“More?”
“Yes. But my warriors did not understand it, and I do not understand it. There are men of great importance among those who hunt you and Ed-de. Men who have slaves who see to their needs. Cook for them, wash their clothes, and saddle their horses. It is all very strange.”
Damn sure was. Preacher sat down by the fire and poured a cup of strong coffee. He took a sip and passed the cup around. It was returned empty and he poured more until the pot was empty. He stirred the stew. He shook his head. “I don’t understand it, Wind Chaser. It’s confusing to me, too. But it’s noble of you to offer to care for the boy whilst I scout the camp of my enemies.”
Wind Chaser shook his head. “It is nothing. I remember a winter when Ghost Walker provided meat for my old father and my family while we were away at war. A debt is something that must be repaid.”
Preacher had forgotten all about that. That had been a good fifteen years back. Preacher went and fetched the horse that Charlie Barnes had ridden. He handed the reins to Wind Chaser and spoke to the chief in his own tongue, using sign language when the Ute words did not come to him. “The boy is very sick and knows he is going to die.” Wind Chaser’s eyes widened at that. “Eddie wishes to have a set of buckskins like mine before he passes from this world to the next. Please accept this horse from me to you in exchange for the buckskins.”
Wind Chaser rose and carefully inspected the horse, his eyes shining at the sight of the animal. “One small set of coverings is not enough for such a fine animal. I will have my woman make you a fine set of buckskins. Is that fair?”
“That’s fair.”
“Eddie is a brave boy,” Wind Chaser said, kneeling down and stroking the boy’s hair. He faces death like a Ute, without whimpering and whining. He will be warm and safe in my own lodge. When you return from your scouting, you will be welcomed in my village like my brother. We go!”
“See you, boy,” Preacher said to Eddie with a wink. “I’ll be back in a couple of weeks. You mind your manners, now, you hear?”
Eddie smiled and nodded his head. This was a grand adventure for the boy, and he showed no signs of fear.
Wind Chaser slashed down with a hand and a big brave picked up Eddie and gently carried him to Eddie’s paint pony, already saddled. That told Preacher that the Utes had watched every move he and Eddie had made since coming into the mountains.
“I will not lead those men to your village, Wind Chaser,” Preacher said.
Wind Chaser shook his head. “You come when and how you like, Ghost Walker. If those men hunting Ed-de come to my village, they will be fed a good meal and then we shall see how well they die. Do not worry yourself about Ed-de. He will be cared for.”
The Utes left like wisps of smoke, flitting silently through the timber.
Preacher sat for a time, eating the stew and drinking coffee. The Utes would take care of Eddie and defend his life to the last man. If an Indian gave his word on something, chisel it in stone. Preacher rose and began construction of a crude corral for the pack horses and a cache for his supplies. The animals had access to water and forage and if food ran out, or a puma or bear threatened them, they could easily break out of the brush enclosure. Preacher erased all signs of the camp, packed a few things, saddled up Thunder, and was gone that afternoon.
* * *
Dark Hand looked nervously around the camp. He had just returned from his afternoon’s prowling and did not like what he had seen, or rather, what he had not seen.
“What’s wrong with you?” Van Eaton snarled at the Pawnee. “You’re makin’ me nervous.”
“We are alone,” Dark Hand said.
“What do you mean, alone?”
“No Ute. No Cheyenne. No Arapaho. We are alone.”
“Why ... you ninny! That’s good.”
“That’s bad,” Dark Hand contradicted. “That means the chiefs have met and agreed to stay out of the fight. That means that Preacher is on the hunt. For us. He is probably out there now, looking at us. Waiting. Watching.”
“Now, just how did you come to that?”
“It is the only thing that makes any sense.”
“Well, it don’t make no sense to me,” Van Eaton said sourly.
“Yes. That makes sense to me, too,” Dark Hand said haughtily.
Van Eaton watched the Pawnee walk off. He figured he’d been insulted but he didn’t quite know how. He looked all around him. Birds were singing and feeding, squirrels were hopping around, all having grown used to the presence of the large body of men. Van Eaton snorted. “Preacher out there,” he muttered. “Hell, he ain’t within fifteen minutes of his camp.”
Preacher was about two hundred yards away, lying on his belly in some brush. Part of him was clearly visible to the naked eye, if anyone would just make a very careful visual inspection of their surroundings. But he knew none of the men would. What Preacher was doing was one of the oldest of Indian tricks—hide where your enemy would least suspect.
Preacher was puzzled by what he saw and the few words that he could hear. He couldn’t figure out who those fancy-dressed men were, and what they were doing with the likes of Bones Gibson. Nothing about this made any sense to Preacher. Those duded up men had servants and cooks waitin’ on them hand and foot. So why were a bunch of rich folks like them tied in with Bones, and why were they hunting him?
Preacher saw Dark Hand looking carefully all around him. He immediately averted his eyes so he would not be staring directly at the Pawnee. Dark Hand spoke with Van Eaton for a moment, and then walked away.
Preacher watched the Pawnee until he disappeared and then backed away from the scant cover and into the thicker brush and timber. He didn’t think Dark Hand had spotted him, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. He made a slow half circle of the camp until he found a good spot to lay under cover until dark and he could make his move, or until one of them in the camp came out alone to answer a call of nature.
A half a dozen came out to the area together and Preacher could do nothing except listen to them swear, grunt, and make other disgusting sounds. Then his ears perked up when he heard one say, “Them royal folks has upped the ante on Ol’ Preacher and the kid.”
“Yeah, I heared,” another said. “But what they want is foolish to me. They want us to take Preacher alive, and then turn him a-loose unarmed and on foot so’s they can hunt him down for sport.”
Preacher blinked at that. Sport? What the hell kind of people were these fancy-pants men? Royal folks? What in the world did that mean?
“But Van Eaton wants the kid,” a third voice was added. “What did the kid do to get on Van Eaton’s bad side?”
“I don’t know,” yet another voice said. “But Van Eaton ain’t got but one side, and it’s all bad. He’s even worser than Bones, and that’s sayin’ a lot. He says he’s gonna skin him alive slow-like just to listen to him holler.”
Preacher felt a coldness wash over him with those words. A dark and deadly hand touched his heart. Any man that would torture a kid, of any color, was too low to let live. And if Preacher had his way, Van Eaton would not be counted among the living for very much longer.
Skin Eddie? What matter of men were these people? How low-life could man be? Preacher figured he was right close to just about the lowest of the low.
Preacher fought back with some effort an urge to rise up and blast these men into eternity. But doing that would only wound the tip of the snake’s tail. He wanted Bones, Van Eaton, and those fancy-dressed men. And he wanted just one man from this bunch to question. And if he didn’t want to talk to Preacher, Preacher knew a way to loosen his tongue—he’d just turn him over to the Utes.
Preacher lay under cover until dusk. Then he got his chance to grab one of Bones’s men. A man he’d heard call John Pray wandered over to the area, alone, and started to drop his trousers. Preacher coshed him with a leather pouch filled with dirt and the man hit the ground unconscious. Preacher tossed the man over one shoulder and quickly took off.
When John Pray awoke he fully expected to get whacked on the head, like had happened three times already that night during the ride from camp. His head hurt something fierce. But no blow came. He tried to move his hands, but they were tied behind his back and his back was hard up against a tree. He looked across a hat-sized fire into the hard and cold eyes of a man dressed all in buckskins.
“You be Preacher?” John croaked out the question.
“I be Preacher.”
“Are you gonna torture me?”
“If I have to. And believe me, John Pray, I will.”
John believed him. Oh, how he believed him. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything. Front to bottom and side to side. You tell me ever’thing you know about this gang that’s chasin’ me and the boy, and I’ll cut you loose. And that’s a promise. You can either hook up again with Bones, or clear out. It’s up to you. Start talkin’, John Pray.”
John Pray was a brigand and a scalawag, but he was no fool. He opened up and talked for a full ten minutes, nonstop. So complete was his confession, Preacher didn’t have to ask him a thing.
When John Pray fell silent, Preacher hauled out his Bowie and cut him free. Preacher gestured toward the coffee pot. “Help yourself.”
“Mighty nice of you,” John said sarcastically. “Considerin’ that you’re sendin’ me to my death.”
“I ain’t sendin’ you nowheres, John Pray.”
John sipped and smiled. “You know damn well I can’t go back to Bones. They’d know I talked and kill me for sure. I ain’t got no hoss and no guns. The savages will kill me ’fore I get ten miles from here.”
Preacher picked up John Pray’s brace of pistols, shot and powder, and knife. He tossed them to him. “I took the liberty of unloadin’ them pistols. You got ample shot and powder. ’Bout ten miles from here, anglin’ south, they’s a crick. Follow it down to Ute Pass. Stay southeast ’til you come to another crick. That’s Rock Crick. Follow that and you’ll come to a settlement. Mex and Injun women and mountain men that’s done takin’ up plowin’ and plantin’. You got money in your purse ’cause I seen it. They’ll sell you a horse. Bent’s Fort is due east of there. Keep ridin’ and don’t never come back to these mountains. If I ever see you again, I’ll kill you, John Pray. Now, git gone!”
John Pray was gone in a heartbeat, not even looking back. Preacher immediately doused his fire and took up Thunder’s reins and was gone in the other direction, putting miles between the man-hunter and himself before he settled down for the remainder of the night in a cold camp.
At dawn, Preacher gathered dry wood and built a tiny fire under the overhang of branches and boiled water for coffee. He was so angry he had to struggle to keep his emotions in check. A bunch of goddamn foreigners were planning to use him like some wild animal to hunt down ... for sport. Preacher had a dirty opinion of people who hunted animals for sport and trophy and not for food. And Indians took an even sourer view of folks like that. Indians hunted animals for survival. They never killed what they couldn’t use.
Preacher calmed down some and drank his coffee and chewed his jerky. He mulled over his situation. Counting the cooks and servants, he was outnumbered about fifty-some-odd to one. He knew that common sense told him to get Eddie and head deep into the mountains. Bones and them goddamn foreigners would never find them. Preacher knew that. But Preacher didn’t much cotton to runnin’ away. That cut against the grain. It wasn’t that he hadn’t run from trouble before, because he had. There was a time to fight and a time for a feller to haul his ashes. Said that plain in the Bible—sort of. But damned if Preacher was gonna run from the likes of Bones Gibson and a bunch of fancy-pants counts and barons and dukes and princes and so forth.
Now, about the boy. Eddie was safe in the Ute village. Bones would never attack an Indian village, even if he could get close enough without bein’ seen, which he couldn’t. Bones was arrogant, but he wasn’t stupid.
Preacher drank the last of his coffee and made up his mind as the fire began dying down to coals. All around him lay the magnificence and majesty of the Rockies. Birds were singing and squirrels were playing and chattering.
He had done nothing to any of those men huntin’ him. They wanted to do harm to him and Eddie. They wanted to use Preacher like some poor chased animal. But that would never happen. They wanted a war. Well, all right. That could happen. Preacher could damn sure give them a war. But this war would be on Preacher’s terms—Preacher would lay down the rules of warfare. And they would be harsh. This would be a war like none they had ever seen. Count on that.
Preacher doused his fire and covered all signs of the camp. He saddled up Thunder and packed his few supplies and stepped into the saddle.
He rode for about fifteen miles before topping a rise and there, staying in the timber, he surveyed his surroundings. This was his country. The High Lonesome. The Big Empty.
And it was about to run red with blood.
8
Bones had shifted his camp.
It only took Preacher about one minute to determine which direction they’d gone. He did not immediately follow the tracks. Instead, Preacher threw together a small fire, made some coffee, and then sat for a time, ruminating.
Bones and Van Eaton had assumed rightly that John Pray would blab, telling Preacher everything that he knew. Dark Hand would point out that he’d been right all along in saying that Preacher was close-by, watching. So the smart move would be to shift locations. But this time it would be a much more secure camp, one that could be easily guarded and defended while the man-hunters made new plans.
The men had made no attempt to hide their tracks, so to Preacher’s mind, that meant they wanted him to follow. “They think they gonna ambush you, Ol’ Hoss,” he muttered. “They got some boys layin’ in wait for you to come amblin’ along so’s they can put a ball in your noggin. So you just sit right here and figure out where the main bunch is headin’ and then circle around and do some dirty work of your own.”
John Pray had told him that the Pawnee, Dark Hand, had spent a couple or three years in this area. That was news to Preacher, but he didn’t doubt the man’s words. It made sense to him. Without someone who knew this country, Bones and his men would have been wanderin’ about like a lost calf a-bellerin’ for its mamma. So where would Dark Hand lead the men now that they knew Preacher was on the prowl?
That was a question that Preacher could not answer. Putting himself in Dark Hand’s moccasins, he could come up with several dozen places where he’d go. But what he could do was pretty much determine the direction. Preacher carefully extinguished his fire and swung into the saddle.
“Let’s go see what misery we can cause, Thunder. Then we’ll go check on Eddie.”
* * *
“We lost the mountain man!” Van Eaton said, an evil smile curving his lips.
“We will never lose Preacher,” Dark Hand said sourly. “And he will not fall into your stupid and clumsy attempt to ambush him.”
The men had taken a break and were watering their horses and resting after several hours of riding over rough country. Tatman, a Rogue out of Indiana, looked at the Pawnee, disgust in his eyes.
“’Pears to me, Injun, that you’re ’bout half skirred of this Preacher.”
Dark Hand smiled, sort of. “I fear no man. But I have much respect for many. Preacher has been in this country ever since he was a boy. He is respected, if not liked, by all. Songs are sung about him around the night fires, and stories are told and retold about his courage and cunning and fierceness in battle. Do not take your enemies lightly. To do so is to die. If you would but open your eyes and your brain, you would know that the Utes in this area have made a pact with Preacher. If you would have but looked at the signs back at our old camp, you would have seen one horse only. That means the boy is safe somewhere. Preacher would not have left him alone in the wilderness. This is grizzly and puma country. And this is also Wind Chaser country.”
By
now, the camp was silent, the men standing or sitting, all listening to the Pawnee speak.
“Wind Chaser is a war chief of the Utes. Very brave and very cunning in battle. I think the boy is in Wind Chaser’s village. I know that we have been watched, and I think the watchers are warriors from Wind Chaser’s village. For the time being, they are going to leave us alone. This fight is between us and Preacher. Any attempt to take the boy would mean instant death for us all.” His eyes touched the eyes of every man in the camp. “Or a very long and slow and painful death by torture. Chances are slim that any of you will see one of Wind Chaser’s warriors, but if by accident you do, do not shoot. Make no hostile moves toward any Indian you might glimpse. We must concentrate our efforts on finding and destroying Preacher. No one else.”
Tatman snorted. “I still say you’re skirred of Preacher.”
Dark Hand cut his eyes. “You are a fool. I do not think you will die well.”
“Injun,” Tatman said. “You don’t call me no fool!”
“He just did,” Bones said. “And I would suggest we all pay heed to his words. Now mount up. Let’s get out of here.”
* * *
Bates and Hunter, the two men Bones had assigned to spring the ambush on Preacher, were growing restless. And more than a bit edgy. It was getting late in the afternoon. They both felt that Preacher should have been along hours before. And they both felt that Preacher had figured out Bones’s plan and that the ambushers were now the hunted.
It was a feeling that neither of them liked.
Suddenly to their right and in the dark timber, came the unmistakable sounds of a mountain lion on the prowl. The cough and huff and angry snarl. Hunter and Bates both turned to face the chilling noise.
But they could see nothing. No movement of brush or low branches. The mountain wind died down to no more than a whisper and the men waited, their hearts thudding heavily in their chests. They were both uneducated men, neither able to read or write, and both very superstitious.
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