Cheyenne Challenge

by William W. Johnstone

“You’ve got a good point there, missy, an’ tonight I’ll have to reward you for comin’ up with it,” Phipps stated as he patted Ruth’s thigh through the thin cotton dress she wore. “Yep. We’ll surely have to continue.”

  * * *

  Neither Silas Phipps nor anyone else in the High Lonesome needed to worry about a spring thunderstorm. No, the signs Preacher noticed as the rag-tag wagon train set off again indicated something potentially far worse. It began as a gray haze on the horizon. The sky turned to slate, while the overcast extended downward until wisps brushed the mountain peaks. While the wagons creaked and groaned along the rutted trace that led to Trout Crick Pass, the front swept in with teasing slowness.

  Within an hour visibility had been cut to below a mile. In the next half hour the temperature dropped into the uncomfortable range. Silvery plumes came from the nostrils of the mules that hauled the rickety wagons up the steep incline. The men and women of the train had clouds of white before their faces at all times. Preacher first noticed the dampness that formed on every metal object. He raised a hand to signal a halt and turned Thunder to face the on-coming pilgrims.

  “We’d best make camp right now. Circle the wagons and send the youngsters out to fetch all the firewood they can find.”

  “Why should we do that, sir?” Reverend Bookworthy demanded. “It’s barely mid-afternoon.”

  Preacher gave him a pained expression. “You greenhorns never learn, do you? When I say to do something, you do it an’ be damn quick about it. That way you have a chance of stayin’ alive. There’s a snow comin’, an’ unless I’m addle-pated, it could be a big one. Now, you folks what’s got ’em, pitch yer tents on the lee side of the wagon boxes.” The first wide-spaced flakes began to trickle down while Preacher spoke.

  Reverend Bookworthy waved at them disdainfully. “What harm can a few light flurries like these do us?”

  Preacher eyed him with stony gray disgust. “They can bury you nose deep in a couple of hours is what. Now, do as I say or me an’ the boys is pullin’ out to make camp where we have a chance of weatherin’ the storm. We’ll come back for yer bodies.”

  “My word, I think he means it,” Bookworthy blurted, entirely flustered.

  Buck Dempsey, in the lead wagon with Patience Bookworthy clucked to the team and began the circle. Visibility had been reduced to a couple of hundred yards. Heavier snowfall began to cut that even more. Preacher noted it and called out advice.

  “Have a rope guide strung from the wagons to the edge of them trees. The youngin’s will get lost without it.”

  The children had already become dark, indistinct figures in the swirl of lacy flakes. They bounded about with youthful energy and began to form an antlike double file to and from the windfall that littered the beeline. When the wagons halted in place and the menfolk had unharnessed the draft animals, Preacher and his friends hastily constructed a corral from sapling poles carried under the vehicles for the purpose.

  They erected it snug against the northwest wall of the cut they followed, a scant three paces from the wagons on that side. Twilight dimness descended on the encampment. Women set to making fires while shelters were rigged for the occupants of the train. Preacher stood with Dupre, eyeing the preparations.

  “I reckon we got us a heller on the way,” Preacher opined.

  “I see it like you, mon ami. Mother Nature will have one last trick on her children mais non? ”

  “She al’ays does, Dupre. She al’ays does.” Preacher sighed. “Thing is, can these tenderfeet survive it iffin it comes on real deep?”

  “They are learning, Preacher. Most of them, at least. I cannot say the same for the good Pere Bookworthy.”

  Preacher chuckled softly. “Like most of his sort, his mind’s made up, don’t want nobody confusin’ him with unpleasant facts.”

  “You are unusually harsh on this man of the cloth. Why is that?”

  “You know as well as I, Dupre, Nature’s got her own rules out here. She don’t abide fools lightly. Truth is, I’m hard on him because I want him to survive. I want him to go back East an’ tell the rest of that passel of fools to stay clear the hell an’ gone away from here.”

  Dupre chuckled. “You are soft as a cream horn inside, Preacher. And transparent as isinglass.”

  Preacher put on an expression of mock resentment. “Am I now? Well, we’ll just see about that.” He bent and scooped up the first of the sticking snow and fashioned a ball of it, with which he pelted his old friend solidly in the center of Dupre’s chest. Dupre did likewise and soon the white stuff clung to the front of both men. Laughing uproariously, they grappled, fell over and rolled joyfully in the growing layer of snow.

  Puzzled and shocked, Cora Ames and the other missionary women looked on at them as though they had lost their minds.

  * * *

  Yellow lantern light formed a fuzzy halo around the head of Martha Yates. Bundled up in the warmest clothing they could unpack in the short time at hand, she went frantically from wagon to wagon, calling out for her eleven-year-old son.

  “Johnny are you in there? Johnny, you must come to our wagon right now. Johnny, are you there?”

  “That’s darn foolishness,” Nighthawk grumbled from his warm nest in thick buffalo robes, piled high on pine boughs on the floor of his small, war-trail tipi.

  A hat-sized fire flickered in its central ring of stones. Preacher and Dupre had crowded in with him and also looked out the raised flap of the doorway cover at the antics of the pilgrim woman. Beartooth stood first watch outside. It had not stopped snowing in four hours. Three feet of white fluff had piled up on the ground, insulating the sides of the skin lodge as effectively as thick cotton padding. Thankfully the wind had not whipped up with the usual force down the canyon walls.

  That made for a slow, steady snowfall, rather than a howling blizzard. Yet the Eastern missionary had no business outside in this. Preacher said as much. “If she dropped that lantern, turned around a couple of times, and blinked, she’d be as lost as the damned souls in Perdition.”

  “I know it,” Nighthawk agreed. “Maybe we should do something about it.”

  “You want to go out there? It must be nigh onto rock-crackin’ cold outside,” Preacher proposed.

  “Uh-oh, where did that light go, mes amis? ” Dupre asked uneasily.

  “Where? Hell, I don’t know,” Preacher grumped.

  Beartooth appeared at the door flap. “Did that fool woman climb into a wagon? She’s done disappeared.”

  Grumbling, Preacher roused himself. He belted a thick buffalo capote around his middle, pulled on his rabbit-fur-lined moccasins and the sheepskin leggings, then covered his ears and face with wool scarves. His hat went on top of it all.

  “Reckon I’d better go see. Beartooth, come along and show me where you saw her last.”

  “Dang-fool pilgrims. They gonna be the death of us yet,” Beartooth predicted.

  “Thing is not for them to be the death of theyselves,” Preacher jibed back.

  “Over here, you cantankerous galoot,” Beartooth rumbled.

  Beartooth led the way to a space between two wagons. Faint tracks showed in the disturbed snow. For all the darkness looming over them, Preacher and his old friend clearly marked the path between the high wooden walls. Preacher peered beyond. Then whipped back to Beartooth.

  “How in hell did these wagons git separated?”

  “I dunno. They’s supposed to be tight closed. Someone made a bad mistake.”

  “That ain’t the half of it.” Far off, toward the treeline Preacher saw a faint splash of yellow ambling in a circle. “Nothin’ for it, I’ve gotta go after her. See over there?”

  Beartooth strained his eyes, blinked, gazed a long, quiet moment more, then shook his head. “I don’t see nothin’.”

  Preacher stared into the distance. “Dang. She musta dropped it. I’m gonna have to find her and fast.”

  A harsh wind swept over them and blew the snowflakes into whirling clouds that con
fused all direction. It brought a fierce chill to both mountain men. “You can’t do that, Preacher. You’ll get lost out there.”

  “No talkin’ me out of it. Leastsomewise, we’ll find that woman all friz up.”

  “More likely, we’ll find you out there tomorrow, friz like a block of ice.”

  14

  Preacher searched the ground near the tall, moaning fir trees with a sense of helplessness. He saw nothing. He had to work by feel in the billows of blowing snow. At last he admitted the worst possible case. The woman had wandered off among the trees. He returned to the wagons bent nearly double against the wind.

  “That fool woman didn’t drop her lantern. She took it off with her into that stand of fir,” Preacher announced. Beartooth cursed hotly. “Yeah,” Preacher agreed. “You could say that, and in spades, too. I’ll have to get Thunder and go after her. Get me a lantern from one of the pilgrims, Beartooth.”

  “Sure enough. And a couple of extra buffalo robes.”

  Their activities awakened Cora Ames and the Reverend Bookworthy. Preacher explained that Mrs. Yates had misplaced her son, Johnny, and had blundered outside the wagons searching for him. “I’m goin’ after her before she freezes solid.”

  “That woman never was wrapped too tightly,” Reverend Bookworthy observed, coming as close as he ever had to using the mountain man vernacular.

  Cora caught it and, despite the seriousness of the situation, responded amusedly “Why, Reverend, I do think Preacher and his friends have had an influence on you.”

  Reverend Bookworthy garrumphed and huffed and stalked off to his wagon to take shelter from the increased storm. A small figure shuffled up, to reveal himself as a shame-faced Johnny Yates. Tears welled in the boy’s eyes as he admitted his harmless prank that had suddenly turned dangerous.

  “I—I’m sorry. I just wanted to get away from her for a while. I was gonna sleep in the little tent with Chris and Nick. They’re so much more fun than the kids in the Missionary Alliance.”

  Preacher took the boy’s thin, bony shoulder in one big, hard hand. “I know what you’re gettin’ at, boy. But you should have told your ma.”

  Johnny’s eyes went wide and the tears spilled at last. “She wouldn’a let me. She says they ain’t one of us, ain’t been saved. That they’re not washed in the Blood an’ so not fit company. B-but, I like them.”

  “For now, then, you’d best go back with them. I’ll find yer mother, son,” Preacher advised.

  Mounted on a protesting Thunder, Preacher left the circle of wagons to search for Martha Yates. Before he departed, he left a charge with his companions. “Find out who th’ hell left that gap betwixt wagons.”

  Unlike the inexperienced woman, who had held the lantern high and blinded herself to her surroundings, Preacher kept the dim yellow glow down close to his mount’s legs. The candle cast enough light for him to pick up the prints left in the snow by Mrs. Yates. Those, he noted, were rapidly filling with new fall and drift. Thunder snorted and threw long plumes of steam into the night.

  Preacher rode on for half an hour. By careful note of the characteristics of rock formations and tree shapes, he came to the conclusion that the Yates woman wandered in a wide circle. He drew his big knife and put a blaze on a tree to check his assumption. Ten of Thunder’s strides further on, he cut bark on another. He repeated it as he followed the tracks.

  Sure enough, about an hour later, when he came to a spot where he felt certain he had passed before, he checked for any blaze marks, and found one. The tree was some sixty feet to his right, the yellow-white of the bared cambium layer a pale smear in the darkness. The befuddled woman had to be walking an inward spiral, Preacher decided. Should he cut across and intercept her?

  A sudden increase in the force of the wind decided him against it. Stinging particles of snow, mixed with sleet, lashed at his exposed face. Himself confused for a moment, Preacher sat still on Thunder’s broad back. After a hundred heartbeats, an imperceptible change in pressure occurred. Preacher didn’t notice at first. Not until the snowflakes ceased to whirl and filtered straight down. Preacher was stiff with cold. His fingers and toes tingled and ached with the threat of frostbite. He longed to turn back, seek warmth and continue the search in the morning.

  He couldn’t do that. The face of that frightened little boy hovered before him. He couldn’t let Johnny Yates down. But, more than that, his own honor goaded him on. He had given his word. Besides, the sky seemed to be lighter above. The black bellies of the larger snow clouds had moved on. Preacher blinked and then roused himself when his eyes picked out the tiny, pale pinpricks of starlight.

  Preacher waited with legendary patience while the sky cleared. Slowly the banked and drifted snow took on an internal glow, frosty white, from the celestial rays, augmented by the fat presence of a three-quarter moon. Now the advantage had shifted to Preacher. He set out at a faster pace, for the moon’s position told him it had to be around two in the morning. Thunder nodded and snorted his approval.

  Time had grown short. No doubt the Yates woman would have done something foolish. Something else, Preacher corrected himself. The tracks he followed grew fresher, deeper. After another hour, up ahead, Preacher made out the soft glow of a lantern, its candle nearly burned down. It began to sputter and flicker fitfully as he drew near. With a start, Preacher realized that the light was unmoving. Had she fallen?

  A dozen strides brought Thunder up to the lantern. It rested on the top of the snow, which had mounded up against a low ridge with squiggles across its surface like waves in a sea. Preacher dismounted and went forward. No sign of the woman. He took another step ... and sank out of sight below the snow. He rolled, arse over ears, to the bottom of a dry wash. Floundering in a suffocating miasma of powdery snow, Preacher knew at once what had happened. The early, heavy, wet snow had bent limber aspen branches over the wash and the later sleet had covered that so that it had frozen in place, forming a fragile platform. Later snowfall had covered this trap. First, Mrs. Yates had blundered into it, then he followed. He knew also that he had to save himself before he could look for the missing woman.

  Preacher found himself on the rocky bottom of the draw. He moved his arms with great effort and began to work the compacted snow away from his face. He needed room to breathe. Ice crystals, from sleet that had fallen earlier, made his eyes sting. The desperate need for open spaces threatened to overwhelm Preacher as he forced the oppressive weight of snow away from his head.

  He rested only a second when he had finished that, then started to free his torso. Preacher knew that he had to tunnel out before the flakes that had fallen in after him had time to compact. Then there was the woman. She might not have as much time left as he did. He would have to get to the top of this mess, find where Mrs. Yates had fallen through the crust, and then burrow back down to pull her free of the thick, white blanket.

  Preacher began a swimming motion, thrusting upward. The compacted snow clung stubbornly to his legs. He thought a moment, began to scissor-kick, pointed the toes of his moccasins, and tried again. He moved. Hardly a foot yet it was progress. Another sweeping, pulling maneuver . . . another foot gained. Now he could shove against the snow below his feet.

  He gained two feet the next time. On the fourth try, his fingers broke free into open air. One last effort and his head popped out. His brows, lashes and mustache wore a crust of frozen crystals. Sputtering, Preacher worked his way clear of his icy trap. For a long minute, he sat, spread-legged, bent over, heaving for breath. Slowly he became aware of a growing yellow glow to the east.

  “Not possible,” he dismissed aloud. He could not have been down there for what remained of the night.

  Still the light grew. Preacher looked around him for some sign of where Mrs. Yates had fallen through the crust. He could see no dimple or disturbance of any sort. Only the now extinguished lantern on the edge of the drop-off. The grating crunch of a footfall on the crust came to his ears. He looked up, toward the dim light. His ja
w sagged in disbelief.

  “Whatever are you doing out here, Mr. Preacher?” Martha Yates asked as she approached, lantern held high overhead.

  “Look—lookin’ for you, ma’am. You wandered out of the corral,” he stated the obvious dumbly.

  “I’m looking for my boy. Johnny is lost out here.”

  “No, ma’am, he’s not. He’s safe an’ sound inside the wagons. He wanted to bunk down with two of them refugee boys, Chris an’ Nick.”

  Martha’s lips pursed in disapproval in the dim lantern glow. “I do not approve. They are not ... like us.”

  Preacher didn’t see it that way. “They’re no different than your Johnny. Jist boys.”

  Her lips compressed in a hard line of stubbornness. “That may be from your point of view. But then, you are not one of us either.”

  An’ glad of it, Preacher thought, then nodded toward the dead lantern. “Your lamp, ma’am. I fell through the snow into that wash. Thought you might have also.”

  “No. I left that here to guide me back. I had brought a spare along. I thought the search might be a long one.”

  Preacher grunted acknowledgment of that and roused himself gingerly. He worked his way back toward solid ground. While he did, it came to him why she had not fallen into the wash. Her slight build wouldn’t carry enough weight to cause her to break through the icy crust like he had. When he reached the place where Thunder waited, he turned back to Martha Yates.

  “I’ve some spare buffalo robes. There’s not much sense in us tryin’ to get back to the wagons in what’s left of the night. I came upon a sort of overhang back a ways. We can go there, I’ll build a fire and we’ll wait it out.”

  She agreed with a nod and they started off, Preacher leading Thunder by the reins. He found the shelter from the still-sharp north wind and set about locating dry branches. Preacher’s fingers moved with practiced skill over tinder, flint, and steel. The first sparks were whirled away in the wind. On the third try, they landed in the wad of milkweed down and Preacher nursed them to life.