After they had eaten, Oliver said, “We’ve seen several creeks since we got into these hills. How do you know we’re headed for the right place?”
“Won’t know for sure until we get there,” Preacher replied. “And I won’t claim I’ve been over every foot of ground in these parts. Pert near, though. And I only remember one spot where two creeks come in from the west like that in deep gulches and flow together in a deep hollow surrounded by hills. The Sioux call the place Owayásuta. Hard to translate exactly, but it sort of means to approve of something . . . the way they want the spirits to approve of them.”
“But if we get there and don’t find my father and Ryker and the others?”
“Then we’ll keep looking,” Preacher said.
As things turned out, it never came to that. The next day, as the group was making its way in a generally northward direction, allowing for the terrain, Hawk paused, lifted a hand and pointed, and said, “There.”
Preacher had spotted it at the same time as his son. A tendril of gray smoke climbed into the sky ahead of them, visible above the tops of the pine, spruce, and bur oaks that covered the slopes of the valleys folding into each other.
“What is that?” Oliver asked.
“Somebody’s got a good-sized fire goin’ a mile or so ahead of us,” Preacher said.
“Indians? As you said, they consider this their domain.”
Hawk snorted and said, “Not even the Sioux would be so careless. Smoke like that in the middle of the day is the work of white men.”
“Then we’ve found them,” Oliver said with excitement creeping into his voice. “Who else would be here in these mountains?”
“Well, I’ve heard tell of a few fellas who came here to trap,” Preacher said, “but unless they were real greenhorns, they’d have enough sense not to tell the world where they are. I reckon I agree with Hawk. Ryker and his bunch have stopped for some reason, and they’re big enough fools to have built a fire like that.”
“Maybe we can rescue my father and deal with them, then.” Oliver paused and frowned. “I hadn’t really thought about it, but . . . we’re going to have to kill them, aren’t we? We can’t just take my father away from them and go on. They’ll come after us.”
“Afraid you’re right,” Preacher said, nodding. “If Ryker’s got his hands on somethin’ he thinks is valuable, he ain’t the sort to let go of it without a fight.”
“But we’re outnumbered.”
“Not as badly as we were against the outcasts,” Hawk pointed out. “There were many of them and a few of us, and yet here we are.”
Oliver looked at Chessie and said, “You were the one who told my father to talk to Ryker. I got the feeling that you two were . . . friends.”
So the youngster wasn’t quite as thickheaded as he seemed sometimes, Preacher thought.
“I didn’t know what sort of man he was then,” Chessie said with an embarrassed look on her face. “And we were never that close, anyway. After everything that’s happened, Oliver, I don’t care what happens to Hoyt Ryker, and that’s the truth. I swear it. If he got the chance, I’m sure he would kill the three of you.” She swallowed hard. “And whatever he had in mind for me, I know it wouldn’t be good.”
Preacher said, “You can bet a brand-new hat on that. All right, we’ve done some plain talkin’ here, and I reckon we all know where we stand. What we need to do now is find out why Ryker and his bunch have stopped, and then we’ll figure out what to do about it.”
Oliver looked worried. “Do you think something’s happened to my father? If he can’t give Ryker directions on where to go next, that could mean he’s . . . he’s . . .”
“We’ll find out,” Preacher said again, “and there ain’t no use in worryin’ until then.”
They moved out, heading toward the smoke. When they were half a mile away, Preacher called a halt again and said, “Ryker will have guards posted, more than likely, so the rest of you will stay here while I go scout around a mite.”
“I should come with you,” Hawk said immediately.
The mountain man shook his head. “I don’t cotton to the idea of leavin’ Oliver and Chessie here on their own. Dog will come with me, in case I run into trouble.”
Hawk didn’t like the decision, but he didn’t argue with it. Instead he said, “You should take a pistol with you.”
“Now, that I’ll do,” Preacher agreed.
Oliver handed him the pistol the young man had been carrying. Preacher tucked it behind his belt, then said quietly, “Come on, Dog.” With the big cur beside him, he loped off into the forest and within moments could no longer see the others behind him, which meant they couldn’t see him, either.
No one alive could move through the wilderness with more stealth than Preacher, which was one reason his enemies among the tribes feared him so much. Dog had learned to be almost his equal. The two of them circled the smoke to come at it from a slightly different direction, and it wasn’t long before they were looking out through small gaps in thick brush at Hoyt Ryker’s camp.
Ryker and his companions had brought the wagons to a halt on a relatively level bench that thrust out from the side of a mountain. The area in front of the wagons was open ground, which meant it would be difficult to approach from that direction.
Behind the camp, however, a rocky bluff rose almost perpendicularly to a height of a hundred feet. Preacher studied it intently for a moment, then shifted his attention to the men moving around the wagons and the campfire.
He saw Pidge, who seemed to have recovered from the wounds he’d suffered earlier in the journey. Three men tended to the mules or repaired harnesses, while one squatted next to the fire and watched a coffeepot sitting at the edge of the flames.
That left Ryker and one more man unaccounted for. Preacher had a hunch the missing member of the expedition was standing guard somewhere nearby. But there was no sign of Edgar Merton, and Preacher figured Ryker was probably wherever the wealthy easterner was.
That made him look toward the covered wagon. He couldn’t see into it from where he was, but after watching the vehicle for several minutes, he saw Hoyt Ryker climb over the tailgate and drop to the ground. Ryker didn’t look happy, and when Pidge approached him, Ryker snapped at him. Preacher could tell that even though he couldn’t make out the words. Pidge stood there looking a little like a whipped dog as Ryker stalked away.
That made Preacher even more interested in the wagon with its canvas cover. Since Edgar Merton wasn’t anywhere else around the camp, that was really the only place he could be. That is, if Merton was still alive . . .
Preacher knew he was going to have to get a look into the wagon to find out.
CHAPTER 32
Oliver and Chessie looked up in surprise from the log where they sat when Preacher stepped out from the trees. Hawk looked like he was expecting his father, though, so Preacher knew the youngster had heard him coming.
Oliver stood up and asked, “Did you find them?”
“Yeah, their camp’s right out in the open,” Preacher said. “With that smoke comin’ up, it wasn’t hard to find.”
“And my father? Did you see him? Is he all right?”
The anxious questions tumbled out of Oliver’s mouth. Preacher answered honestly, “I didn’t see him. I think he must’ve been in the wagon. Ryker climbed out of it while I was watchin’, and he seemed upset about somethin’.”
A stricken look appeared on Oliver’s face. “Father’s dead,” he said in a hollow voice. “Ryker tortured him, and now he’s died from whatever that bastard did.”
“You don’t know that,” Chessie told him as she took hold of his arm with both hands and squeezed it in an effort to comfort and reassure him.
“The gal’s right,” Preacher said. “Somethin’ must be goin’ on, or else Ryker wouldn’t have stopped and pitched camp in the middle of the day like this, but we don’t have any way of knowin’ what it is until I get a look inside the wagon.”
“If he’s there, and if he’s alive, you can rescue him,” Oliver said. Now there was a note of excitement in his words.
“It ain’t gonna be that easy.” Preacher went on to describe the layout of the camp and the surrounding area. “I can’t just waltz in from the front, but that cliff in back of the wagons is rough enough I ought to be able to climb down it once it gets dark.”
“You mean not until nightfall?”
“If I tried to make that climb in broad daylight, anybody who happened to glance up would spot me,” Preacher said. “Then I’d be a sittin’ duck.”
Hawk said, “You should let me climb down the cliff and look in the wagon, Preacher. I am younger.”
Preacher glared at him. “Are you sayin’ I ain’t as spry as I used to be?”
“No, but you are older.”
“Not so old I can’t do what I set out to do.” Preacher looked at Oliver. “Here’s the thing, though. Even if your pa is in the wagon and is all right, relatively speakin’, he won’t be able to climb back up that cliff with me. That just ain’t the sort of thing he can do.”
“You’re saying you’ll have to leave him there?”
“For now,” Preacher said.
“But that doesn’t help us at all!”
“It helps us if we know he ain’t dead,” Preacher said bluntly. “Then we can figure out a way to get him away from Ryker.”
Oliver sighed and said, “I suppose you’re right. But I don’t like the idea of leaving him in Ryker’s hands any longer than we have to.”
“And we won’t. Right now, though, there’s nothing we can do except wait for it to get dark.”
“I can think of one more thing,” Chessie said.
“What’s that?”
“We can pray that Mr. Merton is still alive and well.”
* * *
Oliver was still tense as dusk settled down over the landscape several hours later. He assured Preacher that he understood the situation and would go along with whatever the mountain man decided. But that didn’t stop him from being nervous and eager to learn his father’s current condition.
Preacher gnawed on one of the pieces of venison they had cooked the day before and brought along with them. They would have a cold camp again tonight. They were too close to Ryker’s camp to risk a fire, no matter how welcome it would have been. The light of the flames or the smell of the smoke could have given them away. Even though Ryker’s men were far from experienced frontiersmen, they would be alert for anything like that.
Night had fallen but the moon had not yet risen when Preacher got ready to take his leave. “Dog, stay with Hawk,” he told the big cur. Tonight he would be on his own, as he always was whenever he ventured like this into the enemy’s den.
“You can still send me to make this scout,” Hawk said.
“No, I’ll do it. You stay here with Oliver and Chessie. I’ll be back.”
“If you have not returned by morning, I will come and find out why,” Hawk promised.
“If I ain’t back by mornin’, chances are I ain’t comin’ back. But we ain’t gonna dwell on that, ’cause I don’t intend for it to happen.”
Chessie stepped up to the mountain man, put her arms around him, and gave him a hug. “Be careful, Preacher,” she said.
He gave her an awkward pat on the back and said, “Don’t worry, I will be.”
“Do not believe him,” Hawk said. “He has never been careful in all the time I have known him.”
“Which ain’t been all that long,” Preacher reminded his son. He slapped Hawk on the back, then shook hands with Oliver.
“Find my father,” the young man said.
“I intend to.”
Preacher nodded, even though they weren’t able to see him very well in the darkness, and faded away into the shadows.
Even though a thick blackness cloaked the hills, he had no trouble finding where he was going. His sense of direction was unerring, as always. Nor was it long before he had the light of Ryker’s campfire to steer by. The orange flames leaped high and cast a glow into the sky above the camp.
Preacher hoped that glow didn’t reach all the way to the cliff looming behind the wagons. If they spotted him climbing down, it would be the same as if he had a giant target painted on him.
Reaching the top of the cliff behind the camp proved to be a long, difficult task. Earlier, Preacher had scouted out some possible routes, but he didn’t know which ones would take him where he wanted to go until he tried following them, so he had to backtrack several times when trails played out and the slope was too sheer for him to keep going.
Finally, long after night had fallen, he stretched out on his belly and peered over the brink at the camp below. The fire had burned down, and most of the men had rolled up in blankets and gone to sleep. At least one guard was posted; Preacher spotted a tiny coal in the bowl of a pipe clamped between the teeth of a man sitting with his back against a wheel on one of the supply wagons. Preacher saw the coal brighten and dim and knew the man was puffing on the pipe. The fella probably had a rifle across his lap, too.
Preacher waited to make sure the camp was going to remain quiet. While he did, he studied the face of the cliff as best he could in the poor light. Earlier, when he had looked at it in daylight, he had seen how rough and seamed it was. Climbing down in darkness would require him to feel around for hand- and footholds, but he was confident he could find plenty.
Satisfied that the time had come to make his move, he swung over the edge and began his descent.
It was slow, treacherous going. In some places the rock crumbled in his hand when he tried to put his weight on it, which left him clinging to the cliff face with his other hand while he searched for a more secure hold. When that happened, gravel clattered down and the sound made Preacher’s jaw tighten grimly, but there were enough night noises that it seemed to blend in. No cries of alarm came from the camp below.
Time was deceptive in such a situation. Preacher wasn’t sure how long he had been on the cliff when he realized the ground was just a few feet below him. He let go and dropped the rest of the way, landing as lightly as a big cat. His knees flexed, and he bent to put a hand on the ground and steady himself.
He saw the covered wagon twenty yards away, silhouetted against the faint glow from the campfire’s remaining embers.
With all the considerable stealth at his command, Preacher moved toward the vehicle. The tailgate was raised and fastened in place. He paused beside it and listened intently. The sound of deep, somewhat irregular breathing came from inside. The wagon’s interior was absolutely stygian. Preacher could tell someone was inside, but there was no way to be certain who it was.
Then as he listened, he heard the occupant let out a low moan. It was difficult to tell from such a sound, but he thought it came from Edgar Merton. Whoever it was shifted around and moaned again, as if in pain and trying to find a more comfortable position. That also made Preacher think it was Merton in the wagon.
He crouched and peered underneath the heavy vehicle. Men often slept underneath wagons when they were camped. Enough light from the coals filtered under this one for him to see that nobody was there.
Straightening, he listened to the man’s breathing for a moment longer, then grasped the tailgate, put a foot on the wagon’s frame, and pulled himself up and over. There was only one way to make sure the man was Edgar Merton.
He waited to see if there was any reaction from the sleeper. The man shifted again and muttered something. Preacher eased closer and drew his knife. He had been in situations like this many times before, drifting through the darkness like a phantom, knife in hand, but in those cases he had been bent on killing an enemy, not rescuing a friend. He let the sound of the man’s breathing guide him as he weaved noiselessly through the supplies and other goods stored inside the wagon until he was kneeling beside the bunk where the man slept.
Still working by sound rather than sight, Preacher leaned closer and held out his left hand. W
hen he felt warm breath brush against his palm, he dropped the hand and clamped it over the man’s nose and mouth.
The sleeper came awake with a start but didn’t try to fight or bolt up from the bunk. Preacher rested the tip of his knife against the man’s throat and whispered, “Better listen close, mister, and do what I say. I’m gonna ask you a question, and then I’m gonna take this knife away so you can move your head. Are you Edgar Merton?”
Preacher pulled the blade back a little. The man on the bunk nodded rather weakly.
Of course, it was possible he was lying about his identity. Preacher rested the knife against the man’s throat again and went on, “I’m gonna take my hand away from your mouth now so you can talk to me and convince me you’re tellin’ the truth. If you try any tricks, I can cut your throat from ear to ear before you even let out a squawk.”
He kept the knife in place and lifted his hand. In a half sob, half whisper, the man said, “Preacher?”
“That’s right.”
“Oh, thank God, thank God.” It was Edgar Merton’s voice; Preacher was sure of that. “I was sure you and Hawk were dead. I was afraid . . . my son was, too, even though Ryker promised . . . that he would keep Oliver safe. Is . . . is Oliver all right?”
Preacher noted that Merton didn’t say anything about Chessie. The man didn’t sound like he was in good shape, though, so Preacher supposed he could be forgiven for not thinking about the girl. Merton’s hoarse, hesitant words revealed the strain he had been under.
“Oliver’s fine,” Preacher said. “All four of us are. How bad are you hurt?”
“I . . . I don’t know. I’ve been . . . blacking out. When Ryker said . . . we were going on without waiting for you and the others to get back . . . I argued with him, and he got angry. He hit me and told me . . . I was going to tell him my secret . . . and when I refused, he hit me again and again . . .”
An exhausted sigh came from Merton. Just talking a little had worn him out. But even though Preacher felt sorry for the man, there was more he had to know.
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