Preacher's Showdown by J.A. Johnstone

Author:J.A. Johnstone [Johnstone, William W.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
Published: 2017-04-06T00:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

As it turned out, the next day went quite well. The wagons forded the Kansas River without a hitch and angled northwestward, soon picking up an even smaller stream that was a tributary of the Kansas. They would follow it almost all the way to the Platte, Preacher told the others.

One day turned into the next, and the miles continued to unspool beneath the wagon wheels. Gil Robinson and Lars Neilson were a little sullen for a few days, but they got over it. The Swede was soon his usual smiling self again. And as for Robinson, he had never been that friendly, even before the fight with Corliss. But he handled his team well enough and pitched in around the camps as much as he ever had.

One day while the wagon train was stopped at noon, Deborah decided that she wanted to learn how to shoot a rifle. Corliss laughed at the idea, but Deborah frowned and said, “No, I mean it. I think I ought to learn how to do that.”

“That ain’t a bad idea,” Preacher put in. “We’re already a long way from civilization and gettin’ farther away every day. Might come a time when Miss Morrigan knowin’ how to handle a rifle would come in mighty handy.”

“Well, all right, if both of you insist,” Corliss said. He got his flintlock from the wagon and brought it over to Deborah. He thrust the weapon at her, and she took it.

“Oh, my,” she said as she felt how heavy it was. Her arms sagged a little before she was able to tighten her muscles. “Do I really have to lift it all the way to my shoulder?”

“You do if you want to shoot it,” Preacher told her. “That’s the only way to aim. A few fellas can shoot a rifle from the hip, but I don’t advise it, especially for you, ma’am. Might break a wrist that way.”

“All right.” Deborah struggled to raise the rifle. When she had it in place, with the butt firmly socketed against her shoulder and the barrel weaving even worse than when Jake was trying to shoot one of the long rifles, she said in a strained voice, “Now what do I do?”

Preacher looked at Corliss. “Loaded and primed?”

“Of course.”

“All right,” Preacher told Deborah, “point the barrel at that little clump o’ sagebrush out there.”

“What sagebrush?”

“Yonder.” Preacher leveled a finger at the plants he was talking about.

“Oh, I see it now.” Deborah managed to aim the rifle in the general direction of the sagebrush. The barrel was weaving around so much, she probably wouldn’t be able to hit what she was aiming at. It would be blind luck if she did. But at least she was pointing the rifle away from the wagons.

“Reach up with the thumb o’ your right hand,” Preacher went on, “and use it to pull the hammer back.”

“The hammer?”

“That part right there.”

Biting her bottom lip in concentration as the men gathered to watch this display of her shooting ability, Deborah got her thumb on the hammer and eared it back.

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