Preacher's Fire

Chapter 20

“Let me get this straight,” Preacher said to Dugan as they and the other men rode hurriedly toward the bend in the Mississippi about a quarter of a mile downstream. “We’re gonna take over that riverboat?”

“That’s right. It’s just a cargo boat, no passengers, and it’s the cargo we want. We’ll pick off the pilot and the captain in the pilot house by shootin’ from shore, then board her, get the drop on the rest of the crew, and run the boat aground on the bank. We got wagons and drivers waitin’. Won’t take long to unload all the cotton the boat’s carryin’ and cart it away.”

Preacher let out a low whistle. “That’ll be worth a pretty penny, I reckon. Did Mr. Beaumont put you up to this?”

“Damn right. I told you he was smart.”

Preacher didn’t say anything about the cotton already belonging to Beaumont. He didn’t know if Dugan was aware of that part of the scheme and didn’t want to raise even a hint of suspicion that he might know about it.

The steamboat’s whistle sounded again, closer this time. It was almost at the bend when Preacher and the other men reached the four canoes pulled up on the bank.

“Three men to a canoe!” Dugan ordered as they dismounted. “Donnelly, you’ll be the fourth man in the first canoe. Troy and I will stay here on shore and pick off the captain and the pilot.”

“I’m a mighty good shot with a rifle, if I do say so myself,” Preacher said. “You might want me to stay here with you, Dugan.”

“Do what I told you!” the leader of the robbers snapped. “Unless you want to back out of the deal completely, and I’ll tell the boss if you do.”

“Take it easy, take it easy. I’ll go along with your orders. I was just tryin’ to help.”

“Then move! Here comes that damned riverboat!”

It was true. The big sidewheeler was coming into view around the bend, close to the near shore because of the way the channel ran. The would-be robbers hurriedly climbed into the canoes and shoved off. Preacher found himself right up front in the lead canoe, the most dangerous spot to be when the attack got underway.

He didn’t care about that. He knew that the men working for Jessie and Cleve had to be somewhere close by, and no doubt they would strike at any moment. In the meantime, though, the pilot and captain of the riverboat were in deadly danger.

Preacher had snatched up one of the paddles in the bottom of the canoe, laid the flintlock across the narrow boat in front of him, and dug the paddle in the water like the other men. Their efforts sent the canoe cutting across the river’s surface toward the steamboat. Preacher saw the name Harry Fulton painted on the boat’s bow, with St. Louis, Mo. underneath it. Smoke billowed from the top of the tall, round smoke-stack that ran down to the firebox in the vessel’s engine room. The whistle blew again, loud enough now to hurt the ears, and Preacher saw the big paddle wheels on the sides of the boat suddenly lurch to a halt. Somebody on board must have spotted the river pirates approaching and ordered the engines stopped.

It was too late. The boat’s momentum carried it forward against the current for a moment as it slowed. The canoes arrowed toward it.

Preacher dropped his paddle at his feet, snatched up his rifle, and stood up as he turned back toward the shore. One of the other men in the canoe yelled, “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re—”

The canoe rocked back and forth, thrown off balance by Preacher’s movements, but he ignored that and drew a bead on Dugan as he eared back the flintlock’s hammer. Neither Dugan nor Troy had fired yet at the pilot house. Preacher didn’t give Dugan the chance to do so. He pressed the trigger.

The flintlock roared and kicked against his shoulder. Fifty yards away on shore, Dugan’s coonskin cap leaped in the air as the ball from Preacher’s rifle smashed into his head and dropped him like a rock.

The other men in the canoe were shouting at him now, some of them yelling curses while others warned him not to upset the little craft. Preacher saw the man nearest him clawing at the butt of a pistol behind his belt and didn’t hesitate. He drove the butt of his rifle into the center of the man’s face as hard as he could and felt bone crunch under the impact.

At that moment, rifles began to bang on the far shore. Powder smoke spurted from a clump of trees that grew down close to the water. On the near bank, Troy went down, still without firing a shot. Preacher heard the hum of rifle balls passing through the air not far from his head and put one foot on the side of the canoe, shoving off with it as he leaped out into the river. That tipped the canoe over behind him. The men in it spilled out into the water.

Preacher hauled as much air into his lungs as he could before the Mississippi closed over him. He dove deep and kicked hard to get away from the area where the shots from the far shore were cutting into the water. Jessie and Cleve might have warned their men to try not to kill him, but in the heat of battle, sometimes it was hard to be careful. He stayed under as long as he could, then began kicking toward the surface.

That wasn’t easy, since he was fully dressed and weighed down with two pistols and a rifle, but he wasn’t willing to give up any of the weapons if he didn’t have to. His legs were powerful enough to propel him to the surface. As his head broke out into the air, he gratefully gulped down a breath. That eased the pounding inside his skull.

He saw the Harry Fulton off to his left, now drifting slowly downstream with its engines stopped. Two of the canoes were overturned, and the other one appeared to be sinking, probably shot full of holes. Several bodies floated in the river near the canoes. Two of Beaumont’s men were trying to swim to the near shore.

More shots doomed their efforts. They jerked in the water and then slowed as reddish streamers of blood drifted away from them. The men came to a stop and began to float facedown.

That left Preacher as the only apparent survivor of the group that had tried to take over the riverboat. He swam slowly toward the Harry Fulton as a flat-bottomed skiff with several men in it pushed off from the far shore. The men paddled out to rendezvous with the riverboat.

Preacher was closer and got there first. Three men were waiting for him on deck—the captain and a couple of crewmen, all of them holding pistols. They covered him as he tossed his empty rifle onto the deck and then caught hold of one of the fenders and used it to help him climb on board.

“Don’t try anything, you thieving bastard!” the captain ordered.

Preacher lay there for a moment, catching his breath as the water streamed off his sodden clothing. When he could talk, he looked up and said, “You may not’ve noticed, Cap’n, but I reckon I saved your life a few minutes ago. One of those fellas on the shore was drawin’ a bead on you when I blew a hole in his head.”

The captain looked confused. “But I thought you were one of the river pirates!”

“So did they,” Preacher said.

The skiff reached the riverboat. One of the men in it called, “Howdy! Looked like you needed a little help there!”

The captain nodded toward Preacher and told his men, “Keep him covered,” then turned to the men on the skiff and went on, “Indeed we did, sir! We are much obliged to you. Did you just happen to be traveling along and saw those scoundrels attacking us?”

“Nope.” The man in the skiff raised a pistol and pointed it at the captain. “We’re here for the same thing they were. Now put this boat ashore so we can start unloading that cotton you’ve got on deck.”

The captain of the Harry Fulton stared goggle-eyed down the barrel of the pistol that menaced him. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times before he managed to say, “You’re pirates, too?”

“That’s right,” the man in the skiff said. “And there are a dozen men on shore with rifles pointing at you and your men right now, Captain. You’d better do as you’re told.”

For a moment, the captain’s bulldog-like face looked like he was going to put up a fight. But then his shoulders sagged in defeat. “Are you going to kill me and my crew?” he asked in a dull voice.

“Nope. All we want is the cotton.”

“Very well.” The captain motioned for his men to drop their guns, then cupped his hands around his mouth and called up to the man in the pilot house, “Ahead one-quarter! Put her ashore!”

Preacher had watched the exchange with interest. He was glad the men working for Jessie weren’t going to murder the captain and crew. Now as he stood up, the man who seemed to be the leader said, “You’re the fella we were supposed to watch out for, aren’t you?”

Preacher was relieved that Jessie and Cleve hadn’t told these men who he really was. The longer he could keep that information under wraps, the better. He nodded and said, “That’s right. You came mighty near to hittin’ me with some of those shots, too.”

The man shrugged. “Hard to be too careful in the middle of a shootin’ scrape. And you’re not dead, are you?”

“No, I reckon not.”

The riverboat captain glared at him. “You double-crossed the men you were with? That makes you even worse than them, and I don’t care if you did save my life!”

“Think whatever you want, mister,” Preacher snapped. He picked up his empty rifle. Along with his pistols, it would need a thorough cleaning and drying before he tried to use it again. “Just do what you’re told and be grateful you’re alive.” He paused and then added truthfully, “I am.”

It didn’t take all that long to run the boat aground and unload the cargo. Some of Jessie’s men had crossed the river before the attack even began and gotten the drop on the drivers Beaumont had hired. Those drivers had been sent packing, and they had been glad to be given the chance to flee and save their lives. So it was Jessie’s men who brought the wagons to the riverbank and unloaded the cotton onto them. Then they drove off, taking the valuable cargo with them.

Preacher didn’t know what Jessie planned to do with the cotton. She would probably sell it, although she would have to be careful not to let Beaumont get wind of the transaction. Preacher figured she was smart enough to be able to handle that.

Some of Jessie’s men took the horses left behind by Dugan and the others. As Preacher got ready to mount up on Horse and ride back to St. Louis, the man who’d led Jessie’s group asked, “What are you going to do now, mister? Go back to Beaumont’s place?”

“That’s right.”

“What will you tell him?”

“The truth . . . some of it, anyway. We got bushwhacked. I’m the only one who got away.”

Preacher had checked to make sure that was true. All of Beaumont’s men were dead. Their bodies had been hauled out of the river and left on the bank in a grisly display.

“You reckon he’s gonna believe that?”

“He won’t have any reason not to,” Preacher said, although he expected that Beaumont might be a little suspicious of his story. Beaumont wouldn’t be able to prove any differently though.

“Well, I suppose it’s your business. Seems to me like you’re playin’ a mighty dangerous game though.”

Preacher just shrugged. The man was right. If Beaumont found out the truth, things could get bad in a hurry. But that was a risk Preacher was prepared to run. The danger had always been there, right from the start.

He said so long, swung up into the saddle, and rode north along the river. He had gone about half a mile when he heard a sudden flurry of shots behind him. Reining Horse to a stop, Preacher hipped around in the saddle to look back in that direction. He couldn’t see anything. The bends of the river and the trees that grew along its banks hid the riverboat from his view.

But that was about where the shots were coming from, he realized as the reports continued, a steady, ominous booming that might have been mistaken for thunder if the skies hadn’t been clear except for some high, fluffy white clouds.

Grim lines formed trenches in Preacher’s cheeks as he listened to the shots die away. He turned Horse around and watched as black smoke began to rise in the sky, blooming and billowing. He dug his heels into Horse’s flanks and sent the stallion racing back along the shore of the river.

As Preacher came around a bend a few minutes later, he saw that the riverboat had drifted away from the shore and into the middle of the river. It was burning, flames leaping up at the base of the column of smoke. The blaze stretched from one end of the vessel to the other, and it was burning so fiercely that Preacher knew the boat was doomed.

He knew as well that there was no one left alive on board to fight the fire. Those shots he’d heard had been Jessie’s men gunning down the captain and crew. He didn’t know why they would have done such a thing, but he was sure that’s what had happened.

The men were all gone now, putting distance between them and the murders they had committed. There was nothing Preacher could do to stop them. It was too late.

Too late to do anything except turn Horse around and start again toward St. Louis with a bitter, sour taste filling his mouth.