Preacher's Carnage

Book 27: Preacher/The First Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

In the bloody aftermath of a wagon ambush, a suspect flees, a woman disappears, and a mountain man searches for truth, justice, and revenge. They call him Preacher . . . 
 
JOHNSTONE COUNTRY. STOP BY AND SAY HOWDY. 
 
Preacher is no hired killer. When a wagon train is brutally ambushed on the Sante Fe Trail though, he can't say no to the St. Louis businessman willing to pay him for justice. It's not the stolen gold that's convinced Preacher to take the job  And it's not the missing body of one of the wagon train's crew, a prime suspect who may have plotted the ambush and taken off with the gold. No, it's the suspect's lovely fiance, Alita Montez. She believes her boyfriend is innocent—and has run off to find him. Preacher can't abide the idea of a young woman alone on the Sante Fe Trail. If the Comanche don't get her, the coyotes will. And Preacher can't have that.  
 
But to save the girl and get the gold, the legendary mountain man will have to forge a path that's as twisted as a nest of rattlers, face off with trigger-happy kidnappers, backstabbers, and bounty-hunters—and match wits with Styles Mallory, the biggest baddest frontiersman of them all . . .  
 
Live Free. Read Hard. 
 

 

Release date: December 29, 2020

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 264

Sample

Preacher’s arm drew back and then flashed forward. The heavy hunting knife in the mountain man’s hand turned over once in midair as it flew straight and true through the shadows along the hard-packed dirt street, past the man in the beaver hat.

With Preacher’s powerful muscles behind it, the foot of cold steel buried itself in the chest of a man about to fire a pistol into Beaver Hat’s back.

The would-be killer grunted and reeled a step to the side. His gun arm sagged. In his death throes, he might have jerked the trigger anyway, but that was a chance Preacher had had to take. He couldn’t prevent the callous murder any other way.

The man in the beaver hat might have seen the knife fly past him, or maybe he’d just heard it cutting through the air close to his head. But he heard the grunt of pain behind him and whirled around with surprising speed and grace for a man of his bulk. The cane he carried lifted and came down sharply on the wrist of his assailant’s gun hand. The unfired pistol thudded to the street.

Beaver Hat drew the cane back to strike again, but it wasn’t necessary. After the assailant pawed for a second at the knife in his chest, his knees buckled. As he fell, Beaver Hat stepped back to give him room to pitch forward on his face.

Beaver Hat turned to face Preacher as the mountain man approached. He lifted his cane and said, “I warn you, sir, if that man is your partner and you intend to continue in the same vein, I shall deal with you harshly.”

Preacher said, “Just who you reckon flung that pig-sticker into the varmint’s chest, mister?”

“You?”

“Damn right.”

Preacher stepped past the man in the beaver hat, hooked a booted toe under the corpse’s shoulder, and rolled the dead man onto his back. He reached down, grasped the knife’s handle, and pulled the weapon free.

After wiping blood from the blade on the dead man’s rough, homespun shirt, Preacher straightened and slid the knife back into the sheath at his belt. He had a pair of flintlock pistols tucked behind that belt as well, but in the poor light, he had trusted his knife more than a gun when he spotted the man about to bushwhack Beaver Hat.

“Should we summon the authorities?” Beaver Hat asked as he looked down disdainfully at the corpse.

“Only if you want to stand around for an hour answerin’ some constable’s foolish questions. Did you know this fella?”

Beaver Hat leaned forward slightly to study the dead man’s face in the faint light that came from a window in a nearby building.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen him before.”

“Then he didn’t have any personal reason for wantin’ to hurt you?”

“I can’t imagine what it would be.”

Preacher nodded, satisfied by that answer.

“The only explanation that makes any sense is that he planned to kill you, then rob you. A fancy-dressed gent like you, most folks in this part of town would figure you’ve got money in your pockets.”

“So you’re saying it’s my fault this miscreant tried to attack me?” Beaver Hat asked rather testily.

“Take it however you want to,” Preacher said. “It don’t matter to me.”

Beaver Hat stood there frowning for a moment, then said, “Well . . . at any rate . . . I owe you my thanks. I heard someone behind me, but I doubt if I would have been able to turn around and disarm that dolt before he shot me.”

“Not hardly,” Preacher agreed. “Usually, thieves like him would rather knife their victims or strangle ’em. But I reckon he figured a shot wouldn’t draw enough attention around here to worry about. He’d have time to go through your pockets before anybody came to check on things. And shootin’ a fella is a quicker, simpler way to kill him than those other ways.”

“You sound as if you speak from experience.”

“Mister,” Preacher said, “if there’s a way to kill a varmint who needs killin’, chances are I’ve done it.”

The man stared at him for a couple of seconds, then said, “Well, that’s an audacious claim, anyway. I still owe you a debt of gratitude, and although a drink hardly has the same value as my life, at least to me, I’d very much like to buy one for you, sir.”

“In that case,” Preacher said, “I ain’t gonna argue, and I know a good place.”

Red Mike’s Tavern was only a few blocks from the waterfront where the Mississippi River flowed majestically past the settlement of St. Louis.

Actually, calling it a settlement understated the situation. By this time, more than seventy-five years after its founding as a trading post by French fur traders Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau, St. Louis had grown into a full-fledged town. So much so that Preacher, accustomed to the more-lonely reaches of the Rocky Mountains, always felt a mite uneasy among so many people and so many buildings. Not to mention, the air stunk of dead fish, smoke, and unwashed flesh.

However, he had spent some time in New Orleans recently, and that city at the mouth of the Mississippi was ten times worse in every way Preacher could think of.

Red Mike’s catered to both rivermen and fur trappers, necessitating an uneasy truce between the two factions. The tavern was as close to a home away from home as Preacher had.

“Judging by all the greetings that were shouted as we came in, it appears that everyone here knows your name,” Beaver Hat commented as he and Preacher sat down at a table. Each man had a big mug of beer.

“Maybe so,” Preacher allowed, “but that don’t mean they’re all my friends. I could point out half a dozen fellas in here who wouldn’t mind a bit seein’ my carcass skinned and the hide hung up to dry.”

Beaver Hat shuddered and said, “That’s a rather grisly image. I suppose that in your travels you’ve actually witnessed such things, though.”

Preacher shrugged and took a drink from his mug.

Beaver Hat drank, too, and continued, “It occurs to me that we haven’t been introduced. My name is Daniel Eckstrom.”

“Folks call me Preacher.”

Eckstrom was a heavyset man with jowls, side whiskers, and bushy eyebrows. Those eyebrows climbed up his forehead as his eyes widened in surprise.

“Preacher?” he repeated.

“That’s right. Do we know each other?”

“No, but I’ve heard of you. In fact, I ventured into this part of town tonight specifically in search of you.”

Preacher frowned and said, “You were lookin’ for me?”

“That’s right. I inquired among my acquaintances in the fur trading industry as to the identity of a dependable, knowledgeable man of the frontier, and your name came up repeatedly. Well, your nom de guerre, as it were. I assume your mother did not name you Preacher.”

As a matter of fact, Preacher’s mother had named him Arthur, and he had gone by Art during his childhood and adolescence, which had been cut short when he left his family’s farm and headed west to see the elephant. After a few detours, including one to New Orleans, where he’d fought the bloody British with Andy Jackson’s army, he had wound up in the mountains, where he had learned the fur-trapping business and earned the special enmity of the Blackfoot Indians. An encounter with the Blackfeet that almost cost him his life had resulted in the nickname Preacher, and it had stuck with him ever since, to the point that sometimes he felt like he barely remembered his real name.

He looked darkly across the table at Daniel Eckstrom, who went on, “I was also told that my best chances of locating you would be in this section of town. Several people whose opinions I sought knew that you had been in St. Louis in recent days but weren’t sure if you were still here.”

“I was fixin’ to light a shuck for the mountains pretty soon. Too many people in these parts. I don’t cotton much to bein’ crowded.”

“Then it’s fortunate in more ways than one that I encountered you tonight. Not only did you save my life from that robber, but now I can tell you why I wanted to talk to you.”

“Yeah, I was a mite curious about that,” Preacher said dryly.

“I have a proposition for you,” Eckstrom said. “I’d like to hire you.”

Preacher nodded slowly as he pondered whether to hear Eckstrom out or grab the man by the collar of his expensive coat, drag him to the door, and boot his rump into the street. This wasn’t the first time somebody had sat down with him in Red Mike’s and tried to hire him for some chore. Every time he agreed—usually against his better judgment—he’d wound up in a heap of trouble. Every instinct in Preacher’s body told him that this time probably wouldn’t be any different.

But his curiosity got the better of him, and he said, “What kind of job are we talkin’ about?”

“One that involves a considerable amount of gold coin,” Eckstrom replied smoothly. “And the distinct possibility that you might encounter one or more of those . . . how did you phrase it? . . . varmints who need killin’.”

More intrigued than he wanted to be, Preacher took another healthy swallow of his beer and told Eckstrom, “Go on.”

“I’m a businessman, as you probably surmised.”

“In that outfit, I didn’t take you for a keelboater.”

“I have an interest in several enterprises here in St. Louis,” Eckstrom continued as if he hadn’t heard Preacher’s comment, “but a partner and I also own a retail establishment . . . a general store, if you will . . . in Santa Fe, a town in the Mexican province of Nuevo Mexico.”

Preacher nodded and said, “I know Santa Fe. Been there quite a few times.”

“I’m aware of that fact. That was another question I asked of my acquaintances. I wanted a man who knew the ground, so to speak.”

Eckstrom was the bush-beating sort, Preacher realized, and you couldn’t hurry those fellas. He sat back and waited for Eckstrom to go on.

“My partner is a man named Armando Montez,” Eckstrom went on. “A native of Santa Fe and a man of impeccable character. I supply the goods, sending wagon trains full of merchandise several times a year to Santa Fe, where Señor Montez sells them and we divide the profits equally. Twice a year, he sends me my share, in the form of gold coins, sending them back with the empty wagons since those wagon trains are always well guarded against the brigands who lurk along the Santa Fe Trail.”

“Plenty of outlaws along the Santa Fe Trail, all right,” Preacher said, “along with Kiowa and Comanch’. It’s rugged country.”

The mountain man recalled a journey he had made along the Santa Fe Trail a few years earlier, accompanying a wagon train full of immigrants. They had run into plenty of trouble along the way, including a huge grizzly bear that had seemed hell-bent on killing Preacher.

“In order to make the whole process safer,” Eckstrom said, “no one knows exactly which trip will contain one of those money shipments except myself, Señor Montez, and his assistant, a young man named Toby Harper.”

Preacher had told himself to be patient, but his restraint was starting to wear thin. He drained the rest of his beer, signaled to Red Mike behind the bar for another, and then said, “From the way you were talkin’ a few minutes ago, I’m guessin’ something happened to one of those shipments.”

Eckstrom sighed heavily and nodded.

“Indeed it did. The last time Armando sent my share to me, the wagon train was ambushed and the gold was stolen. All the men traveling with the wagons were slain . . . with the exception of Toby Harper. He seems to have, ah, disappeared.”

Preacher cocked an eyebrow and said, “Sounds to me like this fella Harper set up the whole deal and was behind the ambush.”

“Armando refuses to believe that. Harper was his assistant for several years, and Armando insists that he is absolutely trustworthy.”

“You don’t believe that, though,” Preacher said.

“I’ve met the young man only twice. He seemed genuine enough, but no, in the face of the evidence, I have no reason to believe he’s honest. However, Armando has another reason for feeling the way he does: Toby Harper was supposed to become his son-in-law. The young man is engaged to marry Armando’s daughter Alita.”

One of the serving girls brought Preacher’s beer over and set the mug on the table in front of the mountain man. She bent forward as she did so, giving him an enticing view and a suggestive smile. Preacher was too rugged to ever be considered handsome, but the ladies seemed to like him anyway.

Normally he might have been happy to spend what he’d expected to be his last night in St. Louis with this gal, but he’d gotten interested in Daniel Eckstrom’s story and wanted to hear more. So he returned the serving girl’s smile but without any sort of commitment in the expression.

The girl recognized that and flounced away in mingled annoyance and disappointment. Preacher said to Eckstrom, “I can see why your partner don’t want to believe the worst of Harper. It’s possible there’s some other reason his body wasn’t with the others. If Injuns jumped that wagon train, they could’ve carried him off, plannin’ to take him back to their camp and torture him to death.”

“Would the savages do such a thing?”

Preacher shrugged and said, “Kiowa and Comanch’ ain’t as bad about that as some of the other tribes, like the Blackfeet up north or the Apache farther west, but it’s been known to happen.”

“Isn’t it just as likely he arranged the whole thing and is responsible not only for the loss of the gold but the deaths of all those other men, as well?”

“Based on what you’ve told me . . . yeah, I reckon it is. But what you haven’t told me, Mr. Eckstrom, is what you want me to do about it.”

“Naturally, quite a bit of time has passed since this occurred. Communication between here and Santa Fe is not swift, needless to say. But before the trail gets any . . . colder, isn’t that how you’d say it? . . . Before the trail gets any colder, I need a good man to take it up, find Toby Harper, and discover the truth of his involvement, and recover that gold. And if Harper is to blame and the gold can’t be recovered . . . then my representative can deliver some justice for those men who were murdered by killing Toby Harper.”

For a long moment, Preacher didn’t respond. He just sat there looking across the table at Eckstrom, his fresh mug of beer forgotten for now.

Finally he said, “That’s putting it mighty plain.”

“I’m a plainspoken man,” Eckstrom said.

For the most part, that wasn’t true, Preacher thought. Eckstrom was a man who loved the sound of his own voice. But clearly he knew when to be blunt, too.

The mountain man shook his head and said, “I’m not a hired killer, mister. If you’d said what you just did to any of the folks you asked about me, they’d have told you that. You’ll have to find yourself somebody else.”

“From what I’ve heard, there isn’t anyone else with your skills. Besides, I’m more interested in recovering those gold coins than in settling the score with Harper.”

Preacher took a long swallow from the mug and thumped it back down on the table.

“Nope. My gut says this is something I don’t want to get mixed up in, and I’m old enough to have learned to listen to it.”

Eckstrom leaned forward and said, “There’s actually more at stake than I’ve mentioned so far.”

“I don’t reckon there’s anything you could say that would change—”

“What about a young woman’s life being in danger?”

Preacher’s eyebrows lowered. He said, “You must be talkin’ about that gal who’s your partner’s daughter.”

“Alita Montez,” Eckstrom confirmed.

“I can see why she’d be mighty upset that the fella she figured on gettin’ hitched with has disappeared and is mostly likely dead. And if he ain’t dead, that means he’s probably turned outlaw. But I don’t see how that puts her life in danger.”

“The last letter I received from Armando,” Eckstrom said, “he told me that Alita was determined to prove Harper’s innocence. He fears that she plans to launch a search of her own for him. A couple of the men who work for him are fiercely devoted to her, and she would have no trouble convincing them to accompany her.” The businessman spread his hands. “Given the lag in communications, it’s entirely possible that she’s already set out from Santa Fe by now, even though her father assured me that he intends to keep a close eye on her. In my experience, it’s quite difficult to keep a determined woman from doing what she wants to do.”

Preacher grunted and said, “You’re right about that. But you don’t know for sure she’s gone to look for Harper.”

“Indeed, I don’t. But the possibility certainly exists. She could be out there now, somewhere along the Santa Fe Trail—”

“All right, all right,” Preacher interrupted him. “You done made your point.”

“Sufficiently to persuade you to accept the proposition?”

“Well, you ain’t exactly made a proposition yet, because you ain’t said anything about what’s in this for me.”

Eckstrom placed both hands flat on the table and said, “Half of whatever money you recover.”

“What if it’s all gone?”

“Then you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you did the right thing. And, as I said, perhaps will have dealt with the man responsible for committing such a foul act. So, you see, I’m not offering to pay you for killing Toby Harper. Not exactly.”

Preacher made a little growling sound deep in his throat and said, “You talk around and around a thing, mister, until I ain’t sure just what it is you’re sayin’. But if there’s a chance there’s a gal out there gettin’ herself into trouble—”

“A very good chance, I’d say.”

“Then I can’t hardly turn my back on the deal. Just out of curiosity, though . . . how much money are you talkin’ about?”

“Armando sent me approximately two thousand dollars with the wagon train. So your share of the recovered funds could be as much as a thousand.”

Preacher kept his face impassive, but he was impressed. One thousand dollars was a lot of money. More than he’d ever made in a season of trapping furs. After hearing about the girl, he’d already been leaning toward accepting the job from Eckstrom, but the chance of such a windfall clinched the deal.

Not that he would live his life any differently if he had that much money, he told himself. As long as he had enough for supplies to get him to the mountains, that was really all he needed. He could live off the land as well as the Indians.

Might be nice to spend some time in Santa Fe with plenty of dinero, though, he mused. There was a cantina there he liked almost as much as Red Mike’s, as well as a few señoritas who had professed undying devotion to him. And then, when the money started to run low, he could get himself an outfit and head north through the Sangre de Cristos toward the big ranges of the Rockies. That was where he’d wanted to wind up all along.

Eckstrom was watching him with an eager expression on his beefy face. Preacher said, “All right. The way I see it, I’m goin’ after three things: the money, the girl—if she’s there—and the truth.”

“If you find all three,” Eckstrom said, “you’ll have definitely earned your reward!”

Since Daniel Eckstrom was a merchant with an interest in more than one store in St. Louis, he offered to furnish the supplies for Preacher’s trip west. He also provided a pair of pack mules.

As much time as had already passed, Preacher didn’t figure he ought to waste any more, so he told Eckstrom he wanted to be ready to depart by the middle of the next morning. He’d been spending the nights in the hayloft of the stable where he kept his rangy gray stallion, Horse, so that was where Eckstrom had the pack mules and supplies delivered.

Eckstrom himself showed up a short time later, even more sartorially resplendent today in a swallowtail coat, gray-striped trousers, and a different beaver hat. He clasped his hands behind his back, rocked slightly on the balls of his feet, and said, “I wanted to come by and make certain you have everything you need for the journey.”

“Reckon I do,” Preacher said, resting a hand on a leather pack draped over the back of one of the mules.

“Excellent. I—Good heavens! Is that a wolf?”

A huge, shaggy gray cur had just sauntered out of the livery barn. The beast came to Preacher’s side and sat down.

“This here’s Dog,” Preacher said as he dropped a hand to scratch the big cur’s head between the pointed ears. “He may be part wolf, I couldn’t say about that. But he’s one of my trail partners, along with Horse here, and has been for quite a spell.”

“I . . . see.” Eckstrom swallowed. “Very well. Is there anything else I can do for you and, ah, Dog and Horse?”

“Nope.” Preacher tapped the pocket of his buckskin shirt. “I’ve got the letter you wrote to Armando Montez in Santa Fe tellin’ him who I am and what I’m doin’ for you, in case I wind up out there and need his help. You’ve been more than generous when it comes to provisions, powder and shot, and such like. All I need to do now is go do the job I agreed to do.”

“Then I’ll wish you luck,” Eckstrom said as he extended a pudgy hand.

“And I’ll sure take it,” Preacher told him as he clasped Eckstrom’s hand.

Considering the wild country he was heading into, he’d probably wind up needing all the luck he could get.

Before starting out on the Santa Fe Trail itself, though, Preacher had to cross Missouri from one side to the other. The trail actually began over on the western side of the state, at the town of Independence.

He moved at a steady pace that ate up the ground without wearing out Horse or the two pack mules. There were some settlements on the road between St. Louis and Independence, but Preacher didn’t stop at any of them, even when the afternoon waned and he needed a place to spend the night. Instead he pushed on, figuring he would find somewhere to camp.

He’d had a roof over his head too many nights of late. He preferred stars.

As the sun dipped toward the horizon, almost touching. . .