After a few minutes of more discussion, however, the chief finally gave Flagg a curt nod. His voice was a bit less harsh as he spoke again.
Flagg turned back to the Mallorys. “He says he’ll do it. He’ll take you to the edge of the territory the Blackfeet claim as their hunting grounds. After that, though, you’re on your own.”
“Very well. We’ll take whatever aid we can get. What about you, Flagg? Will you go with us?”
“I reckon I’ll get paid for my services?”
Mallory nodded. “Cooperate with us, help us accomplish our goals, and I can assure you that you’ll be a rich man.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Flagg said with a smile. “Count me in.”
Colin Fairfax heard the metallic clicking of rifles and pistols being cocked as he stumbled into the clearing. It had taken him most of the night to reach the place where his men had been camped before.
He and Sherwood had agreed that they would return here after leaving the valley and making Preacher think they were on their way back to St. Louis. This was the spot where Preacher had stolen into the camp during the middle of the night and killed six men. Fairfax was convinced that Preacher wouldn’t believe the rest of the group would ever return here.
The fire had burned down to embers and most of the men were asleep, but Sherwood had been smart enough to post guards. These men had their guns trained on Fairfax now. It was too dark for them to see very well, but they knew someone had just walked into camp.
“Who the hell’s there?” one of the sentries demanded, and the loud, harsh voice woke other men and caused them to roll out of their blankets and grab for their guns.
“It’s only me,” Fairfax said. He could hear the weariness in his own voice. He had gotten lost a time or two during the night, and considered it nearly a miracle that he had made it back here at all.
“Boss?” Sherwood asked, his voice thick with sleep. He had been one of the men rolled up in blankets. “That you?”
“I just said it was, didn’t I?”
“Put those guns down,” Sherwood snapped at the guards and the other men who had lifted their weapons. “It’s just the boss.” He came forward, and there was eagerness in his voice as he asked, “You got the Hart woman with you?”
Fairfax didn’t answer right away. It should have been obvious to Sherwood that he didn’t have Deborah Hart with him. Where would he have hidden her, inside that damned coonskin cap on his head?
Instead, he sat down next to the fire, picked up a branch from the stack of wood near it, and stirred up the embers until a tiny flame leaped up and grew stronger. He was chilled to the bone, and he held out his hands toward the flame to get some of its feeble warmth.
“Our plans have changed,” he said after a moment. “I wasn’t able to kidnap the woman because Indians attacked the settlement while I was there.”
“Indians!”
Fairfax nodded. “I heard someone say it was a Blackfoot war party, but I don’t know for sure about that.”
“How’d you get away?”
“By the skin of my teeth,” Fairfax replied with a humorless smile.
“What happened to the settlers? Did the redskins wipe ’em out?”
“No. I stayed close enough to watch what happened before I started back here. I’m sure the savages killed quite a few of the settlers, but in the end the attackers were routed. And the man who made that possible,” Fairfax added bitterly, “was Preacher.”
That drew startled exclamations from the men. Sherwood said, “I thought Preacher was supposed to be off somewhere checkin’ his traps.”
“That’s what we assumed he would do. Somehow, he found out about the war party on its way to attack the village and got there first to warn the settlers.” Fairfax shook his head. “I don’t see how he does the things he does. It shouldn’t be possible for a man to always be in the right place at the right time. I had a bead on him again—”
“Let me guess,” Sherwood said. “He moved just as you pulled the trigger.”
Fairfax’s head went up and down in a slow nod. He had trouble believing what had happened, even now. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes…
“Well, what do we do now? Are you still determined to kill him, or is it time to give up?”
“I’ll never give up!” Fairfax said, surprising himself with the vehemence of his answer. “Not until Preacher’s dead!” He reached over, picked up a jug that was sitting on the ground nearby, uncorked it, and took a long swig of the fiery whiskey inside. “We’ll pick up his trail at the settlement somehow. Maybe we can still get our hands on Mrs. Hart and use her as bait in a trap. Somehow, we’ll find a way…”
Fairfax tried to sound confident, but doubt gnawed at the edges of his mind. After everything that had happened, he couldn’t help but wonder if it was even possible to kill Preacher. Perhaps the man was immortal.
That idea was insane, of course, and Fairfax knew it. But when he thought about all the times he’d had Preacher in his sights, only to have the mountain man escape…well, it was enough to make him despair.
It was a good thing he had his hate to keep him going, he thought as he stared into the fire.
Chapter 21
The pain in Preacher’s arm, head, and knee kept him from sleeping well that night. He would have been even more restless if not for several long swallows from the tin cup full of whiskey that he put away.
When he woke up in the morning, his headache had subsided to a dull throbbing, as had the pain in his knee. And the way his arm was strapped down, he couldn’t move it enough to make it hurt very much. He was able to sit up on his own.
He had learned the night before that it was Jerome’s bed he was occupying. Jerome had fixed himself a pallet in the front part of the trading post. Preacher didn’t like to put anybody out, but in this case he hadn’t had any choice.
Now he’d had a night’s rest and things were different. He pushed the blanket off him, then swung his legs off the bunk and started to stand up.
The sudden dizziness that hit him almost knocked him down. He put his good hand on the bed to brace himself, and managed not to fall. In doing so, though, he bumped the little table beside the bed and knocked the empty tin cup onto the floor.
The clatter that it made when it fell brought Deborah Hart to the door. “Preacher!” she scolded. “You’re not supposed to be up. You should lie back down right now.”
He became uncomfortably aware that he wore only the bottom half of a pair of long underwear, although all the bandages wrapped around his arms and torso covered him up almost as much as if he were wearing clothes. He said, “Deborah, you skedaddle on outta here whilst I find my buckskins and put ’em on. Ain’t fittin’ for you to be in here like this.”
“Oh, pshaw,” she said. “I’m not going to see anything I haven’t seen before. Who do you think found all your wounds and cleaned them last night?”
Preacher felt his face growing warm. “Mebbe so, but I’d still feel a heap better with my buckskins on.”
“Well, you can’t have them for a while. One of the Indian women who live here in the settlement is cleaning and mending them. She’ll bring them back here when she’s finished with them. It may be a few days, she said.”
Preacher shook his head. He picked up the blanket and draped it around his shoulders as he said, “I can’t wait that long. Reckon I’ll have to come up with somethin’ else to wear.”
“Why can’t you wait that long?” Deborah asked. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“No offense, but that’s where you’re wrong, ma’am,” Preacher drawled. “I’ll be ridin’ out soon’s I’ve had somethin’ to eat and gathered some supplies. The longer I wait to take up the trail o’ them Blackfoot what stole Miss Laura, the better chance they’ll have o’ gettin’ away. I’d appreciate it if you’d pass the word to any of the fellas who want to go with me that I’ll be leavin’ in half an hour or so.”
Deborah just stared at h
im for a moment, then turned away without saying anything else to him. “Corliss!” she called as she started back into the other part of the trading post. “Come and see if you can talk some sense into Preacher!”
Now that was going to be a chore, Preacher thought with a grin.
By the time Corliss came into the room a few minutes later, Preacher had gone through Jerome’s clothes and given up on finding any that might fit him. He didn’t even try them on because he knew he’d rip out the seams.
“Deborah tells me you’ve lost your mind,” Corliss said with a chuckle.
“She’s a good woman and means well, but she just don’t understand. Time’s a-wastin’.”
Corliss nodded as his expression grew serious. “You really did lose quite a bit of blood, Preacher,” he said.
“I’ll make more.”
“And riding a horse is going to hurt like hell with that broken arm.”
“I’ve hurt before. It’d be worse if it was my leg that was broke. Anyway, Uncle Dan’s got it splinted good and wrapped up nice ’n’ tight, so I don’t reckon I can hurt it more’n it’s already hurt.”
“You can’t use a rifle with only one hand,” Corliss pointed out.
“I can fire a pistol just fine, though.” Preacher remembered the shot he had made the night before to down one of the raiders. “And I can use a rifle if I’ve got somethin’ to rest the barrel on.”
Corliss sighed. “You’re not going to let anyone talk you out of this, are you, no matter how crazy it is?”
“Nope,” Preacher said.
“All right, wait here. I think some of my clothes might fit you. I’m not quite as broad through the shoulders as you, though, so they may be a tight fit.”
“I reckon they’ll do,” Preacher said.
Corliss found a pair of whipcord trousers that fit Preacher fairly well. The shirt was more of a problem because of the broken arm, but eventually they got one on him by slitting the sleeve of the left arm and then binding it in place.
Preacher’s boots were all right, and his rifle, pistols, knife, and tomahawk had been brought into the trading post. He had blown up his powder horn along with the others he had used against the Blackfeet, but the Harts had others, along with kegs of powder and shot.
Jerome came into the room, saw that Preacher was dressed, and snapped, “You were supposed to talk him out of this, Corliss.”
“Yeah, well, you try to talk sense to Preacher,” Corliss shot back. He glanced at Preacher. “No offense.”
“None taken,” Preacher drawled. “Been called loco plenty o’ times in my life.”
“I wasn’t saying—” Jerome began hastily, then stopped and shook his head. “Well, yes, I suppose I was. You need rest, Preacher. You’re in no shape to chasing off after the Blackfeet, no matter who they’ve taken prisoner.”
Preacher managed to cinch a belt around his waist. “I don’t reckon Miss Mallory and her brother would agree with you.”
“That’s another thing,” Corliss said with a frown. “Are you sure you saw Clyde Mallory with them? I don’t understand that at all.”
“Well, the light wasn’t too good,” Preacher admitted, “and I’d just been shot in the head…but I’m pretty damn sure that was Clyde I saw. Miss Laura was ridin’ behind him on the same horse, and there was half a dozen Blackfeet around ’em.” Preacher frowned. “Might’ve been another man, too. I ain’t sure about that. Like I said, the light wasn’t too good.”
“And you’d been shot in the head,” Corliss added.
Preacher shrugged.
Jerome said, “If you’re bound and determined to do this, you’ll need a hat, too. Let me go and find one for you.”
He bustled out of the room. Corliss laughed and said, “Jerome believes in being dressed properly for any occasion…even chasing Indians.”
Preacher wasn’t limping much when he emerged from the room a few minutes later. He found about a dozen men waiting for him in the trading post’s big front room.
He recognized Pete Sanderson, Sanderson’s Uncle Dan, stubby little Dennison, and the hulking Van Goort brothers among them. Several of the men had bloodstained bandages tied around arms, legs, or heads, but they seemed to be in fairly good shape.
“We’re goin’ with you, Preacher,” bearded Uncle Dan said as he stepped forward, evidently the spokesman for the group. “We want to help you settle the score with them damn redskins.”
“The reason I’m goin’ after the Blackfeet is to rescue Miss Laura and her brother,” Preacher said. “Revenge ain’t the main thing I’m after.”
“Yeah, but it’ll be a heap easier to help the lady if all them savages are dead,” Uncle Dan pointed out.
“You got a point there,” Preacher said. “I’ll be glad to have you boys with me, but we’ll be ridin’ hard and fast, and there’s liable to be plenty o’ blood spilled before we’re done.”
“Long as it’s Blackfoot blood, we’re fine with that,” Uncle Dan declared. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Our horses are saddled and waitin’ outside. We’re ready to ride whenever you are, Preacher.”
“Got plenty o’ supplies? No tellin’ how long we’ll be on the trail.”
The bearded old-timer nodded. “Don’t worry none about that. You know we can live off the land if we have to.”
That was the truth. Game was abundant, and you couldn’t hardly go a mile in the mountains without running across a stream.
“Speaking of food,” Deborah said as she came up to the group, “if we can’t talk you into going back to bed and resting like you should, at least you can have a good meal before you leave. I have flapjacks and bacon and plenty of hot coffee.”
Preacher smiled and gave her a nod of thanks. “I feel better just hearin’ about it, Miss Deborah. I expect I’ll feel like a whole new man once I’ve had a mess o’ that grub.”
Deborah looked at the men gathered in the trading post and said, “You’re all welcome to eat. I’ll get started cooking some more.”
Despite the grim, dangerous chore awaiting them, the invitation brought smiles and laughter from the men. The big meal took longer than Preacher expected, stretching out to an hour, so it was later than he had hoped it would be when the men trooped out of the trading post to mount up.
Even so, the sun wasn’t very high in the sky yet. The Blackfeet had only a twelve-hour start. That was quite a bit of time to make up, but Preacher was confident that he and his companions could do it.
Corliss shook hands with him and started to say, “I wish I was going with you—”
Preacher stopped him by shaking his head. “The folks here in the settlement are gonna need leaders while they’re buryin’ their loved ones and gettin’ started on rebuildin’ their homes. That’s you and Jerome. There wouldn’t even be a settlement here without you two.”
“There wouldn’t be a settlement here without you, Preacher,” Corliss said. “I know that a man like you doesn’t ever stay put for very long, but if there’s any place you’d ever call home, we’d be honored if it was here.”
“That’s right,” Jerome said as he shook hands with the mountain man, too. “You know the settlement doesn’t have a name yet. We’d be honored if you’d let us call it Preacherville.”
“Or Preacher City,” Corliss said.
Preacher grimaced. “I reckon I appreciate the sentiment, fellas, but I’d be mighty pleased if you’d sorta forget about that idea.”
“You’re sure?” Jerome asked. “We really don’t mind—”
“I’m sure,” Preacher declared.
Deborah insisted on giving him a hug. “Be careful,” she told him. “If you jostle that arm around, it won’t set properly. And you can’t afford to open up any of those wounds and lose any more blood.”
“I’ll be careful,” Preacher promised. “As much as I can anyway.”
“That’s what I was afraid you’d say.” Deborah hugged him again. “Come back to us safely, you hear?”
“Yes’m,” Preacher said.
Some of the men who were coming with him were leaving family members behind. Quite a bit of handshaking, hugging, and crying went on before everybody was mounted up and ready to ride.
The men lifted hands in farewell and heeled their horses into motion. Preacher gritted his teeth against the twinges of pain that went through his broken arm with every stride that Horse took…and the big stallion had a smooth gait. He hated to think about what a rough ride would feel like.
After a while, he sort of got used to it, though, and learned how to hold his arm so that the pain wasn’t as bad. His head spun every now and then, but the food and the hot coffee had done a lot to brace him up. He suspected that Deborah had snuck a slug or two of whiskey into the coffeepot, too.
It was easy enough to pick up the trail near the burned-out hulk of Laura’s cabin. The Blackfeet and their prisoners hadn’t been trying to hide their tracks. Preacher figured at that point the raiders had still believed that they would wipe out the settlement, so there wouldn’t be anyone left to pursue them.
It hadn’t worked out that way, as the Indians would soon learn to their regret, Preacher hoped.
Pete Sanderson and Uncle Dan rode beside him with the other men spread out behind them. Sanderson said, “I heard that that Englisher who sided you in that ruckus we had was one o’ the prisoners. Is that right?”
“I’m convinced I saw him with Miss Laura,” Preacher said. “I know he was supposed to have left with those wagons of his, but I saw what I saw.”
Uncle Dan ran his gnarled fingers through his beard. “Mighty strange, if you ask me.”
“Well, I reckon when we catch up to ’em, we can ask Mallory what he’s doin’ back in this part o’ the country.”
The other trappers let the subject drop after that, but something else odd cropped up. The group of riders they were following split up, with most of them turning toward the settlement and two sets of tracks going on north up the valley.
“What the hell?” Preacher muttered as he reined in to study the sign. “That bunch headed back to the fight, but those two went on.”
Preacher's Pursuit (The First Mountain Man) Page 16