He thought the warrior was beginning to waver a bit. Evidently just the prospect of being turned over to White Buffalo was enough to make Strong Bear think twice about being stubborn. If that was the case, Preacher was going to try to take advantage of it.
Before the Blackfoot warrior could crack, Hawk stood up suddenly and moved to the mouth of the cave. He stood there for a moment, listening intently, and then turned and hurried back to Preacher. “Someone is coming.”
CHAPTER 14
Preacher said to White Buffalo, “Take your knife and guard this man. If he tries to yell, cut his throat.”
White Buffalo’s face lit up with glee and anticipation.
“But don’t kill him as long as he’s quiet,” Preacher added. “You understand, White Buffalo?”
The old-timer’s lips pooched out in a pout, but he nodded.
Preacher nodded to Hawk as he joined the young man. “Let’s see who’s out there.”
They moved to the cave mouth and knelt down, hidden by the brush they had artfully arranged in front of the opening. Preacher heard the same thing Hawk had, the sounds of men approaching the cave. He figured they were from Tall Bull’s village and were looking for the missing Strong Bear.
Since the Blackfeet hunted all over the area, Preacher wondered if some might be aware of the cave’s existence and would notice that the entrance had been covered with brush, or since their attention would be focused on searching for Strong Bear, would they fail to notice?
The next few minutes would provide the answer to those questions.
Four Blackfoot warriors came in sight, moving out of the trees on the other side of the open area in front of the ridge. They weren’t heading directly toward the cave. From Preacher’s perspective, their path carried them at an angle toward the left.
Tall Bull wasn’t expecting trouble on his own stomping grounds. Preacher figured Strong Bear’s disappearance probably was considered more of a mystery than a potential threat. The four warriors crossing the open ground certainly didn’t seem overly worried about anything.
“I can kill two of them with arrows before they know what is happening,” Hawk whispered to Preacher. “Can you bring down the other two with your guns?”
“More than likely,” Preacher replied, “but I ain’t gonna. The sound of the shots would carry all the way to the Blackfoot village. We don’t want ’em knowin’ somebody with firearms is lurkin’ around.”
Hawk frowned. “They might believe it to be white trappers.”
“Yeah, and the Blackfeet hate trappers. They’d come lookin’, and they’d bring more than four men.”
“I still think we should kill them. The more Blackfeet we get rid of, the better.”
The youngster had a point there, but Preacher shook his head. “We’ll let ’em go as long as they don’t figure out we’re here.”
In theory, that was probably the best thing to do, but it didn’t prove to be possible. Before the four warriors had crossed the open ground, one of them pointed toward the cave and said something to his companions. They all stopped and looked in that direction.
“Dadgum it,” Preacher breathed out. “They’re gonna come take a look.”
“We cannot let them go back to Tall Bull and tell him where we are,” Hawk said.
“You’re right about that,” Preacher agreed as a grim cast came over his face. He reached down to his waist and pulled his tomahawk from behind his belt.
Beside him, Hawk slid an arrow from the quiver on his back and fitted it to the string on his bow. He put a little tension on the string and waited as the four Blackfoot warriors came closer.
The men were about forty feet away when a loud snore came from behind Preacher and Hawk, followed instantly by a shout of warning from Strong Bear. White Buffalo’s hatred for the Blackfeet hadn’t been enough to keep him from dozing off as he sat beside the captive. Strong Bear had realized that as well and let loose that bellow.
White Buffalo’s head jerked up and he yelled, too. The knife in his hand flashed down and bit deeply into Strong Bear’s throat. The warning shout choked off into a hideous gurgle as blood fountained from the wound.
At the same time, Hawk stood up and let fly with the arrow he had nocked. With a solid thunk! the flint head drove into a Blackfoot chest and rocked the man back on his heels. He pawed at the arrow’s shaft even as life fled from his body.
Preacher was on his feet, too, as his arm flashed forward and the tomahawk whirled through the air. It landed with bone-crunching force on the forehead of another warrior and penetrated enough to lodge there. The man fell to his knees and pitched forward.
The two remaining Blackfeet charged toward the brush in front of the cave, whooping defiant war cries. One of them nocked an arrow and loosed it at Hawk, who had leaped from the brush to meet the attack. He dove forward to avoid the shaft, and the arrow flew over his head and struck the ridge.
Hawk somersaulted back to his feet, and as he came up, he thrust out the knife gripped in his hand and buried the blade in the chest of the startled warrior who had just fired the arrow.
A few yards away, Preacher closed with the other warrior. Both men had drawn their knives. As they came together, each free hand darted up and gripped the wrist of the other’s knife hand. They grunted as they strained against each other.
Locked together, the two buckskin-clad figures resembled a sculpted statue of men at war. The faint trembling of their muscles and the grimaces that crossed their faces revealed that they were flesh and blood, not cold stone.
Suddenly, Preacher let himself give ground. It was a deliberate tactic and threw his opponent off balance. Preacher went over backwards. As he landed, he planted his right foot in the Blackfoot’s belly and levered the man up and over him. The warrior flipped over in the air and crashed down with stunning force.
Preacher rolled over and was ready to leap after the man and kill him, but Hawk beat him to it. The young man lunged. His knife rose and fell with blinding speed, once, twice, and then again, each time burying the bloody blade in the Blackfoot’s chest and then ripping it free again.
Hawk’s lips were pulled back from his teeth as he looked up at Preacher from where he knelt beside the dead man. “I killed three to your one this time.”
“Mark it down, then, if you want,” Preacher snapped. “I ain’t keepin’ count.” He got to his feet and quickly checked the bodies. All four members of the Blackfoot party were dead.
He suspected the one in the cave was, too, given what he had glimpsed of White Buffalo’s reaction to Strong Bear’s shout. Preacher parted the brush and entered the cave.
A pool of blood had formed around Strong Bear’s head. The man’s eyes stared sightlessly at the stone roof above him. White Buffalo still sat beside him, although the old man had moved back a little to keep from getting blood on his buckskins.
“I did not mean to kill him.” White Buffalo’s eyes were downcast, and he looked a little like a kid who had been caught doing something wrong. “He startled me, and there was a knife in my hand.”
“Well, I told you to shut him up if he tried to yell,” Preacher said, “so I reckon it ain’t your fault, White Buffalo. You shut him up real good. Just not in time to keep him from warnin’ those other fellas.”
“Are they—”
“All dead, Grandfather,” Hawk said as he came into the cave. “Four more Blackfeet who will never murder another woman or child from another tribe.”
A good thing, Preacher thought. “Yeah, and we’d better do somethin’ with ’em so nobody else will come along and find ’em.”
“You cannot leave their bodies in here,” White Buffalo said. “It already stinks enough of bear.”
The same thought already had occurred to Preacher. Sharing the cave with five decomposing bodies was unacceptable. He told Hawk, “Let’s drag ’em into the brush while we look for a more permanent restin’ place.”
With the bodies quickly and roughly concealed, Preacher and
Hawk climbed the ridge and located a ravine about a quarter mile away. It was deep and thickly covered with brush. Once the corpses were dropped into it, they wouldn’t be discovered easily.
They performed the grim task of carrying the bodies to the ravine one by one, swinging them out, and letting go so the corpses plummeted into the brush some forty feet below. Branches broke under the impact, but more branches bent and sprang back into place. By the time Preacher and Hawk were finished, it was difficult to see where the dead warriors had fallen.
“If we’re lucky, the buzzards won’t spot ’em and start circlin’,” Preacher said. “That might draw more attention to the area than we want. Let the wolves and the other scavengers have the varmints.”
“I am sorry Strong Bear died before you could find out what you wanted from him,” Hawk said.
The mountain man shrugged. “It was a mighty long shot that he was gonna talk, anyway. He was a stubborn cuss, and I ain’t sure even turnin’ ol’ White Buffalo loose on him woulda done the trick.”
“You would have allowed White Buffalo to torture him?”
“I wouldn’t have liked it much,” Preacher said, “but I reckon I could’ve found the stomach to do it, especially if I thought about what Tall Bull and his men left behind in your village.”
“So would I.” Hawk cast one more glance toward the dead men at the bottom of the ravine and then turned away.
When they got back to the cave, they found that White Buffalo had gotten some dirt from outside and spread it on the floor of the cave to cover the pool of blood from Strong Bear’s slashed throat. The old man was muttering to himself and still looked pretty upset.
Quietly, Preacher said to Hawk, “The old fella talks about what a mighty warrior he was, but do you reckon he ever actually killed anybody before?”
“I do not know,” Hawk replied, slowly shaking his head. “Not in the time I have been alive and can remember. I am certain of that. Perhaps his stories are just that . . . an old man’s stories.”
“Well, if that’s true, he’s done had his baptism of blood now,” Preacher said. “And I suspect he’s liable to be dunked in it again ’fore all this is over.”
CHAPTER 15
One warrior disappearing from his own village in the middle of the night was odd. Four more vanishing in broad daylight would be downright alarming to the Blackfeet, Preacher knew.
“We’d best wait a few days before tryin’ anything else,” he said to Hawk later that day. “That’ll let things cool off a mite. Soon as they realize those four fellas who went looking for Strong Bear ain’t comin’ back, they’ll be on their guard in the village.”
“I do not like to wait. The spirits of the slain cry out for vengeance.”
“And they’ll still be wantin’ that vengeance later on,” Preacher said. “If we do somethin’ foolish and get ourselves killed now, we won’t be able to take all the revenge we can if we’re smart about it.”
Hawk grunted and shrugged. “You are older than me, and you are a mighty warrior,” he said, although the words had no hint of admiration in them. “My mother told me many times about what a fierce fighter you were, even as a young man. And we heard many stories about you from other trappers who visited our village from time to time.”
“What else did Bird in the Tree have to say about me?”
Hawk stared coldly at him. “You could have asked her yourself... if you’d ever come back.”
Anger welled up inside Preacher, but the boy had a point. Still, Preacher wasn’t going to apologize for the way he had lived his life. Maybe every decision he had ever made hadn’t been the very best, but it had seemed like it at the time. He wondered if he was ever going to feel toward Hawk like a father should feel toward a son.
It was all too clear that Hawk didn’t feel like a son should feel toward a father.
* * *
For a few days, they kept a close watch in case any more search parties came along looking for the men who had disappeared. That didn’t happen, which made Preacher change his mind about what the war chief was thinking. Tall Bull was keeping his warriors close to home. That meant he was thinking the village was in danger of being attacked.
The Blackfeet had to eat, just like anybody else. Preacher thought they might be getting low on fresh meat. It had been a while since the hunting party he and Hawk had seen had brought in that antelope.
“I reckon we need to go find a good hidey-hole where we can keep an eye on the village,” he told Hawk. “If Tall Bull sends out a huntin’ party, we might have a chance to do a little huntin’ of our own.”
“At last,” Hawk said. “I had begun to think our war had come to an early end.”
“I’ve done told you, don’t get impatient.”
White Buffalo said, “You will leave me here again?”
“That’s right, old-timer. You got to keep an eye on things here for us. Can you do that?”
White Buffalo nodded. “No one will disturb our new home.”
Preacher frowned. He certainly didn’t think of this cave as home, and he figured Hawk didn’t, either.
White Buffalo had lost everything he had known for a long time. His mental state was fragile and he had seized on the old bear den as the place he belonged.
When it was all over, they would have to find a better place for the old man, a place where he could live out the rest of his life in peace and comfort . . . assuming any of them lived through the bloody campaign they had launched.
As Preacher and Hawk were getting ready to leave, White Buffalo said, “Dog has told me he should go with you this time.”
“I can have him stay here with you if that’d make you feel better, White Buffalo.”
The old man shook his head at Preacher. “Dog is a good friend. He and I tell each other many entertaining stories. Horse is friendly but not as smart as Dog. He does not have many stories. The Mule With No Name”—White Buffalo rolled his eyes—“has no stories. It is a waste of time to talk to The Mule With No Name. But Dog . . . Dog wishes to go with you, Preacher. He says you will need his help.”
“Well, it always comes in handy havin’ Dog around, if you think you can do without his company for a spell.”
White Buffalo nodded solemnly. “The rest of us will be fine. Go and kill many Blackfeet.”
“We’ll do the best we can,” Preacher promised.
A short time later, he and Hawk and Dog set out toward the Blackfoot village.
The first time they had spied on the place had been at night, so darkness had hidden them. It was much different in broad daylight. They couldn’t approach the village directly so they circled and climbed to higher ground that commanded a good view of the tepees scattered along the creek bank.
The pines were thick enough to keep them from being seen. Preacher made sure no sunlight reflected from his rifle or pistols. A glint of light would give them away and bring warriors looking for them.
He counted tepees again and saw he’d been off by one in his earlier estimate. Counting the young, unmarried men who still lived with their families, he figured as many as eighty warriors might be in the village. They were no less dangerous in a fight. Upwards of a hundred women and children who also lived there had begun to worry him. Preacher wasn’t going to make war on them. Such a thing was just not in the way he conducted himself.
If he and Hawk accomplished their goal of wiping out Tall Bull and all the Blackfoot warriors, far-fetched though it might seem, it would leave the women and children and old ones with nobody to protect them and hunt for them. Some of them would starve, or they might fall prey to other enemies.
The Blackfeet had plenty of enemies, that was for sure. Many of the other tribes hated them.
“I’ve been thinkin’,” he said quietly to Hawk. “If we kill Tall Bull and enough of his warriors, there’s a chance the rest of the bunch will pull up stakes and light out. They won’t want to stay around here.”
“Every warrior who helped slaughter my pe
ople must die,” Hawk said. “Since we do not know who was there and who was not, we must kill all of them to be sure.”
“If we do that, we’ll doom the whole band, includin’ the ones who didn’t have anything to do with that massacre.”
Hawk looked sharply at him. “They are all Blackfoot.” That was all the reason they needed to exterminate them.
Preacher might have argued the issue longer, but at that moment he spied deliberate movement in the village below. Warriors armed with bows and arrows had been moving around all along, and he’d figured they were standing watch over the place, spooked by the mysterious disappearances. This was different.
A dozen men strode out together and left the village, heading up the creek to the north. Every man had a bow and a full quiver of arrows.
Preacher pointed to the group. “That’s a huntin’ party, unless I miss my guess.”
“Yes, they are going after meat.” Hawk’s hand tightened on his bow. “And so are we.”
* * *
They stuck to the high ground as they followed the hunting party below. Preacher searched for a good place to attack them but didn’t see anything that looked suitable. Outnumbered as they were, he and Hawk might not be able to wipe out the whole group, but they wanted to inflict as many casualties as possible before they had to fade away.
Just as Preacher was about to decide they might have to let the Blackfeet go, he spotted a steep slope up ahead with a number of large rocks at the top of it. The hunting party hadn’t scared up any game except for a few rabbits. Since that wasn’t enough to feed the whole village, they continued north along the creek. That course would take them right past the slope.
Preacher pointed it out to Hawk. “Come on. We got to get there ahead of ’em and get ready.”
Hawk instantly grasped what Preacher planned to do. Along with Dog, they hurried through the trees, leaving the slower-moving hunting party behind.
“What if they turn back before they reach that spot?” Hawk asked.
“Then we’re outta luck this time and we’ll wait to do our killin’ some other day.”
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