Preacher's Fire

Chapter 18

There didn’t seem to be any point in denying it. Jessie probably wouldn’t believe him, anyway.

“There’s another old sayin’ about a cat bein’ out of a bag, but I don’t believe a Chinaman said it.”

“So you admit that you’re Preacher?”

“Yeah, might as well.”

“Wait a minute,” Cleve said. “I’ve heard of Preacher. He’s just one of those ignorant, unwashed mountain men—”

Jessie silenced him with a look. “Just because a man doesn’t have much education doesn’t mean that he’s unintelligent. I haven’t been to school all that much myself, and I believe I’m fairly smart.”

“Yeah, but you’re a . . .”

“Woman? Is that what you were about to say?”

Preacher chuckled and said to Cleve, “I may be ignorant, but I know enough that when I’m neck-deep in a hole, I stop diggin’.”

Cleve frowned and muttered something, then said, “Sorry, Jessie. I didn’t mean anything. And of course, you’re right. The question is, what are we going to do about him now?”

“We’d be fools to pass up this opportunity to have him on our side,” Jessie said, as if Preacher were no longer in the room. “You know his reputation. You know there are good reasons why Shad fears him.”

Preacher jerked a thumb at the door. “If you folks want me to step outta the room, I reckon I could go out to the parlor. I bet I could find a gal there willin’ to keep me company for a while.”

“I’m sure you could,” Jessie said, “but you don’t need to leave, Preacher. I think we should all work together. We have a common enemy, after all.”

Preacher looked at Cleve. “You feel the same way, gambler?”

“Of course, if Jessie does,” he said with a nod. He opened his coat and put away his pistol, slipping it into a holster somewhere under the garment.

Preacher wasn’t sure he completely believed or trusted Cleve. The gambler had teamed up with Jessie to overthrow Beaumont’s reign because he wanted power and money. Those were mighty good motives.

But they weren’t as pure as the hatred that Preacher and evidently Jessie, too, felt for Shad Beaumont.

For the time being, though, Preacher’s best course of action was to cooperate with them. As he always did, he would just keep his eyes open and be ready for trouble at any time. That way, if Cleve tried to double-cross him somewhere down the line, he’d be ready.

“We’re agreed, then?” Jessie said. “We’ll all work together?”

“Suits me,” Preacher said. “Just one question . . . what do you plan on doin’ next?”

Jessie went back behind the desk and sat down, motioning for Preacher to resume his seat in front of the desk. Cleve remained on his feet, still watchful. His hand didn’t stray far from the place where the pistol was tucked away under his coat.

“How much do you know about Beaumont’s business?” Jessie asked.

“I know he really owns this place and Dupree’s and a lot of other places in St. Louis,” Preacher replied. “Some of ’em are pretty shady, but some of them are real businesses.”

Jessie nodded. “That’s right. Does he let you in on his plans?”

“Nope,” Preacher said with a shake of his head. “He tells me to come with him when he goes somewhere, and I go. That’s it.”

Jessie clasped her hands together in front of her. “One of the businesses he owns is a cotton brokerage. A riverboat is supposed to dock tomorrow with a load of cotton from New Orleans that’s bound for Shad’s warehouse. But it’s not going to make it. River pirates are going to take it over, run it aground, and steal the cotton.”

Preacher had run into river pirates before. He knew how cunning and vicious they could be. “These here pirates . . . they’ll be workin’ for you?”

“Not at all,” Jessie said. “They work for Shad.”

Preacher frowned. “Wait a minute. He’s gonna steal his own cotton?”

“That’s right. The cargo is insured, you see. Shad’s men will deliver the cotton to one of his other warehouses here in St. Louis, so he’ll still have the shipment and can dispose of it discreetly, but he’ll collect the value of it from the insurance company, too.”

“That’s mighty tricky,” Preacher said. “Most robbers I’ve ever heard about just stick a gun in somebody’s face and tell ’em to stand and deliver.”

Cleve said, “That’s penny-ante stuff. Beaumont operates on a bigger scale than that. At the rate he’s going, he’ll soon be one of the richest men in the entire country, and most of it will have come from ill-gotten gains.”

“So you plan to stop this riverboat hijackin’?” Preacher asked.

“That’s right,” Jessie said. “Anything we can do to put a crimp in Shad’s plans . . . is really less than what he actually deserves.”

Preacher couldn’t argue with that. “What can I do to help?”

“You go with Beaumont every time he goes out?”

Preacher nodded. “That’s right.”

“But on a night like this, where he stays home . . . he didn’t have anything for you to do?”

“Nope.” Preacher didn’t want to think about the reason Beaumont had stayed home tonight. He could see her for himself, sitting right across the desk from him.

Knowing what she knew about Beaumont, how could Jessie act around him like she did? How could she—

Preacher shoved those thoughts out of his mind. The answers to those questions were none of his business.

“If he was going to be at home tomorrow, maybe he would send you with the men who are supposed to rob the boat,” Jessie mused as she leaned back in her chair. “I can arrange for him to be busy, and you could tell him that you want something else to do, something bigger than just guarding him.”

“You reckon that would work?”

“Shad admires ambition . . . as long as he doesn’t think anyone who works for him is getting too ambitious. I think it’s worth a try.”

“And if I go with those so-called pirates . . . what then?” “We’re going to have men waiting for them,” Cleve said. “Having a man on the inside who could take them by surprise might make it easier to deal with them.”

“To bushwhack them, you mean,” Preacher said heavily.

“You can’t very well claim you have some sort of moral dilemma when it comes to killing Beaumont’s men,” the gambler shot back at him. “You’ve done plenty of that yourself.”

What Cleve said was true, of course, but there was a vital difference, Preacher thought. His previous battles against Beaumont’s agents had been fought out in the open. There hadn’t been any sneaking deception involved.

But wasn’t something like this exactly what he’d had in mind when he decided on this masquerade? he asked himself. He’d wanted to get on the inside of Beaumont’s organization so he could wreak havoc.

“I reckon what you’re sayin’ might work, Miss Jessie,” Preacher admitted grudgingly.

She smiled across the desk at him. “I hoped you’d see it that way.”

“The fellas who work on the riverboat . . . they don’t know anything about this?”

“Not a thing,” she said. “And it’s very likely that some of them will be killed when Shad’s men attack the boat. So if you help us ruin his plans, you may well be saving the lives of those boatmen.”

Preacher couldn’t argue with that conclusion. He gave a grim nod and said, “All right, I’ll go along with that plan. Beaumont may not, though.”

“I know,” Jessie said. “If he doesn’t, we’ll bide our time and wait for our next opportunity to make use of you. The one thing we can’t afford to do at this point is to make him suspicious of you.” Her lips curved in a smile. “You’re our secret weapon, Preacher.”

“Just don’t misfire,” Cleve added.

Preacher’s eyes narrowed as he got to his feet. “Ain’t likely,” he said.

“Where are you going?” Jessie asked.

“We’re done here, ain’t we?”

“I suppose.”

“There is one more thing,” Preacher said. “I’d like to see—” He started to say “Casey,” then recalled that no one here used that name for her. “I’d like to see Cassandra again before I go.”

“I’m not sure she’d like that,” Jessie said with a frown.

“Well, I don’t want to upset her, but I’ve got somethin’ I want to tell her.”

Jessie thought it over for a moment, then nodded. “All right. I suppose it would be all right. You can knock on her door, anyway, and find out if she’ll see you. However, I don’t know if she’ll be up to—”

Preacher stopped her with a gesture. “It ain’t about that. I just want to talk to her.”

“All right.”

“And you might tell Brutus that we’re all friends again, in case he sees me wanderin’ around the house and decides to use that ol’ blunderbuss on me.”

“I’ll take care of that,” Cleve offered.

They left the office together after Preacher said good night to Jessie. Once they were in the hallway, the gambler went on in a low voice, “You’d better not be planning on double-crossing us, mister. I can tell you right now, you’ll regret it if you do.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Preacher said. “Just tend to your own rat-killin’.”

They parted company, Cleve heading for the parlor while Preacher took the rear stairs to the second floor. He found the room where he had been with Casey before and rapped quietly on the door.

“Who . . . who’s there?” The tentative question came from the other side of the panel.

“Jim Donnelly,” Preacher said, since that was the name she still knew him by.

“Oh! Jim.” He heard soft footsteps on the other side of the door. “I . . . I don’t think I feel up to seeing you right now, Jim.”

“I just want to talk to you for a minute,” Preacher said.

“Really, I—”

“Won’t take long.”

She sighed. “All right. But wait just a minute.”

He stood there in front of the door as a few seconds passed. Then Casey told him, “You can come in now.”

He twisted the knob and opened the door. The room was dark, and when he saw that, he knew that’s what had caused the delay. She had blown out the lamp so that he couldn’t get a good look at her. He could barely see her standing on the far side of the room.

Preacher closed the door, shutting out the light from the corridor. “Casey, you don’t have to worry about what you look like,” he told her. “Not with me. It ain’t your fault, what Beaumont done to you.”

“It wouldn’t have happened if I . . . if I hadn’t been with him.”

“Well, now, you didn’t have a whole heap o’ choice about that, now did you?”

“No,” she whispered. “None at all.”

“So, like I said, it ain’t your fault. It’s that bastard Beaumont’s fault, and I’m here to promise you . . . he’s gonna pay.”

Her gown rustled as she came closer to him. “But I don’t understand. You . . . you work for Beaumont, don’t you?”

“Well, that’s a mite complicated.” Obviously, Jessie trusted the girl, or she wouldn’t have brought her into the office and showed Preacher her injuries the way she had. But Preacher wasn’t sure just how far they should trust her. “All I can say is that things ain’t always what they seem.”

“Are you going to . . . kill him?”

“We’ll have to wait and see about that.”

He heard a soft, swishing sound as she came still closer to him. “If you do, Jim, I want you to know that I’ll be so—”

“You don’t have to say anything else. I just wanted you to know that justice is gonna catch up to Beaumont, sooner or later.”

“Jim.” She reached out in the darkness and found his arm with her hand, stopping him as he started to turn toward the door. “Jim, you don’t have to go just yet, do you?”

He felt her lean against him, and as his arms instinctively went around her, he realized the last sound he’d heard had been her robe falling to the floor. Her nude body was soft and warm in his embrace.

“You’ll have to be gentle with my face,” she whispered, “but as for the rest of it . . . you don’t have to be gentle at all.”