for everything that’s happened lately.” Beaumont drained the whiskey and licked his lips. Then his mouth twisted in a snarl.
It took iron will not to react. Preacher realized after a second that Beaumont hadn’t figured out who he was. Beaumont was just spitting out the name of the person he blamed for all his troubles.
Preacher shook his head. “I don’t reckon I know who that is.”
“You haven’t heard of Preacher?” Beaumont asked with a frown. “He’s some son of a bitch mountain man who’s been taking great delight in ruining some of my plans over the past year or so. Every time I’ve tried to make any inroads into the fur trade in the Rockies, he’s stopped me.”
“And now you think he’s come to St. Louis?”
Beaumont shrugged. “It makes sense. About six months ago I sent some agents to the mountains to take over a trading post and settlement that’s gotten started out there, and Preacher made sure that didn’t happen. Quite a few people were killed in the process, though, and I’m willing to bet that he holds a grudge against me because of it. That’s the sort of thing an uneducated lout like him would do.”
“Yeah, I reckon,” Preacher said. “What’s this fella look like?”
“Well, I’ve never seen him myself, you understand, but he’s been described to me on several occasions. He’s supposed to be almost seven feet tall, a giant of a man, with a black beard that comes halfway down his chest.”
Preacher looked close to see if Beaumont was joshing him, but the man seemed to be completely serious. Somebody had exaggerated a mite while they were telling Beaumont about him. More than a mite, actually. Preacher was nowhere near that big, and his beard had been that long only on rare occasions when he had been up in the mountains for months at a time and hadn’t bothered to trim it.
“Sounds like I’ll know him if I see him,” he said to Beaumont. “And you can bet I’ll keep my eyes open for him, if you think he’s the one causin’ all the trouble.”
Beaumont smacked his right fist into his left palm. “I’m convinced of it. I’m going to take steps to put a stop to it, as well.”
Preacher didn’t like the sound of that, but chances were, as long as he continued fooling Beaumont about who he really was, he’d be in a good position to foil any plan the man came up with.
“We’ll be going out and making the usual rounds today,” Beaumont went on. “I’m sure that Preacher is spying on me, and I’m going to show him that no matter what he does, he can’t get the better of me.”
If it weren’t for the fact that Preacher was really here in St. Louis, working against Beaumont, he’d think that the fella was getting a mite loco on the subject, seeing enemies where there weren’t any. But even though Beaumont had some of it wrong, he was actually right about who was behind his troubles. That almost brought a smile to Preacher’s face.
He remained serious, though, as he said, “All right, boss. I’ll be ready to go whenever you are.”
The fact that Beaumont had someone to direct his rage at now seemed to have calmed him down a little. Later in the day, after checking on some of Beaumont’s other illegal enterprises, the two of them went to the warehouse where Preacher had been the night before. Beaumont stood just inside the open doors with his hands on his hips, looking around at the empty space where thousands of dollars worth of stolen property had been stored.
The men who had been on guard duty at the warehouse the night before were waiting there, and for a moment Preacher worried that Beaumont intended to kill them for letting someone clean the place out.
Instead, Beaumont just questioned them, asking all four men how they had been taken by surprise and if they had gotten a look at the man who’d knocked them out.
Tompkins and Rice, the two men who had been on duty outside, both replied that they hadn’t seen the man at all. He had knocked them out before they caught even a glimpse of his face.
Beaumont turned to the other two. “How about you?” he asked. “Did you see him? Was he a giant with a long black beard?” He put a hand about halfway down his chest to indicate the length he was talking about.
The men glanced at each other and frowned, as if they thought that their boss might be losing his mind. One of them shook his head and replied, “No, sir, he was a pretty good-sized fella, but he wasn’t anywhere near that big. I couldn’t really see his face, because he wore his hat pulled down low and had some sort of cloth tied across his nose and mouth. I think I would have seen a beard sticking out from under it, though, if it was as long as you say.”
“How was he dressed? Was he wearing buckskins?”
“No, sir. Just normal work clothes, I reckon. I didn’t see anything unusual about them.”
“Maybe one of those caps made from the skin of a raccoon with the tail still attached to it?”
Both men shook their heads.
“Damn it, I was sure it had to be him!” Beaumont said to Preacher as they left the warehouse. “But even if he wasn’t the one who snuck in here, he had to be involved. I can feel it in my bones.”
“I’m sure you’re right, boss,” Preacher said. He opened the door to the carriage, which was parked in front of the warehouse. “Where do you want to go now?”
“Jessie’s,” Beaumont snapped. “I need to think about this. Jessie’s smart . . . for a woman. Maybe she can help me figure it out.”
Lorenzo pointed the carriage toward Jessie’s Place. As it rolled through the streets, the elderly driver said, “The boss sure has been goin’ on about this here Preacher fella. I reckon I’d sure hate to be him, if’n the boss ever gets his hands on him.”
“From the sound of it, he’s a pretty slippery gent. If he don’t want to be found, the boss may not be able to find him.”
Lorenzo snorted. “You say that ’cause you don’t know the boss the way I do. He’s like a ol’ bulldog. Once he gets his teeth into somethin’, they ain’t no way to make him let go until he’s good and ready.”
