Preacher's Journey (26 page)

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Authors: William W. Johnstone

BOOK: Preacher's Journey
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“Sure,” Preacher said. “I understand, Garvey. We'll settle this amongst ourselves, without gettin' anybody else mixed up in it.”
“I'm obliged for that.”
Preacher lifted the dun's reins, but Angela stepped forward and stopped him by laying a hand on the horse's shoulder. She looked up at him and said, “Why are you doing this for us? I'm not sure we deserve it.”
Preacher wasn't sure they did either, and yet he had been around them enough to know that there was good in all of them, especially Angela and Nate and Jonathan. But he didn't know how to explain that, so he just said again, “Stay here. I'll be back.”
Then he turned and rode toward the fort.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Rattan, Garvey, and the other men who had come out from the fort followed Preacher. The gates were still open. Preacher rode through them and turned to ask Garvey, “Where are those fellas now?”
“In the bar inside the trading post. That's where they've spent most of their time since they got here.”
Preacher reined to a stop in front of the long, low building that housed the trading post. The building was constructed of blocks of sod carved out of the prairie, but instead of the usual thatched roof it had a wooden one, made of thick planks that must have been carted out here by wagon from St. Louis. That had probably been expensive.
He swung down from the saddle and looped the reins around a hitchin' post next to the building's low porch. When he swung open the heavy door and stepped inside, it took his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the dimness. The trading post had no windows and was lit by candles and a few lanterns hung on pegs, so the air inside was close and stuffy, hazed by smoke, and smelled of the buffalo chips being burned in a potbellied stove in the corner. Even inside, Preacher's breath fogged a little from the cold. The stove didn't do much to ward off the chill.
Preacher's instincts helped him recognize the men he was looking for. There were four of them. They sat bunched around a rough-hewn table, a jug of whiskey and four cups in front of them. All of them wore thick coats and high boots. One sported a fur cap while the others all had floppy-brimmed felt hats much like the one Preacher wore. Their coats were open, and Preacher saw the butts of pistols sticking up behind their belts.
He walked toward them. They watched him warily as he approached. Coming to a stop a few feet from the table, he nodded to them and said, “I hear you fellas are lookin' for a family called Galloway.”
“That's right.” The words came from the man in the fur cap, who seemed to be the spokesman. “You know where we can find them?”
“How come you're lookin' for 'em?”
“That's our business,” Fur Cap said. “Might could make it worth your while, though, if you can put us on their trail.”
Preacher shook his head. “You don't want to go messin' with the Galloways. They're pretty good folks. They've had a passel o' bad luck, and they need to be left alone.”
That sharpened the interest of all four men. They leaned forward eagerly, and Fur Cap said, “It sure sounds like you know where they are, mister. You'd be well advised to tell us and then keep your nose outta our business.”
“Never was too good at that,” Preacher said, his voice deceptively mild. His tone hardened as he went on. “Simon Galloway is dead. He froze to death a few nights ago and is buried about thirty-five or forty miles west o' here. Go back to the man who hired you and tell him it's all over.”
For a long moment, none of the men said anything as they studied Preacher. Then Fur Cap sneered and said, “You know the whole story, do you?”
“Enough of it.”
Fur Cap shook his head. “No, you don't know enough. You don't know me, mister. Once I take on a job, I do it. I been paid to settle up with the Galloways, and that's what I intend to do. That's what we all intend to do.”
The other hard cases nodded their agreement.
“What about the money?” Preacher asked harshly. “If you get some of it back, is that enough to satisfy you—and the man who hired you?” He didn't know how much of the stolen money, if any, the Galloways still had, but he thought it was worth a try.
Fur Cap shot down that hope by slowly shaking his head. “It ain't about the money anymore. Like I said, it's about settlin' the score.”
“Well, then, you'll have to start with me,” Preacher said quietly.
Fur Cap's eyes narrowed. “Who the hell are you anyway?”
Preacher would have answered,
A friend of the Galloways
, but he didn't get a chance to. Rattan and the others had followed him into the trading post, and now the lean trapper laughed and said, “Why, mister, that there is Preacher.”
Fur Cap's breath hissed between his teeth. “Preacher!” His hand darted toward the gun at his waist as he kicked backward and came up out of the chair. “Get him!” The other three went into action an eyeblink later.
But that was an eyeblink too late, because Preacher's hands had already swept underneath his coat and closed around the butts of his pistols. He brought them out and up and flame spurted from the muzzles, throwing a garish red glare on the corner where the four hired killers had been sitting. One of the balls from the left-hand pistol thudded into the center of Fur Cap's forehead and blew a sizable chunk of his brains out the back of his head. The other ball missed, but it wasn't needed. Both lead missiles from the right-hand pistol struck one of the other men at the point where his arm met his shoulder and nearly tore the limb off. Blood fountained as the arm flopped loosely, held in place only by a couple of strands of gristle. The man fell back in the corner, screaming and gurgling as he bled to death.
Preacher threw himself forward as the other two men fired. The shots went over his head. The roar of exploding powder was deafening at such close range. Preacher slid across the table and barreled into both men, spreading his arms so he could take them down. They all crashed to the floor.
Swinging one of the pistols in a short, backhanded arc, Preacher broke one man's jaw. The man rolled away moaning, out of the fight for the moment. The other man grappled desperately with Preacher, forcing him to drop both pistols. The bounty hunter fumbled at the handle of a heavy-bladed knife sheathed at his waist. Preacher got a hand on the man's wrist just as the knife came free. He pinned the man's arm down and locked the fingers of his other hand around his opponent's throat. Preacher hung on tight as the man kicked and spasmed underneath him, face turning dark and tongue bulging. Finally the man went limp. Preacher didn't know if he was dead or had just passed out, and didn't particularly care which it was either.
The other man, the one with the broken jaw, hit him from the side then, mouthing incoherent curses as he knocked Preacher sprawling. He went for Preacher's throat, but Preacher was too fast for him. Preacher's arm looped around the man's neck and pressed down like a bar of iron, and as they rolled over and over on the hard-packed dirt floor, a sudden loud cracking sound signaled a broken neck. The last of the hired killers jerked violently and died.
Slowly, Preacher climbed to his feet. He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, then bent to pick up his hat, which had fallen off when he tackled the two men. As he settled the hat on his head, he looked around at Garvey, Rattan, and the other men in the trading post and said, “I'm obliged to you for not mixin' in that, boys. It was my fight.”
“Didn't figure you really needed the help,” Rattan said with a grin. “Hell, there was only four of 'em. 'Tweren't really your fight, though, Preacher. You was just takin' up for them Galloways.”
“Somebody's got to take up for folks what can't take up for theirselves.” Preacher shook his head. “I hate to think what it'll be like in this world if people ever forget how to do that.”
Then he walked out of the trading post, swung up onto the dun, called Dog, and rode out to tell the Galloways it was safe to come in.
 
 
All four of the hired killers were dead. “The fella who hired 'em won't know for a long time, if ever, what happened to them,” Preacher told Roger and Jonathan that night as they sat at a table in the trading post. “By the time he finds out, you folks ought to be in Oregon next year, makin' a new life for yourselves.”
“You're sure you won't guide us there?” Roger asked.
Preacher shook his head. “No need. Cephus says he's got a hankerin' to see the Pacific Ocean, and he's a good man, damn near as good as me. He'll get you there just fine.”
“And what will you do?” Jonathan wanted to know.
“Thought I might head south,” Preacher said with a grin. “Find someplace warmer to spend the winter. There's a place called Texas I ain't never been to yet. It's part o' Mexico, but things like that don't mean much to me. Lines on a map only matter as long as a fella lets them.”
“We'll miss you,” Jonathan said. “We owe you more than we can ever repay. We've learned so much from you.”
“Well, you're what they call the patriarch o' this family now, Silvertip. You'll do just fine. Take care o' each other, that's the main thing.” Preacher looked at Roger. “You and Angela got kids to raise. Raise 'em up right.”
“We will,” Roger promised solemnly.
Preacher drained the last of the whiskey in the cup in front of him, then stood up. “Come next spring, I'll put those markers up,” he promised.
“You're not leaving now?” Jonathan exclaimed, startled.
“No reason to stay. It's a clear night with a big moon. Dog an' me can put some miles behind us 'fore we settle down for the night.”
“But . . . but you just got back to civilization!”
Preacher grinned. “For some of us, that's all the more reason to light a shuck.”
He shook hands with both of them and left the trading post, walking out into the cold, clear night. He regretted a little bit not saying good-bye to Nate, but he figured the youngster would understand. Nate had some of the same restless nature in him that had always been a part of Preacher. He had already seen that in the boy.
“Preacher.”
The soft word was spoken as he reached to untie the dun's reins. The horse had been fed and watered and rested and was up to traveling a ways yet tonight. First, though, Preacher turned and saw Angela come out of the shadows on the trading post's porch.
“You're leaving?”
He nodded. “I reckon it's time.”
“I . . . I hoped you'd spend the winter here too.”
“Oh, I don't reckon I could do that,” he said. “Bein' around people all the time, sleepin' with a roof over my head . . . some of us just ain't made for that kind o' life. We need to be out in the wild, lonesome places.”
“You . . . you never wanted to stay somewhere . . . to stay with someone?”
Preacher remembered Jennie, for a change seeing her face clear as day, seeing the smile of wistful farewell on her lips, and for the last time, he allowed himself to think about what might have been.
“Once maybe,” he whispered in reply to Angela's question, “but that was a long time ago.” Then he bent down, brushed a kiss across her forehead, and said, “Roger's got the makin's of a good man, but he needs a good woman, and all those kids need a mama.”
Clearly embarrassed, she said, “Preacher, I . . . I don't know what to say. . . .”
“Don't say nothin,” he told her. “Just think on it.” Then he swung up into the saddle, said, “Come on, Dog,” and galloped out through the open gate into the night.
Texas was waiting. Someplace he'd never been before.
THE FIRST MOUNTAIN MAN SERIES BY WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE
__The First Mountain Man
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__Blood on the Divide
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__Absaroka Ambush
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__Forty Guns West
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__Cheyenne Challenge
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__Preacher and the Mountain Caesar
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__Blackfoot Messiah
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__Preacher
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__Preacher's Peace
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