The Utes would be very close now. They’d had several hours of darkness to creep close, sometimes moving no more than an inch or two at a time. Preacher was just glad they were not Apaches. They were the best at making the most out of every scrap of cover. Or no cover at all.
Preacher had briefly spoken with most of the men in the wagon train. None of them had much experience when it came to fighting, for most of them came from the cities and towns back East. There were a few who came from rural areas, and knew something about fighting. A couple had actual combat experience, having fought with Jackson in the War of 1812. But fightin’ Injuns was a tad different from fightin’ the British, who for the most part just stood all in a line and let you cut ’em down. And the U.S. Army wasn’t much better. Dumbest damn way of fightin’ Preacher had ever seen. Injuns was a whole lot smarter when it came to fighting. And Preacher and the other mountain men had quickly adapted to their ways of stealth and ambush.
Then Preacher saw a bush that hadn’t been in that spot a couple of minutes back. He lifted his rifle to his shoulder and sighted in. The bush moved a few inches and Preacher put a ball right through it, about six inches off the ground. A scream ripped the night and the bush flew up into the air as a mortally wounded brave reared up on one knee, a hideous wound pouring blood from his neck. He fell forward and was still just as other Utes charged the wagons.
Preacher picked up his other rifle and let a ball fly. A brave doubled over like he’d been hit with a thrown anvil. He bounced on the ground and jerked in pain. Preacher jerked out a brace of pistols, both of them double-shotted, and let them bang. When the smoke cleared briefly, he’d put two more Utes on the cool, rocky ground.
All around him, the night was exploding in gunfire. There was no breeze at all, and the gun smoke was thick and smarting to the eyes. Preacher’s immediate area was momentarily clear of all living things, and he took that time to recharge his weapons, looking up and around him every two or three seconds.
The men of the wagon train had broken the first charge and the Utes seemed to just drop off the face of the earth. But Preacher knew better. He knew they were out there, and very close. One Ute tried to drag off a wounded brave and Preacher cut his spine with a ball.
“Sing out!” Preacher shouted.
“One mover over here took an arrow in the chest,” Rimrock called. “He’s dead.”
“Got one wounded over here,” Caleb called out. “He’ll be all right.”
“Everybody’s all right over here,” Windy called.
Preacher looked left and right of his position. “Anybody hurt along here?”
“No,” a mover said. “Just scared.”
“Stay that way,” Preacher told him. “It’ll help to keep you alive.”
“What’s next?” another one asked.
“Probably fire-arrows if they stay true to form. Charge up all your weapons. Everybody got a hatchet or axe close by like I told you? Good. We might be hand to hand ’fore this is all over. And brothers, them Utes is good at that. Don’t play around with them. Just whack off anything in reach. Arm, hand, head, anything at all.”
“I don’t know that I can do that,” a mover said.
“You want to have your hair jerked off and live long enough to see your wife and daughters raped?” Preacher tossed that at the man.
“No.”
“Then you’ll do it.”
“Yonder comes the fire-arrows,” Rimrock called. “Grab the buckets and stand ready.”
Preacher squatted down by the rear wheel and waited. He knew from experience that a rush would follow the fire-arrows. The Utes – among other tribes – had quickly learned that movers would drop their guns and grab up buckets of water in an attempt to save their possessions.
“Let the women handle the water buckets,” Preacher called. “Every man stay with his gun.”
Fire-arrows zipped through the air, shot from well-concealed positions. The canvas on one wagon burst into flames and the women began tossing buckets of water on the fire. They had it out in half a minute. The other fire-arrows fell to the ground and burned out harmlessly.
Then the Utes came silently out of the night, some of them mounted, others running on foot, waving war axes and holding decorated lances.
“Fire, goddamnit!” Preacher shouted. “Don’t let them get inside the circle.”
Preacher felt if they could contain this charge, the Utes would feel their medicine was bad and break it off to talk it over. But it was a big if.
A war-painted Ute reared up in front of him and Preacher shot the brave in the center of the forehead, the big ball almost taking the top of the Indian’s head off. He smashed the butt of the rifle into the face of another and then jerked out his pistols and fired into a mass of brown bodies just outside the circle of wagons.
And still the Utes came.
A warrior jumped his horse inside the circle, leaped off, and landed right on top of Preacher, taking both of them hard to the ground. The brave lost his war axe and scrambled for it. Preacher and the Ute rolled around on the ground for a few seconds until Preacher smashed the buck’s head in with the butt of an empty pistol and then leaped to his feet, grabbing for his last two charged pistols.
More canvas had been set ablaze and the wind had picked up, fanning the leaping flames that highlighted a frantic life-and-death struggle amid the circle of wagons on the plains. A woman was smashing a brave’s bloody head in with what remained of a wooden bucket. Several movers were locked in hand-to-hand combat with Ute warriors. One woman lay on the ground, an arrow in her chest and a crying child on the ground beside her. Preacher observed all this in a split second as he worked to charge his pistols. A wild scream turned him around. A brave was running toward Weller, his axe raised to crush Weller’s head. Preacher shot him and the brave stopped in his tracks and stumbled forward, landing on his face. Weller looked at Preacher and nodded his thanks.
Windy had grabbed up the lance of a fallen Ute and had driven it through another brave, pinning the writhing buck to the earth.
Then, like it began, it was over, silence falling around them as the Utes vanished into the night.
“Reload,” Preacher called. “Right now, before you do anything else.” He left his post and walked toward the area where the kids and a few women were located in the center of the circle. He smiled at Betina. Her face was sooted up some and her hair all mussed, but she managed a wan smile.
“Will they be back?” she asked.
Preacher nodded. “If they feel their medicine is right, they’ll hit us just at dawn.”
“If their medicine is bad?”
“They’ll leave.”
“I’ll say a little prayer.”
“Shore wouldn’t hurt none. While you’re askin’, tell Him to send some help, will you?”
THIRTEEN
Preacher took charge of the defense of the train and began posting guards, telling those not on guard duty to get some rest. He told the women to have coffee and hot food available at all times, and to work in shifts, some cooking while the others rested.
“Them Utes know we’re total cut off from any kind of relief,” Caleb said in a low tone as the men squatted down in the darkness, cups of coffee in their hands. “So it’s my thinkin’ they might try to wait us out.”
“They might,” Preacher agreed. “But we got food and a ready supply of water behind the train. They’s maybe two days’ graze for the stock if we limit them, and then another two days of grain for them on short rations. You all and me, we know this battle ain’t gone unnoticed. Other Injuns has seen the fire and smelled the smoke and all the dust. Some might come to investigate. And that could be good or bad, depending on the tribe.”
“If it’s Crow they’d hep us,” Windy said. “And so would Weasel Tail’s bunch. But if the Snake and the Crow both show up, they’ll start fightin’ each other.”
“I don’t know,” Rimrock said. “They been right friendly to each other the past couple of
years. I think they might have made peace.”
“Did you talk to Weller about this here Sutherlin person?” Caleb asked.
“Just done it. Shocked him down to his socks, it did. To be a religious sort of feller, he done some right smart cussin’. Sutherlin is the one who told these pilgrims to cut north from the trail. I told Weller to take pen to hand and to write down the whole story and seal ’er good and give it to me. Later on, I’ll take me a trip east. Maybe even go as far as the Missouri. Find me a regular Army fort, like Leavenworth, and talk to the generals and colonels about Sutherlin.”1
“Maybe we’ll all go,” Rimrock said, as Caleb and Windy nodded their heads in agreement. “I ain’t been back in so many years I forgot what civilization looks like.”
“Take a look at these pilgrims,” Preacher said dryly. “That’s what it looks like.”
“Maybe I won’t go,” Rimrock said.
* * *
“Gone,” Windy said, after slipping back into the circle of wagons. It was not yet dawn and the little man with more guts than most had been gone for over an hour. “They pulled out durin’ the night. Headed south.”
“We hurt ’em bad, all right,” Caleb said. “I reckon we killed a good thirty of ’em. Probably wounded another fifteen or so real bad. Injuns ain’t gonna stand for that. They’re headin’ for home.”
Preacher went to Weller and was as uncommonly blunt with him as he had been the night before. “You understand that you were on a fool’s mission headin’ north, don’t you?”
“Yes,” the man admitted. “I do. But Preacher, we’ve come too far to turn back now. I ... ah ... would you lead us up to the Oregon Territory?”
“No. No, I won’t do that. But we’ll see you back to the trail and you can either wait there for another train to come along or I’ll take you back to the post and you can wait there. Talk to your people and see what they want to do.”
“They will not turn back to the post, Preacher. I can assure you of that. We would lose too much time. We have to get across the mountains before the snows come.”
“You sure got that right.”
“A rider coming from the west,” a lookout shouted. “And he’s alone.”
Rimrock squinted and smiled. “That’s Carl Lippett. I recognize the horse. If he sees us he’ll run thinkin’ we’re gonna give him another bath.”
“Does this man know the trails?” Weller asked.
“As good as any man.”
“Perhaps then he might be persuaded to lead us on westward,” Weller said with a hopeful note in his voice.
“He might,” Windy said. “He’s just about crazy enough to take the job.”
Preacher faced Weller. “Weller, take these people on back a ways. Take them to Missouri or Iowa Territory. Wait a few years and then come on out. It’s too soon, Weller. It’s just too soon for this.”
But the man would not budge from his decision. “We shall press on westward.”
Shaking his head and muttering, Preacher walked back to the wagons of Betina, Coretine, and the kids. Betina took one look at his face and said, “No, Preacher. We shall not go back.” It was spoken softly but firmly.
“Nor shall I,” Coretine said, standing by her side. “This savage land shall not defeat me. My husband had a dream, and I shall see it come to be.”
“No point in my sayin’ nothin’, then.” Preacher walked away without another word.
* * *
Carl Lippett agreed to guide the party on to the Pacific and the wagons were made ready for the trail. The train turned around and headed back toward what some had begun calling the Oregon Trail. Preacher and the other mountain men tagged along.
“Way I look at it,” Carl said, as Preacher rode along with him at the head of the stretched out train, “either I take them on west or they go in alone. Least with me along they’ll have a chance. They won’t get lost. Preacher, you took a train acrost last year. I’d ’preciate anything you could tell me about it.”
For the next two days, Preacher told the man everything he could remember about the way west to Oregon Territory – the way a train could get through. When he had exhausted his memory, Carl shook his head.
“Looks like I just might have a mighty big job on my hands,” Lippett said.
There was nothing Preacher could add to that statement.
A few miles before they reached the trail, Preacher and his friends left the pioneers and rode away without saying a word to anybody. Farewells had been said and there was nothing more that anyone could add.
“I said it back at the post some weeks ago,” Caleb said, breaking the silence after a few miles, “and I’ll say it again. I got me a bad feelin’ about that train.”
“We done all we could do to talk them out of goin’,” Windy replied. “I ain’t gonna feel bad about it.”
But he did. They all did. Grown up men like Miles Cason and George Martin going into the wilderness was one thing (George and Miles had been persuaded to join the train and press westward toward the Pacific) – they were men and could make choices, whether they be right or wrong. A woman usually followed her man. But little kids had no say about it at all.
Of late, the mountain men had buried entirely too many people who sought a new land and new life. And it did weigh heavily on their minds.
When they made camp that evening, the men were not in their usual joking and kidding mood. They all sat silent and reflective around a slowly dying fire, chewing on rabbit meat and drinking coffee.
“Feels like I’m at a funeral,” Rimrock finally said.
“The only funeral I’m lookin’ forward to attendin’ is the plantin’ of the Pardees and Red Hand,” Preacher said.
Caleb tossed a stick on the fire. “It ain’t that we’re so damn busy doin’ other more important things.”
“What are you talkin’ about?” Preacher glanced up.
“I know,” Windy said. “And that ain’t the point, Caleb. Point is, they was told that goin’ on was crazy.” He tossed the dredges of his coffee into the brush behind him. “Aw, hell! Them movers don’t have to know that we’re even about.”
“I ain’t gonna be about,” Preacher said, catching on.
“I ain’t neither,” Rimrock said. He poured another cup of the coffee. Black as sin and twice as hot.
“Speak for yourself,” Windy told his friend.
“What say you, Preacher?” Rimrock asked. “You changed your mind about the movers?”
“No,” Preacher told him. “If a big enough band hit the train, either stretched out or circled, four more guns won’t make no difference.”
That the four mountain men were able to stay together this long was nothing short of a miracle, for the mountain man was by nature a solitary creature, and few of them made lasting bonds with others of their kind. Only a few, like Rimrock and Windy, ever rode together on a full-time basis, and even they split up from time to time.
But as their way of life came closer to an end, and it would end almost abruptly, some mountain men looked up others of their kind and in twos and threes they wandered the High Lonesome until their deaths, finally wandering onto the pages of history and into oblivion.
“I think come the mornin’, I’ll just ride back to that train and tag along,” Caleb said. “Food’s good.”
“I’m with you,” Windy said firmly, surprising his longtime partner, Rimrock.
Rimrock stared at his small friend for a moment and then smiled. “You never did have no sense, Windy. But I wish you well anyways. Me, I’m for ridin’ up toward Canada.” He stretched out on his robe. “I ain’t been up there in a while. It’s nice up there this time of year.”
“How ’bout you, Preacher?” Caleb asked.
“I ain’t made up my mind yet,” he replied glumly. Which was a lie, but what he had in mind he wanted to do alone. “I reckon whichever way the wind is puffin’ in the mornin’, that’s the way I’ll go.”
Since it was dead flat calm when the dawnin
g broke, Preacher lingered long by the fire, drinking coffee and watching his friends ride off. There was little conversation. Caleb and Windy rode toward the wagon train, Rimrock headed north. Windy and Rimrock would probably hook up again, but out here, you just never did know. They’d gone their separate ways before, but never for very long at a time.
As Preacher sat alone by the quiet fire, in the silent camp in the wilderness, the thought entered his mind that with furrin’ all but gone, he didn’t have the faintest idea what he was going to do for a living. He didn’t know anything but the Big Empty. Couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. He sat by the fire until it had burned down to coals. He watched an eagle soar high above him and listened to the birds sing and the squirrels play and chatter. Then he smiled.
He knew how the Indians felt. He could understand it. All this magnificence was his and all this was theirs. Nobody liked to see a way of life come to an end. Preacher had read somewhere that all things change ... or something like that. And that to fight against change was useless.
Maybe so, he thought with a sigh.
Right now, shut of his friends, Preacher could more easily take the fight to the Pardees. For this was the way he liked it – alone.
* * *
The wagon train prodded on westward and Preacher hunted for the Pardee gang in the high country. They’d had time to run back there after the Wind River ambush fell through. So they lived in caves. That was well and good, but they had to come out of those caves, and whenever they did, they would leave tracks. More than that, they had to have a trail to follow in and out. Or they made one when they decided to make the caves their hideout. If there was a trail, Preacher would find it. He hadn’t yet seen a river he couldn’t cross, a range he couldn’t find a way through, or a horse he couldn’t ride. Preacher would find the Pardees.
* * *
“Preacher just don’t give up,” Radborne Pardee told his older brother. “We been hearin’ stories ’bout Preacher ever since we come into these damn mountains. I hate him. He shore messed up a good thing back yonder on the Wind.”
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