Preacher's Fire Read online

  “Something’s wrong with Rice,” he rasped, muffling his voice a little against the man’s shoulder. “He just moaned and fell over. Might be his heart.”

  “Son of a—Hold on,” the guard on the other side of the door said. Preacher heard the bar being lifted, and then the other door opened a couple of feet.

  “Bring him in here. Maybe one of us ought to fetch the sawbones.”

  Preacher kept his head ducked down as he lugged the limp form through the narrow opening. One of the inside guards swung it closed behind him and lowered the bar again.

  “Better not tell the boss about this,” he said. “We ain’t supposed to open up for any reason. Rice still owes me two dollars from that last poker game, though, and by God, I don’t want him dyin’ before he pays me!”

  A smile tugged at Preacher’s mouth. Greed, like lust, was something that could bring a man down without much trouble.

  “Well, here, see if he’s got it on him,” Preacher said. He gave the unconscious figure a hard shove toward the man at the door, then whirled and kicked the man with the lantern in the belly. The man doubled over and started to fall. Preacher grabbed the lantern before it could drop to the floor, shatter, and start that fire he wanted to prevent.

  A harsh curse came from behind him. He swung around in time to see that the second guard had gotten tangled up with the man Preacher had knocked out, just as Preacher had hoped would happen. The guard had gone to one knee and was trying to get up. Preacher met him with a hard, looping right that stretched him out on the warehouse floor, out cold.

  The man Preacher had kicked in the belly was still gasping for breath, but he was also trying to work a pistol out from behind his belt. Preacher brought the barrel of his pistol crashing down on the man’s head, knocking him out as well.

  The whole thing, start to finish, had taken less than three minutes.

  Preacher set the lantern down on a crate, lifted the bar holding the doors closed, and went back outside for the other guard. When he had all four of them inside, he used some rope he had brought with him to tie their hands and feet, then pulled some more bandannas from his pocket and blindfolded them as well, so they wouldn’t be able to see what was going on if they regained consciousness before the men hired by Jessie and Cleve finished cleaning out the stolen merchandise from the warehouse.

  Then Preacher opened the door a little, stuck the lantern out, and waved it from side to side three times. That was the signal. A few moments later, he heard the creak of wheels as several big freight wagons rolled toward the warehouse. He swung the doors wide open to let them in.

  He was surprised to see that Cleve himself was at the reins of one of the wagons. The gambler grinned at him and said, “Good work. You didn’t have to kill any of them.”

  “Said I wouldn’t,” Preacher replied.

  Cleve nodded and lifted a hand in farewell. “We’ll handle it from here.”

  “Those fellas better be alive when you leave. They ain’t any threat to you now.”

  “Fine,” Cleve said as he hopped down from the wagon he had brought to a halt. “You have my word.”

  Preacher wasn’t sure what that was worth, but for now he had to accept it. He nodded and left the warehouse, trotting away through the shadows.

  A few blocks from the warehouse, he stopped in an alley and pulled the bandanna from his face. It felt good to have it off. He just wasn’t cut out to be a thief, even though he was helping to steal from a thief and a murderer.

  As he walked away into the night, he wondered how long he would have to be back in the mountains before he started to feel clean again.

  Chapter 24

  Beaumont was livid the next morning when one of his men came to the house to deliver the bad news about the warehouse robbery. Preacher and Lorenzo were having breakfast in the kitchen when they heard the furious shouting.

  “Oh, hell,” Lorenzo muttered. “Somethin’ else gone wrong. Startin’ to seem like this house got a hoodoo on it.”

  Preacher started to get up. “I reckon I’d better go see what it’s all about.”

  The stocky, florid-faced Irish woman who did the cooking for Beaumont swung away from the stove and said, “Sit yourself right back down, Mr. Donnelly. ’Tis not finished with your breakfast you are, and no good will come of leavin’ perfectly good food on your plate.”

  Preacher listened for a moment to the raving coming from upstairs, then grinned and sank back into his chair. “I reckon you’re right, ma’am,” he said. “I believe I’ll finish these here flapjacks first.”

  Something crashed upstairs. Lorenzo shook his head and muttered, “Man ain’t gonna have a stick o’ furniture left that ain’t broken if this keeps up.”

  After breakfast, Preacher climbed the stairs and knocked on Beaumont’s door, which was closed. “Come in,” Beaumont called from the other side of the panel.

  Preacher opened the door and stepped into the room. Beaumont stood by the window, wearing a dressing gown and holding a glass in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. He tipped up the bottle, splashed liquor into the glass, then threw it down his throat. Preacher wasn’t sure why he didn’t just drink from the bottle. Too undignified, he supposed.

  “Kind of early in the day for that Who-hit-John, ain’t it, boss?” he asked.

  “Not after the sort of news that I’ve had this morning,” Beaumont snapped. “The time of day doesn’t really matter right now.”

  “More trouble?”

  “Someone broke into one of my warehouses last night, knocked out the guards, and emptied it of everything that was in it. They cost me five thousand dollars, maybe more.” Beaumont poured more whiskey into the glass. “And I know who did it, too.”

  “You finally found somebody willin’ to talk?” Preacher didn’t see how that was possible, since he had accompanied Beaumont every time the man left the house and had been there for all the interrogations.

  Beaumont shook his head. “No. But I’ve figured it out at last. There’s only one person who could be to blame for everything that’s happened lately.” Beaumont drained the whiskey and licked his lips. Then his mouth twisted in a snarl. “Preacher!”

  It took iron will not to react. Preacher realized after a second that Beaumont hadn’t figured out who he was. Beaumont was just spitting out the name of the person he blamed for all his troubles.

  Preacher shook his head. “I don’t reckon I know who that is.”

  “You haven’t heard of Preacher?” Beaumont asked with a frown. “He’s some son of a bitch mountain man who’s been taking great delight in ruining some of my plans over the past year or so. Every time I’ve tried to make any inroads into the fur trade in the Rockies, he’s stopped me.”

  “And now you think he’s come to St. Louis?”

  Beaumont shrugged. “It makes sense. About six months ago I sent some agents to the mountains to take over a trading post and settlement that’s gotten started out there, and Preacher made sure that didn’t happen. Quite a few people were killed in the process, though, and I’m willing to bet that he holds a grudge against me because of it. That’s the sort of thing an uneducated lout like him would do.”

  “Yeah, I reckon,” Preacher said. “What’s this fella look like?”

  “Well, I’ve never seen him myself, you understand, but he’s been described to me on several occasions. He’s supposed to be almost seven feet tall, a giant of a man, with a black beard that comes halfway down his chest.”

  Preacher looked close to see if Beaumont was joshing him, but the man seemed to be completely serious. Somebody had exaggerated a mite while they were telling Beaumont about him. More than a mite, actually. Preacher was nowhere near that big, and his beard had been that long only on rare occasions when he had been up in the mountains for months at a time and hadn’t bothered to trim it.

  “Sounds like I’ll know him if I see him,” he said to Beaumont. “And you can bet I’ll keep my eyes open for him, if you think he’s the on
e causin’ all the trouble.”

  Beaumont smacked his right fist into his left palm. “I’m convinced of it. I’m going to take steps to put a stop to it, as well.”

  Preacher didn’t like the sound of that, but chances were, as long as he continued fooling Beaumont about who he really was, he’d be in a good position to foil any plan the man came up with.

  “We’ll be going out and making the usual rounds today,” Beaumont went on. “I’m sure that Preacher is spying on me, and I’m going to show him that no matter what he does, he can’t get the better of me.”

  If it weren’t for the fact that Preacher was really here in St. Louis, working against Beaumont, he’d think that the fella was getting a mite loco on the subject, seeing enemies where there weren’t any. But even though Beaumont had some of it wrong, he was actually right about who was behind his troubles. That almost brought a smile to Preacher’s face.

  He remained serious, though, as he said, “All right, boss. I’ll be ready to go whenever you are.”

  The fact that Beaumont had someone to direct his rage at now seemed to have calmed him down a little. Later in the day, after checking on some of Beaumont’s other illegal enterprises, the two of them went to the warehouse where Preacher had been the night before. Beaumont stood just inside the open doors with his hands on his hips, looking around at the empty space where thousands of dollars worth of stolen property had been stored.

  The men who had been on guard duty at the warehouse the night before were waiting there, and for a moment Preacher worried that Beaumont intended to kill them for letting someone clean the place out.

  Instead, Beaumont just questioned them, asking all four men how they had been taken by surprise and if they had gotten a look at the man who’d knocked them out.

  Tompkins and Rice, the two men who had been on duty outside, both replied that they hadn’t seen the man at all. He had knocked them out before they caught even a glimpse of his face.

  Beaumont turned to the other two. “How about you?” he asked. “Did you see him? Was he a giant with a long black beard?” He put a hand about halfway down his chest to indicate the length he was talking about.

  The men glanced at each other and frowned, as if they thought that their boss might be losing his mind. One of them shook his head and replied, “No, sir, he was a pretty good-sized fella, but he wasn’t anywhere near that big. I couldn’t really see his face, because he wore his hat pulled down low and had some sort of cloth tied across his nose and mouth. I think I would have seen a beard sticking out from under it, though, if it was as long as you say.”

  “How was he dressed? Was he wearing buckskins?”

  “No, sir. Just normal work clothes, I reckon. I didn’t see anything unusual about them.”

  “Maybe one of those caps made from the skin of a raccoon with the tail still attached to it?”

  Both men shook their heads.

  “Damn it, I was sure it had to be him!” Beaumont said to Preacher as they left the warehouse. “But even if he wasn’t the one who snuck in here, he had to be involved. I can feel it in my bones.”

  “I’m sure you’re right, boss,” Preacher said. He opened the door to the carriage, which was parked in front of the warehouse. “Where do you want to go now?”

  “Jessie’s,” Beaumont snapped. “I need to think about this. Jessie’s smart . . . for a woman. Maybe she can help me figure it out.”

  Lorenzo pointed the carriage toward Jessie’s Place. As it rolled through the streets, the elderly driver said, “The boss sure has been goin’ on about this here Preacher fella. I reckon I’d sure hate to be him, if’n the boss ever gets his hands on him.”

  “From the sound of it, he’s a pretty slippery gent. If he don’t want to be found, the boss may not be able to find him.”

  Lorenzo snorted. “You say that ’cause you don’t know the boss the way I do. He’s like a ol’ bulldog. Once he gets his teeth into somethin’, they ain’t no way to make him let go until he’s good and ready.”

  Preacher didn’t doubt that. Beaumont hadn’t gotten the wealth and power he possessed by giving up easily.

  When they reached Jessie’s, Preacher jumped down from the driver’s box and opened the carriage door for Beaumont. Lorenzo asked, “You gonna be here long enough for me to take the horses around back to the stable, boss?”

  “I don’t know how long I’ll be here,” Beaumont snapped. “Just wait right out front here.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Beaumont marched up the walk to the front door. Preacher followed a couple of steps behind him, looking around as he always did, as if on the alert for an ambush or anything else that might threaten Beaumont. There wasn’t any real danger, of course, but Beaumont didn’t know that.

  And, come to think of it, Preacher realized that he couldn’t rule it out entirely, either. Beaumont had other enemies in St. Louis. It was possible that one of these days, Preacher might actually have to defend Beaumont against a genuine attempt on his life. That would be a damned hard pill to swallow, but he wouldn’t have any choice if he wanted Beaumont to continue believing that he was really Jim Donnelly.

  Brutus was waiting for them at the door, as usual. As he swung it open and they came in, he bowed a little and said, “Good to see you, Mr. Beaumont. Would you like me to fetch Miss Jessie for you?”

  “No, I’ll just go back to her office if that’s where she is.” With the arrogant stride of a man who didn’t expect to be denied anything he wanted, Beaumont started along the hallway that ran toward the rear of the house. He walked like a man who owned the place . . . which, of course, he did.

  “Yeah, she’s back there,” Brutus said. “I can tell her you’re here—”

  “No need,” Beaumont said.

  Preacher started after him, only to have Brutus get in his way. The big man put a hand on Preacher’s chest to stop him, saying, “Why don’t you wait in the parlor, Mr. Donnelly? Got some good-lookin’ gals in there to keep you company, if you want.”

  Preacher saw a worried look in the man’s eyes that made him aware Brutus was trying to tell him something. He didn’t know what it was, though, and he didn’t get a chance to ask him about it, because Beaumont paused, glanced over his shoulder at the two of them, and said impatiently, “Donnelly, come with me. You can carouse with those whores some other time.”

  “Yes, sir,” Preacher said. He started to move past Brutus, only to have the man shift position to block his path.

  “Careful,” Brutus breathed. “Turn your face away when you go past the parlor.”

  At that instant, Preacher realized there must be somebody in the parlor who represented a threat to him. Brutus hadn’t really meant to take him in there when he’d made his suggestion a moment earlier. That had been strictly for Beaumont’s benefit. If Beaumont hadn’t insisted that Preacher come with him, Brutus would have hustled the mountain man off somewhere else in the house.

  Preacher didn’t know for sure what was going on and didn’t have a chance to try to figure it out, because at that moment, two things happened. Jessie appeared at the far end of the hallway, perhaps having heard Beaumont’s voice, and closer, between her and Beaumont, a man stepped out of the parlor into the corridor with his arm around the waist of one of the whores. The man was a tall, barrel-chested gent with a long, ragged brown beard that looked like it hadn’t been trimmed in a while. He was laughing at something the girl with him had just said, but that didn’t stop his eyes from turning toward Beaumont, Brutus, and Preacher.

  The man’s gaze landed on Preacher and froze. Recognition flashed in his eyes. Preacher knew him, too, but he hadn’t expected to ever see the man again. The last time he’d laid eyes on him had been during that Indian attack on the wagon train. The man who had just come out of the parlor was Buckhalter, the renegade wagonmaster who’d been working for Beaumont.

  And now Buckhalter jerked his arm up, pointed, and yelled, “Preacher! Damn it, there he is now! Preacher!”
/>   Chapter 25

  Beaumont stiffened and whirled around, his hand darting under his coat for a hidden gun. He stared toward the foyer, past Preacher, and snapped, “Donnelly! Preacher must have run back outside! Go get him!”

  “Donnelly!” Buckhalter roared. “What the hell are you talkin’ about? That’s Preacher, right there!”

  He clawed at a pistol stuck behind his belt.

  Well, this bit of bad luck had blown things all to hell, Preacher thought as Beaumont’s eyes widened in shock and understanding of what Buckhalter meant. There was nothing left to do now . . .

  Except kill the man he had come to St. Louis to kill. The problem was that Beaumont and Buckhalter both had guns in their hands now, and Preacher had only one pistol. Even though he was fast with it and probably could reload as swiftly as any man alive, there was no way he would be able to gun down either of the men and reload in time to stop the other one from killing him. At this close range, he didn’t think either Beaumont or Buckhalter were likely to miss.

  That meant if he killed Beaumont, Buckhalter would undoubtedly kill him. The price was worth it, though, for justice to finally catch up to Shad Beaumont, Preacher thought as he smoothly pulled the pistol from behind his belt and brought it up. His thumb looped over the hammer and drew it back.

  A shot sounded, only it wasn’t the boom of a large-bore pistol but rather the sharper crack of a smaller weapon. Buckhalter lurched forward, the barrel of his gun drooping. The weapon roared and smoke and flame spurted from the muzzle, but by then it was pointing down and the heavy ball smacked harmlessly into the floor. Buckhalter fell to his knees and pitched forward, blood welling from a hole in the back of his head.

  Preacher caught a glimpse of Jessie standing at the end of the hall, powder smoke curling from the barrel of the little pistol in her hand as she held her arm extended out in front of her.