Binnion spotted a man kneeling behind one of the crates on the cargo deck. He lifted his rifle to his shoulder, smoothly earing back the hammer as he did so. He settled his sights on the little bit of the man’s head he could see and pressed the trigger. The rifle boomed and kicked back against his shoulder.
When the smoke from the exploding powder cleared a second later, Binnion saw the man sprawled on the deck next to the crate, his head a gory mess where the heavy lead ball had blown away a good chunk of it. He started reloading as more shots came from the other canoes.
By the time Binnion had his rifle ready to fire again, Wedge and Bracknell expertly brought the canoe alongside the riverboat. With the ease of long experience, Binnion stood up and leaped from the canoe onto the Sentinel’s deck. Wedge was right behind him, wielding his favorite weapon, a double-bitted ax. The big man handled the ax as easily as anyone else would a tomahawk.
Blood and slaughter, Binnion thought as his lips drew back from his teeth in a grimace. Two of his favorite things in the world. The only things he liked better were money and women.
And soon he would have those prizes as well.
Preacher didn’t know how many riflemen were hidden in the trees on top of the bluff. If there was just one, the varmint would have to reload before he could fire again.
Unless, of course, he had a second rifle. Or some pistols.
Preacher knew he’d just have to risk that. Besides, with Horse running at top speed, it wouldn’t take long to cover the ground between Preacher and the enemy.
Count Stahlmaske pushed his mount into a hard gallop, too, but the valiant animal couldn’t keep up with Horse. Neither could Dog. But all of them headed for the bluff overlooking the river as fast as they could.
Over the thundering hoofbeats, Preacher heard more shots. That meant the rest of the river pirates were attacking the Sentinel. He hoped the folks on the boat could hold out long enough for him to give them a hand.
As he reached the trees, a rifle roared again somewhere close by. This time the ball came close enough that he felt the heat of its breath on his cheek as it went by.
He had the ambusher spotted now, though, and as he dived from the saddle with his rifle in one hand he jerked the tomahawk from behind his belt with the other. He rolled over as he landed and came up throwing at the man who crouched next to a limestone boulder, feverishly trying to reload.
Preacher’s aim was true. With a thunk!, the tomahawk’s blade struck the pirate in the center of the forehead, splitting his skull like a melon and cleaving into his brain. He dropped his rifle and staggered backward, pretty much dead on his feet already, just a creature of spasming nerves and muscles.
He disappeared, plummeting off the edge of the bluff without even a scream.
Preacher ran toward the river with his rifle, his gaze darting among the trees and brush as he searched for more of the pirates. He didn’t see any on this side of the river, but as he reached the edge of the bluff and looked across the stream, he spotted more powder smoke on the opposite side.
He wasn’t surprised to see that the pirates had put marksmen on the other side of the river as well. He saw a rifle flash over there, then lifted his own weapon and fired at the spot.
The brush thrashed for a second, then a man appeared clutching his chest with his left hand. He had a pistol in his right hand, and as he stumbled forward he tried to raise the gun and fire. The range was really too far for a handgun, but the pirate must have realized that Preacher had mortally wounded him and was just trying for one last shot before he died.
He didn’t make it. He went off the edge of the bluff, too, and as he fell the gun in his hand discharged harmlessly into the air. This man still had a scream left in him as he fell the fifty feet to the river’s surface. The big splash when he hit the water swallowed his dying shriek.
Preacher glanced down at the river. He couldn’t see Captain Warner in the pilot house, and the big paddle wheel had come to a stop with water dripping from the blades that weren’t submerged in the river. Canoes full of pirates swarmed on the river on the far side of the boat. Men leaped from the smaller craft onto the cargo deck. Guns blasted and shouted curses filled the air.
A rifle went off to Preacher’s left. When he looked in that direction he saw the count standing there with gray smoke curling from the barrel of his weapon. Across the river, another body rolled out of the brush. This man didn’t fall off the bluff. He died before he could get there, lying on his back with his arms flung out to the side.
“He was drawing a bead on you,” Stahlmaske said.
Preacher nodded and said, “I’m obliged to you. That was a good shot.”
“It would appear that we are even now,” Stahlmaske said coolly.
Preacher wasn’t going to argue the point, but the situations weren’t exactly the same, he thought. The count might well have saved his life, but they couldn’t be completely certain of that. The pirate might have missed.
And Preacher hadn’t been engaged in doing something incredibly stupid at the time, either.
He shoved that out of his mind and looked down at the riverboat as he reloaded. The battle continued on board the Sentinel. Several of the pirates had made it onto the riverboat, but a couple of them lay sprawled on the deck, cut down by pistol fire from the crew.
The crewmen were pinned down at the moment, though, by rifle fire coming from the pirates still in the canoes. Warner’s men had to stay low behind the crates of supplies and couldn’t put up much of a fight anymore.
Simon Russell fired two pistols from the passenger deck, then had to duck back as rifle and pistol balls swarmed around him.
“Mein Gott!” the count exclaimed. “Is that my brother?”
It was Roderick, all right. He had come out onto the passenger deck and had a pistol in his hand. He seemed to be struggling to load it.
“Does he know how to use a gun?” Preacher asked grimly.
“Not well,” Stahlmaske said. “He should be somewhere safe.”
“If those pirates take over the boat, there won’t be nowhere safe down there.” Something else caught Preacher’s eye, and he stiffened as he saw several of the pirates, led by a brown-bearded giant waving an ax around almost like it was a toy, charge toward the stairs leading up to the passenger deck.
If those murderous bastards reached the boat’s second level, there was no telling how much bloody havoc they might wreak.
Preacher muttered, “Oh, hell,” and shoved his empty rifle into the hands of the startled Count Stahlmaske. He took off his powder horn and handed it to the nobleman as well. “Hang on to these for me, would you?”
He pulled his pistols from his belt, dropped them on the ground, and turned toward the edge of the bluff. He leaped off, his hat flying into the air, and plunged toward the river straight as an arrow.
CHAPTER 20
The daring leap wasn’t as foolhardy as it might have appeared. In a lot of places, jumping into the Missouri River from that height would mean a pair of broken legs, at the very least.
But since the river narrowed considerably as it passed through Cougar Bluffs, that meant it deepened as well. Preacher knew that and knew there was enough water for his dive. His feet hit the river and he went deep under the surface, all the way to the bottom, in fact. He kicked against it and shot back up.
He had grabbed a big breath as he fell, but as his head broke back out into the open he was glad to haul in some more air. He started swimming toward the Sentinel with strong strokes. The riverboat wasn’t far away, and it didn’t take Preacher long to reach it.
With water streaming from his buckskins he pulled himself onto the cargo deck and looked toward the stairs. Gunther had appeared from somewhere and met the charge of the pirates. Like two bulls, he and the huge cutthroat with the ax had locked horns, only in this case they were struggling over the blood-smeared weapon, straining and heaving like a couple of primitive titans. Their swaying forms blocked the narrow stairs ha
lfway up to the passenger deck.
Preacher hit the pirates from behind, striking like a whirlwind. He drove his knife deep into the back of one man, ripped the blade free, and flung the corpse to the side. He kicked another man off the boat, slashed the knife across the throat of yet another so that hot blood fountained redly into the air.
The embattled crewmen, inspired by Preacher’s leap from the bluff and his furious attack on the pirates, charged from their hiding places and joined in the fray. In close quarters like this, it was mostly knives and fists and clubs.
The knot of men fighting for their lives surged back and forth across the deck at the foot of the stairs. Above them, Gunther and the big pirate with the ax continued their desperate struggle as well.
Preacher broke free of the melee and started up the stairs just as the big pirate finally succeeded in wrenching his ax back away from Gunther. The blade flashed in the sun as the ax rose and fell twice.
Gunther sagged back on the stairs, a crimson flood springing from the hideous wounds the blows from the weapon had opened on the side of his neck. He pawed weakly at the pirate but couldn’t stop him as the man bounded over him and headed for the passenger deck.
Preacher saw there was nothing he could do for Gunther. The big Prussian was going to bleed to death in a matter of moments. The stairs were already awash with gore around him.
Gunther looked up and met Preacher’s eyes for a second, and the mountain man realized there was something he could do for him after all. He reached down and squeezed Gunther’s shoulder as the light went out of the servant’s eyes.
Then Preacher raced on up the stairs after the killer with the ax.
As he reached the passenger deck, he saw that the pirate had set his sights on Roderick Stahlmaske. Roaring, the man held the ax above his head and thundered toward Roderick, who was still fumbling with his pistol.
Preacher had lost his knife in the battle at the bottom of the stairs, and his tomahawk was still lodged in the skull of the man he had killed on top of the bluff. So he had only his bare hands as he went after the man with the ax.
Suddenly Roderick lifted the pistol with both hands and pulled back the hammer. He aimed it at the charging giant and pulled the trigger. The pistol roared as smoke and flame spouted from its muzzle.
Preacher didn’t know if Roderick had tried to aim or had just fired blind, but either way luck was with him. The ball struck the pirate in the right thigh and knocked that leg out from under him. He fell and hit the deck so hard that the impact jolted the ax out of his hands.
Preacher lunged after the ax as it slid across the deck. He scooped it up and whirled, figuring to use the weapon against its former owner.
The pirate was already back on his feet, though, hobbling toward the edge of the deck as fast as his wounded leg would take him. All the fight had gone out of him. He vaulted over the railing and dropped to the cargo deck.
The injured leg folded up underneath him again when he landed, but this time he just rolled off the boat and disappeared into the river. Preacher didn’t know what was going to happen to the pirate—he hoped the son of a bitch either bled to death or drowned—but he didn’t feel like going after him.
“Are you all right?” he asked Roderick, who was pale and shaking.
“J-ja, I think so,” the young man answered. “That . . . that man . . . he was a behemoth!”
“I reckon,” Preacher agreed.
Roderick stared at the bloody ax in Preacher’s hand.
“He was going to chop me up into small pieces!”
“More than likely. You better reload that gun if you can.”
Roderick swallowed and bobbed his head up and down.
“Yes, I . . . I think I’m getting the hang of it now!”
Preacher went over to the railing and looked down to see that the surviving pirates were fleeing. They must have encountered a lot more resistance than they expected, and when Preacher and Count Stahlmaske had killed the bushwhackers posted on top of the bluffs, that had changed the odds. Those riflemen hadn’t been able to pick off the defenders from above, as the pirates had probably been counting on.
Roderick followed the mountain man to the railing and pointed the pistol at the canoes.
“Should I try to shoot one of them?” he asked.
Preacher shook his head. That might just draw some return fire, and Roderick had already had one narrow escape today. No need for the youngster to push his luck.
“No, let ’em go,” Preacher said. “We bloodied ’em pretty good. They’ll probably be holed up somewhere lickin’ their wounds for a long time.”
A few final shots from the crew members hurried the pirates on their way. The canoes disappeared around the next bend, going as fast as their occupants could paddle them. Preacher didn’t see the ax-wielding giant among them and hoped the bastard was at the bottom of the Missouri River by now.
Simon Russell hurried along the deck toward Preacher and Roderick. He called, “Preacher! Are you all right?”
“Better than I got any right to be, I reckon,” Preacher replied with a nod.
“I saw that dive from the bluff. You’re right, you ought to be dead after doing something that crazy!” Russell looked at the younger man and added, “How about you, Herr Stahlmaske?”
Roderick nodded.
“I’m fine, thanks to Preacher.”
“No thanks to me,” the mountain man said. “You winged that big varmint on your own.”
“Pure luck, I assure you.”
“We all need some on our side now and then.” Preacher turned back to Russell. “Have you seen the captain?”
Before Russell could answer, the boat’s whistle blew. Preacher looked up to see Warner standing in the pilot house, evidently unharmed. The captain waved down at them and called, “I’ll put in to shore as soon as we’re clear of the bluffs!”
“That’s a good idea,” Preacher said. “We’ll need to see just how badly everybody’s hurt.”
Two members of the crew had been killed in the fighting. Gunther was the only servant to be killed or even wounded. All three men were laid to rest that evening in graves dug on a hillside overlooking the river.
The half-dozen dead pirates had been shoved over the side into the Big Muddy. The fish could dispose of them, and good riddance, thought Preacher. He had taken a tomahawk off one of the corpses to replace the one he’d lost in the river.
Leading Horse, Count Stahlmaske had ridden along the bluffs until he could get back down to the river and rendezvous with the Sentinel. If he was relieved that his brother, uncle, and fiancée had come through the attack all right, he didn’t really show it. He was, however, upset that Gunther had been killed.
“True, he was a thick-headed brute with a bad temper,” the count said as he talked with Preacher, Russell, Allingham, and Warner on the passenger deck that evening after the burials, “but he was quite useful at times.”
“There’s a good chance he saved your brother’s life by slowin’ down that fella with the ax,” Preacher said. “That gave Roderick time to get his gun loaded. Then he was lucky enough to actually hit the varmint.”
“Luck indeed. Roderick has never been a good shot.”
Allingham said, “I’m told you made an incredible leap from the bluff, Preacher.”
“Just figured I’d better get down to the boat as fast as I could,” the mountain man said with a shrug. “I knew you folks could use my help.”
“Now, now, no false modesty. Everyone came through with flying colors today. Those pirates were whipped so thoroughly I wager they’ll think twice before attacking us or any other riverboat ever again.”
Preacher hoped the senator was right about that. The Sentinel still had to get the rest of the way to the Yellowstone River—and back.
Claude Binnion listened to the curses of angry men and the moans of wounded ones. The only one who wasn’t carrying on was Big Wedge, who maintained a stoic silence as Binnion cleaned the hole in
his leg with corn liquor and then bandaged it tightly.
“You’ll be able to get around a little, Wedge,” Binnion said as he sat back from the chore. “You probably ought to stay off the leg as much as you can for a few days, though.”
“All right, Claude. Thanks for helpin’ me. I thought I was a goner.”
“You damn near were. If we hadn’t spotted you and pulled you out of the river, you might’ve drowned.”
The remaining pirates were several miles upstream from Cougar Bluffs. They had pulled their canoes ashore, hidden them in some brush, and then made camp several hundred yards away from the river. They weren’t in any shape to fight again so soon, so Binnion hoped the riverboat would just steam on past without anyone noticing them.
From where he hunkered near a small fire, glaring into the flames like a greenhorn, Hackney said bitterly, “We should’ve jumped the sons o’ bitches yesterday. We could’ve taken over the boat then. They wouldn’t have been able to stop us.”
Binnion stood up and walked over to the fire. He said, “If you’ve got something to say to me, Jed, you better say it to my face. Otherwise I might not hear it.”
“Sorry, Claude,” Hackney muttered, still without looking up. “Forget it.”
“No, I mean it,” Binnion went on. “If you think somebody besides me can do a better job of leading this bunch, I want to know about it. Maybe you?”
As he spoke, Binnion let his hand rest on the bone grips of the big knife sheathed at his waist. The camp had gone quiet. Even the wounded men had stopped moaning.
“Hell, no,” Hackney replied hastily. “I never said I was any kind of leader.”
“That’s right, you didn’t.” Binnion looked around at the other men. “Anybody else here want to speak up?”
No one did.
“I know things didn’t work out today like I planned,” Binnion went on after a moment. “I’ve led you boys to plenty of good loot in the past, though, and I damn sure will again. Today was just bad luck all around.”
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