Preacher's Fire

Chapter 15

She was right. Sometime during the next couple of hours—Preacher was a mite vague about when it was, exactly—she told him to call her Casey, so that’s what he did from then on.

He was lying there in her bed, holding her as she dozed with her head on his shoulder, when a knock sounded on the door. The single candle in the room had burned down to where it cast only a faint, flickering glow. Casey stirred sleepily as the knock was repeated.

“Donnelly.” The hoarse rasp of Brutus’s voice came from the other side of the door. “Mr. Beaumont says for you to get your ass outta that whore’s bed and get downstairs. He’s ready to leave.”

Preacher would have been willing to bet that Beaumont hadn’t phrased the order quite so crudely. On the other hand, maybe he had. Preacher didn’t really know Beaumont all that well yet.

All he really knew was that the man was responsible for the deaths of a lot of people Preacher cared about.

Preacher threw back the sheet and started to get out of bed, but Casey woke up enough to clutch at him and murmur, “Don’t go, Jim. You’re so sweet, and it feels so good just lying here.”

Preacher knew better than to put much stock in whore-talk, but he had to admit, Casey sounded sincere. She snuggled against him with an urgency that seemed real, too.

“Sorry, darlin’,” he told her as he reached up to stroke a work-roughened hand over her blond hair. “When the boss says it’s time to go, I reckon it’s time to go.”

She sighed. “I know. It’s just that I . . . well, Jim, you’re not really—”

“You ain’t about to say that I ain’t like all the other men, are you?”

The words came out harsher than Preacher intended, and as soon as he said them, he wished he could call them back or at least soften them a little.

But it was too late for that. Casey stiffened, and even though a brittle laugh came from her lips, he sensed that he had hurt her feelings.

“Of course not,” she said. She rolled over so that her back was turned toward him. “Good night, Jim.”

“Casey, I didn’t mean—”

“You’d better go. You don’t want to keep Mr. Beaumont waiting.”

That was true enough. And Preacher had learned over the years that once a fella said the wrong thing to a gal, it was damned near impossible to fix it right then and there. It took a little time for her to cool down and stop being so het up.

But chances were that he’d be coming back to Jessie’s Place fairly often with Beaumont, so he’d have the opportunity to see Casey again. Maybe he could make it right with her next time.

He stood up and started pulling on his clothes. “I had a mighty fine time,” he told her.

She didn’t roll over and look at him as she said, “I’m glad.” She didn’t particularly sound like she meant it, either.

Preacher gave a mental shrug and clapped the funny-looking quaker hat on his head. “Be seein’ you,” he said as he went to the door.

Before he could get there, Brutus’s heavy fist fell on the panel again, and he rumbled, “Donnelly!”

Preacher jerked the door open. “I’m comin’,” he said. “Hold your horses.”

Brutus bared his teeth in a grimace. “You’ll learn not to keep Mr. Beaumont waiting.”

Preacher eased the door closed behind him and said, “For what it’s worth, Casey agrees with you.”

“Who?”

Preacher looked over at Brutus and saw that the man wore a puzzled frown. He jerked a thumb at the door and said, “Casey. Cassandra.”

“Never heard her called Casey before. ’Round here she’s always been just Cassandra.”

Preacher said, “Huh.” He looked at the door again and thought about the young woman on the other side of it. Had she revealed something to him that she hadn’t shared with anyone else here in St. Louis? If that was true, why would she do such a thing?

Preacher didn’t have the answers to those questions. Maybe he would learn them in time, he told himself as he followed Brutus downstairs.

The parlor was empty now except for Beaumont, who stalked back and forth on the rug with a drink in his hand. When Preacher and Brutus walked in, he stopped, threw back the liquor, and then said, “It’s about time, Donnelly.”

Evidently Beaumont considered the debt between them squared now. He and Preacher weren’t friends anymore. Beaumont’s voice held a definite tone of employer talking to employee. He handed the empty glass to Brutus and went on, “Let’s go.”

They stepped out into the parlor, where Brutus handed Beaumont his beaver hat and then draped the cape over his shoulders. Brutus was about to open the front door when Jessie called from the top of the stairs, “Good night, Shad.”

Preacher turned to look up at her. She wore a long, flimsy gown and robe, and with the light from the landing behind her, the lines of her body were clearly revealed. Her hair was loose and appealingly disheveled.

Preacher wasn’t sure if he had ever seen a lovelier woman in his life.

“Good night, my dear,” Beaumont told her.

“Did you have a pleasant time with Cassandra, Mr. Donnelly?” Jessie asked. Beaumont frowned, as if she shouldn’t even be speaking to Preacher.

Snatching his hat off his head, Preacher held it in front of him and said, “Yes, ma’am, I sure did. She’s a right nice girl.”

“I’m glad. You have a pleasant evening, too, what’s left of it.”

“Yes’m.”

Beaumont glared at him for a moment as they left the house. “Don’t get used to Jessie paying so much attention to you,” he said. “She was just being polite.”

“Yes, sir, I never doubted it.”

Inside, though, Preacher was laughing. Beaumont was jealous! Jessie had spoken barely a dozen words to Preacher, and yet Beaumont was jealous of him. That was rich.

And it was one more way to get at Beaumont. Not that he would ever take advantage of a woman just to strike back at an enemy, Preacher told himself. Some things just went too much against the grain, and that was one of them.

But a moment such as the one that had just occurred in the house, a moment that was not of his making . . . well, Preacher didn’t see anything wrong with enjoying that.

Lorenzo had the carriage door open. Preacher figured it was sometime after midnight, but the elderly driver didn’t even seem tired.

“Headin’ home, Mr. Beaumont?” he asked.

“That’s right,” Beaumont said. “Home. And when we get there, Donnelly, Lorenzo can show you your quarters. I’ll expect you in the main house at seven o’clock in the morning.”

“Yes, sir,” Preacher said. Looked like he was bound for the servant quarters. That was all right with him. He had a lot more in common with folks who actually worked for a living than he did with a rich, powerful crook like Beaumont.

Once Beaumont was inside the carriage, Preacher and Lorenzo swung up onto the driver’s box, and Lorenzo got the team moving. After a few moments, in a tone of smug satisfaction, he noted, “I see you ain’t Jim anymore. You just Donnelly now.”

Preacher chuckled. “The boss can call me whatever he wants.”

“You ain’t as special as you thought you was.”

“Trust me, I never thought I was special.”

And yet he was special, Preacher mused, because he was the man who, sooner or later, was going to kill Shad Beaumont.

But not right away. Not over the next week, during which Beaumont kept his promise and saw to it that Preacher got a new outfit. He sent Lorenzo with Preacher to one of the stores in downtown St. Louis that sold men’s clothing, where Lorenzo picked out and paid for a couple of gray tweed suits, half a dozen shirts, two cravats, a pair of high-topped black boots, and a beaver hat. None of the garments were as fine and expensive as what Beaumont wore, of course, but they were probably the fanciest duds Preacher had ever had. He felt a little like a damned fool, too, when he saw himself in the store’s looking glass.

“You know what they say ’bout the silk purse and the sow’s ear,” Lorenzo commented sourly. “You still look like a big ol’ farm boy to me, even if you is duded up some.”

“Don’t tell the boss, but that’s the way I feel, too,” Preacher said with a grin. He liked the little carriage driver, despite Lorenzo’s habitually gloomy disposition. He figured working for Shad Beaumont would make anybody feel that way.

Although Jessie hadn’t seemed unhappy, he reminded himself, and neither did the folks who worked at Dupree’s. He supposed that was because Beaumont paid well.

The two of them visited one place or the other every night, and sometimes they made it to both. Preacher didn’t see Casey again, and when he asked Brutus about her, the big man said that she hadn’t been feeling well.

“These whores get like that,” Brutus said. “They’re more fragile than you’d think they’d be.”

Preacher managed to avoid going with any of the other girls, and Beaumont didn’t press the issue. While he was upstairs with Jessie, Preacher usually stayed in the kitchen and sometimes played cards with Brutus and Lorenzo. Brutus didn’t seem to hate Preacher quite as much as he had at first. At least, he tolerated the mountain man being around.

During the days, Beaumont rose late, had a leisurely breakfast, and then set out in the carriage from the big, whitewashed house on the south side of town that reminded Preacher of plantation houses he had seen down around New Orleans when he was a young man. As Beaumont’s bodyguard, Preacher went with him, of course, while Beaumont made the rounds of his businesses in St. Louis, both the legitimate ones—and the not-so-legitimate. They stopped at taverns and lower-class brothels and dusty warehouses where the merchandise stored in them was probably stolen, Preacher thought.

During that week, Preacher didn’t get a chance to slip away and pay a visit to Uncle Dan’s camp. He hoped the old-timer wasn’t getting too worried about him.

Then one evening, Beaumont stayed home and sent Lorenzo with the carriage to fetch Jessie back to his house, instead of him going to her place. “I’m not leaving the house tonight, so you won’t have to stay around, Donnelly,” Beaumont said. He took a coin from his pocket and flipped it to Preacher. “You’ve been doing a good job . . . not that you’ve really had anything to do. Why don’t you go out and find a woman or a poker game and enjoy yourself ?”

Preacher caught the coin, deftly plucking it out of the air. He stuck it in his pocket and said, “Thanks, boss. Reckon I’ll do that.”

Beaumont was in his study, sipping some brandy that he didn’t offer to share with Preacher this time. He took a drink and said, “You know, I put the word out that I wanted to know who took that shot at me, the night you saved my life. People have been asking around on my behalf all over town, because it’s hard to keep a grudge quiet if it’s bad enough to prompt an ambush. But no one seems to have any idea who could have done it.”

For a second, Preacher thought that Beaumont was getting suspicious and was about to accuse him of something. But then the man went on, “If you could turn up that information, Donnelly, there’d be a bonus in it for you. I don’t like the idea that there’s some mysterious stranger out there somewhere who wants me dead.”

You just don’t know the half of it, you son of a bitch, Preacher thought.

But he nodded and said, “I’ll see what I can find out, boss.”