where’d he go?”
The clerk’s narrow shoulders rose and fell. “I have no idea.”
“Did you see which way he turned when he left here?”
The man considered, then said, “Toward the river, I believe.”
The inn where Charlie had a room lay in that direction, Preacher thought. The youngster might have headed over there once he found out that Lucy had lied to him. He would want to make sure the money he’d left there hadn’t been stolen.
Without saying anything else to the clerk, Preacher stalked out of the hotel. His long legs carried him toward the inn, and when he got there, he said to the old woman at the desk, “Where’s Charlie Todd’s room?”
“Fifth door on the right,” she told him.
“You know if he’s here?”
“He came in about twenty minutes ago. Ain’t seen nor heard anything from him since, so I reckon he still is. ’Less ’n he went out the back.”
Charlie must have come here directly from the hotel, Preacher thought as he strode along the dim corridor. When he came to the fifth door, he banged a fist on it and called, “Charlie! Are you in there?”
No answer came, but Preacher frowned as he thought he heard something from the other side of the panel. He leaned closer to the door and turned his head, trying to catch the sound.
A faint rasping noise came to his ear. For a couple of seconds, he couldn’t tell what it was, then he stiffened as he realized he was listening to the harsh sound of someone struggling to breathe.
He flung the door open with his left hand while his right closed around the butt of one of the pistols stuck behind his belt. He didn’t pull the gun, but he could bring it into play quickly enough if he needed to.
No threat lurked in the room, however.
Only a crumpled body lying on the floor in a pool of blood.
Charlie.
CHAPTER 7
At first glance, Preacher thought anybody who had lost that much blood ought to be dead. Charlie’s chest still rose and fell, though, and Preacher had been able to hear his harsh breathing all the way out in the hall.
He dropped to his knees beside the young man. From the looks of the bloodstains on Charlie’s clothes, somebody had stabbed him three times. Preacher knew his young friend hadn’t been shot. Pistol balls would have ripped through Charlie’s shirt in a different manner, and the old crone up at the desk would have heard the gunfire and probably run screeching into the street.
Preacher slid his left hand under Charlie’s head and propped it up a little. In response, Charlie’s eyelids fluttered for a few seconds and then stayed open. He seemed to have trouble focusing his gaze, though.
“Wh-who . . .” he asked in a weak voice barely above a whisper.
“It’s Preacher, Charlie. Preacher. You hang on. You’re hurt bad, but you’re gonna be all right.”
Charlie’s eyes finally swung toward the mountain man and locked in on him. “P-Preacher?”
“That’s right. Who done this to you, Charlie?” Preacher’s voice took on the hardness of flint as he went on. “Was it that gal?”
“L-Lucy . . . No . . . not . . . Lucy . . .”
That answer surprised Preacher a little. But hurt as bad as Charlie appeared to be, maybe he couldn’t think straight. Lucy might still be to blame for what had happened.
“Cornelius . . .” Charlie rasped.
Preacher leaned closer to him. “Edmund Cornelius, the gambler? He’s the one who stabbed you?”
“And stole the m-money.”
Preacher bit back a curse. His instincts had warned him about Cornelius, too. But how had Cornelius known about the pouch of gold coins hidden in this room? Charlie had told only Lucy Tarleton—
As if Charlie had read his mind, the young man forced out, “He and . . . Lucy . . . working together . . .”
“I’ll find ’em,” Preacher vowed. He could digest what Charlie had just told him about Lucy and Cornelius being partners later. Right now, getting some help for the young man m
attered more than anything else.
Charlie lifted a hand, though, clutched feebly on the sleeve of Preacher’s buckskin shirt. “Nuh . . . nuh . . . New Orleans! That’s where . . . they’re g-going . . .”
His hand fell away from Preacher’s arm and his head sagged back. Preacher thought he had died, but the raspy sound of Charlie’s breathing continued. As gently as possible, Preacher lowered Charlie’s head to the floor.
He stood up, went to the door, and shouted down the hall to the old woman, “Hey! Fetch a doctor!”
“What?” she called back in a querulous voice.
“A doctor, blast it! Now!”
“All right, all right,” the woman said. She shuffled out, carrying her cat with her.
Preacher turned back to Charlie. The mountain man’s thoughts whirled in his head. Charlie’s life mattered more than anything else at the moment, but fires of anger already burned inside Preacher. Lucy Tarleton and Edmund Cornelius had been working together all along, according to Charlie, and Cornelius had stabbed him. But to Preacher’s way of thinking, if Lucy had been in on it, she deserved some of the blame, too.
Preacher didn’t forget about the money, either. Even though he had handed over most of his share to Charlie, it had started out belonging to him, and he felt like he had been robbed, too. That rubbed Preacher the wrong way and called for revenge, just as the attack on Charlie did.
Charlie had said that Cornelius and Lucy were going to New Orleans. Preacher didn’t know how Charlie had found that out, but he believed his young friend.
The best way to get from St. Louis to New Orleans involved boarding one of the riverboats that traveled up and down the Mississippi. He and Charlie had seen one of those boats being loaded this very morning, and it seemed likely that Cornelius and Lucy intended to take it downriver to the Crescent City. Preacher had no idea when it would depart from St. Louis. It might have already done so.
He fought off the urge to race down to the waterfront immediately and see if he could find the two people responsible for what had happened to Charlie. He couldn’t leave the young man here, badly wounded and on the brink of death. He went to a knee again and looked down into Charlie’s unconscious face.
Preacher's Frenzy Page 4