Not sure why he wanted to do that, it seemed like he ought to stay right where he was, hidden from Druke’s men. They hadn’t found him so far. Maybe they weren’t even looking for him.
Something drove him on. Guilt, maybe. He hadn’t even tried to help his friends. He felt around his waist and discovered that his pistol was still there. He could put up a fight if he had to.
That thought made a grin stretch across his rawboned face. Or maybe it was just a grimace.
He could make out some of the words he heard. A heavy voice ordered, “Don’t leave any of those pelts behind.”
Druke. Karnes would have bet on it. He had never actually heard the man speak, but the tone of command was obvious.
Another man asked, “What about our men who were killed?”
“We’ll take them back to the fort and bury them, of course,” Druke replied.
It was definitely a savage grin that curved Karnes’s lips. So some of Druke’s men had been killed during the ambush, he thought. That was good. He wasn’t quite sure how it had happened, but it was good to know, anyway.
“And the prisoners?”
“Blood Eye will take care of them.”
Karnes stopped right where he was. He had heard of Blood Eye; most everybody in King’s Crown had. The renegade Crow had a fearsome reputation, so bad, in fact, that it was almost tempting to doubt if he existed. Blood Eye was like a made-up monster that parents used to scare their kids into behaving.
Karnes realized that Blood Eye was real and worked for Jebediah Druke, just like the rumors said. And he had prisoners. Some of the trappers who had tried to slip out of the valley? Karnes wondered. He didn’t see how it could be anybody else, but he was surprised Druke hadn’t just killed them outright, instead of taking them prisoner.
Curiosity impelled the wounded trapper to crawl a few more feet. He reached the top of the slope and peered out through a narrow gap in the brush. He stayed back far enough that he didn’t think he would be noticed.
The rocks where he had taken cover earlier blocked some of his view, but he could see enough of the trail to tell what was going on. Druke and his men were mopping up after the ambush. A couple of them had gathered up the pack animals that were loaded with pelts.
Bloody corpses were scattered everywhere. Karnes bit back a sorrowful groan at the sight of his dead friends.
The earlier mention of prisoners made him search for them. He spotted a couple saddled horses with men slung over their backs and lashed into place. The prisoners didn’t move any, so Karnes figured they were unconscious.
An Indian on a pony sat next to the two horses and held their reins. That would be Blood Eye, Karnes thought. He couldn’t get a good look at the renegade Crow from where he was, but what he saw was enough to make a chill go through him.
Or maybe that was just the loss of blood. Karnes didn’t think so, though.
He stiffened as he caught sight of Druke. The big man rode slowly on the trail with arrogance fairly radiating from him.
A smaller, bearded man rode beside him and asked, “How about them trappers? We buryin’ all of them, too?”
“Leave them for the wolves and the buzzards,” Druke snapped. “That ought to be a lesson for the others still in this valley. They’ll know they can’t defy me anymore.”
A self-satisfied smile creased Druke’s brutal face as he went on. “This has been quite a day, Sam. Close to a dozen enemies wiped out, and now Gardner and his pet redskin are in my hands, too. He’s the one who’s been keeping the other trappers stirred up against me. Once Blood Eye is through with them, that’ll be the end of it. King’s Crown will be completely mine from now on.”
“You’re right, Jebediah,” Druke’s lieutenant said instantly. “Too bad Blood Eye didn’t grab those two before they managed to kill some good men.”
“Their deaths will be avenged.” Druke’s voice began to fade as he and his companion rode away from the ambush site. “Blood Eye will make Gardner and Gray Otter pay . . .”
Weariness caught up to Karnes. He saw Druke’s men ride by with the pack animals behind them, and then he closed his eyes and lowered his head. His strength had deserted him and taken with it any thought of taking a shot at Druke.
That opportunity had already passed him by.
For an unknowable amount of time, Karnes drifted in and out of consciousness. When full awareness finally came over him again, shadows had settled down over the land. Night would fall soon.
Karnes heard the steady clip-clop of hoofbeats as someone else rode along the trail. One of Druke’s men had come back for something, he thought. Maybe even Druke himself.
Karnes closed his fingers around the pistol butt at his waist and summoned every bit of strength he had left in his body. He could tell from the sound of the horse that only one rider was out there.
If he could take the man by surprise and get off one shot, maybe he could redeem the honor he had lost by failing his friends earlier.
One shot, that was all he asked.
CHAPTER 20
Earlier in the afternoon, Preacher had heard shots coming from this direction, enough shots that he knew they meant real trouble, but he was too far away to reach the place quickly.
Even though the shooting had stopped, he still wanted to investigate, so he’d turned around and ridden back toward the pass. He hoped that he wouldn’t come upon the scene of a massacre, but that seemed like a distinct possibility.
He couldn’t help but remember the group of trappers he had encountered earlier. They had hoped to slip out of the valley without Druke finding out about it, and at the time it had seemed like they might get away with it.
But Druke was on the prowl in King’s Crown. The grisly fates of Enos Mitchell and John Burton were proof enough of that. Druke could have gotten wind of Monkton’s party somehow and moved to intercept them.
Given the number of shots he’d heard, Preacher figured that was the most likely explanation.
He hadn’t found the location of the battle yet when dusk began to settle in. Soon he would need to find a place to camp. But he could search a little more first, he told himself.
It was a few minutes later when Preacher saw the huddled shapes sprawled in the trail up ahead. He muttered a curse. The grim sight was exactly what he’d expected to see . . . and hoped that he wouldn’t. He heeled Horse into a little faster pace.
Suddenly, a man burst out of the brush to the right of the trail and waved a pistol at him. “You lowdown mongrel!” the man shouted hoarsely.
Before he could pull the trigger, before Preacher could even swing his rifle in that direction, a gray streak flashed through the air. Dog slammed into the man and knocked him down. The pistol discharged, but the ball went harmlessly into the air.
A moment later, the big cur would have torn out the man’s throat, but Preacher yelled, “Dog, no!” before the slashing fangs could do their bloody work. In the fading light, he had caught enough of a glimpse of the man’s face to recognize him as Pete Karnes.
As he swung down quickly from the saddle, the mountain man called, “Dog, guard!”
Dog backed off a couple feet and stood there with his hackles raised. He growled, but didn’t make another move to attack Karnes.
Preacher ran to the fallen man and dropped to a knee beside him. The left side of Karnes’s shirt was dark with blood.
Dog hadn’t done that, which meant that Karnes had been wounded earlier in the battle Preacher had heard. He slipped a hand under Karnes’s head and lifted it a little. “Pete, can you hear me? Pete?”
Karnes’s face was drawn and haggard. His eyes were closed. Judging by the gory stain in his shirt, he had lost enough blood that it could have killed him. He clung to life, though, his chest rising and falling shallowly.
After a moment, Karnes’s eyelids fluttered and then lifted. He couldn’t seem to focus very well, but he rasped, “P-Preacher?”
“That’s right, pard. You hang on. I’ll take care o
f you, and you’ll be all right.”
“I . . . I’m shot.”
“I can see that. I reckon Druke ambushed you.”
“Y-yeah. Ever ybody’s . . . dead . . . except for . . . Gardner . . . and that Indian.”
“Gardner and Gray Otter?”
That was news to Preacher. He hadn’t known that Gardner and Gray Otter were in the vicinity, let alone with Monkton’s bunch.
But he could sort that out later, he told himself. At that moment Karnes needed help.
Preacher got his arms around the wounded man and lifted him with a grunt of effort. Preacher’s rangy body held a lot of strength, but Karnes wasn’t a small man, and semiconscious, he was dead weight.
Still, Preacher didn’t struggle too much in carrying him to a grassy area not far from the trail. He lowered Karnes carefully to the ground, then fetched a blanket from his outfit, folded it to make a pillow, and slipped it under Karnes’s head.
With that done, Preacher gathered some sticks for a fire. Even though having a fire at night could be dangerous, the light in the sky was fading fast and he had to be able to see in order to tend to the trapper’s wound.
When he had the flames crackling and leaping, he tried to lift Karnes’s shirt so he could see how bad the injury was. The blood had dried and the shirt was stuck to the wound. Preacher fetched his canteen, poured water on the shirt, and soaked it for a while before he carefully worked the shirt loose.
He saw where the rifle ball had gone into Karnes’s side, but he didn’t find an exit wound. That wasn’t good. It meant the ball was still inside Karnes’s body. The chances of him surviving dropped even more. Most men would have been dead already.
Preacher had dug rifle balls out of men in the past, but not from their vitals. If he went to rooting around in there, he would do more harm than good.
There was really nothing he could do for Karnes except keep him comfortable. He lifted Karnes’s head again and dribbled a little water into his mouth.
Karnes roused from his stupor. He blinked his eyes and peered up at Preacher with what seemed like a little more comprehension than he had displayed earlier. “Preacher?” he whispered.
“I’m right here, Pete,” the mountain man said.
“I’m hurt . . . pretty bad . . . aren’t I?”
“Bad enough,” Preacher admitted. “Wish I had some whiskey to give you to help with the pain, but I don’t.”
“That’s . . . all right. To tell you . . . the truth . . . it don’t really hurt . . . that much. Just feels . . . cold.”
“I’ll get a blanket for you.”
“Wouldn’t do . . . any good,” Karnes insisted. “Chill’s comin’ . . . from inside.”
Preacher supposed that was right. A time or two in the past, he had been badly hurt and lost quite a bit of blood. He remembered how it felt.
In the time that Karnes had left, Preacher wanted to find out as much as he could about what had happened. He knew that was callous of him, but since there wasn’t anything he could do for Karnes anyway, it made sense to find out what he could.
“Listen, Pete, I need to talk to you. Did Will Gardner and Gray Otter join up with your bunch?”
“No, we . . . we never saw ’em.” Karnes’s voice was weak, but he struggled to go on. “They must’ve . . . heard the shootin’ . . . and come to see . . . what Druke was doin’. Those two . . . have been devilin’ Druke . . . for months now.”
“How did Druke capture them?”
“Don’t know . . . Must’ve happened . . . while I was passed out. After I . . . got shot off my horse . . . I hunted cover . . . and wound up in . . . a gully. I heard Druke and his men . . . talkin’ . . . while they were gettin’ . . . all those pelts. Druke said . . . Blood Eye would take care of... Gardner and Gray Otter.”
“Could you tell if they were hurt?”
Karnes’s head moved slightly from side to side. “They were tied onto . . . a couple horses.... Looked like they were . . . out cold . . . but I don’t know if . . . they were hurt worse’n that.”
“Looks like I’m gonna have to find Fort Druke and see if I can give ’em a hand.”
“Thought you were . . . lookin’ for somebody else.”
“I was,” Preacher said. “I reckon I still am, but that job will have to wait. You boys aren’t the first ones Druke and his bunch jumped today. They killed a couple trappers named Mitchell and Burton.”
“Don’t reckon I . . . know ’em.”
“Blood Eye tortured them,” Preacher said bluntly, “but Mitchell was still alive when I found them. I promised him I’d go after Druke and Blood Eye and settle the score.” He paused. “Now there’s an even bigger one to settle. I figure Gardner and that Indian pard of his will make good allies when I set out to do that.”
“You plan on . . . puttin’ Druke outta business?”
“You’re damned right I do. I figure I’ll put him under the ground while I’m at it. Somebody needs to bring justice back to King’s Crown.”
Karnes managed to chuckle. “Now that’s the best news . . . I’ve heard all . . .” His voice trailed off and his head sagged. A sigh came from him.
Preacher knew that sound.
Karnes was dead.
Even though the trapper could no longer hear him, Preacher said, “Don’t worry, Pete, I’ll see to it that you’re laid to rest proper, and Monkton and the others, too. King’s Crown won’t be a bad place to spend eternity, once I’ve sent Druke and Blood Eye and the rest of those varmints to hell where they belong.”
He closed Karnes’s sightlessly staring eyes and stood up. Digging graves for all the trappers would take quite awhile and wouldn’t be that easy by firelight, so Preacher figured he’d better get started. He couldn’t leave the bodies lying out overnight for scavengers.
He hoped Barnabas Pendexter would understand why the search for his missing son had to be postponed. Druke’s reign of terror couldn’t be allowed to continue unchecked. Someone had to stop him. It seemed to Preacher like he’d been elected for the job.
With some help from Will Gardner and Gray Otter, he thought, if he could get those two out of Druke’s hands.
CHAPTER 21
Will’s head pounded. Each beat of his heart made it feel like his brain might swell to the point that it would explode and blow his skull apart. At the same time, sickness roiled his stomach. It was all he could do to control the feeling and keep from throwing up his guts all the way down to his boots.
All that misery was a direct result of being thrown facedown over a saddle, tied into place, and forced to travel that way for miles and miles.
Gray Otter was in the same position. When Will had regained consciousness, he had been able to lift his head enough to catch a glimpse of buckskin-clad legs dangling next to the side of another horse being led along a trail. They had to belong to Gray Otter, who had to be alive.
Will wasn’t going to allow himself to consider any other option.
The last thing he remembered was Blood Eye choking him and banging his head on the ground. He was more than a little surprised that the Crow hadn’t gone ahead and killed him.
He figured Blood Eye had spared his life and that of Gray Otter because he wanted to torture them to death. It was a chilling realization, but Will knew there was a good chance it was true.
The grisly idea would appeal to Jebediah Druke, too. The would-be ruler of King’s Crown held a powerful grudge against the two of them. Surely he would enjoy watching them be killed inch by agonizing inch. Druke might even make an entertainment out of it for his men, like the ancient Romans with their arenas where prisoners suffered bloody deaths to the delight of the decadent crowds.
There was no use speculating about such things, Will told himself. For the moment, he was helpless and couldn’t do anything to help himself or Gray Otter, no matter what gruesome fate Druke and Blood Eye had planned for them.
That might not always be the case, though. Will had to be patient, wait for an open
ing, no matter how small....
Night had fallen and the riders were still moving. They seemed to know the route quite well and didn’t need light to see where they were going. That told Will they were on their way to Fort Druke.
More than once, he and Gray Otter had spied on the ragtag collection of cabins that Druke fancied to be a fort. They had talked about sneaking around and setting fire to the buildings, but Will knew that wouldn’t have done any good in the long run. Druke’s men would just chop down some of the trees that covered the valley and build more cabins.
After what seemed like an eternity, the group finally came to a stop.
Druke ordered, “Cut those two loose and get them off the horses.”
Some of Druke’s men started to follow the command, but a harsh voice instantly responded, “Stay away. I will take care of them.”
“You’ve done enough work for one day, Blood Eye,” Druke said. “Somebody else can handle the prisoners for a while.”
“No!” The Crow was adamant. “They are my captives, Druke, not yours.”
“All right, all right,” Druke grumbled. “Do whatever you please.”
“I always do,” Blood Eye said coldly.
A moment later, Will felt a hard hand grip his shirt. Blood Eye used a knife to saw through the rawhide lashings that held the young man on the horse.
Will slid off, with Blood Eye giving him a shove so that he landed on his rear end instead of his head. The jolt went all the way through him.
Will’s hands and feet were still tied. Blood Eye took hold of his ankles and dragged him away from the horses. Somebody lit a lantern, and its flickering light revealed a pole corral where Druke and his men kept their horses.
A couple thick posts made from the trunks of saplings had been hammered into the ground near the corral. Blood Eye dragged Will over to one of them, leaned his back against the post, and tied him to it.
While Blood Eye returned to the horses to fetch Gray Otter, Will tested his bonds and found them to be so tight and so skillfully tied the chances of him being able to work loose were practically nonexistent.
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