CHAPTER 9
Bartlett sent a couple of the
bullwhackers to fetch in the body of the dead man. The powerfully
muscled freighters were able to carry the corpse without much
trouble. They laid it out next to one of the wagons so Preacher
could have a look at it.
The man was skinny and had a scraggly
black beard. One corner of his mouth was twisted grotesquely
because of a knife scar that ran raggedly up his cheek. It looked
like somebody had shoved a blade in his mouth and cut his face half
open.
Preacher had never seen him
before.
“This ain’t one of the fellas who was
with Garity yesterday,” he said as he hunkered on his heels next to
the corpse. “I’ve seen his sort before, though.”
“What sort is that?” Bartlett
asked.
“The one that’ll do some trappin’ or
some other kind of honest work if he absolutely has to, but he’d
rather steal from other folks and enjoy the fruits of their
labor.”
“Then we shouldn’t be mourning him too
much, I suppose.”
Preacher snorted as he straightened to
his feet. Since Casey was out of earshot at the moment, he said,
“Hell, when we pull out you can leave the bastard layin’ here for
the wolves, for all I care.”
Bartlett shook his head. “No, he’s
still a human being. We’ll give him a decent burial.”
“Suit yourself. Don’t expect me to pray
over him.”
“I can do that. I brought a Bible with
me, of course.”
Digging a grave in the mud proved to be
a difficult chore, and the men given the task by Bartlett were
muttering curses under their breath before they were finished. The
hole kept filling up with water. Finally they got the grave deep
enough, and Bartlett had the dead raider wrapped in a blanket. A
couple of the bullwhackers lowered him into the soggy
earth.
Bartlett got out his Bible, asked God
to have mercy on the soul of the departed, whose identity was
unknown, and then motioned for his men to fill in the grave. By the
time that was done, it was early afternoon and the sun had passed
its zenith.
Preacher walked out on the trail and
tested its firmness with his boots. Hours of sun and wind had dried
the ground somewhat. Bartlett followed the mountain man and asked,
“Do you think we can leave now?”
“We’ll give it a try,” Preacher replied
with a nod. “If it looks like the wagons are about to bog down, we
can always stop again.”
Bartlett called orders, and the
bullwhackers hitched up their teams. Roland saddled Casey’s horse
and then his own. Preacher grinned as he heard Lorenzo grumbling
about how nobody saddled his horse for him. He had to do it himself
despite the fact that he was an old man.
“I reckon it’s better to be a pretty
girl than a old geezer,” Lorenzo muttered.
“I don’t know about that,” Preacher
said. “Casey’s had a hard life at times.”
“Yeah, well, so have I. It don’t matter
none. Nobody fusses over me.”
Preacher suddenly lifted up Lorenzo’s
hat and planted a kiss on top of the old man’s bald head. “There,”
he drawled. “That make you feel better?”
“Gimme that hat!” Lorenzo snatched it
away from Preacher and started swatting at the mountain man with
it. “Didn’t nobody ever teach you about respectin’ your
elders?”
Despite the tomfoolery, several worries
nagged at the back of Preacher’s brain, and hoorawing Lorenzo
wasn’t going to make them go away.
When everything was ready, Bartlett
rode along the line of wagons and waved his hat over his head.
“Move out!” he shouted. “Wagons ho!”
The bullwhackers popped their whips and
bellowed at their teams. The oxen leaned forward against their
harnesses and lurched into motion. With loud sucking sounds, the
wheels pulled free of the mud. The sounds continued as the wagons
rolled along the trail.
Preacher watched the wheels. They left
deep ruts behind them, but they kept turning. It was the best he
could hope for. Progress would be slower than usual as the oxen
trudged through the mud and fought its clinging grip on their
hooves, but any progress was better than none.
Bartlett, Roland, and Casey were at the
head of the caravan. Preacher rode up alongside them and said,
“Looks like there’s a good chance the wagons won’t get
stuck.”
“Splendid!” Bartlett said. “Finally we
can put more ground behind us.”
“Well . . . maybe not as much as you’d
hope.”
Bartlett looked over at Preacher with a
frown. “What do you mean? The wagons are moving.”
“This morning while I was out trying to
track the critter that was lurkin’ around camp last night, I came
across a creek. Reckon in normal times it wouldn’t be much more’n a
trickle, maybe even a dry wash, but after that gullywasher
yesterday, these ain’t normal times. The stream was
flooded.”
“You mean we won’t be able to ford it?”
Roland asked.
Preacher nodded. “That’s what I’m
sayin’. I don’t know for sure that it crosses the trail, but it was
runnin’ northeast to southwest, so there’s a good chance it does.
And if it does, we’ll probably have to wait for the water to go
down before we can get to the other side.”
Bartlett said, “How long will that
take?”
“Depends on how much water’s runnin’ in
it. Might just be a few hours, in which case we might be able to
ford today while it’s still light. But it could be as long as
another day.”
“Another day lost!” Bartlett exclaimed.
“My God, does everything out here in this wilderness conspire to
cause trouble for a man and ruin his plans?”
“Sometimes it seems like it,” Preacher
admitted. “But your plans ain’t ruined, just delayed a mite. We’ll
get across sooner or later. It’s still possible we won’t have to
ford that creek at all.”
That much luck was not with them,
however. Less than an hour later, Preacher spotted the dark, muddy
line of the flooded creek stretching across the trail in front of
them. He reined in and pointed it out to Bartlett.
“Should we stop the
wagons?”
Preacher shook his head. “No, there’s
no reason not to push on until we get to the creek. That way we’ll
be ready to ford it as soon as we’re able to. I’ll ride ahead and
take a look.”
He had barely pulled out ahead of the
others with Horse moving at an easy lope when he heard hoofbeats
right behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Casey
following him. She came up even with him.
“No need for you to come along,” he
told her. “You can go back with Roland and his pa if you want
to.”
“But I don’t want to,” Casey snapped.
“I want to talk to you, Preacher.”
He bit back an exasperated curse. If
she wanted to have that conversation, then maybe it was time. They
could clear the air instead of having the future hanging over them
all the way to Santa Fe.
“All right,” he said. “Go ahead and
talk.”
“You’ve made it clear over the past few
days that you don’t want to have anything to do with
me.”
“Now that just ain’t true,” he said. “I
think you’re a fine gal, and I like havin’ you
around.”
“So if I come to your bedroll tonight,
you won’t turn me away?”
“I didn’t say that. Just because I like
you don’t mean I think it’s a good idea for the two of us to, well,
you know . . .”
“Is it because I was a whore? Because
you can’t stop thinking about all the other men who have been with
me?”
Preacher snorted. “Hell, no. You know
better’n that, Casey. If there’s one thing the frontier’s taught
me, it’s that yesterday’s dead and gone. What we did then don’t
matter anymore. Since nobody knows if he’ll be around to see the
sun come up the next mornin’, tomorrow don’t mean a whole hell of a
lot, neither. What we do today, that’s what counts the
most.”
“That’s what I think, too,” she said.
“I just don’t understand why you don’t like me as much
anymore.”
They had reached the rain-swollen
creek. As they sat on their horses beside it, Preacher said,
“Likin’ you don’t have anything to do with it. I just figure you’d
be better off with somebody besides a shiftless old goat like
me.”
“I keep telling you, you’re not that
old. Anyway, that’s not your decision to make.”
“I reckon I’ve got a say in it,
though.”
Casey laughed. “You know a lot about a
lot of things, Preacher, but evidently not that much about
women.”
He frowned and said, “I don’t mean to
hurt you, Casey, and I reckon we’ll be travelin’ together until we
get to Santa Fe, for sure, but after that I don’t know yet where
I’ll be goin’ or what I’ll be doin’.”
She looked out over the churning water.
“You want to abandon me in Santa Fe, is that it?”
“I’d never abandon you,” Preacher
said.
“Well, that’s what it sounds like to
me.”
With that, she wheeled her horse around
and rode back toward the wagons. Preacher shook his head and
muttered a curse. That hadn’t gone the way he wanted it to, but
that was pretty much the story of his life where gals were
concerned. Casey was right about one thing. Despite his experience,
women were mostly a mystery to him and probably always would
be.
He forced his mind onto a more pressing
problem, namely the flooded creek. The stream was wider there, so
the water level wasn’t as deep as it was farther upstream, but it
was still deep enough and flowing fast enough that Preacher didn’t
think it would be a good idea to take the wagons into it just yet.
He had a hunch that by morning, the creek would have gone down
enough they could ford it without too much difficulty.
When the wagons arrived, he gave that
bit of good news to Leeman Bartlett. The man nodded and said,
“Thank goodness. We’ll only lose a few hours that
way.”
“Yeah. We’ll make camp right here and
wait it out.”
The wagons were arranged in a circle
with the livestock in the middle, and the men searched the
surrounding prairie for buffalo dung that was dry enough to burn.
By the time dusk began to settle over the landscape they had
gathered enough to make a decent fire. They could have hot food and
coffee again, and that would make everybody feel
better.
As they were tending to their horses,
Lorenzo said quietly to Preacher, “I saw Casey cryin’ a while back,
after she talked to you. What’d you say to the gal,
Preacher?”
“Dadgum it! I tried to get her to see
that there ain’t no real future for her and me. Sooner or later
she’s gonna want to settle down, and I ain’t cut out for
that.”
“Has she said anything to you about
settlin’ down, Preacher?” Lorenzo asked.
Preacher frowned. “Well . . . no, now
that you mention it, she ain’t.”
“Then maybe you done jumped the gun a
mite. Maybe you should’a just let things stay like they were until
we get to Santa Fe. You coulda worried about it then.”
“Yeah, could be you’re right,” Preacher
muttered. “Would’ve been simpler that way, that’s for damn sure. I
don’t know how well it would’ve gone over with young Bartlett,
though.”
“Roland ain’t a bad sort, but he ain’t
near man enough for a gal like Casey. He’s got a heap of growin’ up
to do first.”
“Maybe I’ll go talk to her. Try to set
things right for a while, anyway.”
Lorenzo nodded. “Be a good idea, I’m
thinkin’.”
The sun had gone down, and the night
shadows were gathering. Preacher walked toward the fire, looking
for Casey as he approached it. He didn’t see her, but Leeman
Bartlett was there.
“Did you happen to notice where Casey
got off to?” Preacher asked the older man.
“She was over by that wagon with
Roland.” Bartlett pointed to one of the big, canvas-covered
vehicles. He frowned worriedly. “Preacher, what sort of woman is
Miss Casey? I’m afraid that Roland has, ah, developed an affection
for her.”
“She’s one of the finest gals I ever
met,” Preacher answered honestly.
“Are the two of you . . . I mean, I
hope you’ll bear no ill will toward Roland because of what I just
said.”
Preacher shook his head. “Don’t worry
about it, Mr. Bartlett. I ain’t lookin’ for trouble. Not woman
trouble, nor any other kind.”
Leaving Bartlett by the fire, he walked
toward the wagon the man had pointed out. He didn’t see Casey and
Bartlett at first, but then he glanced underneath the vehicle and
spotted their feet. They were on the far side of the wagon, inside
the circle with the oxen and the horses.
Preacher was about to step over the
wagon tongue when he heard sobbing. That made him move even
quicker. He came around the wagon and saw Casey and Roland standing
there. Roland had his arms around her, but he wasn’t actually
hugging her. His arms just sort of encircled her, and he patted her
awkwardly on the back with one hand as he said, “Casey, don’t cry.
Please don’t cry.”
She had her hands to her face. She
sagged a little against Roland.
“Casey,” Preacher said. “There ain’t no
need to carry on so. I didn’t mean—”
“You!” Roland said as he looked past
Casey at Preacher. He put his hands on her shoulders and moved her
gently aside. He came toward Preacher, saying, “Leave her alone.
You’re the reason she’s crying, you—”
“Careful there, boy,” Preacher warned
in a low rumble. “I don’t cotton to bein’ called
names.”
“Oh? Well, let’s see how you cotton to
this!”
With that exclamation, Roland leaped at
Preacher, swinging a fist straight at the mountain man’s
face.