Preacher's Pursuit (The First Mountain Man)

by William W. Johnstone

  That was two of the bastards done for, Preacher thought.

  And one of them had just reloaded his rifle.

  Preacher grinned as he picked up the long-barreled weapon. He knelt and rested the barrel on the wagon tongue. Firing one-handed like this, he wouldn’t be able to control the recoil, but he didn’t care about that.

  He aimed at one of the Blackfeet who was crouched at the corner of a cabin, and squeezed the trigger. The rifle blasted, and the recoil tore it out of Preacher’s hand just as he’d expected.

  His target was now staggering around, trying futilely to reach the wound in his back where Preacher’s shot had struck him. After a moment, he collapsed, kicked a couple of times, and then lay still.

  Three.

  Too damned many still to go.

  But Preacher still had a loaded pistol and a belly full of rage.

  He braced his right hand on the wagon tongue and pushed himself to his feet. So far, the Blackfeet hadn’t noticed that they were under attack from the rear, but Preacher knew that kind of luck couldn’t last. He needed something to help turn the tide…

  He looked down at the bodies of the two Indians behind the wagon. Each of the warriors had a powder horn slung over his shoulder. Preacher reached down and tugged them free. Each powder horn was at least half full, he judged. And his horn had even more powder in it.

  A grin pulled at the corners of his mouth.

  Carrying the powder horns, he turned and ran back along the path he had followed. The bodies of several settlers lay on the ground, and most of the men had been carrying powder horns when they died. Preacher gathered up six more of the horns, each of them at least half full. A couple were almost completely full of black powder.

  He tore the shirt off a man who had been scalped and wrapped it around all the powder horns, using the sleeves to tie the bundle closed.

  Earlier, he had noticed more than a dozen members of the war party clustered behind one of the cabins. He limped toward them now, pausing to light one of the shirt sleeves on fire as he passed the smoldering remains of a burned cabin that had collapsed. The heat coming off the debris was painful against his face, but he ignored it.

  With the shirt sleeve burning up closer and closer to the bundle of powder horns, Preacher broke into a run toward the largest group of Blackfeet. One of them saw him coming, yelled a warning, and swung a rifle toward him.

  Preacher threw the flaming bundle as he dove forward. At the same time, the Indian fired. The ball sizzled through the air above Preacher’s head.

  The Blackfeet stood there, evidently so puzzled by what was happening that they didn’t think to move. As the powder horns landed among them, the fire reached the volatile powder and ignited it.

  The result wasn’t actually an explosion, more like a ball of fire that suddenly bloomed among them, spraying burning powder in their faces and over their bodies. They screamed and yelled, and some of them clapped hands over blinded eyes.

  Preacher scrambled up and dashed past them. His presence outside the stockade walls was no longer a secret, so his hope now was that he make it to the gates while the Blackfeet were still confused by what had happened. If the defenders saw him coming, maybe they could open the gates just enough for him to slip inside.

  That wasn’t going to happen, he saw almost right away. More of the Indians ran to cut him off from the stockade. Infuriated, they didn’t try to shoot him, but rather closed in around him, obviously intending to hack him to pieces with knives and tomahawks.

  Preacher jerked out his remaining pistol. This one had a double-shotted load in it, and when he fired, the balls cut down two of the savages who were rushing at him side by side.

  That created a little gap, but it closed before Preacher could leap through it. He slammed the empty pistol into the face of the nearest Blackfoot. Blood spurted as the impact crushed the warrior’s nose and drove shards of bone into his brain, killing him.

  Preacher dropped the gun and snatched his knife from its sheath, slashing a circle around him with the razor-sharp blade. He felt the fiery kiss of cold steel himself as Blackfoot knives found him.

  Then one of the Indians screamed and went down, a shaggy gray shape atop him. His scream died in a gurgle as Dog ripped his throat out. The big cur spun and grabbed another man.

  Dog wasn’t the only one coming to Preacher’s aid. A furious neigh announced Horse’s arrival. The stallion reared up on his hind legs and lashed out with his front hooves. The bone-crushing power of the blows dropped two of the Indians, their skulls shattered.

  Preacher was aware that his loyal trail partners had shown up to help him, but he didn’t have time to watch what Dog and Horse were doing. He whipped the knife in his hand across the throat of a Blackfoot warrior, and felt the hot splash of blood on his knuckles. He twisted, drove the blade into another man’s belly, and ripped it free with a savage stroke that opened the man’s stomach and let his entrails spill out.

  Despite the damage that Preacher, Dog, and Horse were doing, there were still too blasted many of the Indians. The mountain man and his companions were bound to be pulled down and killed in a matter of seconds…

  But then, more men were suddenly among them. Guns blasted, knives flashed, rifle butts rose and fell. The brutal tide of hand-to-hand combat buffeted Preacher back and forth.

  He caught a glimpse of Corliss Hart’s face, pale and scared but resolute, as Corliss fired a pistol into the chest of a Blackfoot warrior. Jerome Hart, an unlikely battler if ever there was one, yelled incoherently as he drove a rifle butt into the face of another Indian.

  The men who had been holed up inside the stockade had come out when they saw Preacher surrounded by the Blackfeet. He had already killed so many of the Indians that the odds were now on the side of the settlers. The battle ebbed and flowed fiercely for a couple of minutes, but then the final few shots rang out, the last death rattle sounded, and it was over.

  Preacher was bleeding from half a dozen knife wounds, and he was already dizzy from being grazed on the head earlier. He would have collapsed if Corliss Hart hadn’t grabbed his arm to hold him up.

  Jerome took hold of Preacher’s other arm, and Preacher let out a bitter curse.

  “Take it easy…with that wing…Jerome,” he panted. “It’s…busted.”

  “My God! I can see that now. Corliss, we need to get him inside. He looks like he may be badly hurt.”

  “Wait!” Preacher said. “The Blackfeet…”

  “All dead, or the next thing to it, except for the ones who ran with their tails between their legs,” Corliss said. “They didn’t expect us to come out again and bring the fight to them.” He tried to steer Preacher toward the now-open gates. “Come on, we need to get you to the trading post. Deborah can patch you up—”

  Preacher tried to pull away, but he was too weak from loss of blood and the shock of his injuries. “Got to…got to go…”

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Jerome told him. “You need medical attention, and then a lot of rest.”

  “No time,” Preacher insisted. “Laura…”

  “You mean Miss Mallory?” Jerome asked. “We haven’t seen her, but I’m sure she’s around here somewhere—”

  “No! The Blackfeet…had her…took her off somewhere…”

  “Good Lord!” Corliss said. “You mean she’s a prisoner of those savages?”

  Preacher managed to nod. “That’s right…We got to…go after ’em…”

  But he wouldn’t be going anywhere, at least not now. His eyes rolled up in their sockets and darkness closed in around him once again, a darkness this time shot through with the red glare of flames as several of the cabins continued to burn.

  Then that faded as well, and Preacher knew no more.

  Chapter 20

  For the second time tonight, pain was the first thing Preacher was aware of as he regained consciousness. As his brain began to function, he reminded himself that he didn’t know it was the same night.

&nb
sp; No telling how much time had gone by since he passed out.

  He heard voices, discerned the play of light and shadow against his eyelids. People were moving around him. He forced his eyes open, even though the lids felt as if they weighed a ton each.

  The harsh glare of lantern light made him wince. Fresh pain shot through his head. He started to lift his left hand to his temple, but that arm wouldn’t move.

  He remembered that it was broken. The image of the bone pressing up against the skin in a grotesque lump was still vivid in his mind.

  “Preacher’s awake,” a woman’s voice said. For a second, Preacher hoped it was Laura Mallory’s, but then he realized that it belonged to Deborah Hart as she went on. “Don’t move, Preacher. You’re badly hurt.”

  Her pretty face swam into view above him, frowning down in concern. Corliss and Jerome leaned in, too. Preacher figured out that he was lying in a bed somewhere, probably in the living quarters back of the trading post.

  He was worried about Laura and wanted to get after her, but first he had to find out just what the situation was. After licking dry lips, he whispered, “You reckon a fella could…get a drink around here?”

  “Of course,” Jerome said. “Wait just a minute.”

  He disappeared from Preacher’s sight, then came back a moment later carrying a tin cup that he handed to Deborah. She sat on the bed beside Preacher, put a hand behind his head to help him lift it, and held the cup to his lips.

  He took a sip and felt the bracing burn of the whiskey. It helped dull the pain in his head and arm. After another sip, he was able to ask in a fairly strong voice, “Is this the same night?”

  Deborah nodded. “That’s right. You’ve been unconscious for a little more than an hour.”

  “How bad am I hurt?”

  “Your left arm is broken,” Deborah told him. “It’s been set and splinted, and now it’s strapped down so it can’t move.” She smiled. “It’s probably a good thing you were unconscious for that, Preacher.”

  “Even out cold we had to hold you down,” Corliss added.

  “Who done the…settin’ and splintin’?”

  A weathered, bearded face came into Preacher’s view. “I did,” the old-timer said. Preacher recognized him as the trapper called Uncle Dan. “Weren’t the first busted wing I ever set neither, so you don’t need to worry that I didn’t know what I was doin’.”

  “I’m much obliged,” Preacher said with a nod. He didn’t know Uncle Dan all that well, but he knew the man had been in the mountains a long time and had been to see the elephant. Preacher trusted that he’d done a good job.

  “You have a head injury, too,” Deborah said. “I’m not sure what happened there. It looks like someone hit you.”

  Preacher said, “Nope. Got creased by…a rifle ball.”

  “You mean you were shot in the head?” Jerome asked in amazement. “And you’re still alive?”

  “Not really shot,” Preacher explained. “Just nicked a mite. Takes more’n that to…hurt this ol’ noggin o’ mine.”

  “Well, from the looks of the blood all over your face, the wound bled a lot,” Deborah said. “I’m sure you’re very weak from it. You also have nearly a dozen cuts on your arms and torso, and you lost blood from them, too. And your right knee is swollen. You must have wrenched it somehow.”

  “Is that…all?”

  “Is that all?” Jerome repeated. “My God, Preacher, those injuries are enough to keep you laid up for a month!”

  Preacher shook his head. “Not hardly. Some o’ those Blackfeet rode off and took Laura Mallory and her brother with ’em. We got to get after ’em.”

  “No offense, but you must have been seeing things,” Corliss said. “Clyde Mallory left here yesterday with his wagons. He’s miles away by now, heading back to St. Louis.”

  Jerome added, “It is true, however, that we, ah, haven’t been able to locate Miss Mallory. But I’m sure she’s around somewhere. Her…body wasn’t among those who were killed.”

  “How many folks…didn’t make it?” Preacher asked.

  “Twelve men, five women, and seven children,” Corliss replied with a grim expression on his face. “And at least a dozen more people suffered fairly serious wounds. The attack took a terrible toll on the settlement.”

  But as bad as it was, it could have been a lot worse, Preacher thought. If the war party had swept in with no warning at all, more of the settlers would have died. It was possible that the whole settlement could have been wiped out.

  “I’m mighty sorry I didn’t get here in time to warn folks sooner.”

  “Good Lord, Preacher!” Uncle Dan said. “You saved our bacon, comin’ outta nowhere yellin’ and shootin’ like that.”

  Jerome nodded. “He’s right. We owe you a huge debt of gratitude, Preacher.”

  “Yeah, well, some o’ you can repay by goin’ after those Blackfeet with me. We got to rescue Laura and her brother, and there ain’t no time to waste.”

  Deborah put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re not going anywhere for at least a week,” she insisted. “In fact, you won’t even be getting out of that bed for that long.”

  She was wrong about that, Preacher thought. In a week’s time, Laura and Clyde Mallory would be dead, if they weren’t already.

  But he was enough of a realist to know that he couldn’t ride tonight. He was too weak, and if he tried, he would probably fall off of Horse and just hurt himself even worse. He had to have a little rest, and anyway it would be hard to track the Indians at night…

  But come morning, Preacher told himself, he would feel better. He could pick up the trail then, and however many men he could round up to go with him would set out after those savages.

  The Good Lord willin’, they would catch up in time to save Laura and Clyde from whatever terrible fate awaited them.

  “Damn the man!” Clyde Mallory said as he stalked back and forth beside the fire.

  A short time earlier, Chief Walks Like a Bear had ridden into the camp where Laura, Mallory, Ezra Flagg, and Flagg’s Indian wife were spending the night. The chief had eight warriors with him, the only survivors from a war party that had started out more than six times that size.

  Flagg and Walks Like a Bear had spoken for several minutes in rapid, heated Blackfoot. Then a grim-faced Flagg had turned to the Mallorys and reported, “They weren’t able to take the stockade. Fact is, the rest of the war party was wiped out. Bear says that the Ghost Killer walked among them.”

  “What the bloody hell is the Ghost Killer?” Mallory had demanded.

  Flagg’s mouth quirked as he replied, “That’s one o’ their names for Preacher.”

  Over the next few minutes, Flagg had explained to them everything Walks Like a Bear had told him, from Preacher’s seemingly magical ability to make fire explode in the midst of the war party, to the in-the-nick-of-time appearance of the savage dog and horse that helped save him.

  “Accordin’ to Walks Like a Bear, they ain’t even real animals,” Flagg had said. “They’re spirit animals. They’re bad medicine, like Preacher himself. He wishes he’d never heard of you folks, even though you brought him all those new guns. Most of his young warriors are dead now.” Flagg had smiled coldly. “And he ain’t too happy with me for bringin’ you to him.”

  That had made Laura and Mallory nervous. Walks Like a Bear might want revenge for all the men he had lost, and the two British agents and the renegade American were the handiest targets for the chief’s anger.

  Flagg had assured them, though, that Walks Like a Bear wouldn’t kill them.

  “If you can get more rifles,” Flagg had said, “then Bear will probably be willin’ to make another deal once he cools off. He’s really more interested in killin’ Preacher than anything else.”

  “I thought I had killed him,” Mallory said now as he paced beside the fire. His brief moment of regret at shooting Preacher had long since passed. “For God’s sake, I shot the man in the head! What more could I have
done to kill him?”

  Flagg paused in filling a pipe to say, “From everything I’ve heard about him, Preacher’s got a habit o’ dodgin’ the reaper. You must’ve just grazed him. Even a head wound that ain’t too bad’ll bleed like a man’s dyin’.”

  Mallory glared into the flames. “Well, then,” he declared, “the first thing we have to do when we put the next plan into operation is to make sure that Preacher is dead!”

  “Easier said than done. How about them rifles? You never said whether or not you can get more of ’em.”

  “Of course we can,” Mallory snapped. “We have the wealth and power of the British government behind us. This is just a temporary obstacle in our path. All we need to do is get back to St. Louis.”

  “That’s a long way,” Flagg pointed out. “Plenty could go wrong betwixt here and there.”

  Mallory rubbed his angular jaw as he frowned in thought. “That’s true. Do you think that the chief and his men would be willing to escort us part of the way?”

  Flagg stared at the Englishman for a moment, then gave a bark of laughter. “You got the balls of a brass monkey, don’t you, Mallory? The chief loses fifty warriors followin’ your plan, and you want him to help you some more?”

  “The Blackfeet have been fighting the Americans for more than twenty years,” Mallory replied coldly. “I’m sure the warriors who were lost tonight aren’t the first losses they’ve suffered. And it’s hardly the fault of Laura or myself that Preacher showed up out of nowhere to warn the settlers.”

  Flagg shrugged. “I’ll ask him. He can’t do any worse’n say no.” He laughed again. “Well, actually, I reckon he can. He can have all of us scalped. But I don’t think he will.”

  Mallory swallowed hard and tried to look reassuringly at Laura while Flagg spoke to Chief Walks Like a Bear. The chief glowered at the two British agents and spat out a reply. Mallory didn’t find that reaction encouraging.