Cheyenne Challenge (27 page)

These, along with Pease rode a short ways off from the column of vandals. Pease rose in his saddle and bellowed his demands loudly, turning all ways and repeating them, to be certain he was understood.

“Preacher! Do you hear me? We've found your precious garbage. I have men already in that valley of yours. Back off or these will be only the first to die.” Pease paused, then began to rant again. “Make no mistake. If you and those with you do not give us free rein, I will not hesitate to kill every one of those helpless grubs. I'll start with these and believe me, their deaths will be slow and painful. Now, back off, and let me hear you agree to it.”

Preacher chewed at his lower lip. He had never given his word falsely and didn't intend to now. Yet, too many lives depended upon what he did. Even his hesitation proved to be the wrong thing to do. Pease made a gesture and two of his sub-human fiends yanked young Peter from the horse he rode.

They ripped the clothes from the boy's body and began to make small, shallow cuts on his chest and belly. His screams slashed through Preacher as though he were under the knife instead. Sudden fury washed away his indecision. He had had enough. Taking his LeFever rifle, Preacher rode out into the open, still well out of ordinary rifle range.

“Pease! You back-end of a polecat, hear me! We can end this without harm to any more. Face me, man to man, we'll fight it out. Winner goes his own way. You have my word on it.”

Pease made a show of considering this offer, while his henchmen continued to slice into Peter's body and the boy screamed in agony. “What about the others with you?” Pease asked tauntingly, toying with Preacher. “Will they abide by what you say?”

“They will.”

“I don't think so,” Pease mocked him. “To give you time to secure their promises to leave us in peace, I'm going to let these gentlemen finish with this boy here, and then we are going to ride on into your little paradise. If any more shots are fired while we do, I will have the other children killed, one by one, and then the woman. I'll allow my men to have their way with the females before they dispatch them, naturally.”

That did it for Preacher. He snapped the French rifle to his shoulder and shot at Pease. A nervous twitch from Thunder sent the ball off course and put it through the meaty part of Pease's left shoulder.

“That's the last shot fired, Pease,” Preacher roared. “We will abide by your terms. No one will fire on the column while you ride to the valley. When you get there, we'll face off man to man. And . . . I'll see you put in hell.”

10

Terror-stricken, the residents of the valley ran before the onslaught of the advancing human debris led by Ezra Pease. A few of the remaining missionary men tried to resist and were cut down in a storm of lead. Pease had pushed his company of worthless trash on through the night, which caught Preacher by surprise. Now he pressed his advantage as the much smaller force with Preacher closed in from behind. Once they had driven all the way to the center of the settlement, Ezra Pease called a halt in front of the raw planks that walled the church. Again, he turned back to harangue Preacher with threats.

“Leave off! There is nothing you can do to stop us. If you persist, we will start killing the residents.”

With the mutilated body of Peter, which they had recovered and brought along, fresh in his mind, Preacher had no doubt that Pease meant what he said. Reluctantly he gave the signal to break off and draw back. He had never felt so low in his life. Preacher blamed no one else for what had happened. He was the one who had led these innocents to this terrible end. His face hidden from the others, he led the way out of the valley.

Once inside the screening trees, Preacher called a halt. “There is nothing we can do tonight, but come nightfall, it's another story.”

“What can we do then?” one of the drivers asked.

“We're gonna raise hob with 'em, hoss,” Preacher assured him. Quickly he outlined his idea. It had everything to do with their familiarity of the valley and Pease's lack of it.

During the long, difficult day, Preacher came to a grudging admission that so far Ezra Pease had kept his word. Outside of being frightened, no harm had come to the residents of the valley. When twilight purpled the sky, Preacher called his stalwart band together.

“They'll be edgy tonight, so we'll wait until it gets near to mornin'. That's the best time to hit. I've heard say it's the last hours before dawn that a man sleeps soundest. Even the ones on guard will begin to droop. That's what gives us a chance.”

“What if we get caught by daylight?” an uncertain evangelist asked.

“Then we keep on fightin',” Preacher explained. “Now, ever'body get somethin' to eat and rest up. You'll be told when it's time.”

* * *

“You have sunken to a new low, Quincey,” Cora Ames spat. “When you first arrived in the valley, I had the misapprehension that perhaps you had reformed your ways. I regret that I could be so mistaken.”

“You should be pleased for me. I have found the way to a vast fortune, to power and respect and a good life,” Hashknife responded, disconcerted to see that Cora gazed past his shoulder and out the window of her small cabin toward the distant trees where those infernal fighting men with Preacher had disappeared.

“What you've found,” Cora snapped, “is a cold, shallow grave once Preacher gets done with you.” Her anger rose to choke off further threats. “I'm ashamed that I ever knew you, let alone . . .”

A smirk lifted the lips of Hashknife. “Ah-ha! That of which we never speak, eh, my dear? Never mind. I have grown quite used to rejection. The years have not been kind to me, but no matter. Ezra Pease has made me an equal partner in his enterprise. There are literally millions to be made.”

Cora produced her own, knowing, self-satisfied expression. “Provided he doesn't dispose of you once your usefulness to him is at an end. Oh, Quincey, Quincey, it could have been so different, so much better. If only . . .”

Hashknife raised a hand to stem the flood of her words. “Enough. I have no need of a lecture from you, let alone another sermon from that self-righteous hypocrite. I see you are in no mood for cordial conversation, so I will leave you now. Have no fear, none of these smelly louts dares to touch you.” He patted the holster that contained his right-hand Colt Walker. Turning on one boot heel, he stomped out before Cora Ames could make another caustic reply.

* * *

Preacher gave his neophyte warriors more than enough time to get into position. Then he slowly advanced. Spread around with the fumbling, stumbling missionaries, he had positioned the drivers, and his mountain man friends, to lead. To his surprise, shortly after darkness fell, a number of the more peace-loving among the male gospel-shouters had risked sure death to sneak out of the cordon set up by Ezra Pease. They begged for the chance to take up arms and defend their families.

“Those aren't men, they're animals. The lewd looks they cast on our wives and daughters. It's unspeakable,” Art Landry spoke for them all. “If I can shoot Indians in self-defense, I can strike out at savage filth like those.”

A chorus of “Me, too” ran through the men with him.

Their number increased the thin ranks to forty strong. Preacher knew gratitude for their offer, though he doubted how useful the newcomers would be. He would soon find out, Preacher acknowledged as he came within fifty feet of the picket line set out by Pease and his able lieutenant.

That man who called himself Hashknife still troubled Preacher. Why did his features seem so familiar? Obviously he had intelligence. Most likely far beyond that of Ezra Pease. He remained cool during the worst of the fighting. And his auburn hair haunted Preacher's memory as much as his close resemblance to . . . someone. His study ended at the sound of a foot tread on a fallen twig, only three yards ahead. Preacher tensed himself.

The blamed fool came directly toward him. Preacher couldn't understand it until the man spoke in a harsh whisper. “You come to relieve me? I can sure use it. M'eyelids is droopin' somethin' awful.”

Darkness had confused the man, Preacher realized. He thought he walked toward the settlement, not away from it. Preacher didn't give him time to learn of his error. A swift swing of the billet of wood in his hand sent the lookout off to a different starfield than the one that twinkled above. The wrist-sized stick made a hollow sound when it struck the side of the man's head. Preacher leaped forward and eased the sentry to the ground. Then he turned to his right, as he had instructed all of the men to do, and set off to roll up the others close at hand.

Two more out of the way left a pie-shaped sector open in which Preacher could work his mischief. Bent low, he covered ground rapidly. The hunk of wood he held had been frazzled at one end and dipped in tallow to serve as a torch when the situation called for it. Preacher paused within pistol shot of the settlement's cabins and fished out his tinder box. He was about to strike a spark and ignite his makeshift flambeau when all hell broke loose.

* * *

Jolted out of their deepest slumber by a ragged fusillade, the sub-human detritus with Ezra Pease had little chance of organizing a resistance. Firing as they came, their shrill yells electrifying the night, the men of the settlement charged in among the cabins. Torches aflame, they set fire to tents and bedrolls. Hard cases who still remained in some of the latter began to scream as the flames licked at their bodies.

Preacher struck flint to steel and blew to life his milkweed down, which lighted a sulphur-tipped sliver. It blazed and ignited his torch. Then he joined the others. He dodged around a drowsy man who had only come to his feet and smacked him in the ribs with the firebrand. Howling, the thug spun away and fell to roll in the dirt. Preacher changed hands and drew one of his big four-barrel pistols. Two thick-chested, reckless louts reared up to block his path. Preacher coolly shot one, the other ran. In fact, Preacher noticed a whole lot of the buzzard-pukes deserting their cause.

Initially it seemed a stunning victory. Worn down by endless days on the trail, the fierce fighting, first against the Cheyenne, then Preacher and his band, nerves jangled by the harassing fire on their column, many had no heart for more battle. Even as they hunted for their horses, Ezra Pease and Hashknife sought desperately to organize some resistance.

“Stand fast. Hold on, there. We outnumber them, you fools,” Pease bellowed.

“Alone you can be picked off and left for buzzard bait,” Hashknife assured the men.

Gradually their words took effect. The panic fled. Scum and filth they may be, but they saw the wisdom of strength in unity. Here and there knots gathered and began to return fire. A couple of the psalm-singers went down. One of the drivers threw hands in the air and fell, shot through the head. Preacher watched the effect as the initial shock wore off and muttered a curse. Without a means of direct control, he could not coordinate a sustained attack against these strong points.

Within no time, the contenders had pulled back from one another. Firing slackened and Preacher knew he had to do something to prevent Pease from carrying out his revenge against the helpless women and children. He tossed his torch into the midst of a group of Pease's vicious swine and began a swift, long run around the perimeter of the besiegers. When he came to the individual clusters, he paused long enough to give new orders. After leaving each group, he heard his new plan being carried out as men fired alternately, keeping up a steady stream of lead into the defensive positions taken by the outlaws.

That way, he knew, it might be possible to prevent them from moving from the small parcels of ground they presently held. If it worked, it would keep them away from the residents. He reached the last batch and Beartooth greeted him with a big hug.

“We got them out in the open now,” the burly mountain man brayed.

“Thing is to keep them there,” Preacher replied and explained the purpose he had in mind.

Beartooth put his charges to it at once. Then he turned to Preacher. “What do you reckon on doin' now?”

“I want to move in on that big cluster out there where Pease has taken command. Cut the head off a snake and the body dies.”

Beartooth nodded solemnly. Preacher glided off from shadow to shadow to avoid the bright areas created by flickering fires. He had no way of knowing it, but his plan would work exceedingly well.

It came to him when the first pale band of gray appeared in the east. Pease and his cohorts had been fought to a stand-still. With improved light, the marksmanship of Preacher's volunteers would improve. So, too, would that of the tenacious gunmen with Ezra Pease. A quick count through the round field of his spy-glass told Preacher that numbers no longer counted that much. Maybe the time for a charge had come. Pick one cluster of scum at a time and roll over them?

It appealed until Preacher heard the distant rumble of pounding hooves. One thing he knew for certain. It could not possibly be reinforcements for his side.

* * *

Several times during the long, pre-dawn hours, most of the underlings committed to the cause of Ezra Pease lost heart and thought of making a break. The hail of bullets from their invisible opponents convinced them otherwise. Now they congratulated themselves on standing fast. New hope came bearing down on them out of the sunrise.

“Lookie over there,” Vern Beevis shouted, a grubby finger pointing at the shapes resolving out of the low ground mist.

Bart Haskel came thundering through the thin line of besiegers with a dozen hard-faced, gun-bristling men in his wake. They made for the largest cluster of their comrades, some who still crouched behind hastily dug breastworks. Relief at the eleventh hour! A ragged cheer rose.

“Well, I'll be damned,” Beartooth drawled.

“We may well all be, Beartooth,” Preacher answered sadly.

The words hardly out of his mouth, Preacher put hand to one of his revolving four-barrel pistols as the enemy swirled out of their defensive positions and launched a wild, screaming attack. Only a steady rate of fire slowed them at last. The final man to fall lay only ten feet from where Preacher crouched behind the stump of a fir that had been logged out for housing.

While the renegade whites regrouped, Preacher marked furtive movement to one side of the main enemy force. The man called Hashknife broke clear of the men around him and started off at a lope toward one of the cabins. The one that belonged to Cora Ames, Preacher noted with a sudden flash of anger and apprehension.

With a roar, Pease's scum charged again. Preacher had to put away his concern for Cora. This time the fighting became clouded in dust and powder smoke, men determined to triumph at whatever cost pushed on with empty weapons, to club and smash with their rifles and stab with knives. The fighting degenerated into a wild hand-to-hand melee. Preacher saw his amateur fighters waver and then begin to give ground. A sense of helplessness washed over him. How could he have been so blind, so proud as to believe they had a chance? Then, with all lost, another, distant sound blew new hope through the momentary fog of defeat. He cast off his dejection and turned to verify what his ears told him.

“Ki-ki-ki-yi-yi-yiiiiii!”

Hoofbeats pounding, the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers of Falling Horse thundered into the valley. Preacher broke away from those around him and hopped up and down, waving both arms over his head to attract the attention of his old friend. Falling Horse cut his pony to the left and rushed down on Preacher.

“We thought they had finished them,” the Cheyenne chief said through a smile. “It is good we did not go home.”

“That it is. Now have your braves give some new spine to those gospel-shouters of mine,” Preacher replied, his voice thick with emotion. Preacher had his own agenda.

Falling Horse spun away and directed his men toward the Blackfeet, who had so far not partaken in the battle. White men fighting white men was a novelty to them. Now, in the presence of their traditional enemy, they had a sudden change of heart about allegiance to Ezra Pease. Beartooth and Dupre led their men against the Indians also, hurling explosive gourds as they advanced.

Loud blasts and whizzing pieces of scrap metal and gourd shards shattered their nerve entirely. Howling in consternation, convinced their medicine had deserted them, the Blackfeet broke from their separate camp and streamed wildly across the meadow toward an opening in the valley walls.