Preacher saw understanding dawn in Jessie’s eyes. “You’re right. He’ll take out his rage on her. All the other girls should get out of here, too, just in case.”
“Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Preacher agreed.
Jessie turned to the parlor. Her voice was still strained with the grief of Brutus’s death, but she managed to make her tone brisk and businesslike as she said to the customers, “I’m sorry, but because of all this trouble, we’re closing down for the rest of the day. Please leave now.”
None of the men argued with her. They didn’t want to be around any more shooting, so they hurried out, averting their eyes as they stepped around Brutus’s body in the hallway.
“You, too,” Jessie told the scantily clad women in the parlor once the customers. “Pack up whatever you need and get out as quick as you can. The house is closed. When you go upstairs, pass the word to the rest of the girls, and any customers who are still up there, too.”
“But, Jessie,” one of the whores wailed, “what are we going to do? Where will we go?”
Jessie shook her head. “I’m sorry. You’ll have to figure that out for yourself.” Then she turned to Preacher and went on, “Come on, let’s get . . . what did you call her? Casey?”
“Yeah, that’s what she told me to call her,” Preacher said as they left the parlor and headed for the staircase.
“I wonder why she never mentioned that to me.”
Preacher didn’t have an answer for that.
Jessie paused at the top of the stairs. “What are we going to do about Brutus?” she asked as she looked back down toward the hall where his body lay.
“Ain’t nothin’ we can do,” Preacher replied. “We’ll have to leave him there and hope that Beaumont gives him a decent burial.”
“He won’t,” Jessie said with bitterness in her voice. “You know he won’t.”
“It ain’t likely,” Preacher agreed with a shrug. “But we can’t tote his body with us.”
Jessie sighed. “No, of course not.” She started toward the door of Casey’s room.
The door swung open before she got there. Casey must have heard the shots and the rest of the commotion downstairs and been watching fearfully through a narrow crack. Her face with its fading bruises was pale as she looked at Jessie and Preacher.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. Her gaze went to Preacher. “Jim . . . ?”
He could explain later about how that wasn’t really his name. Right now he said, “Get your gear together, Casey. You’re comin’ with us.”
“What are you talking about? I . . . I have a job here—”
“The house is closed,” Jessie said. “For good. I’m leaving. And I’m not going to leave you here for Shad—”
Casey gave a choked cry before Jessie could finish that sentence. “Give me a minute,” she said. “I’ll grab a few things, and then I’ll be ready to go.”
She ducked back into the room. While Casey was gathering her things, Preacher asked Jessie, “Do you have a carriage or a wagon, something we can use to get you and Casey away from here?”
“There’s a buggy in the barn out back. I think all three of us can crowd into it.”
Preacher nodded. He wanted to get the two women to Uncle Dan Sullivan, who could be counted on to do his best to keep them safe.
That would leave Preacher free to come back here to St. Louis and settle things once and for all with Shad Beaumont.
True to her word, Casey emerged from her room a minute later, carrying a small carpetbag. She had pulled on a gray dress instead of the robe she’d been wearing a few moments earlier. She looked pale and frightened but composed, a description that fit Jessie as well.
“I’m ready,” Casey said. “Thank you for not leaving me here.”
Jessie put a hand on her shoulder. “We’d never do that.” She added, “Let’s go down the rear stairs.”
As they began to descend the stairs, Casey said, “What about Brutus? Is he coming with us?”
“I’m sorry, Cassandra. Brutus . . . is dead.”
Casey gasped and stopped on the stairs to look at Jessie in shock. “Dead?”
“One of those shots you must have heard killed him.”
“Who fired it?”
“Who do you think?” Jessie asked in a grim, angry voice.
“Beaumont,” Casey breathed.
“That’s right.”
“Where is he now?”
“We don’t know,” Preacher said. “He busted through a window and lit a shuck out of here. But I’m bettin’ he didn’t go far, and it won’t be long until he’s back.”
They reached the house’s rear entrance. Preacher gripped his pistol tightly and said, “Best let me go first and make sure nobody’s lurkin’ out there.”
“Be careful, Preacher,” Jessie said.
Casey turned her head to look at him. “Preacher?” she repeated. “I thought your name was Jim Donnelly? Or did Jessie mean that you’re a minister?”
Preacher gave a short bark of laughter. “Not hardly. Preacher’s just what they call me.”
“Just like you evidently prefer to be called Casey,” Jessie put in.
Casey’s face flushed. “I’ll explain that later,” she said.
“You’re right, there ain’t no time now,” Preacher said. “We’ve already spent too much time gabbin’ and not enough takin’ off for the tall and uncut.”
He swung the door open and stepped outside. It was late afternoon, so there were no shadows for a bushwhacker to hide in. On the other hand, there was no darkness to conceal the movements of Preacher and the two women, either. He pivoted from side to side, the pistol leveled and ready, but there was no sign of danger. For the moment, this quiet neighborhood appeared to be safe.
Preacher knew how deceptive appearances could be, though, and how things could change in a hurry with little or no warning. He turned back and motioned for the women to hurry.
“Come on!”
They came out the back door. Preacher hustled them toward the barn.
“Can you hitch up the buggy horse?” he asked Jessie, expecting her to say that she didn’t know how.
“Of course,” Jessie answered without hesitation.
“I’ll help,” Casey added. “I used to live on a farm, so I know all about hitching up a team.”
Despite the tension, Jessie let out a hollow laugh as they hurried into the barn. “I grew up on a farm, too. What is it about being farm girls that turns us into whores?”
“Being around the animals all the time while they’re, well, you know?” Casey suggested.
Preacher stopped just inside the doorway and turned around to keep an eye on the house. “Just get that buggy ready to go,” he said.
The women got to work while Preacher watched for trouble. The smooth, swift efficiency with which they got the horse hitched to the buggy told Preacher they’d been telling the truth about knowing what they were doing. Within just a few minutes, they had the buggy ready to roll. Casey’s carpetbag was stuffed behind the seat.
“Aren’t you taking anything with you, Jessie?” she asked as they started to climb onto the seat.
The look Jessie cast through the open doors of the barn at the house was positively venomous. “There’s nothing in there that wasn’t paid for by Shad Beaumont,” she said. “I don’t want any of it.”
“I reckon I understand that feelin’,” Preacher said as he sat down by Casey, who was in the middle. “Jessie, you’d better handle the reins, in case I have to do any shootin’.”
“All right.” She picked up the lines, slapped them against the horse’s rump, and called, “Hyaaahhh!” The horse surged forward against its harness, and the buggy rolled out of the barn. Jessie sent it rolling fast along the drive that circled around the house to the road.
When they reached the front of the house, Preacher saw that Beaumont’s carriage was gone. He had expected as much. Beaumont had probably run straight back to the vehicle and ordered Lorenzo to get away from there as fast as he could. Because Beaumont believed that he had walked into a trap, he probably thought there were more men in the house who wanted to kill him.