Those bloody lips pulled back from Shugart’s teeth in a snarling grimace. He grappled with Preacher and tried to ram a knee into his groin. Preacher twisted away from it, so the blow struck him on the hip. He closed a hand on Shugart’s thick throat and arched up from the floor, bucking and rolling.
Shugart wound up lying on his back. Preacher hammered his other fist against the man’s cheek, hitting him three times in very close succession. Shugart started to go limp, as if he were on the verge of passing out or giving up, but then a fresh resolve seemed to grip him. He tangled both hands in the front of Preacher’s buckskin shirt and heaved.
Loading and unloading cargo had given Shugart plenty of strength. Preacher flew through the air and crashed into the legs of a table, knocking it over and spilling a bucket of beer. One of the men who’d been sitting there yelled and kicked at Preacher. Another man grabbed him and punched him, evidently not liking the idea of kicking a man while he was down.
In a matter of moments, the tavern descended into chaos as the customers wound up fighting with each other. It was a full-fledged brawl, and Preacher nearly got stomped on several times as he fought to get back to his feet.
He and Shugart made it upright at the same time. They surged together and slugged wildly for a long moment, dishing out punishment. Each of them took plenty of it, before they grappled again. It was a no-holds-barred fight and had been from the first. Men such as Preacher and Shugart didn’t know any other form of combat. They gouged and kicked, and if Preacher could have gotten his teeth into one of Shugart’s ears, he would have ripped it right off the varmint’s head.
The battle reminded Preacher of his fight with Abner Rowland in Red Mike’s a week or so previously. Shugart wasn’t as strong or as canny as Rowland, though, and he had to start giving ground again. Preacher pressed him, and Shugart responded with a wild, looping punch that fatigue slowed down enough that Preacher had no trouble ducking under it.
As soon as the big fist had missed by half a foot, Preacher stepped in and hooked a left and right into Shugart’s ribs, staggering him again. Shugart’s arms dropped in pain and weariness. Preacher hit him in the face with a left that opened Shugart’s stance and put him in perfect position for the uppercut Preacher lifted from his knees. The perfectly timed and aimed blow landed with such devastating impact that Shugart actually rose in the air a couple of inches before crashing down on his back, out cold.
Preacher stood there with his chest heaving as he caught his breath. Around him, more violence ebbed and flowed as the brawl continued. One man picked up a chair and ran at him, yelling. Preacher bent over, caught hold of the man around the waist, and heaved him up and over. The man’s angry shout became a terrified screech as he flew through the air, dropped the chair he’d been brandishing as a weapon, and landed with tooth-rattling, bone-jarring force on the bar. Momentum carried him on over, and he disappeared behind the bar.
Preacher felt pretty sure he didn’t know anyone except Shugart—unless Cornelius and Lucy were around—but that hadn’t stopped the man with the chair from rushing him, and he knew it wouldn’t stop some of the others who were caught up in a battle frenzy, as well. He set his feet, balled his fists, and looked around, ready to defend himself again.
That proved to be unnecessary. A black man every bit as towering and massive as his Crow Indian friend Big Thunder plowed through the struggling crowd. He caught men by their shirt collars and flung them left and right. Others he pounded on top of the head as if they were nails and he was a human hammer trying to drive them into the floor. A few of the brawlers tried to fight back, but the black man made short work of them, flicking them away like brushing off gnats.
He left a trail of sprawled men behind him, some of them moaning, some out cold. The rest of the battlers lowered their fists and backed off apprehensively. None of them wanted to experience the behemoth’s wrath, and Preacher couldn’t blame them for that.
The man came to a stop in the center of the room. He wore a fine black suit, a white, frilly shirt, and a ribbon tie and didn’t look like any slave Preacher had ever seen in St. Louis.
He didn’t hold with slavery. There hadn’t been any slaves around where he had grown up. Some Indian tribes made slaves out of captives they took from other tribes, so he had witnessed instances of that, and he saw black slaves from time to time in St. Louis. He had assumed that any blacks he encountered in New Orleans would also be slaves.
Not this fellow, though, that was plain. He bellowed, “Enough!” with the authority of a free man.
The dwarf Preacher had seen at the entrance was inside the main room, too, still holding that shotgun. He used a chair to scramble up onto the bar and stood there swinging the double-barreled weapon from side to side as he shouted, “The next man who throws a punch gets a load of buckshot!”
Preacher figured that was an empty threat. As crowded as the room was, firing that shotgun would prove fatal for more than one man. But the dwarf had sort of a wild-eyed, loco look about him that said he might not draw the line at such wholesale slaughter, and that was enough to make everybody careful not to set him off.
The dwarf blustered several obscenities, then demanded, “Who started this?”
At least half a dozen fingers pointed at Preacher.
“That’s a blasted lie,” the mountain man snapped. “I hadn’t no more ’n walked into the place when that fella”—he jerked a hand toward Shugart’s senseless form—“grabbed me and threw a punch at me.”
“Why would he do that?” the black man asked in a deep, rumbling voice.
“He don’t like me because we had some trouble down at the docks earlier. Right after both of us got off the riverboat that brought us to New Orleans.”
“You followed him here tonight?” the dwarf asked.
“Shoot, no! I didn’t care if I ever saw him again. I came in for a drink and to pass the time, and he just happened to be here.”
And a stroke of mighty bad luck that had been, Preacher reflected. Even if Cornelius and Lucy weren’t here—and he still hadn’t spotted them in the tavern—most likely they would learn about this ruckus and would hear that a mountain man had been at the center of it. If anybody described him to them, they would know he had followed them from St. Louis. Probably they had been concerned about that possibility all along.
“Whether you were defending yourself or not, you were in the middle of this trouble,” the black man said. “That means you’re no longer welcome in the Catamount’s Den.”
“That ain’t hardly fair,” Preacher said. “A man’s got a right to defend hisself.”
The dwarf pointed the shotgun at him again. “Shut your mouth! Balthazar has spoke. You get outta here, mister.”
Preacher nodded toward Shugart and asked, “What about him?”
“We’ll toss him out back and let him wake up on his own.” The dwarf cocked his head to the side. “Are you thinkin’ about finding him and cutting his throat before he comes to?”
Preacher grimaced. “I ain’t the sort to do a thing like that,” he said disgustedly.
“No,” the black man said, “I can see that you aren’t. But you still have to leave.”
Preacher didn’t see any point in making the disastrous outing even worse. And he was pretty doggoned sure that nobody would be willing to answer his questions about Cornelius and Lucy. He had made a mistake by visiting the Catamount’s Den, he realized. He should have waited somewhere outside, hidden from sight, and watched for his quarry to come or go. The problem was, such skulking around went directly against Preacher’s nature. He was built to tackle problems head-on, even if that wasn’t always the wisest course of action.
“All right,” he said as he picked up his hat and slapped it against his thigh to get rid of the sawdust clinging to it. “But I don’t like it.”
“No one said you have to like it,” the black man told him. “You just have to get out.”
Preacher put on his hat and left the tavern, fee
ling frustrated by the turn of events things had taken. At least nobody jumped him on his way back to Jean Paul Dufresne’s livery stable. The way his luck was running, he ought to be thankful for that, anyway, he told himself.
He ran into the blacksmith and stable owner right outside the place. Dufresne appeared to be leaving for the day. He had removed the canvas apron he wore while working at the anvil.
“I left some bread and cheese wrapped up for you in the blacksmith shop,” Dufresne said.
“Feedin’ me wasn’t part of our deal,” Preacher reminded him.
The blacksmith shrugged. “My wife was here earlier and said she would not see a man go hungry. She believes you must be quite poor, or else you would not sleep in a hayloft.”
Preacher grinned. “I ain’t broke, but I ain’t exactly flush, either. Tell your missus I’m mighty obliged to her.”
“There is part of a bottle of wine in there, too.” Dufresne shrugged. “My contribution.”
“Then I’m obliged to you as well.”
“Good night, mon ami.”
“That means friend, don’t it?”
“Oui.”
“Good night,” Preacher said. The kindness Dufresne and his wife had displayed made the mountain man feel a little better about his trip to New Orleans, even though he had a hunch his search for Cornelius and Lucy might have already hit a dead end.
He went into the blacksmith shop and found that Dufresne had left a candle burning in a brass holder. Spotting the cloth-wrapped bundle and the bottle on the anvil, he picked them up, tucked the bottle under his arm, and then took the candle with him as well, to light his way into the livery stable.
He froze as he turned toward the doorway. A huge, menacing figure filled it, blocking his path.
CHAPTER 18
The flickering candlelight threw stark, shifting shadows over the looming figure as the man took another step into the livery barn.
“Hold it right there, mister,” Preacher told him.
The towering black man looked even taller now because he wore a top hat. He smiled at Preacher and said, “What if I do not hold it, as you say? You will attack me with a loaf of bread? That’s what you have in that bundle, isn’t it? Or do you think you can drop it and pull one of those pistols before I reach you?”
“You’ll be bettin’ a lot if you figure I can’t do that,” Preacher pointed out. “Your life, to be exact. As a matter of fact, I am pretty handy with these here pistols.” He shrugged. “But if you want to find out for yourself, I reckon you can go ahead.”
The man shook his head, and a low, gravelly sound came from him. Preached needed a second to recognize it as laughter.
“I did not come here with the intent that either of us should die,” the black man said.
“Then why are you here?” Preacher asked. “If you plan on makin’ me pay for the damages in that tavern brawl, you’re outta luck. I ain’t got the money for that.”
The black man waved a hamlike hand in a dismissive gesture. “That fight and those damages mean nothing in the larger scheme of things. My name is Balthazar Crowe, and my employer sent me here to extend an invitation.”
“What sort of invitation?” Preacher asked as his eyes narrowed warily.
“To dine with Simon LeCarde.”
The answer surprised Preacher. He couldn’t see any reason the boss of New Orleans’ criminal underworld should want to have dinner with him. “I’ve got my supper right here.” Preacher hefted the bundle of bread and cheese.
“I can promise you, the fare upstairs at the Catamount’s Den will be much better,” Balthazar Crowe said.
“Upstairs, eh? I reckon that’s where this fella LeCarde lives?”
Crowe inclined his head in agreement.
“I’ve got a sneakin’ suspicion this is a trap of some sort.”
“You have my assurance that it is not,” Crowe said. “Ask anyone in New Orleans. They will tell you that my word is my bond.”
“Maybe so, but I don’t hardly know a soul here, so why would I trust ’em?”
A look of annoyed impatience appeared on Crowe’s face. “I was sent to bring you back with me. Will you accompany me peacefully, or . . .” He left the rest of it unsaid.
Preacher turned and placed the candleholder back on the anvil, set the bread and cheese beside it. “All right. I reckon if you want to tangle—” He stopped short.
He didn’t like Crowe’s arrogance. The man’s high-handed attitude was almost enough to make Preacher want to fight him. On the other hand, Crowe might be unwittingly offering him a path right to the destination he sought. If everything he’d heard about Simon LeCarde was true, the man either knew where Edmund Cornelius and Lucy Tarleton were—or would know how to find them.
Preacher heaved a sigh. “I reckon it ain’t worth a tussle.” He didn’t want to appear to be giving in too easily, though, so he added, “I still don’t like the idea of somebody bein’ sent to fetch me.”
“A black man, you mean.”
Preacher shook his head. “I don’t give a mule’s hind end what color you are, mister. I just don’t like fellas who figure they can tell me where to go or what to do. Never have.”
“In that, you and I are alike . . . to a certain extent.”
“You got a boss who gives you orders, though. I don’t.”
“Everyone has someone to whom they have to answer, sooner or later, in this world or the next.” The massive shoulders rose and fell, and then Crowe gestured toward the stable’s open doors. “Shall we go?”
“Just a minute.” Preacher picked up the bottle of wine, pulled the cork with his teeth, spat it into his hand, and then took a long drink. As he pushed the cork back in, he said, “Now I’m ready. Let’s go meet this Monsieur LeCarde of yours.”
Preacher and Crowe walked through the still-crowded streets, but people got out of Crowe’s way, so the throng of pedestrians wasn’t any problem.
As they walked, Preacher asked, “How’d you know where to find me?”
“Simon LeCarde knows how to find almost anyone in New Orleans,” Crowe answered cryptically.
“You make him sound like some sort of magician.” Preacher thought about rumors he had heard concerning this city. “He ain’t one of them voodoo fellas, is he?”
Crowe laughed. “Voodoo—voudon, as it is properly known—is a superstition. Whether or not it has any real power depends largely on whether you believe that it does. Rest assured, Simon LeCarde does not traffic in superstition.”
“All right.” Preacher didn’t press Crowe for a more forthcoming answer, but he thought about it and wondered if LeCarde had had someone follow him when he left the Catamount’s Den. That made the most sense. He wondered, as well, if the mysterious Simon LeCarde had been watching that brawl from somewhere. Maybe he had caught LeCarde’s eye for some reason. Preacher figured he’d get to the bottom of it sooner or later, but mostly he wanted to use the unexpected development to help him find Edmund Cornelius and Lucy Tarleton.
It took the two men only a few minutes to reach the Catamount’s Den. Crowe didn’t head for the front door when they got there, however, leading Preacher into a shadow-clogged alley alongside the building.
Preacher put a hand on a pistol butt and said, “Remember what I told you about this feelin’ like a trap to me?”
Crowe laughed. “I assure you, it is not. My orders were to bring you in the back way, that’s all. If you don’t trust me, go ahead and draw that gun. I won’t try to stop you. You must put it away, however, when you meet Simon LeCarde.”
“Just don’t try anything,” Preacher warned.
Not much light penetrated back there, but Crowe clearly knew where he was going. He opened a door, and lamplight spilled into the alley. He motioned for Preacher to precede him, but the mountain man shook his head.
“You go first.”
Amusement tinged Crowe’s voice again as the massive man said, “But of course.” He went inside, the light casting a h
uge shadow behind him as he entered.
Preacher followed, still ready to pull out that pistol and fire if he needed to. He nodded toward the narrow flight of stairs that led up to the second floor and told Crowe, “Go ahead.”
The black man’s shoulders almost brushed the sides of the stairwell as he climbed. Preacher gave him a little room as he went up the stairs, just in case Crowe tried to turn around and dive back down at him.
But Preacher had started to believe that Crowe had told the truth about it not being a trap. If Crowe actually wanted to try any tricks, he could have done it already.
They reached a landing at the top of the stairs. To the right, a hall ran toward the front of the building.
Crowe turned to the closed door on the left and rapped on it, called, “It’s Balthazar Crowe. I have the frontiersman with me.”
Preacher didn’t hear any response from inside, but Crowe reached down, twisted the ornate glass knob, and opened the door. He stepped aside, but once again, Preacher shook his head and gestured toward the opening, indicating that Crowe should go first. Once again, the huge black man looked vaguely amused as he entered the room.
Preacher stepped in after him and glanced around the large room. From the looks of it, it functioned as a combination dining and sitting room, with woven rugs on the floor, a gleaming, rectangular hardwood table with several matching chairs at the ends, a pair of armchairs next to a small fireplace, and two lushly upholstered divans. Thick curtains covered two windows in the rear wall.
The table was set for two, one at each end, with fine china plates, crystal wineglasses, and sparkling silver utensils. In between were several platters of food, including a roast bird of some kind, probably a chicken, Preacher decided. Too small to be a turkey.
Preacher quickly noted all those details, but the real object of his search was the presence of enemies. He didn’t see any. Indeed, he and Crowe were the only ones in the room. But to the right, on the opposite side of the room from the fireplace, another door stood partially open.
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