Preacher's Justice (11 page)

The smell of bacon frying in the pan, and freshly brewed coffee, awakened Preacher the next morning. For just a moment, he wondered where he was. Then he remembered that he had spent the night with Carla.

He smiled as he recalled that it had been an active night.

Dog shook himself, making his loose skin flutter as he did so.

“What are you trying to tell me, Dog? That Preacher is awake?” Carla asked.

Dog walked over to the bed and lifted his paw.

“You didn't have to fix breakfast,” Preacher said.

“I know I didn't have to. I wanted to,” Carla said.

Preacher looked around the room.

“The necessary is out back,” Carla said. “And there's a pump and washbasin just outside the back door.”

“Thanks.”

Preacher took care of his morning business, washed his face and hands, decided against a shave for now, and came back into the small house. Carla had breakfast laid out on the table.

“Carla, really . . . ” he began, but Carla held up her hand to stop him in mid-sentence.

“Preacher, this may be the closest thing to a normal family that I'll ever have,” she said. “Please, don't deny me this pleasure.”

“Deny it?” Preacher smiled broadly. “On the contrary. I intend to enjoy every bite of it.”

 

 

“Slater? Yeah, I knew him,” LaBarge said, replying to Preacher's question. “Worthless as tits on a boar hog, that one was.”

“Were he and Caviness pards?” Preacher asked.

“You goin' to buy more beer, or just ask questions?” LaBarge asked.

“I'll take another beer.”

LaBarge drew a mug of beer from the barrel, then set it in front of Preacher. Preacher blew the head off, then took a drink.

“I wouldn't go so far as to say they was pards,” LaBarge said. “But I did see them together from time to time. Sometimes they'd sit at that far table over there and talk real quiet about things.”

“Things? What sort of things?”

“I don't have any idea. Like I told you, they would talk just real quiet.”

“I heard 'em palaverin' about Philadelphia one night not too long ago,” one of the other bar patrons said. He had been standing at the bar, about ten feet away from Preacher and LaBarge. Supposedly, he was minding his own business, but the fact that he could respond indicated that he was paying attention to what was going on.

“What were they saying about Philadelphia?” Preacher asked.

The patron shook his head, then raised his glass for a drink. “Well, now, I can't answer that,” he said. “I just heard 'em mention Philadelphia.”

“Do you know some of the other folks who were at that table?”

The patron stroked his chin for a long moment, supposedly in thought, but obviously waiting for Preacher to make an offer to pay him for information. Preacher slid a nickel down the bar.

“Finch was one of them,” the patron said. “They was two more. But it'll cost you a nickel a name.”

“No, it won't,” Preacher said.

“What do you mean it won't? I'm the one knows who was at that table.”

Preacher shook his head. “Finch knows.”

 

 

Finch was working at the wagon freight yard when Preacher found him. Sitting on an overturned barrel, he was packing grease into the wheel of one of the wagons.

“Your name Finch?”

Finch grabbed a handful of grease and started shoving it into the wheel hub.

“Who wants to know?”

“I do,” Preacher said without identifying himself.

“I owe you money, mister?”

“No.”

“Have I got your sister, wife, or daughter in a family way?”

“No.”

“Did I challenge you to a duel when I was so drunk I wasn't makin' any sense?”

“No,” Preacher said. He laughed.

Smiling, the wagon mechanic stood up, then extended his grease-filled hand toward Preacher's.

“Well, then, if you ain't a'wantin' me for none of them things, I reckon I'm the man you're lookin' for.”

Preacher started to take Finch's hand, but seeing it all filled with grease, he jerked his hand back.

“I'm sorry,” Finch said, reacting to Preacher's aversion. “When you work in grease all the time, sometimes you just forget.” He wiped his hand on his own trousers, then stuck it out for a second time. It was nearly as greasy and dirty as it had been the first time, but Preacher took it anyway.

“Now that you know who I am, what can I do for you?” Finch asked.

“Do you know Ben Caviness?”

“Caviness?” Finch's eyes narrowed. “Yes, I know the son of a bitch. Don't tell me he is a friend of yours.”

Preacher shook his head.

“He's no friend of mine,” he said. “But I am trying to find him. When is the last time you saw him?”

“Oh, mercy, let me see. I'd make it two or three months now, for sure.”

“Have you seen him since March?”

Finch thought for a moment, then shook his head. “You mean since he killed that girl? No, and I don't reckon anyone else has either.”

Preacher's eyes narrowed. “You think Caviness is the one who killed Jennie?”

“Well, folks is saying he's the one that done it, and knowin' the son of a bitch like I did, there ain't nothin' that would make me disagree with 'em.”

“What about this man Slater? I hear he and Caviness were pards?”

Finch shook his head. “Well, if either one of them was goin' to have a pard, it would have to be each other,” he said. “Warn't neither one of them worth a pail of warm piss. But no, I wouldn't go so far as to say that they was pards or anything like that.”

“But last March, you and some others were seen sitting at the same table as both Caviness and Slater.”

“Sittin' at the same table?” Finch shook his head. “No, you got me wrong, mister. I wouldn't never sit down to dinner with either one of them sorry sons of bitches.”

“No, not a dinner table. A table over in LaBarge's Tavern.”

“Oh. Yeah, well, I suppose I could have done that from time to time. LaBarge's gets awful crowded sometimes, so's that you can't always be none too particular who it is you wind up sittin' with.”

“Do you recall sitting at a table with both Caviness and Slater? According to one person I spoke to, they were discussing Philadelphia.”

Finch tried to snap his fingers, but because of the grease, he didn't get a pop.

“I'll be damned,” he said. “You know, now that you mention it, I do mind that night. Oh, LaBarge's was crowded somethin' awful that night.”

“What did they say about Philadelphia, do you remember?”

“Well, it's not so much what he said, it's just that Toomey brought him a letter, and he's the one that passed the remark.”

“What remark?”

“Somethin' 'bout this getting' to be a habit, him deliverin' letters from Philadelphia.”

“What did he mean by that? It being a habit?”

“According to Toomey, that was the second letter that month that come from Philadelphia.”

“Thanks, Mr. Finch,” Preacher said, extending his hand again.

“Wait a minute, you're the fella they call Preacher, ain't you?” Finch said as he shook Preacher's hand a second time.

“I am.”

“This girl that Caviness killed, some says as how she was your woman.”

“She was,” Preacher said without going into any further explanation.

“I see now why you're so all-fired interested in Caviness. You aim to find 'im and kill 'im, don't you?”

“I aim to do just that,' Preacher said.

“Well, by damn, I wish you luck,” Finch said. “Anyone in this world that deserves to die, it's that son of a bitch.”

“Thanks again,” Preacher said.

 

 

Edgar Toomey looked up from behind the counter that separated the post office area from the customer area.

“Yes, sir?” Toomey said. “What can I do for you?”

“Sometime ago you delivered two letters to Ben Caviness. Both were from Philadelphia. Do you recall that?”

Toomey shook his head. “I'm not at liberty to discuss the U.S. mail. That's confidential information.”

“Hell, what's so confidential about it?” Preacher asked. “Everyone in LaBarge's Tavern saw you deliver the letters.”

“Well, if you have their word on it, why do you need confirmation from me?”

“I don't need confirmation. I know you delivered the letters. All I want to know is who sent them.”

Again Toomey shook his head. “Now, you are really asking me to violate postal regulations,” he said.

“You know that Caviness killed Jennie, don't you?” Preacher asked.

Toomey nodded. “I've heard that possibility discussed,” he said.

“You know that, but you won't help me find him?”

“I told you, I can't answer your questions. Perhaps you should enquire over at River Bank.”

Preacher looked confused. “The bank? What does that have to do with it?”

“They might be able to answer your question,” Toomey said pointedly. “That's all I can do for you, do you understand? All I can do is refer you to the bank.”

 

 

“I'm not sure it is appropriate for me to be discussing bank business with you,” Abernathy said in response to Preacher's question.

“I don't know that we are discussing bank business,” Preacher replied. “All I'm trying to do is find Ben Caviness and when I asked Mr. Toomey about it, he referred me to the bank.”

“Yes, well, I . . . ”

“Tell him what he wants to know, Duane,” a woman's voice said.

Preacher turned to look toward the door of Abernathy's office, and saw a rather stout, stern-faced woman standing there.

“Sybil, are you . . . ”

“Tell the man what he wants to know,” Sybil Abernathy repeated. Her voice softened. “Please, Duane,” she said. “I feel responsible for this whole awful mess. If I had not been so insistent that that beautiful young woman be run out of her house, none of this would have happened.”

“What do you have to tell me?” Preacher asked Mr. Abernathy.

“Sybil, discussing the business of our depositors is highly unethical.”

“So is paying someone to murder,” Sybil said. “Tell him.”

Mr. Abernathy sighed, then looked up at Preacher. “Caviness cashed two bank drafts, drawn against the account of Theodore Epson, on the Trust Bank of Philadelphia,” he said. “The first was for fifteen dollars, and the second was for one hundred dollars.”

“One hundred dollars? That's a lot of money, isn't it?”

“Yes,” Abernathy agreed. “For someone like Ben Caviness, it is quite a substantial sum.”

“Yes, well, I guess murder isn't cheap,” Preacher said.

 

 

Once more, Constable Billings was peeling an apple. Two previously peeled and browning apples sat on the windowsill, evidence of earlier efforts.

“I think I know where Caviness is,” Preacher said.

“Oh?” Billings was toward the end now, and what was clearly the longest unbroken peel he had yet made lay in a coil below the apple. He was being very careful as he continued to peel. “Where?”

“Philadelphia.”

Billings looked up in surprise. “What makes you think he is in Philadelphia?”

“Because Theodore Epson is in Philadelphia.”

“Epson? The man who used to be the head teller at the bank?”

“Yes. Did you know that Epson sent Caviness two bank drafts, one for fifteen dollars and one for one hundred dollars?”

“No, I didn't. What the Sam Hill would he be sending Caviness money for?”

“I think he paid Caviness to kill Jennie,” Preacher replied. “If the killing had gone smooth, Caviness would've taken the money and been on his way. But it didn't go smooth. Slater got himself killed and Caviness lost an ear. And knowing Caviness, he's going to figure that he's got more money coming.”

Billings nodded. “You may have an idea there,” he said.

Carla and Dog came down to LaClede's Landing to see Preacher off on his quest. The boat he would be taking was a side-wheeler called the
Cincinnati Queen.
Because it was designed for use on the Mississippi and Ohio, both rivers deeper and more stable than the Missouri, the
Cincinnati Queen
was larger and more ornate than the
Missouri Belle.

There was a great deal of activity around the landing as both people and cargo were being taken aboard the three-decker, red-and-gold painted boat. William Ashley and Constable Billings had come down to the riverfront as well, and all were gathered in a little cluster as Preacher prepared to board.

“I've written a letter appointing you as my deputy,” Constable Billings said, handing the letter to Preacher. “To be truthful with you, I don't know how much authority it will have, but if you find a sympathetic peace officer or judge, he might recognize it and grant some reciprocity. Sometimes law officers do that for one another, since our jurisdiction is so limited.”

“Thanks,” Preacher said, taking the proffered letter.

“And I've prepared several bank drafts for you which should be recognized wherever you go,” Ashley said. “You have fifteen hundred dollars in fifty-dollar drafts.”

“I appreciate that,” Preacher said. He looked at Carla, who so far had been very quiet. Dog was sitting by Carla's side.

“Preacher, you will be careful, won't you?” Carla said. “I'm not over losin' Jennie yet. It would be awful hard on me to lose another friend just now.”

“I'll be careful,” Preacher promised. He looked at Dog. “Dog, you did a really good job of looking after Jennie. Now, I want you to look after Carla for me. Will you do that?”

Dog looked up at Carla, then back at Preacher. Preacher smiled, and rubbed him behind the ears. “I knew I could count on you,” he said. “And I promise you this. When I return, I'll take you back to the mountains with me.”

The dog opened its mouth and let its tongue hang out. Laughing, Preacher rubbed him behind his ears.

“Yeah,” he said. “I thought you would like that.”

The boat's whistle blew and, looking toward the boat, they saw the purser coming up to the bow, which was pegged against the bank. The purser raised a megaphone.

“All aboard that's comin' aboard!” he shouted.

There were several last-minute good-byes as those who had remained ashore, including Preacher, started up the gangplank.

“Stand clear!” one of the deckhands shouted as he closed the gate.

“Stand by to cast off!” the captain shouted down from the wheelhouse.

“Standing by!” the deckhand answered.

“Cast off.”

The deckhand lifted the heavy rope from its stanchion and threw it toward the bank. The boat's whistle blew two deep-throated blasts that echoed from the opposite side of the river. The engine was put in reverse and the steam boomed out of the steam-relief pipe like the firing of a cannon. Like the boat whistle, the booming came back in echo from the Illinois side of the river.

The wheel began spinning backward, and the boat pulled away from the dock, then turned with the wheel going upriver and the bow pointed downstream. The engine lever was slipped to full forward, and the wheel began spinning in the other direction until it caught hold to begin propelling the boat downstream.

Walking back to the stern of the boat, Preacher looked toward the landing they had just departed and saw that though many had left, Carla and Dog were still standing there, watching as the boat moved quickly downriver. Preacher stood there looking back at them until the boat moved around a bend in the river, taking them out of sight.

The Mississippi River was placid, though with a current powerful enough to push the steamboat south at a fairly good clip. It was nearly dusk and the sun, low in the west, caused the river to shimmer in a pale blue, with highlights of reflected gold.

As Preacher stood on the deck, he recalled his first experience on the river. As a twelve year-old boy looking for adventure, he had met a man named Pete Harding at a trading post on the Ohio River. Harding was taking a flatboat down the Ohio. The boat was loaded with goods to be traded at the Mississippi River port town of New Madrid, and Harding hired Art as his deckhand and assistant. It was a position young Art accepted readily, for not only was it a job, it provided him with food and transportation for his trek westward.

 

 

 

“Run away from home, did you, boy?” Harding asked.

“No, I . . .” the boy started to reply, but deciding it would be better to be honest with Harding, he sighed and spoke the truth. “Yes, sir, I ran away from home.”

“Having trouble there, were you?”

“No, sir, I wasn't havin' any trouble. It's just that I wanted to . . . .” He let the sentence trail off.

“You wanted to see the creature.”

“See the creature?”

“That's a saying, son, for folks like you and me.”

“You and me?”

“It would be my guess that you and I are just alike,” Harding said. “There are some folks who are born, live, and die and never get more'n ten miles away from home in any direction. Then there's those folks, like the two of us, that's always wondering what's on the other side of the next hill. And when they get over that hill, why, damn me if they don't feel like they got to go on to the next one, and the next one, and the next one after that. They're always hopin' they'll find somethin' out there, some sort of creature they ain't never seen before. I know it's that way with me, and I'm reckonin' that it's the same way with you.”

The boy laughed. He had never heard it put that way before, but he knew that Harding had pegged it exactly as it was.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “That's the way it is with me. I want to see the creature.”

The boy went to New Madrid with Harding, but there, one night, he was hit over the head.

 

 

Art felt the sun warming his face, but that was the only thing about him that felt good. He had a tremendous headache, and he was very nauseous. He was lying down. Even though he had not yet opened his eyes, he knew he was lying on sun-dried wood, because he could smell it. He was also in motion. He could feel that, and he heard the creak and groan of turning wagon wheels and the steady clopping sound of hooves.

The last thing he remembered was leaving the tavern to go to the privy. What was he doing here? For that matter, where exactly
was
here?

Art opened his eyes. It was a mistake. The sun was glaring, and the moment he opened his eyes, two bolts of pain shot through him.

“He's awake,” a girl's voice said.

Putting his hand over his eyes, Art opened them again. Now that he was shielding his eyes from the intense sunlight, it wasn't as painful to open them. Peering through the separations between his fingers, he looked at the girl who had spoken. She appeared to be about his age, with long dark curls and vivid amber eyes staring intently at him.

“Who are you?” Art asked.

“My name is Jennie,” she replied.

 

 

That was Preacher's introduction to the girl, later to become a woman who would be so important to him.

Preacher soon learned that Jennie was actually a slave girl belonging to Lucas Younger, the man who owned the wagon in which he was riding. To his surprise, he discovered that he was being considered a slave as well. Because he had no proof of his identity, the mere suggestion that he was a slave was enough to make Younger's claim credible.

The boy escaped, spent time with the Indians, then found his way to St. Louis, where he worked in a wagon freight yard. Then, two years later, when General Jackson raised an army of volunteers from the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys to go to New Orleans to fight against the British, the boy was reunited with Pete Harding.

Pete Harding was killed in the Battle of New Orleans. Preacher was mustered out of the Army after the battle, and even though he was but fourteen, he was discharged as a lieutenant. And in keeping with his promise to Pete Harding, Preacher went west to the Rocky Mountains to “see the creature.”

 

 

After a full day's run from St. Louis, the
Cincinnati Queen
put in at Cape Girardeau, Missouri. There, merchants from the town came on board the boat to sell their goods. This was the ultimate destination for many of the passengers, who disembarked, while others left the boat merely for a stroll around town. In the meantime, the boat took on a fresh supply of wood for its continuing journey.

From Cape Girardeau, the boat continued south on the river until it reached the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers. There, the
Cincinnati Queen
turned up the Ohio. Leaving Missouri behind, it journeyed north and east, bordered on the south by the state of Kentucky, and on the north by the fertile farming fields of Illinois.

After it entered the Ohio River, forward progress became much, much slower because it was now necessary for the boat to beat its way against the current. However, proceeding at a pace that was only slightly faster than a man could walk, the boat continued on its journey.

Without even realizing it, Preacher was growing more and more tense until, five days after they turned up the Ohio, he realized what had been making him so tense. He was about to come face-to-face with his past. Standing at the rail, he watched the shore slide by slowly, monotonously, almost hypnotically. And, as vividly as if he were reliving it, he remembered the past.

 

 

 

Leaving his brother sleeping in the bed behind him, the boy who would one day be called Preacher stepped out of the bedroom into the upstairs hallway. He moved to the end of the hall to his parents' bedroom, where he stood just outside their door for a moment, listening to his pa's heavy snoring.

His pa's snores were loud because he slept hard. He worked hard too, eking out a living for his family by laboring from dawn to dusk on a farm that was more rock than dirt, and took more than it gave.

His ma was in there too, though her rhythmic breathing could scarcely be heard over her husband's snores. She was always the last to go to bed and the first to get up. It was nearly two hours before dawn now, but Art, the boy who would one day be called Preacher, knew that his mother would be rolling out of bed in less than an hour, starting another of the endless procession of backbreaking days that were the borders of her life.

“Ma, Pa, I want you both to know that I ain't leavin' 'cause of nothin' either of you have done,” the boy said quietly. “You have been good to me, and there ain't no way I can ever pay you back for all that you have done for me, or let you know how much I love you. But the truth is, I got me a hankerin' to get on with my life, and I reckon twelve years is long enough to wait.”

From there, the boy moved down to his sisters' room. He went into their room and saw them sleeping together in the bed his father had made for them. A silver splash of moonlight fell through the window, illuminating their faces. One was sucking her thumb, a habit she practiced even in her sleep; the other was clutching a corncob doll. The sheet had slipped down, so Preacher pulled it back up, covering their shoulders. The two girls, eight and nine, snuggled down into the sheets, but didn't awaken.

“I reckon I'm going to miss seeing you two girls grow up,” the boy said quietly. “But I'll always keep you in my mind, along with Ma, Pa, and my brother.”

His good-byes having been said, Preacher picked up the pillowcase in which he had put a second shirt, another pair of pants, three biscuits, and an apple, and started toward the head of the stairs.

Although he had been planning this adventure for a couple of months, he hadn't made the decision to actually leave until three days ago. On that day he'd stood on a bluff and watched a flatboat drift down the Ohio River, which flowed passed the family farm. There was a family on the flatboat, holding on tightly to the little pile of canvas-covered goods that represented all their worldly possessions. One of the boat's passengers, a boy about Preacher's age, waved. Other than the wave, there had been nothing unusual about that particular boat. It was one of many similar vessels that passed by the farm every week.

To anyone else, seeing an entire family uprooted and looking for a new place to live, traveling the river with only those possessions they could carry on the boat with them, might have been a pitiful sight. But to a young boy with wanderlust, it was an adventure that stirred his soul, and he wished more than anything that he could be with them.