Cheyenne Challenge (17 page)

“I will go also,” Falling Horse announced from near the entrance.

Stone Drum turned, looked hard at Falling Horse. “Yes. You will take up the war pipe and lead them, Falling Horse. Let not a white man escape.”

In a flurry of activity, nearly a hundred Cheyenne Dog Soldiers and others who wanted to avenge Little Knife, had gathered food, weapons, and equipment. The feast would be delayed, though the women showed not a sign of disappointment that all their hard work had gone for nothing. They knew that this day it would be they who ate until their bellies swelled like that of a woman with child.

* * *

Silas Phipps came upon a narrow, winding pathway that led off the sorry trace he had been following shortly after their nooning. He called for Peter to halt the front wagon and hold fast. Phipps, a poor excuse for a frontiersman, still had a good sense of direction. He studied the lay of the land and forced his whiskey-dulled mind into activity.

Best he could judge, this could be a shortcut to the pass and that trading post he had heard of. Maybe they should turn off into it? On the other hand, he ruminated, the trail he followed was supposed to be the main fork that led to Trout Crick Pass. Further careful scrutiny revealed what appeared to be recent wheel marks. Someone had taken this way. That decided him, almost more so than the crying need to replenish his whiskey supply.

“We gonna be taking this trail,” he commanded his orphan entourage.

“Aren't we on the right one?” Ruth asked from beside Peter.

“Leave questions like that to your betters, missy,” Phipps snapped. “I say we go on this one, then this is the trail we take.”

Inadvertently, Silas Phipps put his two wagons behind Preacher and the larger train. The youngsters' spirits rose at the awesome beauty of the steep canyon walls. Thickly wooded at the lower levels, a silvery stream, alive with jumping trout beckoned. Peter dreamed idly of better days, long gone by, when he fished from the banks of the Taunton River in Massachusetts. On hot summer days, he and his friends would strip off their clothes and jump into a cool, deep pool formed by a bend in the river. Life had been good then, before his ma and pa had died in a boat wreck during a storm.

Even acidic Silas Phipps mellowed a bit, lulled out of his bad humor by the beauty of their surroundings. Gradually, though, the peacefulness awakened his darkest urges. At day's end, unbeknownst to him, they had come within a morning's journey behind Preacher's pilgrims. Phipps had the itch something powerful after he had eaten and given up his tin plate to be washed by the girls. His watery black eyes searched out the object of his desire and fixed on her. Grunting, he pushed himself to his boots and walked over to Gertha.

He draped an arm around her slender shoulder and spoke disarmingly. “I've sort of taken a fancy to you, Gertha. You know that?” Gertha did not reply, only looked up at Phipps with big, solemn, frightened eyes. “Oh, my, yes. We have those skins the boys trapped to sell at the trading post, and I'm going to buy you something pretty. How about that?” Again, Gertha did not reply. “Yes, well. I want to show you how much I've come to favor you, so I'll expect you at my wagon after the others have been settled down for the night. You won't disappoint me, will you?”

She could but shake her head and dread the night.

17

With the wagons overhauled, the last leg to the trading post went without event. At Preacher's insistence, they resupplied and pushed on. That didn't happen without loud objections from the missionaries. Preacher and Nighthawk traveled ahead. Preacher wanted to get a close look at the valley where he had wintered, to make certain no one else had settled in.

No one had, only the early blossoms in the April warmth. Preacher and Nighthawk split up and went out to hunt for game. He wanted to give the gospel-shouters a headstart on laying in supplies. Plenty of smoked meat would be a sizable contribution. Well he did, for the wagons rolled in four days later.

Dupre, still nursing his shoulder wound, and Beartooth organized the missionary men and supervised while they felled trees to build cabins. Domestic tranquility settled over the valley. It made Preacher uncomfortable. He set off to hunt for more game.

* * *

Preacher leveled the sights of his Hawken on the big bull elk that stood spraddle-legged, its head lowered into the silvery spring to drink. That's it, he thought, right behind the left leg. A gentle squeeze. The big .54 caliber rifle slammed into Preacher's shoulder with a familiar impact. The elk stiffened, all four legs splayed now, then went down. The hooves dug into the ground beneath the dying animal while Preacher approached.

It shuddered its last and went still. A perfect heart shot. Hardly any blood had spilled onto the ground. Preacher's sharp knife opened the veins of the neck and he wiped the blade clean before resheathing it. Then he went for Thunder. It would take the powerful Appaloosa horse to raise the animal for skinning and field dressing.

With that task completed, Preacher buried the offal to keep away scavengers and washed his bloodied arms and hands in the stream. He brought his packhorse and loaded the quarters of elk, wrapped in sections of the hide. Weary from four days of hunting, Preacher decided to head for home, visiting each of his earlier caches along the way, to retrieve the meat waiting there. If Nighthawk had equal luck, he speculated, the pilgrims would not need to hunt again before fall. Plenty of time to build cabins, to shut themselves in from the spectacular summer nights.

“Fool folks,” Preacher grunted to himself. “Winter's the time to be closed in, out of the cold. Anyone knows that.”

Sundown would not be near for another three hours when Preacher rode down a slope into a tiny vale where a camp had been set up. His keen vision picked out five disreputable looking ruffians lounging around a low fire. Two of them looked up incuriously when Preacher had covered about half of the distance to them.

“Hello the camp,” Preacher called to them.

“Howdy, yerself. You be friendly?”

“That I am. Mind if I ride in and set a spell?”

“C'mon. We got coffee.”

“Good. An' I could sure use a sup of Who-Shot-John, if you've got any,” Preacher suggested, curious as to the nature of these strangers.

“Nope. Don't bring whiskey in where there's Injuns about. Makes 'em plumb crazy if they git their hands on it.”

Tight lines around Preacher's eyes relaxed some. Didn't sound like they were tied up with Ezra Pease. He walked Thunder down close to the fire and dismounted. His sweat and blood-stiffened buckskins rustled as he walked to the fire.

Coffee in hand, Preacher cut his eyes from man to man, studying their features. None seemed tensed to spring. The one who had spoken first opened the conversation.

“Name's Clower. Ya been huntin' I see.”

“Yup. Name's Arthur.” For some reason, Preacher's inner caution warned him to use his given name. “Never too early to put away meat for winter.”

“Then yer not jist passin' through?” Frank Clower prompted.

“Tired of roamin',” Preacher kept up the fiction. “Got me a little cabin tucked away a piece from here. I usually go far afield like this so's to keep the game close to home in case of need.”

“Good idee, Art,” Clower said with irritating familiarity.

“You boys trappin'?”

Clower shook his head. “Nope. Jist driftin' through.”

“Picked some pretty country for it,” Preacher observed.

“Right you are.”

Preacher finished his coffee, it tasted like sour mud, and cleaned the cup. Then he turned to walk to Thunder. “Nice jawin' with you gents,” he said over his shoulder before he put his attention to tightening Thunder's cinch strap, which he had loosened when he dismounted.

That's the moment three of them chose to jump him. He caught the movement from the corner of his eye. Preacher swung in time to plant a hard fist flush in the mouth of a small, pinch-faced thug that dumped Preacher's attacker flat on the ground. He put an elbow in the gut of another. Raw whiskey fumes gushed out of a corded throat. Preacher popped him on the side of the head and he dropped like a log. He advanced on the last one. By then the third hard case had his knife out.

“Hey, stupid!” Preacher shouted in the man's suddenly astonished face.

“I ain't stupid,” the riff-raff protested.

“Yes, you are,” Preacher teased.

“Why?”

“You brought a knife ... to a gunfight,” Preacher concluded as he yanked one of his four-shooters and let bang with a double-shotted load.

Cut down like a thin sapling, the vermin fell away in time to reveal Clower and the last man groping for their guns. Preacher waited for the faster of the pair to clear his waistband. Then he sent the ugly sucker off to meet his maker.

Howling, Frank Clower dived off to one side, rolled and came up shooting. A ball whizzed past Preacher's right ear. Preacher replied. His ball also missed. By then one of the buzzards he had punched out roused enough to reach for his pistol. Preacher had stepped away from his animals in the opening round to save the lives of Thunder and the packhorse.

Still groggy, the filth bag fired hastily. It popped through the loose portion of Preacher's coat on the left side. Two holes. Damn, Preacher thought. He quickly educated the lout with a ball to the chest. Then he turned back to Clower in time to see the black hole of a . 60 caliber muzzle pointed directly at his face.

Triumphant, Clower pulled the trigger. The big Hayes misfired. Preacher's four-shooter didn't. One of the balls caught Clower at the base of his throat. The other broke a collarbone and punched through the shoulder blade behind. Clower gurgled as he went slack-kneed and sagged to the ground. His free hand twitched and clawed at his wounds. Then, his eyes glazing, he tried to focus on the big man standing over him.

“Y-you be Preacher, ain't ye?” Clower asked.

“I be.”

“That Arthur thing had me fooled for a moment. Smart, thinkin' it up so quick.”

“Didn't think it up. My ma did.”

“No foolin'?” Clower said through a froth of pink foam.

“Nope.”

“I'll be danged. I'm dyin', right Preacher?”

“You are.”

“Bury me?”

“You work for Pease?”

“Yeah. Though I'm regrettin' it right about now.”

“Then I won't bury you. Not fit for proper puttin' away.”

“You're a hard man, Preacher.”

“I know it. Goodbye, Clower.”

“Oh, God—God, it hurts so much.”

Preacher watched silently until Clower gave up his spirit. Then he collected the weapons, loosely tied the surviving vagabond, and took their horses with him. He'd use them to carry meat back to the valley.

* * *

Preacher sensed their disapproval the moment he rode up to the busy center of activity. All it had taken was for the missionary folk to count the number of horses he led. They didn't give a hoot about the meat he had brought in. They could count, and they knew he had taken only one packhorse with him. As expected, Reverend Thornton Bookworthy expressed their disapproval.

“What happened to the men who owned these horses?” the rotund cleric demanded.

“They sort of suddenly got dead. An' they pro'lly didn't own them. More likely they stole 'em,” Preacher answered him.

Reverend Bookworthy chose not to listen and believe. “That doesn't bother you at all?”

Preacher pulled out his coat to illustrate his point. “Yes, it does. One of them put a couple of holes in a perfectly good coat. They worked for Pease, who—unless you've forgot—is tryin' mighty hard to kill me.”

That registered on the good reverend. “Do ... his men know about this valley?”

“Not likely,” Preacher answered lightly, coming off his prod. “I left one alive and afoot, to carry a message back to Pease. Told him I was comin' after him. Then I rode out, headin' north. By the time that feller gets to the pass and finds another horse, all sign of where I really went will be wiped out.

Bookworthy looked at the string of heavy-laden animals. “We're—ah—appreciative of the meat. The—er—smoke-house was completed in your absence and is already working.”

“Humm,” Preacher responded. “Smoked venison or elk haunch is right tasty. But I'd eat the thinner parts fresh, and right fast.”

Reverend Bookworthy seemed bemused. “Yes—yes. I'll see to it right away.” He wandered off, leaving Preacher with his load of meat.

Only scant minutes passed before men from among the missionaries came to relieve him of his burden. Preacher put Thunder in his private corral, the one he had built for the previous winter, and placed the others in the common pen. A barn had been laid out next to that, and framing for one wall already stood tall, raw and proud.
Civilization,
Preacher thought uncharitably.

His mood improved an hour later when Nighthawk came in with both of his horses complaining under enormous loads. The news the Delaware brought quickly restored Preacher's dark outlook.

“There is a large party of white men to the west. I cut their sign three days ago.” He did not need to mention that as the reason he had come in late.

Preacher spoke through his scowl. “The bunch jumped me worked for Pease.”

Nighthawk raised an eyebrow. “Oh? I won't ask why it is you have a whole skin.”

“Thank you, Nighthawk. But my coat didn't fare near so good. Five of 'em. An' one told me before he expired, that they worked for Pease. Things, they is a heatin' up, ol' hoss.”

“I'm inclined to agree. What do we do about it?” Nighthawk prompted.

“Nothin' for the time bein'. We got these pilgrims to edji-cate,” Preacher said with a snort.

Preacher heard more about his treatment of his would-be murderers after Reverend Bookworthy spread the story through his congregation. Cora Ames and several of the good women of the mission flock came to him to demand if he had provided proper Christian burial.

“What for?” he asked, clearly not understanding the reason for the question.

“I would assume that after brutally murdering five men ... ,” Patience Bookworthy ranted at him.

“Four. It was four men. I left one alive,” Preacher defended himself.

“Four men, then. The least you could have done was to give them proper Christian burial.”

Preacher could not believe what he had heard. “Waall, hell, ma'am, if you'll pardon the language, them fellers had just tried to kill me. Jumped me when my back was turned. Now, do you think that's a proper Christian thing to do? D'you think they had even a speakin' acquaintance with the moral way of doing things? Or that I owed them anything for their efforts?”

Patience must have bitten down on something sour from the look that came on her face. “Oooh, you're an abomination,” she forced out. “You have a way of twisting everything a person says.”

“Not at all, ma'am. Just pointin' out which way the wind blows.”

To his astonishment, Cora Ames backed his stand. “He's right, you know. This isn't Philadelphia, or Boston, or New York. Life is harsh out here. Didn't those Indian attacks teach you anything?” A sudden, stricken expression washed over her. “Oh, I am so sorry. I shouldn't have spoken so harshly. I ...”

Preacher found himself defending her. “No, you didn't, Miss Cora. Right to the point, I'd say.”

“You would,” Patience Bookworthy snapped, then stalked off.

With a more contrite tone, Preacher offered his amends. “I'm afraid my bullheadedness has gotten you on her bad side. Only thing is I didn't have a choice in how I handled them fellers. I did have with how I used my mouth.”

Mischief lighted Cora's eyes. “If I'm in Patience's book of bad girls I think I'm in good company, Preacher. I'm glad you weren't injured.”

Dumbstruck, Preacher watched, with mouth agape, as she walked to where the other women worked to prepare a meal for the laboring men of the new community.

* * *

With a week of construction and meat curing behind them, half of the missionary men and all of the boys over ten were attending a special school. It would be learning that could mean life or death in the isolated village that sprang up faster each day. The instructor was Preacher. His classroom the meadow and forested hills that surrounded the valley. He held a yellowish-white bulb in his hand and waved it under the noses of the more curious youths.

“This here is wild onion. An' no, it don't taste 'zactly like a regular one. But it'll do in a pinch. Some of you who've et with me an' the boys have tasted it in stew. They grow in clumps like you see here. Notice that the tops are flat, rather than round. There's another plant like 'em only with round tops an' whiter bulbs. Stay shy of those. They'll poison ya right terrible. Now, let's move on. There's wild turnips growin' here, along the bank of that crick. We'll look at them next.”