EIGHTEEN
Preacher and his two companions watched the Indians and their captives until they got out of sight. Preacher could tell that Geoffrey and Jonathan were about bustin' at the seams from wanting to go after the kids. He motioned for them to take it easy and hoped that they could restrain their impatience.
Finally, when the Indians were out of earshot, Preacher came to his feet and said, “Let's go.”
“Go? Go where?” Geoffrey practically exploded. “The Indians are gone!”
“And they got away with the children!” Jonathan said. “We just sat here helpless and let them go!”
Preacher shook his head. “If we had jumped them here and now, we wouldn't have done anything except get us and probably the kids killed. There were too many of those Injuns to take on in a straight-up fight. Plus they got that son of a bitch Hawley with 'em.”
“I saw that,” Jonathan said. “It looked like he was their friend, for God's sake!”
“I reckon he's thrown in with 'em,” Preacher agreed. “I don't know how come 'em to be together, but he's on their side now, that's for sure.”
Geoffrey asked, “Why are we standing around talking? Shouldn't we be going after them? If we delay too long, they'll get away, and then we might never find them again!”
“We can find 'em,” Preacher assured his companions. “Even though they're redskins, a bunch that big will leave tracks we can follow. Besides, from the looks of it, they're headin' toward the wagons. Hawley must be leadin' the way for 'em.”
“That bastard,” Jonathan said in a low, angry voice.
Preacher nodded again. “You won't get no argument from me on that score.”
“Will they hurt the children?” Geoffrey asked.
“Injuns are notional folks,” Preacher said with a shrug. “I won't lie to you. They're capable of killin' those kids if the whim strikes 'em. More than likely, though, they'll keep 'em alive, at least for a while. Hawley may figure he can use the young'uns as hostages when him and the Injuns catch up to the wagons. Maybe try to trade them for me.”
Jonathan frowned. “Why would they place so much importance on . . . Oh, I see. You're the most dangerous member of the party. They might think that if they get rid of you, the rest of us won't put up much of a fight.”
“I'm afraid they might be right about that,” Geoffrey said gloomily.
“From what I've seen, you fellas don't have a lot of back up in you,” Preacher told them. “You'll do just fine when it comes down to the nut-cuttin'. Now let's get after that bunch. Keep it as quiet as you can.”
“You can count on us, Preacher,” Jonathan said.
Preacher thought that was probably right. He would have felt a lot better about things, though, if he'd had Jeb Law or some of his other mountain man friends there to side him.
A man made do with what he had, he told himself. Right now that was a couple of old-timers from Philadelphia.
Preacher hoped that would be enough.
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Nate was scared, but he tried not to show it. His arm and shoulder hurt too, but he wouldn't allow himself to cry. Crying was for babies, and right now he had to be a man, despite the fact that he was only ten years old. It was all right for Mary and Brad to sniffle a little every now and then; they were kids, and they were scared.
Nate forced his brain to look past the fear he felt and consider the situation. The three of them were still alive, and that was something. The Indians hadn't killed them out of hand. Nate didn't trust Hawley as far as he could have thrown the trapper. Hawley hated them just like the Indians did. So Nate knew better than to hope that Hawley would protect them and somehow get them out of this trouble.
As long as they were alive, though, they still had a chance. Nate wasn't going to give up.
He sure wished he could hug his ma right about now, though. He wondered too if he had a little brother or sister yet. They should have stayed in the camp. The two younger ones shouldn't have wandered off to go “exploring,” darn it....
Thoughts like that didn't do any good, he told himself. What he should be doing was watching for a chance for him and Mary and Brad to escape. He bit his lip against the pain in his shoulder and kept moving. If he lollygagged along, the Indian who had hold of his arm would give it a jerk, and that would just make him hurt even worse.
The Indians moved through the woods for what seemed like hours, even days. The sun rose higher in the sky, and when Nate looked at it, he knew it wasn't even noon yet, no matter what it felt like. After so long a time, though, the Indians stopped to rest. Along with Mary and Brad, Nate slumped gratefully to the ground, stretching out on some pine needles.
Hawley hunkered beside them and said, “How you kids holdin' up?”
“I'm tired,” Mary whined. “Can't we go back to the wagons?”
“That's what we're doin'. I reckon you'll see your ma and pa again 'fore too much longer.”
“I want Mama,” Brad whimpered.
Hawley snapped, “Shut up. Don't go to pulin' and poutin', or them Injuns are liable to lift your hair.” He looked at Nate. “Which one are you, boy? Who you belong to?”
“My parents are Roger and Dorothy Galloway,” Nate replied, trying to sound dignified and not the least bit scared of the smelly mountain man in his greasy buckskins.
“It's your ma who's havin' the baby?”
“That's right.” Again Nate felt a fierce longing to know how his mother was doing.
“What about them two?”
“They're my cousins, Mary and Brad. Their parents are my Uncle Peter and Aunt Angela.”
Hawley grinned. “Angela . . . She's the purty one with that long blond hair, ain't she? Lord, I'd like to get me some o' that.”
Mary blinked up at him and said, “You want to have long blond hair like my mama?”
Nate wasn't exactly sure what Hawley had meant by his comment, but he was certain the man hadn't been talking about Aunt Angela's hair. Before the trapper could make some crude response, Nate said, “Shush, Mary. We probably won't stop for long. Save your breath and rest.”
“That's good advice, kid. I reckon it'll take most of the day to catch up to them wagons, so the Injuns can't afford to wait around for very long. We'll be up and hustlin' again 'fore you know it.”
True to Hawley's prediction, within minutes the big, ugly Indian called Swift Arrow barked some commands in the guttural Arikara tongue, and the warriors resumed their swift march, dragging their young prisoners along with them.
Nate wanted to see his parents again, wanted it more than anything he could think of in the world, but at the same time, he knew that when the Indians caught up to the wagons, they would try to kill the rest of his family. He started thinking desperately, trying to come up with some way he could slow them down or maybe even throw them off the track....
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Dorothy slept most of the morning, and Angela was grateful for that. It gave her a chance to rest as well. There was a rocking chair in the wagon, so Angela sat in it, her lap covered with a blanket and the new baby wrapped up and cradled in her arms. As she looked down at John Edward's red, scrunched-up face, she took note again of his black hair. Her own children had had hair that dark when they were born, although in both cases it had lightened up some over the years.
She remembered when Nathan had been born. His hair had been fair, almost blond, though it had darkened to the same shade as Roger's. A vague sense of unease stirred inside her. Something wasn't right here, but she couldn't put her finger on what it was.
She dozed off, exhausted from the night-long ordeal. If she was this tired, she couldn't imagine how Dorothy felt, having gone through the lengthy, difficult labor, along with being sick on top of it. And then the birth, and losing all that blood . . .
The baby woke her with its crying. For a second, disoriented from sleep, she looked down at John Edward and thought he was one of her own. But of course he wasn't. She knew what he wanted, but she couldn't give it to him. She said softly, “Just you wait a minute, honey. I don't know if your mama is up to it, but we'll see what we can do.”
She stood up and went over to the thick pallet where Dorothy lay. The bloodstained, sweat-soaked bedding underneath her had been changed. Dorothy seemed to be sleeping more peacefully now, and Angela hated to disturb her. She had no choice, though. The baby had to eat.
“Dorothy . . .” Angela said quietly. She set the infant aside on a pillow and slipped an arm under Dorothy's shoulders. Carefully, she raised her sister-in-law to a half-sitting position and stayed there, supporting her. Pushing back the robes that were wrapped around Dorothy, she bared a breast. She reached over with her other arm and even more carefully picked up the baby, cradling him in the crook of her elbow and keeping the palm of her hand under his head to prevent it from lolling loosely. He was so tiny, she thought, so helpless.
Dorothy murmured, only half-conscious. That was all right; she didn't have to be fully awake for this. Angela brought the baby to his mother's breast, and as soon as the nipple nudged his lips, he opened them, took it in, and began to suckle.
Angela sat there holding both mother and child. She wished she could take on the chore of feeding John Edward, but she had no milk. Nor would she ever again, she thought as dampness misted her vision for a moment. Ever since that stillborn child, Peter had avoided touching her. Truth to tell, that was the way she had wanted it at first. She had pushed him away enough times so that he had gotten in the habit of not coming near her in bed, she supposed. Most of the time that was all right, but on occasion she missed his touch so badly she could barely stand it.
But life went on and everyone had crosses to bear, and right now her mind was occupied with helping her sister-in-law and her new nephew, as well as with worrying about the fate of her own children. She had hoped that Preacher would be back with them by now.
“Angela . . . ?” Dorothy whispered.
“Right here,” Angela replied quickly, bending her head to bring it closer to Dorothy. “You're fine. The baby is eating.”
“The . . . baby . . .” Somehow, Dorothy found the strength to reach up and stroke the black hair on John Edward's head. “So beautiful . . .”
“Yes, he is,” Angela agreed with a smile.
“He looks just like . . . his father . . .”
The smile on Angela's face turned to a frown. She didn't see how Dorothy could say that. The baby looked almost nothing like Roger. If anything, he looked a lot more likeâ
My God,
she thought.
No. It can't be.
But she knew it was, and she wondered how she could have been so incredibly, stupidly blind.
She was just human. She had seen what she wanted to see and ignored what she didn't want to see. Some things could not be ignored, though, and the pain of that realization shot through her.
“Angela . . .” Dorothy said in a voice filled with the weakness and sickness that threatened to consume her. “I have to tell you. . . . You deserve to know . . . about the baby . . . and Peter . . .”
“Don't say anything else,” Angela told her shakily. “Please, don't say anything.”
“I . . . I can't die . . . with this burden on my soul . . .”
Angela put a false heartiness in her voice as she said, “You're not going to die. Just stop thinking about that. You're going to be just fine.”
Dorothy's head moved slowly from side to side. “No. You have a right . . . to know . . . Peter and I . . . Peter is the baby's . . . father . . .”
There it was, in undeniable, incontrovertible words. A wave of dizzy sickness hit Angela, as if the world had suddenly started spinning in the wrong direction. A shudder went through her. But other than that, she didn't move. She couldn't move. She had her arms around Dorothy and . . . John Edward.
Her husband's child, with another woman.
A tear welled from Angela's right eye and trickled down her cheek.
NINETEEN
The Indians didn't give their captives any food at midday. Nate figured they would be forced to go hungry, but Hawley grudgingly let them have some jerky from his pack. Mary and Brad whined about it, of course, but they took the strips of tough, dried meat and gnawed on them anyway. Nate didn't waste his time complaining. He was just glad he had something to put in his empty stomach.
As the group cut through the heavily wooded foothills, Nate realized just how badly he and his cousins had been lost the night before. They must have spent hours going around and around in ever-widening circles. It was doubtful they would have ever gotten back to the wagons. If the Indians hadn't captured them, eventually they would have collapsed and died of starvation . . . if they hadn't frozen to death or been eaten by wolves first.
Of course, there was always the chance that Preacher would have found them. Nate couldn't shake the feeling that the mountain man was out here somewhere, searching for them.
As the afternoon went on, he began to see things that looked familiar to him: a massive, lightning-blasted pine; a peculiar rock formation that looked like an old man; a stream that tumbled some thirty feet down a cliff in a foaming waterfall. Nate knew he had seen these landmarks the day before. Did that mean they were getting closer to the wagons? He thought it must.
“When are we gonna get back to camp?” Brad asked with a sniffle.
Without thinking about what he was doing, Nate said, “Never, the way they're going.” He pitched his voice low, but he made sure it was loud enough for Hawley to overhear him.
He realized a second later that his instincts had guided him correctly. Brad let out a wail, and Hawley turned sharply toward them. “What the hell did you say?” he demanded of Nate.
Before Nate could answer, Brad yelled, “He said we're never gonna get back!”
Hawley's hand shot out and grabbed Nate's wrenched shoulder. Nate cried out in pain as the cruel grip made pain stab through him. “What are you talkin' about?” Hawley asked as he gave Nate a hard shake. “We're right on the trail o' them wagons!”
“Y-yeah,” Nate stammered. “Yeah, sure we are. We'll be there soon. Please stop shaking me!”
Hawley grabbed Nate's other shoulder and brought his face close to the boy's. Snarling, he said, “You better be tellin' me the truth!”
“S-sure I am. I swear!”
The Indians had come to a halt as the commotion broke out, and now Swift Arrow stalked over and said, “What wrong?”
Hawley shook Nate again, drawing a whimper from him. “This little bastard said somethin' about us goin' the wrong way, and now he won't tell me what he meant by it!”
“Honest, Mr. Hawley, I just got mixed up and made a mistake,” Nate said through his tears. “I didn't mean nothin' by it.”
Swift Arrow pointed eastward and said to Hawley, “You say wagons go this way.”
“They did,” Hawley insisted. “They're headin' for Garvey's Fort, I tell you, and that's the way they'd be goin'. Unlessâ” Hawley broke off his words and looked at Nate again. “Did Preacher decide to go some other direction? Maybe head down toward the Platte? There's a few tradin' posts down there.”
Nate shook his head. “I . . . I don't know anything about the Platte. We were still goin' the same way as when you left us.”
Hawley snorted. “When Preacher killed my partner and run me off, you mean. I ain't sure I believe you, you little shit. Preacher's just tricky enough to have hit off in some other direction, just to throw me off his trail. I reckon he knew I'd come after him and was afraid of me.”
Not on his worst day would Preacher ever be scared of the likes of you,
Nate thought, but he kept it to himself. His hastily formed plan appeared to be working.
Swift Arrow put his hand on the handle of the knife sheathed at his waist. “You take us to wagons,” he said to Hawley. There was no mistaking the threat in his voice and in his stance.
Hawley bobbed his head and said with obviously false confidence, “Sure, I'm takin' you to the wagons. We're goin' the right way.”
“Boy say not.” The war chief jerked his hand in a curt gesture at Nate.
“The boy don't know what he's talkin' about. Anyway, he said we
are
goin' the right direction.”
“Boy lie,” Swift Arrow said with a contemptuous look.
Nate just looked as guilty as possible and wouldn't meet the eyes of either Hawley or Swift Arrow.
“I reckon he must be lyin', all right,” Hawley finally acknowledged. “Preacher and those wagons have changed directions. I figure they're headin' for the Platte River. I can take you thereâ”
“Swift Arrow know where Platte River is.”
The implication in the flat statement was obvious: If Swift Arrow knew where the immigrants were going, why did he need Hawley? For that matter, Nate wondered why they hadn't killed the trapper before now if they thought the wagons were headed for Garvey's Fort. They didn't really need Hawley to show them the way.
They must have something else in mind for Hawley, Nate thought. And he would have been willing to bet that it wouldn't be anything good. Hawley seemed to think he had the redskins wrapped around his little finger, but Nate figured he was in for a bad surprise sooner or later.
“Listen,” Hawley said quickly. “You still need me. I can come up on those wagons without those folks suspectin' anything. I'll get 'em off their guard, and then you can take 'em without any trouble.”
“You help kill whites?”
“Sure, I'll help kill 'em. I told you that. Whatever you say, I'll sure do it.”
Mary and Brad started crying harder at that. Even they knew now that they were doomed, that Hawley's promise to protect them had been just a big lie.
“Not kill you yet,” Swift Arrow said after a moment. “We take you with us.”
“I'm much obliged for that. I'll guide you to the Platteâ”
“Not know that Preacher go there,” Swift Arrow cut in. “Must search again.”
“You mean split up the war party?” Hawley looked a little skeptical about that idea.
“Find quicker that way. Whites may still go Garvey's Fort.”
Hawley rubbed his bearded jaw and frowned. “Yeah, I reckon you're right,” he said after a moment. “All we got to go on is this dumb kid's word. He might not have even known where the wagons were when he wandered off.”
“Did so,” Nate muttered under his breath, but Hawley and Swift Arrow heard him. Both of them glared.
Let them look at him like that, Nate thought. He didn't care. All that mattered was that he had slowed down their pursuit, and he had even gotten them talking about splitting their forces. He couldn't have hoped for a much better result from his little acting job.
But he couldn't get the rest of his hopes up either. He had bought a little time.... That was all. Their future, his and his cousins', was still in the hands of a bunch of savages and a white renegade.
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“What are they doing?” Jonathan asked anxiously as Preacher shinnied down from the pine tree he had climbed a few minutes earlier so that he could spy on the Arikara war party, which had halted about half a mile away on the other side of a little valley. The Injuns didn't know there was anybody behind them, so they weren't looking in that direction.
Preacher landed lithely on the ground and grinned at the two older men. “Looks like they're splittin' up into two or three different bunches,” he said.
Geoffrey and Jonathan stared at him in surprise. “Why would they do that?” Geoffrey asked.
“I ain't got no idea,” Preacher admitted. “They've got a good strong force. No need that I can see for them to split up. But maybe the war chief in charge of the bunch knows somethin' that we don't . . . or at least thinks he does.”
The group of 'Rees they had seen that morning had been joined by others until the war party was at least forty members strong. A bunch that big would be hard to fight off if they all attacked the wagon train at the same time. Anything that broke them up into smaller groups was a good thing, Preacher thought.
“What about the children?” Jonathan asked.
“I saw 'em,” Preacher nodded. “They looked like they were still all right.”
“Thank God,” Geoffrey said fervently.
Jonathan said, “If they split up, how will we know which group the youngsters go with?”
“We'll be able to tell from the tracks,” Preacher assured him. “There's still enough snow here and there to pick up some prints, and when the snow's all melted, there's bound to be mud. Maybe Dog can help us too.”
The day had warmed up considerably as the southern breezes continued to blow, and the landscape was more green again than white. This break in the weather wouldn't last, though. Preacher's bones told him another storm was coming. It was just a matter of when.
Preacher whistled, and Dog came out of the woods. The big wolflike creature had been ranging far ahead of them most of the day. Preacher ruffled his fur between his ears and said, “Let's go, fella. You ain't no bloodhound, but I reckon you might be able to pick up a scent if we had somethin' that belonged to one of those kids.”
Jonathan cleared his throat. “As a matter of fact . . .” He reached inside his coat and brought out a small rag doll. “This is Mary's. There's a tear in it, and I was going to try to mend it for her since Angela has been so busy taking care of Dorothy these days. I can sew a bit, you know. An old bachelor skill.”
Preacher nodded in understanding. “A man who can't sew a mite is up the creek if he needs somethin' mended and the nearest woman is nigh five hundred miles away.”
“Indeed. Anyway . . .” Jonathan held out the doll. “Do you think Dog could track them from this?”
Preacher took the doll. “We can give it a try. That way we won't lose the trail for sure.”
He held the doll under Dog's nose and told him to go find Mary. As usual, Dog seemed to understand what Preacher wanted. He turned and trotted off, tail wagging. The three men walked quickly after him.
The tracks Preacher found on the other side of the valley confirmed what he had seen from up in the tree. The war party had broken up into three groups, and they had fanned out to the east, southeast, and south. From the looks of it, Preacher thought that the Indians had decided they might not be going in the right direction. In fact, they had been, but something must have happened to cause them to doubt that. Preacher couldn't figure out that part of it, but the why didn't really matter. What was important was that the bunch holding the kids prisoner now numbered around a dozen again.
Four-to-one odds weren't good, but at least they were tolerable. Preacher and his companions had a chance now to get the kids away from those Injuns.
They pressed on, moving a little quicker. Preacher felt a growing urgency. This opportunity might be the only one they would get.