When All Hell Broke Loose Read online

  It helped that Colleen wasn’t looking for another husband—and Preacher sure as blazes wasn’t looking to settle down.

  He put on the short, silk top hat she had bought him to go with the fancy dark suit. It was silly looking, he thought, but she seemed to like it. They went downstairs and out through the ornate lobby of the hotel where Colleen lived.

  Officially, Preacher wasn’t staying there. He had an arrangement with the owner of a livery stable not far away. He was keeping Horse, his rangy gray stallion, there, and Dog, the big, wolflike cur who was his other trail partner, hung around the stable, too. The proprietor had told Preacher he could sleep in the hayloft if he wanted to. But most nights, the mountain man had been at the hotel.

  Colleen had a carriage waiting. It was all dark, polished wood and gleaming brass trim. The big black horses hitched to it had brass decorations on their harness, as well.

  He and Colleen would be traveling in style tonight, thought Preacher.

  The driver would have opened the door for her, but Preacher was there first and helped her into the carriage. He climbed in and settled himself on the seat beside her, facing forward.

  “This is cozy,” she said as the vehicle began rolling through the streets toward the restaurant. She leaned against Preacher and turned her face up. He knew she expected him to kiss her, and he didn’t see any harm in obliging.

  Several minutes passed like that, then Colleen moved back a little and said breathlessly, “My, you certainly do know how to start off an evening in enjoyable fashion, Preacher.”

  “I aim to please, ma’am.”

  “So far, you’re succeeding admirably. I’d even go so far as to say—”

  She stopped short, prompting Preacher to ask, “What was that you were gonna say?”

  “This isn’t the way to the restaurant.”

  Preacher didn’t think that was what she’d been about to say a moment earlier, but it didn’t matter. He heard the worried tone in her voice and turned his head to look out the window on his side of the carriage.

  The neighborhood through which they were passing appeared to be a mite on the squalid side, but that didn’t mean anything. Areas of riches and poverty were cheek by jowl all over San Francisco, as they were in any city once it got big enough.

  “Maybe the fella at the reins knows a different route,” Preacher suggested.

  Colleen shook her head. “No, I’m pretty sure we’re going the opposite direction from the restaurant. There’s no reason we should be in this part of town. It can be dangerous here.”

  “The driver’s lost, then. I’ll tell him to turn around and head back to the hotel.”

  As Preacher leaned over and stuck his head out the window, he heard warning bells going off in the back of his mind. For the most part, cities were treacherous, rotten places where the dangers were usually hidden, rather than being out in the open like they were in the wilderness.

  At Colleen’s insistence, he hadn’t worn the pair of .44 Colt Dragoon revolvers he usually carried these days. The weight of the guns would have been mighty comforting right about now, he thought. But he wasn’t exactly without resources—or weapons.

  He had stuck a couple of small flintlock pistols in the waistband of his trousers, at the small of his back where his coat covered them. He also had a dagger hidden down the side of his boot. He’d figured what Colleen didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

  Still, maybe there was nothing to worry about. Maybe the driver was just inexperienced and lost. Preacher could understand how somebody could get turned around in a place like San Francisco, with all of its narrow, twisting streets.

  “Hey, mister,” he called to the driver. “The lady says you’re goin’ the wrong way.”

  The man glanced back over his shoulder, then suddenly whipped the horses and sent them lunging ahead faster. The unexpected surge threw Preacher back against the seat and jolted him into Colleen’s shoulder.

  She cried out in surprise. “What’s that lunatic doing?”

  “I reckon he’s up to no good,” Preacher replied.

  At the higher rate of speed, the carriage bounced more on every rough spot, throwing him and Colleen around. It was enough to rattle a fellow’s teeth.

  “What does he want?”

  “Most folks probably know you’ve got a heap o’ money,” Preacher said. “My guess is that he’s working with some gents who want to make you a prisoner and hold you until you turn over a big pile o’ cash to them.”

  “I won’t do it!” flared Colleen. “And they can’t make me!”

  Preacher didn’t explain just how brutal varmints like that could be, especially when they had a woman at their mercy. Anyway, he didn’t plan on allowing things to get that far.

  For a second, he considered letting the driver continue on to wherever he was supposed to rendezvous with his partners, just so he could take care of them all at once, but that would be running too much of a risk with Colleen’s safety. He told her, “Hang on tight,” and reached for the door handle. He twisted it with one hand while he used the other to grab one of the pistols at the small of his back.

  Standing up and swinging his body partially out of the carriage, Preacher pointed the gun at the driver and shouted, “Stop that team right now, you lowdown skunk!”

  The man glanced over his shoulder, fear on his beefy face. He jerked on the reins and veered the running horses sharply to one side, making the carriage sway violently. Colleen cried out again as the maneuver threw Preacher far out to the side. He barely hung on with one hand and was able to keep only one foot in the carriage.

  As the vehicle straightened, he recovered quickly, but before he could bring the pistol to bear again, the driver twisted on the seat and slashed at him with the whip. The leather strands struck the back of Preacher’s gun hand and left a bloody streak. The pain made him drop the gun.

  “Son of a—” Preacher grated, then bit back the rest of the curse. He had another pistol, but before he could reach for it, the driver slashed at him again with the whip, aiming for his face.

  Preacher flung up his bleeding hand just in time, and the whip wrapped around it instead of slashing his face. He didn’t give the driver a chance to jerk it back. He pulled hard.

  Lurching toward Preacher, the driver yelled in surprise and alarm. He let go of the whip, but not in time to prevent him from sprawling on the seat where the mountain man could reach him. Preacher threw the whip aside and grabbed the driver’s collar.

  The horses were runaways, thundering straight along the street. Preacher hesitated just a second when he saw that they were approaching a wrought iron hitching post sticking up at the side of the street then he heaved with his considerable strength and the unfortunate driver slid off the seat and tumbled from the carriage.

  Preacher heard the heavy thump as the man’s momentum carried him into the hitching post. He had no way of knowing how much damage the collision did to the driver, but it had to be considerable. Enough to render him no longer a threat for the time being, that was for sure.

  “You all right in there, Colleen?” Preacher called to the auburn-haired widow.

  “Y-yes,” came back the shaky answer. “Can you stop this thing, Preacher?”

  “Just what I’m about to do,” he assured her. He got a good grip with both hands on the brass rail around the top of the carriage and threw a leg up onto the driver’s box. It took only a second for him to haul himself onto the seat.

  The reins hissed and writhed on the floorboards like snakes. Preacher reached down and snagged them, glad he wouldn’t have to jump onto the backs of the team in order to stop them. He could do that if he needed to, of course, but he was getting a mite too long in the tooth for such hijinks, he told himself.

  He was just about to haul back on the reins when, somewhere behind the carriage, a gun boomed and a split second later he heard the flat, sinister hum of a pistol ball passing close beside his head.

  Chapter 3

  Preac
her bent a little lower on the seat and turned his head to peer back over his shoulder. Four men on horseback were charging after the carriage. Muzzle flame bloomed red in the darkness as one of them fired another shot.

  “Looks like we ain’t stoppin’ after all!” he called to Colleen. “That varmint’s partners are on our trail! Grab somethin’ in there and hold on tight!”

  “Ohhhh!” she moaned. Preacher hoped she was just scared and not hurt.

  He snapped the reins against the horses’ backs and shouted at them to keep going. Not many people in that neighborhood were out on the streets at that hour, but a few pedestrians had to scramble to get out of the way of the racing carriage. From the corner of his eye, Preacher saw them glaring at him in surprise and confusion.

  More shots blasted from the pursuers. At least one of them had a revolver. Preacher could tell that from the frequency of the reports.

  If he’d had his Colts, he would have stopped and shot it out with the would-be kidnappers. Since acquiring a pair of Paterson Colts from the Texas Rangers some years earlier, he had practiced a great deal and become expert in their use, and he was even better with the newer Dragoons he usually carried. He would match his speed and skill with the revolvers against anyone, even outnumbered.

  But he had only a single-shot pistol and the dagger with him, so it was more important that he try to get Colleen to safety.

  The fact that he didn’t know San Francisco all that well made that more difficult. He sent the carriage careening around corners at such a high rate of speed that a couple of times he thought it was going to turn over. Although he was able to right it each time, he didn’t know if he was heading back toward the hotel or just deeper into trouble.

  One of the riders had pulled ahead of the others and was getting closer. Preacher glanced over his left shoulder and saw the man thrusting a gun toward him. He ducked as the weapon roared and a cloud of smoke spurted from its barrel. The silk top hat, which improbably had stayed on Preacher’s head, flew off and sailed away as the bullet struck it.

  Preacher couldn’t give the man another shot at him. As the pursuer struggled to thumb back the revolver’s stiff hammer, Preacher reached down to his boot, plucked the dagger from it, and twisted on the seat to throw it.

  The blade flew true and lodged in the man’s throat. He let out a choking cry, dropped the gun, and his hands went to his throat to paw at the dagger’s handle. He managed to rip it loose, but that just did more damage and caused blood to flood down the front of his shirt. He toppled out of the saddle, crashed to the street, and rolled over a couple of times before coming to a stop and not moving again.

  Preacher didn’t see that because the carriage was still bucketing along at a high rate of speed, but he didn’t have to see it to know he had disposed of another enemy.

  Maybe that man’s grisly death would be enough to make the others back off and abandon the chase.

  No such luck. They shouted furiously at seeing one of their own go down and urged their horses on faster.

  Preacher wheeled the carriage into another turn.

  It was difficult to see where he was going. Some light spilled into the street from windows and open doors in the buildings. Here and there, a torch flickered or a lantern hanging from a post glowed. He made another turn and came into a straight stretch of road that ran between two huge buildings. Those were warehouses, he realized, having seen buildings like them on the riverfront back in St. Louis.

  And up ahead . . .

  “Well, hell,” said Preacher.

  Up ahead, he could see the tall masts of ships docked at the piers. He and Colleen were about to run out of road.

  A look back told him he couldn’t turn around. The three riders had already entered the stretch between the warehouses. He would be driving straight into their guns if he reversed course.

  He kept going as the docks loomed closer and closer.

  A narrow street ran between the warehouses and the water, Preacher saw. He would have to turn right or left and hope the carriage wouldn’t overturn. People might be on some of the ships tied up at the piers, so there was a chance the pursuers would give up rather than risk trying to kill him and grab Colleen in front of witnesses.

  That was only a slim hope, however. Men bold enough to kidnap a wealthy widow and hold her for ransom probably wouldn’t worry a lot about witnesses.

  Preacher allowed his instincts to guide him and swung the carriage into a sharp left-hand turn when they reached the waterfront. A good decision, he saw instantly. To the right, the open area between the docks and the warehouses was littered with stacks of cargo. He would have been forced to stop if he’d tried to go that way.

  But he and Colleen weren’t out of the woods yet. From an alley up ahead, two more riders suddenly emerged and charged toward the carriage.

  Just how many of the damn varmints were there, anyway?

  They had him in a crossfire, and he had only one bullet with which to fight back. The two men in front of him reined their horses to a halt and started firing at him. Preacher bent as low as he could on the seat to make himself a smaller target. A slug spanged off the brass trim on the carriage’s roof.

  Holding the reins in his left hand, he reached behind him with his right and pulled the remaining pistol, never slowing the carriage. The attackers’ nerves broke first. They yanked their mounts aside.

  As the carriage flashed past one of the men, Preacher was close enough to use the pistol. He thrust the gun toward the man and pulled the trigger. The pounding hoofbeats drowned out the pop from the small caliber weapon, but Preacher saw the man’s head jerk as the bullet struck him. He threw his arms in the air and pitched limply out of the saddle.

  The second man galloped after the carriage, and he didn’t have very far to go. Preacher felt the vehicle shift and looked back to see the man hauling himself onto the roof. He’d made a daring leap from horseback to the carriage and succeeded in the risky attempt. If he had missed, he probably would have broken his neck.

  He was on the roof and pulling himself closer to Preacher.

  The man had the coarse, cruel features of a thief and killer. Preacher knew he had guessed right about this bunch. They were after Colleen for her money, and even if they got what they wanted, more than likely they would treat her badly.

  Preacher wasn’t going to let that happen.

  With the other three still coming up fast behind, he couldn’t stop the carriage. He looped the reins around the brass grab bar at the side of the driver’s seat and turned as the man on the roof leaped at him.

  Preacher got himself braced just in time to keep from going over backward as the man crashed into him. Ducking the punch that the man swung at his head, Preacher hooked a fist into the attacker’s belly and felt the butt of the gun stuck in the man’s waistband. The revolver must have been empty, or else the man would have just shot him off the carriage.

  Despite the blow Preacher had landed, the man bulled ahead and got an arm around the mountain man’s neck. They swayed back and forth on the driver’s box, slugging away at each other. Preacher lowered his head and rammed it into the man’s face, feeling the hot spurt of blood on his forehead as the impact crushed the man’s nose. The attacker howled in pain.

  Preacher managed to close his hand around the gun butt, jerked the revolver loose, and slammed it against the man’s head. The man slumped but hung on stubbornly. Preacher hit him again and felt bone crunch in the man’s skull, before the varmint let go and fell off the speeding carriage.

  Preacher didn’t have time to take any satisfaction in that triumph. A gun boomed somewhere close and the bullet passed so close to his cheek that it felt like a gust of hot air.

  One of the riders had pulled up alongside the carriage, trying to draw a bead on Preacher again. That wasn’t easy from the back of a galloping horse.

  Preacher flipped the revolver in the air, caught it by the barrel, and slung it at the man. The gun spun through the air and smashed int
o the man’s face with enough force to knock him back. He lost the saddle and flew off, crashing to the ground.

  Preacher didn’t figure that hombre would be getting up for a while, if at all. He had whittled the odds down to two to one, but he didn’t have any more weapons.

  Turning to face forward on the seat of the racing carriage, he saw that yet another problem was coming up quickly. The road ran out ahead, ending in a low wooden wall. On the other side were the waters of the bay. Preacher looked at the alleys between the buildings that lined the waterfront. All of them were too narrow for the carriage.

  He still had room to stop, but if he did that, the two men on horseback would just come along a few seconds later and shoot him.

  With no other options, he untied the reins, let them hang loose, and leaned far over the front of the driver’s box to reach down and grasp the pin that connected the tongue to the carriage body. It wasn’t designed to be pulled with so much weight against it, but Preacher heaved as hard as he could and it popped free.

  The horses had realized they were about to run out of space, too, and as soon as they were loose from the carriage, they turned sharply away from the water. The carriage kept moving, though, rolling straight for the edge and not slowing down.

  Preacher swung down from the box and grabbed the side of the front window on that side to steady himself as he flung his body toward the open door. He landed inside the carriage, causing Colleen to gasp.

  “Preacher, what—”

  “No time,” he said as he grabbed her. They had only seconds.

  Not even that long, actually. The carriage reached the wall and still had enough momentum to tip up and over it and plummet the six feet into the bay.

  Chapter 4

  Preacher had dived out the open door with Colleen in his arms just as the carriage began its somersault into the water. They struck the surface a split second later and went under.

  Despite the relative warmth of the evening, the bay was cold, and the weight of the clothes they wore pulled them deep.