Forty Guns West (4 page)

“We'll eat and be proud to do it,” Jonas said. “But if you don't mind, we'll stand.”

“I understand. You boys stop ever' now and then on your way back home and bathe the infected areas with mud if you can't find no goldenseal root to powder up and put on it. Apple cider vinegar is real good too.”

“Much obliged, Mister Preacher.”

“Think nothin' of it. But in the future, you boys best choose your company with a tad more care.”

“You can bet on that,” the younger of the two said. “Our days of man-huntin' just begun and ended with this trip.”

“Wise decision, son,” Preacher said drily.

4

Preacher and the kid were gone within the hour. As they rode, Preacher pondered what Jonas had told him just before the two would-be man-hunters—now officially retired—rode out for home, both of them sitting in their saddles very carefully.

“The way I heard it, Mister Preacher, they's forty or fifty men huntin' you. Maybe more than that. Prob'ly more than that. For they's big money on your head. Several thousand dollars as of a couple of weeks ago. That must have been a real important man you kilt back east.”

“Them men behind us know I'll be headin' to the mountains, Eddie,” Preacher told the boy after only a few minutes on the trail. “If any of 'em has any smarts, and I 'spect some of them do, they've headed straight west and will be tryin' to get ahead of us, for an ambush.”

The boy looked at Preacher. “So if they think we're going straight to the mountains, we don't go.”

Preacher smiled. “You catch on real quick, lad. That's right. We don't go ... leastways not right off.”

“Where are we going, then?”

“North. Straight north. We got staple supplies to last us a long time. I'll kill us a deer or two and show you how to make jerky. We'll keep the skins and make you some proper clothing, or I'll have some fitted buckskins tossed in when I trade that spare horse. We're gonna be skirtin' the edge of Pawnee country, and me and them damn Pawnees never has got on worth a damn. Once they know I'm in their territory, and they'll know, bet on that, we'll have us a fight on our hands. But I get along with the Sioux and the Crow and most others.”

The mountain man and the boy turned their horses and rode toward the plains. When Eddie caught his first glimpse of the plains he was speechless. It seemed to stretch forever. Mile after mile of waving grass and an endless horizon that seemed impossible to ever reach.

Preacher smiled at the boy's expression. “Takes your breath away, don't it, lad?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I've knowed people to go mad out here. Wind blows all the time. It's the vastness of it all. And the buffalo, boy, I can't describe 'em. I've seen thousands and thousands of them on the move. Maybe they was millions of them. The Good Lord alone knows. The earth beneath your feet trembles when they pass. The buffalo is life itself to the Plains Injuns. The buffalo and the horse. The Injun is a fine horseman. They worship the horse. Call him Spirit Dog, Holy Dog, Medicine Dog. The Injuns make their tipis from buffalo skins, they wrap up to keep warm in buffalo robes, they eat the buffalo, they use the soft skin of a buffalo calf to wrap newborn babies in, and the hide of a bull or cow will be used as a buryin' cloth. They use parts of the hide to make drums, moccasins, shirts, leggin's, and dresses for squaws. They use buffalo hair to make rope. The horns of a buffalo is used for drinkin' cups. The bones is used to make all sorts of Injun tools. The paunch of a buffalo is used as a cook pot. Without the buffalo, the Injun would prob'ly cease to be.”

“You like the Indians, don't you, Preacher?”

“Most of 'em, yeah. I've lived with 'em and I've fought 'em. I've had me a squaw now and then. I been captured and tortured by 'em, and I've laughed and joked and ate with 'em.” He reined up and swept a strong hand across the panorama that lay before himself and the boy. “Look at it, Eddie. The plains. Far as I know, they ain't another sight like it in the whole wide world. And there never will be again. For when the white man comes, and he's comin', they'll junk it all up and try to change it. They'll plow lines in the earth and change the flow of rivers and kill off all the buffalo herds. They'll kill off the wolves 'cause the settlers is ignorant of the ways of the wilderness. Each animal is dependent in some ways on other animals. The wolves kill off the old and the weak in a herd. Without them, the herds wouldn't be healthy. But the white man don't understand that. They could understand it, but they won't. I tell you, boy, there ain't nothin' prettier in the world than layin' in your blankets at night and listenin' to wolves sing and talk to one another.”

“Won't they attack you?”

“Naw. Them's old wive's tales from scary people. There ain't never been no healthy, full growed wolf ever attacked no human person that I ever heard tell of. Hell, I've had 'em for pets. A body just has to understand the ways of the wolf and respect 'em, that's all. But they's do's and don't when it comes to wolves. Don't never corner one. You do that, you got big trouble on your hands. Don't never get between the he-wolf and his mate. They don't like that. A wolf pack is a real complicated type of society, Eddie. They have leaders and co-leaders. They real protective of their young. The male and the female take turns carin' for their pups.” He smiled at the boy and lifted his reins. “Now you see why some Injuns call me White Wolf. I'm a brother to the wolf. I had one big ol' buffalo wolf stay with me for weeks one time. He must have weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. I'd toss him scraps of food and at night he'd sleep so close to me I could feel his breath. But I never touched him and he never touched me. But we was brothers. I knew it, and he knew it.”

“What happened to him?”

“I don't know. One day he just veered off and was gone. He sat on a rise and watched me ride off. He threw back his head and talked to me until I couldn't hear him no more.”

“That's sad.”

“Yeah, it was. I ain't never forgot it, neither.”

“I think I would have liked to have been a mountain man,” Eddie said wistfully.

“You'd have made a good'un, boy. I saw right off you got what it takes.”

Eddie smiled the rest of the day.

* * *

Just a few miles from where someday the town of Wichita would stand, men had gathered. And what a strange collection of men it was. Some were eloquently dressed in the most up-to-date sporting clothes on the market. Others wore homespun, and some were dressed in buckskins. A few carried the most modern hunting rifles, made especially for them, while others carried long flintlock rifles and shotguns. Some carried short-barreled muskets. But despite their difference in dress and speech and weaponry and levels of education—or lack of it—they shared one thing in common: they were bounty hunters. Most were here for the money, but a few were here solely for the enjoyment of the blood sport of man-hunting—the most skilled and elusive game on earth. The ultimate sport. At last count, taken that morning, there were sixty-five gun-totin' men gathered, twelve servants, four cooks, one hundred and five horses, and twenty pack mules. Oh, yes, and seven reporters.

There were two Englishmen, two Frenchmen, two Prussians, one Austrian, and one nobleman from Spain. The men had been communicating by letter, mapping out this expedition for two years. They had originally planned to travel Out West and shoot Indians. But after they had all gathered at a grand hotel in New York City, and heard of this Preacher person, why, this seemed like it would be so much more fun. One could always find a savage to kill. All the servants and cooks were in the employ of the “hoity-toity,” fancy-dressed foreigners. They all beat it across the country just as fast as they could.

They called themselves professional adventurers, and to most men they were brave; they had traveled the world in their quest for the ultimate game animal. They had faced hardships and they were certainly not lacking in courage. Although it would be safe to say that they were all a tad shy on the common sense side. They were arrogant, aloof, and looked down on anyone who wasn't nobility. They all had some fancy title stuck in front of their names like sir, count, duke, baron, or prince.

On the other side of the coin, so to speak, were the bulk of those about to take out after Preacher and the boy. Most of them were the hard ones. Professionals in in the art of man-hunting and tracking. There were about ten men who were along for the adventure of it all, or what they thought starting out would be adventure. They would all soon learn that trying to track down and kill Preacher was no grand adventure. Sixty-five men were riding deeper on to the Plains that next morning. By the time they reached the Rockies, only about forty would be left. Forty guns against Preacher and the kid. One of the trackers leading the bounty-hunters was a renegade Pawnee called Dark Hand, so named because of the strange, large birthmark that covered nearly his entire right hand. Dark Hand despised Preacher. Hated him with a wild fury that was almost blinding in its intensity. Preacher had killed Dark Hand's older brother and Dark Hand had fought Preacher twice over the long years that followed, and twice Preacher had bested him, the last time leaving him for dead. But Dark Hand lived ... and hated.

* * *

At that moment, Preacher and Eddie were no more than seventy-five miles away, west and slightly north of the location of the bounty hunters, camped along the Walnut.

A tiny band of wandering Cherokee, fleeing from the Big Ticket country of Texas after the death of their chief, Diwali, approached the camp of Preacher and Eddie and made the sign of peace.

“Come on in,” Preacher called, knowing the Cherokee probably spoke English better than he did. Preacher had just killed a deer and told Eddie to start slicing it up.

“Ghost Walker!” one of the older Cherokees said, as he dismounted. “I saw you some years ago, when I was with a scouting party north of Bent's Fort.”

Preacher shook hands all around and invited the Cherokee to sit, rest, and eat.

While the venison was cooking, the leader of the band said, “There are many men gathering only a few days' ride from here, Ghost Walker.”

Eddie and Preacher exchanged glances, Preacher knowing that the furtive exchange would be caught by the vigilant Cherokees.

“You know any of them?” Preacher asked.

“Bones Gibson.”

Preacher grunted. Bones Gibson was a first class man-hunter. He was first class in everything, including his ruthlessness. Some say, and Preacher didn't doubt it, that Bones had killed more than a thousand Indians and more than a hundred white men during his long career as an Indian fighter and man-hunter. It was also said, and Preacher didn't doubt this either, that Bones had never lost a man once he got on his trail. But Bones had never been west of the Mississippi and had no experience with the Plains Indians.

Preacher looked at Eddie. “I won't lie to you, son. We're in for it.”

The boy nodded his head, a solemn expression on his face. Even he had heard of Bones Gibson.

“The men have with them a Pawnee tracker called Dark Hand.”

Preacher cussed under his breath. Again, he looked at Eddie. “Dark Hand hates my guts, Eddie. I killed his brother and whupped him twice. The last time I thought I killed him. I should have made certain. Goddamnit! Bones is gonna have half a dozen hard-cases that have been with him for years. Andy Price, George Winters, Horace Haywood, Mack Cornay, Cal Johnson, and Van Eaton, I'm sure. Van Eaton is a bad one. Just as bad as Bones, and maybe a little worser.”

“We are moving north to Canada,” the spokesman for the Cherokee said. “Perhaps there we can find peace.” He looked around and received nods of approval from the other men. “Why don't you and the boy ride with us? Your pursuers are looking for two sets of tracks, not many.”

Preacher shook his head. “No. 'Cause when they find us, and they will, they'd kill you all for helpin' us. And don't think they wouldn't. But I do 'preciate the offer.”

The Cherokee ate and socialized and then moved on, leaving Preacher and the boy alone by the small fire. “We got to move fast, Eddie. We got to reach the mountains. Once we's in the High Lonesome, them ol' boys will play hell takin' us. I know places there that even the Injuns don't know about.” Preacher was thoughtful for a moment. “We can move a lot faster than that mob behind us. But we'll be riding right through Kiowa and then Southern Cheyenne country, after that it'll be mostly Utes. I get along all right with the Cheyenee. Kiowa and Utes can be right testy. You never can tell about them. Let's hit the blankets, boy. We ready steady tomorrow.”

* * *

Bones Gibson sat on his horse off to one side of the gathering and watched with a sort of grim amusement on his hawk-like face as the many men tried to get packed and mounted up. The sun was just beginning to peek over the horizon. Horses were pitching and bucking as their riders were getting the kinks out of them, mules were braying and snorting, and men were cussing and hollering. All in all it was a scene of chaos and confusion.

Bones's right-hand man, Van Eaton, a heavily muscled, sour-faced man who was little more than a brute, said, “I don't see why you let them igits come along.”

“Preacher will kill probably twenty or twenty-five of them long before we finally corner him. We can use their supplies and mounts as ours give out.”

“I don't like them reporters along.”

“We couldn't refuse them. Freedom of the press, and all that. But if they can't keep up, that's going to be their hard luck.”

Van Eaton curved his thick lips into something vaguely resembling a smile. “Yeah. I see what you mean. Accidents do happen along the trail.”

“Exactly.”

“Bones?”

“Yeah?”

“Preacher ain't no pilgrim. And we all best keep this in mind: When we get up into them mountains, all of Preacher's friends is gonna be lined up solid agin us.”

“That's true. But from what I've been told, there are few real mountain men left at this date. Certainly not enough of them to cause us any real worry. And I got that from a very reliable source.”

But Van Eaton was far from convinced. He shook his head. “When we hit them mountains, we best double the guard and sleep with one eye open.”