Preacher was standing on the trading post’s porch drinking a cup of coffee when Ethan Langley came up to him. The booshwa’s face was haggard and drawn. He looked like he had lost twenty pounds in the past week.
“Another few days and the boat will be here,” Langley commented. “I’m starting to think we might make it after all, Preacher.”
Preacher was feeling unusually pessimistic. “You don’t even know for sure the boat’s comin’.”
“It was supposed to be here sometime between the seventeenth and the twenty-fourth. Today is the fifteenth.”
“That’s if it didn’t get delayed somehow, or the trip wasn’t canceled completely.”
“The company would have sent word.”
“Which wouldn’t have gotten here yet, either.”
“You’re the one who told everybody not to give up hope,” Langley pointed out.
Preacher smiled humorlessly and shrugged. He took a sip of his coffee. “You’re right about that. Reckon the strain’s startin’ to get to me.”
“I don’t believe that. You’re Preacher.”
“Yeah, well, that don’t make me no damned miracle worker!” Wearily, Preacher rubbed a hand over his face and then muttered, “Sorry. Too little sleep and too much killin’. It starts to wear on a body after a while.”
Langley nodded. “Yes, indeed it does. I’m amazed we’re all holding up as well as we are.”
“What about Miz Langley? Every time I see her she’s got a smile on her face, but she must be about wore out.”
Langley looked concerned. “Yes, she’s been my rock. But even a rock will wear down eventually.” He grunted. “At least Courtland has kept his distance. I have to be thankful for that. With everything else that’s going on, Judith doesn’t need him annoying her, too.”
Preacher didn’t say anything. From the sound of it, Judith still hadn’t mentioned the confrontation with Courtland. It was the smart thing to do.
Courtland had been in the thick of every battle, and Preacher didn’t think the man had gotten so much as a scratch. That was the way it seemed to work sometimes. Lady Luck watched over one man while turning her back on another, and there was no real rhyme or reason to her choices.
Not all of the men Courtland had brought with him had been so fortunate. Boylan was dead, skewered by an arrow during one of the ruckuses, and Prince was laid up with a bad wound in his leg. Freeman, Elkins, and Dalton were still able to fight, although they had picked up a few nicks and bruises.
“If we do get through this,” Preacher said, “we’ll have Miz Langley to thank for some of it. She’s been an inspiration to everybody.”
“I agree, although she’s too modest to see it that way.”
Preacher drank the last of his coffee and handed the empty cup to Langley. “If you’re goin’ in, you can take this for me. I’m headed back up on the wall. That coffee ought to keep me goin’ for a while.”
Langley glanced up at the sky. “The sun will be going down in another hour or so. Do you think they’ll attack again tonight?”
“I reckon you can count on it.”
Darkness had fallen. The Blackfeet had demonstrated they were willing to attack at any hour of the day or night, so the defenders couldn’t let down their guard. Preacher was on the parapet near the gates with every sense on alert when Otis Freeman approached him.
“Preacher, have you seen Wiley?”
“You mean here, lately?” Preacher frowned in thought and shook his head. “No, I can’t say as I have. Not since some time this afternoon.”
Freeman rubbed his jaw. The gash on his forehead was healing, but it would leave an ugly, puckered scar. As he had mentioned earlier, it wouldn’t really make much difference. “It’s been a couple hours since I saw him. I looked around the fort, and I can’t find him.”
“He’s got to be here somewhere,” Preacher said.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“You’re thinkin’ he might’ve gone over the wall and took off for the tall and uncut?”
“I’d hate to think that he’d abandon us, but if he’s not here . . .”
Preacher nodded toward the darkness outside the fort. “No way he made it through all them Blackfeet without them catchin’ him. If he went out there, he’s likely dead by now.” The mountain man paused. “Either that, or they’re savin’ him.”
“Why would they do that?”
“To put on a show for us. They might tie him to a post and build a fire at his feet and burn him that way. Or they could build a fire and hang him upside down over it, so his brain cooks until his head explodes. Or just torture him for five or six hours so we hear him screamin’ the whole time.” Preacher shrugged. “There’s not much tellin’ what they might decide to do, but you can count on it bein’ pretty bad.”
“Good Lord,” Freeman muttered. “I hope he’s still here and I just couldn’t find him. I wouldn’t wish something like that on my worst enemy.”
“Neither would I,” Preacher agreed. “If they’ve got him and they try somethin’ like that, I’ll do my best to put a bullet in his head. That’d put him out of his misery and cheat those varmints out of their sport.”
“Maybe it won’t come to that. I’m gonna go look around some more.”
“You do that. I hope you find him.” Preacher had a hunch Freeman wouldn’t be able to locate Courtland, though. There weren’t that many places inside the fort for someone to be.
More time passed. When Preacher’s shift on guard duty was over, he climbed down from the parapet. The past few days he had taken to sleeping on the ground next to the fur warehouse instead of in the extra room in the booshwa’s living quarters. With a ladder only a few steps away, he could get back on the parapet in a hurry any time trouble broke out.
At the moment, despite the nearly non-stop exhaustion that gripped all the defenders, he was more hungry than sleepy, so he headed for the trading post where Judith Langley kept a fire burning in the stove and a pot of stew simmering on it nearly all the time. Preacher thought he might get a bowl of it before he turned in.
When he came into the trading post he didn’t see Judith, or anyone else, for that matter. It was possible she was over at the barracks where the wounded men had been taken, changing their dressings or using a cool rag to wipe the foreheads of the men who had fevers.
As Preacher moved toward the back of the room he heard someone talking. The door into the living quarters was slightly ajar, and the voices came from in there. One of them was female.
Preacher didn’t think anything of it as he leaned his rifle against the wall near the stove. He figured Judith and Langley were back there talking. Then he remembered seeing Langley outside as he headed across the compound. So it wasn’t the booshwa in the living quarters with Judith.
That still didn’t have to mean anything, but when her voice suddenly got louder, filled with anger and alarm, Preacher knew something was wrong. He wasn’t a bit surprised when he stepped closer and recognized Courtland’s urgent tones.
The fella just didn’t know when to give up, Preacher thought disgustedly. He hadn’t learned last time, so maybe the lesson ought to be a mite more stern.
“—have to come with me, Judith,” Courtland was saying as Preacher came up to the door. “You don’t have any choice. It’s your only chance. Otherwise you’ll die tonight.”
“You’re mad!” Judith told him. “Wiley, for God’s sake, what have you done?”
Preacher shoved the door open. “Yeah, Courtland, I want to know that, too. What are you up to, you—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish the question. At that moment, someone outside the trading post shrieked in pain, shots began to roar, and a man yelled in sheer terror, “They’re here! The Indians are inside the walls!”
CHAPTER 30
In the split second Courtland whirled around to face him and all hell broke loose outside, Preacher knew the horse trader had something to do with what was happening. Without knowing ho
w it was possible or what Courtland hoped to gain, every instinct in the mountain man’s body told him it was true.
Preacher grabbed one of the pistols tucked behind his belt.
At that same instant, Courtland’s hand shot out and snatched up the oil lamp burning on the table beside him. With a shouted curse, he threw it at the mountain man.
Preacher flung up his left arm to shield his face. The lamp broke, sending blazing oil cascading down his arm. The sleeve of his buckskin shirt protected his flesh, but he still felt the fiery heat.
Courtland barreled into him, dragging a screaming Judith behind him. The collision knocked Preacher off his feet. He made a grab for Courtland’s leg but missed. And he couldn’t shoot with Judith between him and Courtland.
The two vanished through the door leading into the main room of the trading post.
Preacher scrambled to his feet and slapped out the flames still burning on his oil-soaked sleeve. Not all of the oil had landed on him, and he spent precious time stomping out patches of fire on the puncheons where oil had spilled on the floor.
Once he was confident the building wasn’t going to burn down, he jerked a second pistol from behind his belt and rushed to the door.
Stepping onto the porch was like stepping into a nightmare.
He might have saved the trading post from burning—for the moment—but the barracks of the wounded men was ablaze, and the blood-chilling screams Preacher heard over the roar of gunshots and the crackling of flames told him some of the badly injured hadn’t been able to get out.
The Blackfeet seemed everywhere, shrieking war cries and laying waste to the defenders with tomahawks, knives, and clubs. Arrows hummed through the air, but most of the slaughter was being carried out close up.
The gates stood wide open, so there was no doubt how the warriors had gotten into the fort.
Despite being overrun and outnumbered, the men were putting up a fight. Preacher saw desperate struggles going on everywhere he looked. Before plunging into the melee, he saw Otis Freeman on top of the parapet using a broken rifle to flail away at the Blackfeet surrounding him. Blood streamed from a dozen wounds, but Freeman stood tall, swinging the rifle, breaking bones, and crushing skulls.
But suddenly Freeman lurched forward and toppled off the parapet. As he fell, Preacher saw the tomahawk lodged in the back of Freeman’s head. The weapon had shattered his skull and buried itself in his brain, killing him.
Preacher didn’t see Courtland or Judith, but he figured they had to be around, unless they had made their way through the chaos and escaped through the gates.
Considering at least a couple of hundred bloodthirsty Blackfoot warriors were still outside the fort, Preacher didn’t think it was much of an escape.
Those thoughts flashed through his brain in a matter of seconds. Then he leaped down from the porch and threw himself into the battle.
A warrior lunged at him, tomahawk lifted for a killing blow. Preacher raised the pistol in his right hand and fired it into the Blackfoot’s face at a range of two feet. The warrior’s head blew apart in a pink spray of blood, bone, and brain matter. Preacher stepped aside to let the body collapse beside him.
He pivoted and fired the left hand pistol, gunning down a warrior about to plunge a knife into the back of a defender already struggling with two opponents.
Preacher’s shot delayed the man’s death only a second. A knife raked across his throat and opened up a gaping wound from which blood poured. The man went down, gagging and dying.
As half a dozen warriors charged him, Preacher stuck the empty pistols behind his belt and grabbed the other two guns tucked away there. His thumbs pulled the hammers back as he lifted the pistols. The weapons roared and spouted smoke and flame. Three Blackfeet went down like they had been scythed.
Preacher didn’t wait for the remaining three to attack him. He charged ahead and smashed the empty pistol in his right hand into the nearest man’s face. Bone crunched under the blow’s terrible force and the warrior flew off his feet.
Preacher ducked under a swinging tomahawk and swept the pistol in his left hand up and around. The barrel shattered the Indian’s jaw and sent him spinning senseless to the ground.
The final warrior thrust his knife at Preacher. Twisting away, the mountain man couldn’t avoid it fully. He felt the blade’s fiery bite as it went into his side, but the wound was a shallow one. Before the warrior could launch a backhanded stroke with the knife, Preacher drove his heel into the man’s right kneecap, snapping it. The Blackfoot yelped in pain as his leg folded up under him and dumped him on the ground. Preacher brought his foot down on the man’s neck, crushing his windpipe.
The men Preacher had killed or put out of action in that brief whirlwind of bloody violence didn’t even make a dent in the attacking forces. The Blackfeet continued to swarm over the compound, wantonly killing every white man they found. It was murder, pure and simple, and Preacher knew there was no way he could stop it.
All he could do was take as many of the attackers to hell with him as he could.
Except he didn’t have to go to hell, he realized as he stowed the empty guns behind his belt, snatched a couple of fallen tomahawks from the ground, and waded into the slaughter.
Hell had come to Fort Gifford.
Preacher didn’t feel the wounds, didn’t taste the blood in his mouth, didn’t even hear the shouts and screams anymore. He felt the hot rush of blood in his veins and heard the trip-hammer slugging of his heart. He was wrapped up in a cocoon of madness where nothing existed except death . . . the deaths of Blackfeet he struck down with the tomahawks, right and left, right and left, and his own inevitable end. At that moment, in that place, the entire universe was a massacre . . . Preacher’s massacre. He embraced it because there was nothing left to do.
Suddenly tackled from behind, he was knocked off his feet and driven to the ground. He twisted around to strike out when he heard a familiar voice.
“Preacher, no! It’s me, Ethan Langley!”
Preacher almost brained Langley with one of the tomahawks anyway. Finally realizing who the man was, the madness holding Preacher in its grip broke.
The booshwa clutched at his arm. “Have you seen Judith?”
After giving his head a little shake to clear it, Preacher said, “She was with Courtland.”
“Courtland! What—”
“I think he let the Blackfeet in here.” Preacher wasn’t sure how—or why—Courtland had accomplished such an act of treachery, but his gut told him that was what had happened.
The two men were sprawled on the ground near the trading post. It was a momentary island in the sea of bloody chaos. Bodies, red and white alike, littered the ground around them.
The stockade walls were on fire and so were most of the buildings inside the compound. It was only a fluke the raiders had turned their attention elsewhere for the moment. The respite surely wouldn’t last long.
“You were . . . you were shouting and hitting at the air with those tomahawks,” Langley said. “You had already killed all the savages within reach.”
“Reckon I went a mite loco,” Preacher admitted, “but I’m all right now. In fact, I’m thinkin’ we’re gonna make our stand here, Langley. You still got kegs of gunpowder in the tradin’ post, don’t you?”
“A dozen or so. But I have to find Judith—”
“There’s nothin’ you can do for her now.” Preacher’s voice was harsh and unrelenting. “Go grab some of those kegs while you got the chance.”
“What are you going to—”
“Just get the powder!” Preacher ordered. He pulled himself to his feet.
Langley did the same and staggered into the trading post, reappearing a minute later with two wooden kegs tucked under his arms.
Preacher took one of them and smashed the top open with a tomahawk. He slung the powder all over the ground in front of the trading post. As he took the second keg from Langley, he said, “Go get more.”
&nbs
p; Langley obeyed. Preacher supposed the man’s brain was too numb to do anything except follow orders. He threw the contents of the second keg near that of the first, using the last of it to lay a short trail to the base of the porch steps.
Suddenly he spotted a familiar figure striding arrogantly across the compound. A grin appeared on Preacher’s face as he shouted, “Red Knife!”
The Blackfoot war chief heard him and turned. His face twisted in hatred. He shouted guttural commands, and a dozen warriors raced toward the trading post.
Preacher pulled one of the empty pistols from behind his belt and knelt as if he were praying. Actually, he cocked the gun and rested the hand holding it on the ground, waiting until the charging warriors, bristling with knives and tomahawks, were almost on top of him.
He pulled the trigger.
The hammer fell and the flint struck. A spark leaped from it, landing in the powder trail and igniting it. Sparks shot along the ground, leaping and dancing, and when they reached the powder Preacher had scattered on the ground, it went off as well with a great flash. The warriors charging through it suddenly found themselves engulfed in fire.
Preacher leaped back onto the steps as Langley emerged from the trading post carrying two more powder kegs. Preacher grabbed one and heaved it into the flames. It exploded in a huge incendiary burst and spread blazing death to more Blackfeet.
Langley followed suit and threw the other keg into the fire. It blew up, too. Flames shot high in the air. The stench of burning flesh clogged Preacher’s nostrils. He was in Hades, all right, and he figured he’d soon be shaking hands with the Devil.
A devil named Red Knife.
It was not to be. A tomahawk came streaking through the flames and smashed into Preacher’s head. He felt himself falling, toppling down, down, into red-shot darkness. He cursed, disappointed that he had missed his chance to kill Red Knife before dying himself.
Then the darkness claimed him, and all was oblivion.
CHAPTER 31
Death hurt like hell, and it was noisy, too. Instead of hearing harps playing and angels singing, Preacher heard flames crackling and men screaming. That wasn’t right, he thought. Death was supposed to be peaceful. That was why whenever somebody died folks said, “Rest in peace.”
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