better to take precautions than to lose your hair…not that he had very much hair to lose.
Colin Fairfax sat by the fire, a beaver hat perched on his mostly bald head. He had regained some of the weight he’d lost during his long, harrowing trek back to St. Louis the year before, so his face was no longer as gaunt and haggard as it had been when he returned.
But his eyes were still haunted by the fear and torment he had gone through.
He had almost been killed by Indians. He had almost been caught by grizzly bears and wolves on more than one occasion. He had almost starved, going without food for so long at times that the empty pain in his belly made him cry as he stumbled along. The sun had burned his skin, turned his nose and his lips raw. And terror had been his constant companion. Simply put, he had gone through Hell.
And it was all Preacher’s fault.
Fairfax would never forget that awful trek back to St. Louis after Preacher killed his partner Schuyler Mims and ruined their plans to steal the wagon train full of supplies that belonged to Corliss and Jerome Hart. Fairfax and Mims had been working for Shad Beaumont, the most powerful figure in St. Louis’s criminal circles, and it was to Beaumont’s mansion on the outskirts of the city that Fairfax had gone when he finally made it back, the only survivor from the group Beaumont had sent west.
Everything Fairfax had gone through had left him filled with hatred for Preacher, so when Beaumont suggested that he return to the mountains and settle the score with the bastard, Fairfax had agreed…but not without a little hesitation. Part of him didn’t want to face Preacher again, not after what had happened the first time.
But an even larger part wanted revenge, and so Fairfax had said yes. Beaumont had agreed to supply more than two dozen men to come along with him. Brutal, dangerous men who didn’t mind killing.
Fairfax was smart enough to know that Beaumont had some other reason for wanting Preacher dead. Beaumont didn’t really care about what had happened to Schuyler. Fairfax figured that Beaumont had some other criminal enterprise in mind involving the area Preacher called home and didn’t want the mountain man interfering with his plans. It didn’t matter either way to Fairfax. All he cared about was Preacher dying.
Accordingly, when the group of men he’d led out here arrived in the vicinity of South Pass and the Hart trading post, Fairfax had sent out several groups of scouts to search for Preacher. They weren’t supposed to try to kill him, just determine his location and send someone to fetch Fairfax and the rest of the gang.
Fairfax didn’t want to take any chances on Preacher getting away again. He worried, though, that Beaumont might have put a bounty on Preacher’s head without telling him about it, and he didn’t know if the men with him could resist a temptation like that.
A burly man named Sherwood came over to Fairfax and held out the jug he carried. “Want a snort, Boss?” he asked.
Fairfax detected a faintly mocking tone in Sherwood’s voice. Sherwood was his second in command, and even though he referred to Fairfax as “Boss,” Fairfax knew the man didn’t really respect him. Sherwood’s real boss was Shad Beaumont. Fairfax had been put in charge of the expedition because he knew the country and knew Preacher, but he was also smaller and weaker than the men who accompanied him. The only thing that really mattered to such men was power, either personal strength or the power that wealth and influence gave a man, as in the case of Shad Beaumont.
Fairfax shook his head in answer to Sherwood’s question. “No, and I don’t want the men getting drunk either,” he snapped. “A man whose brain is muddled by whiskey stands a good chance of getting killed out here.”
“Nobody’s gonna mess with us, Boss,” Sherwood insisted. “There are too many of us, and we got too many guns.”
Fairfax had been thinking just about the same thing, but he didn’t like hearing the arrogance in Sherwood’s voice as it was put into words. Arrogance led to overconfidence, and overconfidence led to death. Fairfax wasn’t going to make that same mistake again.
“Just tell them what I said,” he told Sherwood.
The man shrugged. “You’re the boss.”
Fairfax waved Sherwood away, then looked into the fire again and grimaced. He knew that staring into the flames ruined a man’s night vision, but he didn’t care about that. With so many hardened, well-armed men around him, he didn’t think he was in any danger right now.
And as he looked into the fire, he seemed to see a lean, bearded face there, a face that he despised.
“You’re going to burn in Hell, Preacher,” he whispered. “You have my word on that.”
With three dead men who couldn’t tell him what he wanted to know, no trail to follow, and no supplies other than what he had in his saddlebags, Preacher decided to ride back to the trading post. Everybody there would be surprised to see him again so soon, but he needed to pick up more provisions. Luckily, he had some money left over from what Corliss Hart had paid him for his pelts.
Preacher didn’t bother taking the bodies with him this time. He was sure that it would be like before. Nobody at the trading post would recognize the dead men. And since the drunken idiots had killed each other, he didn’t feel any responsibility for burying them. He left them for the scavengers. That was one thing about the mountains. When a few months had passed, nobody would even know that the murderous bastards had ever been here.
He started back to the trading post in the morning leading the three dead men’s horses. It was around the middle of the day when he reached the pass. The avalanche had blocked part of the trail, but not all of it, so Preacher was able to ride through it without any trouble. He didn’t see any sign of the unlucky packhorse. The animal was completely buried under the rocks.
When he reached the other side, he was able to look down into the valley far below and see the buildings of the settlement. To his surprise, he saw a row of white dots lined up outside the stockade wall. After a moment, he realized that they were actually the canvas covers over the backs of the wagons in a wagon train. He hadn’t heard anything about a train coming in, but there it was. He counted fourteen wagons.
Preacher’s lips tightened under the drooping mustache. That many more people crowdin’ in, takin’ up space, breathin’ the air…
“Take it easy, old son,” he told himself. He might not like the influx of new settlers, but there wasn’t a blasted thing he could do about it. He lifted the reins and heeled Horse into motion.
From the top of the pass it took him a little over an hour to make his way down to the valley floor. As he rode across the grassy plain toward the settlement, the covered wagons grew larger. He began to be able to make out details, like the people moving around the vehicles.
He wondered if they planned to stay here or if they were bound for someplace farther west. So far as Preacher knew, the Harts’ trading post was the last outpost of civilization, but he was sure it wouldn’t stay that way. There was always somebody who wanted to go farther, to extend the boundaries. There would never be any progress without folks like that. Somebody always had to be the first…
“Now I’m really surprised to see you again so soon,” Corliss Hart greeted him from the front porch of the trading post as Preacher reined in a short time later. “You just left yesterday, Preacher.” Corliss’s eyes narrowed as he realized something. “Where’s your packhorse and where did those other horses come from?”
“Lost
