Forty Guns West Read Online Free PDF Page A

of it, stays with him forever. I tried to warn them three back in town. They didn’t pay no heed to my words. Barnes paid the price. Them others will too, I reckon. We’ll see.”
    The boy smiled shyly. “If I was set loose in the wilderness bare-butt nekked, I figure I’d try to get my clothes back too. Wouldn’t you?”
    Preacher returned the smile. “I ’spect.”
    * * *
    Preacher lay in his blankets and listened to the two Arkansas men as they made their return to the camp by the creek. He had to suppress a chuckle as the barefoot men stepped on rocks and thorns and oohhed and ouched and groaned along, trying their best to be quiet, but losing the game something awful. He figured it was right around midnight.
    Preacher slipped from his blankets and picked up the club he’d chosen hours before. He really did not want to kill these two, just discourage them mightily. He glanced over at Eddie. The boy was sleeping soundly, a habit that he would soon break if he wanted to survive out here.
    Preacher slipped like a ghost out of camp and away from the dying eye of the fire. By now he had the men spotted. It wasn’t all that hard to do. Their lily white skin was shinin’ in the faint light like a turd on top of a white-icin’ birthday cake. Preacher slipped around and camped up behind them, his moccasins making no sound as he moved from tree to tree. Preacher had to put a hand over his mouth to keep from laughing at the sight. The men had wrapped some sort of leafy vine around their waists. Looked to Preacher like it was poison ivy. The men must have tore the stuff down in the dark, not realizing what they were wrapping around their privates and over their buttocks.
    They’d damn sure know come tomorrow, what with all the itchin’ and scratchin’ they’d be doin’.
    Preacher whacked the one in the rear on the back of his noggin, and when the man in front turned around, Preacher laid the shillelagh across his forehead. Both men dropped like rocks.
    Being careful to avoid the poison leaves, and it was poison ivy, Preacher tied them up, back to back, ankle and wrists, and left them on the ground. He returned to his blankets and went to sleep, a smile on his face.
    The men probably realized it would only lead to more knots on their heads if they hollered during the night, so they remained silent until Preacher was up just before first light, coaxing some coals to fire and making coffee.
    â€œMister Preacher?” one called. “We is in some awful discomfort over here.”
    â€œI don’t doubt it,” Preacher called, setting the coffee pot on the rocks. “You got poison ivy wrapped all around you.”
    There was a long moment of silence. “Well, hell, Jonas!” the second man said. “No wonder I been itchin’ all night.”
    â€œMister Preacher?” Jonas called.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œIfn you’d give us back our clothes and saddles, we’d git so far gone from here by noon we wouldn’t even be a memory in your mind.”
    â€œYou ain’t gettin’ your supplies back.”
    â€œYou can have ’em, Mister Preacher. With our blessin’s.”
    Preacher had already piled their clothes up and had them ready. He cut the men loose. “You boys head on down to the crick and pat mud all around your privates. It’ll help take the itch out of that poison ivy.”
    â€œI know better than to wrap myself in poison ivy,” Eddie said contemptuously, watching the men gingerly make their way to the creek. He looked at Preacher. “You could have killed them.”
    â€œYeah. I could have. But they’re followers, not leaders. That Charlie Barnes, he talked them into this. There’s a time to kill and a time to talk, boy. I think it says something like that in the Good Book. I need to get me a Bible. It’s right comfortin’ to read them words. Had me a Bible. Lost