Preacher's Justice Read Online Free Page B

hand over the words.
    â€œThis here is my letter, and it ain’t none of your business what it says.”

THREE
    St. Louis
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    It was dark. Jennie and Dog were walking home. For many years, Jennie had made her living as a prostitute, but it wasn’t a profession she chose. Born to a half-black mother in a whorehouse in New Orleans, Jennie had been sold into slavery as a very young girl.
    The man who bought her, Lucas Younger, had intended to make her into a housemaid; however, as she was a very beautiful young girl, he realized early that if he played his cards right, she could be worth a lot of money to him. When she was but thirteen, he paraded her in front of a collection of the finest and wealthiest gentlemen of New Orleans. The price one man paid for the privilege of being first more than compensated Younger for her purchase in the first place.
    He managed to get away with selling her for the “first” time for almost six months, until word got out as to what he was doing and he was forced to flee New Orleans, taking Jennie with him. Going by wagon from New Orleans to St. Louis, he made Jennie available for all who would pay. In those early days, Jennie would sometimes service as many as twenty or twenty-five men in one night, all arranged by Lucas Younger.
    It was during that trip north that she met Preacher for the first time. As a twelve-year-old boy, experimenting with beer for the first time, he was easy pickings for Younger, who knocked him out, put him on his wagon, and took him with him. Preacher was called Art then, and Jennie was a full year older than he was. Younger attempted to make the boy his slave, but Art got away, killing him in the escape.
    A few years later, their paths crossed a second time. Jennie, now the slave of another, was still being forced to earn her keep by prostitution. At this meeting, Art managed to win Jennie in a shooting contest.
    By then, Jennie knew that she was in love with him, and the thought of being his slave actually pleased her. But Art would have none of it. He gave Jennie her papers of manumission, freeing her forever. In turn, Jennie provided the boy, who was not yet known as Preacher, with his passage into manhood.
    Even though Jennie was now free, she was a person with a checkered past, unable to earn a living in any way except the only way she knew. Once more she became a prostitute, but this time, working for herself, she was at least able to profit from it. Because she was frugal, she soon earned enough money to start her own brothel, which she staffed with a full complement of girls, carefully chosen for their looks and demeanor.
    The House of Flowers, as she called her brothel, quickly became the most successful operation of its kind in St. Louis, and its parlors hosted some of the most influential men in the city and state. It also became a lightning rod for civic action groups, especially the Women’s Auxiliary of the St. Louis Betterment League, whose president was Sybil Abernathy, wife of the president of the board of directors of the River Bank of St. Louis.
    Once Jennie had her business going, she left “the line,” as it was called when one was an active prostitute, doing nothing but administer her house. From that time on, the only time she was ever with a man was on those rare times when Preacher would come to St. Louis.
    Jennie was in love with Preacher. She never spoke abut this to him, because she knew that it could not work out. Preacher would never be happy in a city, and she could not live in the isolation of the mountains. As a result, Preacher’s visits to St. Louis were all the sweeter because they provided little windows on a life that she could only glimpse, but would never have.
    When Jennie learned that Sybil Abernathy intended to force her husband to call in the loan, she took 475 dollars from her savings and presented it to the chief teller at the bank. It was enough money to pay off the mortgage on her