Preacher's Fire

“She ain’t back from Beaumont’s yet. She said for you to come in and wait.”

Cleve nodded. “All right.”

He went inside and the door closed, leaving the rear of the house in darkness again. Preacher stood at the corner of the building, frowning in thought.

Was Jessie the one who had sent Cleve to follow him? She had known that she was visiting Beaumont’s house tonight, instead of the other way around, so she could have figured that Beaumont might dismiss Preacher for the night.

On the other hand, she could have simply been acting on Beaumont’s orders and serving as an intermediary between him and Cleve, although Preacher couldn’t really see why Beaumont would go to that much trouble.

The best way to find out the truth was to wait until Jessie got back, so that’s what Preacher settled down to do.

About an hour later, he heard the clatter of carriage wheels in front of the house. Several vehicles had passed by on the street while he was standing in the shadows, waiting, but this one came to a halt. Preacher ventured to the front corner of the house and watched as Lorenzo opened the door of Beaumont’s fancy carriage and helped Jessie climb out.

“Thank you, Lorenzo,” she told him.

The driver tipped his hat. “My pleasure, Miss Jessie.”

Then Jessie came up the walk to the house. Preacher could see well enough to tell that she had a shawl draped around her shoulders.

Brutus met her at the door. “Cleve’s back,” he said, his deep voice carrying in the still, quiet night. “He’s waitin’ for you in your office.”

“Thank you, Brutus.” Jessie’s tone was brisk and businesslike now. As she disappeared into the house and Brutus shut the door, Preacher turned and hurried along the whitewashed side of the house. He had never been in Jessie’s office, but he had been around the house enough in the past week to have figured out that it was in the rear of the house.

Only one window back there had the glow of lamp-light showing through it. Preacher headed for it. The night was warm, and he hoped that the window would be open, at least a little.

It was. He crouched underneath it and was able to hear clearly as Jessie came in and said, “Hello, Cleve.”

A chair scraped as the gambler stood up. “Jessie,” he said. “You’re looking as lovely as ever.”

“Just tell me what you found out. Were you able to follow Donnelly?”

“Yes, your hunch was right. Beaumont told him he could leave the house tonight, since you were coming over there.”

“Where did he go? Some dive down by the river?”

“Hardly.” Cleve paused. “I followed him to a spot about a mile west of town. He met someone there, under some trees, and talked to them for a while. I couldn’t get close enough to see who it was, though, or to hear what they were saying.”

“Then he is up to something! I knew it!” Jessie’s voice was breathless with excitement. “But what?”

“I don’t know, but I think we need to keep an eye on him. If he really had something to do with that shot at Beaumont, as you suspect, then he’s planning something and wanted to get close to Beaumont for a reason.”

From the sound of it, Preacher thought, Jessie hadn’t sent Cleve to follow him on Beaumont’s behalf. If anything, it almost sounded like the two of them didn’t like Beaumont any more than Preacher himself did.

That was confirmed a moment later when Jessie said, “We have to find out who Donnelly is and what he’s after. We don’t want him getting in the way when we make our own move against Shad.”

“I agree.”

“Where did he go when he got back to town? To Beaumont’s house?”

“I don’t know, damn it,” Cleve replied with a note of bitter disappointment in his voice. “I hate to admit it, Jessie, but I lost him somewhere in town.”

“Lost him!” Jessie sounded upset, and maybe a little scared. “He didn’t know you were following him, did he?”

“I don’t see how he could have. I was very careful.”

In the darkness outside the window, a grin tugged at Preacher’s mouth. Cleve might be a good gambler and able to take care of himself in town, but he was no frontiersman.

“We’ll have to figure out some other way to find out what we need to know,” Jessie mused. “Maybe Cassandra could get it out of him. He seemed to like her.”

Preacher’s interest perked right up at that comment. He hadn’t seen Casey in a week, and he was starting to get a mite worried about her.

Evidently with good cause, too, because Cleve asked, “How’s she doing?”

“She hasn’t recovered from what Beaumont did to her,” Jessie said, “but she’s getting better. Another week and she might be all right.

Preacher stiffened, and a cold finger ran along his spine. What the devil could Beaumont have done to Casey to make her keep out of sight for two weeks? He must have hurt her pretty bad to do that.

Maybe what he ought to do, he thought, was march right in there and put his cards on the table with Jessie and Cleve. If they were out to bring Beaumont down, too, they could prove to be valuable allies.