The man who had hailed Preacher sported a derby hat and a rusty handlebar mustache. He waved at the mountain man and continued, “Come on over, friend. You look like you could use a drink. I know a thirsty man when I see one, or my name ain’t Archibald Ingersoll!”
Preacher angled Horse over to the hitch rack in front of the building. A freshly-painted sign hanging from the awning over the boardwalk read: EMERALD PALACE SALOON.
“Your job is drummin’ up business for this place, is it?” Preacher asked the mustachioed man.
“It’s worse than that, amigo,” Ingersoll replied with a grin that revealed a couple of gold teeth. “I own this drinking establishment!”
“Well, it ain’t ever’day I’m invited in by the boss his ownself.” Preacher swung down from the saddle and looped the reins around the hitch rack. “First drink on the house?”
“Sure, why the hell not?” Ingersoll agreed. He glanced at Dog and added, “Your, uh, wolf will have to stay outside, though.”
“He ain’t all wolf. Just the mean part, with the fangs.” Preacher looked down at the big cur. “Stay, Dog.”
“He’s well-trained,” Ingersoll said as Dog sat down beside the stallion.
“Yeah, until he gets the smell of blood in his nose. Then I wouldn’t want to be around him.”
“I’ll, uh, remember that.” Ingersoll held out a hand toward the bat wings. “Go right in. Tell the bartender I said to set you up with a drink on the house. Just don’t be too loud about it. Wouldn’t want the rest of the customers to get any ideas, you know.”
Preacher grunted and pushed through the bat wings. He stepped into the saloon’s cool, shady interior.
The Emerald Paradise was new enough that the usual odors of stale beer, tobacco smoke, and human sweat hadn’t had time to seep into the walls, floor, and ceiling. All those smells were present, but they were mixed with the tang of fresh-cut wood and weren’t overwhelming.
The long hardwood bar was to Preacher’s right; tables were to his left, poker tables, a roulette wheel, and a faro layout along the wall, and in the back of the room a small open area and a stage. It looked like the saloon planned to offer live entertainment, although nothing along those lines was going on now.
The place was fairly busy, though, with half a dozen men at the bar and that many again scattered among the tables. A poker game with four players in it was going on at one of the green-covered tables. A couple of women in glittery dresses delivered drinks to the tables while a bartender in a white apron handled the trade at the bar.
A staircase in the back corner of the room led upstairs. Preacher figured those gals did more than haul drinks around. They probably hauled ashes, too, and handled that chore in the rooms upstairs.
He went to the bar and stood there until the apron came over and asked, “What can I do for you, old-timer? We’re not lookin’ to hire a swamper.”
An angry retort started to well up in Preacher’s throat. Here he stood with a Bowie knife and two holstered revolvers, and the varmint thought he was looking for a swamper’s job!
Preacher didn’t want to draw too much attention to himself as soon as he rode into town, though, so he said, “I ain’t lookin’ for work, friend. The fella outside, calls hisself Ingersoll, said for you to draw me a beer and make it on the house.”
The bartender glanced through the front windows to the boardwalk, where Archibald Ingersoll was still exhorting passersby to step into the saloon and have a drink. The man sighed and said, “The boss is gonna give away all the profits, but if that’s what he wants to do I reckon it’s his business.”
The man filled a mug with beer and slid it across the hardwood to Preacher. The old mountain man took a long swallow and then used the back of his other hand to wipe away the foam that clung to his mustache.
“Not bad,” he admitted. “Cuts the trail dust just fine.”
“Been riding a long time?” the bartender asked. Like most members of his profession, he couldn’t resist the urge to talk, at least when he wasn’t busy serving drinks.
“Long enough,” Preacher said. “Say, what do they call this settlement? Last time I rode through these parts, this basin was empty.”
“This is Hammerhead,” the bartender replied.
“What sort of a name is that for a town?”
The bartender shrugged and said, “I couldn’t tell you. You’d have to ask the Colonel.”
“The Colonel?” Preacher repeated. He recalled hearing the man who’d grabbed Wildflower using that title. Clearly, this colonel was the one who had paid to have Wildflower and Little Hawk kidnapped. He was the one possibly tied in with the Indian Ring.
“Colonel Hudson Ritchie,” the bartender supplied. “He founded the town. It was all his idea.”
“That’d make him like the mayor, I reckon.”
“Hammerhead doesn’t have a mayor,” the bartender said with a laugh. “It doesn’t need one. We have the Colonel instead. He owns the whole place.”
“I thought this saloon belonged to Ingersoll.”
“The furnishings and the fixtures do. He rents the building from the Colonel.”
“Sounds like this here Colonel’s got himself a pretty good deal. He starts a town, gets folks to come in and live and work in it, and still owns everything to boot.”
“I guess that was his plan all along,” the bartender said. “That and to bring the railroad in here. Once he does that, this basin is really going to boom. You mark my words, old-timer.”
“Oh, I believe you, I believe you,” Preacher muttered. He thought back to the look around the settlement he’d taken as he rode in. “I’m guessin’ the big house at the end of the street belongs to the Colonel.”
“Biggest house in town for the biggest man in town.”
Preacher nodded. He might have tried to pump the talkative bartender for more information, but at that moment one of the men farther along the bar called for a refill, so the bartender headed in that direction, leaving Preacher to stand there and sip his beer.
The old mountain man looked like he didn’t have a care in the world, but in reality his brain was working quickly. On the way into the basin he had noticed that the place had everything it needed to blossom except a railroad, and now he knew that this Colonel Ritchie intended to bring one in. Preacher couldn’t connect that up with the kidnapping of Wildflower and Little Hawk, unless somehow the Assiniboine stood in the way of the Colonel’s plans. That was hard to figure, because Two Bears’s village was a good hundred miles away from here....
But every railroad had to start somewhere, Preacher mused. With all the mountains around here, there were only certain ways that a railroad could run. Preacher’s eyes narrowed as he called up a mental picture of the territory. Like using a finger to trace a trail on a map, his brain sketched a possible route onto that mental image, starting here at Hammerhead and working his way back to—
His hand tightened on the half-full beer mug. There it was, right in front of him in his mind’s eye. The route would work, angling here, bending there, curving down through the hunting grounds of the Assiniboine to hook up with the tracks already laid by the Northern Pacific.
That didn’t explain everything, though. If Colonel Ritchie was involved with the Indian Ring, it would have been more their style to use political and financial pressure to force the Indians off land that traditionally belonged to them. Maybe they had changed their way of doing things since the last run-in he and Smoke and Matt had had with them. Could be they had sort of left the Colonel to deal with the problem on his own, promising him their support if he could clear the way for the railroad without involving them.
All that could be hashed out later, Preacher told himself. Right now the important thing was to find Wildflower and the little boy.
He figured he knew the first place to start looking: that big fancy house at the end of the street.
Preacher lifted his mug to finish off the beer as the bat wings flapped open. He didn’t lo
ok around, but in the mirror behind the bar he caught a glimpse of the man who had just come in. A shock of recognition went through the mountain man.
The last time he had seen that big jigger was in Two Bears’s village, when the hombre had Wildflower in front of him and was trying to get out of the village while the killing went on all around him.
Chapter 29
The memory of that night was etched clearly in Preacher’s brain. As long and violent a life as he had led, it would seem like all the desperate gunfights ought to start blending together, but they didn’t, not really. At least they didn’t for him.
So if he remembered that big fella, there was a chance the man might remember him, too. Scowling, Preacher looked down into his empty mug as he set it on the bar. The broad brim of his hat would obscure his features at least partially if the man glanced into the mirror at his reflection.
Several of the men at the bar turned to greet the newcomer. A couple of others stood up from one of the tables and moved over to join them. The big man looked around and asked, “Where’s Page and the rest of the bunch?”
One of the men he addressed pointed upward with a thumb and said, “Gone to visit the gals already, Randall.”
“I’m surprised they had enough money left for that,” the man called Randall said.
“Page has always got the price of a poke on him. Claims he never lets himself get so broke he can’t afford a woman.”
“All right. The others can collect their pay later, I suppose. Come on.”
Carefully, Preacher watched what was going on in the mirror. Randall went over to one of the poker tables, took a leather pouch from his pocket, and opened it, spilling coins onto the green baize. He spread them out with his other hand, and the men began picking up the gold pieces.
One of them bit into a coin he picked up. That brought a laugh from Randall.
“Really, Garth?” he asked. “You really think the Colonel would try to pay you with phony money?”
“No offense, Randall,” Garth said. “I trust you and the Colonel about as much as I trust anybody . . . which ain’t a whole hell of a lot, I admit.”
“You satisfied these double eagles are real?”
“Yeah, I’m satisfied,” Garth replied as he pocketed his payoff.
Blood money, Preacher thought angrily, his jaw clenching. Every one of the coins those men were picking up was stained with Assiniboine blood and earned by slaughtering innocent men, women, and children. On top of that, they had carried off a young woman and her child. Every one of the bastards deserved to be horsewhipped and then hanged. Preacher would have handled the whipping, gladly.
What he had just overheard tied everything up with a nice, neat bow. Colonel Ritchie was behind the raid on the Assiniboine village, and the only reason for it that made any sense was that he wanted their land for his railroad. Like Cyrus Longacre, the unscrupulous railroad magnate with whom Preacher, Smoke, and Matt had clashed a while back,3 the Colonel believed he was a law unto himself.
He would learn different, Preacher vowed, maybe even before Smoke and Matt got here.
He had no doubt that the two younger men would follow him. They would respond to the message he had sent them, and starting at Two Bears’s village they would follow the same trail that had led him here. There was no telling how long it would take them to arrive, though, and Preacher was in no mood to wait. He wanted to get Wildflower and Little Hawk out of the Colonel’s greedy hands as soon as possible.
His ears perked up as he heard one of the men ask Randall, “What’d you do with the kid?”
“What do you think I did with him? I left him with the Colonel’s housekeeper. She’ll take good care of him.”
That confirmed Preacher’s guess that the little boy could be found at the Colonel’s mansion. But why no mention of Wildflower? That question made a worried frown appear on the old mountain man’s face.
The bartender came along and asked, “You want a refill on that beer, old-timer?”
“Uh, no, I reckon not.”
“Somehow I’m not surprised. You get your free drink, but you don’t want to spend anything after that.”
“I got things to do,” Preacher snapped. “Don’t get uppity, son, and I might come back later.”
“Yeah, you do that.”
The bartender drifted off again. Randall and the other hired guns were still standing around the poker table, talking. Preacher didn’t want to risk being in the same room with them any longer, so he turned and ambled toward the entrance, being careful to keep his face angled away from Randall so the man wouldn’t have a chance to recognize him.
He didn’t sigh in relief until he’d pushed through the bat wings and was on the boardwalk outside. As an added precaution he kept his head down as he went to the hitch rack and untied Horse’s reins. He led the stallion away. Dog followed them.
Preacher’s brain ran rapidly through his options. He didn’t have a large enough force to launch an outright attack on the Colonel’s house. Clearly, Ritchie had plenty of hired guns available to defend him. Not only that, but if Standing Rock and the other warriors galloped into Hammerhead and attacked the mansion, there was a good chance most of the citizens would grab their guns and put up a fight without ever knowing the truth of the situation, seeing the Assiniboine only as marauding redskins.
No, this problem called for stealth, Preacher decided. Standing Rock and the others would wait where they were until they heard from him. If he could get into the mansion, grab Little Hawk and Wildflower—assuming she was there—and get out again without being discovered, they could rejoin the rescue party and make a run for it. With enough of a lead, they could stay ahead of any pursuit, just the way Randall had stayed ahead of the rescuers during the long chase to Hammerhead.
So it was up to him, he thought as he raked his fingers through his beard, and the only ally he would have was darkness. A glance at the sky told him there were a couple of hours of daylight left.
Once night fell, he would take a look around that mansion and see about getting inside. Until then, he needed to lie low so there wouldn’t be any chance of Randall spotting him and recognizing him from the Assiniboine village.
Leading Horse, with Dog padding along beside him, Preacher headed for the nearest livery stable.
The man who ran the stable wasn’t as old as Preacher, but he was getting pretty long in the tooth. After exclaiming over what a fine-looking animal Horse was, he led the stallion into a stall, where Preacher unsaddled him.
The stablekeeper, whose name was McFarland, made sure Horse had plenty of grain and water, and then said to Preacher, “How’d you feel about a game of checkers?”
That was just like these old codgers, thought Preacher, not including himself in that category, always wanting to sit around and play checkers and run their mouths.
In this case, though, that might come in handy for him. He smiled and said, “I’d plumb admire to, friend.”
They went into the stable’s office. Dog had to stay outside, McFarland said. He had a big yellow tomcat, and he didn’t think the critters would get along.
Preacher took one look at the scarred old feline and agreed. He asked, “What do you call him?”
“I’ve always just called him Cat.”
Preacher thought that was a pretty poor excuse for a name, but he kept that opinion to himself.
McFarland already had a checkerboard set up on the desk, where he had obviously been playing a game against himself. He cleared it off and set up the pieces again, and he and Preacher settled down to a new game.
Preacher concentrated on his moves for a few minutes, long enough to tell that McFarland wasn’t a very good player, and then said, apparently casually, “I’ve heard a lot about that Colonel fella who runs things around here.”
“Colonel Ritchie? Yeah, he founded the town. Wouldn’t be a blamed thing here if it wasn’t for him.”
“Lives in that big house up at the end of town?”
“Yep.”
“Probably got a bunch of guards around. Rich men usually do.”
“I wouldn’t know about that. Wouldn’t surprise me, though. All I know for sure is he’s got a housekeeper. Handsome woman, too. Miz Dayton, she’s called. Nice as can be, always smiles at me when I pass her on the street.”
That was the woman Randall had given the baby to, Preacher thought. He supposed she was devoted to her employer.
“What about a fella called Randall?”
McFarland frowned slightly and asked, “Where’d you hear about him?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Preacher said casually. “Here and there, I reckon. Somebody said he’s the Colonel’s right-hand man.”
“Yeah, you could say that, I guess. They been together since the war. Randall rode in the Colonel’s cavalry regiment and was his chief scout. Reckon he’d do just about anything the Colonel ordered him to.”
Including killing a bunch of innocent people and stealing a woman and her baby.
“Of course, that’s just rumor,” McFarland went on. “Randall don’t talk about himself or the Colonel or those days back in the war. Fact is, most of the time he don’t say much of anything. It makes me a mite nervous just to be around him. Big, cold-eyed galoot like that, you never know what he’s gonna do. Sort of like bein’ around a mountain lion, I guess.”
Preacher knew what McFarland meant. Randall gave off an air of menace that seemed to come natural to him.
A man could be mighty dangerous, though, without appearing to be. He figured he was a good example of that himself.
He moved a checker and said, “Things’ll be different here when the railroad comes in, I reckon.”
“They sure will. There’ll be a lot more people, a lot more business, and a lot more money ridin’ those rails into the basin. Right now there’s barely enough to get by, but those of us who got here first will stand to make a fortune when the railroad arrives.”
Hard Ride to Hell (9780786031191) Page 20
