DUVALL RODE HIS three horses hard through Nebraska and into Kansas, avoiding settlements where someone might recognize him. He slept only three hours a night and kept his cook fires small. That’s how badly he wanted to lose the pursuers.
He’d never seen such a formidable trio of trackers in his life. Not only had they wiped out his entire gang, they’d tracked him relentlessly from up near the Canadian border, even rooting him out of Jack Clawson’s sawmill south of Bismarck.
He knew why the lawman wanted him, and he supposed the bounty man wanted the reward money several express companies had offered for his head. But what about the girl? Why in the hell was she after him, for chrissakes? He usually got along with women.
Duvall didn’t know if the three trackers were still on his trail. He hadn’t slowed up enough since deserting Clyde and Harold in the shack to find out. He didn’t really want to know, because he had a feeling they were back there, all three of them sniffing out his scent like supernatural hounds straight from the devil’s hell.
He just hoped he could finally get shed of them once and for all in the Indian nations. If not, he’d have to head to Mexico, and he really didn’t want to head to Mexico. He was still young, and he had several good, hell-raising years left in the States—if those three would leave him be, that was.
Goddamn them, anyway! If it hadn’t been for them, he and his gang would be living high on the hog about now. He wouldn’t be out here alone, running for his life and having to possibly fritter his best years away south of the border.
His was a long, hard ride through some of the emptiest country he’d ever seen, crossing one river after another: the Missouri, the Niobrara, the Platte, and the Republican. He had to laugh in spite of his trouble, however, whenever he thought of how he’d duped Clyde and Harold that night in the hideout cabin, telling them he’d keep the first watch while they got some shut-eye. He’d wake one of them in a couple hours, he’d said. Instead, he’d swiped their thousand dollars from Clyde’s saddlebags and lit out with their horses, leaving them sound asleep in their bunks!
Duvall grinned as he rode now, pondering the look that must have been on that big-talking Clyde’s mug when the bounty hunter had poked his gun in his sleepy face, and Clyde had realized he’d been duped.
If that little, no-account kid had diddled the president’s niece in Omaha, Dave Duvall was a monkey’s uncle. No siree, it hadn’t happened. Couldn’t have ... no way.
Duvall was six days into his journey from the cabin and was deep into Kansas—or so he reckoned from the amount of country he’d covered. He crossed a shallow stream, splashed up the opposite bank, and decided it was time to camp. The sun was nearly down, and all three horses were lathered and hanging their heads.
After picketing the horses in deep grass in willows near the stream, Duvall threw down his tack and bedroll and gathered kindling for a fire. He’d shot a jackrabbit earlier, and he skinned the animal now as the fire took and his coffee began to sputter and steam.
The rabbit was roasting on the spit when his horse whinnied. Duvall was sitting back away from the fire, to preserve his night vision. He reached for his rifle and shucked a shell in the chamber, his heart beating rhythmically against his chest. He heaved himself to his feet and stepped into the willows, hunkering low and looking out through the spindly branches.
His horse whinnied several more times and danced around in the grass, pulling against its rope. Finally, Duvall heard the clomp of a hoof on his right, from somewhere upstream. He waited. More hoof clomps grew until a man called, “Hello the camp. Harlan Doolittle here, just a harmless old preacher lookin’ for a brother and fellow Christian to break bread with.”
Duvall frowned, wary. “Come on in,” he said finally, turning his rifle toward the sound of the hoof clomps. “I have a rabbit on the spit.”
“Thank you, friend. Don’t mind if I do.”
The mouse-brown, blaze-faced horse appeared at the edge of the firelight. A dark-clad figure sat the saddle, the white preacher’s collar glowing against the wrinkled, leathery neck. The man wore a round-brimmed, bullet-crowned hat. His face was long, with a goosey nose and deep-set eyes capped with bushy, gray brows.
The man sawed back on the horse’s reins and glanced around. “Brother? I say, brother?”
Duvall scanned the area, making sure no one was behind this man who called himself a preacher, and no one was approaching from behind Duvall. You didn’t get far in Duvall’s business by overly trusting anyone, even men of the cloth.
“Step down from the leather, Reverend,” Duvall called. “Call me skittish, but a man can’t be too careful in these parts. I just wanna make sure you’re not a road agent bent on robbin’ poor saddle tramps like myself.”
“Ah, I see,” Reverend Doolittle said with a reasonable nod. Stiffly, he climbed out of the saddle.
“Now, would you mind throwing both tails of your coat back?” Duvall called.
“Certainly,” the preacher agreed, doing as instructed. He wasn’t carrying a gun. It didn’t look like he was even packing a rifle on his saddle. Doolittle stared at the rabbit roasting on the spit, turning a succulent golden brown. “That varmint you got there sure looks tasty.”
Satisfied the man was harmless and alone, Duvall stepped out of the willows, holding his rifle across his chest. He grinned. “Sorry, Preacher, but like I said, a man can’t be too careful in these parts.” He extended his hand. “Name’s Dave.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Dave,” Doolittle said, accepting Dave’s hand with his own, gnarled as an old root. “I don’t blame you for being cautious. Why, two nights ago I met up with three fellas that seemed right peaceable when they rode into my camp. I shared my coffee and stew with them and even recited a few words from the Bible. The next morning I woke to three gun barrels poking my face. Those rapscallions took my last two dollars and thirty-five cents, and rode off and left me poor ... a vagabond.”
The old man shook his head sadly, his shoulders sagging wearily. “I don’t have a gun to shoot game, so, well, I’d be mighty obliged if you’d share that jack in exchange for a few lines from the Book.”
Doolittle looked at Duvall hopefully.
“No problem, Preacher,” Duvall said. “You can hold on to your recitation, though.”
Doolittle frowned.
“I mean, might as well save it for someone who don’t know his Maker as well as I do. Me and the good Lord, we’re like this.” Grinning, Duvall held up two crossed fingers. He lifted his chin proudly as he recited, “ ‘Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.’” Duvall raised his voice and his chin about two more notches, shoving his right hand knuckle deep between the buttons of his vest.” ‘And he shall not be like a tree planted by the rivers of the water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.’” Duvall grinned. “That’s from the Book of Psalms, chapter one, verses one through four.”
Doolittle stared agape at Duvall, his old eyes rheumy with emotion. “A God-fearin’ man,” he said with hushed astonishment. He wagged his head slowly from side to side. “Just when my faith had been tested, my purpose unclear, my destiny in question ...” Doolittle shook his head again and choked back a sob. “You don’t know how refreshing it is to find a man like you, Dave.”
“Oh, likewise, Preacher,” Duvall said. “Believe me, I feel just as refreshed as you do! Why don’t you go picket your horse next to mine over there and fill your plate. That jack’s about done.”
“Thank you, Brother Dave. Thank you.”
“No, thank you, Reverend. You don’t know how blessed I feel, havin’ a man of the cloth ride into my camp, this lonely summer’s eve.”
The preacher nodded solemnly, then turned and led his horse into the willows. Duvall watched him go, his smile diminishing, his expression turning cold as a January morn.
Later, when the two men were sitting around the fire, drinking coffee after wolfing down the jack and tossing the bones into the willows, Duvall rolled a smoke. When he’d snapped a lucifer ablaze on his thumbnail and lit the quirley, he blew smoke out the side of his mouth and reclined against his saddle. “So tell me, Preacher, where you headed, anyway?”
The old man blew on his coffee and sipped. In his low, tremulous voice, he told Duvall that he. was heading for his new congregation in a small Kansas town named Green-burg, about forty miles south. He’d never been there before, but he’d heard it was a nice, quiet little town, and that the parishioners had recently built their first Lutheran church. They were eager for a full-time preacher instead of the itinerant clerics that happened through only once or twice a month, delivering sermons in the town’s only hotel or in the town hall.
“Yes, the good people of Greenburg will be quite happy to see me, and I them. The last town I was in, Coffeyville, was, if you’ll pardon the expression, Dave, a hellhole.” Doolittle shook his head and stared into his coffee. “Damned place. Truly damned. I was there for five years and couldn’t make a dent in that wall of sin they’d built through the heart and soul of that town.”
Duvall hadn’t heard a word since Doolittle had said he hadn’t yet visited Greenburg. “So, you mean, you don’t know anyone in the town?” he asked the preacher.
“No,” Doolittle said. “But I’m not worried. I’ve heard from other ministers that it’s a nice little place, not at all like Coffeyville. If the citizens are half as eager for a full-time preacher as I am to settle in a God-fearin’ town, I know everything will work out fine.” He looked at Dave sincerely. “It always does, you know, Dave ... in the end.”
He smiled smugly and tossed back his coffee. Then he tossed his cup aside and rolled up in his blankets. “Well, time for this old sinner to turn in. Good night, Dave, and thanks once again for your warm hospitality.”
“No problem, Reverend,” Dave said. He was leaning back against his saddle, smoking his cigarette, arms crossed against his chest. He stared at the stars thoughtfully, his mind toiling over a new plan.
He lay there for a long time, staring at the stars but not seeing them. His mind labored over the details of his plan. Finally, a dark grin spread across his lips. He flicked his cigarette stub away and snuggled down in his blankets, satisfied that, like the reverend had said, everything would turn out just fine.
“Yep,” he said to himself as Doolittle snored nearby. “Everything’s gonna work out just fine ... for me.”
Dave snickered himself to sleep.
The next morning, over a Spartan breakfast of coffee and some jerked beef the preacher found in his saddlebags— Duvall needed to find a town where he could buy trail supplies, he realized—Dave talked with the old man.
He feigned only a desultory interest in the preacher’s life, as though there really wasn’t much else to talk about, so why not talk about the reverend’s hopes and dreams for the future? Every once in a while, he threw in a few lies about his own life to balance the exchange.
In reality, in his characteristically cunning fashion, Duvall was pumping the old man for information about Greenburg: logistical details like whom the old man intended to see when he got to town and where he was going to stay, and so on. The old man gave the information freely, innocently, thoroughly buffaloed and grateful to have someone to talk with after his several lonely days on the trail from Coffeyville.
When Duvall was satisfied he’d wrung the old preacher dry, he stretched, yawned, said it was time to answer nature’s call, and moseyed into the willows. By the stream, he found a stout driftwood branch and carried it back to the camp, where the preacher was rolling his soogan.
Duvall walked up behind the old man, who was whistling “How Great Thou Art,” and swung the branch hard against the old minister’s head. The old man jerked to the side and stiffened.
Duvall swung the branch again, making a cracking, thumping sound as the branch connected with the preacher’s head. The old man gave a guttural cry and slumped forward. Duvall stepped toward the old man, his mouth a savage slash across his face.
“Ah ... mercy ... mercy ...” the parson sighed, his left cheek in the dirt, eyes fluttering.
“You know who taught me those Bible verses I recited?” he asked the old man tightly, breathing hard through his nose, his face crimson with rage. “A preacher just like yourself.” Again, Dave smashed the branch against the preacher’s head.
The old man gave another grunt. His eyes fluttered some more, the light in them weakening.
“Yep,” Dave said as he lifted the branch once again, “and I finally learned it after the old bastard horsewhipped near all the hide off my back.” Dave swung the club down hard against the back of the old man’s head breaking the branch in two.
The preacher’s head jerked, his eyes fluttered and closed, and a long, final sigh escaped his lips. He jerked for a while, then lay still.
“Go with God, Reverend.”
Duvall sat down on a rock, squeezing his hands together as he tried to get his nerves and anger under control. He didn’t know what happened to him sometimes. It was almost like he filled with hate and anger the way a hot teapot filled with steam, until he couldn’t control it anymore, and he had to let out some of that wrath.
A laugh escaped him as his eyes slid back to the old preacher lying slumped on the ground. Duvall wrung his hands together, gave a shake to calm himself at last, and stood.
He stared at the old preacher.
“Yeah, you’re about my size,” he said, as he knelt to remove the old man’s clothes. “Maybe a little taller and thinner, but the good ladies of Greenburg’ll be more than happy to fix my duds.”
Duvall laughed uncontrollably, his shoulders jerking as he worked the old man’s tunic up over his head. “Yeah, they’ll be more than happy to offer their services to the new preacher in town!”
That started another fit of laughter that did not completely die down until he’d dumped the preacher’s body in a deep ravine, scared off his own three horses, and mounted the preacher’s mouse-brown mare. Dressed in the dark coat and white collar and black hat of the preacher himself, he jogged the mare toward Greenburg.
What better way to escape his pursuers than in the identity of another man?
As he rode, Duvall whistled an old hymn he’d learned a long time ago at considerable cost to his hide.