LITMIR.BIZ

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much in your life. Run along.”

      Grumbling and dragging his feet, Jake went inside. The other kids went back to whatever they had been doing. Dead bodies started to lose their novelty pretty quickly. They didn’t do anything.

      As Preacher swung down from the saddle, Corliss asked, “Is that blood on your shirt? You’re hurt, Preacher!”

      The rangy mountain man shook his head. “Naw, not to speak of. Just got a little hide scraped off where a rifle ball come too close for comfort. I already slapped a poultice on it. It’ll be fine.”

      “Deborah could take a look at it if you’d like.”

      The idea of Corliss’s pretty, dark-haired wife poking around at his bare torso made Preacher a mite uncomfortable, so he shook his head. “No, thanks. It’s all right.”

      “Suit yourself. Anyway, you probably know as much about treating bullet wounds as anybody else in this part of the country.”

      “I’ve patched up a fair number of ’em,” Preacher admitted. “On me and on other folks, too.”

      A short, slender, sandy-haired man wearing a thick canvas apron over his clothes bustled out onto the porch. “Preacher!” he said. “What’s this about dead men?”

      “They tell no tales,” Preacher said. He inclined his head toward the corpses. “Wish they would, though. I’d kinda like to know why they wanted to kill me.”

      Corliss’s cousin Jerome came down the steps. Unlike the easygoing Corliss, who sometimes seemed to be on the verge of dozing off even when he was wide awake, Jerome Hart was nervous most of the time, whether there was really anything to be nervous about or not.

      During the journey out here, there had been a rivalry between Corliss and Jerome for Deborah’s affections, a rivalry in which Corliss had emerged victorious. For a while, it had looked as if the resulting bitterness would divide the cousins permanently. But they had made their peace and as far as Preacher knew, there had been no more problems between them.

      “I’ve never seen them before,” Corliss said, referring to the two dead bushwhackers. “Take a look, Jerome, and see if you recognize them.”

      Jerome frowned and hesitated. “I, uh, I’m sure that if you don’t know them, Corliss, then I wouldn’t—”

      “Oh, for goodness’ sake,” Corliss snapped. “They’re dead, they can’t hurt you.” He lifted the corpses’ heads one after the other.

      Jerome paled and swallowed hard as he looked at them. “I’m sorry, Preacher,” he said. “I don’t know them. I don’t think they’ve ever been here.”

      “That’s what I figured when Jake didn’t recognize ’em. That younker keeps his eyes open.”

      “Jake?” Jerome repeated. “You let Jake look at these…these cadavers?”

      Preacher nodded. “And the other kids from the settlement, too.”

      Jerome looked horrified, but he didn’t say anything. Preacher knew that the ways of the frontier were different than anything Jerome was accustomed to. Jerome was trying to get used to them, but it might take him a while.

      News of what Preacher had brought in was already spreading through the settlement. People began to show up to have a look at the bodies. Anything different, even something like this, was a welcome break from the hardships of everyday life. Deborah Hart, her gently rounded belly starting to display that she was expecting, came outside and took her turn checking to see if she recognized the bushwhackers. It came as no surprise to Preacher that she didn’t. Neither did Pete Carey, the stocky jack-of-all-trades who helped the Hart cousins run the trading post.

      “Well, Preacher,” Corliss said after a while, “you seem to have drawn a blank. What are you going to do now?”

      Preacher spat. “Only one thing to do. Reckon I’ll need to borrow a shovel.”

      “You’re going to bury them?”

      “I killed ’em. I’ll plant ’em.”

      Jerome said, “Surely we can give you a hand with that at the very least. And Reverend Porter can say a prayer for their souls…although I’m not sure they deserve it if they tried to murder you, my friend.”

      “That’s for somebody else to sort out, not me,” Preacher said. “Once they’re in the ground, I figure on sellin’ that load o’ pelts to you fellas and the two extra horses, and then I might buy me a jug o’ whiskey.”

      Corliss frowned. “But they tried to kill you, and you don’t know why! Doesn’t that bother you?”

      “I’m a mite puzzled,” Preacher admitted, “but I’ll let you in on a little secret…This ain’t the first time somebody’s tried to kill me. And I got a real strong feelin’ it won’t be the last…”

      Chapter 3

      By nightfall, the two men were buried, Reverend Thomas Porter had said the proper words over the graves, and Preacher had gotten a good meal cooked on a stove in the trading post rather than over a campfire. Now he sat in a barrel chair in a corner, his long, buckskin-clad legs stretched out in front of him as he took an occasional nip from the earthenware jug he held. Several other trappers of his acquaintance sat with him, swapping windies. Preacher was mostly silent, though, a frown on his face as he pondered what had happened.

      Despite the nonchalant answer he had given Corliss Hart, the attempt on his life did bother him. Life on the frontier was fraught with enough dangers already. Even though the two strangers had been unsuccessful in their efforts to kill him, the very fact that they had tried told Preacher that somebody else could show up out of the blue and do likewise.

      “What do you think, Preacher?” a red-bearded trapper named Bouchard asked.

      The direct question shook Preacher out of his brooding. “What do I think about what?”

      “Jock thinks there’ll be real towns out here someday.”

      “Aye,” another trapper said. “Jus’ like Glasgow or Edinburgh, wi’ factories and shops and row after row o’ houses.”

      Preacher shuddered at the thought. “Lord, I hope not. If things ever start to get like that, just take me out and shoot me ’cause I don’t wanna see it.”

      “Maybe that’s why those fellows ambushed you,” Bouchard suggested with a grin. “They were just trying to spare you from having to witness the ravages of civilization, mon ami.”

      Preacher downed a snort of hooch. “Yeah, I reckon,” he said caustically.

      The Scottish trapper, Jock, leaned forward and said, “Ye dinna kin why those scuts came after ye, Preacher?”

      Preacher shook his head. “I don’t have any idea. Maybe I had trouble with a friend o’ theirs in the past, and they were tryin’ to settle the score.”

      He didn’t have to explain what he meant. The other men knew that whenever somebody had trouble with Preacher, that somebody usually ended up dead, or at least hurt mighty bad.

      Corliss Hart came over and said, “Why don’t you stay here at the trading post tonight, Preacher?”

      A frown creased Preacher’s forehead. “Sleep with a roof over my head? I ain’t in the habit o’ doin’ that very often. Hell, it ain’t even been a year since I was last in St. Louis.”

      Jock said, “Next thing ye kin, he’ll be wantin’ ye t’ take a bath, Preacher!” The Scotsman slapped his thigh and laughed uproariously at the very idea. The other trappers joined in the laughter.

      “No, I’m serious,” Corliss said. “Surely, it would be safer staying here than camping somewhere in the area. Maybe those two men were the only ones who are after you, but you can’t be sure of that.”

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