Concentrating on helping Preacher, they didn’t see Garity getting to his feet, but the mountain man did. He rasped, “Look out . . . Garity . . .”
Roland let go of Preacher’s arm, reaching for the pistol behind his belt as he turned toward Garity. He was too late. In Garity’s hand was a flintlock derringer he’d taken from inside his buckskins. He thrust it out in front of him and pulled the trigger as Casey cried, “No!”
Smoke and flame erupted from the derringer’s muzzle. Preacher heard the ball thud into flesh, saw Roland stagger and fall. Casey let go of Preacher and launched herself at Garity again.
He met her with a vicious backhand that cracked across her face and sent her spinning off her feet.
Preacher fought to stay upright. He was weak and didn’t have a weapon, but he would fight Garity with his bare hands if that was all he could do. He would fight to the last breath, too, and it looked like it might come to that. The shooting around the wagons was beginning to die down. Preacher knew from the grin that stretched across Garity’s face that the bullwhackers hadn’t won.
“You’ve caused me a hell of a lot of trouble, Preacher,” Garity said. The insane rage that had filled the man earlier had faded. His eyes were filled with a colder, even more diabolical fury. “But you’ll pay for it,” Garity went on. “Damned if you won’t.”
Preacher took an unsteady step toward the man and clenched his fists. “Go ahead and . . . get it over with,” he rasped.
“Not yet,” Garity said. He looked past Preacher and nodded.
It was an old trick . . . but it wasn’t always a trick. Preacher heard a heavy step behind him and tried to turn, but before he could move something crashed into the back of his head. For the second time in less than twelve hours, he was sent plunging into a black oblivion.
CHAPTER 22
It was a damn good thing he had a thick skull, Preacher thought as consciousness seeped back into his head. If he didn’t, his brains would be scrambled good and proper by now.
He saw light and felt heat, but it wasn’t the same as before. The glow that penetrated his closed eyelids danced and flickered, and the heat wasn’t steady.
He was close to a fire.
And he was bound again, but not staked out on the ground. He was upright. When he shifted as much as the ropes around his arms would allow, he felt a rough surface scrape his back. After a moment he figured out that his wrists were tied together behind his back, and another rope wound around his torso binding him to what felt like a wagon wheel.
It was a wagon wheel, he saw when he forced his eyes open. He was tied to the front wheel, and Casey was bound similarly to the rear wheel on the same side of the vehicle. Preacher looked past her and saw Roland Bartlett tied to another wagon. The left shoulder of his shirt was stained with blood where Garity had shot him with the derringer, and his head sagged forward. He was unconscious, but his chest rose and fell, so he was still alive.
They were on the inside of the circle. Preacher could see several other men were tied to wagon wheels, too. He recognized them as some of the bullwhackers he had left with Roland. They were the survivors from the bunch that had launched the attack on the outlaw camp while Roland provided a distraction.
Preacher wondered where Dog and Horse were. Probably within earshot, knowing his old friends. He figured they would come if he whistled to summon them, but that would expose them to danger at the hands of the outlaws.
Night had fallen. Preacher realized he had lost most of an entire day. The oxen were crowded over to one side of the area inside the circle of wagons, and a big fire had been built on the side closest to the wagons where the prisoners were bound. The outlaws were gathered around it.
One of the men had noticed Preacher lift his head. The man nudged Garity and jerked his chin toward the wagons. Garity looked around, saw that Preacher was awake, and grinned. He ambled over, carrying a jug. Preacher could smell the rotgut whiskey on Garity’s breath, even from several feet away.
“Damn, you got a hard head!” Garity said, unknowingly echoing the same thought that had gone through Preacher’s brain a few moments earlier. “I thought sure you was dead this time.”
“Not even close,” Preacher rasped, which was sort of a lie. He felt at least half dead.
But that meant he was still half alive, too, and that half was a hell of a lot stubborner than the dead part.
“I’ll bet you’re wonderin’ why I didn’t just go ahead and kill you.”
“I don’t waste my time wondering about what loco snakes like you do or don’t do,” Preacher said.
Garity went on as if Preacher hadn’t said anything. “I’m tired of havin’ to worry about you people poppin’ up to cause trouble for me. Now that I’ve got you all here, I’m gonna finish you off once and for all.”
Garity didn’t know it, but he was wrong. Lorenzo and the bullwhackers who had been wounded too badly to come along on the rescue mission were still back at the springs. But it didn’t really matter, Preacher knew. Those men wouldn’t be able to help him and the other prisoners.
Garity waved a hand. “We got you all lined up here like targets, so that’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna have some target practice.” Garity stepped closer and poked a hard, bony finger against Preacher’s bare chest. “Startin’ with you, you son of a bitch. We’re gonna shoot away little pieces of you and see how long we can keep you alive.”
“What about the girl?” Preacher asked.
Before Garity could answer, Casey said hotly, “You might as well go ahead and kill me, too. I won’t cooperate with you.”
