“Why, that’s a damn-fool notion if ever I heard one,” Preacher erupted.
“Sure it is. At least if they are left on their own. What they need is someone with experience to see them through to wherever they want to settle.”
Preacher quickly took in the meaning behind Walt’s bright blue eyes. “No sir! Not this chile. I’ve had all I want of gospel-shouters and Bible-thumpers. You of all people ought to know that, Walt.”
“Oh, I know you’ve had your encounters with the—ah—type. But ...”
“But nothin’,” Preacher all but shouted. “The thought of any of these pilgrims an’ tenderfeet westernin’ plain sours my stomach. You got yourself the wrong boy this time, Walt. I plum ain’t gonna do it.”
In the awed silence that followed Preacher’s outburst, a snotty, sneering voice rose from the direction of the bar. “My, my, I always knew you was yellow clear through, Preacher. A lazy, shiftless no-account Injun lover who hates every white man on God’s green earth.” The speaker turned from his hunch-shouldered stance at the plank bar.
Preacher recognized him at once. That nerve-rasping voice, like sawteeth on a nail, pegged him as Bull Ransom, a failed trapper who hung around in the High Lonesome doing odd jobs from time to time, stealing what he wanted the rest. Preacher’s eyes narrowed.
“Where I come from, we never stack bullshit that high, Ransom,” Preacher said in a deceptively mild voice.
Bull Ransom went livid. “You callin’ me bullshit, Preacher?”
Preacher cut his eyes around the nearly empty saloon portion of the trading post. “Seein’ as how there’s nobody else here but me an’ Walt ... yeah, I say you’re nothin’ but a great big over-sized pile of shit.”
Raging inwardly, Ransom nearly choked on his hot words. “I’ll stopper that smart-aleck mouth of yourn. I’ll fix you good.” Bull changed his tone, became taunting and oily “I can take you, you know that, Preacher? I can shoot you where you sit before you can touch a gun. I could slice your lilly-livered throat with my Greenriver. Or I might turn your face into ground dog meat with my bare hands.”
Preacher shook his head and sighed sadly. “Either you’re stupid enough to believe that, or you’re the worst, bald-faced liar I ever met, Bull.”
That tipped the scales for Bull Ransom. With a roar, he came at Preacher, who rose to his moccasins with the fluid grace of a panther. Preacher didn’t wait. He met Ransom halfway. At least the big, balled fist at the end of a rapidly snapped right arm met Bull there with full force. White knuckle marks stood out on the florid skin of Bull’s forehead. He grunted and his eyes crossed. Then Preacher began to seriously whip up on Ransom.
Swift, powerful one-two combinations hammered the rib cage of Bull Ransom. Each blow threatened to break ribs. The fat on Ransom’s belly jiggled and his jowls wobbled from the tremendous force. Preacher remained squared off with him, which proved to be a mistake the moment Bull recovered from the shock of the sudden, ferocious attack. Grunting with the effort, Bull brought a knee up into Preacher’s crotch.
Bent double from the flare of pain, Preacher left himself wide open. Bull moved in and seized the advantage. His fat, though whang-leather tough hands pummeled Preacher’s head. A scarlet haze settled over Preacher’s vision. Bull had stepped in so close Preacher had no target for his own punishing fists. Then he recalled an old trick he learned from a Pawnee. Having been on the receiving end might account for his undiminished dislike for the Pawnee, he thought giddily before he flexed his knees and rammed the top of his head into the point of Bull’s chin.
Teeth clicked together as Bull’s jaw snapped shut. Instantly, Preacher sprang backward and went to work on the face of his adversary. Callused knuckles bit and tore into fleshy lips. The upper one split and Bull bellowed his burning rage. Before he could recover, Preacher finished the job of mashing Bull’s mouth into a crimson smear. Then he took on Bull’s nose. He landed a solid right, then a left and another right. Preacher heard cartilage pop like the hinge-gate stopper of a bottle of beer.
Bull Ransom back-pedaled from the violence of Preacher’s assault. Desperately he made a swipe at the bar. His fingers closed around the neck of a blown glass whiskey bottle, with which he took a swing at Preacher’s head. Preacher ducked as the container whistled past. Then he planted a ringing left on Bull’s right ear.
Nearly dropping the bottle, Ransom readjusted his grip, broke the bottle against the raw plank of the bar top and lunged at Preacher’s face. “Enough’s enough, goddamnit,” Preacher did his thinking out loud.
Then he side-stepped and let the jagged glass whiz past. In a flash, he snatched the wrist and upper arm of Bull Ransom and swung down hard. At the same time he shot his right leg upward, the top of his thigh forming a hard crossbar. Both bones of Ransom’s forearm snapped with a loud, sickening sound. The bottle fell from instantly numbed fingers. Howling, Ransom went to his knees. Preacher gauged his enemy and delivered a sturdy kick to Ransom’s ruined face. When he turned back to Walt Hayward, the trader noted that Preacher wasn’t even breathing hard.
“He certain sure had that comin’, Preacher. Let me get another bottle and we’ll wet our whistles some more.” Walt started across the floor to the bar when he noticed weak, furtive movement from the fallen Ransom. Almost before it could register, Walt watched the battered trash come to his feet, a long, sharp Greenriver knife in his left hand.
“Preacher, look out,” Walt shouted. “He’s got a knife!”
4
It happened so fast that afterward the hastily gathered witnesses had difficulty recalling if they had, indeed, seen the lithe, lanky mountain man draw and fire. The sharp report of the pistol in Preacher’s hand did make its impression clearly. The force slammed painfully into their ears, causing squawks of alarm. This remarkable display of speed and accuracy came as a result of Preacher’s strict adherence to the basics of staying alive on the frontier.
Not long after possessing himself of these remarkable firearms and making custom holsters for them, Preacher had experimented with means of getting them into action the easiest and quickest way.
Unknown to him, and to history, Preacher had invented the style that was to become known in later years as the fast draw. It saved his life again this day. His bullets arrested Bull Ransom’s lunge in mid-stride. The back-stabber rocked back on boot heels from the impact of the double-shotted load that pierced his sloppy-fat belly. Slowly, a forest giant yielding to the lumberjack’s saw, Bull Ransom toppled backward to strike the unfinished planks of the floor with a resounding, drumlike thud.
“I’m dyin’, Preacher,” Bull said weakly.
“I reckon you are, Bull. You want to make yer peace with God?”
Black-hearted hate distorted Bull’s last words. “Damn Him and damn you, too, Preacher.” Then his boot heels made a brief, rapid tattoo on the floorboards, he uttered a gurgling rattle and left to meet the Supreme Judge.
“I’d say it’s you should be most worried about bein’ damned,” Preacher observed. A certifiably feminine shriek sounded from beside the inner doorway immediately after.
Preacher cut his eyes that direction and saw three women, over-dressed in the current Eastern style. They had entered during the ruckus caused by his fight with the dead Bull Ransom. One, her gray hair protruding from the fringe of a bonnet, had a hand to her mouth, her face pale and waxen. She appeared about ready to swoon. With her other hand, she clung to the arm of another lady about her own age. The third had uttered the scream. She was much younger, Preacher took in at a glance, and really quite pretty. At least until she screwed her smooth-complexioned face into a mask of moral outrage and advanced on Preacher, small fists flailing the air.
“You barbarian! You savage brute! Why, you—you murdered that poor man for no earthly reason”
Preacher caught both flailing arms by the wrists, in one hand, and stilled her furious assault. He gazed down into deep, cobalt eyes, like hidden mountain pools. “I consider him tryin’ to k
nife me in the back more’n enough reason.”
She rounded on Walt Hayward then. “Where’s the law around here? This cold-blooded killer must be arrested.”
Walt produced a smile that parted the hair around his mouth. “If by that you mean an honest, God-fearin’ man who rights wrongs, I’d have to say it’s Preacher, Miss Cora.”
“‘Preacher?’ You mean you have a minister nearby, Mr. Hayward?”
“Nope. Preacher’s been called a lot of things, but a minister ain’t one of them. He’s—ah—he’s the one’s got you caught up by the hand.”
A startled squeak emanated from the throat of Cora Ames. Her eyes got an even darker blue and went wide and round. “Oh, Lord have mercy! Spare us from the madness of this wilderness,” she prattled.
“The best way for Him to have done that is to have seen that you stayed where you belong,” Preacher offered his opinion.
That proved too much for Cora. Not that she backed down. Rather, she stamped her tiny foot, clad in a black, high-button shoe, and jerked free of Preacher’s relaxed grasp. “I’m not finished with you. You must be judged for the awful thing you did.”
“Oh, I figger as how that’s all taken care of. I asked the Man Above to weigh the soul of the departed Bull Ransom and decide where’s best to put it. And not to look too harshly on my havin’ to send him off so unexpected like. Thing is I can’t abide a snake who’d stab a man in the back.”
Cora realized what was going on and spoke her mind. “You’re making fun of me, aren’t you?”
“I wouldn’t say that, miss. You’re much too pretty to be made fun of.”
“Uh—Preacher,” Walt began tentatively. “I reckon as how you’ll have to act as guide now. Seein’ as how you’ve just done for these mission folks’ wagonmaster, that is.”
Shock registered on the face of Cora Agnes. “No! Absolutely not! Why, the very idea of allowing this—this—this monster in the company of gentle souls and God-loving people like our family of missionaries is out of the question.”
Grinning, Preacher agreed. “Oh, you’ve got the right of it, miss. Couldn’t have said it better myself.”
Walt gave Preacher a, “You’ve got to get me out of this” look. “Really, it’s the best solution. There’s no one who knows these parts better than Preacher, Miss Cora.”
“Bu—bu—but he—he just killed a man right before our eyes.”
“And considering conditions out here, is likely to do so again if the situation calls for it,” Walt advised her.
“I would not permit it,” Cora announced bravely. “I would stand between this wretched beast and his intended victim and defy him to shoot me first.”
That, said with such a tone of serious intent, brought a laugh from Preacher. “That’s all fuss and feathers, miss, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so. There’s wild Injuns, renegade whites, border trash, and all sorts out there. Bunches of them deserve killin’. They’d not be kind to you and, when they’d had their way, they’d like to kill you for good measure.”
Icily, Cora defied his advice. “I don’t believe you.”
“Suit yourself. But it don’t cut no jerky strips, ’cause I ain’t gonna take you folks anywhere.”
Suddenly realizing her plight, Cora changed her stand. “Oh, but you must. We simply have to reach our mission site in time to build lodgings and a meeting house. We have to plant crops and care for our livestock. And ... that—that lout didn’t impress me with his ability to carry out his duties. We need someone reliable.”
The more this fiery damsel spluttered, the more beguiled Preacher became. She had plenty else to say and at great length. Eyes twinkling, Preacher bantered right back. Her passion at their goal made her even more attractive in Preacher’s eyes. At last, he relented enough to ask the key question.
“Jist where abouts are you headed, miss?”
“We are going to bring the Word of God to the heathen Cheyenne up north of here,” a portly man, done up all in black, complete with dickie and Roman collar, announced as he pushed through the Hudson’s Bay blanket that served as a divider between the saloon and the trading sides.
Knowing what he did from Talks To Clouds made it imperative for Preacher to see that these folks understood. “No. No, you’re not,” he told them, all humor erased from his voice. “There’s war talk flyin’ around the Cheyenne lodges. From what I hear, they’re fixin’ to take the war trail against their old enemies, the Blackfeet. That means someone’s gonna get their hair lifted: ’ Preacher paused a moment and then went on earnestly. “I’d be the worst sort of some of those names the young lady called me if I was to take you into that. And, besides, I ain’t eager to get my scalp picked off by any Injun, Cheyenne or Blackfoot.”
“We have no fear, sir,” the minister blithely told Preacher. “We have the protection of God, who sent us to the Cheyenne.”
Preacher pulled a droll face. “Now, isn’t that right comfortin’? Must let a feller lay down to sleep with an easy mind. Pardon my bein’ so pushy, but I ain’t never met a man on such close personal terms with the Almighty before this. Might I have your name?”
The minister drew up his short, portly figure and spoke with the ringing tones of the pulpit. “I am the Reverend Thornton Bookworthy, sir. It is my privilege to serve the United Mission Conference to the heathen.”
Bookworthy? Preacher nearly stumbled over the name. “Well, Reverend Bookworthy, the ’heathen’ are fixin’ to make war this whole summer. All the signs say that’s so, an’ my ol’ friend Talks To Clouds says so, an’ he’s one mighty savvy Nez Perce, so I expect he’s right. So, there’s no way you’re goin’ up in Cheyenne country this year an’ settle down. Unless to settle on the ground and let your bones bleach in the sun. If you’re smart, you’ll take that as the last word on the subject”
“You astound me, sir! Surely a man of such prowess with fist and gun can have no fear of any mere ignorant savages,” Reverend Bookworthy blustered.
“Now, there’s where you missed the point entire, Reverend. From personal experience, I allow as how those ’ignorant savages,’ as you put it, are ever’ bit as smart as you or me. They don’t want your God, ain’t got no need for Him. They got their own. Hear me good, Mister Minister, they ain’t heathens, an’ they might do savage things by our lights, but they’s kind to their youngins, provide for their old folks, love their wives, and are loyal to their friends. They are only different. They have their own ways, but if you ask me, so long as they’re livin’ by their own lights, they’re doin’ the exact things our God wants of us to do.”
During what to Preacher constituted a windy speech, Cora listened with a growing expression of understanding and enchantment. With his conclusion, she inserted her now gentle voice between the two men. Her tone alerted Preacher to the fact that she sought to try some modestly Christian forms of feminine wiles on him.
“That was most eloquent, er—ah ...”
“Preacher, miss.”
“Cora Ames, Mr. Preacher. Quite stirring indeed.”
“Just, Preacher.”
“Ah—Preacher. It gives remarkable insight into the sav—er—Indians to those of us who are woefully ignorant of their ways. But, our dilemma remains the same. Even were we to want to go back where we came from—”
“A capital idea,” Preacher broke in to say.
“If we were, we could not get there without a guide. We would, in fact, be stranded here, at this remote place, forced to spend another dreary winter.”
“I thought you wintered at Bent’s Fort?” Preacher asked, astonished.
“They did. Came in week ago, more’s a pity, Preacher,” Walt Hayward contributed. “Lost their guide on the way up from Bent’s Fort. Hired Bull Ransom first thing he showed up after the thaw, in mid-March.”
Preacher eyed the Reverend Bookworthy. “You could have hired any one of the wooly-backs hereabouts and done better for it.”
“They were in a hurry,” Walt advised Preacher with a wi
nk. “I told them it was a mistake.”
Preacher muttered softly to himself for a while, then pulled the weather-beaten hat from his head. “I reckon I could take you as far as down to Bent’s Fort. From there you can find an escort back East. But, there ain’t no way anyone will take you north into Cheyenne country. By now the word’s out all through the Big Empty about the Blackfeet and the Red Top Lodges mixin’ it up come summer.”
“I must protest,” Reverend Bookworthy gobbled in agitation. “We’ve been directed by God to carry salvation to the savages. Nothing can turn us from our course.”
“God didn’t direct you to get these lovely ladies killed, did He?” Preacher snapped back. “Listen close, Mr. Reverend Bookworthy, youd be smart to take what you’ve been offered and be grateful for it. I’ve got no time for more of your insistin’, an’ I jist might change my mind if you keep that jabber up.”
* * *
Running Bear, Stone Drum, Wind Rider, and Falling Horse stood in the midst of the charred lodge poles and ashes that had been the village of Black Hand. They found the body of their fellow chief, along with four warriors, where they had fallen. Behind their corpses lay a mound of dead women and children, whom they had been protecting. The ruins of the village, in its once beautiful, peaceful valley sweltered under the stench of so much death.
“It was white men, I’m certain of it,” Running Bear stated flatly. “Who else would waste the food and burn the lodges?”
Falling Horse nodded thoughtfully. “I agree.”
“It might have been the Absaroka. Those Crow dogs have rubbed up against the whites so long that they even think like them. We must gather a large war party and send it against our old enemy.”
“And have the Blackfeet at our backs?” objected Wind Rider.
“What do you know about it, Breaks Wind?” Stone Drum asked in jest, using the irreverent form of his fellow chief’s name.
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