“Preacher! ”Jerome called. “Preacher, are you all right?”
“Yeah,” Preacher replied. “Keep your heads down. I ain’t sure they’re all gone.”
But after a quarter of an hour had gone by, Preacher felt certain they were. He stood up and trotted over to the gully to see how bad things were there.
Someone had rolled Neilson onto his back, so that the Swede’s eyes stared sightlessly up at the morning sky. After everything that had happened, it was difficult to believe that it wasn’t even mid-morning yet.
Preacher was sorry to see that Neilson was dead, but relieved when he saw Blackie sitting up with his back propped against the side of the gully while Carey tied some makeshift bandages ripped from a shirt around his torso.
“How bad is it, Blackie?” Preacher asked as he hunkered on his heels beside the gully. Dog came up beside him and nuzzled his shoulder. Preacher scratched behind the big cur’s ears.
“Reckon I’ll live,” the one-eyed man said. “That shot dug a chunk o’ meat outta my side, but Carey’s patchin’ it up.”
Carey had a bandage tied around his wounded leg already. He glanced up at Preacher and said, “Blackie and me ain’t gonna be too much use in a fight for a while.”
“That’s all right,” Preacher told him. “You two can sort of take care of each other and Jake, while the rest of us go after those damned thieves.”
“They took Deborah,” Jerome said. Anxiety twisted his face and voice.
“We have to rescue her,” Corliss added.
Jerome turned to his cousin and snapped, “If you hadn’t left her there for those bastards to capture—”
“I swear, I thought she was right behind me!”
“You panicked!” Jerome accused. “You abandoned her!”
“That’s a damned lie!”
“Both of you shut the hell up!” Preacher roared. “We ain’t got time for—”
He stopped as Jake climbed out of the gully and tugged on his sleeve. “Uh, Preacher,” the boy said, and when the mountain man looked in his direction, Preacher saw that Jake was staring toward the canyon.
Preacher turned his head to see what the youngster was looking at, and was almost as surprised as Jake seemed to be at the sight of a bloody, buckskin-clad figure limping and staggering toward them.
“It . . . it’s a Injun,” Jake said.
“Yeah, it sure is,” Preacher said as he straightened to his full height. “That’s the Arapaho chief we met a while back. Antelope Fleet as the Wind.”
Twenty-seven
As the Indian hobbled closer, Preacher could tell that Antelope Fleet as the Wind was badly hurt. His buckskins bore dark bloodstains in several places, he had his left arm pressed hard to his side, and his face was drawn in tight lines that told Preacher he was trying not to show just how much pain he was really in. As Antelope stumbled and almost fell, Preacher leaped forward to grab his arm and steady him.
“Preacher, be careful!” Jake called. “I ain’t sure, but I think that’s the Injun who grabbed me last night! ”
“I don’t reckon he means us any harm,” Preacher said. “Otherwise, he wouldn’t have come walkin’ up to us out in the open like this.”
The Arapaho chief gave a weary shake of his head. “Antelope . . . friend,” he said in English.
As Preacher helped Antelope sit down, Jake said, “Ask him if he’s the one who tried to kill me.”
Antelope smiled through his pain. “Did not try to kill . . . young one . . . Antelope wanted to ... talk to boy.” The warrior held up his right hand and showed them the bite mark encrusted with dried blood. “But boy is like . . . badger . . . fights when you try to ... catch it.”
“You spooked him,” Preacher said as he hunkered beside Antelope. “He didn’t know what you wanted.”
“He wanted to scalp me, I’ll bet,” Jake said. He scowled in obvious distrust at the Indian.
Antelope shook his head again. “Preacher and his friends . . . are Antelope’s friends.” With a trembling hand, he pointed toward the canyon. “Preacher’s enemies . . . are Antelope’s enemies.”
“You’re the one who jumped them as they were about to ambush us,” Preacher guessed.
Antelope nodded. “They killed the warriors in my hunting party . . . all but Antelope and . . . Eagle Flies High . . . who rode for help while . . . I followed them.” The chief was hunched over against the pain of his injuries, but he straightened and squared his shoulders as he went on. “There must be vengeance.”
“So you tracked those sons o’ bitches while your pard Eagle went to fetch the rest of your warriors?”
“That is right. But when I saw them about to attack you . . . I knew I could not let them do that . . . could not let them kill Preacher and his friends . . . You treated Antelope and his people fairly.”
That was the way it was with Indians, Preacher reflected. They could be your friend one time and try to scalp you the next, or they could be your friend for life. There was no predicting it. Preacher squeezed Antelope’s shoulder and asked, “How bad are you hurt?”
Before the chief could answer, Jerome said, “I hate to intrude, Preacher, but those men are getting farther away with each minute that goes by.”
“You ought to know by now that those wagons don’t move very fast,” Preacher said. “When we’re ready to catch up, we will.”
“On foot?” Corliss asked.
Preacher gestured toward the horses that had been ridden by the men who had circled to attack them from behind. The now-riderless animals had drifted a hundred yards or so down the valley and were cropping contentedly at the grass.
“We’ll catch some of those mounts when we’re ready to go,” Preacher explained. “First, we need to patch up Antelope here, then bury Robinson and Neilson, I reckon.”
“You’re going to give that savage medical attention?” Corliss sounded like he couldn’t believe it.
“That savage is on our side,” Preacher snapped. “We’ll have a better chance o’ gettin’ Miss Morrigan back and settlin’ the score with those bastards if he’s along with us.”
Jerome asked, “What about those other men? Are we going to bury them, too?”
Preacher snorted. “With this gully handy to toss ’em in? I don’t figure to waste time and sweat on varmints who were tryin’ to kill me just a little while ago.”
That decision met with nods of approval from Blackie and Pete Carey. The one-eyed man said, “Anyway, there are wolves around to take care o’ them.”
A little shudder ran through Jerome. Even after everything that had happened, he was still a civilized man, with a civilized man’s squeamishness.
Preacher got busy tending to Antelope’s wounds. The Indian had been shot three times, but two of the times, the rifle ball had just grazed him, leaving behind bloody but relatively shallow furrows. The third wound was more serious. The ball had passed through his side at an angle, exiting from his back. Preacher went into the trees to scout up some moss, which he used to pack the holes. Then he bound them up with strips of cloth torn from Neilson’s shirt, since the Swede didn’t need it anymore. Antelope’s chances weren’t very good, Preacher thought, but he had done all he could for the Indian. And Antelope seemed to be a little stronger, at least for now.
Since they didn’t have any shovels, they couldn’t dig graves for Robinson and Neilson, but Preacher and Corliss carried the bodies into the gully, placing them under one of the banks where it bulged out. They were able to collapse the bank over the bodies, then piled rocks on top of the fallen earth. It was the best they could do. Jerome said a prayer, and then they were ready to move on.
There was no question that they were going to go after the men who had taken the wagons and stolen Deborah as well. Even though they were outnumbered by more than three to one . . . even though four of them were wounded and one was just a boy . . . the need for vengeance burned inside all of them. Preacher hadn’t quite figured out yet how they were going to ac
complish it, but they were going to rescue Deborah.
And the sons of bitches would pay for what they had done.
* * *
When the men who had been left behind to take care of Preacher and the others caught up to the stolen wagon train, there were a lot fewer of them than Schuyler and Fairfax expected.
“What the hell happened?” Fairfax demanded, anger making his voice shake slightly.
“Preacher and them others put up more of a fight than they ought to’ve been able to,” one of the men explained. “They killed Loomis and Burns and the boys who went with ’em.”
“So Preacher is still alive?” Schuyler asked.
The man nodded. “I’m afraid so.”
Fairfax grabbed the front of the man’s buckskin shirt and shook him. “Damn you! You had good cover in the canyon! Why didn’t you stay there and make sure they were dead before you left?”
The man pulled loose and glared at Fairfax. “We was runnin’ low on powder and shot, and anyway, Preacher and the others were hunkered down where we couldn’t get a good shot at any of ’em. Besides, we figured you needed to know what happened to Burns and Loomis and the others.”
“You mean you were afraid of Preacher once the odds were closer to even,” Fairfax said in a scathing tone. He sighed. “Well, the damage is done. Were any of Preacher’s companions killed in the fighting, at least?”
“Hard to say for sure, but it looked like one of ’em was hit pretty bad. He’s probably dead.”
Schuyler said, “There can’t be more than half a dozen of them left, Colin. Not even Preacher will be foolish enough to come after us with such a small group . . . will he?”
“I don’t know,” Fairfax said, “but if he does, we’ll finally wipe him out for sure next time. God! How does that bastard keep escaping?”
“He’s Preacher,” one of the men said, as if that explained everything.
And to the dismay of Schuyler and Fairfax, it just about did.
* * *
The horses were skittish, so it took Preacher a while to catch six of them. Once he did, though, there was a mount for each of the six men plus one for Jake, since Preacher was riding his own stallion.
He had to help Carey, Blackie, and Antelope into their saddles. The Arapaho wasn’t happy about not riding bareback, but he refused Preacher’s offer to remove the saddle from one of the horses. As bad a shape as Antelope was in, anything that would help him stay on the back of a horse was probably a good idea.
Jerome had rigged a sling for his wounded arm, which was stiff and sore, but didn’t hamper him too much in mounting and riding. He wouldn’t be able to handle a rifle, though.
Before they set out, Preacher gathered all the pistols, powder horns, and shot pouches from the dead men. He left the extra rifles behind because they would be too cumbersome to carry. The group was well armed now and had plenty of ammunition, but they were still heavily outnumbered.
Preacher had to figure out some way of whittling down the odds against them. An attack out in the open wouldn’t accomplish anything except to get all of them killed and to doom Deborah Morrigan to whatever fate her captors had in mind for her.
Because of the wounded men, they couldn’t go too fast, but even so, Preacher knew they were moving at a quicker pace than the wagons would be able to. They rode through the canyon where the ambush had taken place. If they had been deeper into it before the shooting started, they would have been wiped out, he thought. They would have been shot down before they could have reached the canyon mouth. So in a way, they had Antelope Fleet as the Wind to thank for their lives. His attack had caused the ambush to be launched prematurely.
“What do you know about those men?” Preacher asked as he rode alongside the Arapaho.
Antelope gave a curt shake of his head as he replied in his own tongue. “Nothing, except that they are white . . . and evil. There are two men who lead them. This I learned as I followed them, after they killed my warriors. One chief is tall, the other short. They are not men of the mountains and plains. They have spent much time in cities. This I can tell.”
Preacher frowned. “Tall and short, eh?” He recalled the men he had searched for in St. Louis following Abby’s death. “The tall one wouldn’t happen to wear buckskins, would he? And the short one’s got a suit and a beaver hat?”
Antelope looked sharply at him. “How do you know these things, Preacher?”
Preacher caught his breath. “You mean it really is them?”
“The two men are as you say. Are they known to you?”
“If they’re who I think they are, I don’t know their names,” Preacher replied. “But I know they’re sorry sons o’ bitches. Evil men, just as you say, Antelope. I ain’t sure what they’re doin’ out here so far from where they came from, but I reckon fate takes some odd turns sometimes.”
“The ways of the Man-Above are mysteries to those who live in this world. We can only accept them.” “
Preacher nodded in agreement with that statement. He just hoped the Good Lord saw fit to give him another shot at those two killers.
They emerged from the canyon and followed the wagon ruts along a twisted path that wove in and out of the heavily wooded foothills. It was rare to be able to see more than a couple of hundred yards up the trail before it took another sharp bend. That tortuous route had its advantages. The thieves wouldn’t be able to see Preacher and his companions following them.
Around midday, they found a spot next to a creek where the wagons had stopped for a while to give the teams a rest. The droppings heaped on the ground told Preacher that much.
He found something else on the ground—the bundle of bows and arrows that Pete Carey had placed in the back of one of the wagons after the battle with the Pawnee. As Preacher picked them up, Carey asked, “Why’d they throw those out?”
“Didn’t figure they had any use for them, I reckon,” Preacher replied. He smiled. “But we do.”
“Why on earth do we need such primitive weapons?” Corliss wanted to know. “We have guns, and plenty of powder and shot.”
Preacher lashed the bundle behind his saddle. “You’ll see when the time comes,” he said. He was starting to put together a plan in his mind.
They allowed their mounts to rest for a short time, then pushed on. Antelope’s face was gray, and Preacher worried that the Arapaho might pass out and topple off his horse. Antelope hung on with grim determination, though, as if nothing was going to sway him from his mission of vengeance.
Preacher understood the feeling. He felt the same way himself.
Corliss and Jerome were both worried about Deborah, as well they might be. Preacher figured that her captors wouldn’t molest her, at least not for a while. Most men on the frontier, even hardened killers, would leave a decent woman alone. But there might be some renegades in that group who didn’t care about such things, and anyway, restraint had its limits in any man. The sooner they got Deborah out of the hands of her captors, the better.
Preacher called another halt at mid-afternoon. He got one of the bows and a handful of arrows and carried them over to Jake.
“I been meanin’ to show you how to use one o’ these things,” he told the boy. “Now’s as good a time as any, I reckon.”
Jake’s eyes lit up. His normally cheerful face had started to show the same lines of fear and worry and strain as everyone else’s, but as Preacher handed him the bow and one of the arrows, he became a kid again.
“Really? You want me to shoot this arrow?”
Preacher pointed. “Yeah. See if you can hit that tree over there.”
Awkwardly, Jake fitted the arrow to the bowstring, then raised the bow and pulled back on the string. When he let the arrow fly, he yelled, “Ow!” as the string hit his left arm. The arrow didn’t go anywhere near the tree.
“A child of my people with two winters could do better,” Antelope said, managing to smile despite the pain he was in.
Jake rubbed his arm where the b
owstring had hit it and asked, “What’d the Injun say?”
“He said you’re holdin’ it wrong,” Preacher said. “Here, let me show you.”
He worked with Jake for about a quarter of an hour, and by the end of that time the boy could hit the tree trunk with most of the arrows he shot.
After disparaging the weapon, Corliss began to show a surprising interest in it. “Let me try,” he suggested. Preacher gave him another of the bows and several arrows.
Corliss was strong enough that he had no trouble drawing the bowstring taut. When he fired, the arrow flew fairly true and glanced off the tree trunk.
“Not bad,” Preacher told him. “Try again.”
Corliss picked it up quickly, hitting the tree with several arrows. The flint heads penetrated deeply enough into the wood that Preacher grunted with effort as he wrenched them loose.
“You got the makin’s of an Indian,” he said to Corliss.
“Hardly. But I do seem to have a natural talent for archery.”
“Think you could put an arrow through a man?”
Corliss’s face hardened. “If he was one of those bastards who took Deborah, I believe I certainly could.”
“You may just get your chance,” Preacher said.
“Deborah wouldn’t be a prisoner if it wasn’t for you, Corliss,” Jerome snapped.
Corliss surprised Preacher by nodding and saying, “You’re right.”
That wasn’t what Jerome had been expecting either. He frowned and said, “I am?”
“Yes. I really did think that Deborah was following me, but I should have made sure. I never should have left the wagon without knowing that she was with me. It’s completely my fault, and if anything happens to her, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“Where did that come from? I’ve never known you to try to be noble.”
“There’s nothing noble about it,” Corliss said. “I’ve just had some time to think today, while we were riding, and I’ve decided that it’s time for me to grow up, Jerome. You’ve always been the sensible one. I’ve been slothful and concerned only with myself.”
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