Preacher's Fire

by William W. Johnstone

  “You got business in Saint Looey?” the ferryman asked. He pulled the cork from the neck of the jug with his teeth, spat it into his other hand, and then held the jug out to Preacher.

  “I reckon you could say that.” Preacher took the jug, lifted it to his lips, and downed a healthy slug of the raw corn liquor it contained. The stuff burned like fire all the way down his gullet and lit a blaze in his belly. He gasped, then blew out his breath and wiped the back of his other hand across his mouth.

  The ferryman cackled. “Told you it was good stuff. Packs quite a wallop, don’t it?”

  “Yeah,” Preacher rasped. His throat had pretty much recovered from Mike Moran trying to strangle him, but now it felt as if the lining had been burned out of it. He went on, “I’m lookin’ for a job. That’s why I’m goin’ to St. Louis.”

  The ferryman ran his gaze up and down Preacher’s lanky frame in the drab clothes and quaker hat. “You look like you’ve spent some time behind a plow.”

  “Too damn much time,” Preacher said with a disgusted snort. “That’s why I lit out for the west. I had all the farmin’ I could stand. Wanted to see some of the country before I got too old and wore-out to enjoy it.”

  The ferryman slapped his thigh. “I used to feel the same way, son!” he said. “Then, whilst I wasn’t lookin’, I got old and wore-out anyway! Now I spend my days runnin’ this ferry and watchin’ other folks come and go.”

  “You live here?” Preacher asked.

  “Got a place over yonder in Saint Looey.” The ferryman held out a bony hand. “Here, gimme that jug.”

  “I can pay,” Preacher protested.

  “Oh, hell, don’t worry ’bout that. I’ve taken a likin’ to you, son. You remind me o’ me when I was a younker. And I like havin’ somebody around to talk to whilst I’m waitin’ for the ferry to get back. So I ain’t gonna charge you for the whiskey. I just want a swig of it myself.”

  Preacher grinned and handed over the jug. He was glad the old man had decided not to take his money for the liquor. He didn’t have very many coins left.

  They passed the jug back and forth, and as Preacher had suspected, the ferryman got more garrulous with every drink. Preacher said, “St. Louis looks like a mighty big town. What’s it like over there?”

  “Big ain’t the half of it. It’s the biggest town in this whole part of the country. I don’t reckon you ever saw anything like it back on the farm. Folks ever’where you look, and cobblestone streets, and buildin’s all crowded close together . . . and some days, there are so many steamboats at the docks, you can’t hardly see the town from here because o’ their smokestacks.”

  “I don’t know,” Preacher said with a dubious frown. “I’m startin’ to think it might not be safe over there for an ol’ country boy like me.”

  “You got to be careful, all right. There’s fellas who’ll cut your throat for a nickel, or sometimes just because they feel like it. Once you’ve crossed, I’d get away from the riverfront if I was you. That’s a rough patch down there, let me tell you.”

  “One of the fellas from back home came out here for a while,” Preacher said. “When he got back, he told all sorts of stories. Said there are lots of taverns, and houses with fancy ladies in ’em, and that this one fella owned most of them—”

  “Shad Beaumont.” The old ferryman nodded sagely. “I’ve heard of him. I reckon everybody in Saint Looey has. It’s only a rumor, though, that he owns most of the taverns and whorehouses. He has a fur tradin’ company and a couple of emporiums and a livery stable. Hell, and who knows what else. He’s a rich gent, that’s for sure, and he’s got friends in high places. The town’s gettin’ what they call society now, and Beaumont’s part of it.”

  “Have you ever met him?”

  “Me?” The ferryman tilted the jug to his mouth and took a long swallow. The fiery stuff didn’t seem to bother him. He had probably blistered his insides with it so much that he didn’t even feel the burn anymore, Preacher thought. The old man wiped his mouth and went on, “Why would I have any dealin’s with Shad Beaumont? I’m just a no-account old ferryman. I seen him drive by a time or two in his fancy carriage, though. He goes to a place called Dupree’s. Some say he owns it, others claim he just likes to drink there.” A frown formed on the ferryman’s forehead. “Say, why are you so interested in Beaumont, son?”

  “Maybe I’ll see if he’d like to hire me,” Preacher replied with a grin. “I told you, I’m lookin’ for work.”

  The ferryman snorted. “I don’t reckon you’ll find any work with Beaumont less’n you’re willin’ to do some mighty shady things.”

  “I thought you said it was just rumors that he’s some sort of crook.”

  “That’s what some folks believe. I didn’t say I was one of ’em.”

  “So you do think he’s a criminal?”

  “I don’t know a damned thing about it, one way or the other.” The old-timer put the cork back in the jug and pushed it down securely with the heel of his hand. “And that’s just the way I want to keep it. I don’t want it gettin’ around that I’m shootin’ off my mouth about Shad Beaumont.”

  Preacher held up his hands, palms out. “Don’t worry. I ain’t gonna say anything about it. What I’d really like to hear more about is those houses with the fancy ladies.” He grinned. “It’s been a hell of a long trip from Pennsylvania.”

  The ferryman, who had seemed to be getting suspicious for a moment, now relaxed. He returned Preacher’s grin and said, “What you want is a house called Jessie’s Place. Friendliest gals in town, bar none. It’s got a mite o’ class to it, too. Tain’t cheap, mind you, but like this here whiskey o’ mine, it’s worth it.”

  “All right,” Preacher said, leaning forward eagerly. “Tell me how to find it.”

  The ferry returned to the east bank landing a short time later. It was a sturdy flat-bottomed boat large enough to carry two wagons and their teams, or a dozen riders. Preacher had to wait until several more men came along on horseback who wanted to cross the river before the ferryman would let them board. Four men who bore a definite resemblance to the one-eyed man and who were probably his sons worked the long, heavy sweep oars that guided the boat across the Mississippi’s currents to the landing on the west bank.

  During the crossing, Preacher stood at the boat’s railing, holding on to Horse’s reins, and unobtrusively studied the half-dozen men crossing with him. They appeared to be working men, much like he was pretending to be, except for one sandy-haired gent in a brown frock coat and beaver hat. He wore a ruffled shirt and a fancy cravat under the frock coat. His horse was a big black gelding, a fine-looking animal. The man appeared to be well-to-do. Preacher pegged him as a gambler, and a successful one, at that.

  When the boat tied up at the landing about half a mile south of the long line of wharves that jutted out into the river, Preacher led Horse off onto solid ground again, which the rangy gray stallion seemed to appreciate. The other men disembarked as well, including the gambler. He swung up onto his expensive saddle and rode off toward the main part of town. Preacher followed him, although he didn’t care about the gambler. He was going that way anyway, because the ferryman had given him directions for how to find the whorehouse known as Jessie’s Place.

  Preacher had been to St. Louis many times before, so he actually knew his way around the settlement fairly well, although he was pretending to be a stranger. He hadn’t heard of Jessie’s until today, though. It had been a while since he’d been here, and things sometimes changed fast on the frontier. Although St. Louis was civilized, it was right on the edge of a vast, untamed wilderness, and some of that wildness had rubbed off on it. There were a lot of different ways a man could get killed on the prairie or in the mountains, but the same was true here in the city.

  Preacher thought maybe it was even more true here.

  He had two possibilities for the first step in his plan: the fancy saloon called Dupree’s and Jessie’s Place. He was confident that if Jessi
e’s was the best whorehouse in St. Louis, Shad Beaumont was bound to own it. From what he knew of Beaumont, the man was involved in everything shady that went on in the settlement. He wanted to be sure that Beaumont heard about “Jim Donnelly.”

  Unlike most of the houses of ill repute in St. Louis, Jessie’s wasn’t located near the waterfront. Instead it was in a quiet neighborhood on the north side of town where trees grew around the houses and there were flower beds full of brilliantly blooming flowers in the yards. The house had two stories and wore enough coats of whitewash that its walls gleamed. It looked like the sort of place where a wealthy merchant would live.

  Which was exactly what it was, Preacher supposed. Jessie might not be the owner, but she was in charge here, and she definitely had merchandise for sale.

  Preacher couldn’t afford that merchandise, even if he’d been in a buying mood. He hadn’t come to St. Louis looking for a woman, he reminded himself as he tied Horse at a hitch rail in front of the house. Several others were tied there, and Preacher frowned slightly as he recognized one of them. It was the big black from the ferry, the one that the sandy-haired gambler had ridden.

  Well, that wasn’t too much of a surprise, he told himself. A man who dressed that well and owned a horse like this would want to patronize the best whorehouse in town.

  Preacher went up a flagstone walk bordered by flower beds to the front porch. There was a brass lion’s-head knocker in the middle of the heavy door. He rapped sharply with it and waited.

  The man who opened the door was tall, broad-shouldered, and black. He was bald except for a fringe of gray hair around his ears that trailed around the back of his head. Age didn’t seem to have withered him any, though. The muscles in his arms and shoulders bulged against the coat he wore.

  He took one look at Preacher, got a superior sneer on his face, and said, “If you’ve brought those barrels of wine from the boat, you need to take them around back.”

  “You see a wagon full of wine barrels out here?” Preacher asked.

  The man frowned and looked past him. “No. What do you want?”

  “This is Jessie’s Place, ain’t it? What do you think I want?”

  Preacher started to push past the man, who put a hand on his chest to stop him. Preacher felt the strength coming from the man’s arm and shoulders.

  “This ain’t your kind of place, mister. You need to go back down to the waterfront. The girls in the cribs there’ll be more than happy to accommodate you.”

  Preacher sneered right back at the man. “You talk mighty fancy for a slave.”

  “I ain’t a slave,” the man said with a shake of his head. “I’m a freedman, and I ain’t afraid of you just ’cause you’re white, mister. The law around here ain’t gonna blink an eye if I whup your ass.”

  Preacher returned the man’s cold, level stare. “So you’re a freedman, eh?” He turned his head and spat. “That’s just a fancy word for a darky who’s got too big for his britches. I got money, damn your black hide.”

  “Not enough,” the man said. “I can tell by lookin’ at you. Now, are you gonna leave peaceable-like, or—”

  Preacher didn’t let him finish. He swung a wild punch at the man’s head instead.

  The man ducked under the blow and lunged forward, wrapping his arms around Preacher’s waist. Suddenly Preacher felt himself jerked up off the ground. He let out a startled yelp that was completely genuine as the man hoisted him above his head.

  With only a slight grunt of effort, the man heaved Preacher all the way off the porch and into the yard. He came down hard enough in one of the flower beds to knock the breath out of him. As he rolled over and gasped for air, he looked up and saw the big man stomping toward him, a look of outrage on the black face.

  Well, thought Preacher, it looked like this part of the chore was about to turn out to be a mite harder than he’d expected.

  Chapter 11

  “You son of a bitch!” the black man yelled. “You landed right in my nasturtiums! I’m gonna thrash you within an inch of your life!”

  “Well, you threw me here, you damn fool!” Preacher shouted back as he leaped to his feet. “Nobody does that to Jim Donnelly!”

  Preacher knew he couldn’t take it easy in this fight. He had drawn an opponent who was too fast and strong for that. If he didn’t put his best effort into it, he might wind up crawling away with broken bones, and he couldn’t afford that.

  So this time he waited for the other fella to throw the first punch, and when the big, hamlike fist came sailing toward his face, he slipped aside so that it barely grazed his ear as it went past and stepped in to hammer a right into the man’s sternum.

  That was a good move, or at least it would have been if Preacher’s fist hadn’t felt like it had just slammed into a brick wall. The man brought up a looping left that clipped Preacher on the side of the head and sent him rolling on the ground again as rockets went off behind his eyes.

  “Damn it, you’re in my flowers again!”

  The man reached down and slapped his massive hands on Preacher’s shoulders. As he hauled Preacher upright, Preacher sent his right fist whistling skyward in an uppercut that caught the big man on the jaw. Preacher had hoped that anybody as solid in the middle as the black man might have a glass jaw, but that hope was dashed as the man shrugged off the blow and started shaking Preacher like a terrier shaking a rat.

  The big son of a bitch had to have a weak spot somewhere, Preacher thought, so he went for the most likely area.

  He kicked the fellow in the balls.

  Finally, something went right. The man’s eyes widened, and the black face turned an ashen shade of gray. His hands slipped off Preacher’s shoulders. He didn’t double over in agony as most men would have done, but at least he hunched his shoulders and bent over a little as he clutched at his injured groin.

  Preacher clubbed his hands together and swung them against the corded muscles on the left side of the man’s neck. That sent the man staggering to his right. While the man was off balance, Preacher kicked his right knee. That leg collapsed, dumping the man on the ground. Preacher landed on top of him and swung his clubbed fists again, back and forth, slamming them into the man’s face twice.

  “That’ll be enough.”

  The cold, dangerous voice spoke from the porch. Preacher twisted his neck to look back over his shoulder. He saw the sandy-haired man from the ferry standing there, a small but deadly pistol in his hand. The gambler pointed the gun at Preacher. It was cocked and ready to fire.

  While the gambler held the pistol rock steady, a woman rushed past him and hurried off the porch into the yard. “Brutus!” she cried. When she reached Preacher, she struck at him with a small fist and said, “Get off him, you bastard!”

  “Jessie,” the gambler said in a warning tone, “don’t get between me and—”

  It was too late for that warning. Preacher grabbed the woman’s wrist and pulled her in front of him as he stood up. Using a woman as a shield really rubbed him the wrong way—hell, that was what Buckhalter had done with Lorraine when the Pawnee war party attacked the wagon train—but Preacher thought it might be something “Jim Donnelly” would do in circumstances like this.

  “Take it easy, mister,” he said as he jerked the woman against him. He had twisted her so that her back was to him, and he felt the enticing curve of her hips as he pressed against her. “Just put that gun down.”

  “I’ll kill you for this,” the woman spat furiously. “I’ll kill you myself. And if you’ve hurt Brutus, I’ll make sure you take a long time to die!”

  “You take it easy, too,” Preacher rasped in her ear. “Everybody needs to just settle down, damn it. I didn’t come here lookin’ for trouble.”

  On the ground, the black man called Brutus groaned, but he didn’t show any signs of getting up soon.

  “Jessie,” the gambler said, “what do you want me to do?”

  “Put your gun away, Cleve,” she told him. She glared back over he
r shoulder at Preacher. “I’ll deal with this . . . gentleman.”

  She might as well have called him the most obscene name in the book, judging by her tone. Even though the gambler lowered his gun, Preacher didn’t let go of Jessie. He said, “This is your place?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Call off your dogs, then. I don’t want to hurt nobody, least of all a gal as pretty as you.”

  She was stunning, no doubt about that. Even though Preacher hadn’t really gotten a good look at her yet, he was sure about that much. She was tall and slender—coltish would be a good word to describe her—and yet her body had plenty of womanly curves. Long, light brown hair swept around her face, over her shoulders, and down her back. The part that covered her ears had been curled into tight ringlets. She wore a fine, light blue gown that hugged her body. If she was a whore, she was one of the prettiest Preacher had ever seen. She looked more like she ought to be a rich man’s wife.

  She said to the man on the porch, “Cleve, go back inside and send Terence and Micah out here to help Brutus.”

  The gambler frowned. “You’re sure?”

  “I’m certain.”

  Cleve shrugged. “It’s your house.”

  He tucked the gun away under his coat and disappeared through the door, which he left open behind him.

  “Are you going to let me go?” Jessie asked Preacher, her voice cold with scorn.

  “That depends. Are you gonna sic more of your men on me?”

  “No. Not unless you cause more trouble.”

  Preacher still had hold of her wrist, so that her arm was doubled behind her back. He released it and stepped away from her. She turned to glare at him as she used her other hand to rub the wrist he’d been gripping.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”