Preacher's Fire

Chapter 10

A few days later, Preacher rode up to a ferry landing on the east bank of the Mississippi and looked 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.

“You got business in Saint Looey?” the ferryman asked. He pulled the cork from the neck of the jug with his teeth, spat it into his other hand, and then held the jug out to Preacher.

“I reckon you could say that.” Preacher took the jug, lifted it to his lips, and downed a healthy slug of the raw corn liquor it contained. The stuff burned like fire all the way down his gullet and lit a blaze in his belly. He gasped, then blew out his breath and wiped the back of his other hand across his mouth.

The ferryman cackled. “Told you it was good stuff. Packs quite a wallop, don’t it?”

“Yeah,” Preacher rasped. His throat had pretty much recovered from Mike Moran trying to strangle him, but now it felt as if the lining had been burned out of it. He went on, “I’m lookin’ for a job. That’s why I’m goin’ to St. Louis.”

The ferryman ran his gaze up and down Preacher’s lanky frame in the drab clothes and quaker hat. “You look like you’ve spent some time behind a plow.”

“Too damn much time,” Preacher said with a disgusted snort. “That’s why I lit out for the west. I had all the farmin’ I could stand. Wanted to see some of the country before I got too old and wore-out to enjoy it.”

The ferryman slapped his thigh. “I used to feel the same way, son!” he said. “Then, whilst I wasn’t lookin’, I got old and wore-out anyway! Now I spend my days runnin’ this ferry and watchin’ other folks come and go.”

“You live here?” Preacher asked.

“Got a place over yonder in Saint Looey.” The ferryman held out a bony hand. “Here, gimme that jug.”

“I can pay,” Preacher protested.

“Oh, hell, don’t worry ’bout that. I’ve taken a likin’ to you, son. You remind me o’ me when I was a younker. And I like havin’ somebody around to talk to whilst I’m waitin’ for the ferry to get back. So I ain’t gonna charge you for the whiskey. I just want a swig of it myself.”

Preacher grinned and handed over the jug. He was glad the old man had decided not to take his money for the liquor. He didn’t have very many coins left.

They passed the jug back and forth, and as Preacher had suspected, the ferryman got more garrulous with every drink. Preacher said, “St. Louis looks like a mighty big town. What’s it like over there?”

“Big ain’t the half of it. It’s the biggest town in this whole part of the country. I don’t reckon you ever saw anything like it back on the farm. Folks ever’where you look, and cobblestone streets, and buildin’s all crowded close together . . . and some days, there are so many steamboats at the docks, you can’t hardly see the town from here because o’ their smokestacks.”

“I don’t know,” Preacher said with a dubious frown. “I’m startin’ to think it might not be safe over there for an ol’ country boy like me.”

“You got to be careful, all right. There’s fellas who’ll cut your throat for a nickel, or sometimes just because they feel like it. Once you’ve crossed, I’d get away from the riverfront if I was you. That’s a rough patch down there, let me tell you.”

“One of the fellas from back home came out here for a while,” Preacher said. “When he got back, he told all sorts of stories. Said there are lots of taverns, and houses with fancy ladies in ’em, and that this one fella owned most of them—”

“Shad Beaumont.” The old ferryman nodded sagely. “I’ve heard of him. I reckon everybody in Saint Looey has. It’s only a rumor, though, that he owns most of the taverns and whorehouses. He has a fur tradin’ company and a couple of emporiums and a livery stable. Hell, and who knows what else. He’s a rich gent, that’s for sure, and he’s got friends in high places. The town’s gettin’ what they call society now, and Beaumont’s part of it.”

“Have you ever met him?”

“Me?” The ferryman tilted the jug to his mouth and took a long swallow. The fiery stuff didn’t seem to bother him. He had probably blistered his insides with it so much that he didn’t even feel the burn anymore, Preacher thought. The old man wiped his mouth and went on, “Why would I have any dealin’s with Shad Beaumont? I’m just a no-account old ferryman. I seen him drive by a time or two in his fancy carriage, though. He goes to a place called Dupree’s. Some say he owns it, others claim he just likes to drink there.” A frown formed on the ferryman’s forehead. “Say, why are you so interested in Beaumont, son?”

“Maybe I’ll see if he’d like to hire me,” Preacher replied with a grin. “I told you, I’m lookin’ for work.”

The ferryman snorted. “I don’t reckon you’ll find any work with Beaumont less’n you’re willin’ to do some mighty shady things.”

“I thought you said it was just rumors that he’s some sort of crook.”

“That’s what some folks believe. I didn’t say I was one of ’em.”

“So you do think he’s a criminal?”

“I don’t know a damned thing about it, one way or the other.” The old-timer put the cork back in the jug and pushed it down securely with the heel of his hand. “And that’s just the way I want to keep it. I don’t want it gettin’ around that I’m shootin’ off my mouth about Shad Beaumont.”

Preacher held up his hands, palms out. “Don’t worry. I ain’t gonna say anything about it. What I’d really like to hear more about is those houses with the fancy ladies.” He grinned. “It’s been a hell of a long trip from Pennsylvania.”

The ferryman, who had seemed to be getting suspicious for a moment, now relaxed. He returned Preacher’s grin and said, “What you want is a house called Jessie’s Place. Friendliest gals in town, bar none. It’s got a mite o’ class to it, too. Tain’t cheap, mind you, but like this here whiskey o’ mine, it’s worth it.”

“All right,” Preacher said, leaning forward eagerly. “Tell me how to find it.”

The ferry returned to the east bank landing a short time later. It was a sturdy flat-bottomed boat large enough to carry two wagons and their teams, or a dozen riders. Preacher had to wait until several more men came along on horseback who wanted to cross the river before the ferryman would let them board. Four men who bore a definite resemblance to the one-eyed man and who were probably his sons worked the long, heavy sweep oars that guided the boat across the Mississippi’s currents to the landing on the west bank.

During the crossing, Preacher stood at the boat’s railing, holding on to Horse’s reins, and unobtrusively studied the half-dozen men crossing with him. They appeared to be working men, much like he was pretending to be, except for one sandy-haired gent in a brown frock coat and beaver hat. He wore a ruffled shirt and a fancy cravat under the frock coat. His horse was a big black gelding, a fine-looking animal. The man appeared to be well-to-do. Preacher pegged him as a gambler, and a successful one, at that.

When the boat tied up at the landing about half a mile south of the long line of wharves that jutted out into the river, Preacher led Horse off onto solid ground again, which the rangy gray stallion seemed to appreciate. The other men disembarked as well, including the gambler. He swung up onto his expensive saddle and rode off toward the main part of town. Preacher followed him, although he didn’t care about the gambler. He was going that way anyway, because the ferryman had given him directions for how to find the whorehouse known as Jessie’s Place.

Preacher had been to St. Louis many times before, so he actually knew his way around the settlement fairly well, although he was pretending to be a stranger. He hadn’t heard of Jessie’s until today, though. It had been a while since he’d been here, and things sometimes changed fast on the frontier. Although St. Louis was civilized, it was right on the edge of a vast, untamed wilderness, and some of that wildness had rubbed off on it. There were a lot of different ways a man could get killed on the prairie or in the mountains, but the same was true here in the city.

Preacher thought maybe it was even more true here.

He had two possibilities for the first step in his plan: the fancy saloon called Dupree’s and Jessie’s Place. He was confident that if Jessie’s was the best whorehouse in St. Louis, Shad Beaumont was bound to own it. From what he knew of Beaumont, the man was involved in everything shady that went on in the settlement. He wanted to be sure that Beaumont heard about “Jim Donnelly.”

Unlike most of the houses of ill repute in St. Louis, Jessie’s wasn’t located near the waterfront. Instead it was in a quiet neighborhood on the north side of town where trees grew around the houses and there were flower beds full of brilliantly blooming flowers in the yards. The house had two stories and wore enough coats of whitewash that its walls gleamed. It looked like the sort of place where a wealthy merchant would live.

Which was exactly what it was, Preacher supposed. Jessie might not be the owner, but she was in charge here, and she definitely had merchandise for sale.

Preacher couldn’t afford that merchandise, even if he’d been in a buying mood. He hadn’t come to St. Louis looking for a woman, he reminded himself as he tied Horse at a hitch rail in front of the house. Several others were tied there, and Preacher frowned slightly as he recognized one of them. It was the big black from the ferry, the one that the sandy-haired gambler had ridden.

Well, that wasn’t too much of a surprise, he told himself. A man who dressed that well and owned a horse like this would want to patronize the best whorehouse in town.

Preacher went up a flagstone walk bordered by flower beds to the front porch. There was a brass lion’s-head knocker in the middle of the heavy door. He rapped sharply with it and waited.

The man who opened the door was tall, broad-shouldered, and black. He was bald except for a fringe of gray hair around his ears that trailed around the back of his head. Age didn’t seem to have withered him any, though. The muscles in his arms and shoulders bulged against the coat he wore.

He took one look at Preacher, got a superior sneer on his face, and said, “If you’ve brought those barrels of wine from the boat, you need to take them around back.”

“You see a wagon full of wine barrels out here?” Preacher asked.

The man frowned and looked past him. “No. What do you want?”

“This is Jessie’s Place, ain’t it? What do you think I want?”

Preacher started to push past the man, who put a hand on his chest to stop him. Preacher felt the strength coming from the man’s arm and shoulders.

“This ain’t your kind of place, mister. You need to go back down to the waterfront. The girls in the cribs there’ll be more than happy to accommodate you.”

Preacher sneered right back at the man. “You talk mighty fancy for a slave.”

“I ain’t a slave,” the man said with a shake of his head. “I’m a freedman, and I ain’t afraid of you just ’cause you’re white, mister. The law around here ain’t gonna blink an eye if I whup your ass.”

Preacher returned the man’s cold, level stare. “So you’re a freedman, eh?” He turned his head and spat. “That’s just a fancy word for a darky who’s got too big for his britches. I got money, damn your black hide.”

“Not enough,” the man said. “I can tell by lookin’ at you. Now, are you gonna leave peaceable-like, or—”

Preacher didn’t let him finish. He swung a wild punch at the man’s head instead.

The man ducked under the blow and lunged forward, wrapping his arms around Preacher’s waist. Suddenly Preacher felt himself jerked up off the ground. He let out a startled yelp that was completely genuine as the man hoisted him above his head.

With only a slight grunt of effort, the man heaved Preacher all the way off the porch and into the yard. He came down hard enough in one of the flower beds to knock the breath out of him. As he rolled over and gasped for air, he looked up and saw the big man stomping toward him, a look of outrage on the black face.

Well, thought Preacher, it looked like this part of the chore was about to turn out to be a mite harder than he’d expected.