Garity leered at her. “You go ahead and fight all you want to, darlin’. Just makes it that much sweeter for me, and I’ll bet most of the boys here feel the same way. The ones in Santa Fe will, too.”
“I’ll kill you,” Casey said in a low, threatening voice. “You’ll never be able to turn your back on me, Garity. You’ll never be able to close your eyes. Because I’ll find a way to kill you.”
“I’d like to see you try, honey.”
“But you don’t have to worry about that,” Casey went on. “I’ll make a deal with you.”
Garity shook his head. “You got nothin’ to bargain with.”
“You don’t think so? Leave Preacher, Roland, and the other men alive. Tomorrow morning you can leave them tied up so it’ll take them all day to get loose. By then you’ll be far enough down the trail that they’ll never catch up to you. If you do that”—Casey swallowed hard—“I’ll make it worth your while. I give you my word on that.”
“What can you do that’d make it worth my while?”
“I worked in a whorehouse from the time I was sixteen,” Casey said with a defiant jut of her chin. “I promise you, Garity, I know some tricks that’ll surprise even a man like you.”
Garity looked at her and chortled. “You think so? You make it mighty temptin’.”
Roland’s head had started to lift during the last exchange. He heard enough of it, and understood enough, to prompt him to call out shakily, “N-no, Casey! Don’t!”
“Shut up, mister,” Garity snapped. “This is between me and this little trollop.” He looked at Casey again and went on, “I’ll admit you got me curious, but it ain’t enough. I don’t want no more trouble, so we’re gonna just go ahead and shoot these other fellas. If I have to knock you out to get what I want from you, that’s all right.”
The oxen began to shift around nervously. Preacher noticed that and frowned. Something was bothering them, and it took a lot to spook those massive, stolid beasts. He peered through the gaps between the wagons, searching the night, but it was hard to see anything in the thick darkness, especially since his sight had been compromised by the bright flames of the campfire. He drew in a deep breath, thinking he might catch a whiff of a particular scent, but the smell of the woodsmoke covered up everything except the whiskey fumes Garity was breathing toward him from only a few feet away.
In fact, Garity lifted the jug just then and asked, “You want a drink, Preacher? One last drink before we start shootin’ you to pieces?”
“I wouldn’t drink after you if that was the last jug of corn squeezin’s on earth,” Preacher answered with a glare.
“I got news for you.” Garity laughed. “As far as you’re concerned, this
Preacher looked at the way the oxen had started tossing their heads around a little. Even though the possibility that had occurred to him was so farfetched it was hard to believe, he took the chance anyway.
What did he have to lose?
“You’d better not shoot me,” he said. “You’ll be mighty sorry if you do.”
“I don’t think so,” Garity responded. “Why in the hell would you say that?”
“Because if you kill me,” Preacher said, “the spirit of my brother the bear is gonna come after you and tear you apart.”
Garity and the outlaws stared at him. “Your brother the bear?” Garity repeated. “What in blazes are you talkin’ about?”
“It’s true,” Preacher insisted. “Me and the grizzly bear are brothers. He’s my totem animal, as the Injuns would say. He follows me around and protects me.”
“And you had the gall to call me loco! That’s the craziest thing I ever heard.”
“If you don’t believe me, go ahead and shoot me,” Preacher said calmly. “The spirit bear won’t just get you, though.” He raised his voice as he looked around at the other outlaws and went on, “He’ll come in here and kill all the rest of your men, too. Rip ’em into little pieces, that’s what he’ll do. If you don’t believe me, ask them.” He jerked his head toward Casey and Roland and the other prisoners. “They’ve all seen it with their own eyes.”
“It’s true,” Casey said quickly. “The biggest bear I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s terribly ferocious, and . . . and it follows Preacher around!”
She wasn’t stretching the truth by much, Preacher thought. The bear had certainly seemed to be following him for hundreds of miles.
“I saw it,” Roland put in. “The thing is a monster, and you can’t kill it. Before we knew about its connection to Preacher, we shot it again and again, and it just kept coming. It . . . it killed my father.”
Roland’s voice broke, and there was no doubting his sincerity. He and Casey had caught on so quickly to what Preacher was doing. Several of the bullwhackers chimed in as well, telling Garity how fierce and massive the beast was.
They probably thought Preacher was stalling for time, clinging to life any way he could for as long as he could, just as he had done all those years ago when the Blackfeet took him prisoner and planned to burn him at the stake.
But there was a big difference. Preacher was stalling, sure, but he was also waiting to see if his crazy hunch might be true. No reason why it shouldn’t be, he told himself. The oxen were nervous . . . and Garity’s men were starting to get that way, too. He saw the furtive, worried looks they exchanged with each other.
“There’s only one way you can kill me and keep the spirit bear from seekin’ revenge,” Preacher said.
“Yeah? How’s that?” Garity asked with a sneer.
“In a fair fight. Turn me loose and you and me can settle this man to man, Garity. If I die fightin’, it’ll be an honorable death and the ghost bear won’t have to avenge me.”
