She couldn’t help it. She wished him well.
Unless he interfered with their plans again.
Then she would kill him if she had to. She had no doubts about that.
“There are the plains,” Clyde said as the group came to a halt atop the rise. “We should be able to catch up to the wagons in a day or two.”
“If we don’t run into any trouble,” Flagg warned. “The chief and his boys’ll be turnin’ back when we get to the edge o’ these hills. We’ll be on our own then.”
A shiver went through Laura at those words. Once it was just her and Clyde and Flagg out there on those endless plains, what would Flagg do then? If anything happened to Clyde, she would be at his mercy…
And she didn’t think he would make the same mistake of underestimating her as he had before. He knew now that she was armed and dangerous…which made him even more dangerous.
She would be awfully glad to see those wagons again, she thought as the group began the descent toward the prairie. That sight couldn’t come soon enough to suit her.
Chapter 26
Preacher saw the sun glint off something in the distance, maybe a mile ahead of him and his companions.
Uncle Dan saw it, too. “Reckon that’d be them,” the old-timer said.
“More than likely,” Preacher agreed. “Probably the sun shinin’ on the fittin’s of one of those new rifles.”
Uncle Dan scratched at his beard and asked, “Where do you reckon the Injuns got all them new rifles? It ain’t like redskins to be so well armed.”
“That’s one thing I intend on tryin’ to find out when I get the chance,” Preacher said. “Right now, it’s more important to rescue those prisoners, though.”
“Oh, I ain’t arguin’ that. But it’s right worrisome to think about somebody supplyin’ the Injuns with new rifles. It’d sure make things a heap riskier out here if all the savages got their hands on spankin’-new flintlocks like that.”
The same thought had crossed Preacher’s mind. Even though more and more whites were venturing out to these mountains, they were still outnumbered by the Indians, and likely would be for quite a while to come.
The only thing that kept the trappers and the settlers from being overwhelmed was the fact that they were better armed than the Indians. At longer ranges, bows and arrows were no match for flintlock rifles.
Preacher couldn’t think of any reason why a white man would want to arm the Indians, but that was obviously what had happened. Those Blackfeet hadn’t gone to St. Louis and bought those rifles themselves.
And if it could happen once, it could happen again. That’s why this problem had to be dealt with.
But not now. It would have to wait until Laura Mallory and her brother were safe.
Knowing that he and the others had cut the lead down to only a mile by traveling the rest of the night and then pushing on hard today, Preacher kept the pace up. The men were starting to look haggard with weariness, but they didn’t complain.
How could they when Preacher was in the lead despite his injuries? His stony face betrayed no sign of the pain he must be feeling from his broken arm and assorted other injuries.
They forged ahead through the hills. Preacher led the way, and used all the skills at his command to keep them from being spotted while at the same time not losing sight of their quarry. That was a tricky task, but Preacher was up to it.
“They’ll reach the prairie by early this afternoon,” Uncle Dan predicted. “If they get there before we catch up to ’em, ain’t no way in hell we’ll able to sneak up on ’em after that.”
Preacher nodded. He knew the old-timer was right. Out on those grassy plains, men on horseback could be seen from miles away.
“We’ll just have to catch ’em before they get there,” he said.
The sun rose higher and heated the air. Preacher’s broken arm throbbed, and so did his head. He was capable of pushing himself to great lengths, but even he had his limits.
He couldn’t give in to the pain, he told himself. Not while Laura was being held prisoner.
Assuming, of course, that she was even still alive. He didn’t know that for sure. But they hadn’t come across her body, and he was confident they were still on the right trail. The way Dog kept going without hesitation told him that.
If they were successful in rescuing the prisoners from the Blackfeet, the big cur would deserve a lot of the credit, Preacher thought. Without Dog’s talented nose, they would have been forced to go slower in order not to lose the trail.
Preacher was careful not to let them be skylighted on hilltops, but even so, they were high enough from time to time for him to be able to see the plains in the distance.
He loved the prairie. Not as much as the high mountain country, which he had always felt was his true home, but there was something about the vast sweep of the plains that was awe-inspiring.
It made a man feel good to know that there were so many different things to see in his native country. Preacher had been from the Canadian border clear down to Texas, from the Father of Waters, the Mississippi River, to the towering forests of the Oregon country.
One of these days, he thought, he’d see the ocean. Maybe take him a ride on a ship. He had been on keelboats and flatboats and rafts, but that was different. What would it be like to be out in the middle of the ocean, so far from shore that you couldn’t see land anywhere you looked?
The idea made him a mite nervous, so he put it out of his head. He didn’t need to be distracted right now anyway.
Within an hour or so, they would be closing in on their quarry, and then Preacher would have to decide just how he was going to get Laura and Mallory away from the Blackfeet without getting them killed in the process.
He should have insisted that Shad Beaumont find an experienced mountain man to come along with them, Colin Fairfax thought as he stood there studying the hoofprints that had been left in the sandy soil beside a stream.
Fairfax was almost certain that they were on the right trail, but the possibility that they had gone astray nagged at him. He should have had an actual tracker with him. When he was the most experienced frontiersman in the group, that was a definite problem!
“That’s still them, right?” Sherwood asked. Like the other men, he was still mounted.
“Of course,” Fairfax replied without hesitation. He didn’t want Sherwood to see that he had any doubts.
“How far behind them are we?”
Who did Sherwood think he was, Daniel Boone? Just because he was still wearing that coonskin cap he had borrowed from Campbell, that didn’t mean he could tell such things just by looking at some hoofprints!
“We’re closing in on them,” Fairfax said. He put his foot in the stirrup and swung up into the saddle. “I expect we’ll catch up to them either late this afternoon or sometime tomorrow morning.”
That was just a guess, of course…but Sherwood and the others didn’t have to know that. Fairfax sensed that as long as he continued to display an air of confidence, they would continue to follow him.
But if they ever saw doubt or indecision coming from him, then he would lose them. He was sure of that. It wouldn’t take much for them to bolt and actually head back to St. Louis, just as they had pretended to do several days earlier.
“What do we do after Preacher’s dead?” Sherwood asked as their horses splashed across the shallow stream.
“Didn’t Beaumont give you any orders?”
“Nope. Just said to do what you told us to do.”
Fairfax didn’t believe that for a second. But just in case Sherwood was telling the truth, he said, “I’d like to go back to the valley and burn that trading post to the ground.”
Sherwood glanced over at him, evidently surprised. “Why? The Harts seemed like decent fellas, and that Deborah Hart…well, she’s a mighty pretty woman.”
“They ruined my plans just like Preacher did,” Fairfax spat out. That wasn’t strictly true; without Preacher’s help, t
he Hart cousins never would have reached the valley, let alone survived this long.
But he still bore a grudge against them. They had played a part in Schuyler Mims’s death. During the long trek back to civilization the year before, Fairfax had devoted most of his thoughts to hating Preacher, but Corliss, Jerome, and Deborah Hart had come in for their share of hatred, too.
Sherwood rubbed his heavy jaw and then said, “I got to admit, it’d be mighty nice to spend some time with that woman away from her husband. Maybe we could kill Corliss and Jerome and burn the place down, then take her with us when we left.”
Fairfax gave a noncommittal grunt. He didn’t like the idea of taking the woman along. That would just cause jealousy among the men, which might lead to more problems.
But he was perfectly willing to dangle Deborah Hart in front of them as bait to get them to follow his orders. In fact, he would go one step farther than that.
“There are other women at the settlement, too,” he said, “and some of them are probably attractive. We might be able to take several of them with us.”
The men who were riding behind Fairfax and Sherwood heard the comment, and the word spread quickly throughout the group. Fairfax heard the excited muttering behind him and smiled to himself.
He knew he had just strengthened his grip on them. They would be anxious now to dispose of Preacher and then get back to the settlement. The prospects of rape and loot were powerful lures for men such as these.
Fairfax didn’t care about either of those things. He just wanted vengeance…on Preacher and on the Harts.
It took longer to reach the plains than Laura thought it would. By the middle of the afternoon, they were still winding through the foothills with their Blackfoot escort.
She still had mixed emotions about the situation. She didn’t trust the Indians not to turn on them, but at the same time she didn’t look forward to her and Clyde being alone with Flagg and his squaw.
Several times, Laura had noticed the Indian woman staring at her. The woman’s round face was so impassive that it was impossible to tell what she was thinking. Looking at her wasn’t any more rewarding than peering at a stone.
But Laura thought she caught hints of hatred glinting in the squaw’s eyes. She remembered the things Flagg had said about kidnapping the Indian woman and forcing her to live as his wife. Perhaps Flagg had broken her spirit, but surely deep down, she hated him for what he had done.
What if she didn’t, though? What if she had grown to care for the renegade American? If she knew that Flagg had tried to rape Laura, would she be angry at Flagg…or would she blame Laura for tempting her man?
Laura didn’t know the answers to those questions, but she was beginning to wonder if she might not be in danger from Flagg’s woman as well as from Flagg himself.
Finally, as they rode toward a notch in a long, rocky ridge, Flagg said, “It won’t be much longer now. The trail drops down to the prairie just on the other side of that gap.”
Chief Walks Like a Bear spoke up, offering some long comment in his native tongue. When he was finished, Mallory asked, “What did he say?”
Flagg smiled faintly. “That he’ll be glad to be shed of all of us. Says he was a fool for trustin’ white men and that he’ll never do it again.”
“He’s not going to double-cross us here at the last minute, is he?” Mallory asked with a worried frown.
Flagg shook his head. “I don’t think so. If ol’ Bear’s got one failin’, it’s that he’s a man of his word.” Flagg’s voice hardened as he added, “But if you ever run into him after we part company with him today, you better kill him and kill him quick, because he’ll be doin’ his damnedest to kill you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Mallory said.
The group continued riding toward the notch in the ridge, which flattened out on top and was littered with boulders. Laura winced at the pain in her thighs, which came from sore muscles unaccustomed to long hours spent riding as well as from chafed skin. Even though riding in a wagon hadn’t been all that pleasant, she was looking forward to it now.
She was thinking about that as the group started up the slope toward the notch, so she didn’t realize right away that something was wrong.
But then she heard her brother’s startled exclamation, and Flagg burst out, “What the hell!” Excited muttering came from the Indians, too.
Laura lifted her eyes and saw that a man had stepped out into the gap at the top of the slope, now no more than twenty feet from them. She recognized him instantly, even though he wasn’t wearing his usual buckskins.
Preacher.
Chapter 27
It seemed clear to Preacher that the best way to get the prisoners away from the Blackfeet was to take them by surprise.
And nothing would be quite as surprising to the Indians as to find their pursuers in front of them instead of behind.
Uncle Dan agreed when Preacher laid out the plan during another brief halt to rest the horses. The wily old-timer had a word of caution, though.
“If they was white men and we had the drop on ’em, they’d do what you told ’em to keep from gettin’ killed. You can’t count on Injuns bein’ that reasonable, though. They’re liable to put up a fight no matter what the odds are agin ’em.”
“I know,” Preacher said. “If they make a move to kill the prisoners, we’ll just have to shoot fast and straight.”
Uncle Dan nodded. “Let’s do ’er.”
The rescue party pushed on shortly after that, urging their mounts on to greater speed as they circled to the north.
Preacher had been through this part of the country numerous time before, and figured that the Blackfeet and their captives were heading for Rutherford’s Notch. That was the easiest way out of these rugged foothills. The trail led straight from there out onto the plains.
Horses and men responded gamely. They were all worn out from the long chase, but now, with the end in sight, they found fresh bursts of strength and energy.
By the middle of the afternoon, Preacher was confident that he and his companions had gotten ahead of the Blackfeet. They cut sharply to the south and reached the ridge that divided the foothills from the prairie.
As they reached the notch, they angled down the eastern slope and dismounted. The ridge itself would keep the Indians from being able to see their horses. One man was left behind to hold the mounts, while the others spread out on both sides of the gap and found hiding places among the rocks.
Preacher chose a spot very near the notch for himself. Dog sat beside him, panting in the warm afternoon sun. Preacher sleeved sweat from his forehead with his good arm.
Quiet lay over the landscape, so Preacher was able to hear the riders coming for quite a ways before they reached the gap in the ridge. The big cur at his feet heard the hoofbeats, too, and started to growl, but Preacher silenced him with a soft, “Hush, Dog.”
Judging distance by the sounds of the horses’ hooves, Preacher waited with the patience of a born frontiersman. He knew that his men would stay concealed behind the rocks until they heard his voice.
This had to be timed carefully. Since he couldn’t handle a rifle, he wanted the lead riders to be within range of his pistol when he finally stepped out into the open and challenged them.
At last, they were close enough, he figured. He took a deep breath, looped his thumb over the hammer of the flintlock pistol, and took a long step into the middle of the gap, lifting the pistol and turning to face the oncoming riders as he did so.
He heard the startled reactions, then silenced them by calling in his deep, powerful voice, “Hold it!”
His keen eyes swept over the scene, taking in the tiniest detail since this was the first close look he had gotten at the group he and his companions had been pursuing.
Nine Blackfoot warriors glared at him, including one barrel-chested fella whose war paint and regalia marked him as a chief. Each of the Indians had one of those new rifles.
Laura Mallo
ry and her brother Clyde rode in the forefront of the group, along with another white man in a beaded buckskin jacket and a flat-crowned hat. Preacher had never seen him before.
He was glad to have it confirmed that he hadn’t been imagining things when he thought he saw Clyde Mallory with Laura while the settlement was under attack. He didn’t know why Mallory was here instead of with the wagons on their way back to St. Louis, but at the moment, that didn’t really matter.
There was one other person in the bunch, a round-faced Indian woman who brought up the rear, trailing a packhorse with her. Preacher didn’t know her either, but his mind leaped to the assumption that she was with the white man he didn’t know.
He felt a wave of relief go through him as he saw that Laura appeared to be all right. She was riding one of the Indian ponies, riding astride like a man with her skirt pulled up and her bare calves showing. She wore a look of utter amazement at the sight of Preacher.
But then a smile broke out on her face, and she cried, “Preacher! Oh, thank God you found us!”
He kept the Indians covered with the pistol, and knew that Uncle Dan and the rest of the men hidden in the rocks had their rifles trained on the Blackfeet as well. The members of the rescue party had been told to show themselves just enough so that the Indians would know they were there.
“Laura, you and Clyde come on over here,” Preacher said.
Mallory’s face was flushed with surprise. Laura turned to him and said, “I told you Preacher would come to rescue us, Clyde.”
“Yes,” Mallory said through gritted teeth. “Yes, you did.”
What was wrong with the man? Preacher wondered. He didn’t look all that happy to see them.
But maybe he was hurt. He acted sort of like he was in pain.
Laura dug her heels into her pony’s flanks and rode forward. Mallory followed her. Preacher stepped aside so that they could move past him through the gap.
“Keep goin’ when you get to the other side,” he told them as they went by. “Who’s that other fella?”
Preacher's Pursuit (The First Mountain Man) Page 20