Cheyenne Challenge (5 page)

* * *

Arapaho Basin had long been a gathering place for the Indians who roamed the fringes of the Rocky Mountains. The hot sulfur springs that bubbled up from the depths of the earth were considered good for the bones of the old. The current occupants of the basin had little consideration for that. Ezra Pease had established his base camp there because of the shelter provided by the high peaks that surrounded the lush valley.

He was taking his ease outside his tent and sipping on his fifth cup of coffee, laced with rum, when two of his disreputable gang rode into camp. They barely dismounted from their lathered horses when the older of the two blurted out his bad news.

“Weasel Carter an' those you sent with him to do in Preacher? He done kilt them all.”

Ezra Pease came to his boots in a jerky motion. “What! I sent Weasel because not even Preacher could figure out that he was a danger, until it was too late.”

“Well, Preacher sure must have learned mighty fast,” the shaggy-haired brute with a waxen scar from his left ear to the corner of his mouth opined.

“Damnit! Our whole operation hinges on getting rid of him. Preacher is all too friendly with most of the Indians, and he's known by every white man in this country. If he gets word of what we're up to, he can make the world a mighty mean place for us.”

“What should we do about it?” the knife-cut thug asked bluntly.

“Get the job done right,” Pease snapped. “Get Bart Haskel, Two Thumbs Buehler and about ten more over here right now.”

When the reluctant volunteers assembled, they wasted no time making it clear they were none too happy about the reason for their summons. Ezra Pease eyed them coldly, then reminded himself that these were the best he had, better than most in the past. Too bad most of them came out of the prairie lands of Missouri and Illinois. He'd be glad to trade the lot for half a dozen wild and wooly mountain men. Nevertheless, they were loyal to him to the man.

He could at least count on them not to shirk in their duty and eventually succeed or die in the process. Pease preferred not to think of dying. Every day Preacher remained alive increased the risk for him and his bully-boys. He took a deep breath and launched his effort to spell finis to Preacher.

“I can see by the looks on your faces that you know what happened to Weasel and the men with him. I never said Preacher was going to be easy to stop. He's smart, mean, and knows these mountains better than any man living. He'll be wary now, and a whole lot harder to run to ground. That's why I'm sending a dozen of you. Preacher is a legend, out here as well as in those silly penny dreadfuls you may have seen back East.

“It's going to be your job to track him down and finish him. But ...” Pease let the word hang. “I don't simply want him dead. I want him dragged around from place to place so folks know for certain sure that he's a goner. With him out of the way, our path is clear to fortune and power. Provision yourselves and ride out within the hour. The sooner you go, the sooner Preacher dies.”

5

Preacher slouched in the saddle of his spotted horse, Thunder, at the crest of the notch that led south out of Trout Creek Pass. He had replaced his battered, floppy hat with a crisp new one, though he had to allow as how it didn't shade his face the way the old one had. It made him look a little less disreputable, Cora Ames thought as her wagon rolled by the immobile mountain man.

“You all keep rollin',” Preacher advised to the drivers. “I'll catch up and scout ahead in awhile.”

Complaints still came from the missionaries about being turned back, yet Preacher noted that most of the women accepted it with relief evident in the less pinched expressions they wore. Not all of them, he reminded himself as he gazed on the ash-blonde hair that escaped in wisps around the bonnet on the head of Cora Ames. Drat it, it somehow didn't seem right to him that someone who looked so pretty should be wrapped up in saving the souls of folks who didn't want 'em saved. She belonged in a nice, white, clapboard farmhouse, like the ones he'd seen back East, with a gaggle of kids running around her knees and clinging to her skirt.

Could she have made up her mind to the spinster's life so young? There were plenty of married couples among the twenty wagons in the missionary train. Youngsters, too, blast the luck. Preacher firmly believed that brat-kids had no business out in the Big Empty, leastwise not those too young to take care of themselves. Grownups had their hands full keeping themselves alive and their possessions intact. They had no time to give to doing for a batch of babies and infants.

Yet, they persisted in coming, more each year, damn their stars. He recalled the year he took a train of tenderfeet clear to the Big Water in Oregon country. Three women had birthed on the trail. Only one of the infants survived the trip. Fools. Preacher dismissed his gloomy contemplation to mentally review for the hundredth time the trail south and eastward to Bent's Fort. It would be rough, but these pilgrims had been over it once. Maybe they had learned something.

At least, the fort was out on the flats and these folks would have easy going from there. They could take the Santa Fe Trail as far as Independence, for that matter, and then on down to St. Louis. They'd just have to look out for the Southern Cheyenne, the Kiowa, Pawnee, Kaw, and the Osage. No mean feat, but with the right men to guide them, it could be done, was done day in and day out for that matter. There was some talk of building some military forts along the Trail, but Preacher doubted he'd live to see the day.

He pushed that out of his mind and gigged Thunder into a lazy trot. In a short time he caught up with the wagon that carried Cora Ames. She greeted him with more cordiality than he might have expected. Enough to encourage him to rein in to the slow walk of the mules pulling the lumbering vehicle. Preacher might prefer only his own company in the High Lonesome, but the lure of a pretty young woman could be resisted by just a few.

“I suppose you know we're terribly curious, Mr.—er—Preacher,” the good looker offered without preamble.

“Curious about what?” Preacher asked, genuinely unaware.

“About you, of course. Surely you have a Christian name, unless, like some of those scallywags at the trading post tried to get us to believe, you were mothered by a she-wolf.”

Preacher couldn't figure out if she was teasing him or not. “Yes, Miss Cora. I do. Name's Arthur.” He said it so softly she barely heard it.

“That's a perfectly lovely name, Arthur.”

Pink touched Preacher's cheeks. “Maybe that's why I don't cotton much to usin' it.”

“I would think your mother would be disappointed you did not,” Cora tossed at him without being censorious. “Where were you born, Arthur?”

Preacher winced. “Please, jist Preacher.” Then he went on to answer her. “On a farm in Ohio. Long enough ago that it was the frontier at the time. The Sauk and Fox were still there in great number.”

“Do you have living kin? Brothers or sisters?”

“I do,” Preacher answered curtly. “If you don't mind, it's downright uncomfortable talkin' so much about myself. Don't think me bold, but what about you? What sort of life has brought you out into all this emptiness?”

Cora gave a moment's thought before answering. “My family are all Green Mountain folks from Vermont. I am the fifth of seven children my mother bore. In addition to dairy cattle and harvesting maple syrup, my father was a circuit-riding preacher.” She let go a brief trill of laughter. “No pun intended.”

Preacher shared her amusement. “Then your family all grew up God-fearin' and full of rectitude?”

A fleeting frown darkened Cora's forehead. “Not ... all of them. But, that's another story. I don't mean to offend, but I've noticed that you don't talk like an uncouth, unlettered dolt all the time. You seem to pick and choose.”

Preacher shot her a quick grin. “You're not the first to make that observation. I had acquired some six years of book learnin' before I made tracks for the Shinin' Mountains. After that it was mostly self-taught, but I did learn some proper grammar. Some of the men I associated with helped me on that.”

“How was that? No, please, I really am interested,” Cora urged.

“A number of years back, I don't remember exactly when, some of us who could read and write and do our sums took to sharing our knowledge amongst ourselves an' those who could not read for themselves. I even learned some Shakespeare, and about the heroes of long ago, Horatio and Odyssius, Julius Caesar.”

Cora Ames clapped her hands in delight. “I'm so glad you called him by his proper name. Ever since those terrible translations of the
Illiad
and the Odyssey, people have taken to calling him Ulysses.”

Preacher nodded his thanks for her compliment. “You're a learned woman, then?”

“My, yes. More, I'm sure, than a lot of people think I should be. Most girls back East still finish school with the eighth form. Then it's off to a home and children, or to one of the sweatshops to labor until death.”

“Don't reckon a sprightly filly-er-pardon, a spirited lady like yourself would be content with either of those,” Preacher stumbled out.

“A few go on to the young ladies' seminary—that's where I matriculated.” She paused, frowned, then made a surprising revelation. “I'd not turn down a husband, family, and a stout home.” Then Cora confided with vigor, “As for the other alternative, it is, as they say, 'a man's world.' They have all the positions on the top of the heap. For a woman who undertakes to support herself or her family, the workplace offers little more than it does for slaves down in the South. Drudgery and dehumanization are the watchword of the few factories and sewing shops, or even teaching positions open to women in the East.”

“But you chose missionary work,” Preacher brought her back to speed. “What influenced that decision?”

Cora flushed and diverted her cobalt gaze from Preacher's slate eyes. “As you said, there are some things I am 'down-right uncomfortable' talking about.”

“Sorry I brought it up. Well, I'd best get along up the string and see what's ahead. We'll be makin' camp in about two hours.”

“So early?” Cora responded. “There are still hours of daylight.”

“First day on the trail. There'll be need to fix what broke and shake down the way the wagons are loaded. That all takes time. Good day to you, Miss Cora.”

Preacher rode off along the line of wagons. Behind him he left Cora Ames with a vague sense of being unfulfilled.

* * *

Cook fires had been lighted and the pilgrims settled in. Three wagons needed to replace wheels with loose iron tires. Preacher had to admit that was one fancy Eastern idea that had a practical use out here. Shod wheels made sense. The rough trails, mostly only enlarged animal tracks, punished wheeled vehicles mercilessly. The recent advent of iron-tired wheels had its downside as well. It made it easier for these pestiferous greenhorns to travel far beyond any hope of help from civilization when they got in trouble.

“Will you take supper with us, Preacher?” Lidia Pettibone asked sweetly from where she bent over a tripod that held a bubbling pot of stew.

Preacher drew a deep breath of the rich aroma and identified fresh venison. “Don't mind if I do. I want to make a round of camp first, if that's not makin' it too late for you folks.”

“Not at all. It will be a while, at least.”

Her husband, Asa, had the strangest occupation Preacher had ever heard of. He was an organist. The freight wagon that accompanied their living quarters held a large bellows-pumped pipe organ, complete with brass tubes to produce the majestic, imperial sounds of that instrument.

“Good dang thing they ain't headed clear to Or-e-gon,” Preacher muttered aloud to himself. “The tribes twixt here an' there would be supplied with arrow and lance points for the next century.” Brass, he knew, was mighty precious to the Indians.

For a people who had never learned to smelt metals, or forge them, or even invented the wheel, they were right adaptable. They appreciated the value of forged or cast metal almost at once. Which meant they were right smart. Which made them damned dangerous. All of a sudden Preacher came upon an impression that was so far-reaching and prescient that it all but staggered him. Given enough time, like the white man had with this new science, and the Indians could easily push folks whose families came from Europe back into the sea.

“Good evening—ah—Brother Preacher,” the Reverend Thornton Bookworthy rumbled as he passed by where Preacher stood staring into space over the concept of industrialized Indians.

“Evenin', Reverend Bookworthy.” Suddenly he had a burning desire to share his revelation with someone. “I just had me a startlin' thought.”

Although he looked pained, Reverend Bookworthy responded with enthusiasm. “I'd be delighted to hear it.”

“It just come to me, thinkin' about Pettibone's pipe organ. What if, when our ancestors came here, the Injuns had been smelting and forming metal objects for as many hundreds of years as the white man had?”

“But, they're ignorant savages,” Bookworthy protested with typical white blindness.

“Yeah. Only what I said was, 'what if?' You may not believe it, but what I said at the trading post is true. They're smart, they're crafty, they's absolutely fearless, and they know better than to line up and march off to shoot at each other and stab away at one another with bayonets in the heat of the day. I tell you, Reverend, it's downright frightening to consider.”

Bookworthy still wasn't sold. “You've been out here, among them, for longer than any of us. I suppose you could be right. If so, let us be thankful it wasn't that way.”

Preacher grunted and went on his rounds, inspecting the fringes of the camp. He didn't expect any hostiles to swarm down on them, not so close to the trading post in Trout Creek Pass. Nor had he seen any sign throughout the day of any drifting bands of white trash. Yet, an uneasiness gnawed at him.

Maybe it was his stomach, Preacher considered a half hour later when he returned to the Pettibone wagons. The aromas rising from the cook fire made him growly as a grizzly on the first day after hibernation. His mouth watered when his nose made out the distinct scent of apple pie. Guiding these folks would have a few advantages after all, he decided.

* * *

Over a week's time, Preacher learned a lot more about the gospel-shouters. Enough, indeed, to make him uncomfortable. Some, he knew, had joined this crazy expedition as a last-chance opportunity. They considered themselves to be losers, talked and acted like it, too. They wouldn't last a year out here.

Some would go around the bend, wander off, and get killed by any number of roving predators, human as well as animal. That would be their problem, he supposed. Others, like the Bookworthys, had the wild fire of the zealot in their eyes. They could be trouble. Good thing they were all going back. If they got there, he reminded himself.

Since early that morning, which Preacher reckoned put them a short three days travel from Bent's Fort, he had been seeing signs of others out there. Indians, and a lot of them, with no indication of women or children along. Of course, they could be a hunting party. Not likely, Preacher reasoned. Accordingly, he rode back to the lead wagon and spoke with one of the several drivers hired by those unable to handle their own teams.

“When we make camp for the night, Buck, I want you to circle the wagons. Make it nice and tight. After the teams are unhitched, make it box to box. No spaces between. And leave the animals inside the circle.”

Having grown wise on the way out, the burly driver frowned at this. “You expectin' trouble?”

“Might be. There appears to be Injuns out there. I've seen signs. That means they know we're here.”

“I'll see to it, Preacher,” Buck Dempsey agreed.

Preacher studied the stout, dark-complexioned Buck Dempsey. He gauged a steadiness in the hickory nut eyes and smooth brow, the set of a square chin. Yeah, he'd do to lead the other drivers. “I see you've got a good Hawken along. Were I you, I'd see to it being loaded and at hand from now on. I'm gonna drift along the line and tell the others.”

Preacher's efforts met with somewhat less than enthusiastic results. Reverend Bookworthy was quite vocal in his objections. “We will do no such thing. I am a man of God, and these are the children of God. Besides, we'll only be inviting trouble,” he pontificated. “If the savages see us all bristling with arms and in a defensive position, it will alienate them.”

“Reverend, they don't need us to alienate them. If it's some what's got it in for whites, they'll already be as sore as a boil on your behind. What's going to happen is that if they see us all ready to take them on, if they're not already cooked up for war, they will decide to ride on and leave us in peace.”