S
IXTEEN
Malachi Pardee sat before the fire, a cup of coffee in his dirty hands. His thoughts were just as dirty as his body, and that was filthy. Malachi was between a rock and a hard place, and he knew it only too well.
That wagon train with the good lookin' women and the prime young girls in it was getting further and further away, and there was no telling when another one would form up and pass through. It was getting late in the summer and few would chance the crossing this close to snowfall. But Malachi knew he could not take his gang and leave the mountains after the train. Not with Preacher up here. Preacher would just swing in behind them and pick them off one at a time. No, Preacher had to be dealt with here and now and left dead in the Big Empty. That was all there was to it. The goddamn worthless, shiftless mountain man had been a thorn in Malachi's side for too many years. Just the thought made him angry. Who in the hell did Preacher think he was, anyways?
Brother Henry looked at his big brother from across the fire where supper was cooking. “Is we gonna have Preacher a-doggin' us forever, Malachi?”
“Yes, if we don't come up with a good plan to get shut of him,” Malachi replied sourly. “Cut me off a hunk of that there meat, Henry. Hit's got me salivatin' something fierce.”
Henry whacked off a hunk of hot, half-raw meat, and Malachi fell to gnawing. Thank the Lord they all was blessed with good strong teeth, he was fond of saying.
With blood and juices running down his chin, Malachi said, “I just can't figure why Preacher hates us all so. Lord have mercy knows we ain't never done a harm to him. We's just tryin' to make a livin', that's all. If folks that have would just share with us, we wouldn't have to do what we's doin'. T'ain't right, for a fact. The government ought to provide for poor folks like us.”
* * *
Preacher knew that he'd made Malachi and his greasy bunch very nervous and very cautious, so they would be watching the ground for trip ropes from here on in. So he changed his tactics. Knowing that lazy, shiftless people rarely looked up, Preacher concentrated his efforts on up instead of down.
Preacher occasionally chuckled as he worked swiftly but carefully removing and relocating rocks of various sizes, placing them on the lip of a gently sloping ledge. The ledge was above a long and deep grade of very loose rocks, a slide area, some of the rocks huge boulders. Just above the newly piled rocks were several boulders that Preacher had tested and found he could dislodge by bracing himself and shoving with his feet. When they hit the newly placed rocks, a monumental slide was going to occur. And anyone caught on the trail below was going to be in real serious trouble.
Preacher climbed down carefully and moved some rocks and logs, partly blocking the trail he had used to get up above the timberline. He disguised his work and then made his way back up. The Pardee gang would be forced to leave their horses and follow his false trail on foot.
His work done, Preacher then deliberately built a fire and cooked some deer meat and boiled some water for coffee. He figured the Pardees would come rompin' and stompin' in the morning, hell bent on killing him. Well, they could damn well try it.
* * *
“Look, Malachi!” Valiant hollered, pointing to the thin line of smoke in the distance. “That's got to be Preacher.”
“Goadin' us,” Malachi said, after doing some pretty fancy cussing. “That damn Preacher. He's a-funnin' with us and a-woolin' us. Laughin' at us whilst he makes fun of us. Makin' fools out of us. Well, I ain't agonna stand still for no more of this. I've had all this I can take, boys. Tomorrow we're gonna do the bastard in for good.”
Ansel Pardee did a little dance and slobbered down his chin. Ansel wasn't good for much, but he was a real good slobberer. “We gonna peel the hide offen him, ain't we, Malachi? So's we can listen to him holler. Cook his bare feet in a far and gouge out his eyes, ain't we?” Ansel was really a swell fellow. Lots of fun to be around.
“Wipe your mouth and chin, boy,” his big brother told him. “Yeah. We can do that, I reckon. If we take him alive. That might be fun.”
The Pardees could be quite inventive when it came to torture and the general abuse of prisoners. Ansel was so happy he did a little jig right there in the camp. Ansel was at his best hurting people. Especially women and kids. But someone like Preacher would be just as much fun ... almost, he reckoned. Ansel danced around the camp, flapping his arms and humming.
“Mamma was too long in the tooth when she whelped Ansel and Radborne,” Kenrick remarked to Malachi, both of them watching their baby brother prance around.
“Well, hell,” Malachi replied. “Henry ain't but two year behind me and his bread ain't baked right neither.”
“For a fact. But I always suspicioned that Uncle Dunbar slipped over the woodpile one night when Pa was gone and lifted up mamma's gown.”
“There was that talk as I recollect. You know, Kenrick, to turn out as well and fine as we did, we shore did come from mighty poor stock.”
“I will agree with both them things, brother.”
* * *
“Shhhiiittt!” Valiant said, looking at the narrow and rocky trail that lay beyond the boulders blocking their way. “Don't tell me we got to
walk
again?”
Malachi did look up, suspecting a trap, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The birds and squirrels had grown accustomed to Preacher and were going about their business as usual. Still, he didn't like it.
High above them, Preacher was in place and braced. When the rocks started going, half of that grade of loose rocks would break free under the rolling and bouncing impact. Some of those below would have time to get clear, maybe. And some wouldn't. And every one that went down was one less Preacher had to worry about. Not that he was very worried about any of that damn trash down below him.
Malachi looked back at his men. “George,” he called. “Go check it out. Go all the way across and see if his trail is over yonder on the other side and see how far it goes for a ways.”
George didn't want to make himself a target, but he went, expecting to feel the rip of a bullet in his guts or in his back with every step he took. But he went. When he reached the other side, he paused to wipe the sweat from his face and from the inside of his hat, even though this high up it was cool. He found Preacher's false trail easily enough and shouted that news across the several hundred yards' distance that separated him from the bunch.
“He's headin' this way for a fact, Malachi. I can see where he rested ag'in' this here boulder for a time, catchin' his breath, I reckon.”
Malachi had him a bad feeling about the passage that stretched out in front of him. A real bad feeling. But if they didn't make this crossing here, they would have to ride a dozen miles around the mountains and then be faced with a hard climb back up. As it stood now, he was going to have to send men the long way around with the horses.
Hell, Malachi, he told his mind. Give it up and leave. Look to another part of the country. Head for the Oregon Territory and be a road agent there. Preacher will never leave these mountains and you wouldn't have him to put up with.
But Malachi knew he wouldn't do that. Now it was down to a matter of pride.
But pride can get you killed, he reminded himself.
Got to be this way, another part of him said. Can't have the talk a-goin' around that Malachi Pardee backed down from the likes of Preacher.
“Start crossin'.” Malachi gave the orders. “You, Coyote Man, take the lead. Harold, you and Slim follow after him. Cotter, you and Shockly go after them. Move out.”
“I will go after that,” Little Wolf said. “Kills the Enemy will follow me.”
“I will go after that,” Big Eagle announced. “I am not afraid of a rocky trail.”
“All right;' Malachi said.
Miles back, Ned lay unconscious and dying in the deserted camp of the Pardee gang. They had left him to go it alone with no more thought than they would have given a dying snake. Probably less, for one of them would have surely killed the snake.
From where he lay, braced and ready, hidden from the eyes of those below, Preacher could not make out individuals as they began their crossing. But he could count seven or eight of them all bunched up on the safe side. No one, it seemed, wanted to be the one to take that first step.
Not that Preacher blamed any of them for hesitating. But he knew
he
wouldn't have been dumb enough to fall for such an obvious trap.
Pride's got Malachi now, Preacher thought. Old Man Pride has done took control of his senses. He don't want to lose face by turnin' back. And that's liable to be the thing that gets you killed, Malachi.
“I do not like this,” Crooked Arm whispered to a friend as they stood at the end of the line of outlaws. “Bloody Knife is playing games with us. Deadly games.”
His friend, called Running Dog, nodded his head solemnly. “If we are smart at all, we will disappear from this band of fools.”
“And go where?” Crooked Arm questioned. “To forever wander the land without family or company?”
“We will be alive,” Running Dog said.
Crooked Arm thought about that for a moment. “That is surely something to be considered. Now?”
“Now.”
The two renegades started walking backward and soon vanished around a bend in the narrow trail. They were the smart ones. They would be alive to tell others how the man called Bloody Knife tricked Malachi Pardee. The tales would spread and grow and so would the reputation of the mountain man called Preacher.
Eight men, nearly a third of the Pardee gang, committed themselves to the rocky trail. Preacher tensed his legs against the boulder. Just a few more seconds, a few more steps, and the outlaws would be caught with no place to run.
In the center of the narrow trail, Coyote Man stopped and carefully looked all around him. Something in his guts was telling him, silently screaming at him, that death was near. But he could see nothing.
“What is wrong with you?” Big Eagle called from the rear of the line. “We are standing out here as plain as a wart on the end of a nose. If you are afraid, then get out of the way and let me lead.”
“Shut up, you fat cow,” Coyote Man called. “You could not lead a horse to water.” He started forward and the others crowded in close behind him.
Preacher shoved with all his might and the boulder went rolling.
All on the trail and at both ends of it felt the ground begin to tremble. Little Wolf looked all around him, not understanding what was happening. Kills the Enemy looked in but one direction â up. He opened his mouth and screamed in terror as tons of rock were gathering up more tons of rock and all the mass was hurtling downward.
There was no place for the men trapped on the rocky trail to run. They stood as if frozen in place and waited for death.
“Goddamn you!” Malachi screamed, his words unheard over the thundering roar of the avalanche. “I'll kill you, Preacher. I swear I'll kill you.”
Then a cloud of dust the size of a mountain enveloped the area, shrouding everything, tearing the eyes of those left alive, and causing a fit of coughing. When the dust had settled and the area was deadly silent, what was left of the gang looked toward where the trail used to be. It was gone, swept clean and covered. There was no way across and there was not a trace left of the eight men. On the other side, George looked back in horror and terror. He was trapped and alone.
“Stay where you is, George!” Malachi hollered, not knowing that George was so scared he couldn't have moved even if the Lord had commanded it. Besides that, he had crapped his drawers. “Start workin' your way down and we'll meet you by the river with the horses. We'll wait for you.”
Malachi and the others waited for some sort of taunting jeer from Preacher. But all that greeted them was silence and the low moaning wind.
“We ought to say something.” A Pardee follower called Curtis finally broke the silence. “I mean, I ain't no church-goin' man, but they's all buried under them rocks.”
Ansel giggled and slobbered and picked his nose.
“Preacher!” Malachi hollered, the word echoing back to him. “You dirty son, can you hear me? Answer me, damn your eyes.”
Silence.
“I know you're up there, you ambushin' no-count. Come down here and fight me like a man, you bastard!” Malachi was so mad he had forgotten that Preacher had already twice stomped the crap out of him.
But Preacher was a long way off and running hard. He had left under the cover of the enormous dust cloud. He reached the outlaw's horses and quickly went to work. He jerked the picket pins and sent them stampeding. He cut up the cinch straps, slashed the fenders and stirrups, and then set about destroying and scattering the supplies. He dented their coffee pots with rocks and threw everything he could lay hands on, including their saddles and bedrolls, over the side and into a deep ravine. They could reach them, but they'd have to work doing it. He quickly added one final touch and then Preacher slipped back about five hundred yards, found himself a safe and comfortable spot, and waited for the outlaws to return.
It was not a long wait. Malachi Pardee and his gang, minus seven or eight dead and two that had slipped away and one that was stranded on the other side of the avalanche, straggled back into camp and stood for a moment, dumbfounded. With Ansel, it was no act.
Malachi didn't even cuss at the sight. He sat down on a log and sighed. He was tired, his feet were sore, he was disgusted, and just about played out. “Some of you fellers see if you can locate the horses,” he finally said, weariness in his voice. “Rest of you start gatherin' up what supplies we got left and somebody build a fire. Them ashes is dead. Get one of them beat-up coffee pots and get some water. If it don't leak,” he added, then added, “Goddamn that Preacher.” Makin' a joke outa this, he thought. That's what it is to him, just one big damn joke. He thinks this is funny. Funny! Well, if I get a chance, I'll make this joke on him. If.