“As Mr. Karnes mentioned, we’ve banded together for protection. One man alone, or even two or three, are helpless targets in King’s Crown these days. We all know men who have been killed or run out of the valley by Druke and his cohorts.”
“We figured that if we tried to get our pelts out of the valley by ourselves, Druke’d stop us,” Karnes added. “Even if he let us live, he’d steal the pelts we worked so hard for. But we thought if we rode out together, maybe Druke wouldn’t bother us. Even though his bunch still outnumbers us, we could put up a good stiff fight.” Karnes nodded toward Monkton. “That’s why we elected Mr. Monkton here our cap’n. He’s had military experience.”
“I served under Colonel Andrew Jackson in Alabama during the Creek Wars,” Monkton said with a note of pride in his voice.
“I was with Old Hickory at New Orleans,” Preacher said. “Chased the British all the way back down the Mississipp’ to the Gulf of Mexico.”
“Perhaps we should have accompanied him to Washington to serve in his presidential administration, eh?” Monkton suggested with a smile.
Preacher’s eyes widened as he exclaimed, “Good Lord! I’ve been tied up by Blackfeet so they could burn me at the stake. Reckon I’d rather take my chances with that again than go to Washington City and get mixed up in politics.” He made it sound like he’d said buffalo dung instead of politics.
Karnes changed the subject. “Did you come to King’s Crown to try your hand at trappin’, Preacher? I see you’ve got an outfit with you.”
Preacher shook his head. “I’ve already taken one load of pelts back downriver this season, from up along the Yellowstone. Thought I might try for another, but I got mixed up in somethin’ else first. A fella asked me to try to find his son. Name of William Pendexter.”
“Is that the person you’re looking for, or the person who made the request of you?” Monkton asked.
“That’s the fella I’m lookin’ for.” Preacher reeled off young Pendexter’s description, including the half-moon birthmark on the back of his neck. “Any of you boys know him?”
Karnes frowned in thought and shook his head. “Can’t say as I do.”
“I haven’t encountered the young man, either,” Monkton put in. “Are you sure he’s here in King’s Crown?”
“I’m not sure of anything,” Preacher admitted honestly. “He was supposed to be headed in this direction last time anybody saw hide or hair of him. That’s really all I know.”
None of the other men knew William Pendexter, either. Preacher was disappointed, but he didn’t let it show. He had realized from the start that the job likely wouldn’t be an easy one.
He tried another tack. “Do any of you know Will Gardner?”
“Ah, Druke’s nemesis,” Monkton said. “A very fine young man.”
The others nodded in agreement with that assessment.
“Know where I might be able to find him?” Preacher asked.
“No idea. I haven’t seen him for several weeks. He’s something of a will-o’-the-wisp, he and his little Indian friend.”
Karnes said, “If we run into him on our way out of the valley, we can tell him you’re lookin’ for him, Preacher. What’s his relation to that fella Pendexter?”
“No relation, as far as I know. I just thought he might be able to give me a lead to Pendexter.”
“Gardner always seems to know what’s going on in King’s Crown, that’s true,” Monkton said. “He might be able to help you.”
Karnes shook his head. “It’s a shame you just got here instead of bein’ on your way out of the valley, Preacher. It’d sure please me if you was to throw in with us.”
Everybody wanted him to join up with them, Preacher thought, but he still had his job to do. “I’d like that, too, if things were different, Karnes. I’d better let you fellas be on your way. I expect you’re anxious to get out of here.”
“Indeed,” Monkton said. “I’d like to put King’s Crown behind us before nightfall. That’s the only way we’ll be safe from Druke and his men.”
“Good luck to you, then,” Preacher said as he moved Horse to the side.
“Good luck to you,” Karnes said as he shook hands with Preacher again. “You’re the one who’s stayin’ here in this hellhole, so you’re the one who’s likely to need it.”
CHAPTER 16
It seemed odd to Preacher for anyone to refer to a place as beautiful as King’s Crown as a hellhole, but he knew what Karnes meant. Any place, no matter how pretty, could seem like hell if your life was in danger all the time.
The group of trappers resumed the trek out of the valley, and Preacher rode toward the center of it again. He gnawed some jerky from his saddlebags at midday without stopping for an actual meal and washed the stuff down with creek water.
Not long after, he reined in and lifted his head to listen. Shots popped in the distance behind him. His jaw tightened as the gunfire continued. It had to be quite a fight.
Two possibilities suggested themselves to him. Druke’s men could have come after Enos Mitchell and John Burton again, or Karnes, Monkton, and the other trappers could have run into the renegades.
Either way, it was likely that good men were dying, and that knowledge gnawed at Preacher’s gut.
He was pragmatic enough to know that he couldn’t be everywhere at once, couldn’t prevent every injustice that occurred on the frontier. Good men died every day out there, often under the most unfair conditions. Might as well rage against the sun coming up every morning.
Besides, he had given his word to Barnabas Pendexter, and Preacher was nothing if not a man of his word.
Those shots were several miles away. Chances were, even if he turned around and galloped toward them, the battle would be long over by the time he could get there, and he knew it.
The only sensible thing to do was keep going.
That resolve lasted all of five seconds before Preacher hauled the stallion around, called, “Come on, Dog!” and heeled Horse into a run.
His sense of direction was uncanny, and once he had the sounds of gunfire located, he had no trouble riding right toward them. He had to backtrack once to avoid a deep ravine and had to go around a ridge too steep for Horse to climb. Those delays chafed at him. When he paused to listen again, he no longer heard the gunfire.
That wasn’t good.
He put Horse into a run again. The pack animal struggled to keep up, but Preacher couldn’t do anything about that. He wasn’t going to leave his outfit behind.
He came to a wide, parklike meadow between two wooded ridges and reined in as he spotted something odd in the trees at the base of the opposite ridge. It took only a second for the grim realization to hit him.
He was looking at two men, each tied to the trunk of a pine. Their heads hung forward.
“Damn it,” Preacher said softly.
Just as he had feared, he was too late. He rode hard across the meadow anyway, just in case either of the men might be clinging to life.
When he came closer he saw the blood-soaked buckskins and knew they had been tortured. The clothes were in bloody shreds, and so was the flesh under them. Preacher hauled back on the reins, swung down from the saddle, and ran to the trees.
Even with their bodies mutilated, he recognized Mitchell and Burton and could tell which was which. Blood still dripped from Burton’s chin as Preacher took hold of it and lifted the man’s head.
He had seen too much violent death out on the frontier to ever be truly shocked again, but the sight of what had been done to Burton’s face etched grim trenches in Preacher’s cheeks.
The eyes had been gouged out, the tongue hacked from the mouth, the nose sliced off. Preacher lowered Burton’s head and rested his hand on the man’s gore-streaked chest to search for a heartbeat.
He didn’t expect to find one, and that assumption proved correct. Burton was dead. And a merciful death it must have been, after the torment he had endured.
Mitchell groaned.
Preacher stepped over to him and carefully lifted his head. Mitchell’s eyes were gone, too, but his nose and tongue had been left for some reason. At Preacher’s touch, he gasped and choked out, “No! No . . . more . . . please, God . . .”
“Mitchell,” Preacher said, his voice firm and sharp enough to cut through the man’s agony. “Mitchell, it’s me, Preacher.”
“P-Preacher! Thank God! Help . . . John . . .”
“It’s too late for that,” Preacher said, his words gentle. “He’s gone. But maybe I can do something for you.”
A hollow laugh came from Mitchell. “You can . . . kill me. Put me . . . out of my misery.”
Preacher glanced down at the ground. A big puddle of blood had formed at Mitchell’s feet and was soaking darkly into the ground. It was a wonder the man had held on to life as long as he had. Preacher knew Mitchell had only minutes left, if that.
“Druke did this?”
“Druke . . . and an Indian . . . ugliest Indian . . . I ever saw. One eye . . . red . . . like it was . . . filled with blood. He’s the one who . . . did most of this.”
Preacher frowned. He had never crossed trails with a renegade who looked like that, but he was confident that he would know the man from Mitchell’s description. “I’ll settle the score for you and Burton, Enos,” Preacher vowed. “Druke and his bunch won’t get away with this.”
“What about . . .”
Mitchell couldn’t finish the question, but Preacher knew what the man was asking.
“I don’t care about Pendexter right now. Druke’s a mad dog, and it sounds like the red-eyed varmint he’s got with him is even worse. They got to be put down, and the sooner the better.”
“You can’t fight them . . . alone.”
“You let me worry about that.”
Already, the wheels of Preacher’s brain were turning over rapidly. Now he had another reason for finding Will Gardner and Gray Otter. If that mysterious twosome were carrying on a crusade against Jebediah Druke, then Preacher wanted to join forces with them. They would whittle down the odds until they got to Druke himself, and then there would be a reckoning.
“I’m sorry, Enos,” Preacher went on. “Reckon I should’ve stayed with you and Burton for a while after all.”
“You didn’t know . . . It was up to us . . . to protect ourselves . . . We failed Carl . . . failed each other . . . Never should’ve let them . . . take us by surprise . . .” Mitchell groaned again. “God . . . it hurts . . .”
“Are you a married man, Enos?”
“Y-yeah . . . Got a wife . . . couple sons . . . a little girl . . .”
“You remember what they look like?” Preacher asked as he slid one of his pistols from behind his belt.
“Sure, I . . . remember.”
“You put their picture in your mind right now.” Preacher cocked the pistol, being quiet about it. “It’ll help, I promise. You see ’em?”
Mitchell’s bloody lips curved slightly in a smile. “Yeah,” he whispered as Preacher raised the pistol. “I may not have . . . eyes anymore . . . but I see ’em . . . plain as day . . . They’re beautiful . . .”
Preacher held the muzzle a couple inches from Mitchell’s forehead and pulled the trigger.
Later, when he rode away from the two fresh graves he had dug under the trees at the edge of the slope, he thought about Jebediah Druke and that Indian with the bloody eye. He remembered a verse from the Good Book that Audie had quoted around a campfire more than once, about how vengeance was the Lord’s.
That was all well and good, thought Preacher, but when it came to Druke and that Indian, the Lord was just gonna have to wait His turn.
CHAPTER 17
Druke’s arm ached, but he felt pretty well satisfied with himself, anyway. Those other two trappers were dead, and the way Blood Eye had left them tied to those trees, whoever found them was bound to get the message that it wasn’t smart to mess with Jebediah Druke.
Some of Druke’s men had turned away muttering while Blood Eye worked on Burton and Mitchell. A couple had even ducked into the bushes to upchuck.
Druke had watched the whole thing. Not that he took any real pleasure from the torture, not like Blood Eye did, anyway, but to him it was a vivid demonstration of something he firmly believed.
The world was a terrible place, to Druke’s way of thinking, and the only real way to survive it was to be more terrible. Some people might consider that evil, but to Druke it was just a matter of being stronger and molding the world to his will, rather than the other way around.
Blood Eye was an instrument of Jebediah Druke’s will, a tool to be used, nothing more or less.
Druke’s former master, the one who had bought him as an indentured servant when Druke was only a boy, had beat him relentlessly for years. He would sure as hell be surprised to see Druke now.
As Druke rode along with the screams of the two trappers still echoing in his ears, he wondered if the brutal old man was still alive. He would have given a lot to introduce him to Blood Eye.
Sam Turner moved his horse up alongside Druke’s. “Are we headin’ back to the fort, Jebediah?”
“That’s right,” Druke said.
“What about sendin’ Blood Eye after Gardner and that other redskin?”
“I’m still going to do that, but I reckon he’s done enough work for one day. He might want to rest up a mite before he goes after those other two.”
A little shudder went through Turner as he glanced over at Blood Eye, who rode by himself to one side of the group, traveling with them but definitely not a part of them. A man like Blood Eye rode alone no matter how many men might be around him.
“I ain’t sure he counts killin’ as work,” Turner said to Druke. He kept his voice quiet enough that Blood Eye couldn’t hear him. “Seemed to me like he was enjoyin’ it.”
“Just let it alone,” Druke snapped.
“You bet, boss,” Turner said quickly. “I didn’t mean anything by—What’s that, now?” He stood up a little in the saddle and pointed.
Druke saw the same thing. Coming toward them was a man who had just ridden around a big rock in front of them. What looked like a heavily laden pack mule followed him at the end of a lead rope.
The stranger spotted the large group of riders at the same time. He reined in sharply and turned his horse.
“Get him!” Druke ordered. He had no idea who the man was, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t one of them, so he was the enemy.
Turner and several of the other men kicked their horses into motion and galloped after the fleeing man. Blood Eye merely reined in his pony and sat waiting expressionlessly to see what was going to happen. His specialty was killing, not chasing. Anybody could chase down prey.
It took special talent like his to elevate killing to an art form.
The lone man dropped the lead rope and abandoned his pack mule. One of Druke’s men stopped to take charge of the animal, but the others raced around the rock to continue the chase. A couple minutes later, they returned with the captive riding along in the center of the little group. Terror twisted the man’s bearded face into grotesque lines.
Druke regarded the man solemnly. “Do I know you?”
“N-no, sir. My name’s Ned Harris. But I know who you are. You’re Jebediah Druke!”
Even though the man was terrified of him, Druke was gratified to hear that Harris knew who he was. In the back of his mind was the idea that he would make himself a very rich man by taking over the valley and all the fur trade in it, and once he had amassed a big enough fortune he would return to the East in triumph. Everybody would know his name once he was one of the wealthiest men in the country. He’d be as famous as John Jacob Astor himself!
But Druke never let himself dwell on those thoughts for very long. He couldn’t achieve his goals unless he kept all his attention on the job at hand, and that was to make sure King’s Crown was under his complete control.
“That’s right,” he said to Ned Harris. “
I’m Jebediah Druke. This is my valley, and those are my furs you’ve got in your packs, Harris. You were trying to sneak out of here with them, weren’t you?”
“I . . . I really need the money, Mr. Druke,” Harris said. “And when I missed joinin’ up with them others—” He stopped short and looked even more horrified, as he realized that he had said too much.
Druke’s interest quickened as he leaned forward in the saddle. “What others?” he asked harshly.
“I . . . I can tell you,” Harris said, “if you’ll promise not to kill me—”
“Are you trying to bargain with me?” Druke roared. “I’m not haggling with you, Harris!” He jerked one of his pistols from his belt and pointed it at the cringing trapper as he eared back the hammer. “Tell me what you’re talking about, or I’ll blow you right out of the saddle.” He had no doubt that Harris wasn’t brave enough to defy the ruthless men who had captured him.
He wasn’t surprised when the trapper babbled, “I’ll tell you everything, Mr. Druke, everything!”
Druke lowered the pistol and gave him a curt nod. “Go ahead.”
“Some of the other fellas who’ve been trappin’ here in the valley had the idea of gettin’ together to take their pelts out . . .”
The story poured from Harris’s mouth. According to the terrified trapper, eight men had banded together so they could put up a fight if Druke tried to stop them from leaving King’s Crown with their pelts. The one called Karnes had approached Harris about joining them and Harris had agreed to do so, but his saddle horse had had a loose shoe and that had delayed him and made him miss the rendezvous. So he had set out alone in the hope that maybe he could catch up to the others before they left the valley.
Instead, he had run smack-dab into Druke and his men. That was bad luck for Harris, Druke reflected wryly when Harris’s voice trailed off nervously.
He recognized a few of the names Harris mentioned—Monkton, Karnes, Cassidy, Summerville. “You say they were riding out of the valley today?”
“Yes, sir, that’s right.” Harris glanced up at the sun. “I’d say there’s a good chance they ain’t reached the pass yet, so they’re probably still in King’s Crown.”
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