Hawk said, “Hiding the furs will delay us.”
“Not that much. Anyway, Dog’s got the scent of those varmints. Ain’t nowhere they can go that he can’t find ’em.”
Hawk shrugged to show his acceptance of Preacher’s statement. Even without Dog’s keen nose to follow their scent, twenty-two men couldn’t move through the wilderness without leaving enough sign so that Preacher and Hawk could follow them easily.
The riders turned east, away from the creek, and Preacher led them a couple of miles to a spot where a cliff reared up. He searched through the thick growth at the cliff’s base for several minutes before he uncovered a roughly square opening about four feet on a side.
“I hoped my memory wasn’t playin’ tricks on me,” he said as the others gathered around. “I crawled up in there about fifteen years ago when some Blackfeet were after me. Had one o’ their arrows in my side, so I figured I was crawlin’ in there to die. I didn’t.”
Aaron asked, “What about the Blackfeet?”
“They did, after a spell. I had to heal up a mite first before I went lookin’ for ’em.”
Preacher didn’t go into any more detail than that. Recounting his previous adventures would take more time than they had, and besides, he had always been the sort to look to the future, rather than the past.
He fashioned a torch from a branch and some dried grass, lit it with flint and steel, and crawled into the cave to make sure it was unoccupied. Twenty feet in, the chamber widened out slightly and the ceiling rose enough for Preacher to stand up. The place was empty, just as he’d hoped.
He returned to the others. Charlie and Aaron unloaded the bundles of furs and pushed them up the short tunnel, then cached the two travois in the cave, as well.
Preacher arranged the brush to cover the entrance again. “We’ll come back and collect ’em when we’re finished with this little chore.”
“How long do you think that will take?” Charlie asked.
“No tellin’. Might be later today, if we’re lucky.”
“You think we’ll have dealt with those brigands that quickly?” Aaron said.
They all knew what he meant by “dealt with.” They would have to kill all the thieves, or at least most of them, to eliminate them as a threat to the honest trappers on the frontier.
“Well, I said we’d need some luck,” Preacher responded with a faint smile. “Let’s go.”
* * *
They returned to the creek and resumed their northward trek. It seemed likely to Preacher that the gang they were hunting for would be camped somewhere close to the stream. He counted on Dog to alert them before they got too close.
As they reached the edge of some trees bordering a long, open meadow that ran along the creek’s eastern side, Dog sat down and whined. Preacher brought Horse to a stop and the others halted behind him.
Preacher swung down from the saddle and dropped to a knee beside Dog. “We’re not far from where you saw ’em, huh?” he said quietly. “Let’s you and me go take a look.” He stood, hung his hat and rifle on the saddle, and told the others, “Dog and me are gonna do some scoutin’. The rest of you stay out of sight here in the trees. We’ll be back in a spell.”
“I can come with you,” Hawk offered.
Preacher shook his head. “Nope, I’d rather you stay with Charlie, Aaron, and White Buffalo.”
Hawk nodded. He understood that Preacher didn’t want anything happening to both of them. The other three would stand a better chance of surviving if either he or Preacher was still alive.
Preacher and Dog bellied down and crawled out into the meadow. At that time of year, the grass was tall enough to conceal them, and the breeze blowing through the valley made the stalks sway back and forth enough that their movements weren’t too obvious. They just had to make their approach slow and careful-like.
The sun was at its height, and the heat from it was uncomfortable as they inched along through the tall grass. Preacher hoped they wouldn’t come nose to nose with a rattlesnake. Most rattlers preferred rocky dens, but it was possible to run across one in a meadow. Not wanting to risk a pistol shot, he drew his knife. Pitting his speed against that of a striking rattlesnake would be a good contest, if it came to that, with the stakes being life or death on both sides.
If any of the scaly varmints were around today, they stayed out of Preacher and Dog’s way. Preacher angled toward the creek but stayed far enough back in the grass that they wouldn’t be spotted easily. The little whining noises Dog made told him they were getting close.
When Dog stopped and didn’t want to go on, Preacher whispered, “This must be the place.” He parted the grass just enough to peer across the stream.
As soon as he saw the wide hollow between the two talus-covered ridges, backed by a cliff, he knew he had found the enemy’s camp. Actually, their former camp. The place was empty. He spotted the remains of a good-sized campfire.
“They’ve lit a shuck,” he told Dog. “Must’ve got worried when the bunch that jumped us didn’t come back. Their leader must be a cautious man.”
He was about to stand up, thinking he would wade across the creek and have a better look around, when from the corner of his eye he saw a split-second flash atop the ridge to the north. The sun had glinted off something metal up there, and that likely meant something man-made.
“The varmints left somebody to watch over the place,” he breathed. “And I almost went and told him we were here. Chances are he ain’t spotted us in this grass, but he would have if we’d kept goin’ much farther. Come on. Let’s doodlebug outta here.”
Crawling backwards was even slower than their approach had been. Preacher figured Hawk was getting impatient. The boy had an impulsive streak in him. Preacher couldn’t blame him for that. Hawk came by it honestly. Preacher’s own reckless nature had gotten him in trouble more than once, especially in his younger years. He had mellowed some since then—a mite, anyway.
After what seemed like a long time, they reached the meadow’s edge, and as soon as they were back in the concealment of the trees, Preacher stood up. It felt good to be on his feet again, instead of his belly.
“They were there, all right,” he told the others. “Looks like they abandoned the camp earlier today.”
“Because they feared that the men they sent after us failed,” Hawk said.
“More than likely. They left at least one man behind, though, in case their friends showed up . . . or to keep an eye out for pursuers, if they didn’t.” Preacher pointed. “See those two ridges on the other side of the creek? The fella I spotted is on top of the one to the north.”
“I can reach him,” Hawk declared. “I can circle around, and he will never see me until it is too late.”
Preacher scratched his beard-stubbled jaw and nodded. “That’s sort of what I was thinking. There’s just one thing. Don’t kill him unless you have to. He’ll likely know where the rest of the sons o’ bitches are headed, and we might as well let him tell us.”
CHAPTER 4
Hawk went all the way around the meadow to the east, using trees, rocks, and brush for cover so the man on the ridge across the creek wouldn’t see him. The open stretch was about a mile long, so it took the young warrior a while to circle it. Stealth was more important than speed, at this point.
When the trees grew all the way down to the creek’s edge again, Hawk slipped through them, then crossed the stream. The ridge where the watcher was posted lay to the south of him. The slope on his side was not as steep, nor was it covered with loose rock like the other side. Hawk made his way in that direction in almost complete silence, moving like a phantom through the trees.
As he approached his quarry, he thought about the stories he had heard of how in the past, Preacher had slipped into the camps of his mortal enemies, the Blackfeet, in the middle of the night and cut the throats of several warriors before gliding back out. Those deaths weren’t discovered until the next morning, but when they were, the Blackfeet kne
w that Preacher was responsible for them, even though none had seen him at his grim work. The fact that he could kill them with impunity struck fear into the hearts of even the fiercest warriors.
Those incidents had led the Blackfeet to dub Preacher the Ghost Killer. Some called him the White Wolf, as well, but the other name was more common among that bloodthirsty tribe.
Not that Preacher ever boasted of such things, at least not around Hawk. No, the stories Hawk had heard came from other men. Preacher possessed no false modesty. He just didn’t see any reason to brag about his own exploits.
Hawk wondered if someday men would speak of his adventures in admiring tones, if he would be remembered and known by names such as Ghost Killer. He was just young enough, and just touched enough by the vanity of youth, to think about that sometimes.
He put such thoughts out of his mind and concentrated on the task at hand. He had reached the ridge’s base and started stealing up it, darting from rock to bush and back to rock as he climbed.
Within minutes, he spotted the man he was looking for. The watcher had settled down in a nest of boulders atop the ridge. He wore buckskin trousers, a homespun shirt, and a brown felt hat with an eagle feather sticking up from its band. A flintlock rifle leaned against the rock beside him. He probably had a knife and at least one pistol, too, but Hawk couldn’t see those from his position.
The man leaned forward at his post, resting his arms on a rock as he watched the abandoned campsite below, clearly waiting for something . . . or someone.
Hawk stopped to study the ridge crest in both directions and make certain no other enemies lurked nearby. After several long minutes, he was convinced this man was the only one who had been left behind. The young warrior’s moccasin-shod feet made no sound as he climbed onto a slab of rock behind the watcher. He stood up and drew back his rifle’s hammer.
The metallic sound made the man stiffen and start to straighten from his casual pose.
Hawk said, “Stop! Do not move. I will kill you if you do.”
Preacher had told him not to kill this man if at all possible, but of course the watcher didn’t know that.
“Hold on,” the man said. “I ain’t done nothin’.”
“Then why do you stand here, watching like a carrion bird waiting for something to die?”
“You got me all wrong—”
“Step away from your rifle and turn around,” Hawk ordered. “Slowly. Keep your hands where I can see them or I will fire.”
The menace in Hawk’s voice was unmistakable, just as the sound of his rifle being cocked had been. With his hands raised to shoulder height, the man sidled to his left and then turned. His eyes widened in surprise when he saw Hawk standing on the rock slab.
“A redskin! I figured you for a white man. You don’t sound like an Injun.”
Hawk ignored that. “Use your left hand to take out your pistol and knife and toss them away from you. Do it now, or I will go ahead and shoot.”
“Sure, sure. Don’t get antsy, mister. Ain’t no need for you to point that rifle at me, though. I’m not lookin’ for any trouble.”
“Then why do you watch that campsite below?”
“I’m waitin’ to see if those fellas who were there before are gonna come back. I thought I might camp there tonight myself. It’s a good place. But I don’t want to go crowdin’ in where I ain’t wanted, especially with that bunch.”
Hawk frowned. “You are not one of them?”
“What? You reckon I’m . . . one of them?” The man shook his head vehemently. “Good Lord, no, Injun. I come on ’em earlier and seen that they was a bad bunch. I could tell just by lookin’ at ’em that they was all murderers and thieves. I didn’t want nothin’ to do with ’em. That’s why I stayed hid up here where they wouldn’t see me. They looked like they were packin’ up to leave, so I figured I might wait ’em out and take over the camp once they was gone.”
To Hawk, this man looked like he could be a murderer and a thief himself. His dull, heavy-jawed face had more than a hint of brutality to it. But such things couldn’t always be judged by appearances, Hawk knew, and the things the man said not only made sense, they sounded sincere.
“You are a trapper?” Hawk asked.
“I sure am. Hemming is the name. Gordie Hemming. Who might you be?”
“I am called Hawk That Soars. These men you saw, how many of them were there?”
Hemming frowned. “I ain’t rightly sure. Maybe about twenty?”
That matched what the mortally injured Spanish man had told them earlier, before Hawk had mercifully ended his life.
“And then there was the girl,” Hemming added.
Hawk’s frown darkened as he asked, “What girl?”
“Some Injun gal. It looked like she was a prisoner. They had her tied hand and foot. They didn’t abuse her none, at least while I was watchin’, but that’s really all I can tell you about her, mister. You’re not lookin’ for a missin’ gal, are you?”
“I did not know they had a woman with them,” Hawk answered honestly without thinking about it.
“But you are on the trail of those fellas?”
Hawk’s mouth tightened as he realized the man was trying to get information out of him, rather than the other way around as it was supposed to be. He began to think that he should take Hemming with him as a prisoner and let Preacher question the man. Preacher would be able to determine whether or not Hemming was telling the truth.
At that moment, Hawk realized Hemming had distracted him with all the talk, especially the surprising mention of a female captive. The man hadn’t discarded his pistol and knife as ordered.
In fact, Hemming’s hand had stolen closer and closer to the pistol as they were talking, and the man suddenly closed his hand around the butt and yanked the weapon free. He threw himself to his right as he jerked the pistol up and fired.
Hawk squeezed the rifle’s trigger, but the ball missed Hemming by a whisker and whined off the boulder behind him. Hemming’s hurried shot hummed past Hawk’s left ear. Hawk dropped his rifle and made a leap toward Hemming before the man could grab his own rifle.
Hawk crashed into Hemming and drove him back against the rock. Hemming grunted from the impact. He still held the empty pistol and slashed at Hawk’s head with it. The barrel struck the young warrior a glancing blow above the left ear and stunned him for a second.
That gave Hemming a chance to push him away. He tried to hit Hawk with the pistol a second time, but Hawk ducked under this blow and rammed his shoulder into Hemming’s midsection. Hemming went down with Hawk on top of him.
Hawk’s pistol was loaded, and he also had his knife and tomahawk he could have used. Preacher had told him to take the watcher alive, though, so that was what he was going to do. He had fired the rifle at Hemming out of instinct, because Hemming had shot at him. Now Hawk tried to subdue the man with his bare hands.
That proved to be difficult. Hemming was bigger, outweighing Hawk by at least thirty pounds, and he was a vicious, unscrupulous fighter. He tried to ram a knee into Hawk’s groin, and even though Hawk twisted aside from what would have been a momentarily crippling blow, the man’s knee landed in his stomach and drove the air from his lungs. Hemming got a hand on Hawk’s face and clawed at his eyes.
Hawk jerked back, hammered a punch into Hemming’s prominent jaw that rocked the man’s head to the side. Hemming hit him on the left ear with enough power to make Hawk’s head ring. Hemming grabbed the front of Hawk’s buckskin shirt and threw him to the side, then rolled after him.
Hawk tried to catch himself and get back to his knees, but just as he did, Hemming plowed into him again. The man’s greater weight sent Hawk backward. Hawk’s head thudded against one of the boulders Hemming had been using for cover. Red explosions burst behind his eyes. His muscles went limp. His eyesight cleared just in time for him to see that Hemming had yanked out his own knife and raised it high for a killing stroke aimed at Hawk’s chest.
Desperation
forced Hawk to cast off his momentary paralysis. He got his crossed arms raised to block Hemming’s thrust at the last instant. The knife’s tip stopped a mere inch or two from Hawk’s chest. Hawk bucked up from the ground and dislodged Hemming’s weight.
Hemming rolled and recovered enough to surge to his feet, but Hawk grabbed a fist-sized rock from the ground beside him and threw it with unerring aim. The rock smacked into Hemming’s wrist and the knife flew out of his fingers.
Hemming snarled a curse and charged at Hawk again, just as Hawk made it to his feet. For a big man, Hemming was quick and agile, no doubt the product of a rough-and-tumble, no-holds-barred life on the frontier. Hawk realized the man had to be a member of the gang he and the others sought. If Hemming was really an innocent trapper who had stumbled upon the thieves, likely he wouldn’t be trying to kill Hawk.
Hawk didn’t have time to reach for his pistol before Hemming was on him again. The two men grappled, and as they did, Hawk suddenly felt the ground shifting underneath him.
No, not the ground, he realized. In their struggle, they had staggered through a gap in the clump of boulders and were at the talus slope’s edge. Hawk tried to keep his balance, but the small, loose rocks were too unstable. His feet and legs shot out from under him.
As he went over backward, he grabbed Hemming and took the man with him. Hemming yelled in surprise and alarm as they fell and started to slide.
Rocks flew in the air and pelted Hawk as he tumbled over and over with Hemming beside him, going through the same punishment. It was an avalanche in miniature, and both men were trapped in the middle of it.
Sliding down the ridge seemed to take an eternity. A thick dust cloud rose from the rockslide and clogged Hawk’s nose and mouth, blinding him as well as choking him. He thought he heard Hemming yelling, but with the loud clatter of falling rocks all around him, he couldn’t be sure.
Finally, Hawk came to a stop, but he was disoriented and gasping for breath, not to mention stinging and aching from all the rocks that had pounded him on the way down. He knew that if he had survived the slide, Hemming probably had, too, so the danger wasn’t over. Hawk pulled himself up to hands and knees and raised his head to look around.
Preacher's Rage Page 3