TWENTY-TWO
Mart Hawley gritted his teeth against the blinding pain as he twisted his body and stretched his right arm in an attempt to reach the handle of the tomahawk. He felt blood trickling out around the edges of the wound. It would probably bleed even worse when he got the tomahawk loose, but that couldn't be helped. He couldn't leave the damn thing stuck in his back.
His fingers touched the branch from which the handle was made. He groaned and stretched a little farther.
He had crawled into this brush-choked gully after running until he collapsed. He expected Preacher to catch up to him at any second, and he knew he couldn't expect any mercy from the mountain man. Preacher was already legendary as a killer. He wouldn't waste any time. He'd just cut Hawley's throat and be done with it.
Hell, Hawley couldn't blame Preacher for that. He'd have done the same thing if the tables had been turned.
Preacher hadn't come after him, though, and the only reason Hawley could think of was that Preacher had probably wanted to get those kids back to safety as fast as he could. He'd been willing to let Hawley go in return for a quicker start.
Bastard was goin' to regret that, Hawley thought with a grimace as he finally got his fingers wrapped around the tomahawk. With a wrench, he pulled it free, crying out at the agony that flooded through him. He felt the warm flow down his back and knew he'd been right about the bleeding. It was worse now. He had to get something on the wound and slow it down, or he might bleed to death right here and now.
Moss was good for that, and he had already felt around in the dark and found some at the base of a tree. He reached out now and got a handful of the stuff. Grunting with the effort, he twisted around and tried to slap it on the wound. He didn't think he was going to make it....
Strong hands plucked the moss from his hand and pressed it to the wound beside his shoulder blade. Hawley let out a yell of fear and surprise. Who the hellâ!
“Quiet,” Swift Arrow said. Hawley instantly recognized the war chief's harsh tones. “Be still. You not die from this.”
“How . . . how did you find me?” Hawley gasped.
“You white man,” Swift Arrow said with a grim chuckle. “And you not Preacher. Follow noise.”
Hawley slumped in relief and let the Arikara tend his wound. Naturally, Swift Arrow had experience patching up tomahawk wounds. He packed it full of moss and then tied a pad of cloth torn from Hawley's shirt over the wound. The bleeding had already slowed considerably, and although Hawley still felt mighty weak, he didn't think he was going to pass out.
Still lying on his belly, he asked, “What are we gonna do?”
“Kill Preacher,” Swift Arrow said. He didn't elaborate, didn't explain how he intended to go about that chore. It was just a simple statement of his intentions.
Hawley sighed. “Take me with you,” he said. He was tired and his wounded shoulder hurt like blazes, but the fires of hatred deep inside him burned hotter than ever. Hatred for the mountain man . . .
“You keep up, you be there when I kill Preacher,” Swift Arrow said.
“Wouldn't miss it for the world,” Hawley said.
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Preacher and the others traveled all night, stopping only now and then to rest. Even when he called a halt, Preacher didn't stay still for very long. While his companions caught their breath, he checked their back trail or scouted out ahead, Dog trotting along with him. By the time the moon set and the starlight waned, the terrain had become flatter and Preacher knew they were on the edge of the foothills. They ought to be getting back to the wagons any time now.
He spotted the humped white shapes of the canvas coverings in the gray light of dawn. By that time he was carrying Mary, who was sound asleep. Jonathan had Brad in his arms, with the boy's head resting on his shoulder, and Brad was asleep just like his sister. Nate had taken over the job of helping Geoffrey whenever the wounded man needed any assistance to keep going or to get over some obstacle.
The immigrant camp appeared to be completely asleep. No one moved around the wagons. There was no fire. Preacher had a bad moment during which he wondered if the other members of the Arikara war party had somehow found the wagons and wiped out everybody else. The two old men and the kids might be the only survivors of the group.
But then he saw Angela climb out the back of one of the wagons. She seemed to be all right and didn't act like anything was wrong. She got a bucket and filled it from one of the water barrels.
“Aunt Angela!” Nate cried, unable to restrain himself.
Angela turned sharply and in her surprise dropped the bucket. The water splashed out onto the ground, but no one paid any attention to that. She let out a sound that was half laugh, half sob and ran toward them.
Mary and Brad were stirring. Preacher set Mary on her feet and said, “There's your mama, gal. Go see her.”
Mary knuckled the sleep from her eyes and then stiffened as she recognized Angela. “Mama!” she exclaimed as she hurried to meet Angela. A still half-asleep Brad stumbled after her.
Angela went to her knees and swept the children into her arms, gathering them to her like long-lost sheep. She hugged them tightly and shuddered from the depth of the emotions coursing through her. All three of them were crying now.
Preacher, Nate, Jonathan, and Geoffrey stood there smiling as they watched the reunion. Over at the wagons Simon Galloway emerged, and Roger and Peter came hurrying from the trees, carrying the rifles that showed they had been standing guard until the commotion broke out at the camp. They hadn't been doing a very good job of it, Preacher thought briefly, but you couldn't expect much from city folks.
Of course, that wasn't quite fair, he reminded himself. Jonathan and Geoffrey still had a ways to go before they would be seasoned frontiersmen, but they had handled themselves pretty darned well during the rescue mission.
Preacher patted Nate on the shoulder and said, “Go see your pa.” Nate looked up at him, and Preacher nodded. With a grin, Nate ran to meet Roger. Roger swung the youngster up into his arms and hugged him.
“Are you all right, Nate?” he asked.
“I'm fine. Not hurt a bit,” Nate assured him.
Roger must have felt the gun Nate had tucked behind his belt, because he looked down and said, “What's that?”
“A pistol,” Nate said, his tone indicating that that should have been obvious. “I reckon I'm gonna go armed from now on.”
Roger looked surprised, but he didn't argue the matter. He was too glad to have his son back alive, safe and sound, when it must have seemed like a strong possibility that he would never see Nate again.
The two old-timers limped forward and were greeted by their brother Simon. Hands were shaken and backs slapped all around, and then Simon said to Geoffrey, “You're hurt!”
“It's nothing,” Geoffrey replied. “Just a little knife wound.”
“It needs some proper patchin' up,” Preacher said as he ambled up. “Any trouble here while we were gone?”
Simon shook his head. “No, but there's a new member of the party. I have a new grandson. John Edward Galloway.”
Nate twisted around in Roger's arms to look at his grandpa. “I got a new baby brother?”
“That's right, son,” Roger told him.
“Can I see him?”
“Well, I don't know.” Roger looked at his sister-in-law. “Angela?”
Angela raised her tear-streaked face. She was still smiling happily at being reunited with her children. “What?”
“Can Nate see his mama and his new baby brother?”
Preacher might have imagined it, but he thought he saw something odd flash in Angela's eyes at that moment. For a second he wondered if Dorothy Galloway had died giving birth. But then Angela said, “They're both asleep right now. Your mama really needs her rest, Nate, so it might be better to wait.”
“Aww . . .” Nate said. “I guess it's all right, but I really wanted to see 'em.”
“In a little while,” Roger promised him.
Nate started to squirm and kick a little. “Put me down, Pa,” he said. “I'm too big for you to be pickin' me up.”
Roger looked like he might have argued that, but he lowered Nate to the ground.
The sun was almost up now, and the rosy glow in the sky matched the good mood in the camp. Not everything was rosy, though, Preacher reminded himself. There were still at least a couple of dozen vengeance-hungry Arikara out there somewhere, probably no more than a day behind them. Peter was still caught up in hugging and kissing his prodigal children, so Preacher motioned to Roger, Simon, Jonathan, and Geoffrey. They came over to him, with Nate drifting along behind Roger.
Quickly Preacher told Roger and Simon what had happened. He concluded by saying, “Swift Arrow, the war chief o' that bunch, got away, and so did Hawley.”
“That bastard,” Simon said. “I can't believe he allied himself with savages.”
“Well, he did,” Preacher said. “I ain't worried all that much about him. He might even be dead by now. But Swift Arrow wasn't hurt, as far as I know, and I reckon he'll be comin' after us as quick as he can. He'll likely try to round up the rest of his war party too. That'll slow him down some, but then he'll come on like a house afire. We got to start puttin' some miles behind us.”
Angela heard that comment and came over to join the men. With an assertiveness unusual in women of her era, she said, “We can't go anywhere right now. Dorothy is too weak. I don't think she can stand traveling.”
“We don't have much choice,” Preacher said. “If we stay here very long, them 'Rees will catch up to us for sure, and then we'll be in for it.”
Roger said, “Preacher, if my wife is too ill to go on, then we don't have any choice. We'll just have to hope that once she's a little stronger, we'll still have time to reach the fortâ”
Preacher stopped him by swinging an arm toward the northern sky. “You ain't got that much time, and it ain't just 'cause of the Injuns neither. There's another snowstorm comin', and it'll be a lot worse than the last one.”
“Oh, I say!” Simon exclaimed dubiously. “How can you know that?”
“Preacher knows things about this country that none of us do,” Jonathan said, and Geoffrey nodded. “Take our word for it, Simon, you don't want to doubt what he says.”
“But you're talking about my wife,” Roger said miserably, his joy at the return of the children momentarily forgotten. “We can't take chances with her life.”
“You stay here and you're takin' a chance with everybody's life,” Preacher said grimly.
The others started talking all at once, trying to hash things out, and Preacher felt his frustration and impatience growing. He had told them how things stood, and while he hated to put Dorothy Galloway in any more danger, what he had said was absolutely right: They would all die if they squatted here for very long, and that included Dorothy.
“I'm goin',” he said curtly, cutting through their babble. “If you folks want to come along, best get ready to move as soon as everybody's eaten breakfast.”
They all stared at him. Angela found her voice first. “You'd leave us?” she said. “You'd really abandon us?”
Whether he really would or not was a damned good question, Preacher thought, and he figured the answer was that he wouldn't. But they didn't need to know that, so he kept his bearded features stern and flintlike as he nodded and said, “If you-all are stubborn enough to throw your lives away, damned right I would.”
“Then it seems we have no choice,” Roger said with a sigh. “We can't get back without your help, so we have to go along. But I'm not going to forget this, Preacher. If my wife dies . . .”
“If you stay here, she will,” Preacher said. “You can count on that.”
He turned away and went to check on his dun, which he had left with the wagons when he went after the children. He could feel the others' eyes on him as they talked together in low voices, and he figured they were cussin' him up one way and down the other. That was all right, he told himself. He hadn't thrown in with this bunch of immigrants to make friends. His goal was to get them back safely to someplace where they could spend the winter.
He was going to accomplish that goal, and if it had to be in spite of the very people he was trying to help, then so be it.
TWENTY-THREE
Angela gave him the cold shoulder after that, which was probably a good thing, Preacher reflected. He knew that when he had first seen her that morning she had looked mighty damned good to him, and since she was married to somebody else, those weren't feelings he ought to be having.
He checked over all the horses and the mules while Angela was fixing breakfast. The animals were all right. They had probably benefited from having a couple of days to rest. They would need all the strength and stamina they possessed for the long, fast haul to Garvey's Fort.
Nate came over to him when the food was ready. “Preacher, come and eat,” the youngster said.
“Much obliged. I'm glad to see you ain't mad at me, Nate.”
The boy frowned. “Well, I'm worried about my ma, of course. I wish we could stay here and let her rest after havin' that doggone baby. But Aunt Angela and Uncle Peter and Pa . . . well, they didn't see Swift Arrow close up, nor spend time as his prisoner. Him and Hawley talked about killin' all of us, Preacher. We can't let them catch up to us, or my ma will die for sure.”
Since Preacher had said practically the same thing himself earlier, now he just nodded. Nate had a practical streak to him that was a mite unusual in such a young fella. It would stand him in good stead out here on the frontier, Preacher thought.
He ate a plate of bacon and biscuits and washed it down with good strong coffee. When he was finished, he told the men, “Get those teams hitched up. We'll be pullin' out in a few minutes.”
They followed orders without complaint, but he saw the resentful looks Roger and Peter gave him. He didn't give a damn how they felt. They would thank him when they got to Garvey's Fort and still had their hair.
Preacher saddled the dun and then swung up on the back of the rangy horse. He rode to the front of the first wagon and called, “Lead the way, Dog!”
Dog loped out in front of the wagons. Preacher pointed to him and told Jonathan, who had climbed to the seat of the lead wagon and taken the reins, “Follow him.”
“We're being led by an animal?” Jonathan asked.
“He'll smell trouble 'bout as fast as I could see it, and he'll take the easiest path too. Fella can do worse in life than to follow a dog. A smart dog anyway.” Preacher grinned. “They ain't all overly bright, but then neither are people.”
Jonathan shrugged, flapped the reins, and got the wagon rolling.
Preacher reined the dun to the side and waved for the others to follow Jonathan. Roger's wagon came next, followed by Peter's and then the one usually driven by Geoffrey. He couldn't handle a team with his wounded shoulder, though, so Simon had been pressed into service.
When all the wagons were moving, Preacher turned and rode back the way they had come. His eyes roved constantly, searching for any signs of pursuit as he dropped back a couple of miles. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary, and finally he turned and headed east again. Less than an hour later, he caught up to the wagons and got waves of assurance from all the drivers as he passed, letting him know that they hadn't run into any trouble.
That morning, the breeze had still been out of the south. Before noon, the air went dead calm, which Preacher considered a bad sign. Sure enough, a little while later, it began to blow from the north, and it wasn't a breeze this time but rather a hard wind.
A
cold
wind.
Another storm was on the way, just as he had predicted. He had no way of knowing how bad it would be, but his instincts told him it would be worse than the one before. This might be the first of the season's real howlers.
By the time the pilgrims stopped for a late lunch, the temperature was plummeting. Roger looked at Preacher and said, “How in the world did you
know
it was going to do this?”
Preacher shrugged. “I can't explain it. You spend a few winters out here, though, and you get to where you can tell what's comin'. Somethin' about how the air smells maybe.”
“Is it going to be worse than last time?”
“Reckon we'll find out,” Preacher said. “Just hide an' watch. . . .”
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Angela kept tucking extra blankets around Dorothy and John Edward as the temperature dropped during the afternoon. Unlike earlier in the trip when Dorothy had been running a fever, now her body temperature seemed to have gone down, just like the weather. Her lips took on a faint bluish tinge as she muttered incoherently. She was out of her head most of the time, and although Angela didn't want to admit it even to herself, she was losing hope. If Dorothy had been in a comfortable bed, in a nice snug house, being attended to by a physician, she might have stood a chance of pulling through. As it was, rocking along on a pallet in the back of a wagon with nobody to take care of her except a woman with no medical training whatsoever . . . Well, Dorothy's chances weren't nearly as good, Angela thought. She didn't know if Dorothy would make it. She just didn't know.
If Dorothy died, that would leave Roger without a wife and Nate and John Edward without a mother. Angela wouldn't wish that on anyone. Yes, she had been angry when she first discovered that Peter was really the baby's father. If Dorothy had been healthy and had told her that she had slept with Angela's husband, Angela would have cheerfully throttled her. Now, though, she didn't feel anything but sympathy for Dorothy.
The same could not be said about her feelings toward Peter. Speaking of cheerfully throttling someone . . .
But she couldn't do that either, couldn't do anything except keep what she knew to herself, at least until they got back to civilization. When that happened, there would have to be a confrontation. She would have to tell Peter that she knew what he had done. She couldn't keep it all bottled up inside.
“Peter . . .” Dorothy murmured. “Peter, don't, please don't . . .”
Angela leaned closer and frowned. That had sounded like Dorothy was trying to stop Peter from doing something. She was reliving the memory of something, unaware in her ill state of where she was or what was really going on. What could she be remembering except the obvious? Angela asked herself. Was it possible that Dorothy hadn't wanted Peter to do what he had done?
Had Peter raped his own brother's wife?
The thought made a chill go through Angela that had nothing to do with the weather. She had been married to Peter Galloway for almost ten years. She would have thought that she knew him about as well as one human being could know another. My God, she'd had two children with the man! To think that he might be capable of . . . of doing a thing like that . . . was almost beyond Angela's comprehension.
If it was true, she couldn't stay married to Peter. She didn't know what she would do, but she was certain of that much. Somehow, their marriage would have to come to an end.
Of course, between the weather and the Indians, they might all wind up dead, and then she wouldn't have to worry about it, Angela thought. She laughed softly, and even to her own ears, the sound had an edge of hysteria in it.
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The wind blew in more than the cold. Clouds followed it, racing across the sky. As Preacher glanced at the tumbled gray masses, he thought about how much the weather had changed since that morning. It had been almost warm then, and now it was like there wasn't even a vestige of warmth left anywhere in the world.
The clouds overtook the sun and swallowed it whole. As Preacher rode past the wagons, he called encouragement to the drivers, who were huddled on their seats in thick coats and blankets, their hats pulled down tight and tied with scarves to keep them from blowing away. With the thick overcast, night would fall early, so Preacher rode on ahead and started looking for a good place to make camp. They were on the edge of the plains now, with the foothills having fallen behind during the day. The terrain rolled gently, which made for faster traveling but didn't provide much in the way of shelter. There would be no cliffs or caves where they could get in out of the wind. The best they could do would be to draw the wagons in a tight circle and crowd the livestock inside.
The wind was blowing so hard Preacher didn't even hear the shot. He
felt
the heavy ball go past his ear, though, only inches from his head. He reined in and twisted in the saddle, looking for whoever had just taken a potshot at him. He saw three riders come boiling over a nearby rise and gallop toward him. Feathered headdresses streamed out behind them as they rode.
Pawnee!
Preacher thought. He never had gotten along well with the Pawnee, and now it looked like he had one more reason not to like them. The three attacking him carried rifles, and another one fired as they came closer. Preacher saw the spurt of flame and smoke from the muzzle.
The ball whined overhead, missing him by a good margin. Some Injuns were good shots, but most of 'em could barely hit anything, especially from the back of a running horse. Preacher lifted the Hawken he carried across the saddle in front of him and spoke quietly to the dun, calming him. Lifting the long-barreled rifle to his shoulder, Preacher drew a bead. The three Pawnee kept coming, riding stubbornly straight at him.
He fired.
One of the Indians went backward like a giant hand had snatched him from the back of his pony. He hit the ground, bounced a couple of times, and then lay still. Preacher knew he would never move again. Anybody who fell like that was dead. But the other two Pawnee were still alive and still after his hair.
Preacher spoke to the dun again as he swapped the empty Hawken for the one in the saddle sheath that was loaded. He cocked and primed the rifle, but by the time he went to lift it and nestle the smooth wood of the stock against his cheek, the Indians had split up and were coming at him from two different directions. So they weren't completely stupid.
He wished he knew which one of them had shot at him before. Whichever one it was hadn't had time to reload, so Preacher would have shot the other one first, figuring the Pawnee with the empty rifle was less of a threat. But he didn't know, so he just picked one and fired again, the Hawken roaring as it kicked against his shoulder.
As fire geysered from the muzzle of Preacher's rifle, the Indian he was shooting at ducked down, flattening himself along the neck of his mount. Only thing was, Preacher hadn't really aimed at the rider but at the horse instead. He hated like blazes to hurt a horse, but he had figured the Pawnee might do something like that. The heavy lead ball struck the horse in the neck. The animal's front legs folded up, and as the mortally wounded horse fell, the Pawnee on his back sailed through the air over its head. The Indian hit the ground hard, probably knocking the breath out of him and stunning him. A second later the dying horse rolled over him, and Preacher could practically hear the man's bones snapping, even from where he was.
That left only one of the Pawnee, and as he galloped toward Preacher, only twenty yards away now, he thrust out his rifle and fired it one-handed. At the sound of the blast, Preacher knew he had chosen the wrong enemy to bring down first.
It was a lucky shot. The ball struck the barrel of the Hawken in Preacher's hands and tore the rifle loose from his grip. His hands tingled and throbbed from the impact. He kneed the dun and sent the horse lunging forward as the surviving Pawnee reversed his rifle and swung it at Preacher's head like a club.
The blow missed, but the Pawnee recovered with blinding speed and launched himself from the back of his horse just as Preacher was pulling one of his pistols from behind his belt. The collision jolted Preacher out of the saddle. He fell, smashing into the ground with the blood-crazed Pawnee on top of him. The Indian got the fingers of his left hand around Preacher's throat while his right groped for the handle of the knife at his waist. He pulled the blade from its sheath and lifted it high overhead.
Preacher slammed the pistol in his hand against the side of the Pawnee's noggin, sending him sprawling. Preacher rolled the other way, putting a little distance between them. As he came up on his knees, he saw the Pawnee drawing back the knife again, this time getting ready to throw it.
Not wanting to take any chances, Preacher palmed out the other pistol and thumbed back the hammers of both weapons as he lifted them. The pistols were primed and ready to fire, so he let loose with both of them as the Pawnee's arm flashed forward. The next instant he dove to the side so that the knife blade just clipped the top of his left shoulder, slicing his buckskins and nicking the flesh underneath.
The Pawnee wasn't so lucky. All four of the balls from the double-shotted pistols struck him, landing in such a tight pattern at this close range that they blew a fist-sized hole clean through him. He rocked back on his haunches and lived just long enough to gaze down in wonderment at the awful thing that had happened to him. Then he toppled over to the side and was dead when his face hit the ground.
Preacher heard growling and looked around to see Dog standing over the Pawnee who had been thrown from his horse and then crushed by it. Preacher climbed to his feet and walked over to check on the man. He was still alive, but his arms and legs were broken, and from the looks of his body in the bloodstained buckskins, he was all busted up inside too. A swipe across the throat from Preacher's knife finished him off, and Preacher didn't feel bad about doing it either. If he had been hurt that bad, he would have looked on such an act as a kindness.