Preacher's Kill

by William W. Johnstone

  “Well, all the news ain’t good. Three of Ryker’s men were killed.”

  “Considering the odds, it is a miracle not more of them were lost.”

  “And Chessie is gone,” Preacher said.

  Hawk’s eyes widened. “Miss Dayton?” he said sharply. “What do you mean, gone? Killed?”

  Preacher shook his head and said, “It looks like those outcast Injuns slipped up behind us while we were dealin’ with the Sioux and grabbed her. They took her with ’em, somewhere back in the badlands.”

  Hawk started to take a quick step past Preacher. “We must find her—”

  The mountain man took hold of his arm. “We’re goin’ to. You and me will go after ’em.” He lowered his voice. “I don’t like leavin’ Oliver and his pa at Ryker’s mercy, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let those creatures do whatever unholy thing it is they’ve got in mind for Chessie. She’s been playin’ Oliver and Ryker against each other for a while now, seems like, but even so she don’t deserve a fate like that.”

  Hawk’s jaw was so tight it made a little muscle jump below his ear. “We will save her even if it means having to kill every one of that evil brood.”

  “Maybe it won’t come to that,” Preacher said, although he wouldn’t be surprised if it did. “Come on.”

  He gathered the others around and told them, “Hawk and I are goin’ after the Injuns who took Miss Chessie.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Pidge said. “I’m the one who let those ugly varmints capture her.”

  Preacher shook his head. “No, you ain’t, Pidge. You’re still wounded, even though you fought those Sioux like a plumb crazy man. You’d slow us down, and we got to move quick-like. We’ll take Dog, because with his nose he’s the best tracker among us.”

  Dog’s muzzle was speckled with blood. He had taken part in the battle with the Sioux, too. He gave a little growl deep in his throat as Preacher reached down and scratched behind his ears for a second. The big cur seemed to realize that a pursuit was about to begin, and he would be leading the way.

  “I’m coming,” Oliver Merton announced.

  His father said, “Oliver, don’t be insane—”

  “You and I were supposed to be protecting Chessie, Father,” Oliver snapped. “We let her down, and now her life is in danger because of that.”

  “We had no chance against those red devils—”

  “Nothing you can say will change my mind.” Oliver faced Preacher again. “I’m coming.”

  “If I tell you that you ain’t, what are you gonna do?”

  “Follow you anyway,” Oliver said simply.

  “Yeah, that’s what I figured. I reckon I’d rather have you where I can keep my eyes on you. I’m warnin’ you, though. Slow us down and we’ll leave you. Get in our way and we’ll go over you.”

  “Fair enough,” Oliver said. “Now, why are we wasting time standing around here talking?”

  * * *

  Edgar Merton fretted and argued but couldn’t persuade Oliver not to accompany Preacher and Hawk on the search for Chessie.

  Hawk wasn’t happy about the situation, either. He said quietly to Preacher as they were gathering their gear and some supplies, “We should not take him with us. His presence will just make things more dangerous for us as well as Chessie once we have rescued her.”

  “Could be you just don’t want the gal feelin’ grateful to him,” Preacher observed.

  Hawk made a disgusted sound but didn’t say anything else.

  Preacher went over to Ryker and said, “Pick up Bishop on your way out and then head north. There’s a little range of hills about five miles from here. You ought to be able to find a good place to camp there. There’s decent water and graze for the animals, and the trees will give you some cover if those Sioux decide to come back—which I don’t believe they will. You can wait there for us to rejoin the expedition with Miss Chessie.”

  “Shouldn’t that be Merton’s decision, since he’s paying for everything?” Ryker wanted to know.

  “You don’t really figure he’ll say to go off and leave Oliver, do you?”

  “Well, I suppose not,” Ryker admitted. “But when you say for us to make camp and wait for you there, how long are you talking about? We can’t just wait forever, Preacher, you know that. And there’s a chance none of you will be coming back.”

  Ryker wouldn’t mind a bit if things worked out that way, Preacher thought, although he might be a little disappointed if he didn’t get to have his way with Chessie. But there were lots of pretty gals in the world, and Ryker seemed to believe that whatever Edgar Merton was after, it was going to wind up being worth a heap of money. For a moment, Preacher considered changing the plan and telling Hawk to stay with the rest of the expedition while he and Oliver went after Chessie, but then he discarded the idea. For one thing, he knew Hawk would never go along with it.

  For another, if he was going up against those outcasts, he wanted his son at his side for what might be one hell of a fight.

  Ryker was still waiting for an answer to his question. Preacher said, “If we ain’t back in a week, I reckon you can move on. We can catch up to you later, if we’re still alive.”

  “That’s a deal,” Ryker said with a nod, but he didn’t offer to shake hands on it. Preacher wouldn’t have believed him, even if he had. The best they could do under the circumstances was to hope that Ryker wouldn’t attempt some sort of double-cross.

  A short time later, Preacher got one of Chessie’s dresses from the back of the covered wagon and held it so that Dog could take a good long sniff and learn her scent. Then he tossed the dress back into the wagon and said sharply, “Dog, find!”

  The big cur took off up the canyon in a loping run.

  Preacher looked at Hawk and Oliver Merton. Oliver had tied a rag around his head to serve as a bandage for the wound the outcasts had given him, which was still seeping blood. His face wore a determined expression, but Preacher could see doubt and fear in his eyes.

  “You fellas ready to go?” Preacher asked.

  Hawk didn’t bother to answer. He just gave his father a look of disdain that said he was always ready. Oliver tightened his grip on the rifle in his hand and nodded.

  “I’m ready,” he said. He glanced over at Edgar Merton. “Good-bye, Father.”

  “Please . . . be careful,” Merton said. “You don’t want to lose your life over a—” He stopped himself before he could say whatever he’d been about to. Considering the angry look that flashed across Oliver’s face, that was probably a good thing.

  Oliver just nodded curtly to his father and strode away after Dog. He glanced back over his shoulder at Preacher and Hawk and added, “Well? Come on.”

  Hawk made a noise low in his throat but didn’t say anything. Preacher just grinned for a second, despite the grim circumstances. Then the two of them started after Oliver.

  Behind them, Horse blew out a breath. He didn’t like being left behind, along with Hawk’s pony. But where they might have to go in the badlands, horses couldn’t follow. The two mounts would go with Merton, Ryker, and the others, to be reclaimed when Preacher and Hawk caught up with the expedition.

  Oliver averted his eyes when they passed the spot where the man called Clark had been butchered. His body still lay there. Ryker would recover it and take it to the hills, along with the other two men who had been slain, and all of them would be buried there.

  The Sioux, callous though it was, would be left for the scavengers.

  Within minutes the three searchers were around the bend in the canyon and out of sight of the rest of the expedition. Preacher’s keen ears could still hear the men calling to one another as they got ready to move out, but that faded quickly, as well.

  Then they were on their own, with the canyon walls looming redly around them. Preacher heard a faint whistling sound and knew it was the wind moving through the spires and crannies of the badlands.

  He wasn’t the only one to notice it. Oliver Merton said
, “That sounds like the wailing of lost souls.”

  “I reckon there are probably some in here, all right,” Preacher said, “but they can’t make no noise anymore. Best keep your voice down, Oliver. We don’t want to tell those varmints where we are.”

  “They are probably watching us already,” Hawk said. “Like lizards, hidden in the rocks.”

  Oliver swallowed hard, clearly not liking that thought very much.

  Dog had slowed ahead of them but continued moving steadily deeper into the canyon. Preacher knew he was still on the scent. Now and then the cur paused and lifted his shaggy head. Whenever he did that, he whined. He sensed the outcasts, Preacher knew . . . and he didn’t like the smell of them, or anything about them, really. Preacher understood that, because he felt the same way.

  They passed the spot where he and Hawk had battled with the crimson-daubed creatures before. Preacher pointed out the little cracks in the rock wall where they had fled.

  “No one could possibly get through those openings,” Oliver said. “They’re too small.”

  “I reckon those varmints can twist themselves up more than you’d think they could. From what I’ve heard about ’em, they’re pretty twisted inside. I suppose that extends to the outside of ’em, too.”

  “But they couldn’t have taken Chessie with them that way.”

  Preacher shook his head. “No, I reckon not. She’s a healthy girl, not some scrawny Injun who’s all bone and whang leather. Besides, Dog’s still on the scent up yonder.”

  A few minutes later they came in sight of the canyon’s end. The steep walls came together a hundred yards ahead of them. As far as Preacher could see, there was no way out.

  And no sign of Chessie and her captors, either.

  “I don’t understand!” Oliver said. Preacher motioned for him to keep his voice down. In a hoarse whisper, Oliver went on, “They’re not here, and there’s nowhere they could have gone.”

  “They did not vanish into the air,” Hawk said. He tipped his head back, studied the cliff walls, and pointed. “Look there, Preacher.”

  Preacher looked where Hawk was pointing and saw something odd sticking out slightly from behind a rock at the top of the cliff to the right. It was a slender, curved piece of wood, and as Preacher moved around to get a better look, he saw that other curved wooden strips were woven around it.

  “Looks like a basket of some sort,” he said. “I’ll bet they’ve got it attached to a rope, and they can let it down here so they can haul themselves up out of this canyon. I reckon that must be how they got Chessie up there.”

  “That’s . . . clever,” Oliver said with grudging admiration. “I thought these Indians were utter primitives. Surely such an apparatus is beyond their capabilities.”

  “They’re mean,” Preacher said. “They ain’t necessarily stupid. Anyway, folks have a tendency of findin’ ways to get around, no matter what the terrain is like.” He rubbed his fingertips over his bristly chin as he looked up at the mostly hidden basket. “I wish my little pard Audie was here to see this. He’d find it fascinatin’.”

  Hawk said, “The cliff is rough enough I can climb up there and let down the basket.” He glanced at Oliver. “I know you could make the climb, too, Preacher, but I do not think Oliver could.”

  “I’m not going to let anything stop me from finding Chessie,” Oliver snapped back without hesitation. “I can climb—”

  “Take it easy,” Preacher told him. “That basket ain’t made for big fellas who weigh as much as we do. But the rope it’s attached to is bound to be pretty sturdy, and it’ll be easier for us to get up there if we let Hawk go first and throw it down to us. We can use the basket for liftin’ Dog.” He nodded to the young warrior. “Up you go.”

  Hawk nodded agreement and slung his rifle on his back. He studied the rock wall for a moment to locate the best handholds and footholds, then began to climb.

  The cliff was eighty feet tall and took Hawk fifteen minutes to climb. Those minutes seemed to stretch out as they passed. Oliver paced back and forth nervously, even though in the close confines of the canyon he couldn’t go very far in any direction before he had to turn back the other way.

  Finally, Hawk was at the rim. Preacher held his left hand over his eyes to shade them as he peered upward and watched his son getting ready to pull himself up the last couple of feet.

  That was when a bright red, hate-contorted face suddenly appeared just above where Hawk clung to the rock, and a red hand lifted a stone tomahawk and poised it to strike downward in a deadly blow.

  CHAPTER 19

  Instantly, Preacher snapped his rifle to his shoulder and pulled back the hammer, but before he could press the trigger, he realized that the angle was all wrong. He couldn’t take a shot at the outcast because Hawk was in the way.

  Hawk was aware of the threat, though, and as the tomahawk flashed toward his head he let go of the rock with his right hand and clung to it with his left and a couple of precarious toeholds. He caught the outcast’s wrist before the blow could land and stopped the tomahawk cold. With a grunt of effort that Preacher could hear down below, Hawk twisted on the cliff face and yanked his attacker off the rimrock, then let go.

  With a screech, the first outcast pinwheeled down the eighty feet and crashed on the hard-packed dirt of the canyon floor. He landed with a soggy thud that sounded like a dropped gourd busting, and Preacher knew he wouldn’t be getting back up again.

  Hawk wasn’t out of danger. He had pulled himself halfway over the brink, but his legs still dangled. Another of the shrieking red lunatics appeared, looming over him with a lance.

  By now, though, Preacher had backed off a few steps and was in position to risk a shot. The long-barreled flintlock boomed. Shooting up at an extreme angle like that was tricky, but Preacher was one of the deadliest marksmen west of the Mississippi.

  The rifle ball caught the second outcast under the chin, bored up through his brain, and blew off the top of his skull. His head jerked back but he remained on his feet for a second, already dead, before he pitched forward and plummeted into the canyon to land a few feet away from his fellow outcast.

  Hawk’s legs disappeared as he rolled over the edge of the rimrock. More shouts came from above. One of Hawk’s pistols boomed, and a third outcast flew over the brink to fall into the canyon. This one screamed and flailed in midair, to no avail. There was nothing to stop his deadly descent. He landed face-first with bone-shattering force.

  Preacher reloaded his rifle while that was going on, then gripped the weapon tightly as the sounds of battle continued above him. He couldn’t see what was going on, and so there wasn’t a blasted thing he could do about it.

  When the yelling stopped a few moments later and the echoes died away, silence descended on the canyon. Oliver was looking up at the rimrock, too. He said in a worried voice, “Preacher . . . ?”

  The mountain man didn’t reply. There was nothing he could say, nothing he could do except wait.

  A couple of seconds later Preacher heaved a sigh of relief when Hawk appeared at the top of the cliff, leaning out to look down at them and wave. Preacher knew the signal meant his son was all right.

  A moment later the basket woven out of wooden strips came into full view as Hawk began lowering it at the end of a braided rope.

  When the basket was in reach, Preacher caught hold of it and guided it to the ground. Dog sniffed and pawed at it. Preacher said, “He smells Chessie’s scent on it. That proves they hauled her up in it.”

  Dog weighed too much for Hawk to haul him up in a dead lift by himself, so Preacher nodded toward the rope and told Oliver to climb up first. Oliver swallowed hard, looking decidedly nervous about the prospect, but he said, “I was the one who wanted to come along on this rescue mission, so I guess I can’t allow my fears to hold me back. I’m really not fond of heights, though.”

  “It ain’t too late for you to go back and join the others,” Preacher told him. “You’d have to hurry, but I fig
ure you could catch up.”

  Without hesitation, Oliver shook his head. “Scared or not, I’m not turning back.” He grasped the rope, running his hands over its rough strands, then tightening them. “How should I do this?”

  “Use the footholds like Hawk did, but you can hang on to the rope instead of havin’ to find handholds. Take it slow and easy. When you’re doin’ something like this, it’s best not to get in a hurry.”

  Oliver swallowed, nodded, tightened his hands on the rope, and lifted his right foot. When he had it planted solidly on a little knob protruding from the rock wall, he hauled himself up and found a good place to put his other foot.

  Even with the rope to help him, it took longer for Oliver to climb the side of the canyon than it had for Hawk. The young half-Absaroka warrior had disappeared again. Preacher figured he was keeping watch for more of the outcasts. The renegades had left four men to guard their back trail and there was a chance there might be more of them waiting nearby to ambush the rescue party.

  Finally, Oliver reached the top and lurched out of sight. Preacher waited, hoping the young man was just catching his breath. After several seconds that seemed longer, Oliver looked over the edge and waved, as Hawk had done earlier. Hawk appeared, too, and called, “Put Dog in the basket.”

  Preacher helped the big cur into the conveyance. Dog got in but whined and turned his head to look up at the mountain man. Preacher said, “I know you don’t like it, old son, but it’s the only way you can come with us, and we need you along. Just stay calm, and Hawk and Oliver will have you there before you know it.”

  Dog reared up and put his front paws on the edge of the basket. Preacher forced him to sit down again, then looked up at Hawk and Oliver and nodded. They took hold of the rope and heaved.

  Dog barked unhappily as the basket lifted off the ground. “Dog, quiet!” Preacher commanded. Dog didn’t bark again, but he continued growling and whining as the basket rose in front of the cliff. It twisted and tilted a little at the end of the rope, causing Preacher’s jaw to tighten. He wasn’t sure if he could catch Dog if the cur fell out of the basket, but he would have to try.