Chapter 6
With Randall at their head, the small army of gunmen thundered down the slope toward the Assiniboine village. Randall had given the order to attack a second earlier. He left his gun holstered for the time being. He had higher priorities tonight than wiping out some redskins.
His mind flashed back to the meeting in the Colonel's study, in the big mansion just outside the settlement of Hammerhead. That was where, as usual, the Colonel had given Randall his instructions for this job....
“The chief's name is Two Bears. He's an old man, but I'm told that he's still dangerous. His daughter is called Wildflower. The boy is Little Hawk.” The Colonel waved the well-manicured hand that held a long cigar. “But you don't really need to know all that, I suppose. I have descriptions of the woman and the baby. The trader I employed to spy on the savages was able to supply me with that, as well as a map of the village, marked with the location of Standing Rock's lodge. That's the name of the warrior who's married to Wildflower. You should find her and the boy either there, or at Two Bears's lodge. I can show you where it is, too.”
Randall wasn't surprised that the Colonel had all this information at his fingertips. Preparation had been one of the hallmarks of the Colonel's career, going all the way back to the days when he had commanded a regiment of Union cavalry during the war.
Preparation . . . and victory. The Colonel always won.
Lamplight shone on the Colonel's bald head as he put the cigar back in his mouth and leaned forward to spread out the map on the desk in front of him. A fringe of sandy hair that had turned mostly gray surrounded his ears. His face, once lantern-jawed and almost gaunt, had grown fleshier over the years of prosperity and comfort, but his pale blue eyes still burned with the fires of ambition that they always had.
The two men made a good team. The Colonel, the ruthless planner, and Randall, the blunt instrument charged with carrying out those plans.
Of course, the Colonel didn't think of them as a team. To him, Randall was just an employee. A valued one, to be sure, but still just someone who worked for him.
Randall knew that, but the Colonel's attitude didn't bother him. The Colonel paid well, and as long as Randall had plenty of money for gambling, good whiskey, and women, he didn't care what the Colonel really thought of him.
For the next few minutes, they went over the layout of the village, with Randall committing the details to memory so that he could find his way around without any trouble, even in the dark. That was when he preferred to attack, at night, so that no one would be expecting trouble. He had learned that in the war, too, riding for the Colonel.
“As for Wildflower, my source tells me that she's easily the most attractive woman in the entire village,” the Colonel went on.
Randall grunted and said, “That wouldn't take much. You know how Indian women are, Colonel. Every one I ever saw was short and squatty, with a face as round as the moon. They smell bad, too.”
“Well, I can't, ah, speak to how Wildflower smells, but the trader said she was quite beautiful. Slender, with long hair that she wears loose most of the time. Hair dark as a raven's wing.” The Colonel chuckled. “Appropriate, since that was her late mother's name. It wouldn't surprise me if Wildflower was the spitting image of her. That will make Two Bears value her life even more. That and the fact that she's the mother of one of his grandsons, of course.”
“And once you've got your hands on them, Two Bears won't have any choice but to give you what you want.”
“Exactly,” the Colonel said with a smile....
These thoughts flashed through Randall's mind in the time it took for his horse to take two long strides down the hill. Up ahead, the Indians were running around the lodges, alarmed because they'd heard the horses galloping toward the village. They might be ignorant savages, but they knew that when strangers came charging out of the night, it meant trouble.
Behind Randall, the other men opened fire. Gunshots blasted out, and muzzle flames split the darkness. He hoped they were aiming high as he had ordered, especially since he was in front of them.
As he reached the outskirts of the village, a man dashed in front of him. Randall rode him down. The man's outcry was cut off abruptly as the horse knocked him down and iron-shod hooves smashed the life from him.
Randall didn't care how many of the savages died, especially the men. He just couldn't take a chance on having a lot of bullets flying around until he had secured Wildflower and Little Hawk. If both of them were killed by stray slugs, the Colonel's plan would be ruined.
He headed straight for the lodge occupied by Standing Rock and Wildflower. As he guided his horse around one of the crude dwellings, one of the warriors leaped up at him, trying to grab him and drag him out of the saddle.
Randall drew his gun with blinding speed, but instead of firing, he lashed out with the weapon and smashed it against the Indian's head. He felt the crunch of bone as the man's skull shattered. The Assiniboine warrior fell away limply.
For a second, that distracted Randall, and he wasn't sure where he was in the village anymore. That disorientation was over almost as soon as it began, though, as the long hours he had spent memorizing the map came back to him. He spotted his goal up ahead.
And just then, as if she were trying to cooperate with him, a young woman ran out of the lodge with a baby in her arms. Her head jerked from side to side as she looked around, obviously terrified.
Randall's heart slugged hard in his chest. Firelight lit the woman's face, making it appear even more coppery than it really was. Her movements caused her long dark hair to fly around her head, partially obscuring her features, but Randall could see enough to know that she was breathtakingly beautiful, just as the Colonel had described her to him. Her body was slender and lithe in a buckskin dress, and Randall felt an unaccustomed pang of arousal. Usually he didn't give a damn about women except as vessels in which to slake his occasional lusts.
This one, this Wildflower, she was different.
Randall shoved that thought out of his mind. It had no place in this night's work. He sent his horse thundering toward her. The woman saw him coming, screamed, and turned to run as she clutched the baby tighter against her.
Randall holstered his gun and swept toward her, leaning down from the saddle and reaching out with his left arm. It closed around her and jerked her off her feet. She screamed again as he lifted her onto the horse's back in front of him.
She didn't try to fight, though. She couldn't do that and hang on to the baby, too, and she seemed determined not to let go of the kid. That was good, Randall thought. Made his job easier. All he had to do was hold on to her, and he got the chief's grandson in the bargain.
“You'll be all right,” he told her, raising his voice so she could hear him over the chaos that filled the village. “Nobody's going to hurt you!”
She squirmed and wiggled, but she was no match for his great strength. She must have realized that if she did manage to get loose and fell off the horse while it was running, she risked injuring not only herself but also her son. She stopped struggling, although her chest still heaved from fear and exertion. Randall's arm was clamped around her body just below her breasts, and he could feel them moving against it as she breathed.
He wheeled the horse around and headed for the edge of the village, wanting to get clear with his captives before the shooting started in earnest. The last thing he and his men needed was a bunch of angry savages on their trail, so the others knew to wipe out as many of the warriors as they could before they fled. That would slow down any pursuit.
Randall spotted Page and Dwyer up ahead, still firing into the air to maintain the confusion. As he galloped past them, Randall shouted, “Now you can kill them! Spread the word!”
Page whooped, and Dwyer shouted, “Kill 'em! Kill all the dirty redskins!”
From the corner of his eye, Randall saw both men lower their guns and start blasting away at the Assiniboine. The rest of the raiders did the same. Men, women, and children all fell under the deadly sweep of lead.
Suddenly, a couple of men on horseback blocked Randall's path. One of them was an Indian, which surprised Randall because he didn't think any of the Assiniboine had had a chance to get mounted. The other was an old man with a bristly white beard. Randall had never seen him before.
He jerked his horse to the side and went between two of the lodges. Fighting clogged his path. Ahead of him, the Indians dragged one of his men out of the saddle. The man howled for a second, then fell silent as they smashed the life out of him with tomahawks.
“Clear the way!” Randall bellowed at his men as he was forced to rein in. He tightened his grip on Wildflower as she renewed her struggle. “Clear the way! If I don't get out of here, the Colonel and his friends in the Ring will have our hides!”
That didn't really make senseâif they didn't get out of here, the
Assiniboine
would have their hidesâbut in the heat of the moment, Randall didn't care. He just wanted a lane through which he could escape the battle in the village.
That lane suddenly opened as several of his men sprayed shots through a line of warriors. As the savages collapsed with blood spurting from the bullet holes in their bodies, Randall jabbed his spurs into his horse's flanks. The animal let out a pained squeal and lunged forward, trampling one of those fat-faced Indian women Randall had mentioned to the Colonel. Randall never slowed down.
Suddenly he was clear. He ducked instinctively as a slug whistled over his head. With a twist of his neck, he looked back over his shoulder.
That whiskery old man was galloping after him, Randall saw to his surprise. He grinned.
He wasn't worried about some damned old codger.
Chapter 7
As soon as they heard the shooting, Preacher and Standing Rock got their mounts moving again. This time it was Horse that pulled ahead. The Indian pony simply couldn't keep up. Stubbornly, though, Standing Rock managed to stay only a short distance behind the old mountain man.
Preacher trusted the stallion to find the easiest and fastest route. He kept Horse's nose pointed in the right general direction, but otherwise gave him his head.
Horse responded as Preacher knew he would, gallantly summoning all the speed he possessed. It was like the stallion realized how urgent this situation was and and was determined to do everything in his power to help.
The ground flew past. Sometimes when they topped a hill, it seemed like they were going so fast they were about to take off and fly, Preacher thought. He clung to the saddle with all the agility and experience that long decades of frontier life had given him.
They left Dog far behind them, unable to match the speed of the horses except in short bursts, but Preacher knew the big cur would follow them and catch up as soon as he could.
Of course, it was dangerous to gallop flat out like this at night. A horse could step in a hole or trip over something, fall and break a leg. Break its rider's neck, too, more than likely.
Preacher was willing to run that risk because they were close enough now that he could hear the shooting even over the thundering hoofbeats.
The glow of fires came into view, marking the location of the Assiniboine village. Preacher aimed straight for it. As he rode, he checked each Colt and made sure the revolvers moved smoothly in their holsters. He didn't want either of them to hang when it came time to start swapping lead with those varmints who were raiding the village.
The questions of who they were and why they were attacking the Assiniboine still plagued him, but he could look for answers later.
Right now there was fighting to be done.
As Preacher reached the edge of the village, he saw a man on horseback gun down one of the Assiniboine warriors, who doubled over as the slug punched into his guts. The killer swung his horse to the side and started to draw a bead on a woman who was running away.
“Hey!” Preacher yelled.
The man jerked his head around just in time to catch a bullet from Preacher in his forehead. The slug bored into the man's brain an inch above his right eye, ripped through at an angle, and exploded out the left rear of his skull in a burst of blood and bone shards. In the firelight, the spray looked more red than pink. The man flew out of his saddle like he'd been hit with a giant sledgehammer.
By the time that man hit the ground, Preacher had found another target. He triggered again, and this time one of the raiders slewed around in the saddle, dropped his gun, and clutched his bullet-shattered shoulder. He managed to stay mounted, but his horse ran off wildly.
Standing Rock, with his Winchester in his hands, rode up beside Preacher. The rifle cracked, and another raider dropped his gun as the bullet creased him. Standing Rock worked the Winchester's lever.
Suddenly, Preacher spotted one of the strangers galloping toward them. He was about to cut loose his wolf again when he realized that the man had a prisoner. One of the Assiniboine women struggled to get free as the man held her in front of him like a human shield. Preacher held off on the Colt's trigger at the last second.
He sent the stallion surging forward, but the raider jerked his horse to the side and disappeared between a couple of lodges. As Preacher headed in the same direction, he heard the man shout an order for his companions to clear a path for him.
A fresh volley of shots almost drowned out the man's next words, but Preacher made out some of them.
“âout of hereâColonelâthe Ringâ”
Preacher didn't think anything about that. He was concentrating on catching up before the man got away with his prisoner, whoever she was.
He spotted the fleeing rider ahead of him, but several of the other men closed ranks and tried to block his path. Preacher put the reins between his teeth, guided Horse with his knees, and drew his other Colt. Both revolvers roared and belched flame as he charged toward the raiders. He couldn't tell how many of them he hit, if any, but they sure as Hades got out of the way of the old geezer with two guns who charged them like a madman.
Preacher reached the edge of the village. He saw his quarry again and fired a shot after him, aiming high because he didn't want to take a chance on hitting the prisoner. The man didn't slow down, but he did look back.
It was hard to tell in the uncertain light from the fires, but Preacher would have sworn that the varmint grinned at him.
Filled with fury, Preacher started after him. Horse had taken only a few strides, though, when another of the raiders suddenly angled in at them from the sides. The rider was too close, too quickly, and Preacher couldn't avoid him.
The stallion crashed into the other horse, and both animals went down. Preacher barely had time to kick his feet free of the stirrups so that when Horse fell, he was flung from the saddle. He hit the ground with stunning force that knocked the breath out of him.
Momentum made Preacher roll over a couple of times before he came up on a knee. Most men his age who took a spill like that would break multiple bones in their bodies. Preacher seemed to be made from whang leather and iron, though. He would be sore as blazes in the morning, but he could tell nothing was busted.
Not only that, but he had held on to both guns. He pointed them after the fleeing raider who had taken the woman prisoner, but with a grimace he stopped himself from firing. They were out of handgun range, and even if they hadn't been, it would have been too risky.
Anyway, he had more pressing problems, he realized as a bullet cut the air a foot or so from his head. He twisted and saw that the man who had run into him had managed to get up, too, and had taken that shot at him. The man fired again as both of Preacher's revolvers snapped up and roared.
The raider's second bullet came even closer than the first. Preacher felt its hot breath against his cheek.
But his shots were more accurate. Both shots slammed into the gunman's chest and drove him backwards. He ended up in a limp sprawl on the ground.
Preacher got to his feet, stumbling a little as he did so. Maybe that tumble had shaken him up more than he'd realized at first, he thought. He braced himself and looked around for Horse. He was worried about the stallion.
He shouldn't have been, he saw. Horse was standing up again and seemed fine. The other horse was still on the ground, flailing its legs and letting out shrill neighs of pain. The unlucky animal had a visibly broken leg.
Preacher ended its torment with a single well-placed shot and cursed the man responsible for the death of the innocent horse. He was glad he had blown the son of a bitch's lights out.
“Preacher!”
The shout made him turn around. Two Bears ran toward him, carrying a rifle. The chief had a streak of blood on his face but seemed to be all right otherwise. Standing Rock hurried along beside him.
“Preacher, are you all right?” Two Bears asked as he came up to the mountain man.
“Just shook up a mite,” Preacher replied. “Nothin' to worry about. What's goin' on here?”
The shooting had stopped, but chaos and confusion still gripped the village. A couple of the lodges were on fire. As that garish light spread, Preacher saw that the raiders had all fled. The ones who could, that is. Half a dozen or so were still there, lying bloody and motionless on the ground.
“The men rode in shooting,” Two Bears said. “We had no warning except when we heard their horses, and by then they were almost upon us.”
Standing Rock said, “This must have something to do with the killing of Blue Bull.”
The same possibility had occurred to Preacher. If the two men Blue Bull had encountered in the canyon were part of the group that had raided the Assiniboine village tonight, they might have been worried that Blue Bull would go back and warn the rest of his people.
“Maybe so,” Preacher said in response to Standing Rock's theory, “but that don't tell us why they rode in here and started raisin' hell. Maybe they were slavers. I saw one of the varmints carryin' off a woman. Is anybody else missin'?”
“We will find out,” Two Bears said. The three men started toward the lodges.
A number of Assiniboine men and women lay lifelessly on the ground, too. Preacher saw the deep trenches of grief in his old friend's face. Tragedy had come out of nowhere to strike these people today, and they didn't deserve it. Anger filled Preacher's heart.
No matter what it took, he was going to find out who was responsible for this atrocity and make them pay, the old mountain man vowed.
One of the women hurried to meet them. Preacher recognized her as one of Two Bears's other wives. Her dark eyes were wide with fear.
“Two Bears,” she said, the words spilling rapidly from her mouth, “Wildflower and Little Hawk are gone!”
Two Bears and Standing Rock both stiffened in alarm.
“Gone!” Standing Rock exclaimed. “How? They must be here somewhere!”
The woman shook her head.
“No, we have looked everywhere. They are not in the village.”
In a voice like flint, Two Bears suggested, “Perhaps they are among the dead.”
“No,” the woman insisted. “We looked. They are not here!”
“Hold on a minute,” Preacher said. “The woman I saw who was bein' kidnapped by one of those varmints . . . she could've been Wildflower. I never got that good a look at her, but her hair was long and she wore it loose.”
“My son,” Standing Rock said raggedly. “Did she have my son with her?”
“Now, that I couldn't tell you,” Preacher replied with a shake of his head. “I'm sorry. The light was bad, and everything was movin' too fast. I reckon she could've been holdin' a baby, but I can't say for sure.”
“If the woman you saw was Wildflower, she would have my grandson with her,” Two Bears said. “She would not have abandoned him in the midst of all this trouble.”
“I must go to my lodge!” Standing Rock said. He ran off into the confusion.
Preacher and Two Bears followed at a slower pace. When they reached the lodge, they found Standing Rock on his knees outside the entrance, looking stricken.
He looked up at them and said in a hollow voice, “They are gone. My wife and son . . . gone.”
“We will find them,” Two Bears said. “We will bring them home safely.” He looked at Preacher. “The woman you saw, she was unharmed?”
“Right then she seemed to be, as far as I could tell,” Preacher replied. “There's no tellin' what happened after that fella rode off with her and the baby.”
He was convinced now that Wildflower had had Little Hawk with her. That was the only thing that made sense.
“Who would have done this thing?” Two Bears asked. “Why?”
Preacher couldn't answer the second question, but as his mind went back to what he had heard the kidnapper shouting as he tried to get away, he drew in a sharp breath. He had heard the man mention a “ring,” but at the time, in the middle of the battle, that reference hadn't meant anything to him.
Now maybe it did, and as a grim expression settled over his lined, weathered face, he muttered, “Aw, hell. Not
them
again!”