THIRTY-FOUR
A short time later, Preacher rode back to check on the pursuit. The Arikara were still back there, coming on at a steady pace that ate up the ground. He figured they were about two miles behind the wagons. When they had cut that lead to, say, half a mile, it would be time to stop and get ready for the inevitable attack.
Preacher glanced at the sky. The hour was well past noon, and that wasn't good. Darkness would be the ally of the Indians. It would be much easier to sneak up on the wagons after night fell. The immigrants would lose the slight advantage they had because of their rifles. Preacher had hoped to pick off some of the Arikara before the war party came within arrow range. The defenders couldn't hit what they couldn't see to aim at, though.
Preacher galloped back to the wagons, snow flying high as it was kicked up by the dun's hooves. Peter had found out somehow that the Indians were closing in on them, because he raised a hand and hailed Preacher. When the mountain man stopped, Peter said, “Is it true? Are they right back there?”
“A couple of miles,” Preacher replied with a nod.
“Can we outrun them?”
“Nope. I don't think so.”
“What if we keep moving all night?”
Preacher shook his head. “Then they'll sneak up on us and take the wagons one at a time. We'll have a better chance fortin' up and makin' a stand.”
“Forting up where?” Peter waved a hand at the trackless expanse around them. “There's nothing out here!”
“It ain't quite as flat as it looks. If we can find a little rise, or somethin' like that . . .”
Preacher wasn't confident of finding such a place, but he wasn't going to give up hope either. He heeled his horse into a trot again and rode to the front of the wagon train, waving at Jonathan as he moved past.
About half a mile farther on, he felt his spirits begin to lift a little. The ground sloped down slightly into a broad, shallow valley that was at least a quarter of a mile wide. On the far side, the terrain sloped up to a small rise dotted with brush. The rise wouldn't provide much shelter, but Preacher knew it was the best he was likely to find in this mostly flat country.
Some people had started referring to the vast plains between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains as the Great American Desert. Well, it wasn't a desert by any stretch of the imaginationâPreacher knew the prairie teemed with life, both animal and plantâbut it was a mite sparse when it came to geographical features. That little rise was the closest thing to a hill that this vicinity boasted, and Preacher was glad to have found it.
He reined in at the crest and waited. Before long, the wagons lumbered into view. He waved them on, and when Jonathan's wagon finally rolled up the slope and over the top of the rise, Preacher called to him, “This is where we'll make our stand!”
For the next few minutes, he was busy supervising the preparations for defending this high ground, such as it was. He had the drivers pull the wagons into a loose box shape, one on each side, with enough room left in the center for the livestock. By now Angela had figured out what was going on, and she came to Preacher to say, “I can fight. Just give me a rifle.”
“Figured you'd say as much,” he said with a smile. “Hold on a minute.”
He called Nate over, and when the boy came running up, Preacher said, “Nate, you know how to load a rifle, don't you?”
“Sure, Preacher,” the youngster replied.
“That'll be your job then.”
Nate's face fell. “Aw, Preacher, I was figurin' that I'd get in on the fight too.”
“You'll be in on it, never you worry about that,” Preacher told him. “What you'll be doin' is just as important as anything we'll be doin'. Ever'body'll have two rifles, and it'll be your job to keep that second one loaded. Liable to be so much shootin' you can't keep up, but do your best.”
Nate nodded. “I will, Preacher. I promise.”
Preacher turned back to Angela. “I reckon that leaves you free to handle a gun, ma'am. The only thing is, can you shoot?”
“Well enough. We all practiced some with the rifles on the way out here.”
“Shootin' at targets, you mean?”
“Well . . . yes. Does that make a difference?”
“A target don't shoot back at you,” Preacher said. “It don't have a family neither. When you got one o' them Arikara in your sights, you got to be able to forget that he's just a fella who's probably got a squaw and a passel o' kids back in whatever village he comes from. You can't be thinkin' about how his old ma's gonna carry on when she hears he's dead.” He made his voice deliberately harsh, so that he could be certain he was getting through to her. “All you can think about is how, if that warrior gets his way, him and his friends are gonna rape you until you're half-dead, and then he's gonna cut your throat and lift your hair.”
Angela was pale and wide-eyed, but she kept herself under control and nodded. “I can shoot a man, if that's what you're getting at,” she assured him.
“Good . . . because it ain't just what he'll do to you that you got to remember. He'll kill your kids too if he gets the chance.”
“Just give me a couple of rifles,” Angela grated.
Preacher nodded. “You'll do.”
He hated putting a woman on the front line of defense, but Angela was probably in better shape than Geoffrey, who, while stronger than before, would have trouble handling a rifle with that wounded arm. Preacher walked along the rise, glancing from time to time toward the west, where the war party was now visible. They were approaching the far side of the valley, moving out in the open and not bothering to hide. Everyone on both sides of this conflict knew exactly what was going on and what was going to happen. There was no need for secrecy.
The defenders would use the wagon parked just beyond the crest of the rise for cover. Preacher put Roger at the rear of the wagon and Peter at the front. Angela and Jonathan were stationed underneath the vehicle, where they could lie down side by side and fire over the crest. The kids, except for Nate, were all in the wagon that formed the back end of the box. Geoffrey would stand guard over them and was well armed with several pistols.
The Indians stopped on the far side of the valley. When they didn't come any closer, Preacher frowned. That war chief, Swift Arrow, was a cunning fella. He knew that the rifles wielded by the white men had a longer range than the Arikara bows. If he led his men in an attack on the wagons now, while the sun was still up, the defenders would have a chance to pick off quite a few of them before they ever got close enough to inflict any damage of their own.
“Damn,” Preacher muttered as he stared across the quarter mile or so of open ground.
“What is it?” Roger asked. “What are they doing?”
“What I was afraid they'd do. They're waitin' for night. If they came at us now, it'd be a turkey shoot for us. But if it's dark, we won't be able to see 'em comin', especially if they hit us before the moon comes up, and I reckon they will.”
“What do we do?”
“Nothin' we can do but wait. At least they still have to come up a slope at us, and we ought to be able to see them a little against the snow, so that's somethin' else on our side too. But it'll still be mighty tricky shootin', and chances are they'll be amongst us before we can kill all of them.”
“My God,” Roger said softly. “They're going to overrun us, aren't they?”
“We'll give a good account of ourselves,” Preacher said, his voice gruff.
“But we'll still die, no matter how many of them we kill. There are just too many. . . .”
“A fight ain't over until it's over,” Preacher insisted. “And I ain't in the habit o' givin' up.”
Roger looked toward the other end of the wagon and said bitterly, “None of this would be happening if it weren't for Peter. He doomed us all when he killed that Indian.”
Preacher didn't say anything. What had doomed them was their decision to start west at the wrong time of year. Even if Peter hadn't shot that Arikara brave, the whole bunch would have died up in the mountains, probably when the first blizzard roared through. They were just too green to live.
But they still had a chance to fight their way out of this. They couldn't give up hope.
Suddenly, Peter stalked up behind Roger and grabbed his shoulder. As he jerked his brother around, Peter snapped, “I heard what you said! You're blaming me for everything, just like you always do!”
Roger knocked Peter's hand off his shoulder. “Get away from me. It's bad enough we have to fight on the same side. If I'm going to die, I don't want you anywhere near me.”
“Damn it, we're brothers!”
“You should have thought of that before you . . . you . . .” Roger couldn't bring himself to say it, but they all knew he was talking about Dorothy.
“This isn't my fault,” Peter insisted stubbornly. “I only killed one Indian. Preacher killed a dozen of them! Jonathan and Geoffrey attacked them too.”
Angela crawled out from under the wagon. “Peter, just stop it,” she said with an infinite weariness in her voice. “It doesn't matter now. Go back where Preacher told you and do the best you can. That's all any of us can do now.”
Peter turned to her and reached out. “Angela, at least you can say you forgive me,” he pleaded. “We've meant so much to each other. You . . . You can't just turn away now. . . .”
“You turned away from me, Peter,” she whispered. Her hands tightened on the rifle she held. “No matter what happens, it's over between us. I can't ever love you again.”
“Angela . . .” Peter looked and sounded utterly wretched.
“I'm sorry, Peter. But we can't change what's happened.”
He looked around. Confusion, anger, sorrow, resentment. . . All those emotions and more played across his face. Finally he said in a surly tone, “All right, if that's the way you want it, that's the way it'll be, I guess.” He went back to the other end of the wagon and took up his position there, staring dully out across the open valley toward the Indians, who still waited there.
“Are they out of rifle range where they are now?” Jonathan asked from under the wagon when Angela had rejoined him there.
“No, but it'd be a heck of a shot if any of us hit one of 'em from here,” Preacher said. “I could maybe do it, especially if I had a shot or two to sight in, but if we start shootin', they'll just pull back and then we'll have wasted some powder and lead.”
“This waiting is hard,” Jonathan mumbled.
“That it is, Silvertip, that it is.”
The sun was low in the western sky by now, and its red glare reflecting off the snow made the defenders squint. Preacher wondered for a moment if Swift Arrow might try an attack just as the sun went down, in hopes that the white men on the rise would be blinded. He didn't think the war chief would risk that, preferring to wait until dark when sneaking up on the wagons would be even easier, but where Injuns were concerned, nothing could be ruled out. They usually did whatever they took a notion to, whether it made sense to a white man's way of thinkin' or not.
“Anybody wants anything to eat or drink, now's the time,” Preacher said a short while later. “Or if you just want to stretch your legs.”
Angela and Jonathan came out from under the wagon. Angela went to check on Geoffrey and the children while Jonathan got a dipper of water from one of the barrels. The water had ice crystals in it but hadn't frozen solid yet. He and Roger stood talking quietly while Preacher said to Nate, “How you doin', partner?”
Nate's head bobbed in a nod. “I'm all right. I'm scared, though, Preacher.”
“So am I.”
“Really?” Nate looked up at him as if he couldn't believe that. “I didn't think you ever got scared, Preacher.”
“Sure. I been scared plumb half to death plenty o' times in my life. Like when I had to fight that grizzly bear. Only a fool wouldn't be scared goin' up against an ol' grizz like that. Or when we was at war with the British, and the outfit I was part of had to fight 'em at New Orleans. That was mighty scary too. I couldn't even begin to count the times I been scared.”
“But you never quit. You never ran.”
“Well . . .” Preacher rubbed his bearded jaw. “When the Good Lord was handin' out the things that fill up a man and make him what he is, He didn't see fit to put a whole lot of back up in me. It ain't somethin' I did a-purpose, you understand. It's just the way I am.”
“I wish I could be as brave.”
“You plan to keep them rifles loaded, like I asked you?”