Cleve asked, “Are you saying that you’re his enemy, even though you work for him?”
Preacher smiled slightly. “An old Chinaman called Sun-tzu once said it was a good idea to keep your friends close but your enemies closer.”
Cleve stared at him. “How does a farmer hear about Sun-tzu?”
Preacher shrugged. He wasn’t sure he wanted to reveal who he really was, just yet, but if he had, he could have explained that many of the men who came to the Rocky Mountains as fur trappers were educated, well-read men. Some of them could quote Shakespeare, Milton, and other poets for hours on end. As it happened, Preacher had heard another mountain man named Audie talking about Sun-tzu, and the name and the quote had stuck in his head.
Instead of going into all that, though, he said, “I reckon I must’ve heard it somewhere. It makes good sense, don’t it?”
“What do you have against Beaumont?” Jessie asked sharply.
“I reckon that’s my business.”
“And how do we know that you’re telling the truth? You could be lying just to save your skin.”
“You ain’t told me why you’re pretendin’ to be his friends while you’re really working against him,” Preacher pointed out.
Jessie leaned back in her chair and continued giving him that cool, level stare for several seconds. Then she said, “You’re right. But I’ll do better than tell you. I’ll show you.” She got to her feet. “Wait here. Cleve, you’ll keep an eye on him?”
“Be glad to,” the gambler replied, hefting his pistol slightly.
Jessie came out from hehind the desk, went around Preacher’s chair, and left the room. As she did so, Preacher caught a hint of her perfume. It smelled mighty good, sort of like a meadow full of wildflowers on a spring morning in the high country.
“I still say it would be simpler to kill you,” Cleve said when Jessie was gone. “I could tell her you tried to escape, and I had to shoot you.”
“Reckon she’d believe you?”
“I think so.”
Preacher’s eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t advise tryin’ it.”
Cleve tried to meet him stare for stare but couldn’t quite do it. As the gambler’s eyes flicked away, he said, “Jessie generally knows what she’s doing. I’ll string along with her . . . for now.”
A couple of minutes later, the door into the office opened again. Preacher looked around, saw that Jessie was coming back into the room. She had someone with her, and when she stepped aside, Preacher realized that the woman behind her was Casey. The blonde wore a robe and had her head down so that Preacher couldn’t see her face, but he knew it was her.
“You said you wanted to know what we had against Shad Beaumont,” Jessie told him. “This is just one thing, among many.”
She reached out, cupped a hand under Casey’s chin, and gently lifted the blonde’s head so that Preacher could look into her face.
Preacher had seen a lot of bad things in his life. He’d been in a war and seen men blown apart by cannon fire. He had seen whole families, including the youngsters, killed and mutilated by Indians. What he was looking at now was nowhere near as bad as those things.
But it was bad enough to make him come up out of his chair, his hands clenching angrily into fists as he surveyed the damage that had been done to Casey’s face. Both eyes were blackened and still swollen half-closed. Her nose had been broken and reset, but it would probably never look like it had before. Bruises mottled her cheeks and her jaw. Her lips were puffy and had healing cuts on them. More bruises on her neck showed where a big hand had brutally strangled her.
“Beaumont,” Preacher breathed.
“That’s right,” Jessie said. “He held her down and nearly choked the life out of her while he beat her again and again with his other fist. He did this with his bare hands, Mr. Donnelly, and it’s not the first time he’s treated . . . one of my girls . . . this way.”
Preacher caught the slight hesitation in Jessie’s voice and wondered if Beaumont had ever beaten her like that. When Beaumont was around, she seemed friendly and flirtatious, more like a lover than an employee. Obviously, that was just an act.
Casey said in a hoarse voice, “Can I . . . go back to my room now?”
“Of course, dear,” Jessie told her. “I’m sorry I had to bring you in here. But Mr. Donnelly wanted to know why we feel the way we do about Shad Beaumont.”
Casey looked at Preacher before she left. She seemed embarrassed that he had seen her this way, but at the same time, he thought he recognized a hint of a smile on her puffy lips, as if she were glad to see him again. He hoped things would work out so that they could spend some more time together, one of these days.
Once Casey was gone, Preacher asked Jessie, “What did she do to set Beaumont off?”
“Nothing. Nothing that she could remember, anyway. He just flies into these rages sometimes, for no apparent reason. I think it’s because he’s so full of vile hatred and scorn for everybody in the world that from time to time he can’t hold it in behind that smooth facade he puts up.” She paused and drew a deep breath. “He’s an evil man, Mr. Donnelly. A truly evil man.”
“I know. It’s because of him that a bunch of innocent folks I know are dead.”
“I don’t doubt it for an instant.”
Preacher looked over at Cleve, who had finally lowered his gun, although he hadn’t put it away. “How about
