That sounded like a good idea to Preacher. Evervone took their seats around the fire, and while there was still a bit of tension in the air, it wasn’t like before. Robinson and the big Swede wouldn’t cause any more trouble. In some cases, nothing cemented the bond between men like a good knock-down, drag-out brawl, and Preacher hoped that was what had happened here.
He told Carey and Neilson to stand the first watch. Everyone else turned in, except for Preacher himself. He prowled out onto the prairie near the wagons and stood there for several minutes, watching and listening. No suspicious sounds came to him on the warm night breeze. For a long time he looked back in the direction they had come from, searching for a tiny pinpoint of light that would mean someone was behind them. He saw nothing but darkness.
But that didn’t mean no one was following them. Anyone dogging their trail might be smart enough to have a cold camp, or at least keep the fire small and hidden somehow. Preacher’s nerves were still on edge, and he couldn’t blame that feeling on Deborah Morrigan anymore, even though he wasn’t sure that her presence wouldn’t cause more trouble before the journey was over.
With the night so quiet and peaceful, though, there was nothing he could do except return to camp and try to get a little shut-eye himself.
Tomorrow would be another long day, and there was no telling what challenges and dangers it would hold.
Sixteen
As it turned out, the next day went quite well. The wagons forded the Kansas River without a hitch and angled northwestward, soon picking up an even smaller stream that was a tributary of the Kansas. They would follow it almost all the way to the Platte, Preacher told the others.
One day turned into the next, and the miles continued to unspool beneath the wagon wheels. Gil Robinson and Lars Neilson were a little sullen for a few days, but they got over it. The Swede was soon his usual smiling self again. And as for Robinson, he had never been that friendly, even before the fight with Corliss. But he handled his team well enough and pitched in around the camps as much as he ever had.
One day while the wagon train was stopped at noon, Deborah decided that she wanted to learn how to shoot a rifle. Corliss laughed at the idea, but Deborah frowned and said, “No, I mean it. I think I ought to learn how to do that.”
“That ain’t a bad idea,” Preacher put in. “We’re already a long way from civilization and gettin’ farther away every day. Might come a time when Miss Morrigan knowin’ how to handle a rifle would come in mighty handy.”
“Well, all right, if both of you insist,” Corliss said. He got his flintlock from the wagon and brought it over to Deborah. He thrust the weapon at her, and she took it.
“Oh, my,” she said as she felt how heavy it was. Her arms sagged a little before she was able to tighten her muscles. “Do I really have to lift it all the way to my shoulder?”
“You do if you want to shoot it,” Preacher told her. “That’s the only way to aim. A few fellas can shoot a rifle from the hip, but I don’t advise it, especially for you, ma’am. Might break a wrist that way.”
“All right.” Deborah struggled to raise the rifle. When she had it in place, with the butt firmly socketed against her shoulder and the barrel weaving even worse than when Jake was trying to shoot one of the long rifles, she said in a strained voice, “Now what do I do?”
Preacher looked at Corliss. “Loaded and primed?”
“Of course.”
“All right,” Preacher told Deborah, “point the barrel at that little clump o’ sagebrush out there.”
“What sagebrush?”
“Yonder.” Preacher leveled a finger at the plants he was talking about.
“Oh, I see it now.” Deborah managed to aim the rifle in the general direction of the sagebrush. The barrel was weaving around so much, she probably wouldn’t be able to hit what she was aiming at. It would be blind luck if she did. But at least she was pointing the rifle away from the wagons.
“Reach up with the thumb o’ your right hand,” Preacher went on, “and use it to pull the hammer back.”
“The hammer?”
“That part right there.”
Biting her bottom lip in concentration as the men gathered to watch this display of her shooting ability, Deborah got her thumb on the hammer and eared it back.
“Keep pullin’ until you hear it click,” Preacher said. “That’s the way you know it’s cocked.”
Deborah did so, a look of excitement and satisfaction appearing on her face when she heard the hammer lock into place.
“Is it ready to shoot?” she asked.
“It’s ready,” Preacher assured her. “You got the sights on that sagebrush?”
“I’m trying . . . but this gun is awfully heavy. Do I pull the trigger now?”
“Take a deep breath,” Preacher advised her. “Steady yourself. Then squeeze the trigger. Don’t jerk it. That’ll just throw your aim off.”
Deborah drew in a breath. It didn’t steady her all that much, but the rifle barrel stopped weaving quite so much. She squeezed the trigger.
The roar of exploding powder mingled with her cry of shock and pain as the rifle kicked so hard against her shoulder that it drove her backward. She fell, landing hard on her rump, and the rifle thudded to the ground in front of her.
“Good Lord!” Corliss exclaimed as he leaped forward to snatch up the rifle. “I hope you didn’t hurt it! ”
“It!” Deborah said. “What about me?”
Jerome took her arm and helped her up while Corliss examined the rifle to make sure it was undamaged. Deborah looked like she couldn’t decide whether to rub her shoulder or her rump. Both would be bruised from this incident. Finally, in the interests of decorum, no doubt, she settled for rubbing her shoulder.
“You didn’t hold the rifle tight enough against your shoulder,” Preacher told her. “That’s why it kicked so hard. That powder’s got a heavy recoil to start with, but you made it worse.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?” she demanded in an aggrieved tone.
“You’ll remember what to do next time, won’t you?”
She pouted. “I suppose so. Still, I think it was a mean trick.”
“You’ll get used to shootin’,” Jake told her. “I did.”
As a matter of fact, over the past few days the youngster had become a pretty good shot, Preacher thought. Jake had knocked over several rabbits and prairie hens that had been good eatin’ when they were roasted over the fire at night.
Corliss showed Deborah how to reload the rifle, and she tried another shot. This time she came closer to the sagebrush, which she hadn’t hit at all with her first shot. This ball kicked up dirt about ten feet in front of the brush. Preacher thought that wasn’t too bad. Also, Deborah kept the rifle butt tight enough against her shoulder so that the recoil didn’t knock her down, although it did make her stagger back a couple of steps.
“That’s enough,” she said. “My shoulder is going to be so bruised tomorrow!”
“It’ll heal,” Preacher told her. He wished Deborah had stayed back in St. Louis like she was supposed to, but he had to admit that she hadn’t complained a lot. She seemed to be made of fairly tough stuff, which was good considering where they were going.
Deborah and Jake both continued to practice with the rifles over the next few days, while the wagon train was stopped to allow the oxen to rest.
They had reached the Platte River by now. It was a broad, shallow stream, sometimes not more than a foot deep, that had a tendency to split up into numerous channels. It was also extremely muddy in places, prompting Preacher to explain to his companions that frontiersmen sometimes referred to the water in the Platte as “too thick to drink, too thin to plow.”
“We won’t try to cross it yet,” Preacher told the others. “There are too many places along here where the wagons might bog down, and if that ain’t bad enough, there’s quicksand out there, too. That stuff can suck an ox right under, or a man if he’s damn fool enough to get stuck i
n it.”
One morning after they had been following the south bank of the Platte for several days, Preacher didn’t like the looks of the sky up ahead. It was a flat, silvery color, and the air had an ominous heaviness to it as it lay hot and still over the prairie. Even greenhorns like Corliss and Jerome sensed that something was wrong.
“What is it, Preacher?” Jerome asked as the mountain man stood next to Horse and peered at the sky. Beside him, Dog sat and whimpered a little. The stallion’s ears pricked forward, and his tail swished back and forth as something disturbed him, too.
“Storm comin’,” Preacher said, his tone as flat and heavy as the air.
“So it rains a little,” Corliss said. “I think we can handle that.”
Preacher turned to look at him. “Some mighty bad storms boil up sometimes out here on the plains. Rain so hard you can’t see your hand in front of your face, lightnin’ that seems to set the air on fire around you, and twisters that can pick up a wagon and fling it a mile through the air.”
“Surely you’re exaggerating.”
Sitting on the wagon seat beside Corliss, Deborah said, “I don’t think he is.”
“Should we try to take shelter somewhere?” Jerome asked.
A wave of Preacher’s hand took in the grassy plains that stretched for miles and miles around them. “If a storm comes along, there ain’t no place to hide,” he said. “We’ll just have to ride it out as best we can.”
“So you think we should push on?”
“No point in sittin’ and waitin’,” Preacher replied with a shrug. “Might as well get movin’. Could be the storm will go around us.”
“Or maybe you’re wrong about it,” Corliss said.
Preacher swung up into the saddle without saying anything else. He wasn’t going to waste time arguing with Corliss.
But he was beginning to wonder just what Deborah saw in him. Corliss was arrogant, stubborn, and downright unpleasant at times.
Preacher had long since given up trying to figure out how the female brain worked, or why they liked some fellas and not others. He suspected that a man could study on it for years and never make sense of it. That would be just a plumb waste of time.
The oppressiveness in the air grew worse as the morning wore on. The temperature climbed. It was a sultry heat that stole a man’s breath away, and made him long for shade and a cool breeze, neither of which he was liable to find out here on the prairie.
But the storm didn’t break. It just continued to threaten during the afternoon. Preacher had begun to hope that luck might be with them and that they would avoid the worst of it, when he noticed that the sky was finally beginning to darken. A sudden wind gusted in their faces.
Horse tossed his head and let out a whicker. Padding alongside, Dog growled as if he had just scented a predator. “Yeah, I know,” Preacher told his four-legged trail partners. “It’s comin’, all right.”
He turned around and rode back to the wagons from his position up ahead. “Circle ’em up!” he called as he made the revolving motion over his head. “Circle ’em up tight!”
“It’s too early to make camp,” Corliss protested as Preacher reined to a stop. “We’re wasting time.”
“Feel the chill in that wind?” Preacher asked. “That means it’s just gonna get harder and harder. And you can smell the rain headin’ this way, too.”
“Is that what that smell is?” Jerome asked. “It’s refreshing in a way.”
“You won’t think so in a little while when the skies open up,” Preacher said. “Get the wagons in a circle and the teams unhitched! Otherwise them oxen are liable to be scattered hell-west and crosswise by the time the storm’s over.”
The urgency in Preacher’s voice must have convinced Corliss, Jerome, and the other men, because they began working swiftly to follow his orders. Jake and even Deborah helped out in the hasty preparations.
By the time the wagons were drawn into a tight circle, the teams unhitched, and the oxen corralled in the middle of the circle, the silver of the sky had turned to a dark blue. The wind blew hard now, and occasional drops of rain spat down. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and twisting, brilliant fingers of lightning clawed at the clouds. The storm appeared to have the wagon train right in its sights. It was going to be as bad as Preacher had worried it might be.
“Everybody inside the wagons!” he called. “Make sure anything that might blow away is tied down! And once the storm hits, keep your head down!”
He hoped the arching canvas covers over the wagon beds were secured nice and tight; otherwise, once the wind really got up, it would whip them right off the vehicles, leaving everything—and everyone—exposed. He left Horse loose in the center of the circle, knowing that the stallion wouldn’t spook and run off no matter how bad the storm got. Then he and Dog crawled under the wagon where Jerome and Jake hunkered inside. Preacher stretched out on the ground, while the big cur huddled against his side. Preacher put an arm around Dog’s neck and dug his fingers into the thick coat.
“Hang on, fella,” he said, and a sudden lightning strike punctuated his words. Electricity fanged down from the sky and smashed into the earth no more than a hundred yards from the wagons. The ground shook from the instantaneous boom of thunder.
That was just the beginning of a terrific lightning storm that went on for a seeming eternity, crashing and booming all around the wagon train. The bolts seared down out of the sky in a dazzling, near-constant glare that Preacher could still see even after he squeezed his eyelids tightly shut.
While the lightning was still going on, the rain hit in earnest, and as Preacher had warned, it was like the skies had opened up to dump all the water they held on this one place. At first, the rain came almost straight down, closing in around the wagons like a thick gray curtain. Then, as the wind blew harder, it began to slant, until the drops seemed to be moving almost horizontally. It was like being trapped inside a river, Preacher thought as the rain blew under the wagon and lashed at him and Dog. The moisture had to be penetrating inside the wagons, too, even though the canvas flaps at the front and back of the wagon beds were drawn closed and tied tightly. Nothing could completely keep out such a deluge.
The only good thing about a storm like this was that it usually didn’t last very long. This one moved quickly, and after a half hour or so that seemed much longer, the rain began to let up, the lightning strikes were fewer and farther apart, and the terrible wind slowed somewhat.
Preacher was just beginning to feel optimistic that they were going to be able to ride it out when he heard a distinctive rumbling. “Oh, hell,” he spat out as he crawled closer to the edge of the area shielded by the wagon above him. As he peered through the spokes of one of the wheels, the rain thinned out enough for him to be able to see the writhing black funnel of a tornado as it danced across the prairie a few hundred yards away, darting this way and that but always traveling in the general direction of the circled wagons.
Preacher hated being helpless, but that was exactly the way he felt in the face of this terrible threat from nature. He couldn’t do a damned thing to stop the tornado or alter its capricious course. It was going to go wherever it wanted to and destroy anything that fate placed in its path.
And there was no point in trying to warn the others, because they would be just as powerless as Preacher was.
He slid back to where Dog lay with his head on his paws and wrapped his arms around the big cur again. By lifting his head, Preacher could still see the base of the tornado as it capered toward them. A hundred yards away now . . . fifty . . . a sudden swerve to the side, as if the super-destructive black column of air was going to miss them . . . then another swerve so that it was bearing down on them again, twenty yards away, the roaring so loud now that it slammed against Preacher’s ears like physical blows as the ground shook and the world seemed to moan in agony—
Then the tornado lifted into the sky, passing a short distance above the wagons. The very capriciousness t
hat had threatened Preacher and his companions had now saved them.
“Lord,” Preacher breathed. “Lord, that was a close one!”
Once the twister was gone, the rest of the storm followed hurriedly after it. The rain subsided to a drizzle, the wind died away to almost nothing, and the lightning moved off to the east, trailing grumbles of thunder behind it.
Preacher crawled out from under the wagon and looked around to see how bad the damage was.
Amazingly, the wagons all seemed to be intact. The canvas covers hadn’t been ripped off any of them. The oxen were soaked and miserable and a little walleyed, but they seemed to be all right, too, as was Horse.
“Everybody all right?” Preacher called as he strode around the circle. “You can come out now! Storm’s just about over.”
One by one, the people inside the wagons poked their heads out to look around. Seeing that the danger was over, they climbed out of the vehicles, dropping down to the muddy morass that the downpour had made out of the prairie.
“Is anyone hurt?” Jerome asked. “Corliss? Deborah?”
Both of them were pale but unharmed. “We’re just shaken up a little,” Corliss said. “I never saw such a storm in all my life. You were right, Preacher.”
“I’d just as soon I hadn’t been,” Preacher said, “but we seem to have come through it with no harm done.”
“What was that horrible noise there at the end?” Deborah asked. “I’ve never heard anything quite like that before.” A shudder ran through her. “And it would be all right with me if I never heard it again!”
“That was a twister,” Preacher said. “A tornado or a cyclone, some folks call ’em. I’ve seen a few in my time. They can flatten even a sturdy buildin’ if they hit it straight on.”
“Do they happen a lot out here?”
“Pretty often, durin’ the spring and summer.”
The mud pulled at Jerome’s boots as he walked around, and he said, “I don’t think we can travel as long as the ground’s like this. The wagons would get stuck.”
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