In the next instant, a Cheyenne lance split the heart of Lieutenant Colonel Danvers. It had been hurled by Cloud Blanket, who dropped from the roof of the headquarters building to land beside Preacher. They embraced in the Cheyenne manner.
“Now all we have to do is kill Iron Shirt and this first-cousin-to-a-skunk alliance will fall apart.”
Cloud Blanket appeared saddened. “Yes. I always knew it would come to that. Though I will not be the one to spill his blood. Here, that shoulder needs caring for.”
While Cloud Blanket bound Preacher’s shoulder, he offered advice on the best means of finishing Iron Shirt. Preacher listened intently. Around them, the battle raged on. Once the cannon had been moved into place, as Cloud Blanket packed the wound with a poultice, the assault on the weakened portion of the wall ended quickly.
Little respite came for the defenders. No sooner had the Blackfoot withdrawn from the west stockade than the Cheyenne and Sioux flung themselves at the north face. They used the same tactic of tearing down the wall. Another section broke away and the dirt buffer rumbled into a loose ramp. Up it plunged the Sioux warriors.
With the fortifications about to fall, the desperate young Dragoon gunners manned the cannon, firing in a flat trajectory now. When they ran out of prepared grapeshot, they dumped loose balls down the barrel and double wadded it. Preacher reappeared on the parade ground with his French Le Mat sporting rifle. Aching from wounds in both shoulders, he fought his way through a group of Sioux who had breached the wall and now swarmed onto the parade ground. BSM Muldoon saw him coming and helped clear a path with some well-aimed shots. After a solid smack to the kidneys of one warrior, which sent torrents of pain through Preacher’s body, he gained the parapet.
Eyes straining against the haze of smoke and dust, Preacher at last located the Blackfoot prophet. This was going to hurt him almost as much as it would Iron Shirt, he thought as he knelt and put the buttplate of the rifle to his shoulder. True to his word, Iron Shirt made medicine on the little round-top knoll. His body twisted and jerked in the gyrations of his ritual dance around a blazing fire. Taking careful aim, Preacher touched the set trigger, then put a fingertip on the release tang.
The Le Mat let go with a terrible bark at the front end and a ferocious bite at the back. Preacher’s face screwed up in a response he could not suppress. Two long seconds passed; then Iron Shirt looked up sharply as the ball cracked over his head. Moving like an aged weakling, Preacher reloaded. Again he took aim.
With another punishing report, the Le Mat fired again.
Iron Shirt staggered, sagged, toppled. He hit the ground and lay there, his limbs twitched in agonized reflex for three long minutes, then he lay still. A gusty sigh of relief came from Preacher.
It had worked as he’d expected. Although much smaller, the .36-caliber ball had markedly more velocity and better sectional density than a .54 round so that it cut through the links of chain mail and pierced the heart of Iron Shirt. Word of the messiah’s death traveled fast. Suddenly, the allies fell silent on the battlefield. Cloud Blanket appeared at Preacher’s right. He raised his bloodied lance to command attention.
“My brothers, your false prophet, Iron Shirt, is dead. His medicine was not good against the long gun of White Ghost, who took his life. Stop the fighting and go home. Live there in peace with the white men, who will leave this place in the Moon of Painted Leaves. There will be no fort in this place.”
Slowly, his message sank in. Their heads bowed in perceived defeat, the warriors turned away from Fort Washington and began to leave the area in small groups. Within an hour they had all passed out of sight.
After the warriors had left the field and order had been restored, Eve and her children came with some of the others to where Preacher sat under a single oak that had been spared by the builders, deadening the ache of his wounds with a jug of good rye.
Not one to defer to any man, Eve spoke what they had on their minds. “Preacher, we were wondering what you had in mind for the next few months?”
Preacher took a long pull and smacked his lips. The liquor probably was not good for the healing process, he knew, but by the time he got well into the second jug, he wouldn’t give a damn. “Well, I’m gonna write a report on what happened here, to go with that Captain Dreiling. You know, the one whose gonna lead these soldier-boys back come September. My friends, Antoine an’ Three Sleeps, will scout for them.”
Eve pushed him further. “Yes, but what about you?”
“Me? I’m gonna take myself off somewhere quiet, where I won’t see no Injuns or pilgrims or soldier-boys for a long, long time, an’ jist plain heal up.”
Eve’s expression revealed that he had just slammed a door on what she wanted so desperately to know. Gathering her resources, she relented for the moment. “Actually, I wanted to ask you about a more immediate future. I would be pleased if you would take supper with my children and myself.”
Preacher beamed up at her. “Well now, I think that could be managed. I’m tired of all this backslappin’ that’s gone on over me shootin’ Iron Shirt. A little quiet supper sounds fine.”
After the meal, with Charlie and Anna asleep for the night, Preacher and Eve talked earnestly and quietly for a while. Then they took a stroll to the small cabin set aside for Preacher.
Early the next morning, Preacher emerged from the low log structure. He yawned and stretched as much as his wounds would allow, then glanced back through the open door as he made his way to the nearest cookfire and pot of coffee.
He had a big grin plastered on his face as he made an announcement to the unseen person within. “Well now, I’ll allow as how I jist might find that quiet place I want to rest up in somewhere in the Northwest Territory.”
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