“I’ll get ’em, Charlie,” he promised. “They won’t get away with this. I swear it.”
A hurried footstep in the doorway made Preacher look around. A scruffy-looking man in a frock coat and a beaver hat came into the room carrying a black bag in one hand, marking him as a doctor.
“Let me in there, sir,” he said. “Mrs. Malone came to fetch me but didn’t know what was wrong. Was this man stabbed?”
“Looks like it to me,” Preacher replied as he stood up. “And he’s lost a heap of blood.”
“Indeed he has.” The doctor knelt beside Charlie.
Preacher thought he smelled rum on the man, but that might not be a bad thing. Liquor calmed the nerves in some men, and a doctor needed a steady hand.
The medico moved Charlie’s clothes aside to study the wounds. “Cut some pieces off that sheet,” he told Preacher. “I’m going to need bandages, and that’s handier than getting them from my office.”
Preacher took out his knife, pulled the sheet off the bed, and started cutting it up.
From the doorway, the old woman objected. “You’re gonna have to pay for that!”
“Shut up,” Preacher told her. He found a coin and tossed it to her.
She caught it with a deftness belying her age and apparent feebleness. After biting the coin to make sure of its authenticity, she grinned down at the cat tucked under her arm and said, “Ooh. We’ll eat tonight.”
Preacher watched the doctor working on Charlie, stanching the flow of blood from the wounds. “You reckon he’s gonna live, Doc?”
“By all rights, he should be dead already, so I’d say your guess is as good as mine, my friend.”
“Well, do your best to keep him alive.”
“I certainly intend to,” the doctor responded crisply. “That’s my job, after all.”
After a few more minutes, Preacher asked, “Have you got a place where you can take him?”
“If he survives, you mean? Yes, I operate a small private hospital. I can have him taken there once I’ve stabilized him. These wounds need to be cleaned and stitched up, and I can do a better job of it there.”
Preacher took another coin from his pocket, this time a double eagle, and laid it on the small table beside the bed. “Do whatever you need to,” he told the doctor. “Where’s that hospital of yours? I got to get down to the river, but I’ll be back in a spell.”
“What’s so important at the river?” the doctor asked without looking up from his work.
“Couple of folks who took somethin’ that don’t belong to ’em,” Preacher answered flatly. “And I figure on havin’ a word with ’em about it.”
* * *
Preacher trotted up to the wharf where he and Charlie had seen the riverboat being loaded that morning. He came to a stop and stared at the empty stretch of water for a long moment, then turned to a burly, roughly dressed man nearby.
“What happened to the boat that was tied up here?”
“You mean the Majestic?” The man shrugged. “She cast off a little while ago. By now she’s a few miles downriver, steamin’ toward N’Orleans.”
“Blast it!” Preacher grated.
“Missed your boat, eh?” The man laughed. “She left behind schedule, got held up for a spell by some problem with the engine. So you almost got lucky, mister. Too bad it didn’t take a little longer.”
Preacher glared down the broad, slow-moving stream and asked, “Were you here when the boat left?”
“Yeah, me and the other boys didn’t finish loadin’ the cargo until the last minute. No reason to get in a hurry, you know, since she wasn’t goin’ anywhere until they got the engine workin’ right.”
“Did you happen to see a man and a woman get on board, maybe half an hour ago?”
“Saw a lot of folks get on board, mister. The Majestic, she carries plenty of passengers.”
“This fella would be dressed like a gambler, and the woman with him was young and pretty, with dark hair.”
The man frowned and rubbed his chin as he appeared to think about the question. Then he said, “That ain’t much to go on. Could fit a lot of different folks. But I do seem to recall maybe seein’ a couple like that—”
The pause seemed like a ploy to get Preacher to slip him a coin, but then, evidently demonstrating that the man really had been thinking about it, he laid a thick finger against his right cheek and went on. “The gal had a mark right around here. Not a big one, mind you, but I remember seein’ it. Mighty pretty girl.”
“That’s her, all right,” Preacher said. Mighty pretty, sure, but a viper lurked underneath that beauty.
Emotions warred within him. The dockworker had said that the riverboat left only a short time earlier. If Preacher fetched Horse from the stable right now, he might be able to ride along the river and catch up with the boat. Maybe even get ahead of it so he could be waiting for Cornelius and Lucy at the next town downriver.
But that would mean leaving St. Louis without knowing Charlie’s condition or even whether the young man still lived. He didn’t like the idea of doing that.
“How often do boats go downriver to New Orleans?” he asked.
“Nearly every day. Sometimes more ’n one in a day. Happens the next one is leavin’ tomorrow mornin’, I believe. The Powhatan.”
The man pointed at a compact stern-wheeler tied up at one of the wharves farther upriver.
Preacher made up his mind. If he waited until the next morning to go after Edmund Cornelius and Lucy Tarleton, they would have too big a lead for him to catch up before they reached New Orleans. But they wouldn’t be expecting any pursuit. As far as Cornelius knew, Charlie had died within minutes of him leaving the inn. The gambler wouldn’t have expected anyone wounded that badly to survive for long. That meant they wouldn’t be trying to cover their trail.
He would find them in New Orleans, Preacher thought as he turned away from the river. By the next morning when the Powhatan cast off, he would have a better idea whether or not Charlie was going to make it, whether he would be avenging his young friend’s murder or just delivering justice for the attack on him and the theft of that money.
Yeah, he would catch up to those two varmints in New Orleans, he told himself—and then they would pay for what they’d done.
CHAPTER 8
“I’m sorry, Preacher,” Charlie said, his voice husky with weariness and strain. “I should have . . . listened to what you . . . tried to tell me.”
Preacher stood beside the bed where Charlie rested. Through the sheet, he awkwardly patted the young man on the shoulder and said, “Don’t you worry about that. You didn’t have any way of knowin’ Cornelius and that Tarleton gal were plottin’ against you.”
“You knew, though.”
“I had a hunch. It could’ve been wrong.”
But it hadn’t been. Cornelius and Lucy had turned out as bad as Preacher suspected they might, and the fact that Charlie hadn’t died because of them could only be considered a miracle. That was Dr. Hennessey’s medical opinion.
“He lost enough blood to choke a horse,” the doctor had told Preacher a short time earlier, while they’d talked in Hennessey’s examining room. “But by pure luck, the knife seems to have missed all the vital organs. So, since the blood loss didn’t kill him outright—” Hennessey shrugged. “He seems to have a surprisingly strong constitution, so he stands at least a chance of surviving. It’ll be a long recovery, and he’ll still be in considerable danger while he’s recuperating. . . but perhaps he’ll live.”
“See to it that he does,” Preacher had said.
Hennessey had told him he could go in and visit with Charlie, but only for a few moments.
Charlie seemed determined to take up that time with apologies. “You lost all that money because of me—”
“I didn’t lose a thing,” Preacher said. “I’d already given it to you, remember?”
“But you didn’t mean . . . for those two to have it.”
“I’ll
make sure they don’t get away with it.”
“If I could . . . ask one more thing of you . . .”
“Sure,” Preacher told him. “Go ahead.”
“Don’t . . . don’t hurt Lucy. I don’t care . . . what happens to Cornelius . . . but I don’t want her harmed.”
Preacher’s jaw tightened. To tell the truth, he hadn’t figured out yet what he would do about Lucy Tarleton when he caught up to the two of them. He hoped Edmund Cornelius would put up a fight so he’d be justified in blowing a hole through the varmint or carving his gizzard out with a knife, but he didn’t make a habit of hurting women. He supposed he could turn her over to the law, for whatever that was worth.
“She won’t come to any harm at my hands,” Preacher told Charlie.
“Thanks . . . Know it’s foolish of me . . . to feel that way . . . but... ’preciate . . .”
Charlie’s eyes drooped closed as his voice trailed off. The young man’s midsection, bulky with bandages under the sheet, rose and fell in time with his chest. Charlie had just drifted off to sleep.
Preacher left the room quietly and found Dr. Hennessey in the medico’s office. “Charlie’s restin’.”
“Good,” Hennessey said with a nod. “Best thing for him right now.”
“Listen, Doc, I want you to take care of him, but I don’t have the money to pay you right now.”
Preacher had already done some figuring. He would need all the money he had left in order to arrange for Horse and Dog to be cared for at the livery stable and to buy his own passage to New Orleans on the riverboat Powhatan. He wouldn’t be able to pay Higginbotham, but the storekeeper could return all those supplies to his stock and wouldn’t lose anything.
Hennessey opened a drawer in his desk and took out a jug and a couple of cups. “I swore an oath to heal the sick,” he said as he poured rum into the cups. He pushed one across to Preacher and went on. “I’ll look after young Mr. Todd, don’t worry. You’re going after the man who attacked him, aren’t you?”
“I sure am.”
“Then you can settle up with me when you get back.” Hennessey lifted his cup. “In the meantime, we’ll drink to the young man recovering his health.”
“Can’t argue with that.” Preacher clinked his cup against the doctor’s, swallowed a healthy slug of the fiery liquor, then added, “And to the two varmints who did that to him gettin’ what’s comin’ to ’em.”
* * *
Preacher walked onto the dock the next morning half an hour before the riverboat was supposed to cast off. He had visited the company’s office the previous afternoon after leaving Dr. Hennessey’s place and bought a ticket for the journey downriver to New Orleans. When the clerk asked him if he wanted a return ticket as well, Preacher hadn’t hesitated.
“That’s right,” he’d said. “I plan on comin’ back.” But not until he had dealt with Cornelius and Lucy and recovered as much of that stolen money as he could.
Preacher paused at the bottom of the plank walk that led from the wharf to the riverboat’s deck. He had his possibles bag slung over his shoulder and his rifle in his left hand.
One of the deckhands saw him and said, “Hold on there, Daniel Boone. Where do you think you’re going?”
“New Orleans,” Preacher said. “I got a ticket.”
The man came down the plank and held out his hand. “Let me see.”
Preacher didn’t care for the man’s attitude, but he didn’t want any trouble that might slow down his pursuit of Cornelius and Lucy. He took the ticket out of his pocket and handed it over. The crewman, as tall as Preacher and a little heavier, took it and looked at it, then grunted and handed it back.
“Reckon you’ve got a right to be here,” he said, “but don’t cause any trouble.”
“Why do you reckon I’d do that?” Preacher wanted to know.
“I know what you trappers are like. You go out there to the mountains and live with the Indians and the wild animals, and after a while, you’re just as untamed as they are.”
Preacher grinned. “Sounds like you’re payin’ me a compliment, mister, whether that was your intention or not.”
“Just behave yourself,” the man said, pointing a warning finger. “Start any trouble and I’ll be happy to toss you off this boat, even if we’re in the middle of the river.” He gave Preacher an ugly grin. “Hope you can swim.”
The brawny crewman moved on. Preacher walked along the deck toward the bow. He hadn’t been able to book a cabin for this trip; they were already all spoken for. He had paid for deck space instead and would share it not only with cargo but also with other passengers who couldn’t afford cabins or had tried to book them too late, like Preacher.
Men, women, children, dogs, and even a few crates of chickens already crowded the forward deck. Preacher supposed he ought to be happy he didn’t see any mules or cows. He found himself a place to sit on a crate—a solid one filled with cargo of some kind, not chickens—and rested the rifle’s butt on the deck at his feet.
He hadn’t been there even a minute when two kids sidled up in front of him, a boy about eight and a girl a few years younger.
The boy, with red hair sticking out from under his hat and freckles covering his face, said, “You’re a mountain man, ain’t you?”
“That’s right, son,” Preacher said. “You know about mountain men?”
“Sure. You fight Injuns.”
“Well, that ain’t all I do, but I’ve been in a few scrapes like that, I reckon.”
“How many Injuns have you killed?”
Preacher frowned. For one thing, he didn’t have any idea how many Indian warriors he had killed in battle over the years. He didn’t keep track of such things. But quite a few, no doubt about that. He didn’t think he should be discussing that subject with some nosy kid, though.
“You young’uns best run on back to your ma,” he said.
“Our ma’s dead,” the little girl piped up.
“Yeah, she got the fever and died,” the boy added. “We’re goin’ back down to Memphis where we come from, to live with our grandma and grandpa. Can I hold your rifle?”
“No,” Preacher said, trying not to growl at the youngster. He didn’t know how long it would take to get to Memphis—the whole trip to New Orleans took take five or six days, according to what the clerk in the riverboat company office told him—but if he had these two kids hanging around him the whole way, it would seem even longer.
CHAPTER 9
The youngsters got bored pretty quickly and wandered off, which Preacher considered a good thing. If you had to have kids, he thought, best to wait until they were nearly full-grown to meet them, the way he had with Hawk That Soars.
Some people got sick on boats, but not Preacher, especially not on a stream as placid as the Mississippi was at that time of year. The Powhatan chugged steadily downriver, the paddle wheel at the back of the boat throwing a glittering spray of water high in the air around it as the miles fell behind. The only excitement came whenever a riffle appeared, signifying the presence of a sandbar or some other sort of snag, but each time that happened, the Powhatan’s pilot steered expertly around the obstacle.
The deck passengers could buy sandwiches and fruit from a boy who came around with a box of them. Preacher made do with an apple at midday. He had to be careful with the little money he had left, so that he could eat during the trip and also have something left for whatever he needed to buy once he reached New Orleans. He had plenty of powder and shot, but a man couldn’t eat ammunition.
Of course, after he retrieved that stolen money from Edmund Cornelius and Lucy Tarleton, he wouldn’t have to worry about that, he reminded himself.
The riverboat put in to shore frequently, not only to take on cargo and passengers at the settlements it came to, but also to take on wood for the firebox down in the engine room. Because of those stops, the vessel didn’t cover a great deal of distance during the day.
Boats sometimes traveled at night, but
that meant running a risk because snags couldn’t always be seen in the dark. Most captains weren’t willing to take a chance on ripping out their boat’s hull. Too many of them had wound up on the bottom of the river because of that.
When evening came, the Powhatan tied up at one of the towns on the river’s eastern bank. Preacher didn’t know the name of the place. During the day, he had seen numerous other boats on the river, ranging from stern-wheelers and side-wheelers churning northward to flatboats and keelboats heading in both directions. This stretch of the Mississippi was probably the busiest waterway in the country. So Preacher wasn’t surprised that several keelboats had tied up at the settlement, too.
It also came as no surprise that several taverns operated near the riverfront. Preacher heard raucous music coming from at least one of them. Fiddles and squeezeboxes put out sprightly tunes that floated through the evening air over the water.
Passengers were free to go ashore and spend the evening in town however they wished, as long as they were back on board the next morning when the Powhatan cast off. After a day spent in the open on the deck, Preacher thought a mug of beer might go down nicely. He slung his bag over his shoulder, picked up his rifle, and headed for the gangplank that had been put in place between the deck and the wharf extending into the river.
One of the crewmen—not the man who had given Preacher a hard time when he first boarded the boat in St. Louis—was standing near the gangplank. Preacher asked him, “What do they call this place, anyway?”
“The settlement, you mean? It’s Carver’s Junction.”
Preacher nodded toward the buildings and asked, “Are any of those taverns over yonder the sort that a mild-mannered fella like me oughta steer clear of?”
“You mean where there’s liable to be trouble?” the young crewman said. “I’d stay away from Rancid Dave’s.”
“Rancid Dave?” Preacher repeated with a chuckle. “They really call him that?”
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