Blood on the Divide

by William W. Johnstone

  Preacher lifted the reins and cut east of the trio, following the Columbia south toward the mission.

  Son, Dirk, and the Pardees had fared much better than their men ... in a manner of speaking. They had come up on a band of friendly Yakima Indians, men and women who were moving to winter campsites, and brutally murdered them all, taking their horses and robes. The outlaws had their way with the women, and then strangled them. Preacher came upon the awful sight just as another band of Yakima warriors reached the site.

  It got real chancy there for a few moments.

  “I’m trailin’ the men who done this,” Preacher told the war chief. “But if you find them ’fore I do, you’re welcome to them.”

  The Yakima looked at Preacher through steely eyes. Preacher was known to his people as a fair man who loved the land and coveted no Indian territory for his own. The war chief slowly nodded his head. “You have names?”

  “The Pardee brothers, a man called Son, and an Englishman named Dirk. Dirk ran a trading post north of here.”

  “I know the men. They are evil.”

  A young brave said something and the war chief shook his head. He looked at Preacher. “Leave now, Preacher. We must bury our own.”

  Preacher left without another word. The Yakimas were killing mad and some of the younger braves looked like they’d as soon kill him as anyone else. He resisted an urge to glance over his shoulder, knowing that would be considered a sign of weakness on his part. He began to breathe easier a couple of miles later.

  He couldn’t figure out where the gang was heading. It looked like they might be going into the Rattlesnake Range or the Horse Heaven Hills; but he had serious doubts about that. That was rough country, and as far as he knew, they wasn’t a livin’ soul down there. Then their trail cut due west and Preacher knew they were heading for Fort Vancouver, which some folks was already calling the New York of the Pacific. A regular little city it was, by western standards. Preacher figured they’d waylay some trappers or movers, steal their clothing to get duded up better, and then travel on to the fort.

  Preacher swung down from the saddle and built a hat-sized fire for coffee while he ruminated some.

  Snow had dusted the land again, thicker and heavier, and the nights were turning bitterly cold. His horses were rough looking in their winter coats and Preacher knew he was rough looking ... and rough smelling, too. He hadn’t shaved in several weeks and he’d been in his clothing for longer than that.

  He drank his coffee and made up his mind. He’d head for the mission to see about the movers. He’d catch up with the Pardees and their ilk sooner or later. But for now, he’d be content with the knowledge that he’d pretty much pulled their stingers out. Come the spring, he’d start tracking again.

  * * *

  What was left of the gang had found several old abandoned Indian winter homes: semiunderground earth houses that many of the Northwest tribes used during the harsh winter season. Along the way, they had killed any trapper they found and seized the supplies, including precious powder and shot and coffee. Their existence this winter would be bleak, but they would make it. At least, they figured, they had succeeded in shaking Preacher off their trail.

  Malachi had set Ansel’s busted jaw and tied a rag around his head to immobilize it. But the jaw was healing crooked and the blow to the head had addled Ansel even more. Now he was just plain crazy as a bessy bug. He had trouble speaking and hardly anyone could understand a word he tried to say.

  Dirk had fallen sullen and silent; he stayed alone and contented himself with cursing Preacher. He did not think he had ever despised a man as much as he did Preacher.

  Son passed the long days and bitter nights by dreaming of torturing and killing Preacher in all sorts of ways.

  Malachi would look at what remained of the family and shake his head in sorrow.

  Edward Sutherlin and his party had made the fort on the Laramie River and settled in to winter there. Along the way he had picked up four more toughs and come the spring he would make his move to settle Preacher’s hash.

  On a bitterly cold early winter’s day, Preacher rode onto the grounds of the Whitman Mission.

  “Ol’ hoss,” Caleb told him, “you look as mangy as a bear come out of hibernation.”

  “Feel like it, too,” Preacher said, climbing wearily out of the saddle and handing the reins to a mover boy. “I got fleas and ticks and spiders and mites all over me. Is there a place to take a bath?”

  “We built us a cabin,” Windy said. “Come on. It’s snug.”

  “Get me over there ’fore Betina sees me,” Preacher replied, looking all around him.

  “She’s with Miss Narcissa,” Rimrock said. “They’s ed-ecatin’ the Injun children.”

  “Good. Maybe she’ll leave me be then. Stoke up the fire and heat the water. I got things crawlin’ on me!”

  * * *

  Preacher took two baths before he felt clean. Carl Lippett came over to say hello, took one look at what was going on, and hit the air, saying he was going out for game. He’d be back when all that damn hot water and soap was gone.

  Preacher trimmed his beard but left the face hair on as some protection against the cold. He’d shave come the spring. Then he walked over to the community building to see if he could bum something to eat. The movers had done themselves up right proud in the getting ready for winter. They’d built log floors under the beds of the wagons for more room and secured the sides with canvas and what lumber they could mill. When the Cayuses had learned the movers were not going to stay on permanently, they helped the movers get ready for winter. All in all, it was a fairly snug camp. But they would suffer come the long months of winter, Preacher had no illusions about that.

  Betina was rather stiff and formal when she saw Preacher, which was fine with him. He didn’t want to hurt her feelin’s no more than he already had, but his life had no room in it for a female ... especially an eastern female with settlin’ down on the brain. Maybe she was finally gettin’ that through her head. Preacher hoped so.

  “Was your mission successful, Preacher?” Betina asked coolly, after introducing him to Narcissa Whitman.

  “I reckon you’d call it that. I killed ten or twelve of them.”

  “Ten or twelve of what, Mr., ah, Preacher?” Narcissa asked.

  “Men. You got anything to eat?”

  “Men!” Narcissa cried, horrified.

  “Sorry lot they was, too. World’s better off without them. Is that stew over yonder?”

  “I’ll pray for you, sir,” Narcissa said.

  “Thanks. I probably need it.” Preacher walked over to the fireplace and ladled out a heaping plate of stew from the big blackened iron pot. He grabbed up a fresh loaf of bread and fell to eating.

  “Did they receive a proper burial?” one of the mission’s helpers asked.

  “Buzzards seen to that,” Preacher said.

  “My word!” the missionary said.

  “They was gonna hit the wagon train come this spring,” Preacher explained. “Kill all the men, violate the women and girls, and sell the youngsters into slavery and bondage and whorin’. They wasn’t very nice people.”

  “We must bring law and order to this land,” the missionary said.

  “In about fifty years, maybe,” Preacher said, after swallowing a mouthful of stew. It needed salt but he wasn’t going to complain.

  Miles Cason and George Martin came in, and Miles went immediately to Betina’s side. Preacher noticed that and hid a smile.

  “Did you track down those miserable excuses for men, Preacher?” George asked.

  “That I did. Two or three Pardees got clear of me, and I think Son and Dirk did too. But I left them terrible short of a gang. What I didn’t get a band of Shoshonis did.” He looked over at Miles. “You two sparkin’, I see.”

  “Sir!” Miles protested, as Betina flushed and fanned herself vigorously with a little hankie.

  “Ain’t nothin’ to get all worked up about. You
two make a mighty handsome couple. Hee, hee, hee!” he chuckled at their red-faced expressions.

  “We must get back to work, Betina,” Narcissa said, smoothly getting her off the hook.

  “Yes, quite,” Betina said, and the two women left the room.

  Preacher finished his stew, sopped out the plate with a hunk of bread, then refilled his coffee cup. “Place looks pretty good,” he remarked. “Y’all done a bang-up job in gettin’ ready for the winter.”

  “Thank you,” Miles said. “Might I have a word with you, Preacher?”

  “Have two or three. They’re free.”

  George and the missionary left the room and Miles sat down at the long table. “Betina and I have been taking a more than casual interest in one another, Preacher.”

  “Thought so. Good. Y’all get married and have babies. I give you my blessin’.”

  “You’re not upset?”

  “Hell no!”

  “Her feelings toward the young man back East have faded considerably.”

  “He’s there and she’s here. ’Sides, she showed more nerve than him in comin’ out here. Pioneer stock needs to breed together. Is George sparkin’ Coretine?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then it ’pears to me that everything is gonna work out all right, ain’t it?”

  Miles fiddled with his coffee cup for a moment. “I was on a fool’s mission in my quest for gold. Those ideas are gone. Betina and I have agreed that we shall push on come the spring and settle in the new land and farm.”

  “Regular city over ’crost the Cascades now. Y’all will do well.”

  “And your plans, Preacher?”

  Preacher smiled at the younger man. “You don’t want me around here, do you, Miles?”

  “I ... I don’t know, Preacher. Part of me does. We all owe you our lives. I can’t – won’t – forget all that you and the other mountain men have done for us, and are continuing to do for us. We all feel somewhat sorry for you men.”

  Preacher looked at the man, amazement in his expression. “You feel sorry for us? Lord God, man, why?”

  “What will you do when this area is settled, Preacher? Any of you?”

  “Boy, that’s years down the trail. This land will be wild and woolly and full of fleas for another fifty years ... maybe longer than that. Right now they’s more outlaws and brigands and highwaymen in this country than pilgrims. Maybe ten to one. And the Injuns ain’t even yet begun to fight you people for real. They can’t understand that the white man is gonna pour into this country by the thousands. Right now, it’s just a trickle. It’ll soon turn into a ragin’ river of people. That’s when your troubles will really begin. Outlaws will pour in here, wantin’ something for nothin’ like outlaws always do, whole Injun tribes will go on the warpath, killin’ and scalpin’. That’s when people like you will start hollerin’ for people like me to help pull your bacon out of the fire. So don’t you be feelin’ sorry for me. That makes me laugh.”

  “The Army will be in to protect us,” Miles rebutted.

  “Not for years, boy. This is disputed territory. You got British and French and Americans all squabblin’ over this country. They’ll get it settled someday. Until then, it’s ever’ man for himself ’cause there ain’t no law west of the Missouri ’ceptin’ the gun and the knife and the bow and the war axe. You best be mindful of that at all times.”

  “I am much more optimistic than you.”

  Preacher nodded his head and drained his coffee cup. He glanced out the window ... a real window with glass and all. It was snowing again. Big, thick, wet flakes. He wondered briefly where the Pardees and Son and Dirk had holed up for the winter. He wondered, should he stay here or hunt him up a cabin for the cold season? Or mayhaps ride over the mountains and hole up with some trappers over to the Hudson’s Bay post? One thing for sure, Miles and Betina didn’t want him around, and he didn’t blame either of them for that. Betina knew she had made a fool of herself earlier and that stuck in her craw.

  “You folks set up huntin’ parties, Miles?”

  “Yes,” he said shortly.

  “I seen where you been draggin’ in wood and stackin’ it around. That’s good.” When Miles did not respond, Preacher stood up and said, “I reckon I’ll ride.” He walked out of the community building without another word.

  SEVEN

  “They don’t want me here, Rim,” Preacher said, saddling up. “It don’t sadden me none ’cause I understand it. You boys stick around and see these pilgrims through the winter if you’re a mind to. Grub’s pretty good, if a body can put up with all the gospel shoutin’. I’m gonna ride a ways and find me a good camp and then ponder for a time how come it is I keep gettin’ myself in these situations.”

  Hammer was tired, but he was, as usual, ready for the trail. Preacher rode out within the hour and headed for the Blue Mountains. He knew he wouldn’t near ’bouts make them, but he knew of a little place about ten miles from the mission that was out of the wind and near a creek. He made it before dark and picketed his horses in a protected area with some graze left and set about making his lonely camp. He rigged him a lean-to in front of a boulder so the stone would reflect the heat from the fire back into his open-front shelter. He gathered up wood to last several days and stacked it close. Then he fixed him something to eat and put water on for coffee.

  People sure were funny, he thought. Hard to figure them out. When a body thinks he’s doin’ right, turns out he’s doin’ wrong. Strange. He give his blessin’ to Betina and Miles, and still they got all swole up about him being in the mission proper.

  Hell with them.

  Preacher lay about the camp for two days and finally got restless and saddled up. Hammer was snortin’ and pawin’, ready for the trail. Preacher then began a lonely odyssey across the southern part of what would someday be called Wyoming. He camped very near the spot that would someday become Fort Bridger. Only a few years in the future, Bridger and Vasquez would build a trading post on almost the exact spot where Preacher now sat before his small fire, pondering the fates that had led him to this desolate spot. But Preacher wasn’t going to ponder long, for action seemed to find the man. In this case, in the form of two Arapaho Indians who were wandering and saw the fire. Preacher knew they were there, but he made no move toward his Hawken. Just kept it very close.

  “Shore is gettin’ tiresome talkin’ to myself,” he said, raising his voice to be heard. “I’d be pleased to talk to someone. Even two mangy Arapaho called Kicking Bear and Runs Fast.”

  Both the braves laughed and rode into the camp. “We thought it was you, Preacher. But we couldn’t be sure. We have fresh buffalo hump if you have coffee.”

  “Gather ’round, pull up a rock, and sit. We’ll eat and talk.”

  “It is good to see you, Preacher,” Kicking Bear said, pouring a cup of coffee. “In more ways than one. But we bring trouble to you.”

  “My middle name. What’s the matter?”

  “A band of war-painted Pawnee trails us.” There was a definite twinkle of high humor in his eyes. “But since we know how Preacher loves the Pawnee, perhaps we should ride on. Preacher might not want to bring harm to his favorite people.”

  Preacher looked at the man and smiled. “Oh, yeah. Them’s my favorite, all right. I been stuck with several arrows over the years, all of them Pawnee. How many and how far away?”

  “Ten or twelve. Perhaps they will hit us at first light.”

  Preacher took note that both Arapaho were carrying new Hawken rifles in addition to bows and quivers of arrows. He did not ask where they got the guns, the powder horns, or the shot. “We’ll eat and then move over yonder in them rocks. A trickle of water flows through there and they’s some graze for the horses. Pawnees are a little out of their territory, ain’t they?”

  “They are mostly young men, hunting scalps to impress the girls,” Runs Fast said, fitting hunks of meat on sticks. “They will be mostly dead when they find us, I am thinking,” he added very dryly.r />
  “They are also ugly,” Kicking Bear added. “They paint themselves and make them even more ugly.” He spat on the ground. “They look like something out of a nightmare. I hate the Pawnee.”

  The men ate their fill and more, belched loudly, then drank two pots of coffee. Preacher took out tobacco and they smoked and were content for a time. The fire was warm, the late afternoon still peaceful and safe, for the birds were singing and the little animals playing.

  “White men from the East are wintering on the Laramie River,” Kicking Bear said. “They have plans to come west in the spring.” He smoked for a time and Preacher waited. “The leader of the group is the man who has an alliance with the renegade, Red Hand.”

  “Sutherlin,” Preacher said.

  “That is the name, I believe. But since the names of white men are so strange and one must twist his mouth all out of shape and almost swallow his tongue to speak them, I cannot be sure. But I believe that is the person.”

  “I kilt most of the Pardee gang and Son’s bunch up north and west of here.”

  “So we heard. It is a good thing you did. They were bad people.”

  “How many men does Sutherlin have with him?”

  “Ten or twelve, at least.”

  Preacher did not ask how Kicking Bear and Runs Fast knew all this. The Indians had a grapevine that was both astonishing and very fast and accurate. When around whites, Indians usually said little and listened intently. The language of the Plains Indians varied with each tribe, but most Indians were multilingual and all could communicate thousands of words and thoughts with a few hundred signals by hand. The Arapaho were friends of nearly everyone – when convenient – but most did not like the Pawnee. Their sign for the Pawnee was the first two fingers of either hand held up in a V. No one knew why, it just was.

  Preacher cocked an ear and listened. The birds were gone and the woods animals had ceased their playing. “I think we best head for them rocks. I don’t think the Pawnee are gonna wait for dawn to hit us.”