“And who told you that?” Coonskin Cap demanded.
Preacher smiled thinly, but his eyes remained cold. “I reckon if you’re Dugan, you know the answer to that as well as I do.”
Coonskin Cap studied him intently for a few seconds, then said, “Yeah, this is the fella that Beaumont told us to look for. Put your guns away.” As he lowered the hammer on his own pistol and slid the weapon behind his belt, he went on, “I’m Dugan.”
“Donnelly,” Preacher introduced himself. He hadn’t known that Beaumont was going to tell the men he was coming.
“Yeah, I know.” Dugan waved a bony hand at the other three men. “This is Wilkins, Schrader, and Troy.”
Preacher nodded to them. He didn’t want to seem overly friendly.
And the truth was, he didn’t feel the least bit friendly toward these men. They were about to go out and attack a riverboat and probably murder some of the crew members, as well as helping Beaumont swindle an insurance company. Preacher had heard vaguely of insurance, and while he didn’t fully grasp the concept of it, it seemed a little like a swindle to him, too. But not as bad as the sort of things Beaumont did, that was for sure.
Reminding himself that he wasn’t supposed to know anything about a riverboat or a shipment of cotton, he said, “The boss didn’t tell me what we’re doin’ this afternoon. I supposed one of you fellas would explain it to me.”
“All in good time,” Dugan said as he pointed to an empty chair. “We’re waitin’ on some other fellas. Sit down and have a drink with us, Donnelly.”
Preacher sat and took the bottle when one of the other men handed it to him. The rotgut inside it was vile stuff, Preacher thought, and he knew that his tastes weren’t exactly what anybody would call refined. He downed a healthy swig of it anyway and then wiped the back of his other hand across his mouth as he passed the bottle along.
Over the next half hour, three more men showed up. Dugan introduced them as Marshall, Statler, and Hellman. Once they were there, Dugan said, “All right, I reckon we can go.”
Preacher was a little puzzled. Eight men, counting him, weren’t enough to take over a riverboat. They ought to have at least twice that many for such an attack. He couldn’t very well say anything, though, since he still wasn’t supposed to know what the plan was.
“Where’s your horse?” Dugan asked as they emerged from the tavern.
“Up yonder,” Preacher replied with a nod toward the hitch rail where Horse was tied.
“What did you leave him ’way up there for?” Dugan wanted to know.
Preacher grinned. “You think I’d leave my horse in front of a place full of cutthroats and thieves like this?”
Dugan frowned at him for a second, then suddenly grinned and laughed. “Yeah, you might have a point there,” he said. “I reckon we’re lucky our horses are still here.”
“I believe in bein’ careful,” Preacher said.
He walked up to where he had left Horse, untied the reins, and swung up into the saddle. It took only a moment to rejoin the other men. They rode south along the riverfront and eventually left the settlement behind them.
It was peaceful out here, Preacher thought, with the river flowing majestically to their left. They passed several jetties, on one of which a couple of boys were fishing with cane poles. Preacher wouldn’t have minded joining them for a while if he hadn’t had a job to do. A job that would probably turn into a killing chore before the afternoon was over, he reminded himself.
They had covered several miles, and St. Louis was well out of sight behind them when Preacher spotted several riders coming toward them.
“That’ll be the rest of the boys,” Dugan said with a note of satisfaction in his voice. “The boss didn’t want us to all get together in town. Thought we might draw too much attention if we did. The boss is mighty smart that way.”
Preacher couldn’t argue that Shad Beaumont was smart. It was too bad the man didn’t have even an ounce of scruples to go with his intelligence.
There were seven men in the second group. Dugan didn’t bother telling Preacher their names. He just greeted them and then asked, “You got the boats?”
“Yeah, just like you said,” one of the men replied. “Four canoes. We’ll hit the boat right at the bend, where the channel brings it close to the shore.” The man grinned. “Come paddlin’ out there like a war party o’ damn redskins.”
Preacher looked around at the men. They had the look and stink of towns and cities about them. They might be tough, but they weren’t frontiersmen. He doubted if any of them had ever even seen an Indian who wasn’t tame. They didn’t know anything about war parties.
He kept that opinion to himself, though, and instead asked Dugan, “Don’t you reckon it’s about time you told me what we’re doin’ here?”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Dugan replied with a nod. Before he could go on, though, a high-pitched whistle came from somewhere downstream. Dugan grinned and continued, “Hear that, Donnelly?”
“Yeah. What is it?”
“Steamboat ’round the bend,” Dugan said, “and when it gets here, that’s when the shootin’ starts.”
Chapter 20
“Let me get this straight,” Preacher said to Dugan as they and the other men rode hurriedly toward the bend in
