Just keep Mount Elbert on my right shoulder, Preacher repeated over and over in a sort of chant. For all its size, the mountain loomed a dark gray, rather than the usual green-shrouded black. In fits and starts it disappeared entirely in the whirl of dancing snow. Preacher rode on, the comforting tug of the lead rope of his packhorse against his left thigh. In that blind world, all sense of time abandoned him.
Whenever he opened his heavy coat to check his timepiece, the resultant small movement of his hands jolted him. The numbness began again in his feet. Frostbite! The terribly real possibility of it ate at his vitals. His ears alternately burned and tingled with awful cold. They would be affected first. Preacher ground his teeth and urged Cougar onward. At last his fat old Hambleton registered the passage of an hour. His goal had to be near. Each breath of man and beast brought forth clouds of white. The wind increased steadily.
Preacher found himself leaning into it and realized with a start that he must have somehow circled, for the wind had been at his back from the beginning of the storm. How long had he ridden away from the safety of the cave? Accustomed, over long years in the High Lonesome, to suppressing desperation, he fought back the welling of panic from deep in his gut. Turn around, find Mount Elbert, and carry on.
It sounded so easy. Something a man could do in a fraction of a minute. But not in this raging blizzard. Preacher reversed himself easily enough. Then, try as he might, he could not find the nearby peak. Lowering clouds scudded through the snow now and blanked out everything. All he could think of was to keep going.
Another half hour crawled by, and Preacher began to note a lessening in the density of the snowfall. To his right the dark gray mass of Elbert swam out of the maelstrom. Reoriented once more, Preacher struck off a couple of points to the west of due south. At least by his reckoning, that’s what he did. Within a hundred heartbeats, a darker, regular shape showed itself intermittently through the gyrating clots of flakes. Preacher’s eyes stung and burned, and he blinked away more snow that assailed his face. Was that it?
Had he made it to his objective? A dark smear resolved into a straight, black line. A few labored paces farther, another smooth slash joined the other at a steep angle. A roofline, by God! Reserves of strength sent a warm flush through the cold body of Preacher. He could not contain the anxiety of his tormented flesh. He leaned forward in the saddle and peered intently.
Yes! There she stood, the tiny cabin perched on a shelf above the floor of the gorge. He had found his refuge. Straining his eyes, Preacher picked out the start of the ledge that led to the eroded cutback and the so welcome sight of the tiny cabin. He kneed Cougar toward it, hardly feeling the touch of his legs against the ribs of the horse. They made five small paces forward; then Cougar floundered in a snowbank.
With a frightened whinny, the animal sank to its neck in a hidden wash that paralleled the hillside. Preacher nearly pitched out of the saddle. He held on though and bent forward to scoop away enough of the powder to free Cougar’s shoulders. Next he worked a space that would allow him to apply a touch of spur. Cougar responded with a burst of nervous energy that sent a plume of snow above his rider’s head. The roan’s rear haunches bunched, and he plowed forward in a succession of sheets of white.
Gradually Cougar gained a purchase and surged onto the narrow ledge. Squealing in confused fright, the packhorse followed. In what seemed no time at all to Preacher, he reined up in front of the low, crudely made hut. Painfully, he dismounted. First, he eased an icy .44 Colt Walker from the holster and tried the small people’s door. He found it unlatched and it opened easily.
The whole front of the cabin swung outward, Preacher recalled, to give access to horses. He pulled the wooden pegs that held the structure together and eased the facing wall out enough to allow his animals to enter. Out of the direct wind, it felt a lot warmer. He used a lucifer to light a torch, and took note of signs of recent occupancy.
Dry wood had been stacked by a stone stove, which showed a residue of burned-out coals. The cobwebs had been cleared above a double bunk on one wall, and over the single one opposite. He led his animals farther back, where he found evidence of more ancient residents. Petroglyphs carved and painted into the walls of the cave spoke of visits by early man, hunt stories, and some sort of ritual. They made the hairs rise at the nape of Preacher’s neck.
After he had secured Cougar and the packhorse, unsaddled them and rubbed them down, he returned to the cabin portion. He quickly kindled a fire, retrieved his cooking gear from one of the parfleches on the pack frame and set to boiling coffee, made from snow scooped up outside. Real warmth flooded the secure little shelter.
When the first cup of strong, black brew had become a thing of the past, Preacher shredded thin strips from a dry-cured venison ham into a skillet and brought out a scrupulously clean bandana, into which he had tied half a dozen biscuits. He chose two and set them to warm on the rock beside the gridiron over the stove. A little grease from a crock, some dried hominy from a bag he soaked in a small clutch oven, and Preacher considered himself to be in hog heaven.
He poured another cup of coffee and settled back to enjoy it. Exhausted from his fight to resist the cold and battle the storm, Preacher’s head began to droop. His chin all but touched his chest when he jerked upright suddenly. What was that he had heard?
He thought chirping birds had disturbed his sleep. Yet, the storm still raged outside, and night was fast coming on. Birds did not twitter in such conditions. There. He heard it again. Preacher came to his boots and edged closer to the front of the cabin.
A more careful listen and the chirpings resolved into human voices. Small human voices. Little kidlet voices. Preacher reached up to wipe the astonishment off his face. What in Billy-be-damned would brat-kids be doing wandering around in such a blizzard?
* * *
Taking a covered, kerosene lantern from his pack rig, Preacher lighted it and bundled up before stepping out into the storm. He found it greatly reduced, the wind down and the snow light streaks in the twilight gloom. The voices came from below him. He could make out the words now.
“Help! Someone help us!”
“We’re gonna freeze out here, I just know it.”
“Oh, please, help. Hello! Someone, anyone, help us!”
Preacher investigated the ledge and found it still passable. He raised his lantern on high and called to the youngsters below. “Hello. Stay where you are. I’ll come to you.”
“Oh, thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you,” a squeaky voice babbled.
Within five minutes, Preacher had descended and located the children. They shivered and shook, and hugged him, fighting back tears. They stiffened, though, when Preacher asked their identity.
“I-I’m Terrance,” the slightly built boy replied in a gulp.
“I’m Victoria.”
Preacher forced a scolding frown. “What are a couple of babies like you doing out here in this storm?”
Terrance shoved out a thin lip in a pink pout. “I’m not a baby. I’m twelve.”
“Well, loo-di-doo. What about you, girlie?”
“I’m ten. Terrance is my brother. We’re cold, mister.”
“You can call me Preacher. C’mon, I’ve a warm place up yonder, and some victuals if you’re hungry.”
Terrance’s eyes widened, and he put a hand to his stomach. “Are we? We’re starved.”
Preacher led them back, moving as swiftly as he could in the drifted snow. He had taken note, in the lantern light, of their pale skin and blue-tinged lips. Both children shivered so violently, they appeared to be caught in some sort of seizure. Once secure inside the cabin, he poured them cups of coffee and urged them to drink. Their coats were threadbare, hardly more than rags. Terrance had strips of cloth wrapped around his feet instead of boots or shoes.
Recalling a pair of moccasins in his kit, Preacher rose and turned to both shaking youngsters. “Now, you strip outta them clothes, down to your long johns, and get close to the f
ire.”
Victoria flushed a deep red. “We ain’t got no long johns, not any kind of underclothes.”
“Well, then, wrap up in blankets and skin outta your clothes. They need to be warmed and dried. For you, boy, I got a pair of moccasins. They’s a tad mite too small for me, an’ I figger you’ll be able to swim in ’em. But, they’re rabbit-fur-lined and a lot warmer than those rags.”
Terrance lowered long, blond lashes over wide, pale blue eyes. “I’d be obliged, mister.”
“Call me Preacher. Ev’ryone else does.”
Terrance snapped his head upward at that. For all his furtive, rodentlike manner, he stared wide-eyed now at Preacher. “Gosh. You’re famous.”
It became Preacher’s turn to blush. “Some fool folks try to make it that way. But, I was alus just tryin’ to do my job as I saw fit. Let me git them moccasins, an’ then I’ll rustle you up some grub.”
He turned away to do as he had promised. The fire’s warmth, the food, and hot coffee did their job. The children became more animated. When Preacher considered them past the point of desperation, and relaxed enough to answer sensibly, he opened a little inquiry into their background.
“I know you said you were Terrance and Victoria. Only, what’s your last name?”
Terrance gave him that now-familiar ferret stare. “Are you a real preacher? A Bible-thumper?”
“Nope. I reckon I’m about as far away from that sort as a man can get. Though I do consider myself on good speakin’ terms with the Almighty.”
“What’s your name, then?” Terrance challenged.
Preacher hesitated a moment. “Arthur’s m’given name.”
“What’s your family name?” the boy persisted.
The mountain man puzzled over that a while. “Well, by dang, if I don’t think I’ve plumb forgot it. Folks have called me Preacher for so long, it’s sort of stuck.”
Terrance brightened. “Then, I reckon that’s the case with us. We don’t know what our family name is ... or even if we’ve got one.” He gave Preacher a “so there” look.
“I’ll buy that. Now, tell me, how come you were out in that tempest?”
“That what?” Victoria asked, puzzlement on her wide, clear face.
“How’d you come to be out in that blizzard?’
Terrance took up the answers. “We’ve been wandering around for days—weeks now. Those we were travelin’ with got lost in the woods. They stumbled around, and the food got real short,” the boy continued, his expression one of far-off construction. “When they runned clean out, they abandoned us. Just dropped us off in a canyon one day.”
Preacher scowled. That didn’t ring true. “Who were these folks?”
Terrance scrunched his high, smooth brow. “Some real mean fellers. They—they stole us from our home far, far away.”
This had begun to sound to Preacher like one of those melodramas in one of the Penny Dreadfuls. “An’ I suppose they made you do all sorts of awful things?”
“Ye—yes, sir,” Terrance acknowledged.
Preacher’s flinty eyes bore into the boy. “Like what?”
Terrance flinched. “No—nothin’ below the belt. Me an’ Vickie wouldn’t allow that.”
“If they were that mean, what choice would you have?” Preacher taunted, having not the least interest in pursuing the salacious topic he had introduced. He merely wanted a means of verifying the boy’s truthfulness.
“They—they really weren’t that mean until they got lost and ran short on food. One time they made us rob a cabin that the folks were away from. Another, they offered to sell us to some Injuns.” Preacher noted that Terrance would not look him directly in the eye. The boy’s own pale blue orbs shifted nervously as he related his tales of horror.
After half an hour of what Preacher considered the largest collection of fibs he had heard in a long time, during which Terrance continued to stuff himself with venison ham, the lad’s eyelids began to droop. Preacher took advantage of that to hustle them off to bed.
“Time to turn in, I’d say. Snow’ll be down enough by midday, so we can head out. You’d best roll up an’ get some sleep.”
Yawning, they agreed. Preacher saw them settle in, then curled up in his blankets, a thick buffalo robe over the top. After the day’s ordeal, sleep came quickly and went deep. Well into the night, when everyone should have been sound asleep, Preacher heard some creaking from the twin bunks across the room. He breathed deeply and turned his head that way in time to see two small, naked forms rushing swiftly toward him. It quickly became obvious they intended to subdue and rob him. The larger of the pair competently held a long, thin-bladed knife.
4
Although loath to harm children, Preacher had to fight for his life. For all her frail build and small size, Vickie turned out to be a wildcat. Scratching and biting were her game. She raked Preacher’s left cheek with bitten nails, hardly long enough to break the skin. She bit him in the shoulder when he attempted to throw her off him. Screaming a blue string of obscenities Preacher doubted she knew the meaning of, she kicked him in the ribs with a bare toe.
For all of Vickie’s ferocity, Terry proved the greater danger. The knife he wielded flicked through the air an inch from Preacher’s eyes, then whipped downward, a hairbreadth from the skin over his ribs.
“Dammit!” Preacher roared. “What’s got into you? Leave be. I ain’t gonna hurt you.”
“We want it all, everything you’ve got,” Terry shrieked.
Preacher grabbed his wrist behind the hilt of the knife and bent the arm away with ease. Vickie kicked Preacher in the groin. Hot pain exploded through Preacher’s body He gave a shake to Terry and flung the boy across the cabin. The kid cried out when he struck the rickety table and sent it crashing to the floor. He quickly followed while Preacher came to his feet.
Small pebbles bit into the bare soles, and Preacher was thankful that he wore moccasins most of the summer and spent time barefoot. Vickie came at him again. She bit him on the belly, just above the drawstring top of his long john bottoms.
“Ouch! Don’t do that, dammit,” he barked.
Preacher’s thumb and forefinger found the nerves at the hinge of Vickie’s jaw and pressed firmly Her mouth flew open, and he yanked her off her feet. She instantly began to kick. Sighing away the last fragment of any regret, Preacher began to administer to her a solid, tooth-rattling shaking.
It reduced the slender girl to hysterical tears in a matter of seconds. He gave her a single, hard swat on her bare bottom and hurled her onto the upper bunk across the room. “Now, you stay there, hear?” he growled.
Preacher turned in time to see Terry lunge at him. He sidestepped and smacked the youngster alongside the head. Stunned, Terry lost his grip on the knife. Preacher yanked Terry high in the air and shook him until sobs nearly choked the boy. With them both relatively calmed, Preacher lighted his lantern and sat them, draped in blankets, at the table.
“Someone goin’ to tell me what that was all about?”
Terry and Vickie exchanged silent glances. Preacher leaned close to their faces.
“You’d best one of you open up. I don’t abide sneak-thieves. Nor those who abuse a body’s hospitality. Turns out you’re guilty of both. I promise it will go easier if you do. You”—he nodded to Terry—“you said I was famous. Then you must know that if I am who I said I was, an’ you crossed me, I would squeeze the life out of both of you and never blink an eye. I could skin you alive, an’ not feel a pang.” He loomed over Vickie. “I could eat your liver.”
Vickie turned deathly pale, and her lips trembled. “Oh, no—no. Please!”
“Then you’d best be tellin’ me what’s true and what’s not.”
Terry mopped at the single tear that ran down his soft cheek. “We—we were abandoned by our parents more’n a year ago. They hated us, said we were even more violence prone and bloodthirsty than they themselves. There weren’t no other mean fellers. We been out here ever since. We’ve lived
since by takin’ things from unsuspecting travelers we come upon who were dumb enough to take us in.”
“Like me.” Preacher prodded, his anger not entirely quenched.
“No, not like you,” Terry hastened to correct. “You’re different altogether. Not like them at all. I—I kinda like you, an’ I’m sorry we tried to rob you.”
“If I hadn’t whupped you, would you be sayin’ that?”
Terry looked at Preacher in naked horror, and his face dissolved. “You—you’re right. We’re both awful, ugly kids.” He buried his face in his hands and sobbed wretchedly, no longer a would-be killer, only a small boy alone and frightened.
Uncertain as to what to do, Preacher decided to hog-tie them for the rest of the night and take them along with him to Trout Creek Pass. Surely someone at the trading post would be able and willing to take charge of them.
* * *
Pacing the polished granite floor caused the purple stripe on the hem of the tall man’s toga to ripple like a following sea. Through the window, beyond his broad shoulders, the western peaks of the Ferris Range gave off a rose glow from the rising sun opposite them. The newborn orb struck highlights from the rings that adorned six of his eight fingers and the gold and silver ornaments on his bare forearms. Anger gave his long, narrow face a scarlet hue that clashed with his sandy blond hair. He reached the limit of the large, airy room and turned back. Before he spoke he drove a fist into an open palm.
“Five men have failed to return and no one says anything about it? Why was I not told of this at once?” he demanded of the other man in the atrium.
“The centurion of the guard did not consider it an important event, First Citizen.”
The sandy-haired man shook his head sadly as he examined the other. He saw a burly man, with wide-set legs, thick and muscular, protected by shiny brass greaves. A barrel chest, encased in the brass cuirass of a Roman officer, rode above a trim waist and was topped by a full neck and large, broad-faced head. The horsehair-crested helmet tucked under one huge arm seemed a part of him. His white and red kilt was skirted by brass-studded leather strips. On his feet, the plain, brown leather marching sandals. Taken together these factors made him every inch the mighty general of the Legions of Nova Roma that he was. Yet, he allowed laxness and mistakes to weaken those powerful forces.
Preacher and the Mountain Caesar Page 4