Blood on the Divide

by William W. Johnstone

  In two minutes flat, Preacher and the Arapaho were in the rocks and taking up positions.

  Then, from all around their stone fort, came hoots of derision and taunting catcalls. “Arapaho shit!” a Pawnee called out. “You will not die well, I am thinking.”

  “You are incapable of thinking,” Kicking Bear shouted. “Your mother was a buzzard and your father was a skunk.”

  The Arapaho warriors shouted insults for a time, and then fell silent.

  “They got their courage worked up now,” Preacher remarked. “They been slippin’ all around us for a few minutes. They’ll be comin’ at us pretty quick now.”

  No sooner had the words left his mouth when the Pawnee braves rushed the rocks, screaming war cries. Preacher blew a hole in one’s chest with his Hawken, picked up his other Hawken, and almost blew the head off another. He jerked out one brace of pistols just as the charge broke off. Preacher and the two Arapaho had done some fearsome damage to the young Pawnee warriors. Six of them lay dead or dying around the rocks.

  “They will quit now,” Runs Fast said as he reloaded. “We have wiped out half of their band. Their medicine is no good.”

  The sounds of ponies galloping away reached them and Kicking Bear snorted in disgust. “They leave their dead behind. Filthy cowards.”

  Kicking Bear and Runs Fast took out their knives and went to work. First they scalped the dead, then cut off their hands, took out their eyes, and cut off their genitals. Now, in the World That Came After, the dead would not be able to see their way, find their enemies, or breed young to carry on the fight. Preacher watched them dispassionately. Unlike the missionaries, he seldom tried to change the Indians way of thinking or questioned their customs. He figured it just wasn’t none of his damn business.

  Which was one of the reasons he got along so well with most tribes.

  When Runs Fast and Kicking Bear had finished, they held up their bloody trophies, grinned, and waved goodbye to Preacher. Preacher returned the smile, made the sign of thanks and farewell, and the two Arapaho rode off. Preacher packed up and got the hell gone from there.

  Preacher found the trail of the Arapaho, followed it for a time to make sure they were not going to circle around back, and then cut north for a time. He wasn’t in any hurry; had no place really to go and no timetable set for him. He wanted to meet up with this Sutherlin person, but didn’t want to ride right into the post and start opening up. Also, one of the dead outlaws he’d left back on the trail had had him two pistols that Preacher had coveted something fierce almost immediately. Preacher had just now remembered that he’d picked up the broken guns and stashed them in his supplies. He wanted to find him a spot where he could work on the things.

  The next afternoon, he made camp early and dug out the pistols. The pistols were complicated-looking things, each one of them having four barrels, over and under. He repaired the bullet-shattered butt of one with the brass butt plate from a spare of his own, then replaced the bent hammers on the second one with hammers taken from other spares he’d picked up from the dead and dying. They were the same caliber as his Hawken, so he loaded them up and taken them out to test-fire them. They were of a slightly shorter barrel than his other pistols, but gave him eight times the firepower. Once he got the hang of them, he was pleased, mighty pleased. Chuckling, he double-shotted two of the four barrels on each pistols and set about making holsters for them from a skin. Once that was done, he fashioned the holsters to his wide leather belt and went down to the creek to take a look at himself. He sure hadn’t ever seen nothing like the image that reflected back up at him.

  He looked like a ... come to think of it, he didn’t know what the hell he looked like. Then he taken rawhide thongs, punched a hole in the bottom of each holster, and tied the holsters to his legs so’s they wouldn’t flop around so much.

  Then he decided he’d see how fast he could get them out of the holsters and cock and fire them. First time he tried it he damned near blowed his foot off. Then he decided he’d try it with the pistols empty. He spent a week in his camp, practicing several hours each day. Each hour he got faster and more accurate.

  “By God,” he said to the cold winds. “I just might have me somethin’ here. I don’t know perxactly what, but it’s something mighty important, I believe.”

  Only problem was, when he mounted up to do a little scouting around the camp, the damn pistols fell out of the holsters. Preacher sat down on a log and done a little head ruminatin’. Then he taken some rawhide and fashioned some thongs at the top of each holster to loop over one hammer and that done the trick. To get in the habit, every time he dismounted, he slipped the thongs off the hammers to free his guns. Soon doing that became second nature to him.

  Preacher would go down in history as being the first to do many things. Some had him as the first mountain man, but that was a lie. They was a lot of white men out in the wilderness long ’fore Preacher got there. What he didn’t know, had no way of knowing, was that he would go down in history as being the first gunfighter to use the quick draw.

  Preacher finally saddled up and packed up and pulled out, heading for the post on the Laramie in a roundabout way. Along the way, he met up with a disreputable-looking old reprobate of a mountain man called Natchez.

  Natchez took one look at Preacher’s rig slung around his lean waist and said, “What in the billy-hell has you got strapped around you, Preacher?”

  “You know me, Natch. I’m always comin’ up with something different.”

  “Looks plumb awkward to me. You be careful and don’t get yourself kilt with them fool things.”

  “You been over yonder on the Laramie?”

  “For a fact, I have. Man from back East is there, and a mighty quiet and secretive man he is, I say. He’s got him ten or twelve brigands with him and they’s tough enough, I reckon.” The old man smiled. “Tough back East, that is. Out here, I ’spect they’ll have to prove their mettle.”

  “This quiet man’s name wouldn’t be Sutherlin, would it now?”

  “It would for a fact. You a friend of hisn?”

  “No. Some Arapaho told me ’bout him back west of here a couple of weeks ago. I was also told he was up to no good.”

  “I don’t take to him, for a fact. He’s a tad on the sneaky side for me. Don’t care for the look in his eyes. When he does bump his gums, you can tell he’s a man with book larnin’, but he talks down to people. I knowed if I stayed ’round there much longer I might have to shoot him.”

  “I do know the feelin’.”

  Natchez looked at the big four-barreled pistols slung in leather around Preacher’s waist and shook his head. “Never seen nothin’ like that in all my borned days. See you around, Preacher.”

  Preacher lifted a hand in farewell and the two men rode their separate ways. In the Ferris Mountains, Preacher found a cabin that had been built years back by a friend of his – long dead – and since the weather had turned bad, he decided to hole up for a time.

  He cleaned out the sooted-up chimney and laid in wood and mudded up the chinks between the logs, making the cabin snug. He killed two deer and skinned and dressed them out, hanging the meat high from a limb. In a few hours the meat was froze solid. Preacher started work on the skins, for he needed new high-top moccasins and a shirt.

  For a month he saw no sign of a human being and he was content. He killed several more deer, and when he was ready to leave the snug cabin, he was dressed in new buckskins from neck to feet. He had cut his hair and trimmed his beard close. He had practiced at least one hour a day, and had become incredibly fast and deadly accurate with his awesome pistols with the complicated hammer systems and four barrels each. He had taken skins and hardened them, making better holsters for his guns.

  He wondered occasionally how the folks were getting on back at the mission during this hard winter... but he didn’t dwell on it long. He knew that Windy and Rimrock and Caleb would not leave them in the lurch. And even if the mountain men did leave the m
ission to go their own way – they certainly were under no obligation to stay – the movers would make it; if they didn’t, then to Preacher’s way of thinking, they should have stayed to home.

  Preacher wanted to have done with Sutherlin by early spring, for that would give him several weeks to get back to the mission area to deal with what was left of the Pardees and their kind. Then he was through with movers and their damn wagon trains. He was going to head for the Southern Rockies; maybe go down on the Blue and get the hell away from wagon trains and movers and crazy women.

  He got Hammer out of the little shelter and the big horse bucked and jumped and snorted and kicked and told Preacher in his own way that he was tired of being cooped up and let’s get on the trail.

  The day was pleasant, the sun warm and the snow melting – it would snow again, for winter was not over by a long shot – but the brief respite felt good. Preacher saddled up and pulled out.

  “I’m gonna help these movers one more time, Sutherlin,” he said to the warm winds as he headed east. “Then it’s back to the mission, bury the Pardees, and I’m gone to the Big Lonesome down south.”

  Hammer shook his head and pranced in anticipation.

  EIGHT

  Preacher rode easy but in a distance-covering gait. He crossed the Shirley Mountains without incident and then got caught up in a blizzard near the southern curve of the North Laramie River. He forted up as best he could and he and Hammer and the packhorse sat it out. Finally the weather broke, the sun came out, the snows began to melt, and Preacher pushed on, reaching the post just as the first tentative touches of false spring were trying to shove winter aside.

  He hadn’t seen so damn many people all gathered together in years.

  Indian tipis had been put up all around the post. Wagons were scattered here and there. A new corral had been built to handle the livestock and the post itself had been enlarged. Preacher sat his horse and stared in amazement.

  “The push is on, Hammer,” he said to his horse. “By May they’ll be pilgrims all over the damn place. But if we have any luck a-tall, we’ll be south of all this mess and bother. Let’s go, Hammer, they’s a whole feedbag of grain waitin’ for you and my good packhorse.”

  Preacher wound his way through the tipis and movers’ tents and wagons and what have you, and rode into the post. He stabled his horses and gave the boy a coin to rub them down good and grain them. He saw no one he knew and no one called out his name. Which was just fine with Preacher. He found him something to eat and then went to the store, which had a room that served as a saloon of sorts. Preacher got him a cup of whiskey and found a seat at a table in a darkened corner of the room. He figured that sooner or later Sutherlin would show up ... and Preacher was a patient man.

  After a time several men – eastern men, by their appearance – strolled in and bought them a jug. They were rough looking and heavily armed. The three men tried to peer through the gloom to see who it was sitting alone at the corner table, but finally gave up and contented themselves with talking in low murmurs, occasionally glancing toward Preacher.

  “You there!” one of them called sharply and in a tone that rankled Preacher. “I ain’t seen you around here ’fore.”

  “I got caught up in a blizzard west of here and it blowed me and my horses all the way over here. That was some wind, let me tell you. But it set us down gentle like about a mile from the post. Does that satisfy you?”

  The burly, unwashed, and stinking lout stared at Preacher for a moment. “Were you borned with a smart-aleck mouth or did you come into it as you got butt-uglier over the years?”

  Preacher smiled at the man. “You callin’ me ugly is like a frog callin’ a buzzard ugly. I bet your mamma had to tie some fatback around your neck to get the dogs to play with you.”

  The lout narrowed his eyes and sat his cup of whiskey down and stood up.

  “That’s Preacher,” a man spoke from the archway leading from the store into the bar.

  The burly man smiled, exposing a mouthful of bad teeth. “The famous Preacher, hey? I heared an awful lot about you, Preacher. Some folks has you meaner than a bear and quick as a panther and all man. But lookin’ at you, I can see they was all lies. I think I’ll just break you in two.”

  “It’s been tried,” Preacher said, then took a sip of his whiskey. He set the cup down on the table. “More’n oncest.” He cut his eyes to the archway. A mountain man name of John Morris stood there. “John. You know this loudmouth?”

  “I seen him around. He’s a trouble hunter.”

  “He’s found it,” Preacher said quietly.

  “Not in here, Preacher,” the sutler said, stepping up to the archway.

  “I come in here for a quiet drink,” Preacher told him. “You know me, Hector. I ain’t never started no trouble in your place. But I ain’t takin’ water from this ugly bastard.”

  “Sit down, Talbot,” one of his friends urged him.

  But Talbot wasn’t having any of that. “You callin’ me a bastard, Preacher?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll break you in half.”

  “You ain’t done nothin’ yet ’ceptin’ run your mouth.”

  “Your employer will certainly pay for the damages,” Hector stated. “Or you all shall be barred from the post, and from any other post from here to the Oregon coast.”

  “I’ll pay.” Another voice was added.

  Preacher looked over at the man. A cruel-faced man with little piggy eyes. But a massive brute of a man nonetheless. He stood well over six feet and weighed probably two hundred and thirty pounds. He had the look of a man who had fought some for money. Big hamlike hands and huge wrists. One ear was slightly cauliflowered and his nose had been busted a time or two. Scar tissue over his eyes. Had to be Sutherlin. His clothing was either hand sewn or store-bought and tailored and very neat for the frontier.

  Preacher had not risen from his chair. He drained his cup of whiskey and carefully placed the cup on the rough boards of the table.

  “Fancy-pants,” he said to Sutherlin, “you bes’ tell your pet dog here to sit down and stop his barkin’. I just might decide to kill him.”

  “My name is Sutherlin. Mister Sutherlin, to you.”

  John Morris laughed at that and Sutherlin flushed under his clean-shaven face.

  “Your name might be Sutherlin,” Preacher said. “But it’ll be a cold day in hell ’fore I call the likes of you mister.”

  Sutherlin’s flush deepened and Talbot took a step toward Preacher, his hands balled into fists.

  “I’ll keep the others off of you, Preacher,” John said, and pulled out two pistols.

  “How do you want this, Talbot?” Preacher asked him. “Knives, fists, or guns?”

  “Guns, Talbot. Let’s be rid of him now.”

  Preacher stood up and all stared in confusion at the rig that hung around his waist.

  “Guns it’ll be,” Preacher said. “Pull when you’ve a mind to, Talbot.”

  “We’ll have a proper duel with seconds,” Sutherlin said.

  Preacher laughed at him. “This ain’t New York, Sutherlin. You can forget all them e-laborate goin’son. We like things simple out here. Now shut your flap and stand aside.” He cut his eyes to Talbot. “Jerk and fire, you son of a bitch.”

  Talbot’s hand flew to the butt of his pistol and that was as far as he got. Preacher pulled, cocked, and fired. One ball struck Talbot in the chest and the second ball tore a great, gaping hole in his throat. The thug was flung backward and died with his butt on the floor and his back to a wall. His pistol was still behind his belt.

  Preacher holstered the awesome pistol and sat down in his chair.

  “Damnest thing I ever seen,” John Morris said. “I do believe you on to something, Preacher.”

  Sutherlin was visibly shaken by what had happened. His broad face was pale and his mouth was hanging open. While dueling was outlawed in most areas of the country, it was still practiced in secrecy in many areas. But no one
had ever perfected the art of quick drawing, until now.

  “Foul, I say.” Sutherlin had found his voice. “That was not at all fair play.”

  “Gimme another drink of whiskey,” Preacher said, tapping his cup on the table. “Shootin’ makes me thirsty.”

  The men with Talbot had not moved, so shocked were they at the sudden events.

  Hector brought a jug to Preacher’s table and quickly backed away. Behind the plank bar, he pointed to the dead man. “Get him out of here and do it right now.”

  Sutherlin waved a hand at his men and they dragged the lifeless body of Talbot out of the room. He looked at Preacher. “We shall meet again.”

  “I’m countin’ on it, fancy-pants,” Preacher said, pouring a cup of whiskey.

  Edward Sutherlin stared hard at Preacher, the knowledge hitting him sudden that this rugged-looking and shaggy mountain man knew all about him. But how? No matter. He did. Sutherlin was sure of that. So this much was certain: Preacher had to die, and die quickly. Sutherlin had too much to lose for Preacher to stay alive and talk ... and talk he would, Sutherlin was certain of that.

  Sutherlin stepped from the room and went quickly to his quarters. His men would see to the burying of Talbot. The chief factor came to the saloon to briefly question Preacher and the matter was resolved and forgotten. Life was cheap in the wilderness. Staying alive was a day-to-day struggle that each man met in his own way.

  In his quarters, Sutherlin sat down in a hide chair and pondered the situation. There had been no fear in Preacher – none; he had seen that. The man was totally unimpressed by either Sutherlin or his men. So in Sutherlin’s mind, that made Preacher a fool.

  Sutherlin would have liked to meet with Malachi Pardee and Son, but how? Communications were practically impossible out here in the wilderness, and for some reason as yet unknown to the man, his network of runners and riders had vanished. He did not know that Weasel Tail’s braves had killed some of them and the others had fled for their lives, heading back across the Missouri into the safety of civilization ... such as it was.