Preacher's Assault

CHAPTER 26

Preacher’s first impulse was to yank the pistol from behind his belt, run across the street, and charge into the whorehouse ready to start shooting.

With an effort, he controlled that urge. Trouble broke out in those places all the time, and the gunshot he had heard didn’t necessarily have anything to do with Roland and Casey. Even if it did, if he rushed in it might get them killed.

Still, he couldn’t just wait in the dark, not knowing what was going on over there. He was going to have to risk going in.

He tugged his hat brim down low over his face and stepped out of the alley. As he started across the street, he saw several of the bullwhackers approaching the whorehouse as well. They had heard the shot and gotten worried about Roland. Preacher caught the eye of one of the men and waved him back. The man passed along the order, and they all stopped and began to withdraw with obvious reluctance.

There had only been the single shot, but Preacher didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad one.

Maybe a single shot was all it had taken to kill Roland Bartlett.

He was only about halfway across the street when a man carrying a rifle stepped out the front doorway of the whorehouse. Instinct sent Preacher diving to the side as the rifle barrel came up. Orange flame geysered from the muzzle. Preacher heard the heavy lead ball hum past him as he went to one knee. He had his pistol in his hand, snapped it up, and fired. The rifleman ducked back inside as Preacher’s shot chewed splinters from one of the porch posts.

Preacher ran for a parked wagon nearby. He didn’t know what the hell was going on, but it couldn’t be anything good. He took cover behind the wagon and reloaded his pistol.

A man’s deep, gravelly voice boomed out through the open door of the whorehouse. “Preacher! Preacher, can you hear me?”

A frown creased the mountain man’s forehead. He didn’t recognize the voice.

“I hear you!” he called back harshly. There didn’t seem to be any point in denying who he was. “Who are you, mister, and what do you want?”

“It’s more a matter of what you want,” the man replied. “I’ve got Roland Bartlett and the girl called Casey in here!”

Preacher bit back a curse. Obviously, Roland’s disguise hadn’t worked at all. Garity must have known somehow that they were in Santa Fe and had been watching for Roland or Preacher, waiting for them to show up looking for Casey.

Well, that wasn’t a complete surprise, he mused. They hadn’t kept the arrival of the wagons a secret. A man like Egan Powell probably had sources of information all over the settlement. He could have been told the Bartlett wagon train had rolled into Santa Fe several days earlier. If he’d passed that on to Garity, the two of them could have set up a trap, with Casey for the bait—

“Preacher! You’d better listen to me if you ever want to see those two youngsters alive again!”

Preacher had no doubt the gravelly voice belonged to Powell. “I’m listenin’!” Preacher shouted. The pistol was reloaded, and his hand wrapped tensely around the butt.

“A friend of mine’s got a score to settle with you! He’s willing to let Bartlett and Casey go if you’ll turn yourself over to him.”

“We’re talkin’ about Garity?”

“That’s right. How about it, Preacher? Is your life worth the two of theirs?”

Preacher didn’t believe for a second that if he walked into that whorehouse and surrendered, Garity would let Roland and Casey go unharmed. The outlaw was a natural-born double-crosser. He would kill all three of them and be done with it.

Or rather, he would kill Preacher and Roland. Casey would likely continue to suffer whatever degradations she had already been through, and more.

Preacher took a deep breath. “Now, you listen to me!” he shouted. “Here’s how this is gonna work. You and Garity bring Roland and Casey to the west side of the plaza tomorrow mornin’ at dawn. Just the two of you! I see anybody else and the deal’s off. I’ll be on the east side, unarmed. I’ll start across at the same time you start Roland and Casey walkin’ toward me. Once they’re clear, Garity can do whatever the hell he wants to me.”

“Do you really think we’re stupid enough to fall for a trick like that?”

“It’s the only deal you’re gonna get from me!” Preacher said. “I’ve risked life and limb for those two over and over again, and I’m gettin’ sick of it! I swear, Powell, I’ll just ride away, and Garity can have ’em!”

That wasn’t true, of course, but Powell and Garity couldn’t be sure of that. Preacher was convinced that Garity was probably right inside the building, listening to the conversation. He wondered if Powell had cleared all the customers out the back and sent the soiled doves up to their rooms as soon as they grabbed Roland.

The whorehouse remained dark and silent for several moments, no doubt while Powell conferred with Garity. Finally, Powell called, “All right, Preacher, you got a deal! The plaza at dawn! But you’d better not try anything funny, or those two will be a long time dying!”

The front door banged shut.

A sound behind Preacher made the mountain man whirl around and level the pistol at a dark shape his keen eyes picked out of the shadows.

“Don’t shoot!” Lorenzo yelped. “Land’s sake, Preacher, it’s just me!”

Preacher lowered the gun and took a deep breath. “Damn it, Lorenzo, I almost blowed your fool head off.”

“It’s a good thing you didn’t,” the old-timer said, “’cause I come to warn you. They’s some men sneakin’ around the alleys right now tryin’ to get behind you.”

Powell’s hired killers, Preacher thought. He stepped over to Lorenzo, took hold of the old man’s arm, and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

“That’s just what I was thinkin’!”

They ran across the street. Preacher knew the bullwhackers would still be watching from the next block. He waved for them to withdraw. If anything had gone wrong with their plans, they were supposed to rendezvous back at Juanita’s.

Well, things had gone wrong, Preacher thought . . . about as wrong as they possibly could.

But Roland and Casey were still alive. At least he hoped so. He just had to come up with some idea to keep them that way.

Preacher and Lorenzo gave Powell’s men the slip without much difficulty. They were accustomed to handling drunken, lecherous fools in close quarters, not capturing a fella who knew how to move through the shadows like a night wind. If not for what it might mean to Roland and Casey, Preacher would have waited for them and turned the hunters into the hunted. He probably could have killed all of them before he was done.

But if he did that, Garity and Powell might abandon the bargain and kill Roland. Besides, Preacher had Lorenzo with him, and he wanted to keep the old-timer safe, too.

As they walked back to Juanita’s, Preacher said, “I reckon you heard that shot inside the whorehouse.”

“Yeah, and I seen a bunch o’ sheepish-lookin’ fellas come out the back door a minute later,” Lorenzo replied, confirming Preacher’s hunch about what Powell had done with the house’s customers. “Then I heard some more shootin’, and you yellin’ out in front of the place, so I figured the whole plan was blowed to hell.”

“You got that right,” Preacher muttered. “They must’ve spotted Roland as soon as he walked in there. They were probably waitin’ for him.”

“That varmint Garity’s smarter than we done give him credit for.”

“Bein’ a lowdown skunk don’t keep a man from bein’ smart. I should’ve remembered that.”

“Anyway, I knew I’d better find you and see what was goin’ on. That was when I spotted them fellas skulkin’ around like red Injuns.”

Preacher nodded. “You done good, Lorenzo. I’m obliged to you.”

When they reached the cantina, Juanita met them and said in a low voice, “The men who left with you got here a few minutes ago. I put them in the back room. They said things went wrong.”

Preacher nodded. “That they did. Come with us. We got to hash it all out.”

The three of them joined the bullwhackers in the back room. The men were sitting at a table, passing around a jug. The burly Cliff Fawcett, acting as spokesman for the group, stood up and asked, “What the hell happened, Preacher?”

“Garity and Powell grabbed Roland,” Preacher explained. “They plan on tradin’ him and Casey . . . for me.”

Fawcett and the others stared at him. “Are you goin’ through with it?” Fawcett asked.

“I don’t have much choice. They’ll kill Roland if I don’t, and if Casey’s lucky, they’ll kill her, too. But they probably won’t.”

The grim expressions on the rough, bearded faces of the men grew even more bleak.

“Dios mio, Preacher, you can’t go through with it,” Juanita said. “It’s a trick. They will kill you, and the others, as well.”

Preacher nodded. “I reckon they’ll try.”

He took the jug when Fawcett offered it to him, tipped it back, and let some of the fiery tequila slide down his throat and set off a blaze in his belly. When he passed the jug on to Lorenzo, one of the bullwhackers opened his mouth as if he were about to say something about sharing the liquor with a black man, then shrugged and let it go.

Preacher wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, then asked Juanita, “Ain’t there any law in this settlement? I know Powell’s place ain’t in a very good part of town, but there were three shots and nobody came to see what was goin’ on.”

Juanita’s shrug was eloquent. “There is an army garrison, but they have little to do with civil matters unless there is an insurrection. The constables seldom venture into that area, and anyway, Powell pays them to ignore the things that go on in his house. We cannot look to the law for help, Preacher.”

The mountain man snorted. “I wasn’t plannin’ to, just a mite curious is all. I been my own law, most of my life.”

“So what are you goin’ to do?” Fawcett asked.

Preacher laid out the setup for them. Lorenzo asked, “If you start across that plaza unarmed, what’s to stop Garity and Powell from shootin’ you right then and there?”

“Nothin’ . . . except I think that’d be too easy for Garity. You didn’t see him when he had me and the others prisoner. He’s got a real mean streak in him. I think he’s plannin’ on torturin’ me to death and makin’ it last a long time.”

“So you’re figurin’ if they let Roland and Casey go, then we’ll come after you and rescue you before Garity can finish killin’ you?”

“We can storm that whorehouse,” Fawcett said. “I’d like to see ’em try to keep us out.”

Preacher shook his head. “They won’t let Casey and Roland go. I suspect they’ll have some sharpshooters with their sights lined on the two of ’em, ready to blow their lights out as soon as Powell gives the signal. But we’ll have some sharpshooters of our own.” He looked around the table at the bullwhackers. “Who’s the best with a rifle?”

After some discussion, they settled on two men named Newcomb and Tobin as the best shots in the bunch. “You two will set your sights on Garity and Powell. I’ll see to it they know if they don’t go through with the bargain, they won’t leave the plaza alive.”

“So what it comes down to is you’ll be tryin’ to outbluff ’em and make ’em let go of Casey and Roland,” Lorenzo said.

Preacher nodded. “Yep.”

“There’s just one problem with that,” Lorenzo said.

“That leaves you in the hands of those awful men!” Juanita finished.

“I’ll take my chances,” Preacher said, grinning around at those gathered in the cantina’s back room. “You may have noticed, I’m a mite hard to kill.”

At that altitude, the nights were quite cool even in the summer. Wisps of fog floated ghostlike in the plaza in the predawn light. Santa Fe slumbered. The streets were deserted, and so was the plaza with its low-walled well in the center. The settlement was quiet.

Preacher waited with Lorenzo, Fawcett, Newcomb, and Tobin behind a wagon parked on the east side of the plaza. The other five bullwhackers were in a nearby alley, holding rifles in case they were needed.

The mountain man had rounded up a set of buckskins. He wanted to be back in his normal duds for the showdown. If it was to be the day he died, he didn’t want to be wearing town clothes. He was bareheaded, and he didn’t have rifle, pistol, or knife. He had told Powell he would be unarmed, and he was a man of his word, even when he gave it to no-good snakes.

He hadn’t slept any, and weariness set deep in his bones. He knew he wasn’t in good enough shape yet. Circumstances didn’t leave him much choice, though. He had fortified himself with some of Juanita’s frijoles and a few slugs of tequila before leaving the cantina.

Juanita had given him something besides the frijoles. She had drawn him to her and kissed him hard on the mouth, pulling back and telling him, “Come back to me, Preacher. If you die, the angels who greet you in heaven will not be nearly as pretty as I am.”

“I reckon you’re a mite mixed up about which direction I’ll be goin’ when I cross the divide,” he had told her with a grin, “but you’re right about bein’ prettier’n any angel.”

“I am right about the other, too,” she had whispered as she hugged him.

As pleasant as the memory of that moment was, he put it aside and turned his head to look at the eastern sky. The time had almost come. The sky was growing lighter by the minute as the sun climbed from behind the mountains. Streaks of red and gold shot through the purpling vault above the earth.

Preacher nodded to Lorenzo and the other three men. “Don’t forget what we talked about,” he told them.

“Ain’t no chance o’ that,” Lorenzo assured him.

As the sun peeked above the mountains, Egan Powell called from the other side of the plaza, “Preacher! Are you there?”

“I’m here, Powell!” Preacher shouted. “Step out where I can see you!”

“You first!”

Counting on the fact that Garity wanted something more satisfying than just having him shot down from ambush, Preacher moved out from behind the wagon into clear view of anyone watching from the other side of the broad, open plaza. He held his hands out at his sides and called, “Here I am, just like I said I would be! You can see for yourself I ain’t got no guns!”

“Turn around!” Powell ordered.

Still holding his hands out, Preacher turned slowly, revealing that he didn’t have a pistol stuck in his belt behind his back. When he was facing across the plaza again, he said, “All right, I kept my part of the bargain! Let’s see Roland and Casey!”

From the narrow alley between impressive-looking buildings across the way, Roland Bartlett stepped into view. He still wore the Mexican duds, but not the sombrero. A brawny, bald-headed man followed him. It was Preacher’s first good look at the expatriate American whoremonger, Egan Powell.

Holding a pistol pointed at Roland, Powell called, “You try anything fancy, and I’ll kill this boy, Preacher!”

“You try anything fancy, and you’re a dead man!” Preacher shot back. “There’s a rifle pointin’ at you right now!”

“Same for you! It looks to me like this is a standoff, so we may as well go through with it!”

Preacher frowned. “Wait just a damned minute! Where’s Garity and the girl?”

“They’re not coming,” Powell replied with a laugh. “Trading two for one isn’t fair, Preacher. You get the boy back. The girl stays with me.”

Preacher wanted to lash out angrily. The deception didn’t take him completely by surprise. He had expected some sort of trickery from his enemies.

“How about it?” Powell prodded. “You can still save the kid’s life.”

Preacher took a deep breath. “Send him over here.”

“You start this way!”

Preacher glanced behind the wagon. Newcomb and Tobin had their long-barreled rifles trained on Powell. Lorenzo looked worried, as usual. Preacher flicked a quick grin at the old-timer to tell him it would be all right, then stepped farther into the plaza, walking toward the other side with a firm step.

Up ahead, Roland stumbled slightly as he started out. Powell kept his pistol trained on the young man’s back, speaking quietly. Preacher couldn’t make out the words, but he knew they had to be a warning not to try anything.

Time seemed to drag as Preacher and Roland stumbled toward each other. Preacher didn’t get in any hurry. Behind him, the sun rose higher above the mountains.

And he saw what he hoped to see, the glint of sunlight reflecting off rifle barrels in a pair of windows in one of the buildings across the plaza. Newcomb and Tobin knew to look for those same reflections, and the two bullwhackers ought to be shifting their aim away from Powell and toward the man’s hired killers. Preacher knew their orders were to shoot Roland down just before he reached safety, when Preacher would be too close to the other side of the plaza to escape.

Preacher didn’t intend to let things get that far.

He veered a little to his left to go around the well. Roland moved to his right to do the same. The young man’s face was pale and stricken, and as he came within hearing, he said, “Preacher, I’m so sorry—”

“Forget it,” Preacher said. “This ain’t over. Stumble a little.”

“What?”

“Slow down!” The timing was almost right, almost . . .

“Kill the boy!” Powell bellowed suddenly as he caught on to what Preacher was doing. “Kill him now!”