Eve Billings, tears of relief on her face, came up then to relieve Preacher of Anna. She stopped short, astonished at the figure who sat his horse in front of her. “Why, that’s the Indian I told you about, Preacher. He’s the one who watched us from a distance.” To Danvers, she added, “He’s friendly right enough. He smiled and waved to me every time.”
It was time for introductions, Preacher felt. “His name is Cloud Blanket. This is Miz Billings. An’ this is ...”
Charlie Billings came forward and raised his right hand in the sign of greeting and peace. “Heyota, Cloud Blanket.”
Shock registered on the face of Eve Billings. “Charles Ryan Billings, you . . . you know this Indian?”
“Oh, sure. He’s my friend, but it’s supposed to be a secret. Back in the other mountains he came to me and taught me how to track game. That’s why I always done so good.”
“Did so well,” Eve corrected automatically.
“He gave me these moccasins, too.” Charlie beamed with pride in his friendship.
Lieutenant Colonel Danvers interrupted the domestic scene. “He is still a hostile prisoner, and I want him removed to a secure place at once.”
Preacher’s dander rose. “An’ I say hell no. ’Fore you lock anyone up, Colonel, we’ll all jist ride out of here and leave you to the mercy of the real hostiles.”
“You can’t do that. It’s desertion in the face of the enemy. I’ll have you shot for that.”
Eyes narrowed alarmingly, Preacher pinned Danvers with a burning gaze. “You may try, Colonel, but you’ll have a damn hard time doing it.” He raised himself in the saddle. “Antoine, Three Sleeps, grab yer gear. We’re gettin’ out of here,” he shouted.
After two tense minutes, the mountain men appeared with their horses loaded. The Arapaho warriors came with them. Without another word, Preacher and Cloud Blanket in the lead, they left the fort by the open main gate. After they departed, Danvers looked around and spotted BSM Muldoon.
“Sergeant Major, take a horse and follow them. I want to know every detail of what they are up to.”
“Yes, sir.”
Beyond the ridge that overlooked Fort Washington, Preacher halted the small party and made a fire for coffee. While it brewed, he listened to what Cloud Blanket knew of Iron Shirt. His conclusions, arrived at over the first cup of heavily sweetened brew, surprised Preacher.
“I believe that there is more behind this than a moonstruck holy man. There are three white men who go wherever Iron Shirt goes. They do not have kind faces. They are the ones who bring the rifles.”
“I’ll have to look into that. A while back I thought I had run into the whites that was supposed to be runnin’ with Iron Shirt.” He went on to relate the run-in with Blake Soures, including a description of the outlaw leader.
Cloud Blanket nodded thoughtfully, then brightened at the portrayal of Soures. “That is the man who brought the wagons with the rifles. He is like the rattlesnake.”
“Was, Cloud Blanket. I killed him.”
“He will not be missed by me or any of my band.”
“I’m gonna have to go get a look at these other whites you tole me about.”
“You are not going back to the soldier lodges?”
“No. Let that damned pompous Danvers sweat a bit. The others can go back in a couple of days, if they want. That’ll help some.”
“While you are gone, my braves and I will not be able to protect the foolish soldiers, but we will try.”
They drank another cup of coffee and Cloud Blanket described to Preacher how to find the war camp. They parted as friends.
BSM Terrance Muldoon and his three-man detail returned to Fort Washington to report. They remained unaware that they had been allowed to get close enough to hear what was being discussed. Nor, after hearing Preacher speak in Cheyenne, did Muldoon wonder why the conversation had been in English. Doubtless he would have been furious to learn that it had been done that way for his benefit.
“So, Mr. Preacher is going off to look for some nonexistent white renegades who are supposed to be aiding the hostiles that attacked us? Do you suspect, Sergeant Major, that he intends to join them?”
BSM Muldoon bristled. “Certainly not, sor, an’ that’s a fact. Preacher may be a lot of things, dependin’ on how ye see him, but he’s not disloyal, not a bit, sor.”
“I want a detail sent off to trail our Mr. Preacher. Lieutenant Judson will lead it. I know how you dislike garrison duty, Sergeant Major, so I am sending you along as ranking noncom.”
“And the purpose of our going after him, if I may ask, sor?”
“I want you to bring him, and the others who deserted us, back here.”
Muldoon raised an eyebrow. “To be punished, is it, sor?”
“No, to tell us what we need to know to defeat these hostiles.”
“Ye think they’ll be comin’ back, do ye, Colonel, sor?”
“You can count on it, Sergeant Major. As soon as they lick their wounds and get in a proper frenzy.” Then he turned his attention to a dispatch he had to write to his superiors back East.
After a three-days fast, hard journey, Preacher and his friends, none of whom seemed eager to return to the fort, reached the war camp deep in the Bighorn Canyon region. It had been up and down mountains all the way. Mostly up, as Preacher saw it. At noon of the last day, Preacher reined in and pointed to the crisp-edged imprints of iron wagon wheels.
“There’s no question that there’s white men with that biggest Blackfoot band. They’re close, too. I think we need only get close enough to take a peek, then git on back.”
“Sounds right,” agreed Three Sleeps.
Antoine cast one eye at an odd angle. “You reckon the colonel will thank us for what we find out?”
Preacher ran long fingers through his long, dark, sandy hair. “I doubt he knows the words, Tony. We’ll ease up on these-here hostiles after dark and see what we can see.”
Late that night, what they saw, though they had no names for them, were Praeger, Gross and Reiker. Preacher watched their activity for a while, then came to the conclusion that the Blackfoot and their allies were making preparations to return to Fort Washington. He nudged Three Sleeps in the ribs and whispered in his ear.
“I think we got what we came for. We’ll ease our way out of here and head back in the morning.”
Except for Lieutenant Judson and BSM Muldoon, the detail that followed Preacher consisted of men so inept that they made their presence painfully obvious. So lulled did they become, that they had not the slightest awareness of being watched. Early the next morning, they blithely walked their horses directly into imminent danger.
When the large war party of Blackfoot attacked, they took the Dragoons entirely by surprise.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Arrows flew in a dark cloud out of the grass along the trail left by Preacher. Three Dragoons died before a one could fire a shot. The hostiles, who had left early to return to the fort, had come across the sign of white men and decided upon an ambush. The sight of the Dragoons had been entirely too tempting.
Lieutenant Judson acted correctly and promptly. “Dismount.... Form a circle with your horses. Every other man, return fire.”
The only trouble was they saw nothing to shoot at. Another flight of deadly shafts rose from the concealment of waving grass and thick brush. Instinctively, the Dragoons aimed at the places where the arrows first appeared. Several cries of pain rewarded them. Mounted warriors came from a tree line along one ridge and charged toward the circle of horses. Had the Blackfoot waited only a short while longer, they could have caught all of the birds in their nest.
It turned out not to be so. From a distance, Preacher and the men with him heard several muffled reports. The mountain men cocked their ears and concentrated a moment.
“It sounds like carbines to me,” opined Preacher, who pronounced the word car-bines.
Three Sleeps agreed. “That it does. Now, what you suppose?”
&n
bsp; “Figger Colonel Danvers sent some people after us.”
Antoine joined in. “An’ they got theyselves in trouble.” He ended with a cackle.
Three Sleeps Norris turned to Preacher. “Should we go help ’em out?”
Preacher pretended to ponder that a moment. “I don’t see why not.”
The Arapaho in their wake, they set off at a brisk canter. From the faintness of the sound, Preacher reckoned they had a good twenty-minute ride.
A lot can happen in twenty minutes. Terribly outnumbered, the eighteen-man patrol died by ones and twos. Blackfoot swarmed around the improvised shelter, the horses targeted indiscriminately, along with the Dragoons. One beast, shrieking in pain from a neck wound, broke the grip of the soldier holding it and ran out among the charging hostiles.
That opened a gap which allowed a dozen Blackfoot to dash through. With lance and tomahawk, they began to slash at the Dragoons from terribly close quarters. BSM Muldoon saw Lieutenant Judson go down, a lance rammed through his belly. The unfortunate Private Mallory died a second later, his body draped over that of his officer.
“Poor, stupid lad,” Muldoon said aloud as eulogy for them both.
Then his ears heard something he could not believe. Gunfire! And coming from beyond the press of savages. It could only be Preacher and those he had taken with him. Relief flooded Muldoon as he shot a screaming Blackfoot full in the face from two feet away. Another of the Dragoons died while he cocked the hammer to take out a hostile.
Three mountain men and six Arapaho warriors charged down on the backs of the triumphant Blackfoot. Their rifles cracked at the best possible range and nine Blackfoot died. Preacher unlimbered one of his Walker Colts and shot two more before the hostiles could react and turn to face this new threat.
Wounded, one of them thrashed in the grass. Preacher aimed at a fourth target. He knew his chances to be good; he hadn’t missed yet. His evaluation of his marksmanship proved accurate. His .44 ball slammed into the skull of a warrior who swung a war club at the head of BSM Muldoon.
Preacher’s action did not prevent Muldoon from being hit, but turned the strike into a hard, glancing blow. Believing the spirits had turned on them, the surviving Blackfoot fired a few final arrows, those without mounts were hoisted up by comrades on horseback and the warriors streamed off over a notch in the ridge to the south.
Stunned by the rap on his head, Muldoon looked slowly around himself to discover he had come out of the fray as the sole survivor. “Jesus, Mary an’ Joseph, sure an’ I’m glad to see you, Preacher, that’s a fact.”
Preacher also totaled the grim score. “How’d this happen to you?”
“Devil take it, lad, they got us entirely by surprise, they did. Didn’ know there was any heathen about ’til they shot arrows at us from the grass, an’ then more of the spalpeen bastids come out of the trees, shootin’ better rifles than we have. It was a terrible slaughter, it was.”
Preacher tried for understatement. “I can see that.”
“All me poor lads. Even lame-wit Mallory, an’ our darlin’ lieutenant. The colonel’s not going to like that, he’s not.”
“No doubt. Tell me something, Muldoon, you seemed to put a note in your voice when you mentioned the colonel. Was it the knock you got on your head, or something else?”
Muldoon’s grimace of pain turned to a sour expression. “You’ve got the heart of it, Preacher, sure an’ you do. I’ve not seen nor heard anything certain, but I do have some worries about the darlin’ colonel, I do. He’s been writin’ a lot of dispatches of late. Only they aren’t to Gen’ral Ferris, or the War Department. I’ve yet to see to whom he addresses them, but it’s certain sure it’s not anyone in our chain of command.”
“There’s more?” prompted Preacher.
“Aye, that’s the big an’ little of it. It’s about his attitude toward the men, Preacher. The way he sent us out here, an eighteen-man patrol into hostile country, with not a fare-thee-well. An’ orderin’ that counterattack back when the heathens had the fort surrounded. It’s almost as though he wants us to get killed off to the last man jack of us, it is. But, a commander leads his men, inspires them, an’ protects them, too. It can’t be.”
That awakened dark suspicions in the mind of Preacher, although he had to put them aside for the present and look into it all later. Muldoon had suffered a hard, messy blow to the head, which cut his scalp and raised a knot. Time that was taken care of.
“You know about those things more than I, Sergeant Major. Now, let me get a good look at that wound of yours.” After some gentle probing and prodding, Preacher satisfied himself the skull remained intact and pronounced his verdict. “You’ll recover. But with your patrol wiped out, and no way to get back alone, it might be best for you to ride with us.”
BSM Muldoon’s eyebrows elevated. “Yer not goin’ direct to the fort?”
“Nope. This ambush tells me we haven’t finished our business here. We need to get a look at this Blackfoot messiah, Iron Shirt, up close and personal. Find out what hold he has on these Injuns.”
“When will that be?”
“Tonight,” promised Preacher.
Preacher’s little band made careful observations of the routine engaged in by Iron Shirt. In this case, two large bands of Northern Cheyenne, won over by news of the near success at the fort, prepared for the ritual. Late that night, after the immersion, fire-walking, feasting, drumming and singing ended, would be ideal for what Preacher had in mind, he told the others.
Once they had pulled back far enough from the camp, Preacher revealed his intentions. “Antoine an’ me are gonna go in there and stir ’em up some. Leave some real scary things for Iron Shirt. If we’re lucky, he’ll begin to doubt his own medicine.”
“Such as what?” BSM Muldoon asked.
Preacher brushed off the question. “Oh, some things we gathered up earlier today.”
The hearty band had ridden west of the ambush scene to avoid any contact with hostiles that might happen by. Preacher and Antoine had hunted during part of the afternoon, using bows with all the skill of an Indian. Part of what they took, they ate. Some portions of the animals had been put away for later use. Preacher knew exactly what he wanted, and had used the last hours of daylight to paint plains-Indian pictographs on strips of rawhide. He took those, and the animal parts, with him when he and Antoine slipped away to the Blackfoot encampment at around two o’clock in the morning. A heavy overcast made the ground a pool of ink.
They entered the sleeping war village silently. Only the soft scuff of moccasins on hard soil indicated their movement. Preacher worked his way to the center of camp, then located the ideal spot.
With Antoine standing guard in front of the entrance to the lodge of Iron Shirt, Preacher placed a headless skunk on the ground. Next came a fresh deer heart, to which he affixed one of the pictograph strips. Those were the symbols for Iron Shirt’s name, he had explained when he painted them. Beside that, he left the severed testicles of the same deer, with signs on the rawhide for White Wolf takes these from Iron Shirt.
Satisfied with his nocturnal display, Preacher signaled to Antoine and the mountain men slipped out of camp. Once beyond any chance of apprehension, they both threw back their heads and made the wailing sounds associated with the spirits of those who had been blinded and mutilated and could not journey to the Other World. Not too surprisingly, no one stirred in camp until daylight.
Shortly after the uproar that heralded the discovery of Preacher’s handiwork, the hostiles broke camp and rode off to the southeast, in the direction of Fort Washington. Preacher’s stalwart band followed at a discreet distance.
Over the next several nights, Preacher continued to pay ghostly, taunting visits to the band of warriors. On the fourth night, he edged in close to two teenaged boys, along as apprentice warriors and assigned as herd guards. After a round of ordinary talk about which girl in their village they thought the most beautiful, one lad brought up a subject that Iron Shirt
’s fury prohibited from being talked of openly.
“My older brother has seen the bad medicine that appears in camp these last nights. This White Wolf has powerful medicine. My brother thinks maybe more strength than Iron Shirt. Men have tried to kill White Wolf before, yet he lives, while our warriors die by the white man’s bullets. My brother is thinking of taking me and returning to our village.”
The other boy agreed. “Yes, that is a wise thing.”
From his careful observation of the furtive glances the warriors made in all directions when they left their low war lodges, and now this indication of unrest, Preacher decided that an aura of bad medicine and even fear hung over the entire camp. His work had been well done.
A quick count of those in the war camp the next morning informed Preacher that some twelve or more had abandoned the cause. Earlier that day he had watched the three white men in camp set off southeast with Cheyenne guides, well ahead of the rest. Cloud Blanket had been right, and Preacher would tell him so. A big stir came when Iron Shirt learned of the defections.
He called the warriors together, most of them already mounted to continue the ride. “They are women! They shame the name Blackfoot. I have had a vision. We will make a mighty raid on the soldiers we have fought before with our Cheyenne and Sioux brothers. This time we will be victorious! I have strengthened the medicine that protects you. Nothing of the white man’s can harm you.”
From his vantage point, Preacher grinned at the craftiness of this fraudulent medicine man. As if he did not plan all along to go back to the fort. He decided upon one more visit to this uneasy war camp that night.
They came in the darkest part of the night. Preacher and his companions burst into the gathering of lodges from ten different points of the compass. Whooping ferociously, a torch spluttering in one hand, Preacher bent low to set fire to a six-foot-high lodge. Then he made for another one.
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