Preacher's Assault

They’d had breakfast, so all that was left to do was hitch up the oxen and saddle the horses. As Preacher was putting his saddle on the big gray stallion, Lorenzo came up to him and asked, “Are you thinkin’ about goin’ after that bear, Preacher?”

The mountain man smiled. “You must’ve read my mind, Lorenzo. I pondered on it, sure enough. But I reckon it might be better if I stayed with the wagons. Ain’t no tellin’ when Garity and his bunch might make another try for ’em.”

“Well, that’s true. I figured I’d go with you if you went, and I got to tell you, I wasn’t lookin’ forward to it. I hope that bear just leaves us alone from here on out.”

Preacher hoped so, too, but he was going to be surprised if things turned out that way.

The wagons crossed the creek without incident and rolled on west as the sun rose higher in the sky. Since the oxen had had a day to rest, they seemed stronger and pulled harder in response to the popping of the bullwhips and the raucous shouts of the freighters. The miles fell behind them.

Preacher rode in front with Bartlett and Lorenzo most of the time, galloping ahead every now and then to get the lay of the land. The terrain wasn’t quite as flat. There were some rolling hills, and Preacher had reined in at the crest of one of those long, gentle slopes with Dog beside him when he spotted some movement in the distance. It was too far away for him to identify. Could have been some buffalo or antelope . . . or men on horseback. Preacher couldn’t tell. But whatever it was, they were moving away from the trail.

Even though the distant movement wasn’t an immediate threat, it was a good reminder that they weren’t alone out there, Preacher told himself. The landscape might seem vast and empty, but it really wasn’t.

When he returned to the caravan, he saw Casey and Roland riding together beside one of the wagons. The young woman hadn’t spoken to him all day. That was all right with Preacher, but still he felt a little pang of loss. Casey was a fine gal. Although he had enjoyed the time they spent together he knew she would be better off with somebody other than him.

The jury was still out on whether that particular somebody was Roland Bartlett.

Other than the one glimpse Preacher had of movement in the distance, they didn’t see anyone all that day or the next. In fact, a week went by without the wagon train encountering anything except wildlife. The days were long, hard, and tedious, but Preacher knew there wouldn’t be many more of them before the caravan reached the Cimarron Cutoff.

Of course, once they got past that point, the trip would just get even harder.

Casey had been avoiding him for the most part, and when she did speak to him, she only said what she had to. Preacher wished there had been some way to handle the situation without offending her, but like everything else in life, it was what it was.

She came to him one night and said, “Preacher, I need to talk to you about something.”

He frowned. “Sounds a mite ominous.”

“No, we just need to get something settled.”

He shrugged. For a second there, he had thought she was going to tell him that she was in the family way, since they had been together a number of times during the trip from St. Louis to Independence. Preacher knew it was possible there were some half-breed Indian kids with his features running around various villages where he had wintered, but he was reasonably sure he didn’t have any children by white women. He wasn’t certain what he would have done if Casey had told him she was expecting.

“I was about to take a walk around the camp,” he told her. “Why don’t you come with me? We can have a little privacy for our talk.”

“That’s a good idea.”

He pulled one of the pistols from behind his belt and handed it to her. “Here, you hang on to that,” he said. “Just in case we run into any trouble. I’ll carry my rifle.”

“Fine. You know I can handle a gun.”

“Wouldn’t have given you one if I didn’t.”

They left the campfire and the wagons, walking out about fifty yards, then turning to stroll around the circle. Preacher held his long legs to a gait that Casey could match.

He waited for Casey to start since she was the one who had asked for the conversation. The silence between them drew out until it started to get awkward.

Finally she said, “I’m sorry about what happened back up the trail. That business with Roland, I mean.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Preacher told her. “It wasn’t your fault, and anyway, no harm was done.”

“It was my fault,” she said. “I got angry and frustrated with you, and I turned to him for comfort. He took that to mean . . . more than it did.”

Preacher frowned. “Roland’s not a bad sort, for a greenhorn.”

“I know that. But he can’t compare to you, Preacher.” She held up a hand to stop him when he started to speak. “Oh, I know it was never going to last between us. We were never going to get married and settle down and raise a passel of kids. In fact, I’m not even sure if I can have children. I had some problems a few years ago . . .”

“You don’t need to talk about that,” Preacher said gruffly.

Casey took a deep breath. “Anyway, I knew not to expect too much from you.” He could hear the smile in her voice as she added, “You’re already married to the wilderness.”

“You’ll find you a nice young fella one of these days. Maybe Roland, maybe somebody else, but I’m sure it’ll be all right.”

“I’m not,” she said. “How could I ever marry a . . . a respectable man, after all the things I’ve done? It wouldn’t be fair to him. I’d have to lie to him, because if I told him the truth, no decent man would ever want me.”