Bent Leg took hold of Preacher’s right arm and squeezed.
“It is good that you are alive, old friend,” he said. “When I saw you covered with so much blood, I feared that you had departed this world for the realm of the spirits.”
“And I feared that I had been cheated out of killing you,” Two Bears added with a scowl.
“Enough!” Bent Leg snapped at him. “I told you, the battle between the two of you is over! We have more important things to worry about now, like going after the hated Gros Ventre and rescuing our people from them.”
Preacher’s eyes widened at those words.
Bent Leg saw his reaction and nodded.
“They killed many of us,” the chief said in a voice choked with sorrow, “and took a dozen prisoners, including my niece.”
Preacher started to shake his head.
“That’s right,” Two Bears said. “Raven’s Wing is now a prisoner of the Gros Ventre once again. But this time it will be I who saves her.”
Preacher didn’t give a damn who saved her. He just wanted her brought back safely to her home.
“Wait a minute,” Audie said. “Preacher, you haven’t said anything since you regained consciousness.” The diminutive fur trapper sounded worried. “I’ve heard about men who lost the ability to speak after they suffered a blow to the head. Can … can you still talk, Preacher?”
In a rusty, strained voice, Preacher said, “I … can … talk. And I’m … goin’ with you … after the Gros Ventre. We got to … get those prisoners back. And … one more thing.”
“What’s that?” Audie asked.
“I’m gonna kill … Willie Deaver.”
CHAPTER 21
“Deaver,” Audie repeated, obviously not recognizing the name at first. Then understanding dawned on him and was visible in the way his eyes widened. “That reprobate we clashed with at Blind Pete’s Place!”
Preacher nodded and rasped, “Yeah. I caught a glimpse of him durin’ the fightin’. In fact, it was his horse that kicked me in the head.”
“You are talking about a white man?” Two Bears asked. “It was the Gros Ventre that attacked us!”
Bent Leg lifted a hand and gestured for his war chief to step back.
“Several of my warriors mentioned they thought they saw a few whites with Snake Heart’s men. This man Deaver you mention could have been one of them, Preacher.”
“He was one of ’em, all right,” Preacher said with a nod. His voice was stronger now but still had a rasp to it because of his dry throat. “I need some water.”
“I’ll fetch it,” Lorenzo offered. He hurried out of the lodge with a water skin and headed for the creek.
“Somethin’ else I noticed,” Preacher went on. “The Gros Ventre had plenty of rifles, and they looked and sounded like they were good ones. They looked new to me, in fact.”
With a grim expression on his weathered face, Bent Leg nodded.
“I saw this, too. Never have Snake Heart’s men been so well armed.”
Audie said, “I can think of a possible explanation for that, Preacher. Blind Pete said that Deaver and those men with him were pretty bad sorts. Suppose they got their hands on some rifles and traded them to the Gros Ventre.”
“That’s just what I was thinkin’,” Preacher said. “And then they came along while Snake Heart and his warriors tried ’em out.”
“Yes, that makes sense to me,” Audie agreed.
Lorenzo came back from the creek with the water. Preacher took the skin from the old-timer and lifted it to his mouth. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he really was until he started to drink. He tipped his head back and let the cold water from the stream flow down his throat.
When he finally lowered the skin, he wiped the back of his other hand across his mouth and said, “Just let me get my gear together, and I’ll be ready to ride out with the rest of you fellas.”
“Wait just a minute,” Audie objected. “You suffered two wounds in that fight, Preacher, and lost a considerable amount of blood. You’re in no shape to go chasing off after the Gros Ventre. You need to stay here and rest.”
Out of respect for his friend, Preacher let Audie finish. Most men, he would have interrupted and told them to go to hell.
But when Audie had spoken his piece, Preacher said, “I’m goin’, and there ain’t no use in arguin’ with me. If you want to help, round up my guns for me, while I put on a shirt that ain’t covered with dried blood.”
Audie frowned up at him.
“You’re a very stubborn man, do you know that?”
“So I’ve been told,” Preacher said as he summoned up a smile.
“Wait,” Two Bears said. “I have not said that any of you white men can ride with us to rescue Raven’s Wing and the other prisoners. I am war chief here.”
The look he gave Bent Leg was an open challenge.
Preacher swallowed a curse. The last thing they needed to have to deal with right now was Two Bears’ hurt feelings. Not when the lives of Raven’s Wing and those other prisoners were at stake.
Instead of confronting Two Bears, Preacher turned to Bent Leg and asked, “How many warriors did you lose in this raid?”
“Ten men were killed, another dozen wounded. Seven of them are hurt badly enough that they cannot ride.”
“So you’re down fifteen warriors,” Preacher said. “The four of us can’t replace them … but I reckon we’re a start.”
Two Bears opened his mouth to say something again, but Bent Leg silenced him with a lifted hand. Two Bears might be the war chief, but Bent Leg was the ultimate authority in this village.
“Preacher and his friends will go with us,” Bent Leg decreed.
“You’re riding with the war party?” Preacher asked the old chief.
Bent Leg nodded.
“Every man who is able will go. Only the wounded, the old men, and the boys will stay. They will be enough to protect the village.”
Preacher hoped Bent Leg was right about that.
“How many men did the Gros Ventre have?”
Audie answered that question.
“I estimate between forty and fifty.”
“And how many of us can we muster?”
“Maybe thirty,” Audie admitted. “Counting the four of us.”
“So we’ll be outnumbered.”
“And outgunned,” Lorenzo reminded them. “Those savages got all them new rifles.”
“Well …” Preacher shrugged. “Won’t be the first time I’ve gone into a fight with the odds against me, and I’m still here.”
“Your luck came close to running out this time,” Audie said.
Preacher shook his head.
“I don’t believe in luck. I believe in powder and shot and cold steel.”
Even though several hours had passed since the raid on the Assiniboine village, a feeling of exultant triumph still filled Willie Deaver. Not only had the Gros Ventre inflicted a lot of damage on their traditional enemies and carried off a dozen prisoners, so they were well-pleased with the rifles the white men had brought them, but just as important to Deaver, he had settled the score with the mountain man called Preacher.
It would have been nice if they’d been able to kill the midget and the Crow and the black man, too. Maybe they really were dead; Deaver didn’t know, because he had never spotted them in the chaos of battle.
But he knew Preacher was dead. The mountain man probably had been mortally wounded by that first shot Deaver had fired to begin the attack, and then a few minutes later fate had smiled on him and placed Preacher directly in the path of his horse.
Deaver had ridden right over him, then reined in and twisted in the saddle to look back and see Preacher sprawled on the ground in the stillness of death with blood covering his entire head.
Deaver would have pumped a rifle ball into the varmint just to make sure, but at that moment one of the Assiniboine had charged him and he’d had to blow the redskin’s brains out instead. By the time he loo
ked for Preacher again, the struggling human tides had cut him off from view.
Despite that, Deaver was confident that his enemy was dead. He felt it in his bones.
He felt something else in his bones, too, whenever he looked at one of the captives the Gros Ventre had dragged away from the village. The Assiniboine woman was a mighty good-looker, with hair the color of midnight framing a frightened but still beautiful face.
Maybe he would ask Snake Heart if he could have the woman, Deaver thought. Call her a sort of bonus to go with the pelts that the Gros Ventre were trading for the rifles.
That idea intrigued Deaver, and he wasn’t the only one with such thoughts lurking in his head, he realized as Caleb Manning urged his alongside Deaver’s mount and asked, “What do you think, Willie? Some of those Injun gals look pretty good for savages, don’t they?”
“You just feel that way because the nearest white woman’s all the way back in St. Louis,” Deaver said. He didn’t want Manning horning in on his plans. “I don’t reckon Snake Heart would like it too much if we started messin’ with the prisoners. He figures they’re his by right of capture.”
“Well, sure,” Manning agreed. “But that don’t mean he might not feel generous enough to let us have the use of a few of ’em. After all, we brought him the rifles he used to damn near wipe out those other redskins.”
Deaver wasn’t sure the Assiniboine were anywhere near wiped out. Sure, quite a few of them had fallen to the rifle shots, but with all the confusion, it was difficult to tell just how many had been killed … and how many were left alive to maybe give chase to the Gros Ventre raiders.
“I’ll see what I can talk Snake Heart into once we get back to his village,” Deaver said. “Maybe you’re right and he’ll be feelin’ generous. But the main thing is to get those pelts he promised us and to get out with our own hair.”
“Well, sure,” Manning said.
“And if this setup works out for us the way I think it might,” Deaver went on, “we’ll all be rich enough to go back to St. Louis and buy us any woman we want. Hell, we might even go back east and get us some of them Philadelphia or Boston women.”
“Now you’re talkin’,” Manning said with a grin.
Deaver turned in his saddle and looked behind them as a chilly wind tugged at his hat. The Gros Ventre war party was stretched out in a line, with a dozen warriors riding double because a prisoner was perched on the pony’s back in front of each of them. The women had wailed and cried at first, but they had fallen silent when their captures threatened to slit their throats and dump them beside the trail.
Somewhere back there, the Assiniboine might be coming after them already, Deaver mused. He hoped not, but even if that turned out to be true, Snake Heart’s men probably outnumbered the pursuers, and they were damned sure better armed with those new rifles. If there was another fight, Deaver was sure his newfound allies would emerge triumphant again.
It would be better if things didn’t come to that, though, and as the raw wind sent a shiver through him, he thought that it would be a lucky break for them if the snow came back sooner than expected. All the storm needed to do was hold off until the Gros Ventre were through that notch in the ridge and into the badlands beyond. Then there could be a blasted blizzard as far as Deaver was concerned. If the snow was heavy enough, it wouldn’t take long for drifts to block the notch and prevent the Assiniboine from coming after them.
He glanced at that good-looking prisoner again and wished the Assiniboine woman was riding with him. He could have used that opportunity to get better acquainted with her.
But the time was coming, he told himself. He just had to be patient.
And then that pretty little redskin gal would be his to do whatever he wanted to with her. He would enjoy himself one hell of a lot.
But she probably wouldn’t.
By the time Preacher had pulled on a clean buckskin shirt over his bandaged torso, Audie and Nighthawk had returned to the lodge with his rifle and the pistols he had given to Audie earlier. His other two pistols were still there in the lodge, ready to be gathered up with the rest of the gear.
“Nighthawk, can you go saddle Horse for Preacher?” Audie asked.
The Crow nodded and said, “Umm.” He left the lodge while Preacher was loading the pistols.
“I still think this is a bad idea,” Audie went on. “You should be lying down and resting for the next week, at least.”
“You ever know me to take it easy for that long, Audie?” Preacher asked.
“Well … no.”
Preacher smiled.
“Shoot, here a while back I had to chase down some varmints while I had a busted arm. If I can do that with one wing, I can manage with a little scratch and a bump on this hard ol’ noggin o’ mine.”
“Those injuries are more than a scratch and a bump, and you know it.”
Preacher shrugged.
“Maybe, but I’ll be all right.”
“You won’t have it any other way, will you?”
“Nope.”
From the lodge’s entrance, Lorenzo said, “And I been ridin’ with Preacher long enough to know that arguin’ with him ain’t gonna do no earthly good. I done told you that before, Audie.”
“Yes, I know.”
Preacher tucked the loaded pistols behind his belt and picked up the other brace of firearms. He would carry them in the holsters strapped to his saddle.
The three men left the lodge. Nighthawk was waiting outside with Horse and the other three mounts. He passed out the reins, then the four men walked toward the area near Bent Leg’s lodge where the rest of the war party was assembling. Dog strode alongside Preacher.
“You are ready to ride?” Bent Leg asked when the visitors came up.
“More than ready,” Preacher replied for all of them.
“You had better be able to keep up, white man,” Two Bears said. “We will not wait for you, and we will not turn back to take care of you.”
“I wouldn’t expect it,” Preacher said, “but I reckon I’ll still be goin’ as long as you are, old son.” He swung up onto Horse’s back and settled himself in the saddle. “As long as it takes to bring Raven’s Wing and the other prisoners back safely to their home.”
CHAPTER 22
The bandage around Preacher’s head made it difficult for him to wear his usual broad-brimmed felt hat. Audie loaned him a coonskin cap instead. The cap wouldn’t put as much pressure on the head wound.
An hour after leaving the Assiniboine village, Preacher shrugged into the sheepskin coat he had brought with him. The air was getting downright chilly. He looked at the sky.
Snow up there. How soon it began to fall could have an impact on the pursuit.
When the Gros Ventre rode out of the Assiniboine village, they had been headed due west. There wasn’t any doubt that they were going to go through the notch into the badlands and then make their way across that rugged stretch back to their own stomping grounds. So the Assiniboine headed for the notch as well, taking the trail that had been carved out over the years by their ponies.
A heavy snowfall might block that gap in the ridge, which ran for twenty miles or more, Preacher recalled from previous visits to these parts. If the pursuers couldn’t get through the notch but had to go the long way around instead, they wouldn’t have any chance of catching the raiders before the Gros Ventre got back to their village. That would complicate any effort to rescue the prisoners and make it much more difficult.
So Bent Leg and Two Bears, who could read the weather as well as Preacher could, kept the war party moving as quickly as possible. The long hours in the saddle made Preacher’s side ache, but there was nothing he could do about that. As long as the wound didn’t break open and start bleeding heavily again, he could put up with a little pain.
Snow began to fall in mid-afternoon, lightly at first, then faster and thicker, but not too bad. The war party had already started to climb the wooded slopes toward the notch, and as Audie
rode alongside Preacher, he said, “I think we’re going to make it. At the rate the snow is falling, it’ll be morning before there’s any danger of the gap being blocked, if then.”
“That’s as long as the snow don’t get any worse,” Preacher pointed out.
“Yes, of course, but even if it does, I think we’re going to be close enough that we can make a run for it and get through in time.”
“I hope you’re right,” Preacher said. “The last little while, though, I’ve started havin’ a funny feelin’ on the back of my neck, like we might have some trouble waitin’ for us that we don’t know about yet.”
From Preacher’s other side, Lorenzo said, “I trust those instincts of yours, Preacher. I reckon we better keep our eyes open.”
“We’re doing that anyway,” Audie said. “But I agree with you, Lorenzo. In situations such as this, Preacher is nearly always—”
Audie was about to say right, Preacher figured, but the sudden boom of a gunshot interrupted him.
More shots followed, one on top of another, and rifle balls began to whip through the trees around them. A man yelled in pain. Two Bears bellowed orders, telling his men to find cover.
Preacher and his companions dismounted quickly and knelt behind thick-trunked pines. A rifle ball smacked into the tree where Preacher had taken cover and knocked a big chunk of bark off it. He crouched a little lower and searched for the source of the shots.
“Anybody see those damn bushwhackers?” he called to his friends.
“I think they’re in a clump of rocks about a hundred yards up the slope,” Audie replied.
Preacher risked a look and saw gray fringes of powdersmoke floating in the air above the boulders Audie had mentioned. Audie was right. That had to be where the hidden riflemen were holed up.
“You reckon it’s some of them Gros Ventre?” Lorenzo asked.
“More than likely,” Preacher said. “Snake Heart must be pretty smart. He knows it’s a race between them, us, and that snow, so he left some men behind to slow us down and give them more of a chance to win.”
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