Preacher's Frenzy by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2019-10-24T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 25

“What’re you doin’ here, Rowland?” Preacher asked. The dryness of his mouth and throat made his voice a croak, which annoyed him.

“I got tired of that blasted river. No real challenge to it. I used to be a seafarin’ man, so when we got to New Orleans this last time, I went lookin’ for a berth on a real ship. Never figured we’d wind up sailin’ on the same one!”

“Cap’n said we was to cut him loose and get him up on deck,” the other man reminded Rowland. He reached for the knife at his waist. “We better get to it.”

Rowland stuck out a brawny arm and held it across the man’s chest to bar his way. He held out his other hand and said, “Gimme that knife.”

The man frowned. “What’re you gonna do with it?”

“Follow orders, of course.” The evil smirk on Rowland’s face seemed to say something else, however.

“I dunno . . .”

“Give me the blasted knife, Finch,” Rowland snapped.

The sailor called Finch still hesitated, but only for a couple of seconds. Then he shrugged his narrow shoulders and pulled the knife from the rope belt and slapped the handle in Rowland’s outstretched palm.

Preacher drew his knees up. With his hands tied behind his back, he couldn’t put up much of a fight but rather than just sit there and meekly allow Abner Rowland to cut his throat, Preacher planned to kick the varmint where it would do the most good. He’d make Rowland work at killing him.

As Rowland approached, though, he said, “Take it easy, Preacher. I’m not gonna do anything except what Cap’n Sampson told us to do. But I could. I could carve you from gizzard to gullet if I wanted to.”

“You could try,” Preacher said.

Rowland snorted, then turned and handed the knife back to Finch. “You go cut him loose. I might scare him to death, gettin’ that close to him with a knife, and the cap’n might be upset.”

Finch looked nervous as he approached the mountain man and said, “Don’t try anything, now. I’ll cut your feet loose first and then your hands, all right?”

“Just get it done,” Preacher growled. “I’m gettin’ a mite cramped up, sittin’ here in this dirty water.”

The knife sawed quickly through the cords around Preacher’s ankles. He leaned forward to allow Finch to cut the ones around his wrists. He could have taken the knife away from the skinny sailor then and killed Finch, and there was a good chance he could have disposed of Rowland, too.

But then what would he do? Kill Sampson and the rest of the Calypso’s crew? That seemed pretty unlikely. Even if he managed to carry out such a slaughter against overwhelming odds, could he sail the ship back to New Orleans? That was an even more farfetched idea.

He had to give Simone credit. If she wanted to get rid of him without actually killing him, this was a pretty effective way of doing so.

“All right. Get up,” Rowland ordered when Preacher’s hands and feet were free and Finch had backed off out of reach.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.