Preacher's Assault

The man laughed. “Are you crazy? There are two of us and only one of you. If you don’t have any money, gimme your guns and anything else you got that’s worth anything.”

“Seems to me like the odds are against you,” Preacher said.

“You talkin’ about that mutt? You think he’s the equal of one of us?”

“Hell, no,” Preacher said. “I think he’s worth a dozen no-account scum like you. Probably more.”

The robber grated a curse.

Preacher didn’t wait any longer. He had already cut those damn fools a sight more slack than they deserved. He said sharply, “Dog!”

The big cur moved with blinding speed, a gray phantom in the shadows of the alley. He whirled and launched himself at the man behind Preacher, crashing into him just as the man pulled the trigger on his pistol. Dog’s weight and strength drove the man backward off his feet, so the shot went well over Preacher’s head.

At the same time, Preacher went into action with the same sort of deadly speed. He lashed out with the flintlock rifle in his hands. The long barrel cracked across the wrist of the would-be robber’s gun hand, breaking it and knocking the pistol aside as it roared. The two shots came so close together they sounded like one, and the twin muzzle flashes lit up the alley for a split-second, revealing the ugly, unshaven face twisted in pain.

The next instant, Preacher drove the rifle butt into the man’s throat. The robber staggered backward, choking and gasping as he tried unsuccessfully to drag a breath through his ruined airways. Preacher could have stopped right there and let him die a slow, suffocating, agonizing death.

Instead, the mountain man’s hand went to the sheath on his belt and drew the long, heavy-bladed hunting knife he carried. The knife flashed forward, burying more than a foot of cold steel in the robber’s belly. Preacher ripped it back and forth, opening a hideous wound through which the man’s steaming entrails spilled as he collapsed on the dirty floor of the alley. His last breath rattled in his throat as Preacher pulled the knife free and stepped back.

The snarling and screaming that had filled the alley behind him were coming to an end. The screams faded away in a gurgling sigh of death, and the big cur fell silent as Preacher said, “Dog.”

Preacher bent and wiped his knife clean of blood on the clothes of the man he had killed. As he slid the weapon back in its sheath, he reflected that he wouldn’t lose any sleep over either of those deaths. Men such as those who lurked in alleys and robbed folks had almost certainly slashed any number of innocent throats. Preacher knew that was what they’d had in mind for him.

That mistake had cost them their lives.

“Come on, Dog,” he said softly. “Let’s get out of here. They probably got a constable in this town, and we ain’t got time to deal with that foolishness.”

Both of them faded into the night with a skill born of long practice. Stealth had saved their lives on many occasions.

A short time later, having taken a longer way around, Preacher entered the tavern where he had told Lorenzo and Casey he would meet them. The smoky lantern light filling the room revealed a tall, lean man in fringed buckskins, a broad-brimmed felt hat, and high-topped boot moccasins. Preacher’s face was too craggy to be called handsome, but it possessed a great deal of raw power. A dark mustache drooped over his wide mouth. He was in his mid-thirties, old enough for the rumpled thatch of dark hair under his hat to have a number of gray strands threaded through it. His skin bore the permanent tan of a life lived out in the elements.

He nestled his rifle in his arms, and two flintlock pistols were tucked behind his belt in addition to the knife he carried. A powder horn and a shot pouch were draped over his shoulders, their rawhide thongs crossing on his chest and back. In a frontier full of dangerous men, Preacher was one of the most dangerous, and he looked it.

But the keen eyes under his bushy brows were also filled with intelligence and humor. He had seen and done a great deal since coming west as a young man, and it had taught him to appreciate every minute of his adventurous life.

He looked around the room, spotted Lorenzo at one of the tables playing cards and Casey standing at the bar. A number of hostile stares were being directed at them, and that told Preacher several things.

For one, the other card players didn’t like losing. They especially didn’t like losing to a black man, even one who had been freed from his former status as a slave.

The angry looks cast Casey’s way came from the trollops who worked in the tavern. Even with the scar on her left cheek from a knife wound, Casey was the prettiest woman in there. The fact that several men clustered around her at the bar proved that. The serving wenches didn’t like having the competition.

Casey’s whoring days were over, though. She shared Preacher’s blankets sometimes, but it was out of friendship and good, healthy, animal lust. No money would ever change hands.

The three of them, Preacher, Lorenzo, and Casey, had been traveling together for a couple of weeks, taking their time moseying west after leaving St. Louis. A mission of vengeance had taken Preacher from his beloved Rocky Mountains to the big city, and in the course of that mission, Lorenzo and Casey had become allies of his, as well as friends. When he left and headed west again, they had come with him.

Instead of traveling up the Missouri River to the northern Rockies, Preacher had decided to meander in a more southerly direction for a change, into Nuevo Mexico. He hadn’t been that way for several years. From there, he and his two companions could work their way north along the rugged mountain ranges. That way, Lorenzo and Casey could see a lot of different country. Since neither of them had ever been west of St. Louis, they were going to be impressed by how vast the American frontier really was.

The plan was to leave in the morning and ride west along the Santa Fe Trail, but before they could do that, they had to make it through the night. Between thieves in dark alleys, sore losers in a poker game, and jealous whores, Preacher wasn’t sure they were going to make it.

Lorenzo laid down his cards at the end of a hand. A grin wrinkled his wizened face as he reached out to rake in the money in the center of the table, adding it to the pile of winnings in front of him. “Luck is with me tonight, gentlemen,” he said.

“Somethin’s with you, but I ain’t sure it’s luck,” one of the men at the table said with a scowl.

“Fortune favors the bold, or so they say. I always done had a streak of boldness in me. That’s why they call it gamblin’.”