Pale Rider Read online

  Only to find itself confronted by the same figure. The fox, which had thought itself well concealed, was not used to being surprised in its woods. It found itself petrified by that unexpectedly direct stare. Then it bolted for the deeper forest.

  The Preacher smiled and walked on.

  Eventually he found himself in a small glade, the grass surrounded by towering sugar pines. His appearance suggested a man asleep on his feet. Actually he was as alert as ever. His mind was doing all the work while his body rested. He was as motionless as one of the rough-barked trees that surrounded him.

  A pine cone slid over a rock; a tiny sound. There were only two in that part of the forest with hearing sharp enough to detect it, and the fox had fled. Turning, the Preacher discovered that he had been followed.

  The feminine shape was backlit by the moon. Having tensed at the sound, he now let himself relax. He would not have been surprised if Barret had come looking for him to make sure he was all right. He would not have been surprised if one of the miners had sought to kill him and so collect a reward from Lahood. But surprised he was when he was able to identify this unexpected shadow.

  She wore her hair up in a graceful sweeping curve, and for an instant he was certain it was Sarah Wheeler. Then as the figure came close he saw that he was only half right.

  The woman paused ten feet away and pointed to the base of the largest tree in the glade. A tiny white cross marked a place between two gnarled roots. The Preacher would not have noticed the marker if it hadn’t been pointed out to him.

  “I buried my dog over there,” Megan told him slowly.

  He responded with a reassuring smile. “That makes it hallowed ground then, doesn’t it?”

  She hesitated until she was sure he wasn’t teasing her, then came toward him. “I said a prayer for him. He was a good dog, never bothered anyone.” In the moonlight her eyes were glistening. “It says in the bible that animals don’t go to heaven. I don’t think I want to go if there aren’t any animals there.”

  “There are all kinds of ways to interpret what the bible says. I think if your dog was a good one, you’ll find him there one day. What happened to him?”

  Her tone darkened. “Lahood’s men killed him. They didn’t have to do that. He wasn’t big enough to hurt them. They shot him for fun. Why would anyone do a thing like that, Preacher?”

  He sighed and stared through the trees toward the far ridge. “Some men forget that they’re a part of the Earth. They think they’re above it. When they learn otherwise it’s generally too late for them. When did it happen?”

  “During the last raid. It was after the raid that I prayed. I prayed for a miracle.”

  His gaze dropped to her again. “Well, maybe some day you’ll get what you asked for. Miracles are mighty unpredictable things. It’s the folks that spend all their time looking for them that never seem to find ’em. I always say it’s better to get on with your life as best you can without hoping for a miracle to get you out of trouble.”

  “That was the day you arrived.”

  The Preacher’s smile widened and he allowed himself a small chuckle. Megan could feel herself blushing, and she averted her eyes from his face. Somehow she got the words out.

  “There’s something else.”

  “What might that be, Megan.”

  “I think I love you.”

  This revelation did not surprise him. “Nothing wrong with that. If there was more love in the world, there’d be a lot less dying. Some folks have a hard time understanding that.”

  “Then, if there’s nothing wrong with being in love, there can’t be anything wrong with making love, either.”

  That gave him pause. He considered his reply very carefully. “I think it’s better to practice just loving for awhile before you start the other. Lots of people don’t understand that, and they end up feeling awfully confused when things don’t work out the way they’re supposed to. They don’t understand why they’re so confused, and then they get hurt. It ain’t quite as simple as it seems.”

  “Then if I practice just loving for awhile, would you—teach me about the other?”

  “Most folks don’t usually get around to that until after they’re married.”

  “But I’ll be sixteen next month. Mama was sixteen when she was married. Will you teach me then?”

  The Preacher drew in a long breath, turned his face back to the trees. “I won’t be here next month.”

  Megan’s lower jaw dropped. “What?”

  He tried to be as gentle as possible. “It’s the way it has to be, Megan. I’ll be leaving soon.”

  She took a step backward, shaking her bead disbelievingly as her eyes began to fill with tears. They spilled down her girlish cheeks, bright in the moonlight.

  “But you can’t. I—I don’t want you to!”

  “I don’t want to, either. It’s just the way it is. You’ve got to understand that, Megan. There are times when we can’t control what we’ve got to do, even if it goes against what we’d like. That’s part of growing up.”

  Sobbing, she threw her arms around him and held on tight.

  “You can’t!”

  He smiled down at her. She was lost next to his massive form. “Hey, now. This is no way to pass the test.”

  Megan’s reply was barely audible. “What test?”

  “You mean I never told you about the test?” She shook her head. He held her gently as he spoke. “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it’s yours. If it doesn’t, then it never was. There are many ways to test what love is, and that’s the best one I’ve found.” Disengaging himself, he peered down into her upturned face.

  “As you get older you’ll find there’ll be many things you love that you’ll have to set free. You won’t want to do it because it’ll always hurt, no matter how you try to convince yourself otherwise. But sometimes it’s the greatest test that your love is real. It’s not an easy thing to do, but it’s important for you to be able to do it.”

  “But I don’t want to let you go! I want you to be with me forever.”

  “I understand. But you must believe me, Megan. It wasn’t meant to be. No matter how badly we want them there are some things in life that just can’t be ours. It may hurt a lot now, but I promise you that it will go away, and one of these days the right man will come along. Then none of this will matter anymore. I promise you that.

  “You say that you want me to teach you about love. Well, I’m teaching you something now, and like a lot of lessons you’ll be learning, I’m afraid that this is one you’re not going to like very much no matter how I try to teach it to you.” He smiled wider and looked past her, through the trees,

  “Now, if I was your mama, right about this time I’d be starting to worry where you’d got to.”

  He bent low to plant an avuncular kiss on her forehead. It wasn’t at all what she wanted, what she’d followed him to the glade to find, and it made her angrier than nothing at all. The worst part of it was she didn’t know why she was so angry.

  Then a new thought exploded in her mind with all the brilliance of a Fourth-of-July skyrocket, and she was sure she knew why it had all gone so wrong. She started backing away from him.

  “I know why you’re doing this. I know why you’re saying these things to me. It’s because of my mama. She’s the one you love, isn’t it?”

  The Preacher’s reply was kindly without being condescending. “Your mama’s a fine woman—and so are you.”

  “The way you look at her.” Megan’s frustration found an outlet in an excuse instead of in understanding. “The way she looks at you. It’s true! Well I don’t care!”

  Sighing, the tall man knew there was little he could say that hadn’t already been said. “Megan—”

  “You can have her!” She was screaming as she backed away from him now. ”I never want to see you again, ever! I hope you go to hell! I hope you die!”

  He opened his mouth to try and calm her, but she was alr
eady gone, a flash of tears and gingham skirts in the moonlight. Another man might have run after her, worried, but the Preacher knew better than to do that. She was not old enough to understand such a gesture, and too old not to be hurt further by the reason behind it. So he just stood there, sad and immobile in the center of the glade, until he was certain she was gone.

  Then he resumed his solitary stroll.

  VIII

  The sun had yet to clear the eastern ramparts of the High Sierra when the Preacher rode into Cobalt Canyon. The thunder of the monitor drew his attention to the scarred upper slopes of the narrow defile. A few forlorn scrub bushes and weeds still clung to the barren, blasted slopes where the powerful jet of water had not quite chewed away every fragment of topsoil. He paused long enough to study the moonscape for a moment, then urged his mount onward.

  The monitor crew moved the water cannon slowly. Trees bent, then toppled into the creek as the earth beneath them was gouged away. Spray surrounded the men with mist and rainbows, softening their appearance if not the grim work they were doing.

  Watching the crew at its work, the Preacher’s expression grew dark. No one seemed to have a care for the havoc they were wreaking. They were as mindless as the machine they operated.

  He was not against mining, not even against organized, large-scale company-run mining. But the use of the water cannon was inexcusable. It was worse than a forest fire, because it left nothing behind to regenerate the soil. It swept the country cleaner than a tornado.

  Why, the Devil himself could not have devised a more thorough instrument of destruction.

  Josh Lahood was one of those directing the awesome stream of water. He could have left the arduous duty to someone else, but he took his turn behind the monitor to impress his father. It was hard, painful work, and he and the man who was working alongside him were glad when the time came to relinquish control of the nozzle to Club.

  As he strode clear of the spray, wiping at his damp face and flexing his arms to ease the strain in tired muscles, he caught sight of a horseman where there shouldn’t have been one. Then he recognized the tall figure seated on the well-worn saddle, and his hand slipped automatically toward his gun. The fingers hovered above the handle, then slowly retreated when it became apparent that the intruder had no intention of stopping to confront him.

  The stranger did, however, turn long enough to glance casually in Josh’s direction. He had to raise his voice in order to make himself heard above the monitor’s roar. The message he’d come to deliver was as brief as it was meaningful.

  “Tell your father they turned him down!”

  The younger Lahood glared sullenly at the horseman as he wheeled his horse about and trotted back the way he’d come. Then Josh spat once at the already sodden earth, turned, and shouted.

  “McGill!”

  The train whistle split the afternoon air as the engine slowed to a halt next to the depot. Up near the locomotive the engineer and his assistant fumbled with the spout set into the base of the big water tank. Steam hissed and boiled as some of the water spilled from the leaky iron pipe to strike hot iron.

  The stationmaster emerged from his shack, stretched, and scratched at his beard as he waited for the door to the mailcar to open. Unseen hands slid it aside. The trainman tossed out a small sack of mail.

  “More’n usual today, Whitey.”

  “Yep.” The stationmaster bent to retrieve the sack. “Gettin’ downright crowded hereabouts. Two stores, a barber—next thing you know some fool’ll want to be pavin’ the street. Why, it’s almost like civilization.”

  “Might not be as bad as it sounds. Me, I’ve been to Frisco and I like the way civilization looks. She’s got a neat figure.”

  Whitey grinned. “That ain’t civilization. That’s bathing.”

  The trainman sniffed ostentatiously. “Whatever you want to call it, you could use a little civilizin’, Whitey.” Both men guffawed. Neither noticed the tall horseman who was sitting on the slope opposite, watching.

  Another rider appeared just as the stationmaster was about to reenter his shack. The train hooted, the trainman slammed his door shut, and the iron horse began to pick up speed. Whitey glanced up at the anxious arrival and nodded perfunctorily. He knew Lahood’s foreman by sight.

  “Morning, McGill. Just in time for the mail. Take me a minute to sort out the letters for the mine.” He opened the sack preparatory to hunting through the bundle for the usual dozen or so missives that were destined for Lahood’s camp.

  Steadying his horse, the foreman leaned over to hand the stationmaster a slip of folded paper. “Hell with the mail. I’ll come back for it later. The Boss wants you to send this telegram right away.”

  The stationmaster accepted the message, flipped it open, and read silently. Then he shrugged and pocketed the paper.

  “Really ought to get to the mail before—”

  McGill leaned over a little farther, until his face was very close to the stationmaster’s. “The Boss said, right away.”

  Whitey nodded, added a placating wave of his free hand. It wouldn’t require much time to rid himself of the obligation. Men liked Lahood were always in such a damn hurry. Well, that wasn’t his problem. He’d send the message, then settle in for a pleasant afternoon’s perusal of everybody else’s mail—or at least those envelopes he could open without being obvious about it. The stationmaster incurred no moral qualms over this blatantly illegal diversion. What else was there for a man in a solitary position to do on a slow afternoon in Lahood, California?

  The foreman turned his horse around and headed back toward the hills. There was a last blast from the whistle of the southbound train as it rounded the far bend.

  On the slope where a moment earlier there had been a single horseman there was now only brush and grass.

  In another office elsewhere in the state another telegraph key began to chatter. The hand of the wizened old operator who managed this particular station functioned independently of his eyes and perhaps even of his mind. He’d worked as a telegrapher for so many years that he could understand the dots and dashes as clearly as any spoken language. The hand held a pencil and moved rapidly over a blank pad. For the benefit of customers not as conversant with Mr. Morse’s symbology as he, it was required that he transcribe as well as translate.

  Eventually the key stopped stuttering. The telegrapher double-checked his transcription, straightening the crooked h’s and adding a flourish of punctuation. Then he slipped the paper into his pocket and hurried toward the door of his office.

  A painted shingle surmounted the entrance.

  TELEGRAPH

  YUBA CITY POP. 2,301

  The telegrapher scanned the street until he spotted a gap between the rush of wagons and horses, then deftly picked his way through to the other side. The building he was heading for also boasted a sign over the entrance.

  U.S. MARSHAL

  There were seven horses tied to the hitching rail that fronted the lawman’s office. Each had a black saddle on its back. A black leather rifle holster slashed at an angle on the right-hand side of each seat. Their oiled walnut stocks gleaming, seven Winchesters filled the holsters. Expensive guns, worth a lot of money in a bustling frontier community like Yuba City. They sat there in plain sight, apparently unguarded. There was nothing to prevent a resourceful thief from making off with the lot of them.

  Nothing except knowing better.

  The old man hesitated outside the door to the office, nervously cleared his throat. He crossed himself reflexively, then knocked. He disliked leaving the familiar surroundings of his office, and he especially disliked leaving it to come here, but delivering was as much a part of his job as transcribing. Still, it was the one aspect of his employment he would have preferred to delegate to someone else. He knocked again.

  This time the door was opened.

  Hull Barret knocked a second time on the door of the shanty.

  “Preacher? You awake?” Still no response. He pushed
open the door and peered inside. It was true that he hadn’t known their visitor for more than a couple of days, but he didn’t strike Hull as the sort of man who made it a habit to sleep in.

  His eyes scanned the familiar environs. The shanty was spotless and empty.

  Worried as well as confused, he shut the door carefully and jogged around to the back. The lean-to he’d built there to serve as a stable was also deserted. His own horse grazed peacefully nearby, tethered to a stake by a long rope. He eyed the empty stable for a long moment, then turned and started toward the cabin closest to his.

  Megan made a few final adjustments to the four place settings on the table, then seated herself. Her mother pivoted away from the stove and began ladling out eggs and beans. She handled the bulky cast-iron skillet easily with one hand.

  “Are you all right this morning, Megan?”

  The subject of her inquiry continued to stare at her plate. “I’m all right, Mother. Are you all right?”

  The sharpness of her daughter’s tone took Sarah slightly aback, but she didn’t have time to question her further because footsteps sounded on the porch outside. Hull entered and quickly scanned the cabin’s interior. Sarah noticed the anxious look on his face and instantly forgot about her daughter’s puzzling behavior.

  “Hello, Hull. Is something wrong?”

  “He’s gone.”

  “What? Who’s gone?” She put the skillet back on the stove.

  “The Preacher. I’ve been all through the camp looking for him. Nobody’s seen him since last night. His stuff’s missing from my place.” He looked as though he was unable to believe his own words. “He’s packed and left.”