Preacher's Frenzy

by William W. Johnstone; J. A. Johnstone

  Dufresne cocked his head to the side and said, “Ah, now, that has not been so tranquil. A big disturbance occurred there last night. The authorities called it a riot, but from what I hear, it was more like a war.”

  Preacher’s heart slugged in his chest. That was exactly what he had hoped not to hear. There could be lots of explanations for trouble in the French Quarter, he supposed—but the most logical one was that Sampson and Rowland had made their move against Simone.

  There was one way to find out. He would have to go to the Catamount’s Den.

  “I’ve got about a dozen friends outside,” he said. “You reckon them and their horses could stay here for a while?”

  “Of course,” Dufresne replied with a nod. “Do you want the horses stabled?”

  Preacher thought about it and shook his head. “Not yet. We might have to move fast, so they’d better stay saddled.”

  Dufresne laid his hammer aside. “Let me go next door and open the barn for them.”

  It didn’t take long to get men, horses, and wagon inside the livery barn, although it was a bit crowded in there when they did. Preacher explained the situation to the men, then said, “I’m goin’ around to the tavern to have a look and see if I can tell what happened.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Tyler said immediately. He insisted that he was recovered from the flogging he had received, but Preacher knew that wasn’t completely true. Tyler still hadn’t regained his full strength. He had ridden in the wagon from Abelard to New Orleans.

  “No, you stay here,” Preacher told him. “I’ll take Chimney along, and you’ll be in charge of the rest of the bunch. Reckon you can handle that?”

  “Of course I can,” Tyler replied without any hesitation. “You’ll come back here and get us when you’ve found out if Sampson and Rowland are there?”

  “I sure will,” Preacher said. He motioned with his head to Chimney, and the two of them walked out of the livery stable into the night.

  “Pretty smart, what you did with the boy just then,” Chimney commented quietly.

  “Puttin’ him in charge, you mean?”

  “Yeah. Otherwise, he’d ’ve kept on arguin’ with you. Say, that blacksmith is a brawny lad, ain’t he?”

  “He is, and I sure wouldn’t mind havin’ him on my side in a fight. He needs to stay out of it, though. He’s got a wife and young’un dependin’ on him, and I already almost got him in trouble by leavin’ a few carcasses in his place after some varmints jumped me there.”

  “Yeah, I noticed how he mentioned that.” Chimney chuckled. “You just sorta leave carcasses behind you wherever you go, don’t you, Preacher?”

  The mountain man sighed. “Yeah, and I ain’t sure how come it always seems to work out that way. I’m a peaceable man, after all.”

  “Ain’t we all, son. Ain’t we all.”

  * * *

  There might have been a small war in the French Quarter the previous night, but the area seemed to be back to its normal raucous self. The taverns, whorehouses, cafés, and gambling dens were doing good business. A lot of people were on the streets.

  The Catamount’s Den, though, was dark. No one was going in or out as Preacher and Chimney studied it from the mouth of an alley diagonally across the cobblestone street. A frown creased the mountain man’s forehead.

  “That the place?” Chimney asked in a half-whisper, although it seemed unlikely anyone would overhear them with the noise from nearby businesses and the hubbub of pedestrians.

  “That’s it,” Preacher said.

  “Don’t look like nobody’s there. Why do you reckon it’s closed? If Sampson and Rowland already took it over, wouldn’t they have it open?”

  “You’d think so.” In the darkness, Preacher rubbed his chin. “I’m gonna get in there and take a look around.” To forestall the inevitable question, he went on. “You stay here, but if you hear any commotion in there, come a-runnin’.”

  “I’ll sure do it,” Chimney said as he closed his hand around the butt of the pistol stuck in his trousers.

  Preacher was armed with two pistols and a knife. He wished he had his tomahawk, too, as he cat-footed through the shadows and circled around to approach the tavern’s side entrance through another alley. That tomahawk was a fine weapon for close work, but he had no idea what had happened to it. It was gone when he’d woken up from being drugged by Balthazar Crowe.

  The gloom was so thick that Preacher had to find the side door by feeling along the stone wall until he came to it. He tried the latch. It was fastened, but when he worked the knife’s heavy blade between the door and jamb, he was able to pry the catch loose. He opened the door carefully so the hinges wouldn’t squeal, then eased the door closed behind him.

  It was even darker inside. He shifted the knife to his left hand and pulled one of the pistols from his belt. He didn’t cock the weapon but looped his thumb over the hammer so he was ready to ear it back and fire at a second’s notice.

  Staying close to the wall to minimize any creaking from the stairs, he started up toward the second floor. He felt certain that if Simone was there, she would be in her quarters. If she wasn’t . . . Well, he would deal with that when he knew more.

  When he reached the landing at the top of the stairs, he paused to listen intently. He didn’t hear any sounds from inside the building. The Catamount’s Den was as quiet as the grave—which was a disconcerting thought.

  Preacher sheathed the knife and felt for the knob of the door into Simone’s quarters. After a few seconds of fumbling around, he found it. Unlike the alley door below, this one wasn’t locked. The knob turned easily in his fingers.

  He slipped inside the darkened room and started to call Simone’s name, then stopped himself. There was no reason anybody would be lurking, waiting to ambush him. Nobody in New Orleans even knew he was still alive except Jabez Sampson and Abner Rowland. Despite that, he didn’t want to announce his presence just yet. So far, he had moved with the same sort of stealth that had allowed him to slip in and out of numerous Blackfoot camps and acquire the name Ghost Killer among his enemies. No reason to change that, he decided.

  He had come to find out what had happened, he reminded himself, and couldn’t do that by standing around in the dark. Since he had flint and steel, he could strike a spark if the fireplace had any tinder. A small fire would give him enough light to look around the sitting room, and maybe that would give him a clue where Simone was.

  He had just knelt down in front of the fireplace when the door whispered open behind him, making just enough noise to alert him. As he turned, light spilled into the room, and he squinted against the sudden glare of a lantern.

  The twin barrels of the shotgun pointing at him looked like a pair of cannon.

  CHAPTER 41

  The dwarf called Long Sam held the upraised lantern in his left hand, the shotgun in his right. A bandage was wrapped around his head, forming a band of white above his eyes. Preacher could tell that he was about a second away from pulling the shotgun’s triggers.

  “If you fire that scattergun one-handed like that, it’ll break your arm,” he warned. “Not to mention, it’s liable to kick you all the way down the stairs.”

  “Yeah, but your mangy hide will be full of buckshot,” Long Sam said. “I reckon the trade might be worth it.”

  “Take it easy. I’m not here lookin’ for trouble.”

  Actually, that was a lie. Trouble was exactly what Preacher was looking for in the Catamount’s Den. And now he’d found it, although not quite what he’d expected.

  “What are you doing back here? What are you even doing alive? You’re supposed to be a prisoner at that sugar plantation on San Patricio.”

  “Well, those plans got changed a mite,” Preacher said dryly.

  “Those double-crossers.” Long Sam added a few colorful obscenities in a flat, hard voice. “Are you working with them?”

  “You mean Sampson and Rowland?” Preacher laughed, but no humor lurked in the sound. �
��Not hardly. I want those two varmints dead just as much as I reckon you do. They’re the reason you’ve got that rag tied around your head, ain’t they?”

  Preacher could tell by the way Long Sam’s expression changed a little that his shrewd guess had been correct.

  Long Sam let the shotgun barrels sag toward the floor. “They raided us last night,” he rasped. “I know Sampson by sight, but he didn’t come in at first. Some big fellow with tattoos on his head did, though.”

  “That’s Abner Rowland,” Preacher said. “Pure snake-blooded scoundrel.”

  “Yeah. And he had some other men with him I didn’t know. But they knocked the right way, so I figured they were all right. I’m sure Sampson told them what to do. They came in, drank a little, and then pretended to start a fight. While I was dealing with that, Sampson and the rest of the bunch burst in through the front door and started shooting. That’s when Rowland and the others dropped the pretense and attacked me and the rest of mam’selle’s men. That’s when I got this knock on the head. It put me out of the fight, and when I came to . . . it was all over.” Long Sam shook his head. “They must’ve thought I was dead already, or they might’ve cut my throat.”

  “Wouldn’t put it past ’em.” Preacher asked the question that loomed uppermost in his mind. “Where’s Simone? Did they get her?”

  “That’s the only good thing about this whole affair. She and Balthazar weren’t even here. They’d gone up to Colonel Osborne’s plantation for a visit.”

  The surge of relief that went through Preacher at that news surprised him with its strength. “Then she’s all right?”

  “As far as I know. But it doesn’t end there. After the fight was over, Sampson got hold of one of the bartenders and tortured him. He told Sampson where mam’selle and Balthazar had gone. The fellow admitted as much to me before he died from what Sampson and Rowland did to him.” Long Sam took a deep breath, then with a look of despair on his face, he said, “They took their gang and headed up there.”

  “To the plantation, you mean?”

  “That’s right. They don’t know that mam’selle is, well, mam’selle, but they want to kill Simon LeCarde because they know that’s the only way they can really take over.” Long Sam sighed. “I sent a man to warn her, but Sampson and the others were ahead of him. I . . . I don’t know if he even got there all right, let alone whether he made it in time.”

  Preacher felt grim resolve settling over his face and into his bones. “How come you didn’t go yourself?”

  “Because I was too dizzy from this knock on the head to stay on a horse,” Long Sam snapped back at him. “Don’t you think I wanted to go? But I knew the best chance of getting word to her in time was to send a rider on a fast horse, so that’s what I did. It’s taken me until tonight to be able to stand up without falling down!”

  The wheels of Preacher’s brain turned over swiftly. “Do you know where this plantation of Osborne’s is?”

  “Of course I do. It’s about sixty miles northwest of here. I’ve never been there, but I know how to find it, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  “It sure is,” Preacher said. “I’ve got some men with me. We’re headin’ up there right away to find out what’s happened.”

  “You’ll have to take me with you.”

  That bold declaration didn’t surprise Preacher. He nodded and said, “I figured as much. I’ve got a wagon. You can ride in it.”

  “A wagon will slow us down. We need to move a lot faster than that. I can ride now. Don’t think for a minute that I can’t. And you need me to know where you’re going.”

  Preacher couldn’t argue with that logic. Maybe Jean Paul Dufresne could help them come up with more saddle mounts. Even if he had to leave some of the men behind, Preacher knew he couldn’t afford to wait. Long Sam was right about the need for swiftness.

  “Let’s go, then. The sooner we get on the trail, the better, if you can find your way in the dark.”

  “I can,” Long Sam said. “Along the way, you can tell me what in the world you’re doing still alive.”

  As they started out of Simone’s sitting room, the dwarf added, “There’s one more thing, Preacher. Mam’selle and Balthazar took Cornelius and the Tarleton woman with them.”

  “Why in blazes did they do that?”

  “Because the colonel insisted. He knows that they probably intended to bilk him when they first met him, but he’s still smitten with the woman.”

  That was a stroke of luck for Preacher. If he could save Simone from being murdered by Sampson and Rowland, she might think twice about her arrangement to protect Cornelius and Lucy.

  And since Preacher still wanted to settle the score with those two . . . maybe fate was about to present him with the opportunity to take care of all of it at the same time.

  * * *

  Preacher had told Chimney about Long Sam, so the old-timer wasn’t completely shocked to see a shotgun-toting dwarf accompanying the mountain man. But since Long Sam had been part of the treachery intended to exile Preacher to the hell of the sugar plantation on San Patricio, Chimney hadn’t expected the little man to turn out to be an ally.

  Knowing such twists of fate happened sometimes, Chimney accepted it quickly. Once he learned what was going on, he said, “We’d best move fast, then. If we ride all night, we can get to the colonel’s plantation sometime tomorrow mornin’.”

  Preacher asked Long Sam, “Do you know how many men Sampson and Rowland had with them?”

  “Somewhere between fifteen and twenty in the whole bunch, I’d say.”

  “Would there be enough men on the colonel’s plantation to put up a fight and hold them off?”

  “How in blazes would I know?” Long Sam snapped. “Balthazar’s there, and he’s worth three or four regular fighting men. Plus Osborne’s overseers . . .” Long Sam shrugged. “They could hold out for a while, I imagine. That’s what we’re counting on, isn’t it?”

  “And if we can take that bunch of varmints by surprise,” Preacher said, “that ought to be enough to tip the scales in our favor.”

  The plan might work, but first they had to get there. Preacher, Chimney, and Long Sam hurried back to Jean Paul Dufresne’s livery barn.

  Dufresne had enough horses in his stable that, combined with the mounts Preacher and the others had brought from Abelard, everyone could ride except for a couple of men.

  Before Preacher could even say anything, Tyler frowned at him and said, “Don’t even try to stop me this time, Preacher.”

  “All right,” the mountain man replied, “but you got to keep up. We’re gonna be movin’ pretty fast.”

  “I’ll keep up. Don’t worry about that.”

  Within half an hour, the force of a dozen men had left New Orleans and was heading northwest toward Colonel Osborne’s plantation. The hard-packed dirt road they followed for the first part of the trip was wide and easy to see, even by light of the stars and a half-moon. Later, though, Long Sam warned them, the way would get trickier.

  “The plantation backs up to a swamp. I’ve heard the colonel talk about it. Men have gone in there and never come out again, so we want to avoid it.”

  Maybe, Preacher thought. But maybe there was something in Long Sam’s warning that might be useful.

  They stopped now and then to rest the horses but mostly just pushed on at a fast clip throughout the night.

  During one of those brief halts, Preacher asked Tyler, “How are you holdin’ up?”

  “I’m fine,” the young man replied, but his voice revealed the strain he was feeling. “A little tired, that’s all.”

  “You can stay here, rest a while longer, and follow us later.”

  “And by the time I get there, it’ll be all over.” Tyler shook his head. “No thanks, Preacher. I’m in this to the end.”

  “All right. If that’s the way you feel. You get to where you can’t go on, though, we won’t be able to wait for you.”

  “I know that. I wouldn�
��t have it any other way.”

  As Long Sam had said, the path became harder to follow once they branched off the main road. That meant they had to go slower. Trees with moss growing thickly over their branches crowded in on both sides of the trail, and the dangling vegetation cast dense shadows. Finally, Long Sam said, “We have to stop until it starts to get light, or we risk losing our way completely.”

  Preacher didn’t like it, but he knew Long Sam was right. He told the men to dismount. “As soon as we can see well enough, we’ll be on our way again.”

  Although none of them said it, not even Tyler, he could tell the men were grateful for the chance to rest. He had been pushing them hard for quite a while. It was still a few hours until dawn, he estimated. That would give his companions a chance to recover a little.

  As for himself, he could have pushed himself until he dropped—and that would take a mighty long time.

  “Don’t wander off,” Long Sam advised the men. “I’m not saying for sure you’d step on a snake or trip over an alligator . . . but it might happen.”

  “Don’t you worry, son,” Chimney told him. “I figure on stayin’ right here where I am.”

  After everyone had rested for a while, Preacher said to Long Sam, “I ain’t forgot that you had a hand in what happened to me. I reckon you helpin’ us like this will go a ways toward squarin’ that up.”

  “I did what I thought best for my boss,” Long Sam said. “If you’re waiting for an apology—”

  “I ain’t. Just don’t ever try to double-cross me again. That’s all I’m sayin’.” As he spoke, Preacher noticed that the sky had taken on a slightly gray hue. Dawn was approaching. Soon they would be able to resume their journey to Colonel Osborne’s plantation. “How much farther is it?” he asked Long Sam.

  “Not far. A couple of miles, maybe—”

  As Long Sam abruptly fell silent, Preacher stiffened. He thought the dwarf must have heard the same thing he had—a faint popping in the distance that he recognized as gunfire.

  CHAPTER 42

  Long Sam recovered from his surprise and cursed. “Those shots have to be coming from the plantation!”