Jamie smiled. “We’ll take turns standing guard tonight.”
“That goes without saying, my friend.”
But the Kiowa did not attack the camp that night. Jamie and Sam saw not another human being until they were about an easy day’s ride from the huge fort-like trading post. And the lone rider was coming at them from the north. Jamie halted the mules and squinted his eyes.
“I’ll be damned!” he said. “It’s Preacher.”
The two men swung down from their horses and shook hands, and then Jamie introduced Sam.
“I just seen your Grandpa, Jamie. He spoke highly of Sam, here. Spoke highly of the whole bunch with you. And that’s a rare compliment from Silver Wolf.”
“Where is Grandpa going to winter, Preacher?”
The mountain man shook his head. “Don’t know, Jamie. He gets on real good with the Blackfeet. He might winter with them. But then, he gets on with most Injuns. He’ll be all right, Jamie. That old man seen a doctor when he was in St. Louis a couple of years back. That doctor said he had the heart of a man half his age. He was plumb amazed, that doctor was. Come on. Let’s ride down to a spot I know and make camp. We’ll ride into the Fort come tomorrow.”
At first Sam had not been impressed by the mountain man called Preacher. Preacher, at first sight, was not an imposing-looking man. But for a year, Jamie had been teaching those in his group how to visually size up a man. Sam began to notice the little things about Preacher. The man moved with no wasted motion—like Jamie. He moved without making a sound—like Jamie. His eyes missed nothing around him—like Jamie. He kept rifle and pistol within arms reach at all times—like Jamie. He was never without his big-bladed knife—like Jamie. He also carried a smaller hideout knife stuck down in one legging—like Jamie. And on Preacher’s horse was a strong-looking bow and a quiver of arrows. Just like Jamie.
Watching Preacher, Sam soon learned that the man was tremendously strong and very, very quick. Sam concluded his observations by deciding that Preacher would be a very good man to have around in case of trouble—and a very bad enemy. Sam had pegged Preacher very accurately.
Bent’s Fort, planned by Charles and William Bent and constructed by Mexican workers, located near the junction of the Arkansas and Purgatory Rivers, was in operation from late 1832 to the late 1840s. Within its walled, fort-like confines several hundred men could relax and drink and eat and hundreds of animals could be corralled, all of it designed for maximum safety. Men of all creeds and colors passed through the huge, fortified gates: mountain men and pioneers, Indians of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche, Kiowa, Ute, and Gros Ventre nations. Within the walls there was seldom any trouble. Outside the four-foot thick and fourteen-foot tall adobe walls of the fort, nothing was guaranteed.
As the trio of men and their long string of mules rode in, even the most grizzled and hardened of mountain men paused to look at the man with the long blond hair. Those who knew Silver Wolf, and nearly everyone did, knew at first glance this was his grandson, the living legend from the Alamo down in Texas. The man raised by Shawnees and called Man Who Is Not Afraid.
And Preacher immediately began enhancing that legend by quickly spreading the news of the Kiowa attack and of the knife fight with Little Otter.
A friendly—at least for the moment—Kiowa nodded his head at the news. “Knew Little Otter,” he told Preacher. “He was a good warrior. But quick to lose his temper. There will not be many songs sung for him.”
Lounging in the rough bar, six men sat, passing the jug back and forth. They’d ridden in from the States a few days back and, for the most part, kept to themselves. That did not bring them to anyone’s attention, for many mountain men were notorious for demanding solitude. Fights had started over merely speaking to some mountain men.
“Id not like to tangle with that one alone,” a man who sported a full beard remarked in a whisper, his eyes on Jamie, standing just outside the watering hole.
“A ball will bring him down just like any other man,” a dirty companion replied.
“Just make damn shore you place it well,” another said. “He’s big as a bear.”
“An’ from what I’ve been told, ’bout three times as dangerous,” the fourth man observed. “An’ now that I’ve put eyes on him, I agree.”
“Bah!” the smelly, dirty man softly scoffed. “He’s just a man. All them tales is hogwash and bunkum. I dasn’t believe none of them.”
“We was paid to do a job,” the first man said. “And we don’t get the bulk of the money ‘til it’s done and MacCallister’s head is pickled. We’ll talk no more of it ’til we’re safe of unfriendly ears.” He got up and walked out into the huge open area, roughly a hundred and fifty feet by two hundred feet.
Jamie and Sam socialized for a time with some of Preacher’s friends, had a bite to eat in a relaxed atmosphere, and then set about ordering supplies. Their plans were not to tarry at the fort but to supply up and head back as quickly as possible.
Flour, sugar, coffee, dress and shirt material, and other staples were purchased, marked with their names, and stored until time to load the packs for the return trip. Candy for the kids was an important item not to be overlooked; ribbons for the girls’ hair and some foofaws and geegaws for the smaller kids. Sam saw to the buying of seed for gardens and Jamie saw to the purchasing of lead and powder and percussion caps. Jamie bought a fine knife for his oldest son, Jamie Ian, and a locket for Kate.
“You better buy something nice for Sarah,” he told Sam with a smile, just as Jamie saw a small man walking toward him.
“Mister MacCallister?” the slight man said in a very soft voice.
“Yes,” Jamie said, turning and towering over the man.
“I’m Kit Carson.” The man offered his hand and Jamie took it. The hand was small but calloused and hard as oak; Jamie could feel the gentle strength in the man’s grip.
Sam, sensing that the noted scout and frontiersman had something he wanted to discuss in private with Jamie, excused himself and left the two men alone.
The six men who had traveled from the States to kill Jamie and bring back his head also took note of the verbal exchange between Carson and MacCallister, unaware that Preacher was standing across the clearing, taking note of them.
“Bounty hunters if ever I saw any,” Preacher muttered. “So they’s still some back in the States filled with hate for Jamie MacCallister.” Preacher decided he’d keep an eye on the bounty hunters.
Kit Carson and Jamie stood for several moments, conversing in low tones. Then they both laughed, shook hands amiably, and Carson walked away.
Sam strode over to Jamie’s side. “That expedition matter again?”
“Yes. I told Kit I’d have to discuss it with my wife. I’d give him a reply come the spring.”
“You want to go, don’t you, Jamie?”
“Well . . . it does sound like it might be a right interesting trip.”
Jamie and Sam, the mules loaded with supplies, pulled out at dawn the next morning. The six bounty hunters left about an hour later. Preacher saddled up and rode out an hour after the bounty hunters. He felt certain the guns-for-hire would not attack until they were several days away from Bent’s Fort.
Preacher trailed the bounty hunters for two days.. During both nights he slipped up on their camp and listened to their foul talk of murder for hire. The mountain man could have killed them all right then and there and ended it, but this was a personal matter between them and Jamie, and he felt sure that Jamie would want to handle it his way. On the afternoon of the third day, Preacher skirted the bounty hunters wide and rode up to Jamie and Sam’s camp. He saw to his horses and then squatted down by the fire and poured a cup of coffee from the blackened pot.
Preacher was not at all surprised when Jamie said, “You come to warn me about those six men on my trail, Preacher?”
The mountain man smiled and nodded his head. “I figured you’d have picked up on them by now.”
“What six men?�
�� Sam asked, clearly startled.
“I noticed them back at the fort,” Jamie said. “Surly looking bunch of scalawags. I pegged them as bounty hunters, hired by Olmstead or his kin, or by the Saxons or the Newbys or the Jacksons. I thought that blood feud had ended years back. I guess I was wrong.”
“I heard all them names and more mentioned over two nights of listenin’ to their evil talk,” Preacher said. “They aim to kill you, cut off your head, and tote it in a pickle jug back to the States.”
“What are you two talking about?” Sam demanded. He stared at Preacher for a moment. “Cut off his head? Pickle it? My God, man!”
“Relax,” Jamie told his friend. “I’m sort of attached to my head, not to mention rather fond of it. And Kate would certainly be irritated if I returned home without my head.” He laughed at the serious expression on the older man’s face. “Sam . . . when we get a couple of more days behind us, I’ll take care of those following us and then we’ll be done with it.”
“You want some help?” Preacher asked, knowing full well what Jamie’s reply would be.
“No. I’ll stomp on my own snakes, Preacher.”
“Figured you’d say that.” Ignoring Sam Montgomery’s open-mouthed expression of exasperation and concern, Preacher said, “When do we eat? I’m hungry.”
Six
Wesley Parsons, leader of the bounty hunters, was ranging out about a mile ahead of the others. Wesley was known as a fearless and experienced man-hunter back east. But this was not the east and Jamie Ian MacCallister was no ordinary man. Wesley abruptly reined up and stared down at the ground. He began cussing, loud and long. On the ground was an arrow made of stones, pointing northwest, a slip of paper under the last stone of the arrow’s shaft. He jumped off his horse and snatched up the paper.
WATER JUST UP AHEAD. GOOD PLACE TO CAMP. YOU BEST REST AND THEN HEAD ON BACK HOME. IF YOU KEEP ON FOLLOWING ME, I’LL KILL YOU.
It was signed Jamie Ian MacCallister.
The others rode up and dismounted, staring at the paper. “What do them words say?” Burl Dixson asked.
Wesley told him.
“You mean MacCallister knows what we’re up to?” a man called Leo blurted.
“I reckon,” Wesley replied.
“That makes me plumb uncomfortable,” Delbert Newby said. Delbert was a distant cousin of the Newby brothers that Jamie had tangled with years back when he and Kate were heading for Texas, just days before they were married in the tiny village of New Madrid, Missouri.
“This here’s a trick!” Delbert’s brother Amos said, pointing to the slip of paper. “MacCallister’s done pisened the water up ahead.”
Wesley shook his head. “No. MacCallister wouldn’t do that. That would be a danger to animals who might come to drink there. MacCallister loves animals.”
“Why would anybody in they right mind love a goddamn animal?” the last of the group, John Mack, asked.
Wesley shrugged his heavy shoulders. “You’ll have to ask MacCallister that.”
“I don’t aim to ax him nothin’,” John Mack said. “I aim to kill him and cut off his head.”
Wesley ignored that and pointed to the ground. “There’s them other hoofprints. That third party is stayin’ with them. One man and a pack horse. Has to be somebody from the Fort who overheard us talkin’ back yonder.”
“I don’t believe that,” Burl said with a shake of his head. “After that first day when MacCallister and the gentry rode in, we never said no more about it. Leastways me and Leo never.”
“Nor us,” Delbert said, jerking a thumb toward his brother.
“Not me,” John Mack said.
“Well, I damn shore didn’t,” Wesley said. He frowned in thought. “It was a guess on his part, I reckon. But MacCallister shore knows ’bout us.”
“He’s a slick one for a fact,” Delbert said, stroking his dirty beard. “We might have to ponder on this some more.”
“Ponder, hell!” Wesley said. “They’s six of us and three of them. We can take ’em. We’ll do the deed just as soon as we catch up with them. Let’s ride. Sooner we can get his head pickled and get back, the sooner we can get our money.”
* * *
Everything had been explained to Sam. But he was mystified as to how Jamie had picked out the bounty hunters from all the men milling about back at Bent’s Fort. Jamie would only smile and shake his head. When Sam and Preacher were alone that first night after Preacher joined them, Preacher explained.
“When you got men on your backtrail for as long as Jamie has, and me, too, I reckon, it comes natural to a man. A body gets all his God-given senses workin’ hard to stay alive. You got to bear in mind that Jamie’s been fightin’ to stay alive since he was about six or seven years old.”
“I wonder when they’ll strike us.”
“Soon. They know that Jamie knows ’bout ’em ’cause of that stone arrey and that note he left back yonder.”
“That was bravado on Jamie’s part.”
“I know what that word means. Tain’t neither. That was a warnin’ to ’em. If they ignore it, then Jamie feels free to do his damnest.” He smiled a grim curving of the lips. “And when Jamie decides to do that, ‘way I hear tell it, that’s sorta like openin’ wide the gates to Hell!”
“And that is putting it mildly,” Sam said.
* * *
On the fifth night on the trail, only Preacher watched as Jamie silently rose from his blankets and left the camp. It was not that Sam was a heavy sleeper, for he was not. It was just that Jamie could move as silently as a ghost. Jamie disappeared into the gloom and Preacher closed his eyes to return to sleep. Those bounty hunters were in for a rough night of it, Preacher suspected.
The guard shift had just changed at the bounty hunters’ camp, and John Mack was rubbing sleep from his eyes with one hand and holding a cup of very strong black coffee in the other. There was no moon and the night skies were filled with clouds, heavy with moisture. The wind was sharp, holding more than a hint of the hard winter that was not that many weeks away. John Mack set the tin cup down on the ground and stretched. One second he was standing, listening to the creaking of his joints, the next second he was flat on his back on the ground, a hard hand clamped like a vise over his mouth. The bounty hunter was dragged a few hundred feet from the dim finger of flame of the small campfire. Dragged by someone, or something, he thought in fright, with enormous strength. John Mack started drumming his booted feet on the ground in hopes of awakening his cohorts in evil. That got him a clout on the side of his head that watered his eyes and caused his ears to ring like church bells on a Sunday morning. John Mack was thrown into a shallow ravine with no more effort than a child hurling a rag doll. He landed on his belly, the air whooshing out of him, the sharp stones in the ravine cutting his hands.
John Mack finally sucked enough air into his lungs to roll over on his back just in time to see something very large and menacing looming over him. Jamie MacCallister with a knife in his hand. John Mack had not prayed since childhood. In just about one minute he made up for all his backsliding, whispering prayers that, at the moment, he meant very sincerely.
“Who is paying you to dog my trail?” Jamie asked, his voice as hard as flint. When John Mack hesitated, Jamie laid the sharp edge of his Bowie knife against the man’s throat.
“Kin of Olmstead, Jackson, and the Saxon and Newby brothers,” John Mack blurted out the words. “They all men of substance and quality now.”
“Those men and their kin will never be anything close to quality,” Jamie corrected the man. “They’re white trash, they came from white trash, and they will always be white trash. Just like you.”
“Yessir. If’n you say so, sir.”
“You have anything else to say before I cut your throat and leave you for the buzzards and the scavengers?”
John Mack immediately started praying. He peed his dirty underwear and began weeping. He could not remember ever being this frightened. He managed to gasp o
ut: “Let me live, MacCallister. I ain’t done you no harm. If’n you let me live, I’ll be shut of them others come first light. I swear on my dear sainted mother’s eyes.”
Jamie removed the knife from John Mack’s throat and the brigand almost passed out from relief. “You’ll leave now or you’ll never see another sunrise,” he told the man.
“Yessir! I can do that. I can slip in and get my hoss and be gone ’fore them others know it. I promise I will.”
Jamie didn’t believe the man for a second. John Mack was an outlaw through and through and would die an outlaw. But Jamie did not want to kill the man. Not yet. “If you’re with those after me in the morning, you’ll be the first one shot out of the saddle,” he warned him. “And don’t doubt my words. This is the only break you’ll get from me.”
“Yessir. Thank you kindly, Mister MacCallister. You’re a kind man and a man of quality. I knowed that right off. Tried to tell the others that. Bless your heart, Mister MacCallister. I didn’t want to come along on this hunt. I really didn’t. But . . .” John Mack ceased his stupid babbling. Jamie was gone, melting into the night. John Mack laid on the gravel for a few moments, then jumped to his feet and ran screaming back to camp, jarring the others out of their sleep. They threw blankets in all directions and leaped to their feet, wild-eyed, staring into the night.
“He’s out yonder, boys!” John Mack shouted, pointing into the darkness. “Arm yourselves. MacCallister slipped up into camp like a ghost. Hurled me to the ground like I was a baby and dragged me off into a ditch like a bear with a dead doe. I never been so skirred in all my borned days. Git your rifles.”
The bounty hunters scrambled for their weapons as Jamie lay not fifty yards away and watched and listened. He had pegged John Mack accurately.
“I want him furst,” John Mack shouted, standing up and waving his grabbed-up rifle. “I want him alive so’s I can burn his feet and cut out his tongue. I want to skin him and listen to him holler and beg.” John Mack babbled out all that he was going to do to Jamie.
Jamie notched an arrow, lifted his bow, and put an arrow into John Mack’s stomach. The bounty hunter screamed and sat down hard on the ground, both hands gripping the shaft of the arrow. The others stared in horror at the gut-shot man for a few seconds, then all of them hit the ground, scrambling behind whatever cover they could find. John Mack sat on the ground and screamed.
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