Preacher did as he was told.“I do carry a knife in my boot, and my old pistol up there.”He pointed to the holstered Colt on the mule.“But that’s all.I have a higher power that protects me.”
“That may be so, Preacher.But I reckon the same higher power also looks after the hungry grizzlies I’ve seen up in these mountains.”
The minister sighed and looked at his mule.“This ornery old cuss and I have been traveling through these hills for nigh on ten years, and I reckon we’re both too old and too tough even for a grizzly to chew on.”
“Ten years, you say?”Caleb holstered his twin Colts.“So you know the country out beyond the pass?”
“I do, indeed, stranger.I’ve been carrying the Good Word to the heathen, the devout, and the fallen throughout this entire wilderness.Though I can attest to the fact that there are more of the fallen out here than anything else.So, from camp to camp, I roam and will continue to do so until I go to my eternal reward.”
“Well, if you’d been any slower in answering me just now, you’d have claimed that reward this very night.”
“Maybe so, but not one sparrow falls without it being His will, so the Book says.”
“So I hear,” Caleb replied, feeling an old anger sparking within him.“But I can tell you a flock of sparrows went down this day, so maybe it ain’t worth pressing the issue.”
He’d heard men—and one in particular—use Scripture to explain away too many cruelties.Some memories had a way of rising up when least invited.
“I heard the shooting.”
“And decided to stay clear of it?”
“Yep.”The old man looked at Caleb, sizing him up.“I don’t think you intend to shoot me, though.”
“We’ll see.But for right now, I want you to come with me.”
“What for?”
“I think you’re a fella I’d like to talk to,” Caleb said.“And not about any sparrows.”
He walked to the lead horse and took hold of the bridle.The preacher followed along, muttering the whole way, and Caleb couldn’t tell whether he was praying or talking to his mule.Not far along, the path descended through a gulley and came out on the trail, close to where Pirate was tethered.
By the time they reached the place where the fight had taken place, Zeke had returned with their three horses and was laying blankets over the bodies of his dead friends.Everett had started a fire.
Seeing the string of horses Caleb was leading was surprising enough, but the sight of the traveling minister and his mule was almost more than Zeke could comprehend.At first wary that the man might have been part of the gang of bushwhackers, the fierce little miner needed a few moments for his suspicions to be allayed.Luckily, Everett had heard of the itinerant preacher who made these mountains his church and the folk living up here his congregation.
Everett and the preacher started beans and biscuits for the four of them.
The moon was just on the rise, so Caleb and Zeke led the horses up the trail a ways to a spring-fed creek where they let them drink and graze on the long grass, silver in the moonlight.
“How did you move that sorrel of yours, Zeke?”Caleb asked while they sat on a fallen log and waited.
“Everett took hold of one hoof and I took the other, and we rolled her.Only took the once, and she went sliding down that slope into the darkness there.My heart broke a little, watching her go, let me tell you.”
They sat watching the horses for a few moments until Caleb broke the silence.
“Tomorrow, we’ll put those friends of yours up on these horses, and you and Everett can take them back to Elkhorn.”He gave Zeke the money he’d found on the ambushers.“This should take care of the undertaker.”
Zeke nodded and said nothing more for a while.Eventually, they talked about the mines and Doc and the arrival of his daughter.The miner knew nothing about Sheila.
Caleb regretted not stopping and talking to her before leaving town.He figured it wouldn’t help her, knowing her father had been taken by outlaws.Still, it might have given her a little peace of mind to know Caleb was also out there searching for him.
And he did not much like imagining her alone in Doc’s house, measuring every sound in the street and waiting for news no one had the courage to give her.
When they could smell beans and coffee in the air, they brought the horses back to the camp and readied them for the night.
As they ate, Preacher proved to be a garrulous fella.He and Everett could both talk the ears off a tin jackass, and once the minister took the bit in his teeth, he was off and running.After he’d gone on for a while, Caleb decided it was time to steer him in the direction he wanted the man to go.It didn’t take much to do it.
“Ten years, you said you’ve been preaching to the folk up in these hills,” Caleb said.
