Preacher by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone [Johnstone, William W]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2016-05-18T04:00:00+00:00

12

There was no getting around it. St. Louis just had too many people. Everywhere Art looked he saw people, moving up and down the boardwalks, crowding into the stores and overflowing the dram shops. The streets were filled too, with men on horseback as well as carriages, carts, and wagons, drawn by horses, mules, and oxen. It had rained recently, and the street was a quagmire of manure and mud.

But it was the smells that Art was having the hardest time with. Having spent just over a year living in the great outdoors with the Indians, he found the pungency of manure and rotting garbage, as well as several other unidentifiable odors, nearly overpowering. Some St. Louis citizens countered the odor by holding perfumed handkerchiefs to their nose, but most seemed adjusted to it.

The clothes Art had left home with had worn out long ago and he was now wearing buckskins; both shirt and trousers. Although most of the people he saw were wearing more traditional clothing, there were enough dressed in buckskins to keep him from being totally out of place. Only his hair was a little different from the others, as it was long and braided into pigtails. He did see several men with long hair, but no one else was wearing pigtails, so he undid his own, then shook his head, letting his hair fall freely to his shoulders.

* * *

Art had managed quite well in the woods, easily finding his way to St. Louis. He had learned from the Indians how to trap rabbit and squirrel for his meals, as well as what roots and plants he could eat. Also, as he followed the river north, he’d had an abundance supply of fish. But survival in St. Louis required a different set of skills. Here, money was more important than hunting or trapping, and Art didn’t have one cent to his name.

Even as he was contemplating his lack of money, he happened across a possible remedy when he walked past a freight warehouse. Here, one wagon was being unloaded and two more were waiting to be moved up to the warehouse dock.

“1 don’t know where he is, Mr. Gordon,” he heard one of the men say to another. “This is the third day this month he ain’t showed up when he was supposed to.”

Mr. Gordon, who was apparently the foreman of the warehouse, walked over to the edge of the loading dock and spat a stream of tobacco juice. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then reached down into a pouch for a fresh supply.

“I’d fire James right now if I could find someone else to work in his place.”

“They ain’t that many people want to work unloadin’ wagons,” the first man said. “It’s hard work.”

Art turned and walked back to the dock. “Mr. Gordon?” he said.

Gordon was obviously surprised to be addressed by name by someone he had never seen before. “Who are you?” Gordon asked, pausing before he stuffed a handful of the tobacco into his mouth.

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