Preacher Man

THE MORNING I stole my daddy’s gun, the summer heat had already baked the dew off the grass. I remember the metal felt warm when I wrapped it in my mother’s old shawl—the blue one she’d worn to church every Sunday before the preacher man came to town. Before Jenny disappeared. Before we stopped going to church altogether.

Daddy kept the Colt in his bedside drawer, loaded with five shells, one chamber empty. “Safety first,” he always said, though safety seemed a strange word for a weapon that had taken three men’s lives during his days as a deputy. He’d retired that badge the same week the preacher man arrived, saying he was too old for the job. Now I knew better. He’d seen something in the preacher man’s eyes that scared him more than any outlaw ever had.

Jenny had seen it, too. I remembered her sitting two pews ahead during services, her dark hair falling in waves down her back. Sometimes she’d turn and smile at me, but I’d always look away, too shy to hold her gaze. “You never know a good thing until it’s gone,” my mother used to say. I hadn’t understood my mother’s advice until three weeks after Jenny stood up in church and said those fatal words to the preacher man: “I know what you done.”

The preacher man just smiled that day, same as he smiled at funerals and weddings alike. But his eyes—those pale blue eyes that never seemed to blink—they’d turned cold as river stones in winter.

Jenny disappeared on the Tuesday after that. By Wednesday, half the town searched the woods and creek beds. By Thursday, folks whispered about the preacher man, about things they’d seen and heard but never spoke of. By Friday, the whispers died. The preacher man had visited each family that raised concerns, spent time in their homes, learned their secrets. After that, nobody said much of anything at all.

I’d heard daddy talking late one night with mama about the preacher man’s connections—powerful men in Austin who’d written letters vouching for his character. Men who owned banks and railroads, who could foreclose on farms or deny cattle contracts with a single word. The preacher man had shown these letters to the town council, smiling with that same frozen smile.

The Chautauqua announcement came two months after Jenny disappeared. A traveling show down in Galveston, bringing learning and entertainment to the masses. The preacher man signed on as a speaker, teaching on “Moral Philosophy and the Modern Age.” I’d found the newspaper clipping in his abandoned church office, along with something else, a small silver locket I recognized. Jenny had worn it every Sunday, a gift from her grandmother.

Now, with daddy’s gun wrapped in mama’s blue shawl and Jenny’s locket in my pocket, I saddled my horse before dawn. Daddy would understand when he found my note. He’d taught me a man has to stand for something, even if standing means walking away from everything he knows.

The road to Galveston stretched long and lonely through scrubland and small towns. I’d never traveled over twenty miles from home, but I had a map and enough anger in my heart to light the way. The preacher man had a three-week head start, but Chautauqua shows stayed in one place for a month or more. I had time.

I thought about Jenny during those long rides between towns. About her smile, about all the things I should have said when I had the chance. About how brave she’d been to speak up when the rest of us just watched and waited. I knew the preacher man had taken her life. But he’d also taken our courage, our dignity, our faith that good might triumph over evil.

At night, camping under stars that felt colder and more distant than they’d ever been back home, I practiced drawing daddy’s gun. The weight of it changed me somehow, made me feel both older and younger at the same time. Older because I knew what I meant to do with it. Younger because I knew how much I still had to learn.

The first town I rode into, folks still talked about the preacher man’s passage. He’d stayed two days, they said, preaching about redemption and moral certainty. Three days after he left, a local girl went missing. They found her two days later, unharmed but unable to remember anything about where she’d been. Her family packed up and left town the next week, heading west without explanation. I guess they ran from something they feared would return.

I arrived too late in the second town. The preacher man had moved on, but he’d left his mark. He burned the sheriff’s office to the ground, and nobody met my eyes when I asked questions. One old man, drunk outside the saloon, grabbed my arm and whispered, “He knows things. Things nobody should know. Things that ain’t natural.”

I rode harder after that, sleeping less, pushing my horse until she stumbled. The preacher man’s trail grew warmer with each passing day. In a small town near the coast, a shopkeeper’s wife told me he’d passed through just yesterday, heading south. She crossed herself after mentioning his name.

Galveston rose from the coastal plain like something from a fever dream—all wooden buildings and salt air, seabirds circling overhead. The Chautauqua tents stood bright white against the gray sky, flags snapping in the ocean breeze. I stabled my horse and walked the grounds, daddy’s gun rubbing against my ribs.

I found him in the third tent, standing before a crowd of eager faces, speaking about morality and the nature of evil. He looked the same—black coat, white collar, that eternal smile. Only his eyes had changed, growing colder still, like chunks of ice in a dead man’s skull.

“Evil,” he was saying, “wears many faces. Sometimes it looks like rebellion. Sometimes like justice.” His eyes swept the crowd and found mine. The smile didn’t waver. “And sometimes like vengeance.”

I felt the weight of daddy’s gun, of Jenny’s locket, of all the miles between here and home. The preacher man kept talking, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I was watching his hands, remembering what daddy had taught me about men who meant to draw iron. The preacher man’s right hand hung loose at his side, too loose to be natural.

When it happened, it happened fast. His hand moved like a striking snake, but daddy’s gun had already cleared leather. The sound crashed through the tent like thunder, sending people screaming toward the exits. The preacher man fell backward, that smile finally fading, those cold eyes showing surprise for the first time since I’d known him.

I walked forward, keeping the Colt trained on his chest like daddy had taught me. The preacher man lay still, blood spreading across his white shirt. His own gun had fallen just beyond his reaching fingers.

“Jenny,” I said, but he just smiled that awful smile one last time and closed his eyes.

The law caught up with me before I made it back to my horse. They’d found papers in the preacher man’s tent—letters that told the real story about what he’d done, not just to Jenny but to girls in three other states. Letters from powerful men who’d protected him, who’d looked the other way for him keeping their secrets.

The judge took all that into account at my trial. Considered my age, the circumstances, that the preacher man had drawn first. In the end, they called it self-defense and let me go home.

Daddy waited on the porch when I rode up. He said nothing about his gun, just nodded once and held out his hand. I gave him the pistol, wrapped once again in mama’s blue shawl.

“You did what needed doing,” he said. “But the cost—” He shook his head. “The cost never really gets paid, son. You just learn to live with the debt.”

I thought about Jenny’s locket, still in my pocket. About her smile, about all the words I’d never said to her. About how sometimes the only way to honor what’s good is to stand against what’s evil, no matter the price.

That night, I buried Jenny’s locket under the old oak tree where she sat and read during lunch at school. The preacher man was dead, his secrets exposed, his powerful friends facing their own reckonings. But Jenny was still gone, and all the justice in the world couldn’t bring her back.

Sometimes, when I’m riding fence on quiet afternoons, I think I see her in the distance—a flash of dark hair, the flutter of a dress around a corner. But it’s just shadows and wishes, memories of a time before I learned how costly justice can be. Before I learned that my mother was right, you never know a good thing until it’s gone.

Daddy’s gun hangs over our fireplace now, retired for good. Sometimes I catch him looking at it, and I know he’s remembering his own hard choices, his own debts. We don’t talk about the preacher man anymore, or about Jenny, or about that summer that changed everything. Some stories don’t need telling. They live in the silence between words, in the weight of old guns, in the memories of smiles we were too young to appreciate until they were gone forever.