The stream was as icy as Preacher had expected it to be. It took a considerable effort of will not to shiver as a bone-deep chill began to spread through him. Like Hawk, he thought about the atrocities the Blackfeet had carried out, especially the murder of Bird in the Tree, and he felt the heat of rage kindle inside him. It didn’t keep the chill completely at bay, but it helped.
After a time that seemed much longer than it actually was, Preacher caught a glimpse of movement through the water. He nudged Hawk with an elbow. The young man nodded, and suddenly his teeth chattered for a couple seconds before he was able to clench his jaw and silence them.
The heat of battle was going to be mighty welcome, Preacher thought.
The blurred figures moved closer. The trail was narrow enough the warriors had to go single file. Preacher counted five and knew it was the same group he and Hawk had seen earlier.
They waited until the last Blackfoot was beside the pool, then Hawk leaped through the waterfall and brought his tomahawk down in a swift stroke, crushing the back of the man’s skull before he even had a chance to cry out.
The others heard the impact of the blow and the sound of their friend’s body falling, and they whirled around instinctively to face the danger.
Preacher was already bounding past Hawk. His tomahawk smashed into the forehead of the next Blackfoot and sheared through bone and brain matter.
The battle was on.
CHAPTER 11
Preacher wrenched the tomahawk loose as the second man’s knees buckled. He fell toward Preacher and for a second the mountain man couldn’t get past him.
He caught hold of the dead man’s buckskin shirt and flung him to the side and into the pool at the bottom of the waterfall.
That brief delay was long enough for one of the other warriors to get an arrow nocked and loose it as soon as he had a clear shot at Preacher. Twisting aside at the last second, Preacher felt the arrow’s shaft slap against his side as it went past him.
Behind him, Hawk cried out in pain.
Preacher didn’t look to see how bad the youngster was hurt. He knew he couldn’t afford to turn his back on the three remaining Blackfeet.
He leaped forward and swung the tomahawk in a backhanded stroke that crushed the throat of the man who had just fired the arrow at him. The man dropped the bow and fell to his knees, gagging as he choked to death. Preacher kicked him aside.
A tomahawk swept down at Preacher’s head. He blocked it with his own ’hawk and thrust the knife in his other hand into the attacker’s belly. A swift rip to the side opened a gaping wound. A hot flood of blood and entrails gushed out over Preacher’s hand as the Blackfoot screamed in agony.
Folks back east liked to say Indians were stoic, but not many men could have their guts sliced open without yelling some.
Preacher lowered his shoulder and rammed the dying man, knocking him back into the fifth and final member of the Blackfoot search party. Their legs tangled and they went down. The last warrior struggled to get out from under the dead weight, but just as he did, Preacher’s tomahawk flashed down and shattered his skull.
Preacher had killed four men in about twice that many heartbeats. It had been a display of savage fighting prowess that would make civilized jaws drop in amazement and horror.
To him it meant nothing. At the moment, all he cared about was finding out how badly Hawk was hurt.
He straightened and swung around to look back down the trail. Hawk was on his feet, standing in the trail, the body of the man he had killed at his feet. Pink water dripped from his left hand as it hung beside his body as blood welled from the wound in his forearm.
“How bad is it?” Preacher asked as he walked back down the trail toward the young man.
“A scratch, nothing more.”
“I’ll take a look at it.”
“It will be fine,” Hawk said. “I will wash it and then put a poultice on it later.”
Looking at the facedown body of the man he had thrown into the pool, Preacher grunted. “That pool looks a mite fouled right now. Best wash your arm in the waterfall.” He wiped the blood from his knife blade on his leg and sheathed the weapon, then reached down to take hold of the man’s shirt and hauled the corpse out of the pool.
Hawk held his arm under the cold water until the cut stopped bleeding. It was a clean one and not too deep. “We should get back to White Buffalo. I do not like leaving him alone.”
“He ain’t alone. Dog’s with him, remember? And Horse, too, for that matter.” Preacher laughed. “And The Mule With No Name.”
“But if he tried to wander off—”
“Dog would stop him.”
Preacher was cold from his wet clothes and knew Hawk had to be, too, but the sun was warm and not too far past its zenith. Their buckskins would dry fairly quickly. They left the dead Blackfeet where they had fallen, except the one Preacher had pulled out of the pool, and headed back along the bench toward the place where White Buffalo should be.
As they approached, Hawk paused and frowned. “What is that strange sound?”
Preacher had heard it, too. He listened for a moment, then said, “I think it’s barkin’.”
“It does not sound like Dog.”
“No, I reckon it’s White Buffalo barkin’ at Dog, not the other way around.”
A couple minutes later, they came in sight of the spot where they had stopped to rest. It couldn’t really be called a camp because they hadn’t done anything except flop on the ground and go to sleep.
White Buffalo sat cross-legged with Dog in front of him again. The big cur glanced at Preacher and Hawk as they walked up but didn’t come to greet them. He turned his attention back to White Buffalo, who leaned forward and barked in a solemn manner.
After a moment, White Buffalo straightened and turned his head to look at the newcomers. “Dog tells me you have killed Blackfeet. He smells their blood on you. And you did not take White Buffalo to dip his hands in the blood of the enemy.” The old man seemed more coherent.
The rest must have done him some good, Preacher thought. “We ambushed another of those search parties. Don’t know if it was the last one or not.”
“They are all dead?”
“They are all dead,” Hawk said. “I killed one. Preacher killed four.” A note of grudging admiration was in the young man’s voice.
“That’s just the way it happened to work out,” Preacher said. “Anyway, it was Hawk who got wounded.”
White Buffalo climbed stiffly to his feet and looked at Hawk. “You are badly injured?”
“No.” Hawk held out his left arm and pushed back the bloody sleeve to display the cut. “It no longer pains me.”
“In my younger days, I was a healer. White Buffalo was known far and wide as a wise man who could cure many ills.”
Preacher had a hunch White Buffalo was one of those fellas who always claimed to be an expert on whatever subject happened to come up. In his experience, it was usually the folks who kept their mouths shut most of the time who really knew more about most things, but he didn’t see any reason to argue with the old codger.
“Well, you take a look at that for Hawk, why don’t you?” Preacher suggested. “Maybe you can whip up a poultice for it.”
Hawk shot a frown toward him, but Preacher ignored it and went to saddle Horse. He wanted to get past the waterfall and the bodies of the dead Blackfeet before the afternoon was over, and climb higher toward the pass that would take them out of the valley of the Absaroka.
* * *
Now that White Buffalo had had some rest, he proved to not only have his wits more collected, he was spryer as well and moved along fairly briskly. Preacher and Hawk had to move at a slightly slower pace because the old man was with them, but he didn’t delay them much.
In fact, when they reached the waterfall and White Buffalo spied the scattered bodies of the Blackfeet, he bounded forward with a speed and agility Preacher wouldn’t have believed him capable of. He didn’t know what Wh
ite Buffalo was going to do, but he wasn’t surprised when the old-timer began kicking and spitting on the corpses.
Hawk took hold of White Buffalo’s skinny arm and said, “Come on. They cannot feel what you are doing to them.”
“They know,” White Buffalo insisted as he delivered a vicious kick to the ribs of one body. “And in the great beyond, their spirits burn with shame!”
After a minute, Hawk convinced him to leave off with his angry antics and go up the trail next to the waterfall. When they reached the top, it opened onto another bench that formed a shoulder on the side of the mountain. The grass was sparse, but there was enough of it to provide graze for Horse and the pack mule.
The three men spent the afternoon crossing the bench and then made an actual camp in some trees on the far side where the trail began to climb toward the pass again.
Before the sun went down, Preacher built a small fire under a tree where the branches would break up the smoke and keep it from being seen. Hawk scared up a rabbit from the brush and brought it down with a throw of his knife, and before nightfall they were eating the roasted flesh.
White Buffalo wolfed down more than either Preacher or Hawk did, and the mountain man wondered if the old man ate like that all the time. If he did, it was a wonder he stayed as skinny as he was. Maybe he was still making up for the long ordeal he had spent in the Absaroka village, too frightened to move as he pretended to be dead.
When they had finished eating, and before it grew dark enough for anyone to spot the flames, Preacher put out the fire.
White Buffalo had been warming his hands on it. “It will be cold tonight.”
“I’ve got a blanket you can use,” Preacher told him.
“A white man’s blanket is never as warm as a good buffalo or bearskin robe.”
“Happens I agree with you, old-timer, but that’s what we’ve got.”
White Buffalo sniffed. “If that is the best you can do . . .”
Even though they had rested until late in the morning, the men welcomed the prospect of a good night’s sleep. Preacher and Hawk agreed to stand watch in shifts, with Preacher taking the first turn.
White Buffalo didn’t volunteer to take one of the shifts, and Preacher didn’t ask him. He wouldn’t have trusted the old man to remain alert, anyway. He didn’t know White Buffalo well enough yet to put his life in the man’s bony hands.
Odd, though, he reflected, that he had trusted Hawk almost right away, despite the hostility the youngster had displayed toward him on numerous occasions. Instinctively, he knew Hawk would live up to the responsibility placed on him, and he trusted Hawk at his back during a fight. There wasn’t a much higher accolade Preacher could give a fella.
Maybe that was because Hawk That Soars was his son, he thought . . . although to tell the truth, he didn’t really have much of the feeling he thought would exist between a father and son. Maybe it was too early for that. Maybe that bond would never truly be there since the two of them hadn’t been around each other while Hawk was young.
Preacher didn’t know, and at the moment, such matters didn’t seem worth pondering.
They were out to kill Blackfeet, and as long as they were doing that, family wasn’t really all that important.
* * *
The night passed quietly. It was possible the five Blackfoot warriors they had killed were the only ones left on this side of Beartooth. If that wasn’t the case, none of the others had stumbled across the camp.
The next morning they ate the rest of the rabbit, then resumed their trek. The trail climbed all the way to the pass. As they moved higher and the air grew thinner, White Buffalo began to struggle more. At one point he sat down on a rock beside the trail, huffing and puffing, and said, “Leave me here.”
“We cannot do that, Grandfather,” Hawk told him. “You know that.”
“Leave me. I go to meet my ancestors.”
“No, you don’t. You’re just tired, that’s all. We’ll give you a breather.” Preacher smiled. “To tell you the truth, I could use a mite of one myself. I ain’t quite as young as I used to be, you know.”
“When were you born?” Hawk asked.
Preacher scratched at his heavily stubbled jaw. “’Twas either right at the tail end o’ seventeen hunnerd and ninety-nine, or the beginnin’ o’ eighteen hunnerd. The date was wrote down in the family Bible, but it’s been so long since I laid eyes on it, I sorta disremember. A friend of mine named Audie was tellin’ me once about the centuries. He said either way, I was born in the eighteenth century, since the nineteenth century didn’t start until 1801, no matter how it seemed like it ought to be. Didn’t matter one way or the other to me, but Audie sets great store by callin’ everything by its proper name and puttin’ everything in its right place.”
“You speak like a wind that never stops blowing,” White Buffalo said.
“You’re a fine one to talk, you old varmint. But you got your breath back now, don’t you?”
White Buffalo glared at him but didn’t say anything. After a moment, he stood up and pronounced with great dignity, “We can go on now.”
Preacher made sure they stopped to rest more often after that. If White Buffalo knew they were doing it on his account, he made no comment.
Horse and the pack mule began to struggle with the slope. Preacher wondered if they would be able to make it to the pass. He didn’t want to leave the stallion behind. If necessary, he would remove what few supplies were left from the pack mule and allow the animal to wander back down to level ground. With bears and mountain lions and wolves in the area, the mule might not last long, but at least he would have a chance, small though it might be.
Shortly thereafter, the pass came in sight again above them. The contours of the rugged landscape around them had prevented them from seeing it for a while. It didn’t seem so far away any longer.
“Come on, Horse,” Preacher said. “I reckon we’re gonna make it.”
Less than an hour later, they reached the pass. The upper slopes of Beartooth lay to the right and another, smaller mountain rose to the left, but the way ahead was clear. They paused to catch their breath again and Hawk turned to peer out over the valley that lay spread out behind them, visible in its entirety from that height.
“Sayin’ good-bye to your home?” Preacher asked.
“Saying good-bye to many things,” Hawk replied with a slight catch in his voice.
Preacher knew he was thinking about Bird in the Tree and Little Pine. He understood, feeling the loss of Birdie, even though he had been separated from her for many years and their reunion had been tragically short. It would be a while before he was over it, and he would never forget her.
“This was the place of my childhood,” Hawk said, “but now I turn my face toward war.” He suited his actions to his words, turning to gaze toward the mountains and valleys that stretched northward as far as the eye could see. It was a beautiful country, but somewhere in it were Tall Bull and the other Blackfoot warriors who had slaughtered the Absaroka.
Vengeance was coming for them.
CHAPTER 12
They made camp a short distance down from the north side of the pass. The country there was much the same as the valley on the other side of the mountain—rugged ridges, lushly carpeted meadows, and stretches of tall, proud pines, as well as swiftly flowing creeks bordered by cottonwood and aspen. Preacher would have enjoyed spending the summer in those parts, trapping and hunting.
He would be hunting, all right, but not beaver pelts. He had put those plans out of his head.
For the next several days, the three men and three animals worked their way northward, keeping to cover as much as possible, building fires and cooking meat only when it was safe to do so, and staying alert at all times. Preacher and Hawk continued taking turns standing guard at night.
White Buffalo seemed to withdraw more into himself, spending a lot of time muttering and frowning darkly. He didn’t slow them down much, though.
Hawk didn’t know where Tall Bull’s village was, only that it lay in the direction they were traveling.
“He’ll figure he’s safe,” Preacher mused to Hawk as they were walking along one day, “because he thinks all of your bunch was wiped out . . . although he’s got to be wonderin’ by now about all those warriors he sent out who didn’t come back. He may have even gotten word that somebody killed ’em. I don’t think he’ll ever dream that somebody’s comin’ after him.”
“You are saying he will not take any more precautions than usual in his village,” Hawk suggested.
“Yep. If we keep our eyes open, we should be able to spot the smoke from the village’s cookin’ fires.”
* * *
When Beartooth was almost a week behind them, Preacher spotted a small group of men crossing an open meadow in the distance. A couple of them carried an antelope carcass lashed to a pole between them.
Dog saw the men at the same time and growled. Preacher tapped Hawk on the shoulder and pointed. The young man’s jaw tightened.
“A Blackfoot hunting party,” Preacher said. “Eight men, from what I can tell.”
“They are too far away from us. We cannot ambush them.”
“We don’t want to ambush them,” Preacher said. “What’ll they do if we leave them alone?”
“They will return to Tall Bull’s village with that fresh meat . . . and lead us straight there.”
“That’s right. Let’s give ’em a little more room. They don’t act like they’ve spotted us, and we don’t want ’em to. We ought to be able to follow their trail without too much trouble.”
They waited under the shade of some trees until the hunting party was well out of sight. Preacher knew the Blackfeet hadn’t gone too far. They hadn’t appeared to be in any hurry, and they couldn’t move very fast while they were toting that antelope carcass.
When Preacher judged it was safe, he and his companions approached the meadow where they had seen the hunting party. As the mountain man had said, they were able to pick up the trail where the grass had not yet sprung back up. The occasional splash of blood that had dripped from the antelope’s body made it even easier to follow.
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