“Git out there, woman,” he bellowed as he charged, a pistol in each hand.
First one barked, then the other; lead cracked overhead and Terry scrunched lower behind the tree. The ramrod still in the barrel of the Hawken, Preacher set it aside and answered the two-person charge with his .44 Walker Colt. A freak change of direction on the part of Silas Tucker caused Preacher to blow the heel off the degenerate’s right boot.
Preacher exchanged six-guns as Tucker and the woman bore down on him. Biting his lip, Preacher sighted in on the center of the woman’s chest. She fired at him, missed by a long ways, and Preacher saw her golden hair streaming from under a bonnet. The mother of Terry and Vickie! Imperceptibly, Preacher changed the aiming point of his Walker Colt and triggered a round.
Hot lead tore a shallow crease along Purity Tucker’s rib cage. She stumbled and sprawled headlong in the dirt. “Momma!” Vickie screamed.
Silas Tucker did not even miss a stride. Hobbling, he came on, determined to end it right there and then. Preacher was glad to oblige him. His .44 Colt bucked once, then again. Silas Tucker jolted to a stop, turned partly away from Preacher and looked down in amazement at the twin holes, which formed a figure eight in the center of his chest. He made a feeble attempt to raise his weapon again, then crumpled bonelessly into a heap on the ground, while his lifeblood pumped into his chest through a shattered aorta.
Made haunting by distance and the echo effect of the basin, a curse descended upon the living in the clearing. “You baaastarrrd!” A shot followed.
Calmly, Preacher completed the loading drill for his Hawken and hefted it to his shoulder. “You up above. You can give it up now. No harm be done to you if you do.”
He waited for a reply. It gave Faith Tucker time to reload. A shower of bark slashed down on Preacher and Terry. Preacher grunted his reluctance away and took aim. He fired with cool precision. A weak wail that wound down to breathless silence answered his shot.
“D’ya git her?” Terry asked hopefully.
Preacher sighed heavily. “I reckon so, though I sure am sorry to have had to do that. Killin’ a woman’s not somethin’ a man lives with easily.”
“She treated us as mean as Silas did.” To Preacher, Terry’s justification lacked conviction enough to vindicate what had been done. “What about our momma?” the boy asked.
Recalling the grazing wound he had given the woman, Preacher came to his boots. He swung a leg over the downed tree and cleared it with ease. Terry quickly followed. Rapid steps brought them to the side of the fallen woman. Preacher knelt and felt her wrist for a pulse. He found one, strong enough, if a bit rapid. She moaned, turned her head, and opened one eye.
“My babies?” she asked first off, surprising Preacher. “Are they all right?”
“Sure are, ma’am,” Preacher assured her. “Terry’s right here beside me.”
“Silas would have killed them. Sure enough that black-haired bitch sister of his would have.”
Preacher broke the news with the usual mountain man’s lack of delicacy. “She won’t be doin’ no killin’ anymore.”
“She’s dead?”
A straight face hid Preacher’s feelings. “Yep. She was tryin’ to take my head off with that rifle.”
“She is—er—was a good shot.”
“Shootin’ downhill throws a body off some. Now, there’s somethin’ I need ask of you. In fact, I damn well insist you do it. Once I get you patched up, I want you to go back for the rest of the children and lead them to the trading post at Trout Creek Pass. If you have any love for your own two, you had best do as I say, and mend your ways. You’re gonna have to do that, and give them the care and love they deserve.”
“They have done some terrible things,” Purity offered in the faint hope of sloughing off her responsibilities.
“I know that. But they’s youngins an’ were forced into the life they led. You’re not and nuther am I. We got rules to live by, and for you to teach this pair. Let me get on about fixin’ you up.”
“What if I just leave here an’ keep on goin’?” Purity sought yet for a way out.
Preacher cut his hard, gray gaze to her eyes. He remained silent long enough to cause Purity to flinch. “Well, consider this. If you have any idea of duckin’ out, with or without those other youngsters, keep in mind that I will hunt you down and drag you in to the tradin’ post, where they’ll be obliged to put a rope around your neck.”
Purity Tucker swallowed hard and nodded her understanding. With her children gathered around, Purity sat still while Preacher cleaned up the shallow gouge in her side, packed it with a poultice of sulphur, moss and lichens, and bandaged it. Then he lighted the fire and set out the makings for coffee.
“Come morning, you set out north; we’re headed south.” Purity started to raise her voice in protest. Preacher showed her the palm of one hand to silence her. “Nuf said. Now, do I have to tie you to a tree?”
Purity shook her head and settled down to sip coffee in silence. An hour later everyone lay down for a restless sleep.
Dawn seemed to come extra early. After one of Preacher’s substantial breakfasts, Purity sent Terry to recover the horses used by her and the dead pair. Preacher admonished the boy to gather all of the weapons. When Terry returned, Preacher tightened the cinch on one animal and helped Purity to mount. Without even a good-bye to her children, she rode away to the north.
Terry turned imploring blue eyes on Preacher. “Think she will really come back?”
Preacher shrugged and snorted. “I wouldn’t bet more’n a nickel on it.”
With that he assisted the boy and his sister into the saddles of the newly acquired mounts, and the three rode off toward Trout Creek Pass.
* * *
Philadelphia Braddock looked up from the moccasin he was repairing on the front porch of the trading post at Trout Creek Pass. He worked with a bison bone awl and a curved, fish rib bone needle. He sewed the sinew thread in precise, neat stitches. He was putting on thick, smoke-cured, bull hide “traveling” soles. The soft, distant sound of approaching horses had attracted his attention. Philadelphia squinted his bright green eyes. The brown flecks in them danced in the tears this produced. He peered over the top of the hexagonal half-glasses perched on the bulb of his nose.
From the cut of him, that big feller in the lead could be Preacher, he reckoned. Philadelphia ignored a small twinge in his shoulder wound, which was mending nicely under the care of an unlicensed doctor, who had journeyed west, turned to trapping and later to hard drink. To his credit, the pill-roller abstained religiously whenever he had a patient who needed the best of his professional skills. Yep, he saw more clearly now. Couldn’t be anyone else.
Philadelphia shook his long, auburn hair in eagerness, which made his over-large ears, with their long, floppy lobes, flutter like wings. He snorted his impatience as it seemed to take forever for Preacher and the smaller folk with him to descend the high grade to the northern saddle out of the pass. Did his eyes play tricks, or did those folk ride some ways behind Preacher?
No, he realized a minute later as Preacher drew near enough to make out his face. They were kidfolk. Preacher with a pair of brats? And whose, at that? Be they his? Philadelphia literally danced with urgency, yet he knew he would learn the answers soon enough. Preacher swung clear of the main trail and entered through the gateway of the palisade that surrounded the trading post compound. Already, his keen vision had identified Philadelphia, and he waved enthusiastically to his old friend.
“Whoo-weee! Preacher, as I live an’ breathe,” Philadelphia exploded, unable to contain himself.
When Preacher reined in and dismounted to tie off his big-chested roan stallion, Philadelphia rushed forward with a wild war whoop. Preacher spun and met him midway. Both had their arms extended and charged into a chest-banging embrace that raised a cloud of brown around them. At once they started a toe-stomping fandango that raised more dust. The longer they went on, the more violent their greeting
became. Concern began to crease the high, smooth forehead of Terry Tucker. At last he could contain himself no longer.
“Hey! Hey, mister, go easy,” he shouted at Philadelphia. “He’s been wounded.”
“Hell, that’s never slowed Preacher none, boy. Mind yer business an’ we’ll mind ourn.”
All of the improved deportment he had learned in Preacher’s company deserted Terry. He looped the reins around the saddle horn and jumped off the back of the horse acquired from the Tuckers. “That done it!” his squeaky voice declared. “Damn you, old man, I’m gonna kick you right in the balls!”
Terry charged forward, only to be plucked off his feet by Preacher, who grabbed the boy by the tail of his shirt and the waist of his trousers. Terry squirmed and made ineffectual thrashing with his legs and arms. “Lemme go! Lemme go. I’ll fix ’em, Preacher.”
Their hugging welcome ended by Terry’s intervention, Philadelphia Braddock stepped back and turned those startling green eyes on the lad. He cocked his head to one side. “Whose your bodyguard, Preacher?”
“He’s not a bodyguard,” Preacher growled. “He’s a bother.”
Philadelphia gave Preacher a fish eye. “Since when you be travelin’ with children?”
“Ain’t the first, won’t be the last time, nuther,” Preacher rumbled.
For some reason, Preacher felt loath to go into all the lurid details behind Terry and Vickie. Philadelphia would find out soon enough, and no call to embarrass the youngsters. He clapped Philadelphia on the shoulder and changed the subject.
“I got a powerful thirst, Philadelphia. Be you buyin’?”
“I be. Best get these babies some milk.” He made a face at the prospect. “An’ a sugar stick to suck on; then we can settle down to some serious depletin’ o’ Duffey’s supply of Monongahela whiskey.”
Preacher lowered Terry to the ground and looked hard into the boy’s eyes. “You gonna behave yourselves? Not gonna pull a stunt like last time?”
Terry shrugged skinny shoulders. “We ain’t got nowheres to go.”
“That mean you’ll stay?” Philadelphia cocked an eyebrow at Preacher’s manner of speech.
“Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fine. Now, go help Vickie down an’ scoot inside. Ask Duffey for something to eat. C’mon, Philadelphia. Let’s go wet our throats. By the by, I see you look a mite peaked. Been off your feed a little?”
“Not perzactly. It’s a long story. One best told over a flagon of rye.”
Once settled at a crude table in one corner of the saloon side of the trading post, Philadelphia related his tale of the strange city and the stranger men, how they dressed and acted and that they spoke in a funny, foreign tongue. When he had finished, they drank in silence for several long minutes while Preacher wondered at it. At last he made up his mind.
Slapping a big palm on the damp wooden tabletop, Preacher spoke plain and clear while he looked Philadelphia straight in the eye, his own orbs hot with invitation. “I reckon I needs to see these people. I want to learn all I can about them.”
“Suits. I got my curiosities aroused, too.”
“There’s more. That city you told me about. Seems I’ve heard of it somewhere before. Something is nigglin’ in the back of my brain pan, says I’ve seen such a place, or read about it. Buildings is all white, right?”
“Seen ’em with my own eyes,” Philadelphia assured him.
“Hummm.” Preacher drained his pewter flagon and hoisted it to signal for another round. Ruben Duffey complied with a will. When he departed, Preacher went on. “Thing that really rubs me where I cain’t itch is all these folks, an’ all those buildin’s bein’ out here in the first place, an’ me not knowin’ a thing about it.”
Philadelphia tried to hide his own eagerness. “Well, I cain’t say I blame you a bit for that.”
“Tell you what, Philadelphia. When that shoulder wound you got from them downright unfriendly fellers heals, I’d be mightly beholden if you were to lead me to this strange city growin’ in the wilderness.”
For an instant, relief flashed in those brown-flecked, green eyes. “You got yourself a deal, Preacher, that you surely do.”
* * *
Chariot wheels rattled noisily over the smooth, nicely set cobbles of the wide Via lulius, which led to the foot of the Pontis Martius—the Hill of Mars—and the gladiator school of Justinius Bulbus that nestled in its shadow. Swelled with pride, young Quintus Faustus Americus held the reins as he stood beside his father. Although usually the task for slaves, driving the chariot had made the day into a golden one for the patrician boy. His bony chest swelled even more when he slowed the horses at the proper time and received a fond pat on the head from his father.
He halted the animals in good order and stopped the vehicle without incident, due to the hand brake, an improvement over the original design. Bulbus stood in the gateway to welcome them. Born Able Wade, Justinius Bulbus looked the ideal director of a school for gladiators. His thick, burly body, low brow, jutting jaw and hairy ears made a clear statement of his past as a brawler and a thug.
Cunning and ruthlessness lighted his pale blue eyes, rather than intelligence. When recruited out of the dockside slums of Boston by Marcus Quintus, Able Wade had been more than enthused by the proposition made to him. He had babbled on and on about various weapons and fighting styles of the ancient gladiators. It became clear to Quintus that Wade had likewise shared the benefits of a classical education. Only the lack of a keen intelligence, and his father’s sudden loss of a vast fortune, such as that of the Reardon’s of Virginia, had ended that schooling abruptly and left Able in the lowest strata of society. Quintus could not have cared less. So long as the newly named Justinius Bulbus could run a school to teach men exotic ways to slay their fellows, he would be amply rewarded. Quintus now returned the greeting salute of the master of games and dismounted from the chariot.
“You are just in time, First Citizen.” Bulbus had had little difficulty becoming fluent in Latin, recalling snippets of it from his years in the finest schools. “We are about to begin the morning session. Come, join me in my box.”
“With pleasure, good Justinius. You know my son, Quintus Faustus?”
“Of course—of course. A bright lad.” Bulbus peered closely at his guest. “He certainly takes avid interest in the games.”
“That he does. The games to honor his birthday are coming soon. I am sure you have prepared a magnificent program?”
“Oh, yes. You see, we have this new contingent of Christians. I’m sure the boy will fair pop a—ah—button at the spectacle I have planned.”
Faustus brightened even more; his face writhed in expectation. “Christians, Father? How wonderful.” He clapped his hands in emphasis.
Bulbus directed his important guests to the small, private box that overlooked the practice arena. Exactly one-third the size of the coliseum, it afforded space for only two pairs to fight at once, or for rehearsal of half of one of the “historicals” or farces at one time. The rest of the participants in the latter two presentations looked on from behind bars set into one wall of the arena. They studied the movements of their counterparts, then changed places and did the routine themselves. Final rehearsals would naturally be held in the coliseum. Bulbus made sweeping gestures to cushioned chairs in the front row, and father and son seated themselves.
Bulbus raised an arm. “All right, let it begin.”
“Will Sparticus fight first?” Faustus asked the master of games.
Offended by this slighting of his star gladiator, Bulbus answered sharply. “Certainly not. Sparticus is my grand finale. Lesser-knowns are for opening the show. Today, and this will be a preview of your birthday games, young man,” he confided, “Baccus Circus will open. He has taken to training well and shows real aptitude.”
“He’s a magnificent specimen.” Quintus brought the subject back to Sparticus, who had appeared while Bulbus spoke to the
boy, and was working out in a side cage that could be seen beyond the wall of the arena. He nodded to the huge black man.
“Our legionnaires found him wandering on the high plain east of here. No one in Nova Roma knows his real name. He’s a runaway slave, of course. And, frankly, I don’t care to know his identity. He is the best gladiator in Nova Roma, as I am sure you know. But, a slave is a slave, so Bulbus owns him. Sparticus likes his work.
“He’s never been intractable or rebellious. That must also be true from before he came here.” Quintus paused. “If you examine him closely, you’ll find there’s not a whip mark on him.”
Bulbus was not to be put off a lecture on his favorite subject. “Timing is everything with the games. It is like the theater.” He would have said more, but the shriek of wrought-iron hinges interrupted as the Porta Quadrila opened and two gladiators stalked out.
Big and burly, the first blinked at the sudden, bright sunlight. Thick muscles rippled in his shoulders and arms. He bore a spiked club and a small shield. His opponent, Baccus Circus, carried a round “target” shield and a twin-bladed dagger. Of nearly sword length, it made a formidable weapon. They paced across the sand and saluted Bulbus and his distinguished guests.
“Begin,” Bulbus commanded in a bored tone.
That this would not be a fight to the death soon became obvious. The middle-range fighter squared off with Baccus Circus, and they began a series of set-piece drills. They consisted of four or five varied attacks, at the end of which they engaged shields and weapons and rotated a quarter way around the arena. Both men soon glistened with sweat. Their smoothly shaven bodies sparkled in the sunlight. The speed of their drill increased with each engagement. Quintus, bored by so routine a performance, looked to his son.
Faustus stared intently at the battling men, jaw slack, lip parted, eyes glazed with excitement. His breath came harshly from a dry throat. Slowly, the pink tip of his tongue slid out and licked his lips. It was not, Quintus noted, a quenching gesture, rather one of unhealthy arousal for a boy so young. He quickly cut his eyes back to the contestants.
Preacher and the Mountain Caesar Page 9