Shad Beaumont would still be there when he got there. Beaumont didn’t leave the city. He sent others west to the mountains to do his dirty work for him.
The ferryman, who was a tall, scrawny fellow with a black patch over his left eye, pointed over his shoulder with a knobby thumb. “I got a jug o’ whiskey in the shack, if’n you’d like a drink whilst you wait. Won’t cost you but a nickel.”
“Kind of steep, ain’t it?”
The man grinned. “It’s good whiskey. Guaranteed not to give you the blind staggers.”
“I don’t reckon I can pass that up,” Preacher said as he swung down from the saddle and wrapped Horse’s reins around a hitching post near the wooden landing.
He wasn’t particularly thirsty, but he had a hunch the old ferryman might prove to be talkative, especially if his throat was lubricated with a little Who-hit-John. Preacher followed him into the shack and sat down on a cane- bottomed chair. The ferryman took the jug out of a drawer in an old, scarred rolltop desk.
“You got business in Saint Looey?” the ferryman asked. He pulled the cork from the neck of the jug with his teeth, spat it into his other hand, and then held the jug out to Preacher.
“I reckon you could say that.” Preacher took the jug, lifted it to his lips, and downed a healthy slug of the raw corn liquor it contained. The stuff burned like fire all the way down his gullet and lit a blaze in his belly. He gasped, then blew out his breath and wiped the back of his other hand across his mouth.
The ferryman cackled. “Told you it was good stuff. Packs quite a wallop, don’t it?”
“Yeah,” Preacher rasped. His throat had pretty much recovered from Mike Moran trying to strangle him, but now it felt as if the lining had been burned out of it. He went on, “I’m lookin’ for a job. That’s why I’m goin’ to St. Louis.”
The ferryman ran his gaze up and down Preacher’s lanky frame in the drab clothes and quaker hat. “You look like you’ve spent some time behind a plow.”
“Too damn much time,” Preacher said with a disgusted snort. “That’s why I lit out for the west. I had all the farmin’ I could stand. Wanted to see some of the country before I got too old and wore-out to enjoy it.”
The ferryman slapped his thigh. “I used to feel the same way, son!” he said. “Then, whilst I wasn’t lookin’, I got old and wore-out anyway! Now I spend my days runnin’ this ferry and watchin’ other folks come and go.”
“You live here?” Preacher asked.
“Got a place over yonder in Saint Looey.” The ferryman held out a bony hand. “Here, gimme that jug.”
“I can pay,” Preacher protested.
“Oh, hell, don’t worry ’bout that. I’ve taken a likin’ to you, son. You remind me o’ me when I was a younker. And I like havin’ somebody around to talk to whilst I’m waitin’ for the ferry to get back. So I ain’t gonna charge you for the whiskey. I just want a swig of it myself.”
Preacher grinned and handed over the jug. He was glad the old man had decided not to take his money for the liquor. He didn’t have very many coins left.
They passed the jug back and forth, and as Preacher had suspected, the ferryman got more garrulous with every drink. Preacher said, “St. Louis looks like a mighty big town. What’s it like over there?”
“Big ain’t the half of it. It’s the biggest town in this whole part of the country. I don’t reckon you ever saw anything like it back on the farm. Folks ever’where you look, and cobblestone streets, and buildin’s all crowded close together . . . and some days, there are so many steamboats at the docks, you can’t hardly see the town from here because o’ their smokestacks.”
“I don’t know,” Preacher said with a dubious frown. “I’m startin’ to think it might not be safe over there for an ol’ country boy like me.”
“You got to be careful, all right. There’s fellas who’ll cut your throat for a nickel, or sometimes just because they feel like it. Once you’ve crossed, I’d get away from the riverfront if I was you. That’s a rough patch down there, let me tell you.”
“One of the fellas from back home came out here for a while,” Preacher said. “When he got back, he told all sorts of stories. Said there are lots of taverns, and houses with fancy ladies in ’em, and that this one fella owned most of them—”
“Shad Beaumont.” The old ferryman nodded sagely. “I’ve heard of him. I reckon everybody in Saint Looey has. It’s only a rumor, though, that he owns most of the taverns and whorehouses. He has a fur tradin’ company and a couple of emporiums and a livery stable. Hell, and who knows what else. He’s a rich gent, that’s for sure, and he’s got friends in high places. The town’s gettin’ what they call society now, and Beaumont’s part of it.”
“Have you ever met him?”
“Me?” The ferryman tilted the jug to his mouth and took a long swallow. The fiery stuff didn’t seem to bother him. He had probably blistered his insides with it so much that he didn’t even feel the burn anymore, Preacher thought. The old man wiped his mouth and went on, “Why would I have any dealin’s with Shad Beaumont? I’m just a no-account old ferryman. I seen him drive by a time or two in his fancy carriage, though. He goes to a place called Dupree’s. Some say he owns it, others claim he just likes to drink there.” A frown formed on the ferryman’s forehead. “Say, why are you so interested in Beaumont, son?”
“Maybe I’ll see if he’d like to hire me,” Preacher replied with a grin. “I told you, I’m lookin’ for work.”
The ferryman snorted. “I don’t reckon you’ll find any work with Beaumont less’n you’re willin’ to do some mighty shady things.”
“I thought you said it was just rumors that he’s some sort of crook.”
“That’s what some folks believe. I didn’t say I was one of ’em.”
“So you
“I don’t know a damned thing about it, one way or the other.” The old-timer put the cork back in the jug and
