Following Preacher’s example, he dropped his bow and grabbed his tomahawk as he bounded to his feet.
Four of the attackers were still on their feet, but one of them staggered as he clutched the shaft of the arrow embedded in his chest. Counting the five men down, the original party had numbered nine.
Preacher, Dog, and the young man had cut the odds by more than half, but they were still outnumbered.
In Preacher’s case, that wasn’t hardly fair.
He moved like a whirlwind, lashing out right and left with the tomahawk. The stone head crashed against the head of an attacker, splintering bone under the impact. The warrior dropped, dead before he hit the ground.
Preacher pivoted and launched a blow toward a second warrior, who managed to block the mountain man’s stroke with his own tomahawk. As the weapons clashed, the man launched a kick at Preacher’s groin. Preacher twisted and took the man’s heel on his thigh.
A few yards away, the young man went after the uninjured warrior, but the man with the wounded thigh lurched into his path. The young man’s tomahawk came down and split the man’s skull, cleaving into his brain.
The dying man fell forward, tangling with the young man, and both fell to the ground.
Preacher whirled to the side as his opponent tried desperately to brain him. The mountain man’s tomahawk swept around and slashed across the attacker’s throat. Flesh was no match for sharpened flint. Blood spouted from the wound as the man choked and gurgled. He dropped his tomahawk and put both hands to his ruined throat, but he couldn’t stop the crimson flood.
His knees buckled and he pitched forward.
Preacher turned in time to see the youngster struggling to get a buckskin-clad carcass off him. The last member of the war party bent over them, tomahawk raised as he looked for an opening to strike.
Preacher threw his ’hawk. It revolved through the air, turning over the perfect number of times for the head to smash into the Indian’s left shoulder and lodge there.
The man staggered back a step and dropped his own tomahawk. He turned and ran toward the trees, obviously realizing he was outnumbered, and wounded, to boot.
The young man finally succeeded in shoving the dead warrior off him. He sprang to his feet, grabbed the tomahawk the fleeing man had dropped, and flung it after him.
The throw missed narrowly as the ’hawk whipped past the man’s head. A heartbeat later he disappeared into the trees.
Preacher started after the man, not wanting him to get away. To do that he had to pass the woman, who reached up, grabbed his hand, and said, “Preacher!”
That stopped him in his tracks. He looked down at her, wondering how she knew him.
Of course, he was known to many of the tribes. Up and down the Rocky Mountains from Canada to the Rio Grande, he was an enemy to some but a friend to many.
The woman looked up at him with a clear, steady gaze. Since she was holding his hand already, Preacher tightened his grip and easily lifted her to her feet.
The young man who had come out of the trees with her picked up his bow and turned toward them. A frown creased his forehead.
Preacher didn’t pay much attention to him. His attention was on the woman as something stirred inside him.
She was a handsome woman, close to his own age. He could tell that by the faint lines on her face and the silver threads among her otherwise raven-black hair, which was cut short around her head. The years had thickened her waist slightly, but her body was still strong and well-curved under the buckskin dress.
From her short hair and the beading and other decorations on her dress, he could tell she was Absaroka, a tribe with which he had always been friendly. The young man’s clothes and the long hair that hung far down his back marked him as a member of the same tribe.
As Preacher looked back and forth between them, he noted an even stronger similarity. He could see the resemblance in their eyes and in the cut of their jaws. Unless he missed his guess, the woman was the boy’s mama.
Something else about the youngster struck him as familiar, too, but damned if he could say what it was. He had never laid eyes on the young man before. He was pretty sure of that.
He couldn’t say the same for the woman. He looked at her and wanted to call her by name, but he couldn’t quite do it. The words wouldn’t come to his tongue.
She spoke in the language of the Absarokas. “Preacher. It really is you.”
“Reckon it is,” he replied, equally fluent in her tongue even though he hadn’t been born to it.
“I prayed to Gitche Manitou, the Great Spirit, that we would find you. When we fled from our home, it was to look for you, but I did not dare to dream fate would bring us together again.”
“I know you,” Preacher said as he looked down into her dark eyes. “But I can’t quite remember . . .”
He saw what looked like a flicker of pain in those eyes and wished he hadn’t said it. Clearly, whatever had happened between them had meant more to her than it had to him.
It had been a long time ago. The memory was too dim and faded. He knew he hadn’t seen her in recent years.
But it had stayed alive and clear in her mind. A faintly sad smile touched her lips as she said, “My name is Bird in the Tree.”
Preacher drew in a deep, sharp breath as the memories flooded back. “I knew a girl named Bird in the Tree, but it was many, many years ago. I called her Birdie . . .”
“I am she.”
He put his hands on her shoulders, looked her in the eyes, and remembered everything.
* * *
He wasn’t much more than a boy but had already battled river pirates on the Mississippi and fought the bloody British at the town of New Orleans with Andy Jackson. He had traveled to the mountains, made friends with the trappers, and become one of them himself.
He had befriended some of the Indians as well, and as winter settled down a band of Absaroka had invited him to stay with them. He had come West to experience everything life had to offer. The experience would be new to him, and so he stayed.
He hunted with some of the Absaroka braves and brought in fresh meat for the village. They gave him his own lodge, small but comfortable enough, with a good fire pit and a couple bearskin robes. He was sitting next to the fire on his first night in the village when someone pushed back the deerskin flap over the lodge’s entrance.
A young woman stepped into the lodge and let the flap fall closed behind her. She stood without saying anything until he asked her, “What do you want, girl?”
“I am Bird in the Tree,” she said. “I have been sent to cook for you, care for you, and warm your robes.”
His heart began to slug hard in his chest. He’d had a little experience with women—well, one woman, anyway, the girl called Jennie—and he knew what Bird in the Tree was talking about.
She was beautiful, with slightly rounded features, smooth, reddish-tinted skin, and hair black as midnight cut short in two wings that framed her face. Not many men would be able to look at her without wanting her, and he was no exception. He struggled to find words to say.
She must have taken his hesitation for indecision or even disapproval. She bent, grasped the bottom of her buckskin dress, and pulled it up and over her head.
She wasn’t wearing anything under the dress. Fringed moccasins on her feet went almost to her knees. Her skin looked even smoother everywhere else than it was on her face. He wanted to touch it and find out. The curves of her body were enticing in the firelight. The dark brown nipples that crowned her small but firm breasts were hard and insistent.
His blood began to hammer in his veins.
Bird in the Tree dropped the dress she held and moved a step closer to him. “Do you not find me to your liking?”
He had to swallow and lick suddenly dry lips before he was able to say, “Birdie, I find you very much to my liking.”
Her solemn expression disappeared as she smiled. “Birdie,” she repeated. “Will you call me this name whe
n we are together?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“It is what I want,” she said as she came toward him and he stood up to meet her. Her voice dropped to a whisper as she added, “And I want to warm your robes many times.”
“I reckon that’s mighty fine with me.” His arms went around her and drew her to him.
Before the night was over, he found himself wishing the winter would never end.
* * *
Preacher gave a slight shake of his head to diminish the memory. Of course the winter had ended. Such things did, after all.
The next winter, after another trapping season, he had gone back to St. Louis instead of staying in the mountains.
Since then, he had been to many other places, but never back to the valley where that particular band of Absaroka lived. For several years, he had thought of Birdie from time to time, but gradually she had slipped from his memory.
It was hard to keep track of everything when a man lived such a long, full, adventurous life.
As he stood there looking at her, the time they had shared came back to him, and he smiled warmly. “Birdie, it’s mighty good to see you again. I’m glad the Great Spirit has brought us together after all these years.”
“I thought you would return . . .”
“Life took me other places,” he said, knowing that sounded a mite weak, but it was the only answer he had. The only honest one, anyway.
“The memory of what we shared never faded.”
“I remember it well,” he told her. That was true. He had remembered it, earlier or not.
Drawing Preacher’s attention, the young man stepped toward them, downright glaring at him for some reason.
Birdie laughed. “It is like one peers into still water, and the other gazes back.”
Preacher’s head jerked back toward her as he said, “What—”
“Preacher, this is our son, Hawk That Soars.”
CHAPTER 3
Preacher’s eyes narrowed at the revelation. He was surprised but not shocked. For years he had accepted the possibility, even the likelihood, that he had fathered children among the various Indian villages where he had wintered in times past and had always had a woman to warm his robes.
As many years had gone by since he had come to the mountains, he probably even had a few grandchildren scattered here and there.
It bothered him a little to think about that. He supposed he didn’t have the same normal yearning for offspring most men did—he had always valued his freedom too much for that—but the feeling wasn’t completely lacking in him.
Even though he wasn’t around to raise and protect them, he hoped any young’uns he might have gotten started were happy and healthy, leading good lives in the mountains. Logically, he knew that probably wasn’t true in every case, but he didn’t let himself think about that too much.
That way, as Audie might say, lay madness.
Birdie was looking at him like she expected him to say something. He did some quick ciphering in his head and cleared his throat. “That was twenty winters ago.”
“It was,” she agreed.
Preacher glanced at the scowling young man. Hawk That Soars, Birdie had called him. He was about the right age . . .
Preacher understood why the youngster looked familiar. It wasn’t just that he resembled his mother Bird in the Tree. Some of those features were almost identical to the ones Preacher had seen gazing back at him from the creek a while ago. From time to time he had seen himself in looking glasses, too, so he knew the general outlines of his face. The resemblance was undeniable.
He turned back to Birdie. “You should have told me.”
“Would knowing have made you stay with us?” she asked.
It was Preacher’s turn to scowl. He knew the answer to her question, and so did she.
Even if she had told him she was with child, he wouldn’t have remained in the Absaroka village when winter was over. He was too fiddle-footed for that. There were too many hills he hadn’t seen the other side of, too many trails he hadn’t followed to see where they would take him.
“Damn it—”
She shook her head to stop him. “I knew the sort of man you were. The sort of man you are. You grow older, Preacher, but you never truly change.”
“I ain’t so sure about that.”
“I am. That is why, when Hawk and I left our village, we came to look for you. I knew you would still be the same man, and if anyone can help us, it is you, Preacher.”
“Hold on, hold on. Back up a mite. You said before you were lookin’ for me. Did you really think you’d just run into me, out here in the middle of nowhere?” He leaned his head a little to the side to indicate the vast, sweeping wilderness around them.
She smiled again. “It was not a matter of trusting completely to the Great Spirit to guide us to you. I knew you were headed in this direction. One moon ago, I spoke to a man called Nafziger.”
Preacher grunted. Otto Nafziger was another trapper, a friend even though Preacher saw him only two or three times a year and some years not at all. “I run into Otto down on the Cimarron a while back,” he said. “Don’t recollect for sure, but I might’ve mentioned somethin’ to him about tryin’ my luck in these parts this year.”
“Yes,” Birdie said, nodding. “He is a good man and has visited our village before. I asked him about you.”
“Because you were tryin’ to find me?”
A shadow passed over her face as she shook her head. “Not then. Not yet. I ask all the trappers who pass through our village about you, to make sure you are alive and healthy.”
“Now hold on a minute,” Preacher said. “You never married up with some other fella and had more young’uns with him?”
“Many asked me, but I always refused.”
“Well . . . hell!” Preacher said as frustration welled up inside him. “I never meant for that to happen. You shoulda just forgot about me and gone on with your life.”
“How could I do that when . . . ?” She turned and looked at Hawk, and the silence as her voice trailed off was eloquent.
Hawk broke that silence. “Is it not enough? You talk and talk and talk, while the Blackfoot gets away!” He was right about that.
The wounded man who had disappeared into the trees was probably a good distance away. Preacher had intended to go after him, catch up, and kill him, but he’d gotten distracted by Birdie.
His practical side rose up in him again as he said, “I reckon those fellas were part of a bigger war party?”
“At least four times as many as the fingers on both hands,” Birdie replied. “They split up to search for us. Tall Bull’s men must have seen us leaving the village, and he believes we seek help.” She paused. “He is right about that. We sought you, Preacher.”
“Tall Bull.” Preacher knew the name.
Tall Bull was a Blackfoot war chief who’d been making some noise in recent years, gathering followers to him and becoming more powerful in the tribe. Preacher had believed his stomping grounds to be north of there.
As soon as he had laid eyes on the men chasing Bird in the Tree and Hawk That Soars, he had recognized them as Blackfoot. That was why he hadn’t hesitated to jump into the fight, even though he hadn’t known who they were pursuing. He had figured if the Blackfeet were after them, he was on their side, whoever they were.
That assumption had been borne out, in spades.
“What does Tall Bull have against your village?” Preacher asked.
“We are Absaroka,” Birdie said. “Does he need any other reason to attack us?”
“No, I reckon not.”
“Many bands of our people have left these mountains and have moved south and east. Gray Feather will not go. He says we will stay where we have been and that Tall Bull will not force us from our home.”
Preacher remembered Gray Feather. The man had been a stalwart young warrior back when Preacher had wintered with the band of Absaroka. From what Birdie said, Gray
Feather must have assumed leadership of the band and become their chief at some point in the time that had passed.
Preacher could believe that. “Tall Bull’s tryin’ to extend the Blackfoot huntin’ grounds down here and push out all the other tribes,” he guessed.
Birdie just nodded.
Hawk said, “We will fight him. We will kill him!”
Preacher looked at him. “You handled yourself pretty good in that fight, youngster. I was impressed. But you can’t take on an entire Blackfoot war party by yourself.”
Birdie put her hand on his arm. “That is why we want you to help us, Preacher.”
“Just how many Blackfeet do you reckon I can kill at one time, anyway?”
Hawk made a disgusted noise. “I told you we were wasting our time searching for this man. We should have stayed in the village to help there. But you would not listen.”
Preacher pointed a finger at the young man. “Hold on there. You shouldn’t be talkin’ to your ma like that. She deserves your respect.”
“Why?” Hawk’s lip curled. “For lying with a white man and pining for him ever since?”
A swift rush of anger went through Preacher. He took a step toward Hawk and began, “You’d better hush that mouth o’ yours—”
“Preacher, stop.” Bird in the Tree moved between them. “Hawk, be quiet.”
“I will not be told what to do by a woman,” the young man said.
“You better listen to your ma,” Preacher told him, tight-lipped. “She knows what she’s talkin’ about.”
Again the youngster blew out a contemptuous breath. He turned away.
“Listen, Birdie,” Preacher said, “I’ll help you and your people. Don’t think for a second I won’t. Dependin’ on how big that war party is, it may take a while to kill ’em all. That’s all I was sayin’.”
She laughed. “As I said, Preacher, you never truly change.”
“Let’s head back to your village.”
“What about your trapping?”
“That can wait until after we’ve dealt with Tall Bull.” He looked around and realized Dog was nowhere in sight. Knowing the big cur, he had gone after the wounded Blackfoot. Preacher smiled grimly. Chances were, the man hadn’t gotten far if Dog was after him.
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