Preacher's Kill

by William W. Johnstone

  Dog sat still, though, and the swaying subsided. The basket reached the top of the cliff. Hawk and Oliver grabbed the handles attached to it and swung it onto solid ground. Preacher couldn’t see Dog anymore, but he could imagine his old friend hopping out of the basket and shaking himself, glad to have his paws back on the earth.

  Hawk let the basket down again. Preacher grasped the rope and started the climb. With his wiry strength and long years of experience at all sorts of arduous tasks, he made it to the top faster than either of the two younger men had.

  Hawk was waiting for him. He leaned down and took hold of Preacher’s arm to brace the mountain man as he stepped up onto the rim. Preacher looked around and saw one of the outcasts lying facedown a few yards away while Dog sniffed delicately at him. Preacher could tell from the odd angle of the Indian’s head that Hawk had broken his neck.

  “Seen any more of the varmints?”

  Hawk shook his head. “They left four men to watch this route and ambush anyone who came after them. They probably believe that was sufficient. We killed them all. They will not be expecting it when we catch up to them.”

  “Maybe not,” Preacher said, “but we’ll still have a devil of a time takin’ ’em by surprise. As despised as they are, everywhere they turn, they wouldn’t have survived this long unless they were crafty little bastards.”

  “They fight hard for their puny size, too,” Hawk allowed grudgingly.

  “Are we going to stand around and talk,” Oliver asked, “or are we going to follow them?”

  “We’re goin’,” Preacher said. “Dog, find.”

  As Dog loped off, nose to the ground, Preacher took a look at their surroundings. The badlands to the west, the direction Dog was heading, rose gradually in a series of twisting, razor-backed ridges. The landscape was almost barren, with no grass and only an occasional gnarled, stunted bush or tree. It didn’t seem like anything, human or animal, could live here, and yet Preacher knew that a multitude of life existed in the badlands. Snakes, lizards, spiders, rats, and buzzards called this region home.

  So did the outcasts. He could understand why they had drifted here. No one else wanted this hellish place. They had come here to be left alone.

  Preacher would have been more than willing to do that. If Chessie hadn’t been kidnapped, all the members of the expedition would be gone by now, heading on to whatever mysterious destination Edgar Merton had in mind.

  Instead, the warped hatred brewing in those diseased brains had led the outcasts to strike at the people who had dared to enter their domain . . . and now this encounter wouldn’t end without more killing.

  Preacher, Hawk, and Oliver trotted after Dog as the big cur headed up the slope of the nearest ridge.

  * * *

  By the time the sun lowered toward the jagged peaks to the west, Preacher and his companions hadn’t seen any more of the outcasts. In fact, if not for Dog’s sensitive nose, they wouldn’t have been able to tell that they were still on the right trail. The Indians were expert at not leaving any tracks. Dog had Chessie’s scent, though, so Preacher was confident they were heading in the right direction.

  “We’re not going to find them before it gets dark, are we?” Oliver asked when they stopped to rest and drink a little from their canteens.

  “Probably not,” Preacher said. “They had a start on us, and they know where they’re goin’. We have to take it a little slower to make sure Dog don’t lose the scent. If he did, that’d mean backtrackin’ and it would put us even farther behind.”

  “What are we going to do?” A panicky edge had crept into Oliver’s voice. “We can’t travel at night, can we?”

  Preacher shook his head. “Not in country like this. Too big a risk that we’d fall in a ravine and break a leg.”

  “Then we’re not going to be able to rescue Chessie from them before they have a chance to . . . to . . .”

  “They’ve already had a chance to do that, if that’s what they had in mind when they took her,” Preacher said bluntly. “We got to hope they’re plannin’ somethin’ else for her.”

  He didn’t say it, but some of the fates those creatures might come up with for Chessie would be worse than anything Oliver was afraid of. Pointing that out wouldn’t accomplish anything, though.

  “We’ll push on for a while,” he continued, “and then we’ll start lookin’ for a good place to make camp.”

  An hour later, as shadows began to gather, Preacher called a halt again, this time at a little notch in a ridge. A large slab of rock overhung the opening to create a cavelike space. Preacher noticed Oliver glancing up at it nervously.

  “Worried that it might fall on us?” he asked.

  “It does seem to be perched rather precariously up there.”

  Preacher shook his head and said, “It’s been like that for years. Ain’t budged since the last time I was through these parts and probably never will unless there’s an earthquake or somethin’ like that.”

  “But what if there is an earthquake?”

  “Then I guess we’d have somethin’ to worry about,” Preacher said with a grin. “It ain’t like we’re exactly safe to start with, though.”

  “No, I suppose not,” Oliver admitted. “Those . . . things . . . are still out there somewhere, aren’t they?”

  “Perhaps closer than we know,” Hawk said.

  Clearly, that comment didn’t make Oliver feel a bit better.

  Preacher decreed that there would be no fire, so their supper consisted of jerky and some biscuits they had brought along with them from the wagons, washed down with more water from the canteens. Dog wandered off and came back with a long-tailed rat’s carcass held between his jaws. He lay down to gnaw on it and growl softly.

  That made Oliver shudder. “Are you sure he really is a dog and not an actual wolf?” he asked.

  “I ain’t sure of anything of the sort,” Preacher said. “All I know is he’s a good trail partner and ain’t never let me down yet. We’ll take turns standin’ guard tonight, but Dog there is the real sentry. He’ll let us know if there’s anything skulkin’ around that shouldn’t be.”

  Figuring that trouble would be less likely to crop up during the first part of the night, Preacher told Oliver to stand watch first.

  “Wake Hawk in a few hours, and then I’ll take the last turn. You reckon you can stay awake, Oliver?”

  “I don’t have any choice in the matter, do I? Our lives may depend on my alertness.”

  Preacher nodded and said, “Now you’re startin’ to understand.”

  He and Hawk rolled up in their blankets and went to sleep almost instantly, the way frontiersmen learned to do. Also like most frontiersmen—the ones who survived, anyway—Preacher slept lightly, so that he could be fully awake in the blink of an eye.

  Dog stretched out at his side. Preacher didn’t know how long he had been asleep when a low rumble from the cur’s throat woke him. His eyes opened, but other than that, he didn’t move. His gaze roamed around the camp, searching for any sign of trouble.

  From where he lay, he could see both Hawk and Oliver. The young easterner sat on a rock on the far side of the notch. His rifle lay across his knees. Preacher’s keen eyes, well adjusted to the night, saw Oliver’s head turning as he looked back and forth. He was awake, and he was trying to do a good job of standing guard.

  But he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head, and that was where Preacher caught a hint of movement. A stray beam of starlight reached into the thick shadow behind Oliver and struck a glint of reflection from something. A knife, maybe, or the flint head of a tomahawk.

  Death was afoot in the darkness, and it was creeping up behind Oliver Merton.

  CHAPTER 20

  Preacher whispered, “Dog, Oliver!”

  The big cur leaped with the speed of a striking snake. Oliver didn’t have time to let out a yell and probably didn’t even see Dog coming before the animal slammed into him and knocked him sideways off the rock.

&n
bsp; At the same time, the outcast who had been sneaking up on Oliver swung a tomahawk through the space where the young man’s head had been a heartbeat earlier. The blow would have split Oliver’s head open if it had landed.

  As it was, the miss threw the Indian off-balance. He stumbled forward a couple of steps. Preacher lifted one of his pistols and fired. A tongue of flame a foot long spurted from the muzzle. Both balls from the double-shotted gun smashed into the outcast’s chest and flung him backward.

  Screeches filled the air as several more of the renegades attacked from the shadows. Dog whirled to meet their charge and knifed among them, razor-sharp teeth slashing right and left. Preacher came up on his knees with his other pistol in his hand. A dark shape loomed over him, and he fired into the middle of it. The outcast doubled over with a groan and collapsed.

  Hawk surged to his feet and leaped to Oliver’s side. Another outcast lunged at them, striking downward with a tomahawk. Hawk blocked it with his rifle’s barrel, then smashed the butt into the man’s face and knocked him over backward. Oliver struggled to stand, then gave up the effort and fired his rifle from where he lay on the ground. In the muzzle flash, Preacher saw a hate-twisted face shattered by the rifle ball that crashed into it.

  Hawk grabbed Oliver’s arm and half lifted him as he backed toward Preacher. Dog fell back to the mountain man’s side as well. All four of them put their backs to the rock and waited to see if the attack was going to continue.

  Instead, Preacher heard the rapid slap of bare feet on rock and hard-packed dirt as the outcasts who were left from this raiding party retreated into the night. As those sounds faded, Oliver gasped, “Are . . . are they gone?”

  “For now, maybe,” Preacher said. “But they ain’t gone far, and there ain’t no way of knowin’ how many more of them are out there.”

  “I’m not complaining, mind you, but since they obviously knew we were there, why didn’t they just shoot arrows at us?”

  Hawk said, “They enjoy killing too much. They like to do it at close range. I have seen enough of them now to understand that.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Preacher agreed. “You wouldn’t think primitive varmints like that would take pride in anything, but I reckon they do. They like doin’ their killin’ hand to hand.”

  “What are we going to do?” Oliver asked. “I . . . I can feel them all around, watching us. It’s awful. Like waking up and being surrounded by venomous snakes.”

  “You ain’t far wrong with that comparison. But the only thing we can do is wait for them to jump us again, or wait until mornin’, when maybe we can take the fight to them. They know these badlands too good for us to go after ’em in the dark. That’d be the same as askin’ to have our throats cut.”

  “What you’re saying is that it’s going to be a long night.”

  “I reckon that’s just about the size of it,” Preacher said.

  * * *

  No one slept again that night. The men reloaded their weapons and sat with their backs against the rock and guns at the ready. Dog lay in front of them, head up and ears cocked for the slightest sound.

  Once they heard a series of howls in the distance. Oliver leaned forward and asked, “Is that wolves?”

  “No, it’s them damn outcasts,” Preacher replied.

  “What are they doing?”

  “Carryin’ on about somethin’. Could be the ones who jumped us earlier got back to the main bunch and told ’em what happened. They’re bound to be disappointed that we ain’t either prisoners or dead.”

  “My God.” Oliver let out a despairing groan. “And Chessie is helpless in the hands of those devils! She must be terrified out of her mind.”

  Preacher hoped that was indeed the case, because if Chessie was scared, it meant she was still alive. But even if she was, the creatures could take out their displeasure on her when they found out that Preacher and his companions had killed more of them.

  Those bodies were heaped just outside the notch. Hawk and Oliver had placed them there earlier while Preacher and Dog stood guard. Preacher could see the corpses, but only as vague dark shapes against the rock.

  Eventually, as a faint tinge of gray that heralded the approach of dawn crept into the eastern sky, Preacher realized he could no longer see the bodies of the slain outcasts. He stiffened in surprise, then a little shiver ran through him. Sometime during the night, more of the Indians had slipped close enough to the camp to lay hands on the corpses and drag them away, all without making a sound or in any other way betraying their presence. To a man with senses as keen as Preacher’s, that seemed almost impossible, but he saw the evidence of it now with his own eyes and had no choice but to trust them.

  The dead outcasts were gone, and they sure as hell hadn’t gotten up and walked away by themselves.

  Preacher nudged Hawk and whispered, “Take a look. What do you see out there?”

  “Nothing,” Hawk replied, then he, too, tensed enough for Preacher to feel the reaction against his shoulder. “Nothing,” Hawk repeated. “But where . . . ?”

  “The others came and got ’em,” Preacher said.

  “What are you talking about?” Oliver asked.

  “The bodies are gone.”

  “You mean scavengers got them, or . . . Oh no. You don’t mean . . .”

  “Yeah,” Preacher said. “And we didn’t see or hear ’em. Neither did Dog.”

  Oliver cursed bitterly. “What chance do we have against creatures like that?” he asked.

  “As long as a fella can fight, he’s got a chance. Or would you rather turn back, leave the badlands, and catch up with the rest of the expedition?”

  “You mean abandon Chessie? I can’t do that!”

  “Oliver, you got to realize there’s a chance she ain’t still alive, even now,” Preacher said. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but it’s true.”

  Oliver took off his hat and covered his face with a trembling hand. After a moment, he lowered his hand and said, “But there’s a chance she is still alive, that we might be able to rescue her and bring her to safety.”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Preacher agreed. “If there wasn’t a chance, we wouldn’t have gone after the little bastards in the first place.”

  Hawk added, “Until there is proof otherwise, I choose to believe that Chessie lives.”

  “So do I,” Oliver said. “When it gets light enough, I believe we should take up the trail again.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll do,” Preacher said.

  * * *

  By the middle of the day, the three men had penetrated deep into the badlands. When they paused to gnaw on more jerky, Oliver asked, “How will we ever find our way out of here once we’ve rescued Chessie?”

  Preacher didn’t address the assumption the young easterner made. Instead he said, “Gettin’ out won’t be too hard. Well, knowin’ the right way to go won’t be, anyway. Those damn outcasts are liable to have somethin’ to say about how easy it actually is to get out.”

  “Assuming that we leave any of them alive,” Hawk put in.

  “Since we don’t know how many of ’em there are, that’ll be hard to say until the time comes.”

  “You haven’t answered my question, Preacher,” Oliver said.

  “About how we’ll know which way to go? That’s easy. We’ll just head northeast. That’ll take us out of the badlands sooner or later and ought to put us not too far away from those hills where I told your pa and Ryker to make camp and wait for us.”

  “And you’ll just know which direction northeast is?” Oliver said with a puzzled frown.

  “Does not everyone?” Hawk said, looking equally puzzled. “A man has but to look around to know where he is and which way he should go.”

  Preacher chuckled. “You let Hawk and me worry about that, Oliver. We ain’t the sort to get turned around very easy.”

  “But if something were to happen to the two of you?” Oliver persisted. “After all, this is a dangerous errand o
n which we’re bound. You can’t guarantee anyone’s survival.”

  Preacher couldn’t argue with that statement. He pointed at the sun and told Oliver, “You steer by that. This time of year it comes up a ways north of due east, so if you aim toward the sunrise every mornin’, you’ll get where you’re goin’.”

  Preacher didn’t add that if he and Hawk were dead, it was highly unlikely Oliver and Chessie would survive on their own. Although he supposed that stranger things had happened. None that he could recall right offhand, however.

  They pushed on. The badlands lay in a band twenty miles wide and forty miles long that stretched west into the foothills of a range of snow-capped peaks. Preacher, Hawk, and Oliver could see those mountains ahead of them, and in the clean, thin air, they looked almost close enough to reach out and touch. Preacher knew that a lot of rugged terrain lay between him and his companions and those mountains. He hoped they wouldn’t have to cover all of it before they caught up to the outcasts and their prisoner.

  At midafternoon, Dog suddenly let out a whine and stopped as he was about to enter a long, narrow defile. Preacher halted, too, and held up a hand in a signal for Hawk and Oliver to do likewise. His eyes narrowed as he peered along the gash in the red sandstone. The outcasts ground the rocks into powder and plastered it all over their bodies so they could blend into their surroundings and not be seen until it was too late. Preacher searched intently for ambushers lurking inside the defile.

  He didn’t see any of the outcasts, but he spotted something else, a flash of blue that didn’t belong here in these dull surroundings. He pointed it out to Hawk and Oliver and whispered, “Either of you recognize that?”

  “Good Lord!” Oliver said. “That . . . that’s the same color as the dress Chessie was wearing the last time I saw her!”

  He started to spring ahead, but Hawk was too quick for him. The young warrior caught hold of Oliver’s arms from behind and dragged him back.