“Ummm,” Nighthawk said.
“Yeah, I hear it, too,” Preacher said. “Hoofbeats. Here they come now.”
TWENTY-NINE
As soon as it was light enough to see where they were going, Cobey ordered McDermott and Stilson to saddle the horses. Stilson muttered something about not getting any breakfast, and Cobey snapped at him, “Gnaw some jerky while you ride.”
Then Cobey strode over to where Wick Jimpson still lay snoring. He prodded the big man in the side with his foot and said sharply, “Wick. Time to get up.”
Wick didn’t budge, and his stentorian snores continued. Cobey nudged him again, harder this time. “Wake up, damn it.”
“He could be suffering from some sort of concussive cranial damage, considering how your men struck him repeatedly over the head with their weapons.”
Cobey turned to glare at Professor Chambers, who had made the comment as he leaned casually against a tree trunk.
“If they hadn’t, he’d have probably killed me. That wouldn’t’a broke your heart, though, now would it, Professor?”
“I’ve been a faithful ally, Cobey,” Chambers insisted. “I’ve done everything you’ve suggested.”
“Yeah, but takin’ orders from a gent like me sticks in your craw, don’t it?”
“You haven’t been giving me orders,” Chambers said quietly. “We’re partners, remember?”
Cobey’s scornful grunt made it clear how he felt about that. He turned back to Wick and prodded his shoulder again. “Dadblast it, you big ox! Wake up!”
From where she sat on the rock, Juanita watched the brief confrontation between Cobey and Chambers and didn’t know what to hope for. If the two men had a falling-out, one of them might kill the other, meaning that there would be one less man for her and Esteban to escape from. But if that happened, the chances were it would be Chambers who died and Cobey who lived, and Chambers might represent their best chance of getting away. She would help him when he tried his double cross of the others—she had nothing to lose by doing so, as far as she could see—but she certainly didn’t trust him when he said that he would let them go. He was just as big a danger, in his own way.
The exchange of words between Cobey and Chambers didn’t go any farther, because Cobey was now ignoring the professor and continuing his efforts to rouse Wick from slumber. The giant finally stirred. After moving around a little, he lifted his shaggy head and peered around, blinking in confusion. Then he looked up and said, “Oh. Mornin’, Cobey. Is it time to get up?”
“Yeah, it is,” Cobey growled, making an obvious effort not to lose his temper with Wick. “We got places to go and things to do.”
“All right.” Wick pushed himself to his feet, stretched, and then shook his head. He winced and reached up to touch his skull. “Huh. My head hurts a mite, and I got lumps all over it. What you reckon happened to me, Cobey?”
“I don’t know. You be able to ride?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. It don’t matter if my head hurts a little.”
Chambers drifted over closer to Juanita and Esteban and said quietly, “Fascinating. He doesn’t even remember what happened last night. Perhaps the blows to the head caused that. Or perhaps he’s simply too mentally deficient to retain an unpleasant memory.”
Juanita knew that wasn’t true. Wick had told her about the incident that had led to him being thrown in jail for killing a man with one punch. She didn’t bother correcting Chambers, though. She was more concerned with Esteban, who had not yet regained consciousness himself.
“Professor,” she said, “could you check on my brother?”
“What? Oh, certainly. Your brother.” Chambers knelt beside Esteban, felt in his neck for a pulse, and then rolled both eyelids back to look at his eyes. Esteban stirred slightly. Chambers looked up at Juanita and said, “His pulse is strong, and his eyes look all right. I think he should be waking up soon.”
Juanita had heard Cobey and Arnie talking and knew that the fat man had literally run into Esteban when he was trying to flee from Preacher’s dog. Arnie had struck the young man with his pistol just as he had the big cur, grabbed his horse, and thrown Esteban over the animal’s back before vaulting into the saddle and galloping away. It had been sheer bad luck that had allowed Esteban to be taken prisoner.
True to the professor’s prediction, Esteban opened his eyes a few minutes later, while the men were still saddling the horses. Bound hand and foot like Juanita, he had to struggle to sit up. When he did, he saw her sitting there on the rock and his eyes widened in surprise.
“Juanita!” he exclaimed. He looked around, and his face grew grim as he recognized the men moving around the camp and realized that he was a captive. Instinctively, he strained against his bonds for a moment before giving up. The rawhide thongs weren’t going to loosen enough for him to get free.
“What happened?” he asked, so quietly that only she could hear. “The last thing I remember, I was with Preacher. . . .”
She leaned closer to him and equally quietly answered, “The fat man, the one called Arnie, and another man attacked you and Preacher. Preacher killed the other man, but Arnie captured you and got away.”
Esteban nodded, wincing a little from the pain in his head caused by the movement. “I remember now. . . . Juanita, mi hermana, are you all right?”
“They have not harmed me,” she assured him, adding to herself, Though not for lack of trying.
“What happened to Preacher?”
She shook her head. “I do not know. He is still out there somewhere.”
“Then there is still hope,” Esteban breathed.
“Esteban . . . what about the treasure, and Father Hortensio?”
His face hardened even more. “Father Hortensio betrayed me. When I said that I was going to trade the treasure for your safety, he ordered one of the Yaquis to strike me down. Then they took the treasure and escaped. Preacher came back and found me, and we went after them.”
Juanita nodded and said, “That is what these men decided must have happened. The wagons are gone, and they think the Yaquis came and took them while we were all up at the top of the canyon.”
“I can believe that,” Esteban said. “Father Hortensio has been one step ahead of all of us, doing everything he can to protect the treasure for the Church.”
“Esteban,” she said softly, “what else would you have him do? It is his calling. We decided ourselves, before we ever came up here to Nuevo Mexico, that the treasure must go back to the Church.”
“Not at the cost of your life. That changed everything.”
“Not to Father Hortensio.”
He didn’t say anything for a moment. He was sitting close enough to her so that he could lean over and rest his head against her knee for a second. She reached out with her bound hands and stroked his dark hair, which was now sticky with dried blood where Arnie had pistol-whipped him.
“Oh, Esteban,” she murmured as Cobey ordered the men to put the prisoners on a couple of horses and then mount up. “What are we going to do?”
“Have faith,” he grated. “It is all that is left to us.”
“Faith in El Señor Dios?”
“In El Señor Dios . . . and in Preacher.”
Lying at the top of a hill, screened by heavy brush, Preacher, Audie, and Nighthawk peered down at the Purgatoire River and the trail that ran beside it. Dog lay next to Preacher, tongue lolling from his mouth and his eyes alert. The mountain man had an arm looped around the big cur’s neck. Waiting farther back were Horse, Nighthawk’s spotted pony, and the sturdy, short-legged mount that Audie rode.
The three men watched intently as the party of riders came into sight. Beside Preacher, Dog let out a growl as he recognized the men. Preacher felt a mite like growling, too. Cobey and his bunch of thieves and killers provoked such a reaction in him.
Cobey was in the lead, as usual, and he had Juanita Alvarez on the back of his horse with him, riding in front of the saddle with Cobey’s left arm aroun
d her waist. Just slightly behind them came Arnie, riding double with Esteban. Preacher was relieved to see that the youngster looked all right. He had been banged up and probably knocked out a couple of times, but he was tough, especially considering his privileged upbringing in Mexico City.
Professor Chambers rode next to the massive Wick Jimpson, and the other two men brought up the rear. All of them were looking around as they rode, watchful for any sign of trouble.
“Six of them and three of us,” Audie said. “That’s only two to one odds, and there’s a good chance we could even them up with one volley from our rifles.”
“We probably could,” Preacher agreed, “but with those Alvarez youngsters ridin’ with Cobey and Arnie, we couldn’t risk shootin’ them. We’d have to go for three o’ the others, and that’d leave Esteban and Juanita at the mercy o’ those two bastards. I wouldn’t put it past Cobey and Arnie to kill ’em right away if any shootin’ was to start.”
“Ummm,” Nighthawk said.
Audie nodded. “I agree. If they did that, they’d be throwing away their own shields. Surely they wouldn’t do such a thing.”
Preacher’s eyes narrowed as he said, “You’re askin’ a couple o’ kill-crazy, gold-hungry skunks to act reasonable-like. That’s a chance I ain’t willin’ to take, not when the lives o’ those two kids are on the line, too.”
“Of course,” Audie said without hesitation. “It’s your decision to make, Preacher. You’ve dealt with those men, and you know them. Nighthawk and I don’t.”
Preacher watched the group of riders as they trotted along the river and went around a bend out of sight. “We’ll follow ’em,” he said. “Wait for a better chance to grab Esteban and Juanita.”
He backed down the hill, waiting until he was sure he was out of sight of the river before standing up. Audie and Nighthawk did likewise. They faded back into the trees, got their horses, and mounted up.
One thing about it—they all knew where they were going. The treasure was bound for Mission Santo Domingo, and so were the two groups of men following it. Nobody was likely to get lost.
Preacher and his two companions stayed well out of sight of the party they were trailing. The sun rose higher in the sky and the air grew warmer. Audie looked around at the wooded hills and the majestic mountains and the arching blue sky and the clear, bubbling creeks that flowed down to join the river, and the little man exclaimed, “My God, this is a beautiful country!”
“What’s it like where you come from?” Preacher asked.
“Oh, it has its beauties, too,” Audie replied. “But nothing really to compare with this. I enjoyed my life back there, I suppose, but I’ve never been happier than I am out here on the frontier, in the midst of all this magnificence.” He paused, and when he went on a moment later, his tone was more reflective. “It’s not just the landscape, of course. It’s the freedom, and the knowledge that I’ll be judged on what I do, not what I look like or how tall I am.”
Preacher grunted. “How else would anybody be judged, except on what they do with their life?”
“Oh, ho, my newfound friend, you’ve been away from civilization too long.”
“I been to St. Louis,” Preacher said. “I even been to Philadelphia.”
“Then you should be aware that back East, people are usually judged on everything but their own character and accomplishments. At one end of the spectrum, they’re judged on how much money they have, and who their parents and grandparents were. At the other end, people are judged by how poor they are or sometimes by what color their skin is.”
“Well, that’s a damn-fool way to be,” Preacher said. “A rich man ain’t always worked for what he’s got, and a poor man ain’t always to blame for bein’ born poor. Now, if he don’t mind stayin’ poor and don’t want to work to make himself better, that’s a different story. I got no use for a fella like that. As for the color of a man’s skin, he ain’t got no control over that.”
“Speaking as one whose best friend is of a definite reddish hue, I wholeheartedly agree,” Audie said.
“It ain’t just redskins, though,” Preacher went on. “When I was down in Louisiana, back when I was a young fella, I saw a bunch o’ slaves, and they was a miserable lot, lemme tell you. But I never thought much about it until I rode a few rivers with Jim Beckwourth. Him and me went on more’n one trappin’ expedition for Major Ashley.”
Audie nodded. “Yes, I know Jim. He’s a mulatto.”
“That’s a fancy way o’ sayin’ he’s part black, ain’t it? Well, to folks who keep slaves, part black’s the same as all black, and once I got to know what a fine fella Jim was, it got me to wonderin’ how many o’ them slaves would’ve been just as smart and strong and full o’ grit if they’d ever had the chance.” Preacher shook his head. “That’s why I don’t hold with it.”
“Some people up North are starting to feel the same way. They call themselves abolitionists, because they want to force the people in the South to give up their slaves.”
“Well, one part o’ the country forcin’ another part o’ the country to do somethin’ ain’t right, neither,” Preacher said with a frown. He shook his head again and then chuckled dryly. “I’m mighty glad it ain’t up to me to figure out what the country ought to do. I got enough on my mind right now, what with rescuin’ them two youngsters and seein’ that the lost treasure o’ Santo Domingo don’t fall into the hands o’ Cobey Larson and his bunch o’ murderin’ desperadoes.”
“Yes, as you put it earlier,” Audie said, “that’s all.”
THIRTY
Preacher, Audie, and Nighthawk followed Cobey’s bunch all day, staying well back so that they wouldn’t be seen. To men such as these, getting around unseen in the wilderness was little more than child’s play. They avoided the high ground, so they wouldn’t be skylined if any of the men they pursued happened to look back at just the wrong moment, and they used ridges and gullies and thick stands of trees to keep themselves from being spotted when they were closer to their quarry. Preacher and Audie each had a spyglass in their possibles bag, so from time to time they stopped and the two men took turns climbing up in a tree so that they could check on the progress of the other group. Cobey kept his men moving at a brisk pace all day. Preacher hoped that wasn’t too hard on the two prisoners. He and Audie and Nighthawk could have caught up just about any time they wanted to, but after talking about it they had decided that it would be better to wait until nightfall to make their attempt to rescue Esteban and Juanita.
So far there hadn’t been any sign of Father Hortensio, the two Yaquis, and the treasure-laden wagons. But they had to be up ahead somewhere, Preacher knew, and the two groups following them had to be cutting into the lead that Father Hortensio and his companions held. It was just a matter of time....
Spending all day in the saddle was nothing to hardened mountain men. They paused occasionally to let the horses rest, but otherwise they kept moving. Preacher shared his jerky with Audie and Nighthawk, and the Crow warrior passed around strips of pemmican from his supplies. Audie contributed some chunks of pone he had cooked a few days earlier. They washed the food down with swigs of water from their canteens.
Even though the strain of the long day wasn’t felt much in Preacher’s iron-hard frame, he knew it had to be telling on Esteban and Juanita. They weren’t used to such things. Chances were they’d be mighty sore when Cobey finally called a halt for the night.
If he called a halt for the night, Preacher amended. It was possible the gang would press on even though darkness fell. They knew where they were going, and they had to be getting mighty anxious to get their hands on that gold and those gold and silver gem-encrusted relics.
As the sun dipped below the western peaks behind them, Audie said, “What do we do now, Preacher? If we keep moving after dark, and those men stop for the night, we’re liable to stumble right into their camp.”
“And if we stop and they don’t, they’ll have a big lead on us by mornin’,” Pr
eacher said.
Nighthawk said, “Ummm.”
“You’re right, it is a dilemma,” Audie agreed.
Preacher considered for a moment and then said, “Way I see it, we can’t risk stoppin’ as long as we don’t know what the others are doin’. We’ll slow down a mite and hope that if they do make camp, we’ll know it before we ride in on ’em. If they don’t, they may gain on us a little, but we can make up that ground tomorrow.”
Audie nodded. “That sounds like a workable plan to me. It’s our best option, at any rate.”
Shadows began to gather thickly. Preacher, Audie, and Nighthawk reined their horses back to a walk. They were close enough to the river now so that Preacher could hear the chuckling and bubbling of the stream as it flowed over its rocky bed. He said quietly, “Dog, go take a look around.”
The big cur loped off ahead of the three men. Audie said, “He seems to have understood you, Preacher.”
“Yeah, Dog’s pretty smart. And we been together a long time, so that helps us understand each other.”
“You don’t think he’ll give away our presence if he catches up to the others?”
Preacher shook his head. “He won’t let them see him, and he won’t attack or do anything else unless I give him the word. He’ll just come back and let me know what he found.”
“Amazing,” Audie murmured. He sounded as if he didn’t quite believe Preacher’s claim.
A short time later, though, Dog came bounding back. He ran up to Preacher, who reined Horse to a stop. When Preacher reached down, Dog nuzzled his hand and then growled. Preacher nodded.
“I figured as much.”
“Oh, come now,” Audie said. “What could the creature have communicated with such simple gestures?”
“That the bunch we’re after ain’t far ahead of us. He wasn’t gone long enough for it to mean anything else.”
“Perhaps you’re right. I just find it difficult to believe, that’s all.”
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