Cheyenne Challenge

by William W. Johnstone

When a tiny flame bloomed, he edged the white strands under a tent of kindling, which caught rapidly. Martha Yates had been watching him intently in the dim light of her lantern. Now she clapped her hands delightedly.

  “You have amazing abilities, Mr. Preacher. And you make them seem so easy.”

  “It is easy, once you get the hang of it. An’ the name’s Preacher, ain’t no ‘Mister’ about it.”

  “Uh—yes, of course—ah—Preacher. Will we be safe here?”

  “Safer than many places in the High Lonesome. Now, you just hunker down, put that buffalo robe over you, head and all, hair side in, and turn your back to the wind. Nothin’ to it. Come mornin’, we’ll be back with the wagons right an’ proper.”

  A scandalized expression darkened Martha Yates’s face. “Won’t people talk? I mean, our being out here alone, all night?”

  “Ain’t much night left,” Preacher observed indifferently. “An’ I can guarantee a good hard look from me’ll discourage any of that sort of talk.”

  “Umm—yes, I can see that,” Mrs. Yates said a moment before her head drooped and she fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.

  * * *

  Nighthawk saw them approaching first. He and Dupre had heard two, widely spaced gunshots near daybreak and judged that Preacher was taking advantage of his successful search to bring in a little fresh meat. Beartooth agreed.

  “Reckon he found her right enough. Likely too far off to make it back durin’ the night. Jist like Preacher to take the chance to bring in a couple of deer or such.”

  Preacher proved his friends right half an hour later when Nighthawk saw him and the woman emerge from the trees, walking ahead of Thunder, who had two young bull elk draped over his rump and saddle. That amount of meat would feed the lot of them through a couple of days.

  “Plenty of good eating in those elk,” Dupre remarked. “And sweet as the langouste the fisherfolk along the Gulf bring from the depths.”

  Beartooth removed his fox skin hat and scratched his head. “What’s a langosto?”

  “A saltwater dwelling shellfish,” Dupre explained. “In the same general family with shrimp and crayfish, only much larger.”

  “Crawdaddies?” Beartooth squalled. “Lord, that’s disgustin’. They’s fishbait.”

  “Your English progeny call langostos lobsters, Beartooth,” Nighthawk informed the huge mountain man. “And they are all the rage back East.”

  “Not to this chile, they ain’t. Giant crawdads. Ugh!”

  Nighthawk rolled his eyes. “So much for trying to enlighten the great unwashed.”

  Dupre joined the funning. “Right to the point, Nighthawk. This one is indeed the unwashed.”

  “There you go badgerin’ me about my takin’ baths. Well, I won’t do it, won’t, won’t, won’t.”

  “Won’t what?” Preacher asked as he reached his companions.

  “Take a bath,” Beartooth replied in a wounded tone. “I’m not gonna do it. At leastwise, not until come blossom time in May an’ I can cut myself outta these longhandle drawers.”

  Preacher treated Beartooth to a thousand-mile stare. “You amaze me, Beartooth. I was jist thinkin’ that a nice, steamin’ hot tub would feel right relaxin’ after all this snow.” Martha Yates had gone on past the mountain men to where her son stood with contrite expression, expecting at the least a stinging bottom for this escapade. That gave Preacher free rein to speak his mind.

  “Fool woman took two lanterns out there with her. Left one of them on the edge of a dry wash that was filled up with drifted snow. Like to kilt myself searching for her on the bottom.”

  “How’d you get on the bottom?” Dupre asked shrewdly.

  “You would have to ask. ’Cause I fell in, idjit.” Then Preacher went on to describe his ordeal. He concluded with, “Then to add insult to injury, that fool woman comes walkin’ up to me right as rain and nowhere near buried in snow.”

  Cora Ames wandered over from her wagon about that time, arms crossed over the thick, blanket-material coat she wore against the cold. “I thought it was spring out here?” she remarked, making a question of it.

  Preacher touched thick fingers to the brim of his hat. “It is, Miss Cora. That’ll probably be the last heller we see until, oh ... late October.”

  “We’ll be leaving soon, then?” Her eagerness was obvious.

  Preacher studied on that for a while, as though for the first time. “Not for a while, Miss Cora. Not today, nor prob’ly tomorrow.”

  “And why not?” she asked with a tiny stamp of a shapely foot.

  “There’ll be some bodacious drifts in the narrow parts of the pass. Wouldn’t do to hitch up to go only a mile or so and be stuck by the snow.”

  “But, isn’t there something that can be done about it?” Cora’s impatience grew more agitated.

  “Yes, there is. We can sit tight right here and let ’er melt.”

  “We have our mission to the Cheyenne to fulfill,” she countered.

  “No, you don’t. I’ve done told you an’ told you. That’s completely out. Too dangerous. And now we have these leftovers from that other train. You all have to be settled somewhere safe.”

  Cora gave Preacher a melting look of her own before she turned away with a predictable retort. “Oh, you men are all impossible.”

  Preacher’s ears burned as his companions chuckled at his discomfort. “I can certain sure say the same thing about women folk,” he grumbled. Then he put a big hand to his chin, worrying the bare skin where his beard had been, as he did when he sought to bring forth a great idea.

  “’Hawk, Dupre, Beartooth, we gotta do something to take these folks minds off the delay. I think I have the an-swear.”

  “Do tell. What’s that?” Nighthawk quipped.

  “I’m gonna give them what they want ... in a way, that is. I’m gonna call ’em all together and describe to them their paradise.”

  “Where you gonna find them that, Preacher?” Beartooth demanded.

  Preacher got a sly look, and waggled a finger under Beartooth’s nose. “You jist hide an’ watch an’ you’ll hear all about it.”

  Twenty minutes later, all of the misguided pilgrims Preacher had taken under his wing gathered in the center of the circled wagons. They chattered among themselves, asking the reason for the summons. That ended abruptly when Preacher stepped up onto the top of a flour barrel and raised his arms above his head.

  “Folks, I’ve been studyin’ on something for the last few days, since we all joined up. I know of a perfect place, to the north and west of Trout Crick Pass. A lush valley, with plenty of grass for graze, trees to build cabins, a good water supply, even some flats that can be put to the plow,” Preacher made a persimmon pucker at the flavor of that word, “to put in gardens an’ even some grain. It’s well sheltered for winters.”

  That sounded like what they’d been told about Oregon, so Flora Sanders burbled happily, “Why, that’s exactly what we have been looking for.”

  Falicity Jones, Bobby Gresham, and the others from that train nodded agreement. Even some among the missionaries began to show interest. Then the pulpit voice of the Reverend Thornton Bookworthy boomed out.

  “Where, exactly, is this place, my good sir?”

  “I wintered there. It’s far off the beaten path, where you’ll be safe from Indians and anyone else wanderin’ the High Lonesome. I told you I’d be leaving you off at the tradin’ post. Well, if you accept this valley, I will agree to lead the way and my friends an’ I will help you all get set up.”

  “What are you going to do after that, Preacher?” Cora Ames asked suspiciously.

  “I’ll be goin’ after Ezra Pease, to make certain ever’one out in these mountains can have a safe time of it.”

  Spatters of conversation broke out over that. Asa Pettibone stepped forward. “What if we accept this offer, Preacher?”

  Preacher clapped his hands and shot a wide-eyed gaze at the organist. “Why, exactly what I told you. Now, you folks talk it o
ver amongst you an’ I want your answer by the time the snows melt.”

  After the wondering pilgrims had wandered off, Dupre stepped close to Preacher. “I noticed that you neglected to mention that this splendid place of yours is also miles away from any large Indian camp, mon ami.”

  Preacher pulled a droll expression. “Come to think of it, I might have left that out ... accidental-like, so’s to speak.”

  It took three days to clear the route through the mountains to Trout Crick Pass. When the wagons left, Preacher had his answer. They would “allow” him to lead them to his chosen refuge. Only Reverend Thornton Bookworthy showed an uncharitable reluctance, for a man of the cloth, to accept the refugees from the plundered wagon train, according to Preacher’s lights.

  15

  Forty miles south of Preacher and his band of greenhorns, it did not snow. Silas Phipps and his orphans made good time as a result. Unbeknownst to Silas or Preacher, only a day’s travel separated them. When both parties stopped for their nooning, less than that divided them from a fateful encounter. It was then that Gertha, the ten-year-old, came to Helen and Ruth while they went about preparing the meal. The child told a frightful tale of abuse by Silas.

  Ruth remained silently furious. Slowly she regained her composure enough to speak in a tight, angry tone. “This is too much. We have to make Phipps stop.”

  Peter had overheard part of the conversation and his high, smooth brow furrowed. “You’re right. Someone is gonna get bad hurt.”

  Helen, the compassionate, studious one, brushed at a lock of auburn hair. “Your back, Peter. Isn’t that hurt enough?”

  The slender boy shrugged. “It’s nothing, not along side what I mean. One of you ... one of us, is gonna get hurt awful bad if someone doesn’t stop him.”

  “You’re right, Peter,” Ruth said coldly. “Only what can we do?”

  Peter thought on it a while. “We’re bound to find someone who believes us. Some grownups do listen to kids.”

  Helen considered that. “That’s true. Only what if they go and ask Phipps and believe him and don’t do anything else?”

  Gertha offered her solution. “We could tie him up some time when he is drunk. All of us could run away.”

  “To where?” Ruth asked. Gertha only shrugged.

  They offered several more suggestions on how to achieve their goal. None of them seemed entirely satisfactory. In conclusion, Ruth pinched her brow in determination and her lips became a firm, straight line as she offered a final solution. “If nothing we can come up with works, then I’ll ... I’ll take a butcher knife to him.”

  * * *

  Ezra Pease and his gang of cutthroats set up business in the small valley in the core of the Mummy Range. For hardened criminals, more accustomed to town life, they did a fair job of building some roomy, brush-covered lean-tos and frame a cabin. By that time, men sent out under Hashknife to spread word of their enterprise had made contact and Indians from miles around came to trade for guns and whiskey.

  Business grew brisk. Plumes of smoke from the outlaws’ cookfires mingled with those of their visiting customers. A friendly atmosphere prevailed, though that did not prevent Pease from assigning men to keep a constant vigil over the Indians in the valley and those who left with new weapons.

  “You can never be too careful,” he reminded those he dispatched on these duties. “An Indian’s mood can change in an instant. They’re like children. I learned that much my first trip out here.” Pease refrained from mentioning that it was his only trip into the High Lonesome.

  Ezra Pease brightened considerably on the morning that the first Cheyenne rode into the valley. He had worried lest the savages’ unfriendly greeting of them constituted a unified position. Apparently not, he decided as a feather-bedecked sub-chief and some fifteen warriors trotted their ponies down into the camp area and made a friendly sign.

  “I am called Little Knife,” the sub-chief announced in sing-song English. “Do you have coffee?”

  “That we do, Chief,” Titus Vickers responded, giving out a dazzling salesman’s smile. “Y’ all dismount and tether your ponies. We keep a pot hot and ready all the time.”

  Little Knife gestured with his chin to the tarpaulin-covered mounds. “We drink coffee, make talk, trade for guns.”

  Vickers did not like the sound of that “make talk.” He worried it around his head a while, then elected to grab the wildcat by its tail. “What’d you have in mind to talk about, Chief?”

  Curved lines deepened around the mouth of Little Knife, and frown furrows gullied his forehead. “It is said that you also trade for the burning water. Is this so?”

  Even Titus Vickers could clearly hear the disapproval in the voice of Little Knife. “Oh, sure, Chief Little Knife, we keep a little around. To seal trades when we make them, just a token, you see?”

  Little Knife, dismounted now, produced a scowl. “Running Fox took from here a small barrel of whiskey.”

  “Only a keg. A small keg,” Vickers hastened to reassure the displeased chief. “That’s seven and a half gallons.”

  Little Knife had no idea how much a gallon might be, but he knew one thing. “It is enough to make every man with Running Fox sick. They go crazy. Shoot at each other. Two men stab each other. It is not good.” He drew himself up to his full six feet, Hudson’s bay blanket wrapped tightly around his shoulders. “You will stop giving whiskey to my people. No more. Stop.”

  “Sorry. Can’t do that, Chief Little Knife. It’s part of the deal. You trade for guns, you trade for whiskey. Not one without the other.”

  Little Knife might not have heard him. He turned to order his men to search out the whiskey and destroy it. Titus Vickers had been on the frontier long enough to have learned the rudiments of the Cheyenne language. Vickers let his gut think for him. Swiftly he reached to the sash around his waist and drew a double-barrel pistol.

  Vickers’s first ball punched through the right forearm of Little Knife before it burst his heart. At once sidearms appeared in the hands of the gang members who surrounded the Cheyenne warriors. When the gunfire echoed away to silence, not an Indian lived.

  His face ashen, Ezra Pease rushed up to the scene of slaughter. “You acted precipitously, my friend. And I fear that to be a mistake. We must dispose of the bodies and any sign they came in here.”

  They would find out later exactly how big a mistake it had been.

  * * *

  Preacher thought he had seen it all. Yet, what he saw through his spy-glass beat hell out of anything past or present. “What the Betsy-be-damned are Dakota warriors of the Raven Owners’ Society doing this far south?” he asked himself in a whisper. “An’ so deep in the high country?”

  Settled down for a long spell, Preacher continued to observe the warriors, who rode along with the casual air of men well-pleased with themselves. When they drew nearer, he could make out more detail. All of them were armed with brand-spanking new rifles. Here and there, suspended from thongs around the necks of the owners, he saw untempered bullet molds. Several among the band passed a stoneware jug around.

  Pease and his damned guns for sale. Preacher had seen enough. Carefully he edged his way back to where he had left Thunder to crop fresh spring grass. There, he confided his discontent to the patient animal. “Set out to do a good turn for someone, an’ sure’s there’s heat in July, there’s some ol’ bull buffalo ready to dump a big patty on yer head. We got our work staked out right dandy for us, Thunder.”

  In the saddle, Preacher ruminated on what he could do. First off, he had to make good and sure those pilgrims he an’ the others were escorting stayed clear and hell far away from those proddy Dakota. Quietly he walked Thunder in the opposite direction from the Sioux braves. After a good two miles, to allow for the travel of sound, he put heels to Thunder’s flanks and headed back for the wagon train at a fast trot.

  * * *

  Preacher would have gotten along well with ol’ Bobby Burns regarding the best laid plans thing
. At least that’s what he thought when late in the afternoon there came a sudden ki-yi yell from behind the wagons on the trail and Dakota braves popped up among the surrounding trees.

  “How’d they do it?” he asked of no one in particular. “I plumb left them behind.”

  “Must have had some braves following their back-trail,” Dupre suggested.

  “That or jist recovered from being passed out drunk, and cut my sign,” Preacher grumbled as the wagons began to circle.

  Arrows flew around them. Preacher cursed the foul luck that had delivered them into the hands of the Dakotas. For all the precautions he and his friends had taken, the hostiles had found the wagons and gave every appearance of hankering for a passer of scalps. More arrows showered on the wagons, then the Dakota opened up with their new rifles.

  “Keep yer heads down, folks,” Preacher called out urgently. “We’re in for one whale of a fight.”

  * * *

  Sits Tall let a broad, white smile split his coppery face as he gazed down on the approaching wagons. He had been wise to send men to observe their backtrail. They had seen sign left by a white man, not many, and those hard to find. A man who knew the mountains. Like the sort who had taken to leading more of their white brothers into where they did not belong. Perhaps this one did the same.

  It would pay to find out, Sits Tall decided. He knew a way to quickly reach the main trail to the pass. He and his warriors could be in position to cut off the wagons, maybe even before the clever guide returned to them. His gamble had paid off. Although they had given too much for the rifles and ammunition five sleeps ago, now they had come upon enough whites in their rolling lodges to provide a quantity of loot that would get them even more of the precious firearms. The time to strike had come, he gauged, as the wagons drew closer.

  Sits Tall raised his ceremonial lance over his head and turned his gaze from side to side, assured by the way his warriors made their weapons ready. When the last bow string had been drawn and the last rifle cocked, Sits Tall looked front again and swiftly slashed his lance downward. At once, his Raven Owners charged.