Preacher lifted his left arm. It was splinted and wrapped up from elbow to wrist, but at this point, that was more of a precaution than anything else.
“It’s pretty much healed now,” he said. Several weeks had passed since the bone had been broken about halfway down his forearm. “I can use it without any trouble. It just aches a little ever’ now and then.”
“Well, you best be careful with it. You want to be at full strength when we get there. Killin’ that bastard Beaumont ain’t gonna be easy.”
“No,” Preacher said, thinking of all the evil that had been done because of the man called Shad Beaumont, “but it sure is gonna be satisfyin’.”
Chapter 2
Preacher had left his family’s farm at a young age, driven by an undeniable wanderlust. Many of the years since then had been spent in the Rocky Mountains, although his fiddle-footed nature had taken him as far south as Texas and as far north as Canada. He had also made a number of trips back east to St. Louis, and that was his destination now.
He wasn’t going there to sell furs that he had trapped in the mountains, though, as he had done in the past.
This time, he was going to kill a man.
Twice now, Shad Beaumont had dispatched agents to the mountains in an attempt to take over the fur trade. Beaumont was the boss of the criminal underworld in St. Louis, but that wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to branch out, to spread his unholy influence over the mountains, and when Preacher had helped foil his first effort in that direction, Beaumont hadn’t hesitated to send hired killers after him.
Preacher was still alive, and those would-be assassins were dead, but they weren’t the only ones who had died. Innocent folks had been killed, and Preacher was filled with righteous wrath over those deaths. Some of the people who had died hadn’t exactly been what anybody would call innocent, but they hadn’t deserved to die, and Preacher wanted to avenge what had happened to them, too.
It all added up to Preacher going to St. Louis and confronting the arch-criminal on his own stomping grounds. Venturing into the lair of a vicious animal was always dangerous, but it was also the fastest, simplest way to deal with the threat.
So Preacher and Uncle Dan Sullivan had ridden out of the mountains, following the North Platte River to the Missouri and then following the Missouri on its curving course through the heart of the country toward St. Louis. Uncle Dan had his own grudge against Beaumont, since his nephew Pete Sanderson had died as a result of Beaumont’s latest scheme. Over and above that, Preacher and Uncle Dan had become friends, and the old-timer hadn’t wanted Preacher to set out alone with a broken arm. It was true that by now Preacher’s arm was almost healed, but he had to admit, it had come in handy having Uncle Dan around to help with setting up camp and tending the horses and all the other chores that had to be taken care of when a fella was riding just about halfway across the continent.
Today, of course, Uncle Dan had proved to be even handier than usual by blowing that Pawnee’s head off before he could ventilate Preacher’s hide with an arrow.
The two men rode roughly parallel with the river, through the rolling hills about a mile south of it. The Pawnee and the Cheyenne liked to lurk in these parts, waiting for unwary travelers to come along, and they were worse along the river. Of course, you could run into hostiles just about anywhere out here, as Preacher and Uncle Dan had seen with their own eyes today.
They didn’t encounter any more trouble before nightfall, but they made a cold camp anyway and had a skimpy supper of jerky and hardtack. The two men took turns standing guard during the night.
Other than the sounds of small animals, the prairie was quiet and peaceful, and there had to be about a million stars up there in the deep black heavens, Preacher thought as he lay in his blankets and gazed upward briefly before dozing off. The stars were like jewels, shining with a brilliant intensity, and Preacher felt as if he could just reach up and pluck them out of the sky. He would be a rich man if he could do that.
But he wouldn’t be a free man anymore, not with the sort of freedom that he had craved all his life, and he wouldn’t trade that for all the diamonds and emeralds and rubies in the world.
The next day, they pushed on south and east toward St. Louis. Around mid-morning, Preacher reined in suddenly and leveled an arm to point at the ground ahead of them.
“Look at those tracks,” he told Uncle Dan.
The old-timer had brought his mount to a stop, too. Now he edged the horse forward and leaned over in the saddle to study the faint markings on the ground.
“Unshod ponies,” he said after a moment. “Looks like about twenty of ’em, too. That’d be Standin’ Elk and his glory boys, just like ol’ Bent Stick said.”
Preacher’s eyes narrowed. “Headin’ north toward the river, I’d say. Maybe figure on ambushin’ a flatboat or some pilgrims who come along on horseback, headin’ for the mountains.”
Uncle Dan spat on the ground. “None of our business. Anybody venturin’ into this here country had damned well better know there’s Injuns about. It’s ever’ man’s duty to keep his own eyes open and his powder dry.”
“You’re right,” Preacher said. “Looks like Standin’ Elk and his war party passed through here early this mornin’. I’m glad we missed ’em.”
“You and me both, Preacher.”
Preacher lifted the reins and heeled Horse into motion. With Dog bounding out ahead, as usual, and the pack animals trailing them, the two men rode across the trail left behind by the Pawnee war party.
They didn’t see any other signs of human beings until later in the day. The solitude was magnificent, with just the two men and their horses—insignificant specks, really—moving leisurely across the vast, open prairie. Eagles cruised through the arching bowl of blue sky. Antelope raced by, bounding over the landscape with infinite grace and beauty. Herds of buffalo as seemingly endless as a brown sea drifted slowly this way and that, following the grass and their instincts. Preacher always felt more at home in the mountains than anywhere else, but the prairie held its own appeal, too.
