Soul Catcher (35 page)

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^{A
muffled noise came to him. Cain opened his eyes and sat up, alerted by the sixth sense he'd acquired over the years as a hunter. He pulled his gun, quietly crawled from his bedroll, and crouched, gazing into the darkness as his eyes adjusted. As he moved through the camp, he could see by the dappled moonlight filtering through the trees the recumbent figures of Strofe and his brother, sound asleep and snoring. Preacher, though, was still gone. He made his way over to where Henry lay sleeping, the blanket wrapped around him, his head tipped back against the tree, his mouth open. When he turned to check on Rosetta, however, he saw that she was gone. The shackles had been unlocked and lay near the tree.
Damn,
he thought. The last thing he wanted was losing a couple more days having to hunt her down.}

^{He was about to wake the Strofes and tell them of her escape when he heard the noise again. A low, muffled sound, as of an animal in pain. Cain listened closely, trying to get a read on its source. He decided it was coming from down toward the river. He moved stealthily through the high grass, toward the sound.}

^{When he got close, he saw something on the ground. By moonlight he made out two figures, one on top of the other, the white of naked haunches glowing in the night. It was Preacher, Cain knew immediately. His trousers were down around his ankles and he had Rosetta pinned on the ground. In one hand he held the big bowie knife pressed to her throat while with the other he was trying to lift the hem of her dress. She struggled against him, trying to hold her dress down.}

^{"Hold still, damn you," Preacher hissed at her.}

^{"Please don't," Rosetta pleaded in a whisper.}

^{"Hush up, girl. Ain't agonna warn you again."}

^{Cain crept up on them, put the Colt to the base of Preacher's skull, and cocked the hammer. Through the metal he felt Preacher's body stiffen.}

^{"Make a wrong move and I'll kill you dead," he said. "Now drop the knife and get up. Slowly."}

^{Preacher did as he was told. Standing with his trousers and underdrawers wrapped around his ankles, he wobbled unsteadily, the liquor fumes strong as turpentine.}

^{"Can I leastways pull up my pants," he asked.}

^{"Go ahead."}

^{He pulled up his pants, buttoned his fly, and tugged his suspenders over his shoulders. Then he smiled at Cain, that evil snake-grin of his.}

^{"Just havin' some fun," Preacher said.}

^{Do it,
Cain thought. He knew it would come to this sooner or later, that, as Hamlet said, "it be not now, yet it will come."}

^{"Gonna kill a white man just havin' hisself a little fun with some nigger wench?" Preacher taunted. "What sort of man are you, Cain?"}

^{"Shut up."}

^{"Hell, I seen the way you look at her."}

^{"I told you to shut up," Cain warned, feeling the pressure of his index finger on the trigger.
Do it.
He glanced over at Rosetta, who had sat up and was straightening her dress. The bodice was ripped, and by the moonlight he could see there was blood on the material.}

^{"You think you're so high-and-mighty, Cain. I weren't doin' nothing you ain't thought a doin'."}

^{"Shut up."}

^{Preacher grinned knowingly at him and winked. "Me and you, why, we're--"}

^{That's when Cain struck him with his gun barrel, hard, a sockdolager of a blow to the temple. Preacher collapsed like a thousand of brick. He lay there as if dead, blood pouring out of a gash along his hairline and down over the wine stain on his jaw.}

^{Cain holstered his gun, then went to see about Rosetta. Squatting down, he asked, "Are you all right?"}

^{"He hit me," she said, touching her nose, which was bleeding. Cain pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket and held it to her nose.}

^{"Squeeze that until the bleeding stops. Did he . . ."}

^{She shook her head.}

^{Cain still had his key for the shackles, so he assumed that Preacher had lifted the other one from his saddlebags when he wasn't watching. He'd probably been planning this for a while.}

^{"Can you stand up?"}

^{Rosetta nodded.}

^{Suddenly, she looked over Cain's shoulder and cried, "Watch out."}

^{He started to turn when the flat side of Preacher's knife caught him flush across the cheek. The blow dazed him, and he stumbled and fell onto the ground, landing on his stomach. Cain reached for his gun, but Preacher was too fast. He pounced on Cain's back like a feist dog; he grabbed Cain by the hair and pulled his head back, pressing his knife to his exposed throat.}

^{"G'won and try it, and I'll bleed you like a hog," Preacher hissed.}

^{Cain could feel the razor sharpness of the knife, the prickle of it snagging his skin like a briar.}

^{"Take the gun out with two fingers and give it here."}

^{Cain removed his gun, slowly, and the man grabbed it from him.}

^{Preacher whistled. "That's a right fine gun. Think I'll just keep it, since you won't be needing it no more."}

^{"You kill me, you'll have to explain what happened."}

^{"Hell, I'll just say you was drunk and with your bum leg and all you slipped and fell in the drink and drowned yourself. Simple as that. Nobody'll give a damn anyhow. You and your fancy gawdamn ways. Plus more re-ward for the rest of us."}

^{While he was talking, out of the corner of his eye Cain could see the girl a short distance away. She slowly got to her feet and, crouching, began to back into the woods. She made eye contact with him briefly, her gaze filled with a meaning he couldn't decipher. He thought it might be,
You
got what you deserved.
Then she turned and vanished into the night without a sound. He thought of saying, "She's getting away," if for no other reason than to momentarily distract Preacher. But he remained quiet. He knew she had only a slim chance of success, of eluding the dogs. He remembered she'd told him she would rather die than bring her baby back to Eberly.}

^{"Problem with you, Cain," Preacher said, "is you think you're better'n ever'body else."}

^{"Go to hell."}

^{"That's where you're bound. Truth is, you ain't worth the cost of a bullet."}

^{Cain closed his eyes. He pictured the wounded men that day on the battlefield of Buena Vista, as the Mexicans went from man to man silencing them with their bayonets. If he had died then, it would have made some kind of sense. Fighting and dying if not for a cause he understood, at least with men whom he admired. But this? Funny, he thought, how fate had picked him out to live that day, only to die here and now, in some place he didn't know, for a reason he couldn't fathom. It was all so strange. Yet he'd lived enough to realize men seldom get to pick the manner or time of their deaths, or whether or not it all made sense to them.}

^{"All right, Preacher," came Strofe's voice. "Put it away."}

^{Strofe came walking up holding a lantern in one hand, his shotgun in the other.}

^{"The bastard deserves killing," Preacher cried, pressing the knife harder against Cain's throat.}

^{"I mean it," said Strofe, sticking the barrel of his shotgun into Preacher's back. Behind Strofe was his brother with his musket also aimed at Preacher.}

^{"L-let him up," he said.}

^{Preacher hesitated for a moment, as if he were still debating what he was going to do. Finally he leaned down to Cain and whispered in his ear, "Remember. Me and you got us a score to settle once this is over."}

^{He released Cain and stood.}

^{"Try something like that again," said Strofe, "I'll kill you myself."}

^{Preacher spat on the ground, then stormed off toward camp.}

^{Cain rolled over and sat up. He touched his cheek, sore from where Preacher had struck him with the knife blade.}

^{"You all right, Mr. Cain?" asked Little Strofe.}

^{"Yeah, I'm fine, Mr. Strofe," he replied as the man helped him to his feet. He glanced out over the river toward the lights of the city. The entire night sky seemed ablaze with its incandescence, glowing like a comet. Then he remembered Rosetta. He wondered how far she'd get, and how long it would take them to find her. He thought he might even give it till morning before they began their search. If she were clever--and he knew she was that, all right--and lucky, she might even make New York by daybreak. All she had to do was follow the light. And if she reached the city before they captured her, it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Then again, he thought about what he owed Eberly and the promise he'd made to him, and he felt it might be best to go after her tonight, while her tracks were fresh and the dogs could follow her more easily.}

^{"The girl?" he said.}

^{"What about her?"}

^{"She ran."}

^{"And lucky for you she did," Little Strofe explained.}

^{"What do you mean?" Cain asked, confused.}

^{"Was her w-woke us up and told us what Preacher done to her. And was about to do to you. She come a second later and you m-might not be here."}

^{"Where is she?"}

^{"Right over yonder," replied Little Strofe, tossing his head behind him.}

^{Cain looked past him and saw Rosetta standing there. She had her arms wrapped around herself like she was cold.}

^{Only then did Cain understand that he'd misread the look in her eyes earlier.}

^{Chapter 12.}

^{F
or the next several days they rode west through the flatlands of New Jersey. The weather continued balmy for mid-April, and by midmorning Cain would have to remove his coat and vest, and roll up his shirtsleeves. Even then he felt the sweat trickling down his back where Rosetta pressed up against him, collecting where her hands held his stomach. The farther they got away from the ocean, the more the air turned dry and clear, smelling of pine and hemlock, and the freshly turned earth of farmlands now under plow. The sky unfolded in a sweep of delicate blue, fragile as the porcelain figurines Cain's mother used to have on her bureau. Seagulls were slowly replaced by a raucous band of crows that followed them for several miles, cawing at them as if they were intruders in their private place. Not far from a town called Hopatcong, the dogs jumped a big buck in a thicket and bolted after it.}

^{"Louella. Skunk," Little Strofe called to them at frequent intervals.}

^{As the day wore on with no sign of them, Cain could see him growing worried.}

^{"They ain't usually gone this long," Little Strofe said.}

^{"They'll be back when they get good and tuckered out," Cain tried to reassure him.}