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.”
Chapter 16
Preacher had reclaimed Horse from the livery stable where he had kept the stallion temporarily, and now Horse had a stall in the stable behind Beaumont’s house where the carriage and the team of fine black horses were kept. Lorenzo had been impressed by the rangy gray stallion, proving that he was a good judge of horseflesh. That had probably raised his opinion of Preacher somewhat, too, although Preacher knew that Lorenzo wouldn’t admit that to save his life.
Preacher walked out to the stable and saddled Horse, then rode toward the center of town, just in case Beaumont was watching. When he was out of sight of the house, he turned west and headed out of St. Louis toward Uncle Dan’s camp.
When he neared the grove of trees, he reined in and hooted like an owl. A moment later, an answering hoot came, telling him that the old-timer was still there, just as Preacher had hoped. He rode into the trees and found the camp, which had been moved a short distance from where it had been the last time Preacher was here.
“Too fiddle-footed to stay in one place for a whole week, eh?” he asked with a grin as he swung down from the saddle. Dog reared up, put his paws on Preacher’s shoulders, and licked the mountain man’s face.
“That ain’t it at all,” Uncle Dan replied. “This campsite’s just a mite better, that’s all. Better firewood, and a little closer to the crick that runs through these trees.”
“Sure,” Preacher said, knowing full well that Uncle Dan’s restless nature had had something to do with it, no matter what the old-timer said. He knew that because he was the same way. His feet always began to itch after a few days in the same place. He had already experienced that in St. Louis, although the desire for revenge on Shad Beaumont that drove him made it easy to suppress those urges.
“I been keepin’ the coffee warm for you ever’ night,” Uncle Dan went on as he took the pot from the embers of the campfire. “Figured you’d be showin’ up before now.”
“Beaumont’s been keepin’ me pretty busy. He’s still spooked from that bushwhack attempt, so I’ve had to stay close to him whenever he leaves the house.”
Uncle Dan clucked his tongue. “Must be a terrible chore, havin’ to visit saloons and whorehouses ever’ night.”
Preacher laughed. “It ain’t as entertainin’ as you might think it’d be.”
With the exception of the time he had spent with Casey, he told himself. And he’d managed to mess that up at the end and hadn’t seen her since. He hoped she was all right.
The two men sat on logs and sipped coffee while Dog lay at Preacher’s feet. Preacher reached down with his free hand and scratched between the big cur’s ears.
Uncle Dan asked, “Now that you’re workin’ for Beaumont, what do you figure on doin’? Want me to take another shot at him, so’s he’ll know he’s still got somebody gunnin’ for him?”
Preacher shook his head. “No, we got away with that once, but I don’t want you runnin’ that risk again, Uncle Dan. I’m waitin’ for Beaumont to come up with some new scheme, so I can ruin it for him.”
“How long you gonna keep that up?”
“Don’t know. Depends on what happens, I reckon.”
“You know . . . you could kill the son of a bitch just about any time now, and be halfway back to the mountains ’fore anybody knowed what happened.”
“Yeah, but there’s one problem with that.” Preacher took another sip of coffee. “I ain’t a murderer. When I kill Beaumont, it’s gonna be head-on, and he’s gonna know why he’s dyin’.”
“Well, I didn’t never say to strangle the son of a bitch in his sleep, now did I?” Uncle Dan grumbled. “Tell him who you are. You can even give him a chance to get his paws on a gun if you want. I reckon you could still kill him.”
“It may come to that. But not yet.”
Even though the embers of the fire didn’t cast much light, Preacher could feel Uncle Dan studying him. After a moment, the old-timer said, “This ain’t like you, Preacher. I may not have knowed you all that long, but I’ve heard plenty about you. You ain’t the sort o’ fella to pussyfoot around. What’s all this sneakin’ and pretendin’ to be somebody else gonna accomplish?”
That very question had been gnawing at Preacher’s brain, too. When he had first come up with the plan, he’d thought that it would be fitting to give Beaumont a taste of his own medicine. To take away the things that the man cared about and put him through the same sort of suffering that he had inflicted on so many others.
Yet as the days had gone by, Preacher had begun more and more to doubt the wisdom of this course. Uncle Dan was right. It wasn’t like him, and knowing that he had fooled Beaumont wasn’t as satisfying as he’d hoped it would be. But the plan had proceeded so far that to change it now seemed like a mistake, too.
“I don’t know,” he said in reply to Uncle Dan’s question. “I’ll think on it. I can tell you this, though . . . it ain’t gonna go on too much longer.”
“I hope not. I’m gettin’ anxious to see the mountains again.”
So was Preacher. He could only stand civilization for a short time.
He finished his coffee, then stood up and said his good-byes to Uncle Dan. As he started out of the trees, he heard something that caught his attention. It was the muffled whicker of a horse, somewhere nearby in the thick shadows under the trees.
Preacher stiffened in the saddle. That sound hadn’t come from Uncle Dan’s horse, which meant there was another animal somewhere close to the camp. And where there was a horse, there was usually a rider. This one could be a stray, but Preacher’s gut told him that wasn’t the case.
He didn’t react visibly to the sound but kept Horse moving at a steady pace instead. As he emerged from the trees, he turned the big stallion onto the trail that led back toward St. Louis. He didn’t look back.
Every instinct in his body told him that someone was following him, though.
The lights of the town glittered in the darkness ahead of him. They were bright enough, and there were enough of them, so that a faint glow filled the sky over the settlement. Preacher didn’t slow down when he reached the streets of the town. He rode on through St. Louis toward the riverfront. The sound of raucous laughter and scraping fiddles came from the taverns he passed. Somewhere a woman cried out, but it sounded more like a scream of pleasure rather than one of pain or fear. A man cursed. Another shouted a question. The smell of the river filled the air.
Preacher turned into a narrow lane and slipped out of the saddle as soon as he was around the corner. He gave Horse’s rump a soft slap that kept the stallion moving forward. Horse wouldn’t go too far before he stopped and waited for Preacher to summon him back. It shouldn’t take long for him to find out what he needed to know, though, Preacher thought.
Sure enough, only a minute or so had gone by when another rider rounded the corner and started along the lane, following the steady clip-clop of Horse’s hooves on the hard-packed dirt. By that time, Preacher had drawn back into the impenetrable shadows that clogged the deep, recessed doorway of an abandoned building. The man who rode past never even glanced in his direction.