“I seen the young girls and boys,” Preacher said, his words hard-edged. “I buried ever’body I found. I reckon they took the girls that was of age. I didn’t see none of them. Do you know what happened to Steals Pony, Snake, and Blackjack?”
“The Delaware and Blackjack were both wounded, I know that much,” Madeline said. “I witnessed that. I don’t know what happened to the old man.”
“You don’t look well, Preacher,” Claire said. “Are you all right?”
“I was shot a couple of times,” Preacher said. “But it ain’t serious. They’re healin’ up proper. I just ain’t got all my strength back yet. It’ll come soon.”
“That’s a terrible gash on your head,” Eudora said, peering at the wound. “But it seems to be healing.”
“I been treatin’ it with poultices. Same with the bullet hole in my side and back. It’s still some sore. But the bleedin’s long stopped and it’s closin’ up. I just need two/three days to take it easy.”
“We can take the time,” Eudora said firmly.
“But the ladies ...” Madeline said.
“What’s happened to them has happened,” Eudora said. “They’re not going to die from being raped.”
“I’d rather die!” Madeline Hornbuckle said, closing her eyes and pressing the back of one hand to her forehead dramatically.
“Then you’re a damn fool,” Eudora told her bluntly. “And I don’t want to hear anymore such talk.” She looked at Preacher. “What are we going to do, Captain?”
“We’re going to attack,” Preacher said.
Preacher moved everyone back close to the trail and then he ate, slept, ate again, then slept again for three days. He knew there was no point in his jumping right out after Bedell when just shoveling a few spades of dirt over the dead had damn near tuckered him out total. While he rested and got his strength back, he had the ladies over at the ambush site going over the weapons he’d took from the dead.
Food was a problem, but it wouldn’t be for long. Just long enough to catch up with the wagons. Bedell and his bunch liked to terrorize people. Preacher would soon see how he liked it when the tables got turned around.
“How about Rupert?” Preacher asked, on the morning they were saddling up to pull out.
“None of us saw him,” Faith said. The city woman had toughened, both mentally and physically. Her face and forearms were tanned now, and while her tongue could still be as sharp as a rapier, she had softened it quite a bit. All the women knew they were in a real pickle; Preacher had laid that out strong to them. There was little joking now. The women and Preacher were quite alone in a vast and terribly inhospitable wilderness . . . as Faith had put it.
“And it’s gonna get vaster, a lot more inhorsetable, and wilder’an hell,” Preacher added.
“Inhospitable,” Faith gently corrected.
“Whatever, Missy.”
In the chilly gray light of morning, Preacher looked at the ladies. They were all dressed in men’s clothing. They had chopped their hair off even shorter than before. Each carried a rifle in one hand and another in a saddle boot. They had pistols hung everywhere and each woman carried two buckled around her waist.
“We got it to do, ladies,” Preacher said, stepping into the saddle. His side and back still bothered him a little, but the head wound was very nearly healed. Neither wound had been serious, just painful. Preacher had been shot before, and knew how fast he would heal. By the time they caught up with the wagons, he’d be 100%. “Let’s ride.”
About six or seven miles from the ambush site, Preacher called a rest period along a little creek shaded by cottonwoods. He’d seen something glittering brightly and wanted to check it out. While the ladies rested, he found the source of the twinkling. Rupert Worthington’s cavalry saber. Had his name engraved right on the blade. He showed it to the women.
“I seen some tracks leadin’ toward that ridge yonder. I’m goin’ on foot. Stay here.”
He found the young lieutenant. He was lying on his belly in a clump of brush just off the crest of the small ridge. He was sound asleep.
Preacher took the officer’s rifle and slipped his pistols from their holsters. Then he squatted down beside the sleeping young man. He tickled his nose with a long stem of grass. Rupert brushed at his nose. Preacher tickled the man’s ear. Rupert grunted and opened one eye. Then both eyes opened wide.
“My God!” Rupert said. Preacher then noticed the front of Rupert’s shirt was covered with dried blood.
“No, it ain’t. It’s just me. You hurt bad, boy?” Preacher looked at the bump on his head and the split skin.
“I thought I was.” Rupert sat up and then noticed that Preacher was holding his rifle and his pistols. “You’re quite the expert at sneaking up on people, Preacher.”
“Tolerable, boy. Tolerable. Are you hurt?”
“Not badly. I thought I was mortally wounded at first. The ball struck a watch I’d been carrying in my shirt pocket. My father gave it to me. I was proud of that watch. I don’t know how I’ll break the news to him ...”
Preacher sighed and waited.
“... Anyway, the shot knocked me off my horse and I struck the back of my head on a rock and fell into unconsciousness. When I awakened, I found that fragments of the watch had penetrated my flesh and the wound had bled quite profusely for a time.”
Preacher looked at the back of the young man’s head. Had him a pretty good bump there, too. “What happened to the front of your noggin?”
“I tried to catch up with a frightened horse and got kicked in the head. I feel like an idiot. When I came out of that, I was discombobulated. I wandered lost for several hours in a daze. I remember I was waving my saber and ranting like a wild man. But I don’t recall ever going to the wagon for my saber. Then my next conscious thought was that I was burning up with fever. I don’t remember coming here. But I lost my saber.”
“I found it. I left it with the ladies down by the crick.”
“The ladies! They’re alive?”
“Seven of ’em with me. The others was took prisoner by Bedell and his trash. A few was killed outright. So was the kids. And your command,” he added as gently as he could.
Rupert put his face in his hands and wept. Preacher couldn’t fault him for that. He’d bawled himself over Hammer.
Whilst the lieutenant was clearin’ his emotions, Preacher looked out over the land. No smoke. No signs of Injuns—not that that meant a whole lot. He stepped to the crest and called down to the ladies.
“Build a fire and boil some water. And save some to clean up Rupert’s wounds. He ain’t hurt terrible bad. We’ll be down directly.”
Preacher knelt down beside the young army man. “It all right to cry, Rupert. Damn people who say a man ain’t ’pposed to weep. Them rotten sons of bitches kilt my good horse Hammer, and I squalled something fierce, I did. So you go right on and get it clear of your system. When you feel up to it, we’ll head on down to the crick and get you tended to. We got spare mounts, so don’t worry about that.”
“You are an understanding man, Preacher.” Rupert blew his nose on a rag.
“I wouldn’t know about that. You ready to head on down to the crick?”
“Yes. I have composed myself.”
The women fussed over Rupert and made a big deal of his wounds, which Preacher considered very minor. But the young officer needed the attention. His morale was very low.
Preacher climbed back up the ridge to keep watch while the women worked on Rupert. He decided to leave the still ill-defined wagon trail and stay to the south of the stolen wagons and kidnapped ladies, who would be following close to the Platte. Preacher had a plan, sort of, but it was a chancy one. He had his bow and quiver of arrows, and planned on some silent killing. He planned to retake the wagons . . . one at a time.
“You can’t be serious, Preacher?” Rupert questioned him as they rode along, heading slightly south for a few miles before cutting west.
“I’m as serious
as death, Rupert. It’s the only way. Once we get twenty or so women freed from them damn trash, we’ll have us a force large enough to mount some sort of attack.”
“But this Bedell person might challenge that by saying if we attack, he’ll start killing the women he still holds.”
“Could be. But do you have a plan that’s better than mine?”
He did not.
“Thought so.”
Rupert looked back at the women, all dressed in men’s britches and riding astride in single file. In just a few short weeks they had undergone a drastic change. They looked . . . he struggled for the right word . . . capable, he finally found what he considered to be an apt description. Their shirts were loose-fitting and their hats floppy. Even at a reasonably close distance, unless one made a very careful inspection, they would pass for men.
“My men, Preacher,” Rupert said. “How did they die? I mean ...”
“I know what you mean. They died like soldiers, boy. They dug in and fought to the finish. When you make your report, you can say that.”
Rupert gave the mountain man an odd look. He shook his head and tried a small smile. “You really believe that we’ll come out of this alive, don’t you?”
“Hell, yes, I do. This time tomorrow, I’ll start cuttin’ down the odds some.”
“Suppose . . . just suppose, that the last wagon is driven by one of the women who was in this with Bedell?”
“What about it?”
“Would you kill her?”
“As fast as I would a man. Trash is trash.”
“I don’t know that I could kill a woman,” the young officer admitted.
“Them whory women who tossed in their lot with Bedell and his scum tortured Anna to death, Rupert. They laughed and helped the trashy bastards to do unnatural things to the boys ’fore they killed ’em. I seen what was left of them young boys. And I ain’t goin’ into no details about it. Use your imagination. Them with Bedell is twisted, boy. In the head. And don’t give me no eastern crap about due process and feelin’ sorry for scum. I don’t want to hear it. And get this straight, Rupert: I ain’t takin’ no prisoners. And I ain’t gonna let a damn one of Bedell’s people reach the coast—male or female. Them sorry white trash killed my friends and killed my good horse, Hammer. This is personal, now. And it ought to be for you, too. They’re cold-blooded murderers all. They killed your command. You better make up your mind whether you’re with me all the way. ’Cause in this situation, halfway won’t do it.”
“Amen to that,” Eudora called, riding just behind the two men. “You just let me get that damn Ruby in gunsights. I’ll gut shoot her so fast it’ll billow your mainsail.”
“My word!” Rupert muttered.
“I want that damn Cindy Lou,” Cornelia Biggers called out. “I never did trust her.”
“I got my mind set on Allene,” Claire said, her words containing a hard, bitter edge. “I saw what she did. I see it every night in my dreams. And I’ll not rest easy until she’s rotting in the grave . . . not that she deserves a grave.”
“Hate is not a good thing,” Rupert said. “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.”
“Stick your platitudes where the sun doesn’t shine,” Faith told him.
That widened Rupert’s eyes. “There is no need to be coarse, Miss Faith.”
“So how do you think you’d like it if one of Bedell’s men bent you over a wagon tongue and sailed up your stern?” Eudora asked him.
Preacher shook his head at the bluntness of the lady’s words. But she was right in saying it.
“My heavens!” Rupert blurted.
“Now you know what they done to some of them young boys, Rupert,” Preacher told him. “So shut up and get your mind set for killin’. We got to be just as cold-blooded and hard as them we fight. If we’re not, then we’ll lose. And that’s all there is to it, boy. That’s the sum total.”
“I think my overall education has been sadly lacking in some respects,” Rupert admitted.
“Before this is all over,” Preacher told him, “I figure you’ll have earned several more diplomas.”
“I’m very afraid you are going to be correct,” Rupert said, his tone quite dry. “Although the subject matter might be a bit suspect.”
“The Army’s liable to make you one of them highfalutin’ generals after all this is over, Rupert.”
“What I’ll probably get is a courts-martial,” Rupert muttered.
“Cheer up, Rupert,” Eudora called. “You can always transfer over to the navy.... After the army lets you out of jail.”
Fourteen
“Just like I figured,” Preacher muttered. He had left the others well-hidden about two miles south while he headed for the Platte. “Stayin’ right on the trail.” He had not been too worried about Bedell putting outriders very far from the wagons. With the supplies on hand, they really didn’t have to hunt, except occasionally, when they wanted a taste of fresh meat.
Preacher waited until the last wagon had passed, then he hightailed it back to the others. “Let’s go, people. This time tomorrow, we’ll have spilled some of their blood . . . for a change,” he added, a grim note to the words.
The party took off, heading west for some ten miles, then cutting straight north. They reached the Platte River—which would later be dubbed as ’too thick to drink and too thin to plow’ by the westward bound flow of settlers—and Preacher selected his ambush site.
He fixed a small fire out of dry, virtually smokeless wood, and venison steaks, but from a deer that Preacher had killed with an arrow that day, were soon cooking.
Rupert watched Preacher carefully going over his arrows. “What in the world are you doing?”
“I got to make the first shot count, boy. I can’t let him or her scream. Gurgle or moan is all right, but screamin’ is definitely out.”
“Where do you plan on shooting the person?”
“Right through the throat. All they can do is moan soft and gurgle some.”
Rupert swallowed hard at just the thought.
“Or,” Preacher said, “I might take a chance and get on the wagon through the rear and cut his throat. Or her throat. Whatever. I’ll just have to see what it looks like. Them steaks is done. Let’s eat.”
Preacher had dug up some tubers and wild onions and with the meat, he considered the meal quite a feast. Most of the others were less than exhilarated over the meal but ate it down without complaint.
“I have seen tubers that weighed as much as thirty pounds,” Preacher said. “That’d feed us all for a week, wouldn’t it?”
“A thirty pound potato?” Rupert asked. “Now, come on, Preacher!”
“Oh, it’s true. Injuns call the tater from the wild: tater vine man of the earth. Staple food for lots of tribes.” Preacher dug in his bag and handed them all what looked like thin dried roots. “After supper, chew some of these. They’re right good.”
“What is it?” Faith eyed the stuff suspiciously.
“Wild licorice. Injuns been dryin’ it and chewin’ it for centuries. That’s where I learned about it. The earth is always pregnant, people. Always. Even under cover of snow, something is growin’. The earth will feed you, if you’ll learn from it and use it proper. In this area where we are, stretching way down into Mexico, is a tuber called hog potatoes. They ain’t the tastiest things I ever put in my mouth, but they’ll keep you alive. They’s all kinds of eatable things all around us. They’s wild cabbages, squashes, and punkins. Injuns use the goosefoot herb in several ways. They can cook it up like greens and grind the seeds into a flour. In the deserts, the Injuns use the pulp of the cholla cactus to make candy and syrup. Hell, I could talk half the night on things to eat that’s growin’ wild right out yonder.” He jerked his thumb. “I’ve eat my weight in pond lily roots and dried ’em and made tasty flour.” He smiled and winked. “But you got to know which pond lily. That there’s the trick. They’s all kinds of plants that’ll kill you deader than hell if you eat ’em raw, b
ut cook ’em up, and they’re lip-smackin’ good. And some of them will kill you deader than hell raw or cooked. Lemmie tell y’all something about the wilderness. It ain’t agin you. It really ain’t. The wilderness is neutral. But if you try to fight it, it’ll kill you. You got to learn to live with it. Now go to sleep. We got some killin’ to do come tomorrow.”
The ambush site was in the eastern bend of a long curve. It was a rocky section of the trail, and the going was tortuously slow. Preacher figured the stock would be driven on ahead and he had figured right, because that’s what he would have done. The man who was driving the last wagon was a hard-faced, sour-looking man, whose face bore several deep scratches. He’d had his way with some woman, but she had damn sure marked him up good ’fore he got her britches off.
Preacher’d left Rupert to guard the women, telling him that he was needed there, and telling him that he was really depending on him. And that he was taking Eudora in case some of the women in the wagon wasn’t in proper dress and needed a woman’s touch.
Rupert bought it. He was really a good lad; Preacher just needed someone with him who would not hesitate to cut a throat if need be. And he knew that Eudora would not hesitate one second.
“You can be diplomatic when you try, Captain,” the tall handsome woman whispered to Preacher as they crouched in the thicket along the river. “That was kind of you to soothe Rupert’s feelings at being left with the women. Even though I know it was a crock of stinking fish.”
Preacher grinned at the woman. They were only a few yards from the trail, if spotted it would almost certainly mean instant death, and the lady could still make small talk as if nothing was wrong. “Just as soon as I let the arrow fly, I’m out of here and on the wagon seat, Eudora. When I signal, you come hoppin’. I figure we got three to four minutes at the most to get it done. We take supplies and any prisoners that might be ridin’ in the wagon bed. They got to think it’s Injuns. You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
When the next to last wagon had rounded the bend and was out of sight, Preacher stood up and let his arrow fly. It was true to the mark. The driver threw up his hands and toppled backward into the covered bed of the wagon. No sound came from the bed, so Preacher figured there were no prisoners there. He leaped from the brush and hopped onto the seat, grabbing up the reins and stopping the wagon. The dying outlaw thrashed and jerked on the floor of the wagon. Preacher paid him no mind. Eudora quickly gathered up sugar, flour, beans, and bacon, while Preacher picked up blankets and coffee and as many other items as he felt he could carry. The outlaw’s horse was tied to the rear and Preacher took the animal, after quickly lashing the supplies to the saddle and behind it. Then he and Eudora were gone, racing back to their hidden horses.
Absaroka Ambush Page 11