Now the novel idea returned to fire his imagination. Suppose he and his cousin, Hilly, had done somethin' really bad when they had been fussin' around out behind the barn that day. Not that the Kid looked like anyone capable of something bad. He stood only an inch over five feet, and that in his boots. A remarkably slow developer, he had the bone structure and features of a twelve-year-old, although six years older. His blue eyes, cottony hair, and cherub's mouth artfully hid a hot, vicious temper and sadistic personality. He fantasized about that steamy afternoon with Hilly all the way to the meeting place.
Five of the dozen men sent to get Preacher waited at the isolated bald knob that stood out in the middle of a wide valley. Kid Ralston withheld his big news, choosing not to share it with them out of profound dislike. They, along with others in the gang, tormented him mercilessly about his small stature. Two of them, in fact, had hung the handle “Kid” around his neck. He overrode his discomfort over the two thumbs to ride apart from the others to meet Buehler when he arrived.
“I found him, Two Thumbs. I know where Preacher is. It's jist like we heard, he done went south of Trout Crick Pass. He's got three other fellers with him.”
“You done good, Kid,” Buehler praised and reached out to pat the youthful trash on one shoulder with the two-thumbed hand.
Kid Ransom nearly lost the supper he hadn't gotten to eat. He gritted his teeth and endured. “They're about four miles from here, to the south.”
Two Thumbs grinned. “We'll move in on 'em durin' the night, hit them at dawn.”
* * *
Preacher roused out first. A peach-blush band of soft light lay along the eastern horizon. With nothing to hurry him along the way, Preacher saw nothing to be gained by rising in total darkness and do everything by feel. He stretched and stood like a stork to shake some small pebbles from one moccasin, then stretched again and headed for the fire ring.
He blew some kindling to flame from the buried coals of the previous night, added some wrist-sized sticks and warmed himself out of the lingering March chill. Then he set the cof fee pot to boil. He had just bent over his kitchen parfleche to retrieve coffee beans when a ball moaned over his bowed back and smacked into the trunk of the pine. Preacher dropped as though he had been shot.
But not before he freed one of his fearsome pistols from its cured-and-stiffened hide holster. His companions, wise in the ways of attacks by Indians and whites alike remained outwardly motionless. After a long, tense minute, voices came faintly to Preacher's ears.
“I done it! I done kilt ol' Preacher.”
“I wouldn't be too eager to go down and take his hair, Kid,” came sage advice.
“Why not?” Kid Ralston asked.
“You figger those other fellers up an' died of fright?” Two Thumbs Buehler taunted.
“Huh! I never thought about that. They ain't moved. You reckon they're layin' for us?” Blushing furiously at his
faux pas
the Kid reloaded hastily.
“I figger you did a fool thing in not waitin' until we all opened up. You've put us betwixt a rock an' a hard spot. Nothin' for it, though. We'd best get it on.”
So saying, Two Thumbs and the other ten opened up on the reclining figures. Only the blankets of Beartooth, Nighthawk, and Dupre took the punishment. The moment smoke spurted from the muzzles of the assassins' weapons, the trio rolled violently to the side away from their attackers. Their answering fire roared across the meadow.
The volley was followed by a charge. As the bushwhacking trash came into sight, rifle balls tore into their irregular rank. Two men went down, one with a shrill cry and a shattered knee cap. Eager to claim a trophy from his victim, Kid Ralston charged ahead of the line. He had his knife out, ready to take Preacher's hair, when the wiley mountain man came up with a roar and let fly with the deadly four-barrel pistol in his right hand.
Hot lead stopped the Kid in mid-stride. The first ball of the double load clipped the lobe from his left ear. The second punched through a rib and tore a path from front to rear of his left lung. Kid's vision got all blurry and he dropped his skinning knife. It didn't matter at all to him that Preacher had apparently risen from the dead to take retribution.
Kid Ralston only knew that his chest burned with the fires of hell and he had gotten awfully weak. He thought of his Ma, of Pa and the hickory switch he'd used to try to make Kid walk the straight and narrow. How he wished now that it had taken effect. He thought of his brothers, all three younger than his eighteen years, yet every one bigger, taller, and stronger. He didn't think of his cousin Hilly. Or anything else for that matter, as his lung filled with blood and he passed into unconsciousness that would swiftly lead to death.
Preacher ignored the dying youth. He immediately turned his attention to the motley band of unwashed whites who streamed out of the trees toward them. “Don't cotton to your invite, you pond scum,” Preacher hollered at them. “But I sure favor to join the dance.”
With that he shot another of the dregs of the criminal brotherhood. To his right he saw Dupre dump a fat, red-faced specimen of depravity in a shower of buckshot with which he had charged a .70 caliber Flobert horse pistol. Beyond him, Nighthawk ducked a blow from a rifle butt and buried his knife in the belly of a similar dirtbag. Beartooth discharged a pistol in each hand and brought down a pair of vipers who had carelessly gotten too close together.
We work well as a team, Preacher thought, although we haven't been together for several years. He dodged to one side to avoid a shot from the thinning ranks of killer trash and ended the man's life with the last load.
“Sacre bleu!”
Dupre cursed in French. “You have ruined my jacket and this shirt.”
Preacher cut his eyes to Dupre, to see where a ball along his ribs had released a torrent of blood. While he studied his friend, Preacher exchanged his pistols.
“Dormez vous avec le Diable,”
Dupre spat in his assailant's face a moment before he shot him with another Flobert .70 caliber. The shot pellets wiped away all of the man's face above his lower jaw.
“What d'you call him, Dupre?” Preacher asked. Only four of the louse-infested thugs remained on their feet. Preacher took aim at one.
“I told him to go sleep with the devil.”
“I reckon he will, partner.” Preacher shot his target in the small notch between the collarbones. His head snapped to an odd angle when the .50 caliber ball shattered a vertebra. The field of battle fell suddenly silent.
“Say, fellers, I think we finished them all,” Preacher called out.
Right then, to make a liar of Preacher, Two Thumbs forced himself up on his elbows and winged a shot at the mountain man that missed. Preacher put a round in the center of the balding spot on the top of Two Thumbs' head.
“We have now,” Beartooth said through a powder-grimed grin.
After they inspected the dead, Preacher stood beside the last man he had killed, a deep frown on his forehead. “This one I'd know anywhere. He ran with Ezra Pease back ten years ago, when I drove Pease outta these mountains. He sent a lot of men to do a job on us. What's he done? Bring an army out here? If so, maybe we'd best split up. I've got a feeling there's a heap of trouble up ahead.”
8
Reverend Thornton Bookworthy gazed at the tall ramparts that grew with each hour on the trail. They had been on the road for three days, but not headed east. Bookworthy removed his wide-brimmed, black hat and mopped at his sweaty brow with a snowy kerchief. Then he slapped his meaty palm on the leather cover of the Bible that rested on his black-clothed thigh.
“Yes, Patience, my dear. We have God's work to do, and no buckskin-bedecked near-savage is going to prevent us.”
“What if that Preacher man was right about the Cheyenne going to war?” Prudence a bit more sharply than her usual submissive tone.
“Not even the Cheyenne can stop us, for I am certain they are thirsting for the Word. We're doing the right thing, mark my words, Prudence.”
“Yes, dear.” Prudence kept her composure although her mind swarmed with images of the painted, screaming faces of the Kiowa and Pawnee who had attacked them so recently. The mules in front of her shifted their rumps and complained with grunts as they labored up the incline.
Since leaving Bent's Fort, the grade had increased steadily. Now, with the foothills of the Rockies towering over them, their progress had decreased by three miles each day. They would be in those mountains tomorrow, Prudence reminded herself. And within two weeks, they would reach the land where the Cheyenne lived. Her husband's singing put her gloomy thoughts to flight.
“
Bringing in the sheaves ... bringing in the
sheaves, we
shall come ...
Yes, my dear, that's the first song we shall teach the benighted heathen. Don't you see the symbolism of it. We will be the harvesters of their souls.”
Prudence winced and wanted to groan like the mules. A tiny echo of her own question haunted the back of her mind. What if Preacher was right?
* * *
A tall column of smoke rose from behind the nearest ridge. Preacher and his companions reined in to study it a moment. Preacher raised an arm and pointed a long finger at the wide base of the dark cloud.
“That's comin' from more than one thing burnin'. Now, as best as I can tell there ain't any cabins up there, unless they be built in the last two weeks. And that ain't no fire in the woods.”
Nighthawk nodded agreement. “That's elementary. The animals would be acting strange if it was a conflagration in the forest,” he stated the obvious.
Preacher caught him with a cocked eyebrow, mischief glinting in his blue-gray orbs. “Do I have to remind you how gawdawful those fancy words sound comin' outta the mouth of an Injun?” he teased.
Nighthawk gave him a straight face. “Heap good idea, white-eyes. Many smokes mean many fires.”
“Awh, git off that, 'Hawk,” Beartooth grumbled. “You sound worser playin' dumb Injun than you do playin' edjicated Injun.”
“The question remains, what is burning?” Nighthawk returned to his usual cultured tones.
“I've got me an idea, an' I don't think any of us is gonna like it,” Preacher announced.
He gigged Thunder in the direction of the fires. The others quickly joined him. They rode through saddle notch between two peaks and looked down on the tragedy below. It proved to be exactly what Preacher expected. A small wagon train of some twenty vehicles had been raided, the people slaughtered, their possessions rifled, and valuables stolen. Preacher grunted and walked Thunder forward. His Hawken out and ready, rested across the saddle horn.
“Right like I expected. More damn-fool pilgrims. We'll have to find some way to cover 'em up. Pease and his vermin can wait.”
Dismounted, the mountain men took turns standing guard, two-and-two, while the other pair gathered bodies. Slowly something became clear. The men had been killed outright, the women and older girls raped and then killed, some of the boys under about the age of ten had been misused also and then killed. All of the adults had been scalped.
“There's a few arrows over here, Preacher,” Beartooth announced. “Got red markin's on 'em.”
Preacher didn't like that at all. He had been on friendly terms with the Cheyenne for a number of years. “I saw them. Given that all the horses were shod, I'd call it a clumsy attempt at puttin' blame on the Cheyenne. Did you notice something else? Like most of their kind, these poor fools brought along enough youngin's to fill a good-sized school. Only the balance is off.
“We got boys up to the age ofâoh, maybe ten or so, an' older boys, about sixteen an' up. None others.” Preacher paused to fix his thoughts into words. “Now, Injuns is known to take right small kids to replace some of their own lost to sickness or stolen by enemy tribes. It's rare for them to take off only boy kids from eleven to fifteen. Which says again that it must have been whites. And I've a good idea who is behind it”
“That Pease feller you mentioned?” Dupre asked.
“None other. Only thing I can't work out is why. What would a gang of no-accounts like that want with boys of that age?”
“Maybe for the same things these little nippers got done to 'em,” Beartooth suggested.
“I doubt that. They'd have had their way an' left 'em dead, too,” Preacher responded, brow wrinkled in concentration. “But I reckon we're gonna find out right soon. All we gotta do is run them down. Now, let's get these folks buried.”
* * *
Beartooth kicked his mount in the ribs and trotted up beside Preacher. “We've got company over in there.” He pointed with his chin to a thicket of chokecherry bushes.
They had cut signs that some of the folks from the doomed train had managed to slip away. Following the faint trail westward had brought them here. Preacher nodded his understanding to Beartooth.
“I wanted to ride on past them a ways. Give them a chance to relax a little. Wouldn't do to ride into a ball o' hot lead, now would it?”
“Sure nuff,” the older mountain man agreed.
Preacher pointed ahead. “We'll cut back and approach on foot from where they don't expect us.”
While they rode off, Preacher made light conversation to add a further cloak of innocence to their passing by. “What you reckon to do, Beartooth, once you find out the Cheyenne's intentions?”
“I figger to find me a place that's still got plenty deer an' elk and settle in with my woman. We've got a good start these past three years with two youngin's, an' I hanker for more. Trappin's all but done for. Ain't seen a bone-i-fied buyer out this way in two years.”
Preacher grunted. “I sold my traps last year. Ain't like the good days. Rendezvous was wild and hairy, but it shore were fun. Now, a man alone, goin' to Trout Crick or Bent's to sell his pelts-an' dang few of them any more. Jist ain't the same.”
They had ridden out of sight of the hiding survivors and Preacher signaled a halt. The four mountain men dismounted, tied their horses off to aspen saplings and slid silently into the woods. Years of this life had conditioned them all to move as quietly as possible. As a result, they reached their objective without giving any sign of their presence.
Even so, Preacher and his companions hunkered down low and studied the motley collection of women and a few youngsters for a long five minutes before making their presence known. The count came to eleven grown women, five girls a tad under marrying age, and seven boys, five of which were in their early teens. Preacher ghosted upright and stepped to the protection of a large pine behind the pilgrims.
“Howdy, folks. We're friendly, so don't go puttin' any holes in us,” he called out. Two teenaged boys started and spun to train rifle muzzles in the direction from which he had spoken. “Now, now, jist lower them things, boys. If we had it in mind to do you harm, you'd been done for already. They's four of us. We need to come down amongst you an' figger out how to get you safely out of here.”
“Oh, praise the Lord!” one female cried out, her face lifted to the sky. “We're delivered.”
“I'm not so sure, Miz Kenny,” one lad, still in the cracking voice stage, questioned the situation. “We'd better take some time on this.”
“What you'd best do is lower them rifles an' let us come out before someone gets bad hurt,” Preacher insisted. “âSides, much as I like 'em, I don't cotton to huggin' a tree all day.”
That broke the ice with some of the women. “Yes, boys, do put down those awful things,” one matronly voice demanded. “This gentleman is right. If they meant us harm, they could have gotten to it a long time ago.”
“Uhâwellâall right,” the adenoidal youth relented. “Chris, put your rifle down. I'm going to.”
“Me, too, Bobby?” a voice asked from the far side of the cluster of women.
“Yeah, Nick,” Bobby Gresham, the obvious leader, if such label could be applied to a boy not more than fifteen, answered.
The dowager quickly revised her appellation of gentleman when first Preacher, then Beartooth, Dupre, and Nighthawk drifted out of the trees and came down among them. Preacher looked around and then addressed himself to Bobby.
“You picked a good place. Only thing is you left too much sign.”
Bobby looked chagrined. “I never thought of that. Are those men coming after us?”
“The ones who hit your train, boy?” Preacher asked.
“Yeah. ErâI'm Bobby Gresham. Are they after us?” Bobby asked again, uncertainty in his eyes.
Preacher reassured him. “Not that we saw any sign of them. Pulled off to the north from the looks of it.” He cut his eyes to the dowager and removed his hat like one would in polite society. “My name's Preacher, ma'am.”
“Y-you're a minister?” she asked with inevitable doubt.
“No, ma'am. I'm on speakin' terms with the Almighty, but I ain't one of his servants. Iâall of usâused to trap beaver before the demand dried up. These mountains,” Preacher made a sweeping gesture to encompass their surroundings, “is sort of our home stompin' grounds.”
“I'm Flora Sanders, this is Mrs. Grace Kenny, and this is Mrs. Falicity Jones. You've met Bobby, the other boys are Chris and Nick Walker.”
“Did ... anyone else ... get away?” Nick, the youngest, asked with trepidation.
Preacher pulled an uncomfortable expression. Telling folks, and young ones in particular, that near everyone they held dear had died was a hard task. “I'm afraid not, son. You folk must be the only ones got away.”
“Th-then I'm a widow we all are,” Falicity Jones cried in a tiny voice.
Preacher cut his eyes to Falicity for his first good look. What he saw was a devastatingly beautiful, young woman. Robust and busty, and quite obviously pregnant. She spoke on, stammering now. “Myâmy ba-baby wi-will be born anâan orphan!”
Preacher knew a great deal about a lot of things. He didn't know much about women. Particularly women in such a state. All he could do was answer, haltingly, “IâI'm afraid so, Mrs. Jones.”
Wise in the mood shifts of her gender, Mrs. Sanders stepped into the breech. “I'm sorry to say we are all widows now, Falicity. But life does go on. What are we to do about that, Mr.âahâPreacher?”
“There's a couple of wagon boxes didn't get burned clear down. And I reckon we can find enough stock to pull them. Gather what you brought with you and we'll start back to where you was ambushed.” He paused and thought on it. “After that, it's closer to go on to Trout Crick Pass than back to Bent's. What is a puzzlement to me is what you folks were doin' wanderin' up into this country in the first place?”
“We were told it was a short-cut to the Immigrant Trail,” Flora Sanders told him.
“It's that, right enough, but not for tenderfeet and wagons. You headed to Oregon?”
“Well, sort of. We were told back East that prime land abounded in the Snake River country.”
“Oh, it's fine land,” Preacher told her dryly. “Only thing is it's swarmin' with Nez Perce, Bannock, and Shoshoni. And they all feel mighty touchy about people settlin'in there.”
“Then we were lied to?” Mrs. Sanders asked indignantly.
“Not exactly There is fine country thereabouts. Let's say whoever told you about it and left out the Injuns sort of misrepresented the facts.”
“Then what shall we do?” three of the women chorused.
“You can rest up at the trading post in Trout Crick Pass, and resupply. Then I'd advise you get a good guide, turn back and head for Bent's Fort.”
“But we have no desire to turn back,” Flora Sanders blurted.
“Suit yourselves,” Preacher said pleasantly. “But don't expect us to burden ourselves with your protection any further than Trout Crick Pass.”
Relief at their rescue turned to a smattering of grumpiness after this pronouncement. Ignoring it, the four mountain men helped gather the refugees, and herd them off toward the damaged wagons. Half an hour along the trail, Preacher spoke up to Falicity Jones.
“Miz Jones, you happen to get a look at the ones who attacked your wagons?”
“Oh, yes. I'll never forget their faces.”
Preacher squinted and cocked his head to one side. “Were they Injuns?”
“No!” Falicity barked with certainty. “They were all white men. The lowest, crawling, filthy trash on the face of the earth. I shudder to think about ... what happened to those who didn't get away.”
“You wouldn't want to know, ma'am. We'll make camp just short of the place they hit you. Those big boys, my friends an' I will go rig up some wagons. Tomorrow we start for Trout Crick Pass.”
* * *
Their journey so far had toughened these women and the teenaged boys who had volunteered to protect them. Preacher noted that with satisfaction as the two creaky wagons, assembled from salvaged parts of several, groaned along the narrow trail toward the trading post. At this rate, Preacher figured about five days to reach there. Several of the women had minor injuries, and a child had a cut on one foot. That slowed them considerably.