“Take that, you heathen bastard.”
Preacher couldn't help blurting through his laughter, “Why, Miss Cora.”
Cheeks flamed scarlet, Cora Ames made a face. “Can't a girl have any privacy?”
She handed the rifle to Sue Landry, who said feelingly, “Atta girl, Cora.”
Preacher fired again and spun a pudgy Dakota off his saddle pad. A hoot from Sits Tall and the warriors streamed away. Quickly as it had begun, the fighting ended. Slowly people peeped out of their wagons, or rose from firing positions under the boxes. A frightened mule had kicked forearm-sized billets of burning wood from the cookfire and Patience Bookworthy hurried to spill a bucket of water over two of them.
“Yer learnin', folks. Yer doin' jist fine,” Preacher praised. “I think we've got 'em fit to a standstill.” He studied the retreating backs of the Dakotas. “Don't reckon they'll be back until some time in the night, maybe not until dawn.”
“Why's that, Preacher?” Asa Landry asked.
“Like I done tole you a hunnard times, Mr. Landry. Injuns is notionable. They ran us down the line, an' then attacked three times in a row. Didn't get anythin' accomplished. That smacks of weak medicine to an Injun. They'll draw off to cook up some grub, dance and drum some and sing up some more good medicine. Speakin' of which, if you ladies don't mind? I think all that fightin's whipped up an appetite for everyone.”
Shortly after the last of the Dakotas disappeared beyond the notches at the upper and lower end of the trail through the valley meadow, the faint, rhythmic, heartbeat thump of a drum invaded the consciousness of everyone in the train. Nighthawk began to tap a finger in time with it on the butt-stock of the rifle he cleaned. Preacher soon noticed that even Beartooth, who was rumored to have a touch of Cherokee or Chickasaw in him, began to rock his moccasined right toe with the tempo.
Funny how most white folk either heard them with dread, or didn't react in any manner to the drums. Yet, given the lest smidgen of Injun blood and the rhythm got to a feller right fast, Preacher mused. He saw to cleaning his own weapons, as he had advised the greenhorns to do, and thought on the meaning of this unprovoked attack by Indians far from their usual stomping grounds.
About the time a plate of thick stew came into Preacher's hands, he had the beginnings of a wild idea. One that involved a lot of risk, but one he saw as bearing a great deal more promise for their future. Provided he could carry it off without being killed.
16
Dupre thought Preacher's idea to be a crazy scheme. He minced no words in telling the mountain man so when he came upon Preacher as he worked on some gourds he had found in a narrow gulley. Preacher chuckled and patted his older friend on one shoulder.
“B'god, it's worked before, ain't it? Remember that time those Blackfeet had you an' me an' Lame Jack Riley cornered up in the Blue Smokes country? You an' Lame Jack slipped out an' done it whilst I kept the fire stoked up and talked to two bedrolls stuffed inside blankets. Skeert the livin' hell outta them Blackfeet. An' they knows the mountains. These Dakota don't. Likely to have 'em mussin' up their pretty beaded breech cloths iffin I do it right.”
“I agree,” Nighthawk put in his penny's worth. “They hadn't the opportunity to make an accurate count of how many we number. Come deep darkness, they'll not see one man slip away. If anyone can accomplish this, Preacher can.”
Beartooth clinched it with his offer. “Sure you don't want anyone along for company?”
Preacher cut his eyes around the group and smiled broadly at Dupre. “There you are. It's settled. I'll be leavin' around ten o' the clock. The Dakota will be drummin' an' singin' up a storm about then. Any watchers they put out will be gettin' bored and droopy eyed. I'll catch the ones behind us first, that should start some confusion when they go rushin' in among their brothers. Then another dose ought to get the whole batch on the run.”
True to his word, Preacher slipped unnoticed out of camp at ten that night. The Dakota had not the slightest idea what awaited them.
* * *
Preacher glided through the chest-high grass in a whisper of near silence. He had with him the gourds he had found near the circled wagons, left from last summer. He had spent a long, careful time preparing them in a special way. They would play a big part in his plan to break the spirit of the hostiles. The grade increased steadily as he advanced toward the beeline to the south of the meadow.
With all the skill he possessed, Preacher wormed his way through the stand of alder saplings and over the crest of the low hill. Once more he went over his plan. Ordinarily, his repertoire of animal and bird sounds would not fool any Indian over the age of ten or eleven. But, added to some special tricks he had prepared, he figured he might get these Dakota thinking something else was afoot besides a nasty mountain man. It all centered on those gourds.
Half of them had rags stuffed down hard around the fuse and cap stuck in them. The others did not. That way, he knew, some would go off with a big, loud bang, while the rest would produce a flash, a whumph, and a whole lot of smoke. Preacher made his way to where the watchers had set up a small camp. Only a handful of the braves had remained on this end of the trail. They had a fire and a small drum. Half their number must be keeping an eye on the wagons.
This would make it easy. He'd use the smoke bombs on these braves. Chuckling silently over the anticipated results, Preacher aimed for the rear of the Sioux camp. There he found the horses and made ready for his presentation. First, though, he had to find the pony guard.
Preacher located him after a patient fifteen minutes wait. A slender young man in his late teens, he squatted with his back against the bole of a large fir, head constantly turning, eyes alert to any hint of movement. Preacher watched longer, to determine any pattern. Slowly it emerged. The youth rose from his position after a quarter hour and moved to a rock, where he could cover the angle previously overlooked. This would be a tough one, Preacher decided.
It tasked all of Preacher's skills to sneak up on the competent, though youthful, warrior. In the last two minutes he held his breath as he closed the distance in a rush. His angle of attack put him atop the boulder against which the boy leaned. Preacher's moccasin made a small scraping sound as he slithered down the lichen-frosted stone face to land feet-first on the top of the Dakota's head.
A soft grunt came from the boy's mouth. Preacher continued on down, driving his knees into the exposed chest. Air rushed from a contorted mouth, the lad stiffened, convulsed, and went slack in unconsciousness. At once, Preacher set to work.
Bent low, he freed the ponies from their grazing tethers. Then, from a tinder box he extracted a live coal, touched it to the fuses in the gourds he held, then hurled them into the general area of the crude camp. At once he moved away from where he stood, burrowed into the underbrush, and made ready. When the first whumph came, he loosed a deep, soulful cough, followed by the hiss and roar of a cougar. The second projectile went off. Shouts of alarm rose from the resting warriors. Again, Preacher did his cougar act. The third bomb exploded. The ponies panicked. With a grunt of amusement, Preacher decided to throw in a little grizzly bear.
“Wahanksica!”
a warrior shouted.
“Wahanksica!”
With a single mind, the hostile Dakotas set off after their horses. Chuckling to himself, Preacher retraced his steps to where he had ground-reined Thunder. In a matter of minutes, he trotted toward the camp ahead, where the larger fire burned, the bigger drum throbbed, and more Dakota waited to be an audience for his next performance.
* * *
Preacher found his quarry easily enough. He screwed a ground anchor into the turf and tied off Thunder, then equipped himself with an armload of homemade bombs. As he had done before, he headed for where the ponies had been picketed. To his surprise, he found a boy of about fourteen guarding them. On his first war party, no doubt, Preacher reckoned. He set his deadly gourds aside and slipped up on the lad easily. With the butt of a pistol, he knocked the youth unconscious with a single blow to the head. He eased the body to the ground and went back for his explosives.
The Dakota sang a war song as Preacher laid out his bombs. These had longer fuses than the first set, and he lighted them as he went around the camp. He saved two to hurl in among the warriors. The drum stopped suddenly as Sits Tall rose from his cross-legged position on a blanket.
“Enough,” he told his followers. “We must rest and be fresh to fight when the sun comes.”
Not likely,
Preacher thought to himself as he made his way back to the horses. A harsh panther cough and snarl set the ponies off in a restless trot. Wolf howls followed and then the first of the bombs went off. The Dakota's mounts stampeded. Around the fire, pandemonium erupted. The explosions shook the ground. Preacher turned back then, lighted the remaining pair of fuses and hurled the gourds into the camp.
They erupted seconds later and set off a wilder scramble. In the midst of it, he threw back his head and shouted his earlier challenge. “I own the earth!”
Preacher gave another panther cough and raced back to where he had left Thunder. A swift ride though the moonlit night brought him to the circle of wagons. Several of their out-facing sides still bristled with arrows. The folks would be able to get rid of them come morning, Preacher thought with satisfaction.
* * *
Early morning light showed evidence that the Dakota had given up any idea of an attack. No warriors lined the ridges, Preacher noted as he poured a second round of coffee into a tin cup. He cut his gray eyes left and right, seeking any hint of concealed braves in the tall meadow grass. He saw not the slightest presence.
“Well an' good,” he rumbled as he sought the last of his Catlin clay pipes and a small pouch of tobacco.
Now was a good time for a smoke. Not even the powerful medicine of the Raven Owners' Society could prevail against the ghostly events of the night gone by, he reasoned with a touch of smugness. Best take advantage of it, before they got their nerves reined in and their wind up again. To that end, he turned to the late awakeners who crawled muzzily from their bedrolls.
“You'd all best make it a quick breakfast. Menfolk set to harnessin' the mules. Dupre, 'Hawk an' Beartooth will git you lined out on the trail. I'm goin' ahead to sniff the ground.”
Cora Ames had a newfound friend in Falicity Jones. They came forward to where Preacher stood by the fire. “We heard the awfulest sounds last night,” Cora began. “We thought the Indians must have gotten drunk and set fire to their ammunition when the explosions started.”
Preacher gave her a small, secret smile. “Dakota don't take much to drink, leastwise not so far. I'd say they ran up against some medicine too big for them to handle.”
Falicity caught the twinkle in Preacher's eyes. “You're not going to tell us, are you?”
“Nothin' to tell, Miz Jones.”
“Are they going to attack?” Cora inquired.
“Nope. I reckon whatever spirits troubled them last night got 'em headed back toward their sacred Black Hills. We be makin' the tradin' post come mid-day tomorrow.”
Preacher put a slab of fried fatback between the halves of two biscuits and wrapped them in a square of neatly worked buckskin. He stuffed that in a coat pocket and headed for Thunder. Saddled up, he rode out of the bustling camp. Flora Sanders called after him with words sweet to his ears.
“I'll have a dried apple pie waiting for you tonight, Preacher.”
Immediately when he crossed the forward ridge, Preacher saw confirmation that he had read the mood of the Dakotas correctly. Or rather, he saw not a sign of any of them. Scuffed ground and wide-spaced moccasin prints indicated that the Indians had left, and in some considerable disarray. Preacher chortled softly. Must have taken them most of the night to round up their ponies. No doubt the rest of it packing up to get out of there. Be a lot of drooping eyes among them bucks on the trail today. He touched boot heels to Thunder and continued his scout.
* * *
Beartooth and Nighthawk remained behind to do what they could to wipe out any sign of their passage once the wagons left the narrow trace through the soaring mountains. While they worked, Beartooth spoke of past events.
“Preacher was smart to pick this side approach to the pass. Only thing, none of us could have expected them Dakota. If Pease has men lookin' for us, it'd be on the main trail.”
“That's a mouthful for you, Beartooth,” Nighthawk observed. “Although I suspect you are right. Bad fortune. We will be out of it before long, though.”
“Yep. Only I don't reckon those wagons will make it as soon as Preacher expects. A couple of them look to be on the edge of breakin' down.”
Nighthawk made a face. “All we need.”
“So true. I was lookin' forward to findin' my woman's people and settlin' in for a summer of buffalo huntin'.”
Nighthawk rubbed his lean, hard belly. “I can taste a plate full of roasted hump. Did you know that the forest bison were all but hunted out before the white man came? It was rare that any of our people ever tasted that sweet, rich meat.”
“That's bein' deprived some, I'd say.”
“You know it, friend.”
With their task completed in early afternoon, Nighthawk and Beartooth came unexpectedly upon the wagons. They had halted due to a broken wheel on one of the vehicles salvaged from the raid by Pease and his men. Also, Asa Pettibone's wagon had a cracked connecting bar in the running gear.
“Might have known it,” Beartooth sighed in resignation. “We'll be stuck here a day at best.”
* * *
Four large, sacred drums throbbed in the central clearing of the Cheyenne village. A huge fire burned, although it was mid-day. Cooking went on at other, smaller fires among the concentric circles of lodges. Boys ran foot races in imitation of the more serious adult contests to come after the Grand Council concluded its business. Others played at mock hunting or war. The little girls helped their mothers by washing vegetables, cutting strips of meat into cubes for stew, and stirring bubbling cauldrons. A number of the older female population, those in their teens, looked on with admiring glances at the youthful warriors, excluded from the council hearing that had gone on for the past three days.
Everyone said it would end some time before the sun went to sleep in the west. No one knew for sure. Occasionally, angry voices raised from behind the brush walls of the ceremonial lodge, its top open to the sky. When the messenger, bowed with fatigue, wended his way among the lodges toward the entrance to the council lodge, most of the boys gave off their games to follow along. The camp crier preceded him. The lathered pony stopped outside the brush arbor and snorted. His rider stared stupidly, as though dazed and unaware of where he had reached. Two young civil chiefs came out to confront him.
Slowly he slipped from his mount and staggered forward. He had ridden hard for three days and nights without sleep. When he entered, his message roused new shouts of outrage and anger.
“Little Knife killed by whites!” Stone Drum blurted. “I say we know who they are. Where is this?”
Blinking, the messenger recited all he knew. “Some white men made a large camp in a valley on the slopes of the White Top Mountains that face the Medicine Bows. They are many in number. It is said they come to trade guns with our people. Little Knife heard they had whiskey. He went to make them spill it on the ground. A man I know, who died later, rode with Little Knife. He was much wounded and escaped the whites that way. He saw Little Knife fall.”
Mutters ran among the gathered chiefs. Heads nodded, an agreement formed. Stone Drum spoke for the council. “We are agreed, brothers? We must hunt down these white men and fight them until all die.” He looked around and noted three chiefs who had club lodges of Dog Soldiers in their camps. He nodded to them. “You will gather your best men, have criers sent out at once. Let the Dog Soldiers deal with these evil men.”