TWENTY
Angela was sitting in the rocking chair again when Roger looked in the back of the wagon. The baby was sound asleep, nestled next to Dorothy, who was also asleep. Angela stared straight ahead, and Roger had to speak to her twice before she came out of her reverie with a little start.
“I'm sorry to bother you,” Roger said. “I know you must be exhausted. I just had to find out how they're doing.”
Angela managed a tired smile. “They're both asleep. The baby ate a little while ago.”
Roger stepped up into the wagon. “Dorothy is . . . all right?”
“She seems to be resting comfortably. But she's still awfully weak, Roger. She needs proper medical attention.”
“We're a long way from that,” Roger said, a bitter edge creeping into his voice.
“Yes, we are.” There was no point in denying it, Angela thought. “We should have waited for spring. The baby could have been born in St. Louis.”
“I know.” Roger's eyes were haunted. “I know. But we just couldn't wait.”
From the start, there had been something wrong about this journey. Angela had known that, had sensed the urgency with which Roger and Peter and their father had organized everything. She and Dorothy, along with Geoffrey and Jonathan, had been swept along with the preparations, and their questions about why they had to leave Philadelphia so suddenly had been brushed aside with vague answers or sometimes even no answers. But the secret, if indeed there really was one, was still unknown to her.
A lot of secrets had been kept from her lately, she thought wryly.
Roger moved past her and knelt beside his wife and the baby. “Can I . . . sit with them for a while?”
“Goodness, you can do whatever you want, Roger. This is your wagon, and Dorothy is your wife.” Angela left the rest of it unsaid, but Roger didn't seem to notice.
“Why don't you step outside and get some fresh air?” he said. “It might make you feel better.”
Angela nodded. “Thank you. I'll do that.” Roger was a considerate man, a good man. She had always liked him because of his devotion to his family, not just to his wife and son but to his brother and father and uncles too. He tried to do what was right and best for all of them. At least, he had until this fateful and ill-advised journey west.
She moved to the back of the wagon and climbed out. The sun almost blinded her. It seemed awfully bright to her after being cooped up inside the wagon all day. And the air was even warm, a far cry from the icy temperatures of the past few days. Most of the snow had melted, and what was left was dripping.
She knew what Preacher would say if he were here: “Prob'ly be another one o' them blue northers in a day or two.” Preacher seemed to know such things, no doubt because he had lived in the wild for so long and was somehow connected with nature to a greater extent than those who had spent all their lives in civilization.
Where
was
Preacher? And where were the children? The fact that Preacher had been gone for so long had to be a bad sign. The children hadn't just wandered off. Something had happened to them. Angela was sure of it.
Someone called her name, and she turned to see her husband hurrying toward her. Peter had a rifle in his hand and a worried expression on his face.
“Aren't you supposed to be standing guard?” Angela asked him as he came up to her.
“My father is watching for trouble,” Peter replied. “How are Dorothy and the baby?”
It would be so easy. She could look right at him and say,
Your mistress and your bastard son are sleeping.
At this moment, she would have enjoyed seeing the shock on his face if she said that to him.
And yet for some reason she held back. If she told Peter, she would have to tell Roger too, and she found that she didn't want to hurt him that way. There was enough trouble plaguing the family right now without all the added strain that such a revelation would bring. To be honest, she was so worried about the children that she simply couldn't summon up the strength to hate Peter right now.
“They're asleep,” she said in reply to his question.
“The baby is all right?”
Angela nodded. “He seems to be fine.”
“Well, that's good. I'm happy for Roger. But what about Dorothy?”
“I don't know. She came through the birth, and it was bad. But she could still take a turn for the worse.”
“God, I hope not! That would be terrible. Terrible for Roger.”
And for Dorothy's lover too.
Angela shoved that thought out of her head. “I hoped that Preacher would be back by now,” she said, changing the subject, but not to a more pleasant one. She was more worried about her children than she was about the fact that Peter had cheated on her.
A grim look came over his face. “He should have let Roger and me go with him, instead of taking those two old men.”
“Those two old men are your uncles,” Angela reminded him. “They happen to love you, and the children, very much.”
“I know that. But if it comes down to a fight with Indians or something like that, how much help will they really be?”
“Enough,” Angela said softly. She had to hope so anyway, for the sake of Mary and Brad and Nate. For the sake of all of them really, because if Preacher got killed trying to bring the children back, there was a good chance that none of the immigrants would ever see civilization again.
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The sun was lowering over the peaks to the west. Its rays cast dappled shadows under the aspens and cottonwoods that thickly lined the banks of the creek. Shadows through which Preacher glided like he was one of them, insubstantial, fleeting, there and then not there.
As he approached the spot where the Indians had stopped, apparently for the night, he hoped that Jonathan and Geoffrey were in position. He had carefully pointed out where they were to go, told them what to do, and then had given them time to get there, but that didn't mean the old-timers couldn't have been delayed somehow. If they weren't ready, Preacher was walking straight into big trouble.
He had considered waiting until night fell to make his move, but had decided that the warriors would actually be more on their guard then. They were less likely to be expecting trouble now, so now was when Preacher was going to try to snatch those young'uns away.
He bellied down and crawled, gliding noiselessly through the brush. He was close enough to hear the Indians talking among themselves. He also heard some miserable whimpering that came from one or more of the children. Probably the two younger ones, Preacher thought. He had seen enough of Nate to know that the younker had sand. Nate might feel like crying, but he would try to hold it back if he could.
Preacher had two pistols, both double-shotted, tucked behind his belt, and he carried his Hawken, sliding it carefully along the ground as he crawled. Dog followed, also on his belly. Jonathan and Geoffrey were armed with rifles and pistols. Preacher wished he'd had more time to work with the older men on their marksmanship during the first few days of this ill-fated journey. Once the ball started, every shot would have to be a true one.
Preacher came to a halt and parted some brush. He saw the Arikara warriors gathered on the bank of the creek. A couple of them were getting ready to build a small fire. The others were talking amongst themselves. Off to one side, Nate sat with his back against a rock. His younger cousins were on either side of him, and he had his arms around them as if to protect them. The rock had shielded the ground beside it from the sun during the day, so not all the snow had melted. There was still a thin layer of it where the youngsters sat. Had to be mighty cold on their behinds, not that any of their captors would give a damn about that.
Mart Hawley stood near the prisoners, close enough to be guarding them without really paying that much attention to them. He was busily engaged in digging a wad of chewing tobacco out of a pouch and packing it into his cheek. Preacher wouldn't have minded putting his first bullet into the son of a bitch, but the 'Rees were more of a threat. He had to deal with them first.
The sun was behind the mountains now. Dusk began to settle over the landscape with its usual swiftness. In the brush near the creek, Preacher came up into a crouch, then slowly straightened to his full height. Even though he was now in plain sight, the Indians didn't notice him until he stepped through the brush with a crackle of branches and said in a loud voice, “Howdy, boys!”
The Indians whirled toward him, grabbing for arrows.
Preacher knew which one of the Arikara warriors was the leader of this bunch: the tall, muscular, ugly one. He brought the Hawken to his shoulder and fired at the chief in one smooth movement, seeming not to aim at all. With a puff of flame and smoke from the muzzle, the rifle roared and kicked against his shoulder. At the last instant one of the other Arikara stepped in front of the chief. The heavy ball caught him in the middle of the forehead, caving his skull in on itself and blowing his brains out the back of his head in a grisly shower that splattered over the chief.
Preacher let go of the Hawken and had hauled out both pistols before the rifle hit the ground. The first man he had shot hadn't hit the ground yet either when Preacher's right-hand pistol blasted. Both balls struck one of the warriors, one of them thudding into his chest while the other just tore shallowly through the side of his neck. That slowed down the second ball and deflected it slightly, but it still had enough force behind it to carry it into the left eye of a third warrior, where it ripped on up the optic nerve and into the brain.
Preacher had killed three members of the war party in a matter of a couple of heartbeats, but he knew that much luck probably wouldn't stay with him. In the next instant, however, two more rifle shots sounded. One of them came from a high rock off to the left, where Preacher had sent Geoffrey. The other originated on the far side of the creek. Preacher had had Jonathan cross the stream half a mile back and then work his way carefully along the creek until he was opposite the spot where the Indians had camped.
Both shots were well aimed and found their targets. Two more of the Arikara tumbled off their feet as lead smashed through them. That made five down. Preacher fired his left-hand pistol. One of the balls tore through a warrior's lungs and sent him to the ground spewing blood, but the other missed, traveling harmlessly over the shoulder of the chief. The ugly son of a bitch seemed to have a guardian angel. Preacher dropped the pistols and hauled out his knife, ready to go to carvin'.
An arrow whipped past his head as he lunged forward. The warrior who had fired it dropped his bow and grabbed for his tomahawk, but as his fingers closed around it, Preacher's steel drove deep into his body. Preacher twisted the blade and grunted with the effort as he ripped it to the side, opening the Arikara's belly and spilling his guts out on the ground. A hard shove sent the mortally wounded man sprawling into a couple of his companions as Preacher jerked his knife free.
He bent to scoop up the tomahawk that had been dropped by the man he'd just killed, and then in a blur of pantherish motion he was among the rest of them, swinging the 'hawk in brutal strokes and slashing with the knife. Drops of blood flew in the air and fell almost like rain. Dog was in the middle of the fighting too, pulling down one of the warriors and ripping his throat out.
More shots thundered as Geoffrey slid down from the rock and Jonathan splashed across the shallow stream. They fired their pistols at the Indians on the fringes of the melee, being careful not to aim toward Preacher. Some of the Arikara turned to meet this new threat, leaving Preacher with more manageable odds. He caved in a skull, slashed a throat, tripped another man, and then buried the head of the tomahawk in the back of the luckless warrior's head. It was slaughter, pure and simple. Even these hardened Arikara warriors were no match for the frenzy with which Preacher attacked.
Preacher swung toward the kids and saw Hawley trying to bring a pistol to bear on them. “Stay back, you bastard!” Hawley screamed. “Stay back or I'll kill these littleâ”
He didn't get any farther, because at that moment, Geoffrey bounded onto the rock beside which the young'uns huddled, and with a spryness that belied his years he launched into a flying tackle that smashed Hawley to the ground. Hawley was bigger and younger and stronger, though, so he was able to throw Geoffrey off.
Preacher was about to go to the older man's aid when he had to dart aside to avoid a slashing blow from the war chief's tomahawk. The Indian swung the weapon again in a backhand that was almost too fast for the eye to follow. Preacher's eyes were not those of a normal man, however, and he was able to drop out of the way of the killing stroke. He rolled to the side and came up lithely onto his feet again.
He was in time to see Hawley drive a knife into Geoffrey's body. The renegade white man pulled the blade free and drew it back to strike again. Preacher threw the tomahawk that was still in his left hand. The throw was accurate. After turning over once in midair, the tomahawk smashed into the back of Hawley's left shoulder and lodged there. Hawley screamed as he fell forward, driven down by the impact of the tomahawk striking him.