gonna take several weeks to get to Santa Fe. It’s not like just goin’ down the street.”
“But as you said, the payoff will be worth it,” Bartlett commented.
When they had finished eating, Preacher and Bartlett discussed the need for guards. Preacher suggested they have four men standing watch in four hour shifts.
“Lorenzo and I will take our turns,” he said.
“Mighty quick to volunteer me, ain’t you?” the old-timer said.
Preacher grinned. “I figured you’d want to do your part to make sure you don’t get your hair lifted.”
“Well, since you put it like that, I suppose I can give up a little sleep.”
“I can stand guard, too,” Casey offered.
Quickly, Roland said, “I’m sure that won’t be necessary. You need a full night’s sleep.”
“No more than anybody else, I don’t.”
“We’ve got plenty of men to stand guard,” Preacher told her. “But if we need you to take a turn, we’ll let you know.”
“All right,” she said. “I’m going to hold you to that.”
Except for the men standing the first watch, everyone turned in, crawling under the wagons to get some sleep. Preacher curled up in his bedroll, and with the frontiersman’s knack for grabbing any chance he could to sleep, he dropped off as soon as his head hit the saddle he was using for a pillow.
He wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep—it seemed like no time at all—when he came instantly awake and knew something had roused him. All his senses were alert. He heard the faint rustle of cloth somewhere nearby and smelled the unmistakable scent of a woman’s hair and skin.
He felt the warmth of that skin a moment later when Casey slipped into the blankets with him, naked as the day she was born, and pressed her mouth to his in a hungry kiss.
CHAPTER 5
Preacher was as human as the next man. He couldn’t help but respond when he found his arms full of naked, eager female flesh. He tightened his grip on her and returned the kiss.
But after a mighty enjoyable moment, he pulled his head back and asked in a low voice, “Casey, what in blazes do you think you’re doin’?”
“What does it
“Blast it, gal, there are too many folks around for this sort of carryin’ on. Not to mention the fact that I’m too dang old for a youngster like you.”
“I’m not all that young, at least when it comes to experience,” Casey said. “And you’re not that old. You’ve been doing just fine as far as I can tell.”
“Somebody might’ve seen you crawl under here.”
“I wasn’t naked. I had a blanket wrapped around me.” She gave a defiant toss of her head, which made her blond hair swirl like wings around her face. “Anyway, I don’t care who sees me. You think Lorenzo didn’t know we were together all those other nights on the trail?”
“That’s different,” Preacher insisted. “Lorenzo’s not the same as a whole camp full of folks.”
Casey sighed in exasperation. “I swear, you’re the only man I’ve ever met who’d argue with a gal in a situation like this. Do you really want me to go back to my own bedroll?”
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say I
“All right,” she sniffed. “But don’t be surprised if it’s a long time before I come crawling into
She rolled off him, pulled her blanket around herself, and crawled out from under the wagon. Preacher sighed. Sometimes doing the right thing was damned inconvenient, he thought, and downright frustrating to boot!
Not surprisingly, it was quite a while before he got back to sleep.
Preacher took one of the final turns on guard duty that first night. He wasn’t sure yet how reliable Bartlett’s men were, and those hours before dawn were the ones when it was the most difficult to stay awake. He didn’t want to take a chance on all the sentries dozing off at the same time. He would know that he was awake and alert, at the very least.
The night seemed about as quiet and peaceful as it could be. A gentle breeze blew across the prairie, stirring the grass that grew on both sides of the broad, dusty trail. With his flintlock cradled in his arms and Dog padding along softly beside him, Preacher walked all the way around the camp. Whenever one of the other guards challenged him, he identified himself and asked if there had been any signs of trouble. In each case, he was told that everything was all clear.
He knew that. Dog would have warned him if it were otherwise. It was well nigh impossible for any threat to sneak past the big cur’s sharp hearing and phenomenal sense of smell.
The eastern sky lightened to gray. Someone stirred up the fire and got the flames crackling merrily again. Preacher came in and found Bartlett putting the coffee on to boil.
“Early riser, are you?” the mountain man asked.
“That’s right,” Bartlett replied. “I’ve found that the older I get, the more difficult it is to sleep. The aches and pains of age, you know. They keep a man awake.”
