Preacher's Fire

“Well, that’s good, I suppose. It still bothers me about those others, though.”

“It’s a harsh land,” Preacher said bluntly. “Men die, and the ones who live move on. That’s the way of it, and nothin’ you can do will change that.”

“I suppose you’re right. I can’t help but think about what those men would have done to my wife and children . . .” Donnelly took a deep breath. “But I’m not going to think about that. I’m going to think about the new life that’s waiting for us in Oregon instead.” He held out his hand. “Good-bye, Preacher. And good luck on whatever mission it is the two of you are on.”

“Much obliged,” Preacher said as he shook hands with Donnelly. He thought about the odds facing him and Uncle Dan in St. Louis, where they would try to destroy a beast of prey in his own lair. “Chances are, we’re gonna need all the luck we can get.”

For the next few days as they traveled eastward, Preacher kept an eye out for Buckhalter or any of the other members of the gang that had attacked the wagon train. As far as he knew, Buckhalter was on foot, and Preacher halfway expected to come across the renegade’s scalped and mutilated body. He and Uncle Dan didn’t see any sign of the man though.

As they drew closer to St. Louis, Preacher did a lot of thinking, and he let Uncle Dan in on some of it.

“If Beaumont’s put a bounty on my head, he’s got to be a mite worried about me comin’ after him,” Preacher mused as they rode along.

Uncle Dan grunted. “More’n a mite, I’d say. He’s got to be scared plumb half to death. He knows you ain’t a good fella to have for an enemy, son.”

“As many pies as he has his fingers in, I reckon he’s got folks scattered all over St. Louis who work for him,” Preacher went on, thinking out loud. “That means if I just ride into town right out in the open, somebody’s gonna see me and go runnin’ to Beaumont to tell him I’m there. It won’t be an hour before all the crooked varmints in St. Louis are tryin’ to draw a bead on my back.”

Uncle Dan scratched at his beard and frowned. “Yeah, that’s a problem, all right. You got any ideas how to get around it?”

“Maybe,” Preacher mused. He scratched his own beard. “I been thinkin’ maybe it’s time I got rid o’ these whiskers.”

“You mean to shave?” Uncle Dan sounded horrified. “Preacher, you’ve had a beard ever since I’ve knowed you.”

“Which, as you pointed out your own self a few days ago, ain’t been all that long. Listen, Uncle Dan . . . when folks think of Preacher, they think of a rangy fella in buckskins, with a beard and sort of long hair and a big ol’ wolflike dog followin’ along with him. If I shaved my beard off and cut my hair and dressed some other way, they wouldn’t be near as quick to spot me.”

The old-timer thought it over and began to nod slowly. “You’re right. You could leave Dog with me, too, if’n he’d go along with that.”

“He’ll do what I tell him. Most of the time, anyway. And he knows you by now, which’ll help.”

“So you’re gonna pretend to be somebody else when we get to Sant Looey?”

“I have to start pretendin’ before we get there,” Preacher said. “I’m gonna come at the settlement from a different direction, too. There’s a ferry about fifty miles down the Mississippi. I’m gonna cross the river there, ride north, and then take one of the ferries at St. Louis like I just got to that part of the country from back east somewhere.”

Uncle Dan laughed. “Preacher, that is plumb sneaky! Beaumont won’t have nary a clue that you’re in town.”

“That’s the idea,” Preacher said with a nod.

“Where you gonna get different clothes, though? You ain’t got any with you ’cept’n your buckskins.”

“You’ll have to help me out there. They ain’t watchin’ for you. When we get closer, I’ll make camp, and you’ll go on into the settlement and pick up a new outfit for me. While you’re gone, I’ll scrape off these bristles and hack off some of this hair, so I’ll be ready to pretend to be somebody else when you get back.”

Uncle Dan grinned. “Don’t cut off too much of your hair. Remember what happened to ol’ Samson in the Good Book.”

“I don’t reckon I’ll have to worry about that. I don’t expect to run into any Delilahs in St. Louis.”

Uncle Dan shook his head. “I wouldn’t count on that.”

Preacher and Uncle Dan made camp about a day’s ride west of St. Louis. Preacher didn’t want to get any closer than that, because the closer he came to the settlement, the better the chances he might run into somebody who worked for Shad Beaumont.

“I’ll see you in a couple of days,” he said to Uncle Dan as the old-timer prepared to ride on eastward the next morning. Preacher had given him money to buy the new clothes, almost all the coins he had left from the last time he had sold some pelts. “When you get back, I’ll be a whole new hombre.” Preacher paused. “I’m countin’ on you, Uncle Dan. Don’t go gettin’ drunk in Red Mike’s or any of those other waterfront dives and forget to come back out here with those new clothes.”

“Don’t you worry,” Uncle Dan assured him. “I got a mighty big grudge against ol’ Beaumont, too. There’ll be time to wet my whistle later.”

With a cheerful wave, Uncle Dan rode off, heading eastward. Preacher watched him go, then said to the big cur, “Might as well go ahead and take care of my part, Dog. That’ll give me some time to get used to not havin’ all this hair on my face.”

He got a straight razor and a small piece of a broken looking glass from his pack and went to work. It was a painful task, scraping off months’ worth of whiskers. By the time he was finished, he was bleeding from half a dozen nicks and cuts.

As he looked at himself in the glass, he realized that his plan had a flaw he hadn’t thought of until now. The part of his face that the beard had covered was considerably paler than the rest of it, which bore a permanent tan from the outdoor life he had led for years.