He would meet trouble as it came and deal with it, but there was only one brand he was seeking and that was not due yet. It was certainly not represented by the covered wagon drawn up at the side of a trail that cut a path in a north-west direction, paralleling the course of a strain which rushed clear and cool over a runs of rocks close to the campsite. Two bays had been freed from the wagon shafts and were tethered close to the edge of the stream. A fire, recently started, blazed under a large pot of something, which smelled appetizingly good a few yards from the horses. The wagon was old and decrepit, with sagging timber, wheels that had been repaired too often and patched canvas. Upon the canvas side was the faded lettering, in shaky capitals: GOD HAS COME TO YOUR TOWN. Beneath this was a badly painted representation of the Bible and below this, in smaller letters: HEAR REVEREND ELIAS SPEED PREACH THE WORD OF THE LORD.
Joe dismounted twenty yards short of the wagon and, taking the Henry, moved silently forward. He was wary only of the wagon, for there was no other cover in rifle shot of the campsite. He trod carefully, avoiding loose rocks that would rattle across the ground if dislodged. Then, just as he was about to spring to the rear, bringing his rifle up to cover the inside of the wagon, a voice froze him.
“Don’t move, my darling. I want to look at you just like that.”
It was a man’s voice, laden with passion and Joe’s breath came out in a rasp as a woman laughed.
“Now you want to look …” she whispered, and the sentence was lopped in half as Joe moved forward and spoke a single word: “Freeze.”
A bed was set clockwise at the front of the wagon and upon it, stretched full length was an apparently almost naked man. A filthy blanket covered his legs and lower stomach and above his black hair sprouted, growing thicker as it reached his chest. At his throat was a stiff, once white cleric’s collar. His head was raised, elbows bent for support, jaw resting on his palm. He was about fifty with a round, almost cherubic face with eyes that were too small and were now filled with shock as he looked at the wrong end of a Henry repeater. His face was drained of color and the wanness extended over his completely bald head.
The woman squatted on a low stool in front of a miniature rococo dressing table, complete with cracked mirror in a hinged frame. She was a half-breed, with perhaps Sioux blood mixing with Caucasian. Her nose was too broad, with flaring nostrils, to give her beauty but her dark eyes, even though afraid, held a deep sensuousness. Her body, completely naked, was firmly voluptuous with the muscle control of perhaps twenty-five years. She was brushing her thick, dark hair that reached to the middle of her back, posing with thrusting breasts and sucked in stomach for the man who had obviously just possessed her. It was she who recovered first, slamming down the brush and folding her arms across the breasts.
“What’s cooking?” Joe asked.
The woman said one word, the sound of which meant nothing to Joe, but her tone and the fury which leapt into her eyes made the meaning clear. But he refused to be provoked by the obvious insult.
“It’s not what you think,” the man said, jerking into movement, pulling the blanket higher as he wriggled into a sitting position.
“What isn’t?”
“Virtue is my sister.” His voice was high, reedy.
“Virtue?”
The man nodded to the woman at the dressing table. “The young lady is my sister, Virtue. We … we are somewhat late risers, as you can see.”
Joe made a clucking sound of impatience. “I don’t care if she’s your great-grandmother, reverend,” he said dryly. “I’m talking about the pot. What’s in it?”
The man grinned, suddenly anxious to be of help. “Stew, young man. Beef stew. Our last from the store, but the Good Lord will provide. You are most welcome to share it with us. I see from your uniform you fought on behalf of a just cause. God was on your side.”
The man’s tone placed him south enough to have root beside the Gulf of Mexico, but Joe would not have trusted him even if he could prove himself to be a dyed-in-the-wool Yankee. He motioned to the woman with the rifle.
“Tell her to fix the food.”
“I talk English good as you, soldier boy,” the woman said. “I’m not going to get dressed in front of your leering eyes.”
Her voice, too, told of a Southern upbringing.
Joe squeezed the trigger and the rifle barked, the woman scream and the man yelled with fear as the bullet shattered the mirror, tore through the canvas of the wagon and whined to the end of its trajectory somewhere in the wilds.
“Then you’ll have to be careful you don’t spill any of that hot stew on your pure, soft body, honey child,” he said evenly, mimicking a Deep South drawl.
The woman reached hurriedly for her dress, which hung from a peg near the man’s cassock. She pulled it on without haste, unmindful of her nakedness as she stood in the center of the wagon.
“Can I get dressed too?” the man wanted to know, smiling nervously.
Joe was about to nod his assent, but then he looked at the build of the man and at the cassock, his mouth forming a slight smile.
“Take off your dog collar, Elias,” he ordered.
The man blinked, as if unsure that he had heard correctly, then took a long time removing the collar, his trembling fingers fumbling with the fastening. The woman watched, the sneer on her face conveying contempt for her lover and hatred for the man with the gun.
“I’m naked,” the man said unnecessarily as he finished the task.
“Your sister won’t mind,” Joe said but made no complaint when the man draped the blanket around himself as he stood.
He motioned with the rifle. “Both outside.”
The woman came first, proud and defiant, the man behind, smiling ingratiatingly, stumbling over the tailgate and almost falling headlong. He recovered and handed the cleric’s collar to Joe. In the strong sunlight, despite his bulk, the man looked even more spineless and Joe found it hard to visualize him as a hot-gospeller preaching fire and damnation to the one-horse towns in this part of the country.
“Over there and get the food ready,” he ordered them. “I’ll be watching and I see anything I don’t like you get to have a personal interview with the man upstairs.”
“When my time comes, I’ll be ready, the man said, but scuttled across to the fire with a haste that erased the confidence from his words.
Joe watched the pair for a moment, then hoisted himself aboard the wagon, drew his knife and made a slit in the canvas side facing the fire. As he peered through he saw the woman called Virtue edging towards his horse while the man made a frantic beckoning mime to call her back. Joe sighed and rested the rifle barrel in the slit, loosed off a shot that glanced off the rounded side of the cooking pot, then ricocheted at a tangent to kick up dust inches from the woman’s feet.
“I think you’ve got less reason to want to see the Lord than your brother,” Joe called and grinned as she threw the profanity at him again, but turned and went to the pot, began to stir it with the speed of vengeance in turmoil.
With quick movements, interrupted for an occasional look out through the torn canvas, Joe stripped off his uniform and dressed in the cassock and reverse collar, wearing his knife belt and army issue leather belt with holstered Remington .44 below the engulfing garment. He had to make a large slit in the seams at each side to make for easy access to his weapons. But it was merely a matter of leaving the cassock unfastened at the top to give him ease of movement to the neck pouch. He found the wide brimmed, low crowned hat that matched his attire and placed it on his head, picked up a large piece of looking glass from the smashed mirror and examined his appearance. He looked the most unlikely priest he had ever seen, but he was well enough satisfied with the results to grin.