Preacher's Justice

by William W. Johnstone

  “That’s the truth of it, Paul,” Jeb said. “We was all witnesses.”

  The sheriff stood there for a moment, then looked at Preacher. “Do you know why he come for you?”

  “I killed that one’s brother,” Preacher replied, pointing to Luke.

  “Where’d you do that?”

  “At Rendezvous, out in the Rockies.”

  “At Rendezvous, you say?”

  Preacher nodded.

  “Trappers is normally pretty straight about things. If you killed him at Rendezvous and they let you go, you was probably in the right,” the sheriff said. “Besides which, ain’t no concern of mine what happened out there. And if all these folks say you was in the right here, I don’t plan to do nothin’ about this either.”

  “Thanks,” Preacher said.

  “I’d appreciate it, though, if you’d put the gun away.”

  Preacher stared at his pistol for a moment, then stuck it back in his belt.

  The sheriff looked at Aunt Molly. “I’ll get the undertaker down here to pull the body off your front porch,” he said.

  Aunt Molly chuckled. “No hurry,” she said. “Long as he’s out there, folks will come have a look. And when they do, why, they’ll just naturally want to come in and have dinner.”

  The others laughed.

  “Lord, I hope not, Aunt Molly,” the sheriff said. “Else you’ll be draggin’ anyone that gets shot down here.”

  More laughter as the sheriff left the café.

  “I’m sorry about the table,” Preacher said to Aunt Molly after the sheriff was gone. “If you tell me how much it is, I’ll pay to have another one built for you.”

  “I reckon a dollar will pay for your food and fix the table,” Aunt Polly said.

  Preacher pulled out a silver dollar and handed it to her, then reached for the plate of ribs.

  “Thanks,” he said. “This looks good.”

  SEVEN

  On board the riverboat Nathanial Pyron

  At first, Caviness thought that the interest people were paying him was because of morbid curiosity over the fact that he was obviously missing an ear. But the second day into the trip, he was standing at the railing when the captain and two deckhands approached him.

  “Mister, you want to tell us how you lost that ear?” the boat captain asked.

  Caviness put his hand to the wound on the side of his face.

  “What business is it of yours how I lost it?” he asked.

  “Well, you see, the thing is, some of our passengers are down from St. Louis. And according to them, there was a young woman murdered up there recently. But it turns out, she had a dog who defended her. The dog bit the ear off her attacker.”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know nothin’ about that,” Caviness said. “I got this ear bit off by a bear.”

  “That may be,” the captain said. “But I intend to put you in irons now until we get to Cape Girardeau. There, I’ll turn you over to the constable, and he can take you back up to St. Louis until you get all this worked out.”

  As the men started toward him, Caviness hesitated only for a moment. Then he climbed onto the rail and leaped down into the Mississippi River.

  “The son of a bitch is getting away!” one of the deckhands shouted, and he and the other two ran to the railing. Looking down into the river, they could see only the roiling water, but no sign of the man without an ear.

  “Where is he? Where did he go?”

  “I think we can forget about him, boys,” the captain said. “The currents and eddies are so strong right through here that it’s damn near impossible to swim. More’n likely he’s drowned already.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s good enough for him,” the first deckhand said.

  “If he’s the one that done the killin’,” the second said.

  “He’s the guilty one, all right,” the captain said. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t of jumped over like that.

  On the Missouri River, on board the Missouri Belle

  Preacher booked passage from Kansas City to St. Louis on the steamboat Missouri Belle. He had enough money to afford first-class passage, and could have easily occupied the most luxurious stateroom. The fact that he chose not to was due less to parsimony than to the fact that he was genuinely more comfortable on the open deck than in one of the fancy staterooms.

  While in Kansas City, Preacher got himself some new clothes, though his new duds, like those that he’d gotten rid of, were made of buckskin. He rented a bathtub and got himself cleaned up, even going to the barber for a haircut and a shave. As a result, he cut quite a handsome figure when he stepped aboard the Missouri Belle. Two of the passengers, Misses Emma Purdy and Cynthia Cain, took note of him, smiling at him from behind the fans they were carryng.

  The two very pretty young ladies were from well-to-do families in Kansas City. Their families, believing that Kansas City was too provincial a town for them, were sending them to St. Louis for finishing school.

  Although the young women had noticed Preacher the moment he came on board, they made no effort to approach him, believing that he, as most other men they had encountered, would make the first move. When, by the evening of the second day, it became obvious to them that he wasn’t going to come to them, they approached him.

  Preacher was standing by the rail, looking at the shoreline. Preacher had been through this country many times before, and was sorry to see that even here, civilization was beginning to creep in. Now he saw farmhouses and cultivated land where, on previous voyages up and down the river, there had been nothing but wilderness. He wondered how long it would be before civilization, and all its ills, encroached upon the West that he knew.

  Though the scene was bucolic, it wasn’t silent. The boat was a cacophony of sound as it moved down river. The steam-relief valve was booming, the engine clattering, and the side-mounted paddle wheels were slapping against the water. Because of all the noise, he didn’t hear the two women approach. The first time he noticed them was when they suddenly appeared, one on each side of him.

  Recovering quickly, Preacher smiled at them. “Good evening, ladies,” he said.

  “Good evening,” they replied.

  “Nice view from here,” Preacher said, struggling hard to make some small talk. Truth to be told, he was uncomfortable in situations like this.

  “Yes, quite lovely,” one of the two girls replied.

  “The captain said you are called Preacher,” the other one said.

  “But he also said that you aren’t really a preacher,” the first added.

  “That’s true,” Preacher said. He turned away from the shoreline, and leaned back against the rail as he spoke to the two pretty women.

  “I’m Emma Purdy,” one of the women said.

  “And I’m Cynthia Cain.”

  Preacher nodded his head. “I’m pleased to meet you, ladies.”

  “If you aren’t a preacher, why do they call you preacher?” Emma asked.

  “It’s just something that happened to me once,” Preacher said.

  “Oh, please, do tell.”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Well, it’s a long time before we get to St. Louis,” Cynthia reminded him.

  Preacher laughed. “I guess it is at that,” he said. “All right, here goes.”

  Preacher began telling of the time he had been a prisoner of the Blackfeet, with no chance of help or escape. From somewhere an idea formed in his head and he began to sermonize, speaking in the same singsong voice he had once heard used by an itinerant preacher on the waterfront in St. Louis. He preached like a born-again, water-baptized, true believer in the Lord Almighty.

  “The Indians didn’t understand what I was saying,” Preacher said, “but they listened anyway, and I continued to preach all through the night.

  “Come the next morning, I was still preaching, amazed that I still had the strength to do it.”

  “What were you preaching about?” Emma asked.

  “To tell the t
ruth, I almost didn’t even know what I was saying myself, but I kept on talking, kept on preaching.

  “I preached all through the rest of that morning without stopping. The people of the village, men, women, and children, gathered around to listen, although they didn’t have the slightest idea what I was saying.

  “Finally, the elders of the village held a council where they decided I was crazy. And maybe I was.”

  “What do you mean, maybe you were? Do you think you were crazy?” Cynthia asked.

  Preacher chuckled. “Well, I might have been a little crazy at the time. I don’t know,” he admitted. “But here’s the thing. The Indians think that anyone who is crazy is touched by the Great Spirit. They’re afraid to do any harm to him, because they don’t want to offend the Great Spirit.

  “So, the next thing you know, a couple of the old chiefs came over to me and untied me. And let me tell you, they didn’t do it a moment too soon, because by then my mouth was parched and sore, and my vision was so blurred I could barely see. I don’t think I could’ve lasted more than another five or ten minutes.”

  “And they just let you go?” Emma asked.

  Preacher nodded. “Yes,” he said.

  “Oh, what a wonderful story!” Cynthia said.

  The brothers Rance and Leon, scions of Angus Culpepper, owner of Culpepper Stage and Freight Lines, were making the trip to St. Louis on the same boat. Because they, like Emma Purdy and Cynthia Cain, were occupying first-class accommodations, they considered the two young ladies to be their exclusive property by right of social position.

  Rance and Leon stood for a while at the rail, smoking their pipes and looking toward the flora and fauna of the riverbank as it slid past the boat. While there, they couldn’t help but overhear the story Preacher told the two young women. Now, walking toward the stern of the boat, they were engaged in a private discussion about the man called Preacher.

  “What a lout,” Leon said. “No doubt, this is the longest conversation that creature has ever had with any woman who wasn’t a whore.”

  “Probably even including his own mother,” Rance replied.

  “Do you mean he hasn’t had a long conversation with her? Or do you mean that she is a whore?” Leon asked.

  “He hasn’t had a long conversation with her,” Rance replied. Then he added, “And she probably is a whore.”

  Leon and Rance both laughed, though their laugh was brittle, like the shattering of crystal.

  “You have to admit, that was some story he told,” Leon said. “Do you believe it was true?”

  “No. Mountain men are know to be great storytellers. And liars.”

  “He had the ladies hanging on every word.”

  “Yes, unfortunately, he did,” Rance said. “But it is obviously a story of self-aggrandizement, designed to make himself a hero in their eyes.”

  “What I don’t understand is why Miss Purdy and Miss Cain would allow him to talk to them in the first place,” Leon added. “He is traveling steerage, and one wonders where he even got the money for that.”

  “He is taking advantage of their innocence,” Rance answered. “And I am personally offended by that.”

  “Mountain men are barely civilized; they spend months at a time with no company other than bears,” Leon said.

  “And no doubt, the bears find the presence of such men to be an affront to their dignity,” Rance added. Again, the two young men laughed brittlely.

  “He obviously has no sense of his proper place,” Leon said.

  Rance smiled. “Perhaps, before we reach St. Louis, we should teach him some manners.”

  “Yes,” Leon said enthusiastically. “But let’s not hurry. If we are patient and observant, I am positive that the opportunity will present itself.”

  The Missouri Belle carried two very long poles, called spars, at the bow of the boat. Whenever the boat got stuck on a sandbar, which was fairly often in the transit of a shallow river like the Missouri, those two poles would be put down to the river bottom at about a forty-five-degree angle. Then they were driven back by cables attached to a steam capstan. The result was a very powerful poling of the boat. That action was technically known as sparring, though as the poles looked like grasshopper legs when in the water, it was often referred to as “grasshoppering.”

  When they were four days out of Kansas City, they got stuck on a sandbar. It wasn’t a bar they had blundered onto as a result of poor piloting, but a bar that covered the entire channel—and thus could not be avoided. Now their only hope lay in attempting to traverse the sandbar at its most advantageous part.

  The poles dug into the river bottom, then strained and bent slightly. The boat crept forward, creaking and groaning under the exertion. Finally, the poles became extended and the boat could go no further. The poles would have to be retracted and the operation repeated.

  Though Preacher had offered his help, the captain had explained that the best thing any of the passengers could do was stay out of the way, and now Preacher was accommodating him on that request.

  The poles were reset, and the operation started a second time. Again, the poles strained backward, and again the boat started sliding forward. The poles bent as before, but suddenly one of the cables snapped, and it whipped back around with a loud whoosh.

  “Look out!” Preacher shouted and he dove toward Emma and Cynthia, taking them both down. The cable whizzed by over them and smashed through the flagpole, breaking it as cleanly as if it were no more than a matchstick.

  The operator of the capstan also dove to the deck just in time to avoid it, but because the capstan was still running, the cable continued to whip around, flaying and smashing everything in its path. The operator could not stand up because the cable was whipping over his head, which also meant he couldn’t get to the throttle lever to shut down the capstan. As long as the capstan turned, the cable would continue to whirl about madly.

  “We’ve got to get that engine shut down!” the captain shouted. “If that cable flies loose and hits the boiler, we are going to have one hell of an explosion!”

  The cable continued to whirl about, but as some of the steam pressure was vented off, it wasn’t whirling quite as fast as it had at the beginning. That was little consolation, though, because it was still moving with enough force to make a shambles out of the bow deck. It took down the flagpole with its first revolution, then it smashed through the railing, and now the operator was still trapped beneath the slashing line.

  Preacher watched it spin for two more revolutions. When he had it timed just right, he leaped up, ran to the bow deck, ducked at just the right moment, and reached the engine lever. He pushed it shut. The cable, without the whirling momentum of the capstan, fell whistling into the river.

  “Great job, lad!” the captain said, congratulating him, and the rest of the passengers and crew applauded him.

  “You saved our lives,” Emma said.

  “That would have killed us if you hadn’t gotten us out of the way,” Cynthia added.

  “Don’t forget, I was saving my life too,” Preacher said modestly.

  Preacher’s heroism had elevated him, not only in the opinion of the two young women, but in the eyes of the passengers and crew as well. For the Culpepper brothers, though, it just made them more determined to take care of him before they reached St. Louis.

  That opportunity came on the last night before they were to reach St. Louis. Leon and Rance came out of the grand salon, where they had been gambling and had had a run of bad luck.

  “I lost twenty dollars,” Leon said. “How about you?”

  “Thirty-five dollars,” Rance replied.

  “I know that gambler is cheating,” Leon said. “But he is too good. I couldn’t catch him at it.”

  “Yeah, I never saw such bad luck,” Rance said. They had stepped out to the rail to get a breath of air, when suddenly Rance stuck his hand out to keep his brother from advancing any farther. “Brother, I think perhaps our luck is about to change,”
he said quietly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look.”

  Rance pointed to the stern of the boat. There, curled up next to a stanchion, they saw Preacher. It was obvious that he was sound asleep.

  “You know what would be funny?” Rance said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I think it would be really funny if we just sort of, quietly walked back there and rolled that son of a bitch off the boat. He’d be three feet underwater before he knew what happened to him.”

  “Brother, you are a genius,” Leon said.

  Moving quietly, and staying in the shadows, the two men crept to the back of the boat.

  One of the side-mounted paddle wheels jerked out of sequence as they often did, and it caused the boat to make a sideways lurch. It splashed a little water onto Preacher, and he opened his eyes. Just before he closed them again, he saw Leon and Rance Culpepper slipping through the shadows toward him.

  He wasn’t sure what they were up to, but they had already let him know that they considered his friendliness toward the two women to be above his station. He was fairly certain that, whatever the plan, they were up to no good.

  Leon and Rance moved out of the shadows, then covered the open space between the after cabin and the stern of the boat. Leaning forward, they stuck their arms out, intending to roll Preacher over the side of the boat.

  Preacher timed it just right, reaching up and grabbing their arms just as they were leaning forward. With their forward momentum already established, it was a simple maneuver for him to pull them past him. Shouting in alarm and surprise, both Leon and Rance tumbled overboard.

  Preacher stood up and looked back into the churning wake, where he saw both heads pop up. The two brothers shouted, but the boat was making so much noise that, even to Preacher’s ears, their shouts were barely audible. Preacher looked around to see if anyone else had seen them go overboard, but nobody appeared to have done so.

  He watched the brothers swim toward the bank. Reaching the shallow part of the river, they stood up. Turning, they shook their fists angrily at him. Preacher saw a couple of farmhouses nearby, so he knew the brothers weren’t in any mortal danger from being stranded there, but they would have a long walk into St. Louis. With a little laugh, he rubbed his hands together, then lay down again and went back to sleep.