Preacher's Fire

Chapter 19

Preacher hadn’t asked Jessie how she was going to keep Beaumont from making his usual rounds the next afternoon. He didn’t want to know.

But whatever she did—sending word to Beaumont that she wanted to come to his house again that afternoon, Preacher supposed—it must have worked, because shortly after Beaumont rose late in the morning and had a leisure breakfast, he sent for Preacher and told him, “I’m not going to need you until this evening, Donnelly.”

Preacher put a frown on his face. “Boss, if I’ve done somethin’ that don’t suit you, and that’s why you don’t need me around as much all of a sudden—”

Beaumont stopped him with a curt gesture and said, “That’s not it at all. I don’t intend to go out this afternoon, and I’m not worried about anyone bothering me here in my own house. If you think I’m going to dock your wages for the time I don’t need you at my side, you can ease your mind about that. I still intend to pay you the same.”

“Oh.” Preacher nodded but kept the frown on his face. Beaumont didn’t know it, but he had just played right into Preacher’s hands. “No offense, boss, but I ain’t sure I like bein’ paid when I ain’t doin’ anything to earn those wages. That ain’t the way I was raised. You got anything else I could do to help out?”

Beaumont took a sip of the brandy-laced coffee he had at the end of every breakfast and began impatiently, “No, you can do whatever you—Wait a minute.” A thoughtful look appeared on his face. “You’ve done very well at your job, Jim. Would you be interested in perhaps trying something other than being my bodyguard?”

Preacher gave a nonchalant shrug, but he allowed interest to flicker in his eyes. “I’ll do whatever you say, boss. I always figured to move up in the world, though.”

“I’ll bet you did,” Beaumont said with a laugh. “I have some men doing a job for me this afternoon, and I can always use another good man to help out. Plus, it might not hurt to have someone else there to look out for my interests. There are a lot of men who are willing to work for me, but that doesn’t mean I can fully trust all of them.”

Again, Preacher had an uneasy suspicion that Beaumont had seen through his ruse and was just toying with him. That was one more reason Preacher didn’t like this damned playacting. He preferred to have everything out in the open, so that he always knew where he stood.

Beaumont seemed to be completely sincere, though, so Preacher nodded and said, “You say the word, boss, and I’ll be glad to take care of whatever chore it is you got for me.”

“Excellent. You go down to Red Mike’s and find a man named Dugan. Tell him I said that you’re to go along on the job this afternoon.”

Preacher nodded again. “Red Mike’s. Dugan.” He didn’t like the idea of paying a visit to that particular waterfront dive, since he had patronized it on previous visits to St. Louis. He looked totally different now, though, and he would try to disguise his voice a little as well.

“Oh, and Jim,” Beaumont said, “you’d better take a rifle with you, and an extra pistol as well.”

Preacher let a grin spread slowly over his rugged face. “Sounds to me like there’s gonna be some excitement.”

“Well, let’s put it this way,” Beaumont said. “I don’t think you’re going to be bored.”

Then, as Preacher turned away, Beaumont added something under his breath that he would have just as soon not heard.

“And as soon as Jessie gets here, neither will I.”

Red Mike’s was the kind of place where a man could get his throat cut, and the only thing anybody would worry about would be not getting the blood on them. Preacher had been there before on previous trips and also with Beaumont. Until a year or so earlier, Preacher had never even heard of Shad Beaumont, and he wouldn’t have guessed that the man owned Red Mike’s. Preacher had always assumed that the red-bearded giant who tended bar there and gave the place its name was the proprietor. It turned out that wasn’t the case, however.

Preacher tied Horse to one of the hitch rails in the next block. It was possible that one of the regulars at the tavern might recognize the rangy gray stallion and say something about it belonging to the mountain man called Preacher. Of course, there were a lot of gray horses in St. Louis, and without Dog around, and without his buckskins and beard, Preacher thought there was a good chance he could continue pulling off the pose as Jim Donnelly.

With his long-barreled flintlock rifle cradled under his arm and a pair of double-shotted pistols tucked behind his belt, he walked into Red Mike’s. All the guns didn’t draw a second glance. Even at midday like this, the windowless place was gloomy inside, lit only by several candles. The air was heavy with the mingled smells of smoke, unwashed flesh, stale beer, whiskey, piss, and puke.

In other words, it smelled like civilization to Preacher.

He was used to it, though, or at least as used to it as he was going to get, so he ignored the stench and went to the bar, which was nothing more than rough-hewn planks laid across whiskey barrels. With a nod to the hulking, redbearded figure on the other side of the boards, Preacher said, “Howdy, Mike. Dugan around?”

“Who’s askin’?” Red Mike rumbled. Then he squinted at Preacher and went on, “Oh, yeah, you’re that new fella who works for Mr. Beaumont.” The bartender’s attitude changed subtly. Beaumont commanded respect, and to a lesser extent, so did the men who worked for him. Mike jerked a thumb toward a door at the back of the room. “Back yonder.”

“Obliged,” Preacher said with a nod.

Several men stood at the bar with cups of whiskey or buckets of beer in front of them. A few others were at the tables scattered around the tavern. The place would be busier later on. There weren’t even any serving girls in here now to deliver drinks and let themselves be pawed by the rough, drunken patrons. None of the men paid any attention to Preacher as he walked past, heading for the room at the rear of the building.

He opened the door and walked in without knocking. Instantly, the four men sitting at a rickety table passing around a bottle turned toward him and lifted pistols, cocking the weapons as they rose.

Preacher’s instincts told him to duck back out the door and start blazing away with his own guns, but he checked the impulse and managed to just look startled instead.

“Take it easy there, boys,” he said. “I ain’t lookin’ for trouble.”

“What are you lookin’ for?” one of the men asked. He was an ugly, lantern-jawed man with black hair under a tattered coonskin cap.

“I was told to ask for a fella name of Dugan.”

“And who told you that?” Coonskin Cap demanded.

Preacher smiled thinly, but his eyes remained cold. “I reckon if you’re Dugan, you know the answer to that as well as I do.”

Coonskin Cap studied him intently for a few seconds, then said, “Yeah, this is the fella that Beaumont told us to look for. Put your guns away.” As he lowered the hammer on his own pistol and slid the weapon behind his belt, he went on, “I’m Dugan.”

“Donnelly,” Preacher introduced himself. He hadn’t known that Beaumont was going to tell the men he was coming.

“Yeah, I know.” Dugan waved a bony hand at the other three men. “This is Wilkins, Schrader, and Troy.”

Preacher nodded to them. He didn’t want to seem overly friendly.

And the truth was, he didn’t feel the least bit friendly toward these men. They were about to go out and attack a riverboat and probably murder some of the crew members, as well as helping Beaumont swindle an insurance company. Preacher had heard vaguely of insurance, and while he didn’t fully grasp the concept of it, it seemed a little like a swindle to him, too. But not as bad as the sort of things Beaumont did, that was for sure.

Reminding himself that he wasn’t supposed to know anything about a riverboat or a shipment of cotton, he said, “The boss didn’t tell me what we’re doin’ this afternoon. I supposed one of you fellas would explain it to me.”

“All in good time,” Dugan said as he pointed to an empty chair. “We’re waitin’ on some other fellas. Sit down and have a drink with us, Donnelly.”

Preacher sat and took the bottle when one of the other men handed it to him. The rotgut inside it was vile stuff, Preacher thought, and he knew that his tastes weren’t exactly what anybody would call refined. He downed a healthy swig of it anyway and then wiped the back of his other hand across his mouth as he passed the bottle along.

Over the next half hour, three more men showed up. Dugan introduced them as Marshall, Statler, and Hellman. Once they were there, Dugan said, “All right, I reckon we can go.”

Preacher was a little puzzled. Eight men, counting him, weren’t enough to take over a riverboat. They ought to have at least twice that many for such an attack. He couldn’t very well say anything, though, since he still wasn’t supposed to know what the plan was.

“Where’s your horse?” Dugan asked as they emerged from the tavern.

“Up yonder,” Preacher replied with a nod toward the hitch rail where Horse was tied.

“What did you leave him ’way up there for?” Dugan wanted to know.

Preacher grinned. “You think I’d leave my horse in front of a place full of cutthroats and thieves like this?”

Dugan frowned at him for a second, then suddenly grinned and laughed. “Yeah, you might have a point there,” he said. “I reckon we’re lucky our horses are still here.”

“I believe in bein’ careful,” Preacher said.

He walked up to where he had left Horse, untied the reins, and swung up into the saddle. It took only a moment to rejoin the other men. They rode south along the riverfront and eventually left the settlement behind them.

It was peaceful out here, Preacher thought, with the river flowing majestically to their left. They passed several jetties, on one of which a couple of boys were fishing with cane poles. Preacher wouldn’t have minded joining them for a while if he hadn’t had a job to do. A job that would probably turn into a killing chore before the afternoon was over, he reminded himself.

They had covered several miles, and St. Louis was well out of sight behind them when Preacher spotted several riders coming toward them.

“That’ll be the rest of the boys,” Dugan said with a note of satisfaction in his voice. “The boss didn’t want us to all get together in town. Thought we might draw too much attention if we did. The boss is mighty smart that way.”

Preacher couldn’t argue that Shad Beaumont was smart. It was too bad the man didn’t have even an ounce of scruples to go with his intelligence.

There were seven men in the second group. Dugan didn’t bother telling Preacher their names. He just greeted them and then asked, “You got the boats?”

“Yeah, just like you said,” one of the men replied. “Four canoes. We’ll hit the boat right at the bend, where the channel brings it close to the shore.” The man grinned. “Come paddlin’ out there like a war party o’ damn redskins.”

Preacher looked around at the men. They had the look and stink of towns and cities about them. They might be tough, but they weren’t frontiersmen. He doubted if any of them had ever even seen an Indian who wasn’t tame. They didn’t know anything about war parties.

He kept that opinion to himself, though, and instead asked Dugan, “Don’t you reckon it’s about time you told me what we’re doin’ here?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Dugan replied with a nod. Before he could go on, though, a high-pitched whistle came from somewhere downstream. Dugan grinned and continued, “Hear that, Donnelly?”

“Yeah. What is it?”

“Steamboat ’round the bend,” Dugan said, “and when it gets here, that’s when the shootin’ starts.”