Preacher's Fire Read online

  “What about your wife?” Preacher asked Donnelly. “Was she hurt?”

  Donnelly shook his head. “Lorraine is shaken up some, of course, but she’ll be all right.” He paused, then asked, “Do you think we’ll be attacked again tonight, Preacher?”

  A grim chuckle came from Preacher. “Doubtful. I reckon you took a big enough toll on both bunches that they won’t be lookin’ for a fight for a while. There’s probably not more than a handful left alive. Buckhalter’s men will likely head back east as fast as their horses can carry ’em. The Pawnee will go back to their regular huntin’ grounds and lick their wounds until they get ready to go raidin’ again, with some young warriors to replace the ones you killed.”

  “I’m sorry that so many people had to lose their lives tonight.”

  “Better those varmints than you or the folks with you,” Uncle Dan said.

  “We lost several men,” Donnelly said with sorrow in his voice. “They were killed during the fighting.”

  Preacher nodded. “I saw a couple of them go down. They were good men, fightin’ right to the end.”

  “We’ll give them proper burials, and leave markers for them.”

  “I reckon that’s fine,” Preacher said. He didn’t mention the fact that in a few months, no one would be able to tell that any graves had been dug here. Chances were, the markers would be gone, too, claimed by the elements. They surely would be in a year or so, unless the words were carved in stone. And even if they were, the sun and the rain and the wind would wear those away in time, too. The memories folks had of a man were the only true legacy he left behind when he crossed the divide.

  That was the way it had always been, the way it would always be. As the years passed, there would be hundreds, if not thousands, of forgotten graves on these westward trails, Preacher reflected. Few of those who came after would know or care about the people who had died carrying civilization across the prairie.

  But the country would be changed forevermore, anyway. For good or bad . . . ?

  Well, Preacher didn’t know about that part of it.

  Chapter 9

  More convinced than ever of the need to remain vigilant at all times, Donnelly doubled the usual number of guards for the rest of the night, but the hours passed peacefully and the sun rose the next morning without any more trouble having broken out.

  Preacher and Uncle Dan were up more than an hour before sunrise, as usual, getting ready to ride as soon as it was light enough.

  As they were having breakfast at the Donnelly wagon, Ned Donnelly asked them, “I don’t suppose there’s any way I could talk you men into coming to Oregon with us?”

  Preacher shook his head. “I reckon not. We got business elsewhere.”

  “It’s mighty temptin’, though,” Uncle Dan added. “That wife o’ yours is one hell of a cook, Ned.”

  Donnelly laughed. “I know. She’s brave and beautiful, too. I’m a lucky man, gentlemen, and don’t think for a second that I don’t know it!”

  Preacher rubbed his bearded jaw and frowned in thought. “You’re gonna need a wagon master and chief guide to replace Buckhalter. Let’s go talk to Stallworth. He strikes me as a good man.”

  Preacher let Donnelly do the talking. Pete Stallworth listened for a few minutes, then said, “I’m flattered, Ned, but I’ve never been all the way to Oregon.”

  “Buckhalter probably hadn’t been there, either,” Donnelly pointed out. “You can do a better job than he would have, Pete.”

  “Yeah, but he never intended to take the wagons all the way across the Rockies.”

  MacKenzie stood nearby. He spoke up, saying, “I’ve been through South Pass and on to the coast several times, Donnelly. I know the way . . . but I don’t want the job of wagon master.” The Scotsman gestured toward Stallworth. “Give that part of it to Pete, and I’ll be your chief guide. Sound fair enough to you?”

  Donnelly turned back to Stallworth. “What do you say, Pete?”

  Stallworth shrugged, but then his friendly grin broke out over his face. “I say it sounds like a good deal to me. We’ll need a few volunteers from the men with the train to serve as scouts and outriders, though. Three of us aren’t enough.”

  “I’m sure that can be arranged,” Donnelly agreed with a nod. He stuck out a hand. “It’s a deal, then?”

  “Between us, we’ll get you folks to Oregon,” Stallworth replied as he gripped Donnelly’s hand.

  Under the circumstances, Preacher thought that was the best arrangement the immigrants could have. He said as much to Donnelly a few minutes later as he and Uncle Dan were about to mount up.

  “With a little luck along the way, you’ll make it just fine,” he said. “Keep your eyes open, listen to Stallworth and MacKenzie, and don’t forget why you’re doin’ this in the first place.”

  Preacher nodded toward Lorraine Donnelly and the two little boys, who were packing some of the family’s gear in the wagon nearby.

  “I know,” Donnelly said. “Thank you for everything, Preacher. If not for you and Uncle Dan, those robbers would have taken us completely by surprise. They probably would have wiped us out.”

  Preacher nodded. “More’n likely.”

  “We’ll have the wagons rolling as soon as we’ve taken care of the burying,” Donnelly went on. “I don’t know what to do about those other men who were killed. The robbers and the Indians, I mean. I suppose we could dig a mass grave . . .”

  “Leave ’em where they fell, and I reckon the scavengers will take care of that problem for you.”

  Donnelly shook his head. “It doesn’t seem right to just leave them.”

  “They wouldn’t have wasted any sympathy on you folks. Anyway, you don’t have to worry about the Pawnee dead. The ones who lived took all the bodies with them. I can tell you that without even lookin’. They’ll be laid to rest the Pawnee way, the way they would have wanted.”

  “Well, that’s good, I suppose. It still bothers me about those others, though.”

  “It’s a harsh land,” Preacher said bluntly. “Men die, and the ones who live move on. That’s the way of it, and nothin’ you can do will change that.”

  “I suppose you’re right. I can’t help but think about what those men would have done to my wife and children . . .” Donnelly took a deep breath. “But I’m not going to think about that. I’m going to think about the new life that’s waiting for us in Oregon instead.” He held out his hand. “Good-bye, Preacher. And good luck on whatever mission it is the two of you are on.”

  “Much obliged,” Preacher said as he shook hands with Donnelly. He thought about the odds facing him and Uncle Dan in St. Louis, where they would try to destroy a beast of prey in his own lair. “Chances are, we’re gonna need all the luck we can get.”

  For the next few days as they traveled eastward, Preacher kept an eye out for Buckhalter or any of the other members of the gang that had attacked the wagon train. As far as he knew, Buckhalter was on foot, and Preacher halfway expected to come across the renegade’s scalped and mutilated body. He and Uncle Dan didn’t see any sign of the man though.

  As they drew closer to St. Louis, Preacher did a lot of thinking, and he let Uncle Dan in on some of it.

  “If Beaumont’s put a bounty on my head, he’s got to be a mite worried about me comin’ after him,” Preacher mused as they rode along.

  Uncle Dan grunted. “More’n a mite, I’d say. He’s got to be scared plumb half to death. He knows you ain’t a good fella to have for an enemy, son.”

  “As many pies as he has his fingers in, I reckon he’s got folks scattered all over St. Louis who work for him,” Preacher went on, thinking out loud. “That means if I just ride into town right out in the open, somebody’s gonna see me and go runnin’ to Beaumont to tell him I’m there. It won’t be an hour before all the crooked varmints in St. Louis are tryin’ to draw a bead on my back.”

  Uncle Dan scratched at his beard and frowned. “Yeah, that’s a problem, all right. You got any ide
as how to get around it?”

  “Maybe,” Preacher mused. He scratched his own beard. “I been thinkin’ maybe it’s time I got rid o’ these whiskers.”

  “You mean to shave?” Uncle Dan sounded horrified. “Preacher, you’ve had a beard ever since I’ve knowed you.”

  “Which, as you pointed out your own self a few days ago, ain’t been all that long. Listen, Uncle Dan . . . when folks think of Preacher, they think of a rangy fella in buckskins, with a beard and sort of long hair and a big ol’ wolflike dog followin’ along with him. If I shaved my beard off and cut my hair and dressed some other way, they wouldn’t be near as quick to spot me.”

  The old-timer thought it over and began to nod slowly. “You’re right. You could leave Dog with me, too, if’n he’d go along with that.”

  “He’ll do what I tell him. Most of the time, anyway. And he knows you by now, which’ll help.”

  “So you’re gonna pretend to be somebody else when we get to Sant Looey?”

  “I have to start pretendin’ before we get there,” Preacher said. “I’m gonna come at the settlement from a different direction, too. There’s a ferry about fifty miles down the Mississippi. I’m gonna cross the river there, ride north, and then take one of the ferries at St. Louis like I just got to that part of the country from back east somewhere.”

  Uncle Dan laughed. “Preacher, that is plumb sneaky! Beaumont won’t have nary a clue that you’re in town.”

  “That’s the idea,” Preacher said with a nod.

  “Where you gonna get different clothes, though? You ain’t got any with you ’cept’n your buckskins.”

  “You’ll have to help me out there. They ain’t watchin’ for you. When we get closer, I’ll make camp, and you’ll go on into the settlement and pick up a new outfit for me. While you’re gone, I’ll scrape off these bristles and hack off some of this hair, so I’ll be ready to pretend to be somebody else when you get back.”

  Uncle Dan grinned. “Don’t cut off too much of your hair. Remember what happened to ol’ Samson in the Good Book.”

  “I don’t reckon I’ll have to worry about that. I don’t expect to run into any Delilahs in St. Louis.”

  Uncle Dan shook his head. “I wouldn’t count on that.”

  Preacher and Uncle Dan made camp about a day’s ride west of St. Louis. Preacher didn’t want to get any closer than that, because the closer he came to the settlement, the better the chances he might run into somebody who worked for Shad Beaumont.

  “I’ll see you in a couple of days,” he said to Uncle Dan as the old-timer prepared to ride on eastward the next morning. Preacher had given him money to buy the new clothes, almost all the coins he had left from the last time he had sold some pelts. “When you get back, I’ll be a whole new hombre.” Preacher paused. “I’m countin’ on you, Uncle Dan. Don’t go gettin’ drunk in Red Mike’s or any of those other waterfront dives and forget to come back out here with those new clothes.”

  “Don’t you worry,” Uncle Dan assured him. “I got a mighty big grudge against ol’ Beaumont, too. There’ll be time to wet my whistle later.”

  With a cheerful wave, Uncle Dan rode off, heading eastward. Preacher watched him go, then said to the big cur, “Might as well go ahead and take care of my part, Dog. That’ll give me some time to get used to not havin’ all this hair on my face.”

  He got a straight razor and a small piece of a broken looking glass from his pack and went to work. It was a painful task, scraping off months’ worth of whiskers. By the time he was finished, he was bleeding from half a dozen nicks and cuts.

  As he looked at himself in the glass, he realized that his plan had a flaw he hadn’t thought of until now. The part of his face that the beard had covered was considerably paler than the rest of it, which bore a permanent tan from the outdoor life he had led for years.

  Preacher grunted. “Reckon until it sort of evens out, I’ll have to paint my face like an Injun. I ought to be able to make some paint to darken that part of it.”

  He did, using berries and mud. It wasn’t a perfect solution, but he thought it would do. He wouldn’t wear his hat during the two days he’d have to wait for Uncle Dan to get back, and that much exposure to the sun might help a little, too.

  He used the razor to cut his hair, and when he was done, he looked at Dog and asked, “What do you think?”

  The big cur stared at him as if puzzled, and after a moment a deep, rumbling growl came from the dog’s throat.

  “What the hell!” Preacher exclaimed. “Don’t you know me?”

  Dog stopped growling and came forward tentatively to sniff at Preacher’s hand. The mountain man laughed.

  “I reckon if I can fool you, Dog, I can fool Shad Beaumont and his men.”

  Preacher was camped in a grove of trees not far from the river. He laid low when the occasional rider or wagon came by. Two days passed without incident, but Preacher was glad when Uncle Dan rode in on the second evening. Sitting around and doing nothing gnawed at his guts. Always had and, he supposed, always would. He was the sort of man who liked to stay busy.

  Soon he would be busy, all right . . . figuring out the best way to kill Shad Beaumont.

  Uncle Dan had a paper-wrapped bundle tied onto the horse behind him. He swung down from the saddle and cut the bundle loose, then tossed it to Preacher.

  “Here you go,” the old-timer said. “You’re gonna look like you’re from back east, Preacher.”

  “You didn’t get duds that’ll make me look like some sort of city fella, did you?” Preacher asked as he untied the cord holding the paper around the bundle.

  “Nope. You said you wanted to look like a farm boy, so that’s what I got.”

  Preacher unwrapped the bundle and found a pair of brown corduroy work trousers, a butternut shirt of linsey-woolsey, a pair of lace-up boots, and a funny-looking hat with a rounded crown. He frowned at the hat and asked, “What the hell is this?”

  “Fella at the store where I bought the duds called it a quaker hat. He said farmers back in Pennsylvania wear ’em.”

  “Stupid-lookin’ thing, if you ask me.” Preacher put it on his head and looked at Uncle Dan. “What do you think?”

  The old-timer’s mouth worked under the white beard, and after a moment Preacher realized that Uncle Dan was trying hard not to bust out laughing. He managed to say, “I reckon with that hat and the rest o’ the getup, and with those cheeks o’ yours bein’ as smooth as a baby’s bee-hind, there ain’t no way in Hades that Beaumont or his men ought to recognize you, Preacher.”

  “Good.” Preacher tapped the quaker hat. “That’s just what I want.”

  “What’re you gonna call yourself? You’re gonna need a different name, ain’t you?”

  Preacher frowned as he pondered that. He thought about calling himself Arthur or Art, since that was actually his name. He had even gone by Art for a while, during the early days of his fur-trapping career in the Rockies. He had been dubbed Preacher after he’d been captured by the Blackfeet and had to start preaching for hours on end, the way he had once seen a fella do in St. Louis, to convince the Indians that he was crazy so they would spare his life. After the story got around, he had been called Preacher ever since.

  It was just barely possible somebody might remember that the man called Preacher had once been known as Art, so it would be better not to use that, he decided.

  “Reckon I’ll call myself Jim,” he said after a minute. “That’s simple and easy to remember. Jim Donnelly, maybe, after those folks we met with the wagon train.”

  “All right, Jim Donnelly.” Uncle Dan grinned. “Pleased to meetcha.”

  “Shad Beaumont will be, too . . . at first.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I’ve been thinkin’ about it the whole time you were gone. And here’s what we’re gonna do . . .”

  Chapter 10

  A few days later, Preacher rode up to a ferry landing on the east bank of the Mississippi and looke
d across the broad, majestically flowing river at the settlement on the other side. St. Louis had grown into a sprawling, perpetually busy city in the seventy or so years since the fur traders Pierre Liguest and René Chouteau had founded it.

  Preacher had heard it said that six or seven thousand people lived there now. It seemed hard to believe there were that many people in the world, let alone that many crowded into one town. Smoke rose from hundreds of chimneys over there, putting a stink in the air. At least, it stunk as far as Preacher was concerned. He was used to the crisp, clean air of the high country.

  The old man who ran the ferry emerged from his shack on the riverbank and asked, “You lookin’ to get across to St. Louis, son?”

  Preacher nodded. “That’s right. I don’t see the ferry boat, though.”

  “That’s ’cause it’s on the other side. Be back soon, and it’ll be crossin’ again prob’ly in an hour or so. You in a big hurry?”

  “Nope,” Preacher replied with a shake of his head.

  Shad Beaumont would still be there when he got there. Beaumont didn’t leave the city. He sent others west to the mountains to do his dirty work for him.

  The ferryman, who was a tall, scrawny fellow with a black patch over his left eye, pointed over his shoulder with a knobby thumb. “I got a jug o’ whiskey in the shack, if’n you’d like a drink whilst you wait. Won’t cost you but a nickel.”

  “Kind of steep, ain’t it?”

  The man grinned. “It’s good whiskey. Guaranteed not to give you the blind staggers.”

  “I don’t reckon I can pass that up,” Preacher said as he swung down from the saddle and wrapped Horse’s reins around a hitching post near the wooden landing.

  He wasn’t particularly thirsty, but he had a hunch the old ferryman might prove to be talkative, especially if his throat was lubricated with a little Who-hit-John. Preacher followed him into the shack and sat down on a cane-bottomed chair. The ferryman took the jug out of a drawer in an old, scarred rolltop desk.