Part 15 (2/2)
”I'm very busy.” Doc Adams started to scurry off. ”I can speak to you later-”
Preacher swung into his path. ”I'll only take a few moments of your time. Were you telling the Osbournes that their daughter can't be returned?”
”No, I was telling them that she can.”
”For three hundred dollars.”
Doc Adams tried to pa.s.s. ”You ought to speak to the mayor-”
”He's gone.”
The doctor paused. ”Gone?”
”He left with Mr. Dobbs. On some task, it seems. So . . . three hundred dollars is the price of a child's life?”
”Yes, and the Osbournes will pay.We will make sure everyone can pay. Now, if you'll excuse me-”
”Three hundred and what else?”
Preacher hadn't honestly expected any ”else”-it was an arrow fired wild-but when he saw the other man's expression, he knew that arrow had struck home.
”I heard there was something more,” Preacher said. ”Something you aren't telling the families.”
Doc Adams's face went bright red. He bl.u.s.tered, asking who'd told Preacher and insisting it was merely rumor, people talking, that there was no other price. Finally, when he seemed to see that Preacher wasn't going to back down, he started down the street.
”I have work to do,” he said. ”Other families to inform of the wondrous news.”
”And families to tell that they will not have their children returned.You yourself admitted they cannot all be returned. Has Mayor Browning set you on that task as well? Deliver the good news and the bad?”
”It was not the mayor-”
Doc Adams clipped his words short and kept moving, shoulders hunched, as if against the cold, but there was no more than a light breeze.
Preacher strode up beside him. ”So it was Eleazar who sent you on this mission.Then he sent the mayor and Dobbs on another, one that ill suited you.”
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