answer was obvious, so he didn’t see any harm in giving it.
“Muddy as it is, that may be a while. Anything we can do to give you a hand?”
Preacher shook his head. “Nope. I reckon we’ll do just fine.”
“All right, then. I reckon we’ll mosey on.” Garity lifted a finger to the brim of his hat. “You folks be careful, now.”
He jerked his head at his companions. They moved their horses over to the side of the trail and rode around the wagons. Preacher saw that each of them eyed Casey as they moved past her. That wasn’t surprising. A man could go a long time out there without seeing a woman, and an even longer time without seeing one as pretty as Casey.
She wasn’t the only thing that interested the men, however. They looked long and hard at the wagons, too, as if they were weighing how much money the freight in the vehicles might bring in Santa Fe.
Preacher kept an eye on the men until they vanished into the setting sun. Leeman Bartlett came up beside him and said, “That was a rather rough-looking bunch.”
“Yeah,” Preacher agreed. “I wouldn’t trust any of ’em. Good thing is, there were only five of ’em. We outnumber ’em four to one, so there ain’t much chance they’ll try to bother us.”
“But our guards should be especially alert tonight anyway, don’t you think?”
Preacher grinned at the man. “You’re learnin’, Mr. Bartlett. You’re learnin’.”
CHAPTER 8
Preacher and Bartlett put on extra guard shifts for the night. The ground was too muddy to sleep on comfortably, so after their cold supper, the men who didn’t have sentry duty climbed into the wagons and tried to find enough room to stretch out. That wasn’t easy, especially for someone like Preacher with his long legs.
He managed to doze off on top of some crates, but his slumber was restless. After a while, he sat up, pulled on his boots, and climbed out of the wagon. The night was quiet and peaceful. The air had cooled off a little, and there was a breeze out of the north. It wasn’t as sticky, which boded well for the ground drying out some the next day.
Something nuzzled his hand. He looked down and saw that Dog had crawled out from under the wagon. The big cur was covered with mud. He had romped in it for an hour around dusk, deciding it was all right after all.
“You’re a mess, you know that?” Preacher said with a grin as he gave Dog’s ears an affectionate scratch. “You—”
He stopped short as Dog suddenly stiffened, growled, and pressed against his leg. The animal’s ears pricked up, and he lifted his head as he pointed his muzzle toward the north.
“Whatever that damned thing is, it’s out there again, ain’t it?” Preacher asked softly.
As if in answer, Dog growled again.
“I’ve had enough of this,” Preacher muttered to himself. Earlier, he had seen Leeman Bartlett climbing into one of the wagons to try to get some sleep. With Dog at his heels, he stalked over to that wagon and pulled the canvas back. “Bartlett!”
“What? Wh-what?” Sputtering a little, Bartlett raised up and stuck his head out through the opening. “What’s wrong, Preacher?”
“You have any newspapers or anything like that?”
“Why, as a matter of fact, I brought along a stack of Philadelphia papers. I thought the American settlers in Santa Fe might like to see them.”
“Gimme one of them,” Preacher snapped.
Bartlett hesitated, and Preacher knew the man intended to sell the papers in Santa Fe, not share them for free. But after a couple of seconds, Bartlett said, “Very well. Just a moment.”
After a minute of rustling around inside the wagon, Bartlett climbed out and handed Preacher a newspaper. He was wearing high-topped boots and a nightshirt, which gave him a rather ludicrous appearance. “What’s going on?” he asked. “Is there a problem?”
“Somethin’s been followin’ us,” Preacher replied, “and I’m sick and tired of it. I’m gonna find out what it is.”
He handed Bartlett his rifle, then took several sheets of the newspaper and twisted them into a makeshift torch. Getting out flint and steel, he struck sparks until he managed to catch the paper on fire.
Then he pulled one of the pistols from behind his belt, cocked it, and strode away from the wagons, thrusting the burning paper in front of him.
“Damn it, whoever you are, show yourself!” he bellowed.
Behind him, men began to crawl out of the wagons, awakened by the shout, and they called questions to each other as they wondered what was going on.
Preacher turned his head and barked a command. “Stay close to the wagons!”
He strode forward again, moving the burning paper from side to side. The torch wouldn’t last long, only a few more seconds, before it burned down close enough to his fingers to make him drop it.
Suddenly he saw something glow up ahead of him. Two somethings, actually, like a pair of embers in the remains of a campfire. The way the two glows were set, he knew they were eyes.
What they belonged to was another question. As Preacher thrust his pistol out in front of him, the eyes abruptly rose higher and higher and then just as abruptly disappeared. At the same time, the flames singed Preacher’s fingers and he had to drop the burning paper. It sizzled out instantly as it hit the mud.
