Preacher's Slaughter

by William W. Johnstone

  But there was no changing what was done. Preacher helped Russell to his feet and with assistance from Ludwig and Egon took his old friend inside the trading post so Russell could get the medical attention he needed.

  They went around the hole in the ground, all that was left of Roderick Stahlmaske.

  CHAPTER 35

  The wound in Russell’s side was a deep, bloody furrow. Preacher was sure it hurt like blazes, but once he had cleaned it out and packed it with a mixture of gunpowder and herbs, then bandaged it tightly, he felt confident that it would heal. They would need to keep an eye on Russell to make sure blood poisoning didn’t develop, but other than that Preacher knew his old friend ought to recover just fine.

  There was an assortment of other injuries among the former prisoners and the rescue party, but nothing serious. Preacher thought it best that Russell not try to ride for a few days, so he decided they would stay here at the trading post.

  “Somebody might as well get some use out of the place,” he said when he announced his decision.

  “Seems to me the American Fur Company ought to take it over,” Russell suggested. “That would be fitting, don’t you think, since those Englishmen were trying to put the company out of business?”

  “I think your bosses could send that Lord Rutherford, whoever he is, a letter explainin’ what we found out about his plans, and I don’t reckon he’d kick up too much of a ruckus about you takin’ over the place. He probably wouldn’t want it known that he was responsible for tryin’ to start a war.”

  “He’s a finance minister in the British government,” Russell explained. “He’ll want to cover his tracks, all right. But from what I’ve heard about him, he won’t take kindly to losing.”

  “Are you sayin’ he’ll try to get even?”

  “He might,” Russell said.

  Preacher shrugged and shook his head.

  “I ain’t plannin’ to ever go to England, and if he wants to come after me out here on the frontier, I ain’t particular worried about that. I sort of know my way around.”

  Russell grinned and said, “That’s putting it mildly.”

  It took most of a day to drag off the bodies of the British agents and their Pawnee allies. Ludwig and Egon suggested digging graves for them. Preacher told them to go ahead if they wanted to, but he convinced them to make it a mass grave.

  If they had been in the mountains he would have just dropped the corpses in a ravine, but out here on the prairie they didn’t have that option. Preacher supposed that burying them was better than having a lot of scavengers around feasting on the remains.

  During the days that passed, Stahlmaske and Gretchen Ritter spent most of their time together. They seemed to genuinely care for each other now, instead of just having a business arrangement between them.

  She was a good influence on the count, Preacher thought. He and Stahlmaske would never be friends, but at least the Prussian wasn’t as obnoxious as he had been. Now and then he still said something arrogant and insulting, but it seemed almost a matter of habit rather than anything he was actually feeling.

  Once Preacher came upon Allingham and Margaret standing on the bluff overlooking the river, talking quietly and earnestly with each other. They seemed a little uncomfortable about being interrupted, so Preacher excused himself and left them alone.

  Allingham sought him out later and said, “I suppose you’re wondering what Mrs. Allingham and I were talking about out there earlier.”

  “That’s none of my business,” Preacher said with a shake of his head.

  “I’m not sure I’d go so far as to say that. There’s a good chance neither of us would be alive if it weren’t for you, Preacher. We have you to thank for giving us a chance to continue our marriage.”

  “The two of you are gonna stay married, then.” That came as no real surprise. Preacher had heard of people getting divorced, but it was extremely rare.

  “Yes, of course. Margaret has . . . apologized . . . for her impulsive behavior. She realizes it was reckless and foolish, and I realize that it was not . . . entirely . . . her fault. She never really wanted to go to Washington. She would have been happier staying in Vermont.”

  “Maybe the two of you should go back there, then.”

  “I’ve been thinking the same thing,” Allingham said with a nod. “My term in the Senate is over in less than two years. I think the time will have come to step down. I’m more suited to a life as a small-town merchant. And it’ll be better for Sarah, too.”

  Preacher figured it was unlikely the senator’s hot-blooded daughter would agree with that. But it was something Allingham would have to deal with, so Preacher didn’t say anything other than to wish him and his family well.

  There was a chance that the rest of the Pawnee who had attacked the riverboat would come looking for their fellow warriors when the group that had accompanied the kidnappers didn’t return. Because of that, Preacher thought it was a good idea to post guards around the clock.

  He was outside near the corral one evening when a figure came out of the shadows and approached him. Whoever it was didn’t act threatening, but he shifted his rifle a little anyway so it would be ready if he needed it.

  “Preacher, is that you?” a familiar voice asked.

  He tried not to let the annoyance he felt show in his voice as he said, “What are you doin’ out here in the dark, Miss Sarah?”

  “Looking for you, of course,” Sarah replied. “We haven’t really had a chance to talk in private since . . . since all those terrible things happened.”

  “Didn’t know we had anything to say to each other that couldn’t be said in front of all the other folks.”

  She came closer to him and said, “You know better than that, Preacher. There’s always been something between us, whether you want to admit it or not.”

  “I reckon you’re wrong about that.”

  “If you’d kiss me, you’d know I was right.”

  She was close enough now that Preacher was starting to feel uneasy. He said, “Girl, you’re barely marryin’ age, and I ain’t in the market for a wife to start with.”

  “I haven’t said anything about the two of us getting married,” she pointed out.

  “No, but I don’t intend to get mixed up with a gal young enough to be my daughter. Now, you go on back inside. You might run into trouble out here.”

  “You mean Indians? I’m not scared of them as long as you’re around.”

  “Well, you ought to be. For one thing, I’m supposed to be standin’ guard, and you’re distractin’ me from my job.”

  Sarah laughed softly and said, “It’s gratifying to know that I’m distracting you, anyway.”

  Preacher sighed. He ought to turn this little hellcat over his knee and give her a sound spanking, he thought, but that would probably do more harm than good. She didn’t need anything to heat her blood up any more than it already was.

  Instead he took hold of her arm and turned her toward the building.

  “Back inside, now,” he told her firmly.

  “You’re wasting your time arguing with me, Preacher. I always get what I want. And what I want is to stay out here with you.”

  That surprised him enough to make him stop steering her toward the door. He asked, “What did you say?”

  “I said I want to stay out here with you. I don’t want to go back to Washington when this trip is over. I don’t even want to go back to St. Louis. When we get to the mouth of the Yellowstone, you’re going on to the mountains, aren’t you?”

  “That’s what I’m plannin’,” Preacher admitted warily.

  “I want to see them!” Sarah said, and he could hear the honest excitement in her voice. “I want to see something I’ve never seen before.”

  “There are mountains in Vermont. You said so yourself.”

  “Not like the Rockies. And you said that.”

  He frowned as he considered what she’d told him, then said, “So this is all about explorin’?�
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  “Well . . . not completely. I do find you very attractive in a gruff sort of way. I think we could have a wonderful time together. There’s so much out here on the frontier you could show me.”

  “And most of it’s dangerous,” Preacher pointed out. “You just went through a mighty bad ordeal. You don’t want anything like that to happen again, do you?”

  “It wouldn’t with you around to take care of me.”

  Preacher wasn’t so sure about that. Trouble generally seemed to find him, one way or another.

  But to his own surprise he found himself thinking seriously about what she had said. He wasn’t going to take her to the mountains now, that was for damned sure, but . . .

  “Tell you what,” he said. “Five years from now, if you still feel the same way, you get word to me through Simon and we’ll talk about it.”

  “Five years is forever!” she objected.

  “Not when you’re my age. And the older you get, the faster it’ll go for you, too. But you’ll be grown then, and I wouldn’t feel quite as much like I was stealin’ you away from your folks.”

  “You’ll still be twice as old as me.”

  “Yeah, just about it. But it’ll be some different.”

  He was confident that in five years she would have completely forgotten about him. And if she hadn’t . . .

  Well, he would deal with that when the time came, he decided.

  “All right,” she said, “but I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that if I go back to Washington you’ll never see me again. You’re wrong, Preacher. I promise I’ll show up when you least expect it.”

  He wasn’t totally sure if that was a promise . . . or a threat.

  With the Indian ponies they were able to round up, there were enough horses for everyone to ride and even some spare mounts. When they started back to where they had left the Sentinel, Russell’s wound was healing well enough that it wouldn’t hurt him to ride. They would keep the pace fairly slow, however, and follow the river instead of cutting back across the sandy, mostly barren hills. That route would be longer, but there would be plenty of water and game along the way.

  Preacher and Russell took the lead, along with Dog. Preacher kept an eye on his old friend and called a halt whenever he thought Russell looked like he was getting too tired. Russell complained about being coddled, but Preacher thought he was glad they weren’t pushing too hard.

  Sarah kept her word and stayed away from Preacher when they camped at night. Her parents seemed to still be getting along well, as were Stahlmaske and Gretchen. This journey up the Big Muddy had been filled with more danger and adventure, more tragedy and treachery, than any of them had expected, but they seemed to have come through it all right.

  That didn’t explain why Preacher began to get an odd feeling as the days passed. It wasn’t the sort of tingling he experienced when he was being watched by an enemy, but rather more of a vague apprehension as if something bad was up ahead of them.

  Dog seemed to feel it, too, stopping now and then to gaze down the river and whine softly. Preacher trusted the big cur’s instincts as much as he did his own.

  But nothing seemed out of place when they finally spotted the riverboat tied up at the shore in the same place where they had left it. Captain Warner had said he would wait right here, and so he had. Preacher wouldn’t have been surprised if the captain had gotten too anxious to wait and had started upstream. That was another reason to follow the river, so they would meet the Sentinel if it was steaming toward them.

  “There it is,” Heinrich said excitedly. “Soon we will be on our way again.”

  He waved for Egon and Ludwig to follow them and galloped toward the boat. Preacher thought Warner might see them coming and blow a blast on the whistle in greeting, but the Sentinel remained silent. No one was moving around on deck, and Preacher didn’t see anybody in the pilot house, either.

  He stiffened as he realized that and said to Russell, “Something’s wrong, Simon. That damn boat looks abandoned.”

  “You think something happened to Captain Warner and the crew?” Russell asked with a worried frown.

  “I don’t know, but I reckon we’d better find out before those young fools go chargin’ right into trouble.” Preacher turned in his saddle and said to Stahlmaske, “Count, best keep everybody here for a few minutes while Simon and I take a look around.”

  “You think something is wrong?” Stahlmaske asked.

  “I don’t know, but I sure as hell intend to find out.”

  Preacher heeled Horse into a run. Russell trailed a short distance behind them. Up ahead, Heinrich, Ludwig, and Egon had dismounted and jumped the short gap from the shore to the cargo deck. They went up the stairs to the passenger level, and Preacher couldn’t see them anymore.

  Preacher had his rifle in one hand as he swung down from the saddle and got ready to jump onto the riverboat. Before he could do that, a shot rang out and a splash leaped up from the water as the ball went into the stream almost at Preacher’s feet.

  He looked up and saw a dozen men lining the rail on the passenger deck, all of them except two aiming rifles at him and Russell. One of the men who didn’t have a gun in his hands was slender, with a pockmarked face that wore an arrogant grin as he looked down at Preacher.

  Beside that man loomed the massive river pirate who had killed Gunther Klostermann during the gang’s first attack on the boat. He had both hands clamped around Heinrich Ritter’s neck, and Preacher had no doubt the big, bear-like pirate could twist the youngster’s head right off his shoulders if he wanted to.

  “You and your friend better throw down those guns, Preacher,” the leader of the gang drawled. “Otherwise we’ll just go ahead and start the killin’ right now.”

  CHAPTER 36

  In that split-second, Preacher thought about how fast he could raise his rifle and put a ball through the brain of that hulking river pirate with his hands wrapped around Heinrich’s neck.

  Then the leader raised a hand and said, “Ah, ah, ah, I know what you’re thinking, Preacher. You figure you can kill Wedge before he snaps this boy’s neck like a stick. I don’t think you can. And even if you do, I’ve got the cap’n of this boat and the members of the crew who weren’t killed when we took it over stashed in the engine room with men pointing guns at them. If they hear any shooting out here, they’ll open fire. It’ll be a massacre in there. You think about that before you decide to do something foolish.”

  “Preacher . . . ?” Russell said.

  Bleak trenches had appeared in the mountain man’s rugged face. With a disgusted sigh, he lowered his rifle and said, “I reckon you’ve got the upper hand right now, mister.”

  “Damn right, I do. The name’s Binnion, by the way. Claude Binnion.”

  “Don’t figure I’ll go to the trouble to carve it on the marker after I bury you. If I do even that much and don’t just leave you for the wolves.”

  Binnion laughed and said, “Big talker. I like that. Now, you wave everybody on in here. Throw all your weapons onto the cargo deck. Rifles, pistols, knives . . . that tomahawk of yours. All of it goes onto the boat.”

  Preacher tossed his rifle onto the deck and followed it with his other weapons. He gestured for Russell to do likewise. Russell wasn’t fond of the idea, that was obvious, but he went along with what Preacher wanted.

  “That bastard’s gonna just murder us all once we’re disarmed,” Russell warned.

  “He thinks he is,” Preacher said.

  He turned and waved for the others to come ahead. Gretchen looked scared as she rode up alongside Stahlmaske. She could see her brother up there on the passenger deck, a prisoner of the pirates.

  “You are surrendering to these men?” Stahlmaske demanded coldly.

  “Don’t have much choice if we don’t want them to kill Heinrich and their other prisoners.”

  Stahlmaske looked like he was mad enough to chew nails, but he dismounted and tossed his pistol onto the deck.
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br />   Margaret Allingham said anxiously to her husband, “Josiah . . . this can’t be happening again.”

  “It’ll be all right, dear,” he told her. He lowered his voice and added, “I’m sure Preacher has a plan.”

  As a matter of fact, he did have a plan, Preacher thought.

  He just didn’t know if it would work . . . or if it would get them all killed.

  “Just what is it you’re plannin’ on doin’ with us?” he asked Binnion. “You’ve already got the boat. You can loot everything on it and we can’t stop you.”

  “What’s on this boat doesn’t amount to anything compared to what we can get for the senator there, and for those fancy foreigners. I figure the government will pay handsomely to get ’em back safe and sound.”

  “So it’s ransom you’re after.”

  “That’s right.” Binnion drew a pistol from his belt. “Now get onboard, all of you. You’re goin’ in the engine room with the rest of your bunch.”

  Preacher knew he couldn’t allow them to be locked up. If that happened, they were doomed. Binnion had to keep Senator Allingham, Margaret, and Sarah alive, along with Stahlmaske and Gretchen and probably Heinrich, if he wanted to ransom them.

  As for all the other prisoners, well, it would be a lot simpler and easier just to shoot them and drop them in the river.

  Preacher wanted to get the door of the engine room open, though, before he made his move. While the gang was in the process of locking up their new prisoners, the guards inside the engine room might not be paying as much attention to their other captives. Slim as it was, that was the only chance they had.

  Still covered by the rifles of the pirates up on the passenger deck, Preacher and his companions began stepping onto the riverboat. Binnion jerked his head and told the giant, “Come on, Wedge. Bring the boy.”

  They started down the stairs to the lower deck, Binnion in the lead with a jaunty step, convinced of his victory.

  Carefully, Preacher glanced at the pile of weapons on the deck. The rifles and pistols were all loaded and needed only to have their hammers cocked before being ready to fire. As he stood next to Russell, Stahlmaske, and Allingham, he said so quietly only they could hear, “When I make my move, you fellas grab some of those guns and open up. Binnion’s men know they need you alive, Senator, and you, Count, so maybe that’ll make ’em hesitate just long enough before they start shootin’.”