Preacher's Assault

CHAPTER 11

Nothing more was said that night about the fight between Preacher and Roland Bartlett. Ben Hammond’s sudden, unexpected, and bloody death had everyone too shaken up to worry about such things.

Preacher thought about it, though. Roland had made it pretty clear how he felt about Casey. The question was whether she would give up on her feelings for Preacher and turn to the younger man instead.

It would sure simplify things if that was what happened, Preacher told himself.

That wasn’t the only thing on Preacher’s mind. He pondered the advisibility of going out to track down and kill that rogue grizzly, perhaps taking Lorenzo with him. The old-timer didn’t know all that much about the frontier yet, but he was smart and brave and would do what Preacher told him to do without arguing about it. Preacher was convinced they hadn’t seen the last of the bear, so the question was whether he went after it or waited for it to come to them again.

On top of that were the other troubles that had plagued the caravan since its departure from Independence. The terrible storm and the cyclone it had spawned could have meant disaster for the wagon train. Likewise the raid by Garity and the rest of that outlaw bunch. In both cases, luck had been with Preacher and his friends, and they had dodged pure catastrophe by the narrowest of margins.

How long could their luck hold? Preacher asked himself that question, but he didn’t have any answers.

He wasn’t an overly superstitious man, but he couldn’t help wonder if Hammond’s death was an omen. Maybe fate had turned on them and was no longer on their side.

Those thoughts ran through Preacher’s head while he helped dig Hammond’s grave. Lorenzo stood nearby with his rifle ready, keeping a watchful eye on the darkness outside the circle of light cast by the lantern. Preacher and a couple bullwhackers got the grave dug fairly quickly. Hammond’s body was wrapped in a blanket. The actual burial would wait until dawn.

With everything going on in his mind, Preacher’s slumber was restless that night. He spent a lot of time prowling around the camp, rifle in hand and both loaded pistols in his belt, just waiting for trouble.

It didn’t show up. The bear didn’t pay a return visit to the camp, and neither did Garity and his men.

As the sun peeked over the horizon, the members of the party gathered by the grave. Once again, Leeman Bartlett brought out his Bible and said words over the deceased. Since Ben Hammond had been one of them and not an outlaw, the prayers were more extensive. Some of Hammond’s friends spoke as well, testifying to what a good fella he had been and how he hadn’t deserved to end up like that.

A lonely hole in the ground was how he would end up, Preacher mused. A forgotten grave, tended by no one, mourned by no one. Six months after he’d been laid to rest, no one would even be able to tell he was there. The earth would have reclaimed him. Preacher had long since resigned himself to that same fate. No man who lived a life such as he did was going to die in bed with a bunch of kids and grandkids and great grandkids around him.

At least he hoped not.

When the speechifying and praying was finally over, some of the men got to work filling in the grave while Preacher, Lorenzo, and Leeman Bartlett walked over to the creek bank to look at the stream. It had gone down quite a bit during the night, as Preacher had thought it probably would.

“What do you think, Preacher?” Bartlett asked. “Can we make it across?”

“I reckon so,” Preacher replied. “The creek’s still runnin’ pretty fast, but it ain’t near as deep now. You’ll be all right.”

“Good,” Bartlett said fervently. “Being stuck here for two nights is more than enough.” A smile creased his lined face. “I’m ready for some good luck for a change.”

He just didn’t know how lucky they really were, Preacher thought.

They’d had breakfast, so all that was left to do was hitch up the oxen and saddle the horses. As Preacher was putting his saddle on the big gray stallion, Lorenzo came up to him and asked, “Are you thinkin’ about goin’ after that bear, Preacher?”

The mountain man smiled. “You must’ve read my mind, Lorenzo. I pondered on it, sure enough. But I reckon it might be better if I stayed with the wagons. Ain’t no tellin’ when Garity and his bunch might make another try for ’em.”

“Well, that’s true. I figured I’d go with you if you went, and I got to tell you, I wasn’t lookin’ forward to it. I hope that bear just leaves us alone from here on out.”

Preacher hoped so, too, but he was going to be surprised if things turned out that way.

The wagons crossed the creek without incident and rolled on west as the sun rose higher in the sky. Since the oxen had had a day to rest, they seemed stronger and pulled harder in response to the popping of the bullwhips and the raucous shouts of the freighters. The miles fell behind them.

Preacher rode in front with Bartlett and Lorenzo most of the time, galloping ahead every now and then to get the lay of the land. The terrain wasn’t quite as flat. There were some rolling hills, and Preacher had reined in at the crest of one of those long, gentle slopes with Dog beside him when he spotted some movement in the distance. It was too far away for him to identify. Could have been some buffalo or antelope . . . or men on horseback. Preacher couldn’t tell. But whatever it was, they were moving away from the trail.

Even though the distant movement wasn’t an immediate threat, it was a good reminder that they weren’t alone out there, Preacher told himself. The landscape might seem vast and empty, but it really wasn’t.

When he returned to the caravan, he saw Casey and Roland riding together beside one of the wagons. The young woman hadn’t spoken to him all day. That was all right with Preacher, but still he felt a little pang of loss. Casey was a fine gal. Although he had enjoyed the time they spent together he knew she would be better off with somebody other than him.

The jury was still out on whether that particular somebody was Roland Bartlett.

Other than the one glimpse Preacher had of movement in the distance, they didn’t see anyone all that day or the next. In fact, a week went by without the wagon train encountering anything except wildlife. The days were long, hard, and tedious, but Preacher knew there wouldn’t be many more of them before the caravan reached the Cimarron Cutoff.

Of course, once they got past that point, the trip would just get even harder.

Casey had been avoiding him for the most part, and when she did speak to him, she only said what she had to. Preacher wished there had been some way to handle the situation without offending her, but like everything else in life, it was what it was.

She came to him one night and said, “Preacher, I need to talk to you about something.”

He frowned. “Sounds a mite ominous.”

“No, we just need to get something settled.”

He shrugged. For a second there, he had thought she was going to tell him that she was in the family way, since they had been together a number of times during the trip from St. Louis to Independence. Preacher knew it was possible there were some half-breed Indian kids with his features running around various villages where he had wintered, but he was reasonably sure he didn’t have any children by white women. He wasn’t certain what he would have done if Casey had told him she was expecting.

“I was about to take a walk around the camp,” he told her. “Why don’t you come with me? We can have a little privacy for our talk.”

“That’s a good idea.”

He pulled one of the pistols from behind his belt and handed it to her. “Here, you hang on to that,” he said. “Just in case we run into any trouble. I’ll carry my rifle.”

“Fine. You know I can handle a gun.”

“Wouldn’t have given you one if I didn’t.”

They left the campfire and the wagons, walking out about fifty yards, then turning to stroll around the circle. Preacher held his long legs to a gait that Casey could match.

He waited for Casey to start since she was the one who had asked for the conversation. The silence between them drew out until it started to get awkward.

Finally she said, “I’m sorry about what happened back up the trail. That business with Roland, I mean.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Preacher told her. “It wasn’t your fault, and anyway, no harm was done.”

“It was my fault,” she said. “I got angry and frustrated with you, and I turned to him for comfort. He took that to mean . . . more than it did.”

Preacher frowned. “Roland’s not a bad sort, for a greenhorn.”

“I know that. But he can’t compare to you, Preacher.” She held up a hand to stop him when he started to speak. “Oh, I know it was never going to last between us. We were never going to get married and settle down and raise a passel of kids. In fact, I’m not even sure if I can have children. I had some problems a few years ago . . .”

“You don’t need to talk about that,” Preacher said gruffly.

Casey took a deep breath. “Anyway, I knew not to expect too much from you.” He could hear the smile in her voice as she added, “You’re already married to the wilderness.”

“You’ll find you a nice young fella one of these days. Maybe Roland, maybe somebody else, but I’m sure it’ll be all right.”

“I’m not,” she said. “How could I ever marry a . . . a respectable man, after all the things I’ve done? It wouldn’t be fair to him. I’d have to lie to him, because if I told him the truth, no decent man would ever want me.”

“You might be wrong about that,” Preacher said. “If a fella really loves you, he ain’t gonna care all that much about what happened before. All that’s really gonna matter to him is the here and now.”

“Do you honestly believe that?”

“I do.”

She slipped her arm through his. “I hope you’re right, Preacher. I really do.”

“So what are you gonna do about Roland?”

“I don’t know. Wait until we get to Santa Fe and see what happens then, I suppose.” She laughed. “He’s madly in love with me.”

“Well, of course he is. I reckon most of them bullwhackers are, too.”

“No, they just want me to crawl into their bedrolls with them. Roland has all sorts of romantic notions, though.”

“With a name like that, I reckon he’d have to.”

“What do you mean?”

“Friend of mine from the mountains up north named Audie, he’s a real educated fella and knows all sorts of things. I recollect listenin’ to him recite this poem once about a French knight named Roland, and ever’body knows them French fellas are romantic.”

“What happened to the Roland in the poem?”

Preacher didn’t want to tell her that the knight wound up getting killed in battle. He scratched his beard and grinned. “Well, I don’t rightly remember the end of the poem. You see, the rest of the fellas was passin’ around a jug while Audie was recitin’ . . .”

Casey laughed. “You don’t have to explain. I understand.”

They had walked a complete circuit of the camp while they were talking. Preacher glanced toward the wagons and said, “I expect we better get back ’fore folks start to worry about us.”

“You mean Roland?”

“Well, if anybody tells him they saw the two of us goin’ for a walk together, he’s liable to get upset again.”

“I appreciate you not hurting him before.”

“Like I said, he ain’t a bad sort, just young and inexperienced. He’ll learn, if he lives long enough.”

Casey stopped and turned so she was facing him. “I want a good-bye kiss,” she said firmly.

“We ain’t sayin’ good-bye,” Preacher objected. “It’ll be another week or more before we make it to Santa Fe, and it ain’t like you’ll never see me again once we get there.”

“Yes, but we’re saying good-bye to what might have been between us. From here on out, we’ll just be friends.”

“Can you live with that?”

“I’ll have to.” She smiled up at him, close enough that he felt the warmth of her breath on his face. “But I want that kiss first.”

“Well, hell,” Preacher said. “I can do that.”

He thumbed his hat back, slipped one arm around her, and bent his head to bring his mouth to hers. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him. He responded to the heat of her firm body and the sweet urgency of her lips and told himself he might kick himself in the future for practically pushing her into Roland Bartlett’s arms. But some things were meant to be, and some weren’t.

The kiss lasted for a long moment. Then he pulled back, smiled down at her, and said, “All right, we best get back now.”

“Preacher . . .”

“Don’t argue with me, now,” he said.

“Preacher!”

The moon and stars were bright enough for him to see the shocked expression that suddenly appeared on her face. At the same time, he caught a whiff of a rank, musty odor. His blood turned cold in his veins.

“That damn bear’s right behind me, ain’t it?” he said.