Two

  The barber was nervous as he cut Eddie’s hair, but he managed to get the boy looking presentable without snipping off anything other than hair. Then it was into a hot tub with a bar of strong soap. While Eddie was washing off the grime, Preacher went to the general store and bought him new clothes, from underwear out.

  Preacher checked his awesome four-barrel pistol and holstered it. He carried only the one pistol while in town; but even that made the local constable nervous. The county sheriff was half a day’s ride away.

  Preacher was under no illusions. He knew that Parks was no coward. If he said he’d come looking for Preacher, he’d come. Preacher returned to the barber shop and found a brand new boy waiting for him. Good lookin’ kid, too. Preacher looked at the wall clock. He had about twenty minutes left ‘fore Parks would start on the prowl. He walked the boy down to the livery and bought him a pony. The horse was small, but strong limbed and Preacher guessed it had plenty of staying power. He bought a saddle and saddle bags.

  “You know where Elm Street is, Eddie?”

  “Yes, sir, Mister Preacher.”

  “I’m Preacher, boy. Not mister. You go over to Elm. Second house on the right. Wait for me there. My ma and pa is there. You tell Ma I said to get that poke of food ready. I’ll be along shortly.”

  “Mister Elam’s a bad one. He’s kilt men before, Preacher,” Eddie warned.

  “Not as many as I have. Go on.”

  Preacher made sure the boy was on his way, proudly riding his new pony, and then he stepped out into the street. The town lay silent under the cold sun. Preacher walked right up the center of the main street.

  “You there!” the constable called to Preacher from under the awning of his office. “I order you in the name of the law. to cease and desist.”

  “Go suck an egg,” Preacher told him.

  “I’m the law around here!” the man bellowed. “Congratulations. Now go back into your office and drink coffee. Stay off the street.”

  “You can’t talk to me like that!”

  Preacher ignored him and kept on walking. A block ahead of him, Elam Parks stepped off the boardwalk and into the street, a pistol in each hand. The two men began closing the distance.

  “This don’t have to be, Elam!” Preacher called. “You abused the boy and got socked in the jaw for it. Now it’s done and past. It ain’t nothin’ worth dyin’ over.”

  But for Elam, time for talking was gone. He had been humiliated in his own town and had to redeem himself in the eyes of the citizens. He lifted a pistol and fired. The ball missed Preacher by several feet.

  “You better make the next one count, Elam,” Preacher called, his own pistol still holstered.

  Elam fired his second pistol. Again he missed.

  “Now it’s over, Elam,” Preacher called. “You took your shots and you missed. I ain’t gonna fire. Go on home. You’ll not see me nor the boy never again.”

  Elam was frantically reloading. “You son of a whore!” he yelled at Preacher.

  Preacher’s eyes hardened and he stopped in the street. “Insult me all you like. But don’t never slur my mother’s name. You hear me, Elam.”

  “You sorry, filthy trash!” Parks shouted. “Son of a whore!” He lifted a pistol and Preacher drew, cocked, and drilled him clean, the ball driving the third button of his shirt clear to his backbone. Parks stumbled and fell to the street, on his back.

  The stores along the street and the houses behind them and on the side streets emptied of people, all gathering around the dead Elam Parks. Preacher reloaded the empty chamber and turned his back on the crowd. He walked to the house on Elm street. His parents had heard the shots and were waiting in the front yard, behind the picket fence.

  Preacher’s older brother came running up, all out of breath. He stood for a moment, panting, and then blurted, “My God, Mamma, Daddy. Art’s done shot and killed Mister Elam Parks.”

  “He had it coming,” the father said. “It’s long overdue. I’m just sorry it had to be you who done it, Art.”

  “Had it coming!” the older brother said, horrified. “Daddy, how can you say things like that? Why, Mister Elam was a fine man. He . . .”

  “Was a crook and a no-count,” the father said. “Maybe with him dead and gone, now you can get that brown spot off your nose, boy.”

  Preacher laughed at the expression on his brother’s face. The older brother turned toward him, his face red and his hands balled into fists.

  “I’d think about it, brother of mine,” Preacher said. “I’d give it real serious thought.”

  The brother stared at Preacher for a moment. “You’re no brother of mine, Art. You’ve turned into a godless savage, just like the heathen Indians.”

  Preacher wanted real bad to hit him, but didn’t want to do so in front of his mother. However, he figured his pa would probably enjoy seeing it. But he contained the urge to deck his brother and instead turned his back to him. The brother snorted and walked off. Preacher kissed his mother and held her close, both of them knowing this would be their last goodbye. He shook hands with his pa.

  “You take care, son.”

  “I’ll do ‘er, Pa.”

  “God bless, son,” his mother said. “I put a sack of food on your saddle.”

  “Y’all take care.” Preacher walked to the small barn, Eddie keeping up with him. Two minutes later, they were riding out, heading west. Preacher did not look back. He would not have been able to see his ma and pa through the mist in his eyes.

  “I thought we were going to head west, Preacher,” Eddie remarked.

  “We are, boy. But we’ll head south for a time. Tell me about yourself.”

  “There ain’t much to tell, Preacher. My ma and pa died with the fever when I was little. I don’t even remember them. I was passed from pillar to post for a time, then the orphanage took me in. I was sick a lot, and no one wanted a boy who couldn’t work. Mister Parks got me last year. I reckon I’d a died working for him.”

  “Prob’ly. But you gonna get well with me.” Preacher paused. “At least some better. I think what you need most of all is good vittles, clean air, and rest.”

  Eddie tired easily and Preacher was in no hurry. He stopped often and made evening camp much earlier than he normally would. He avoided towns as often as possible. But he was under no illusions about what lay behind him. If Parks was the big-shot people thought him to be, there would surely be arrest warrants out for him by now. But he wasn’t worried too much about that, either. Worryin’ caused a man to get lines in his face and gray in his hair.

  Preacher skirted the town of Cincinnati and crossed the Ohio River by ferry and rode into Kentucky.

  “That was some river, Preacher!” Eddie said, all excited. “Wait ‘til you see the Mississippi, boy. The Ohio runs into the Mississippi down in Southern Illinois.”

  “Will we see that?”

  “We might. I was goin’ to Saint Louie, but I think I’ll skip that town this run. I’ll take us down through Arkansas and then cut west from there.”

  “You’re thinking that Mister Parks’s friends might be after us, aren’t you?”

  The boy was very quick and very sharp. The lad didn’t miss much at all. “Yeah,” Preacher said. ‘That thought has crossed my mind a time or two.”

  “How old were you when you went west, Preacher?”

  “Not much older than you, Eddie. My, but that was a time, back then. Back in the mountains. Why, you could go for months without seein’ another white man. Now ever’ time a body looks up, they’s a damn cabin bein’ built.”

  That was not exactly the truth, not even close to it. But people were moving west. It would be a few more years before the flood gates of humanity were thrown open and the real surge westward began. Many, if not most of the mountain men resented the pioneers’ drive westward. They were, for the most part, solitary men — in some cases legitimately wanted by the law for various crimes — and they felt the vast West was theirs alone. But that was not to be. The mountain men were credited, however, with the carving out of much of the Far West. By 1840, the mountain man’s way of life was very nearly a closed book, as beaver hats faded from vogue and the mountain men faded from view.

  Many of the mountain men would drift back into a civilized way of life, opening stores or turning to farming or ranching on a small scale. But many others either could not or would not change. They elected to stay in the mountains and eke out a living. Others, like Preacher, became scouts and wagon masters. And, like Preacher, living legends.

  As the days on the trail drifted into weeks, and the weather warmed, moving silently into spring, Eddie began losing his cough as his face and forearms first blistered, then tanned under the sun and the wind. The boy began putting on weight and his face lost the sickly pallor and his eyes lost their feverish tint. Then, as Preacher and Eddie were making camp one afternoon in Arkansas, Preacher realized that the boy had not coughed up phlegm even one time that day.

  All he needed was a chance, Preacher thought. Someone to take an interest in him and show him the right paths to take.

  The mountain man and the kid drifted down to Little Rock. Preacher had been this way back in the twenties. He’d run up on them two kids, Jamie and Kate MacCallister. They’d been headin’ for the Big Thicket country of East Texas, running from Kate’s pa and a bunch of bounty hunters. Jamie and Kate, Preacher had heard, had gone on to have a passel of kids and Jamie later made quite a name for himself during the Texas fight for independence.1

  Preacher had heard that shortly after the fall of the Alamo, Jamie and Kate had pulled out for the Rockies in Colorado. Mayhaps he and Eddie would drift up that way and visit them.

  Preacher provisioned up in Little Rock and didn’t dally in doing it. Leaving Eddie with the horses, sitting in the shade and sucking on a piece of peppermint candy, Preacher stepped into a tavern for a drink and news. If there were warrants on his head, or bounty hunters after him and the boy, the tavern would be the place to hear it.

  Preacher ordered whiskey and leaned against the plank bar, listening. It did not take long for him to learn the bad news.

  “I’ll not take up the trail of that mountain man,” he heard a man say. “Not for five hundred dollars, not for five thousand dollars.”

  “I’d foller Ol’ Nick hisself straight into the gates of hell for five thousand dollars,” another said.

  “Yeah, me too,” another agreed. “Man, that’s a lifetime’s wages.”

  The first man said, “How you gonna spend it ifn you’re dead? Man, this is Preacher we’re talkin’ about. He’s near-abouts as famous as Carson and Bowie and Crockett and Boone.”

  “He’s just one man traveling with a snot-nosed brat,” the man who would traverse the gates of hell said.

  Preacher was glad he had left the boy hidden in that little glen outside of town. He was suddenly conscious of eyes on him. He sipped his whiskey and then turned his head, meeting the direct gaze of the man who professed to have no fear of hell.

  “Howdy, stranger,” the man said. “Ain’t seed you ‘round here afore.”

  “Just passin’ through,” Preacher replied. “Come up from South Texas headin’ north. Who you boys be talkin’ ‘bout that’s so fearsome?”

  “Some old mountain man called Preacher. He kilt an important gentleman back up in Ohio and taken a boy west with him. Big money on his head. Dead or alive.” Preacher nodded his head slowly. “I know a little something ‘bout Preacher, boys. I trapped the High Lonesome for some years ‘fore the fur price dropped. Preacher ain’t old. I’d figure him for maybe thirty-five or so. And he’s a-ring-tailed tooter who was born with the bark on. I ain’t never met him, but I know lots who has, and they’ll all tell you the same thing . . . that you better let Preacher alone.”

  “See, I told you!” the first man said to his friends.

  “He ain’t but one man,” the fellow with the desire to meet the devil persisted. “I’m supplyin’ up and pullin’ out in the mornin’. I am to get me a sack full of gold coins.”

  “Me, too,” his two friends said in unison.

  “Well, I wish you boys good luck,” Preacher said, draining his cup. “Me, I’m headin’ up toward Canada. Mighty pretty country up yonder.”

  Seated way in the back of the tavern, in the deep shadows, an old man wearing stained and worn buckskins sat, nursing a jug of Who Hit John. The old man smiled secretly and knowingly. He’d recognized Preacher the instant the mountain man had entered the saloon. Wolverine Pete had come to the high mountains back in the late 1790’s, blazing a solitary trail and earning a reputation as being a man to ride the river with. He picked up his jug, corked it, and quietly slipped out the back of the tavern. He walked to the livery and saddled up, riding to the edge of town and reining up on a rise.

  It was a good move on his part. About ten minutes later, Preacher came riding along, leading a packhorse. Pete rode down to the trail and intercepted Preacher.

  “Wagh!” Preacher said. “Wolverine in the flesh. I heard you got kilt up on the Cheyenne last year.”

  “I took me an arry in my back for a fact. I’m a-headin’ for Saint Louie — in a roundabout way — to get ‘er cut out. It’s botherin’ me fierce. They’s big money on your butt, Preacher. That shore must have been some important uppity-up feller you kilt.”

  Preacher told him what happened.

  Pete grunted. “Sounds to me like you give him ever’ chance in the world to back off. But that don’t mean you gonna get any slack cut you. I figure ‘fore it’s all said and done, they’ll be forty or fifty men lookin’ to collect that gold.”

  “They’re welcome to try,” Preacher replied.

  “I wished I didn’t hurt so bad, I’d go with you. Sounds like fun to me.”

  “I’ll try to avoid ‘em. I don’t want the boy to get hurt.”

  “Sounds like you took a shine to this lad.”

  “He just needed a chance, and I aim to see that he gets it.”

  “You want me to lay up on a ridge and kill them fellers you was talkin’ to in the bar?”

  Preacher shook his head. “I’m obliged, but no. They didn’t look like much to me. When they see how hard the trail is, I’m thinkin’ they’ll give it up.”

  “They might. You take care of yourself, ol’ hoss.”

  “I’ll do it, Pete.”

  Back at the shady glen, Preacher said, “We got man-hunters on our trail, boy. We got to shake them if we can. But we got to cross them damn plains ‘fore we get to the mountains. Let’s ride, son. We got hell nippin’ at our heels.”

  Three

  “Were you the first mountain man, Preacher?” Eddie asked.

  “Oh, no, boy. There was lots of men in the High Lonesome long ‘fore I come along. I got there right in the middle of it all, though. We had some high ol’ times, we did.” Eddie loved to get Preacher going on some of his exploits. The boy wasn’t that sure that Preacher was telling him the truth all the time, but the tales were lively and entertaining and they helped pass the hours between supper and bedtime.

  Preacher was teaching Eddie the ways of the wilderness as they crossed the Arkansas line and headed into the Territories. “Wild country from here on in, Eddie. And it gets wilder the farther west we go.”

  “Will we see heathen Indians, Preacher?”

  “I’d just as soon we didn’t, but we prob’ly will. I best start your learnin’ about Injuns, Eddie.”

  “They attack and scalp people,” the boy said.

  “Well, some do and some don’t. Personally, I don’t think Injuns started that scalpin’ business. I think they learned that from the white man some years back. Your Sioux and Cree Injuns, to name a few, place a lot of value on scalps, but other tribes place much more value on countin’ coup on an enemy or the stealin’ of his horse.

  And Injuns ain’t bad folks, Eddie.” He paused. “Well, maybe with the exception of the Pawnee. I ain’t never been able to get along with them damn Pawnee. The Injun just ain’t like us, that’s all. Their values is different. You don’t never want to show fear around an Injun. Remember that always. Courage is something an Injun respects more than anything else.”

  “Preacher?”

  “Yeah, boy.”

  “You know there are men following us?”

  “Oh, yeah. I been knowing that since yesterday afternoon. I wanted to see when you’d pick up on it. That’s the way it is, Eddie. People look at lots of things, but very few actually see anything. I think it’s them loudmouths I met back yonder in Little Rock. I don’t want to have to hurt none of them, but I’ll be damned ifn I’ll let them hurt us.” Preacher had armed the boy and stopping often along the way, had taught him how to shoot both rifle and pistol. Preacher still carried his muskets, but back in Ohio, he’d picked up a couple of 1836 breech loading carbines, and one 1833 Hall North breech loader rifle. The breech loaders gave him a lot more firepower because they took a lot less time to load.

  “What are you going to do about those men back there, Preacher?”

  “I don’t know, boy. Yet. But I got to discourage them and that’s a fact.”

  “Is there a reward posted for you?”

  “Yep. I don’t know how much, but I ‘spect it’s a princely sum for the news of it to have traveled this far.” Preacher pointed to a meandering creek, lined on both sides by cottonwoods. “We’ll face them down over yonder.”

  Preacher took his time making camp, and making certain that Eddie was safe from any wandering bullets, then squatted down by the tiny fire he’d thrown together and boiled some coffee. He figured the men behind him would show up in about half an hour. He checked his guns and waited.

  He didn’t miss the time mark by more than a few minutes. Three mounted men reined up when they spotted Preacher, sittin’ big as brass by the fire, drinking coffee right out in the open, making no attempt to hide himself.

  At that distance, Preacher couldn’t be certain, but the men looked like those who’d been braggin’ back in Little Rock. They rode toward the camp, muskets at the ready.