Preacher couldn’t argue with any of that. He knew Cleve was right about how bad Shad Beaumont was. He still wasn’t sure that justified sinking to Beaumont’s level.
There was no way to go back and change things now though. He just said, “I don’t like it,” and left it at that.
Cleve chuckled. “Then it’s a good thing you’re not in charge here, isn’t it?”
Preacher let that go, although it wasn’t easy, and said, “What’s next?”
“Jessie and I haven’t decided yet. We were thinking that some of Beaumont’s warehouses might just happen to burn down.”
Preacher shook his head. “You do somethin’ like that, you’ll risk burnin’ down the whole town, includin’ this place. You don’t want to take that chance. You’d be better off cleanin’ out those warehouses instead and movin’ the goods somewhere else.”
“That would involve killing the guards. I thought you were opposed to that much bloodshed.”
“I ain’t gonna lose any sleep over somebody who takes money from Beaumont, knowin’ the sort of varmint he is,” Preacher said. “Anyway, you wouldn’t have to kill the guards, just knock ’em out.”
Cleve looked across the table at him. “Do you know anyone stealthy enough to accomplish something like that?”
“I might,” Preacher said. “I just might.”
Cleve thought about it for a moment and then began to nod. “I’ll talk it over with Jessie, but it’s not a bad idea. That way the merchandise isn’t destroyed. The profits from it go into our coffers instead. Which makes me wonder . . . just how big a share are
“I ain’t all that interested in the money, either. I’m after a different payoff.”
“Making Shad Beaumont’s life a living hell and then killing him?” Cleve guessed.
Putting it like that made it sound even worse, Preacher thought, and yet that was exactly the goal that had brought him to St. Louis. Never again, he vowed. From here on out, whenever he had a score to settle with a man, he would do it right out in the open.
“Let’s just figure out which of those warehouses you want to clean out first,” he said.
Three nights later, in the dark of the moon, Preacher stole through an alley near the riverfront. He had a bandanna tied over the lower half of his face like a damned highwayman, which he didn’t like, but it was necessary to conceal his identity because it was possible someone might see him and recognize him if he didn’t wear it.
His destination was a warehouse full of stolen goods supplied by a ring of thieves working for Beaumont. Jessie had agreed with the plan Preacher and Cleve hatched, and now Preacher was carrying out his part of it.
He had waited until after midnight to slip out of his quarters at Beaumont’s house and make his way here. According to what Jessie had been able to find out, there were two guards outside the warehouse and two more inside. She knew this because Beaumont’s men sometimes patronized her house when they had been lucky at cards and were particularly flush. A whore could always find a way to make a man talk and never even realize just how much information he was spilling.
Evidently things had gone well three nights earlier when Jessie took Beaumont upstairs. Preacher didn’t like to think too much about that, but clearly Beaumont hadn’t given in to his rage while he was with her, and that was the important thing. Since the ambush during the attempted riverboat robbery, Beaumont had resumed his normal routine for the most part, although he spent some of the time asking questions in waterfront dives, trying to find out who was behind what had happened. Preacher accompanied him on those trips and saw firsthand how Beaumont wasn’t having any luck with his investigation. Jessie and Cleve had done a good job of covering their tracks.
For a man who had crawled into Indian camps and slit the throats of several warriors without any of the other Indians knowing a thing about it until morning, sneaking up on these warehouse guards didn’t pose much of a challenge for Preacher. Even though it was late, raucous laughter and the scraping notes of a fiddle came from a nearby tavern, helping to cover up any sounds he might make as he approached the big double doors of the warehouse. Two men sat on kegs near the doors, one on either side, and while they might be tough gents, their senses didn’t come anywhere near being as keen as those of a Blackfoot or Crow warrior. Preacher slipped along the brick wall of the building until he was close enough to reach out and touch the nearer of the two guards.
He struck swiftly and without warning, his left arm shooting out to loop around the guard’s neck and jerk the man to his feet. Preacher’s arm closed so tightly that the guard couldn’t let out a yell, couldn’t even croak. The sound of the keg overturning alerted the other guard, though, so Preacher didn’t waste any time. He rushed the guard he held across the twenty or so feet separating him from the second of Beaumont’s men and rammed the first guard into the second one as that man leaped to his feet. Their heads cracked together, and both men went limp and slumped to the ground.
That left the two inside. Preacher knew the doors were barred on the inside, so he had to get the other two guards to open up. He left the two he had knocked out lying on the ground and used his fist to pound on one of the doors.
When he heard footsteps approaching inside the warehouse and saw the glow of lantern light seeping through the narrow crack between the doors, he bent and hoisted one of the unconscious men to his feet. He knew their names were Tompkins and Rice. There was a viewing slot cut into the warehouse door, and when it was thrust back and a bar of light shone through it, Preacher stood halfway behind the man he held, so that the guard inside the warehouse couldn’t get a good look at him. He saw the gray-shot beard jutting out from the chin of the unconscious man and knew this was Rice he held.
“Something’s wrong with Rice,” he rasped, muffling his voice a little against the man’s shoulder. “He just moaned and fell over. Might be his heart.”
“Son of a—Hold on,” the guard on the other side of the door said. Preacher heard the bar being lifted, and then the other door opened a couple of feet.
“Bring him in here. Maybe one of us ought to fetch the sawbones.”
Preacher kept his head ducked down as he lugged the limp form through the narrow opening. One of the inside guards swung it closed behind him and lowered the bar again.
