will be our honored guests until the spring comes.”
“Thank you, old friend.”
“There are widows in the village whose husbands had no brothers,” Bent Leg said with a twinkle in his eye. “And some unmarried women as well.”
There wasn’t much pretense to these people. They had their societal rules, of course, and Preacher respected them. But they didn’t go out of their way to repress folks’ natural instincts and appetites, like most of the so-called civilized societies did. Preacher had always found their honesty refreshing.
Right now, though, he was more interested in having a place to wait out the winter than he was in finding a woman to warm his blankets during those cold months. That would come in time, in the due course of events.
“We will see,” he told Bent Leg, who nodded gravely.
“Well, what’s the verdict?” Lorenzo asked in English. “They gonna let us stay?”
“Yep,” Preacher said. “For the next six months or so, Lorenzo, this is gonna be home, sweet home for us.”
CHAPTER 8
More than a week had passed since the trouble at Blind Pete’s Place. During that time, an ice storm had forced the five men to hole up for a couple of miserable days, but then they had been able to ride on, heading north toward the Canadian border.
Willie Deaver was pretty sure they had passed the border by now and were actually in Canada. The men they were supposed to meet ought to be waiting for them somewhere close by.
Unless St. John and his people had grown impatient and left. Deaver wasn’t going to be happy if that happened.
So it was with a sense of relief that he spotted a thread of smoke curling into the sky up ahead as he and his men rode along a twisting hogback ridge. That was the signal he’d been looking for during the past two days.
Deaver pointed out the smoke to Caleb Manning and said, “That’s got to be them.”
“Or else it’s comin’ from some fur trapper’s cabin,” Manning said.
Deaver shrugged.
“We’ll be able to tell when we get there.”
They followed the smoke and soon descended from the ridge, entering a small valley where a cold wind whipped down from the north. Deaver led the way with Manning riding behind him.
Bringing up the rear were Cy Plunkett, Darwin Heath, and Fred Jordan. Plunkett was a rotund little Englishman who was much tougher than he looked. Heath was thin and dark, with a narrow face deeply pocked by the childhood illness that had almost killed him. Jordan was a big, blond man who was always grinning, no matter what sort of terrible thing he was doing at the time.
All five men had come West several years earlier to make their fortunes as fur trappers. Like plenty of others, they had discovered pretty quickly that the only people getting rich off the fur business were the traders and the business owners back East who made hats and coats from those furs. The trappers, the men who carried out the hard, dangerous jobs and did the actual work that made the whole industry possible, always got paid the least.
The five of them, who hadn’t known each other starting out, gradually had drifted together and decided that they would be better off taking the spoils of somebody else’s labor rather than grubbing for themselves.
Since then they had robbed and killed parties of trappers smaller than themselves, raided a couple of wagon trains, and looted a few trading posts. They had cleaned out all the money and gold in Blind Pete’s Place before setting it on fire.
But that had been an opportunity that presented itself, so Deaver and the others had taken it. They had other plans that would allow them to leave their hand-to-mouth existence behind. They were going to be rich men.
Of course, some people would have to die in order for that to happen, but Deaver didn’t care about that.
Plunkett, being an Englishman, was the one who’d put them in contact with Odell St. John, a fellow Britisher, during one of the gang’s periodic trips back to St. Louis. Deaver wasn’t sure exactly what St. John’s game was—maybe he was just out to make some fast money, or maybe he was working for the British government—but again, Deaver didn’t care. The payoff was all that mattered.
Deaver and his men rode through a thick stand of trees, and when they emerged from the woods they saw a camp beside a small stream. Half a dozen tents were pitched not far from the creek, and the smoke rose from a little crackling fire nearby. Some saddle mounts were penned in a rope corral, along with several large, heavily-built pack animals. A number of crates were stacked on the ground beside the tents and covered with a large piece of canvas. The ends of the crates peeked out so that Deaver could tell what they were.
Most of the men in the camp wore buckskins or homespun work shirts and corduroy trousers, like Deaver and his companions. One individual, though, stood out from the others. He wore a dark suit, including a swallowtail coat, high-topped black boots, a white shirt, and a cravat. He was bareheaded as he strode forward to meet Deaver. The wind ruffled his brown hair, which matched his close-cropped beard.
“Mr. Deaver!” the man said. “How utterly splendid to see you again!”
Deaver grunted and said, “Yeah.” Cy Plunkett sounded like an Englishman and that had never bothered Deaver. Something about Odell St. John’s oily accent rubbed him the wrong way, though.
“You’re late.”
Deaver motioned for his men to dismount. He swung down from the saddle before saying, “Ice storm caught us a few days ago. It wasn’t safe to travel until the ice melted off.”
“I understand. We’ve had a bit of inclement weather up here as well. I told the men that was probably what delayed you.” St. John rubbed his hands together. “But you’re here now, eh, and ready to do business?”
“That’s right. If we’re satisfied with the quality of the goods you brought with you.”
“Oh, you will be,” Deaver promised. “There’ll be plenty of time for you to examine the merchandise. First, though, how about a drink?”
“That sounds mighty good to me,” Manning put in. “It’s been a long, thirsty ride.”
Deaver frowned. The ride hadn’t been all that thirsty. They had taken several jugs of whiskey from Blind Pete’s, too.
He didn’t like Manning butting in like that, either. He made the important decisions in this bunch, by God!
But the men were all licking their lips, and Deaver was a canny enough leader to know that he might be facing a mutiny if he told them to forget about the whiskey. And Caleb Manning was a good man to have on your side, second in viciousness only to Deaver himself, so he’d cut Manning some slack … this time.
St. John was looking at him, one dark eyebrow arched quizzically. Deaver jerked his head in a curt nod and said, “Sure. A drink will be fine.”
“Excellent!” St. John turned and called to one of the other men, “Brutus, bring the jug!”
They
