LITMIR.BIZ

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be to think that the huge rock slide had caught him and crushed the life from him.

      Preacher whistled Horse over to him and swung up into the saddle. He followed the scratches on the rocks left by the horseshoes, and Dog stayed on the scent for good measure. The men hadn’t made any effort to hide their trail, more evidence that they thought Preacher was dead.

      The tracks led northwest through rugged but beautiful country. The men had dropped down quickly from the heights of the pass to a long, grassy valley watered by a stream that sparkled in the sunlight as it flowed over a rocky bed.

      Preacher had been through here many times in his wanderings. He knew the country well. To the north was the area known as Colter’s Hell, named after the legendary mountain man John Colter. At first, folks had thought he was crazy when he came back and reported that there was an area where geysers of steaming water shot hundreds of feet in the air and bubbling mud pits stank of brimstone, like they were entrances to Hades. Of course, as it turned out, the place really existed and Colter hadn’t been exaggerating. Preacher had seen it more than once with his own eyes.

      The would-be killers might be headed there, or their destination might be closer. Preacher didn’t know and didn’t care. He would stay on their trail wherever it led.

      Since he had given Horse that extra rest, he kept the stallion moving at a fast pace now. The men who were his quarry had been dawdling along, yet another indication they didn’t think anybody could be following them. The sign Preacher saw told him that he was closing in on them. He might even catch up to them before nightfall.

      He wasn’t sure he wanted that. Might be easier to deal with them once they had camped for the night. Let them fill their bellies, maybe pass around a jug…

      Then see how they liked it when the man they thought they had killed rose right up out of that grave under hundreds of tons of rock.

      When he was no more than an hour behind them, Preacher slowed down and maintained that distance. Dog whined a little in eagerness, but Preacher just smiled and said, “Just be patient, old fella. We’ll settle up with those varmints before much longer.”

      The sun dipped behind the mountains to the west, and night settled down quickly. Preacher waited until he spotted the tiny orange eye of a campfire and then steered for it, still taking his time. It didn’t surprise him that the men had built a fire. He’d been able to tell from the trail they left that they were greenhorns. Still potentially dangerous, of course, but not as experienced in the ways of the frontier as some.

      When he was close enough to smell the wood smoke, he dismounted and tied Horse’s reins loosely to a sapling. The stallion would be able to pull free if he needed to.

      “Stay here, fella,” Preacher said quietly as he patted Horse on the shoulder. “Come on, Dog.”

      Horse threw his head up and down as if he didn’t appreciate being left behind, but he didn’t try to pull loose. Preacher and Dog padded off into the darkness.

      The Indians knew Preacher by many names, most of them having to do with his expertise at killing. They frightened their children with tales of this white man who came in the night like a phantom and left death behind him, silent and lethal. Preacher knew this and did nothing to discourage it. A reputation as a dangerous man could be an annoyance at times, but mostly it came in handy.

      Dog at his side, he moved through the night with an uncanny stealth practiced over many perilous years on the frontier. The glow of the campfire was visible through the trees from time to time, but Preacher didn’t really need to see it or smell the smoke. Now that he knew where he was going, his uncanny sense of direction would have taken him right to his destination without anything else.

      He and Dog didn’t make a sound as they closed in on the camp. When Preacher was close enough to hear the men talking, he went to the ground and tugged Dog down beside him. They lay there listening. Preacher hoped that the men would drop some hints into their conversation about why they had tried to kill him.

      The tone of their voices told him he’d been right about them having a jug. It sounded like they’d been passing it around for a while. Most of their comments were profane observations about the talents of various whores who plied their trade in the waterfront taverns of St. Louis. That confirmed another of Preacher’s suppositions, that they weren’t frontiersmen. They had come out here from back East, probably recently.

      Had they come all this way just to kill him? That was crazy, he told himself, and yet he couldn’t rule it out.

      They finally got around to talking about their attempt on his life. One of the men said in a slightly whiskey-slurred voice, “Wish I could’a seen that damn Preacher’s face when all those rocks started comin’ at him.”

      “Prob’ly shit right in his pants,” another man said with a giggle that put Preacher’s teeth on edge.

      The third man said, “Important thing is that he’s dead. Thass all that matters. Now gimme that damn jug!”

      “Get your hands off it! You been hoggin’ it all night!”

      “The hell you say! I’ll learn you to talk to me like that!”

      “Dadgum it, Parker!” That was the first man, trying to make peace between the other two. “You can’t just—Oh, shit! No!”

      The roar of a gunshot drowned out his voice, then another shot blasted and somebody screamed.

      Preacher bit back a curse of his own.

      So much for that plan, he thought bitterly.

      Chapter 5

      He lunged to his feet and burst out of the brush surrounding the clearing where the camp was located. His keen eyes took in the scene instantly, noting the rocks and the logs scattered around that the men had been using for seats by the fire in the center of the clearing.

      One man lay on his back, kicking and thrashing as he screamed. His hands pawed at his chest, where blood bubbled and spurted between his fingers from a wound. Preacher figured the first shot had downed that gent.

      He couldn’t tell who had fired the second shot or what the result of it had been, because the other two men were rolling around on the ground on the other side of the fire. The red light from the flames glittered on the knives they held. Each man was trying to bury his blade in the other’s body, and as Preacher entered the clearing, one of them succeeded. He managed to get on top and drive his knife down into the chest of the other man, who howled in pain as the steel penetrated his body. He jerked and shuddered and then went limp. Preacher could tell from the knife’s location that it had pierced the man’s heart.

      Just then the man on the other side of the fire gave a gurgling gasp and fell silent. Preacher figured that one was dead, too.

      That left only the one fella, who left his knife in the body of the man he had just killed and staggered to his feet. He didn’t seem to realize at first that Preacher was there, but then Dog let out a low, rumbling growl and the man stiffened. He turned slowly, his eyes widening in horror as he realized who was standing there.

      “You didn’t figure I’d let you get away with it, did you?” Preacher asked.

      The man started to back up. He was tall and slender, but had a potbelly. His hat had come off during the struggle, revealing a mostly bald head. His mouth worked, but no sound came out for a moment. Then he managed to say, “You…you can’t be here. You’re dead. You’re dead!”

      “Not hardly,” Preacher said.

      The man had blood on his shirt. Preacher figured he’d been nicked by that second shot, which must have been fired by the man who now had the knife in his chest. Even though Preacher hadn’t seen it, he had a pretty idea how the fight had played out. This fella and the one on the other side of the fire had argued over the jug, which lay broken near the flames. The survivor had whipped out a pistol and shot the man he was arguing with. Then the third varmint had shot this one, who wasn’t wounded badly enough to stop him from pulling

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