Preacher and the Mountain Caesar (10 page)

“We—ah—we talked it over, Preacher. Losin' those babies almost destroyed Dorothy. Our oldest was about an age with this boy. You're Terry, right?” Terry nodded, his face blank. “We know that—that you could never completely fill the place in our hearts that Tommy held, but would you . . . will you try?” He turned to Preacher again. “We want them to come live with us. We need their help and we believe they can help us. Our other two are so young, and Dorothy says she is—in a family way again. With a new baby, she'll need someone to help with the chores. So, if it's all right with you, Preacher, and you children? We'd like to make you a part of our family.”

Beaming, Preacher came to his boots. “Them is splendid words, Mr. Cecil Hawkins. I'm mighty happy for all of you. What do you say, Terry, Vickie?”

“Yes,” Terry blurted. “I—I guess.”

“Your two children are so cute, Mrs. Hawkins,” Vickie made her thoughts known. “I'd love to help you with them, if I may.”

“Of course, my dear.” She opened her arms, and Vickie rushed into her embrace.

Preacher cleared his throat, finding it quite restricted. “Well, then, that's all settled. You two might as well stay here. Philadelphia an' I are headin' to the northwest to look into what is going on in the Ferris Range. I'll drop off your things on the way by.”

“Oh, thank you, Preacher,” Vickie squealed, rushing to hug him and turn up her face for a kiss.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, Preacher,” Terry squeaked. Then he pushed out his lower lip in a pout. “But I really would like to go along and see those strange men.”

“Another time, boy. Not now. Well, I'd best be gettin' on my way. Thank you folks for bein' such good Christian souls.” He cut his eyes to the ceiling. “I'm sure the Almighty will give you a fittin' reward.” If he was aware of the irony, he didn't show it.

Filled with deep-rooted satisfaction, Preacher rode away some ten minutes later. Terry ran down the lane to catch up and leap up on Preacher's leg. The mountain man caught the boy, which freed Terry's arms to give Preacher a big hug.

“I'll never forget you, Preacher. Goodbye.” The boy turned his head away to hide the rush of tears.

Preacher released the lad and brushed a knuckle at the corner of one eye. “Goodbye to you, Terry. Remember what I taught you about the things decent people expect of children.”

And then he rode away.

* * *

Preacher counted the days on his fingers. He had been off on his quest for a week and a half by the time he saw the chimneys and rooftops of the trading post. He gigged Cougar into a fast trot. When he drew near, he recognized the stout figure of Philadelphia Braddock on the front porch. Philadelphia spotted him at the same time and bounded down the steps, his body visibly charged with energy. They met fifty yards from the double cabin that formed the trading post.

It instantly became obvious to Preacher that Philadelphia had made great strides in his healing. His face held its usual ruddy color, and he bounced around like a young puppy. His eyes twinkled with mischief as he questioned Preacher.

“I see you're alone. What happened, Preacher? Them two runned off again?”

“No. I found them a home. Let's go get the trail dust out of my throat and I'll tell one and all at the same time.”

Inside the saloon, Preacher downed one pewter flagon of rye, signaled for another and waited for it to arrive. All the usual hangers-on crowded into the room. Their faces revealed how anxious they were for a good tale. Preacher soon obliged them.

“Yep, my quest ended in success,” he declared the obvious. He went on to detail the search for a home, told of the Hawkins family and the evident pleasure Terry and Vickie had shown at being taken in by them. He concluded with an observation.

“Strange enough, they did not appear too happy about partin' with me. For all I drubbed their heads and switched their bottoms.”

Ruben Duffey answered with sober sincerity. “Not so strange, Preacher, I'm thinkin'.”

Preacher blushed. “What's done is done. Tomorrow Philadelphia an' me are off to the Ferris Range. I aim to get me a good look at these strange soldiers, or whatever they are.”

“Need some company, Preacher?” a couple of the regulars shouted.

Preacher pursed his lips and gave it a moment's thought. “That's mighty nice of you, Clem. You, too, John. This first time, though, I reckon the less of us they see, the better. But stick around. Might be we'll want some help later on,” he added prophetically.

* * *

Buck Sears sat on a stone bench in the dressing room of the public baths of New Rome. Gathered around were five of the new “gladiators.” One man wore a hard, belligerent expression. He ground a fist into one palm when Buck told them that the penalty for refusing to fight or attempted escape was death in the arena. No matter how many a fellow fought and bested, he would die there on the sand.

“I don't wanna go back to those cells they keep us in. Filthy, smelly, with rats and other critters runnin' around at night. I'm willin' to risk death to get out of here.”

“Good. That's one of you.”

“What are you getting at, Buck?” the pugnacious one demanded.

Buck studied him a long moment, while all five leaned toward him in anticipation. “I've found a way out of here. I need me some good men, ones with enough fire and fight in them to make an escape.”

“But you just said yourself that the penalty for attempted escape is death,” one pilgrim with a receding chin and pop-eyes protested.

Buck stared him down. “That's only
if you get caught.
I don't intend to. From what I hear, the trouble is in those big ol' black dogs this so-called Bulbus keeps. We try to break out of the school, they give the alarm, and any who doesn't get eat up are condemned to the arena.”

“How'er you gonna get around that?”

Buck studied the mousey little fellow. “I'm tellin' that only to those willin' to go with me.”

Pop-eyes averted, the captive gladiator turned away. “Well, I—I don't know. At least, we're still alive.”

Anger flared in Buck's chest. “For how long? Sooner or later, we're all gonna be pitted against Sparticus. When that time comes, you'd better be ready to meet your Maker.”

The angry one looked at his timid companion with contempt. “Count me in. I don't aim to be dog meat, an' I sure know I'm no match for Sparticus.”

Buck cut his eyes to the others, hope shining in his face. “How about the rest of you?”

Slowly they turned away, shame-faced, and muttered feeble excuses. Disappointed, Buck stomped out through an archway to wait for the guards to escort them back to the gladiator school on the Field of Mars. A moment later, his only recruit joined him. He extended a hand.

“M'name's Fletcher. Jim Fletcher. When do you reckon on doing this?”

Buck gave him a relieved look. “Soon, friend Jim. Soon's we have enough to make it work.”

* * *

Later that night, when the inmates of the school slumbered in deep exhaustion, the skinny pilgrim with the receding chin quietly left the small cell he occupied, being released by a discreet guard. Blinking in the bright light of oil lamps, he was brought into the presence of Justinius Bulbus. Bulbus studied him over fat, greasy fingers.

“You have some information for me?” he asked, licking meat juices off the tips.

Voice shaking, the informant replied softly, “Yes, I have.”

Bulbus gestured to a tray piled high with steaming meat. “Have some roasted boar. It's really quite delicious. Besides, you need the meat to build you up.”

In spite of the obvious intent behind the invitation, the betrayer indulged himself greedily while he informed Bulbus of what he had overheard at the baths. Bulbus listened carefully and considered the problem a while before making answer.

“You have been most helpful. Circus is a splendid gladiator. It would be a shame to lose him. Perhaps . . .” Bulbus paused, thinking. “Yes, perhaps a flogging, administered by Sparticus, would serve as an object lesson to all concerned.” He turned to his chief trainer, who lounged on a couch at right angles to Bulbus.

“See to it, will you? Say, ten lashes. No lead tips on the flail, either. I don't want him marked up.” Bulbus sighed heavily. “Ah, such a magnificent specimen. When his time comes, I want him to shine. See that it is done tomorrow morning, right after breakfast.”

10

Philadelphia Braddock halted and turned in the saddle to look directly at Preacher. He gestured to a notch in the ridge ahead. “By jing, if it ain't been a week's time since we left Trout Crick. Over yonder is that strange city I told you about.”

Preacher thought on it, as he had been doing over the past seven days. “I reckon if they have people out scoutin', we'd best hole up somewhere until dark, then move in close.”

“Good idee, Preacher. But, first, don't you want to size it up in daylight?”

“Of course. If we stay inside the tree line, we can reach the back slope of the ridge unseen. We can pick a spot from there.”

It went as Preacher expected. Near the pass that led through to the basin, his keen ears picked out the brassy notes of several bugles, yet they saw no sign of soldiers beyond the gap. On the opposite side, he found an entirely different, and amazing, situation.

Philadelphia had been right. Large, shiny white buildings now covered the slopes and tops of four of the seven hills. Construction, even at this distance, could be seen to go on at a feverish pace. Horsemen in scarlet cloaks and shiny helmets cantered around through the organized confusion. On the Campus Martius, formations of soldiers raised clouds of dust as they drilled with precision. Preacher studied the scene for a long while, then grunted his satisfaction.

“Over there.” He pointed to a thick stand of slender pines, as yet not fallen to the hunger of the axemen. “We can ease our way over there and be within range to look over that place by spyglass.”

Philadelphia licked his lips. “Now, that shines. If I'd 'a had my smarts about me, I coulda done the same thing.” For a moment he looked crestfallen. “Only m'spyglass is broke.”

Preacher gave him a smile. “No time like the here an' now, I allus say.”

Silently, and with the great skill of the mountain men, they worked their way to Preacher's suggested vantage point. They left their horses muzzled with feedbags to silence them, and crept through the undergrowth which crowded the stand of lodgepole pines. Preacher settled in, his Hawken rifle across his lap, and extracted a long, thick, bullhide tube from his possibles bag. From that, he slid a brass telescope.

He fitted the eyepiece in place and peered at the scene below. Men dressed in only sandals and diaperlike loincloths sweated in the warm afternoon sun. Many, Preacher noted, had scars from a heavily applied lash on their backs. Overseeing them were men in tunics and rough leather aprons. Here and there stood uniformed soldiers. Preacher blinked, and pursed his lips.

“Danged if they don't look just like them old-timey Romans. But, that cain't be. T'weren't any Romans got to the New World.”

“That's what I thought,” Philadelphia whispered back. “Then I reckoned my wound had got infected and I was seein' things. But, by gol, if you see 'em too, then they must be real.”

“Only too real. We can't learn too much about them from here. We'll wait until night, then go down among them buildings and see what they're up to.”

That suited Philadelphia fine. He settled back for a comfortable afternoon snooze. Preacher continued to study the oddly dressed men. He saw what he believed to be a chariot, pulled by a pair of sparkling white horses. Some big shot no doubt. Twenty men in uniform marched down a wide avenue toward the largest hill. They all carried long, slender spears. An hour shy of sundown, a shrill note sounded, as though from a reed flute, and the men quit working. They lined up and had chains fastened on their arms and legs. Then the men in tradesmen's aprons marched them away, out of Preacher's sight. Slaves, Preacher thought with disgust.

Preacher did not hold with slavery. Far from a frothing-mouthed abolitionist, he still did not think it right for one man to own another, like a horse, or pig, or cow. Quite a few Indians had slaves, mainly captive women or children from other tribes. Most times, once they had learned the ways of those who captured them, the children were adopted to fill the place of a child that had died, or the women married men affluent enough to afford two or more wives. Somehow, that didn't seem to Preacher to be so harsh a system. What was going on here, though, rankled.

“May an' have to do something about that,” he whispered to himself.

Time edged toward sunset. Preacher stretched out the kinks in arms and legs and munched a strip of jerky. An hour after dark, he awakened Philadelphia. He bent close and spoke lower than the serenade of cicadas.

“Eat yourself a bit o' somethin' an' we'll move out in another half hour.”

“I'll admit I ain't looking forward to this too much, though it does have my curiosity aroused.”

“Not a big problem. Certain sure they ain't got senses half as sharp as an Injun. We've sure snuck into enough Cheyenne and Blackfoot camps to know how it's done.”

“Even so,” Philadelphia warned, “we could die here.”

* * *

Silent as ghosts, Preacher and Philadelphia crept through the streets of New Rome. Every block brought new marvels. In moccasins, with rifles at the ready, pistols loaded, primed and waiting in their wide belts, they accosted marble statues; tall, alabaster columns of the same material supported high porticoes over stately porches. Philadelphia pointed a finger in amazement when they came upon a large, bronze brazier flaming with the eternal fire before the Temple of Vesta.

“Lookie there,” Philadelphia whispered in awe. “I'll betcha someone is paid to keep that goin' all the time.”

“More likely a slave,” Preacher amended in a sour note, his mind on the shackling of the workmen at quitting time. “Cost less that way.”

“Any way you look at it, somebody has to tend it. That must be some sort of church.”

“More likely a pagan temple, if this is what we think it is.”

“Better an' better.” Philadelphia rubbed his hands in anticipation. “That's where they hold them orgies, huh?” He pronounced it or-
ghees.

Preacher and his friend had no time to contemplate that vision. They rounded a corner in the forum and came face-to-face with the night watch. Armed with cudgels, flaming torches held above their heads, the city guards reacted instantly. With a shout of alarm, they dashed at the two surprised mountain men.

“Looks like folks know we're here,” Philadelphia declared flatly as he flung away one of the watchmen.

Preacher saved the talking for later. Two burly sentries closed on him, their cudgels swinging with competence. When they raised them to strike, Preacher ducked low and stepped in under the weapons. Quickly he popped one with a right, the other with a left, under the chin. They rocked back on their heels. The chubbier of the two sat down abruptly, eyes wide with wonder. Preacher turned to finish the other one, when a cudgel caught him in the side.

He grunted out the pain and shock, then delivered a butt-stroke from the half-moon brass butt plate of his Hawken that broke teeth and cracked the jawbone of his attacker. The clatter of fast-approaching sandals on the cobbles sounded like hail on a broad-leafed plant. A swift check of the immediate area told Preacher that between them they had accounted for four of the six. With a little luck, they still might make it.

Good fortune deserted the mountain men. A dozen more of the night watch rounded into the
Via Sacra
and pounded down on the Temple of Vesta. Preacher caught a blow from a closed fist in the side of his head that made lights flash and bells ring. A short sword flashed in the hand of one watchman, and Preacher forgot all about his determination not to use firearms.

The Hawken barked. Burning powder sparked in the wake of flame that erupted from the muzzle. Smoke rose in front of Preacher while his opponent twisted his mouth into an ugly gash, stumbled backward and clutched at his ravaged shoulder. Then the other guards arrived, and the great square of the forum became a welter of struggling human shapes. Many of the blows delivered by the sentries fell upon their fellows. Enough found their intended target to bring an end to the battle.

A ringing, thudding pain exploded in Preacher's head, and the Hawken slipped from numbed fingers. Shooting stars cut through the darkness that gathered in his head. He tried to turn, to put his back to that of Philadelphia, though he knew it to be already too late. Philadelphia had sunk to his knees, hands around his head to protect it, while the heavy blows of cudgels rained on his bent back. The next smash with the thick-ended nightstick made the darkness complete for Preacher.

* * *

Early the next morning, Preacher and Philadelphia awakened in a small, damp, slimy cell. The odor of human vomit hung heavily in the dank, still air. Preacher's head throbbed, and he located four separate goose-egg-sized lumps on it. The sour taste in his mouth told him who had vomited. Beside him, Philadelphia groaned.

“Where are we?”

Preacher answered glumly. “In the lockup. Damn, my head hurts.”

“So's mine. Ah! Aaaah—aaah, my back, too. They tried to turn my kidneys into mush. I'll be piddlin' blood for a month.”

“Be glad it ain't runnin' out your ears.”

Philadelphia quickly forgot his own misery. “You hurt that bad, Preacher?”

“No. But no thanks to those fellers.”

Footsteps tramped loudly in the corridor outside. A jingle of keys came to Preacher's ears. They sounded sharp and tinny through the buzzing in his head. A key turned noisily in the lock, and a low, narrow door banged open.

“Come out, you two,” a voice commanded in clear English.

“Where are we going?” Philadelphia wanted to know.

“You've got a hearing before the First Citizen.”

Preacher scowled. “I don't like the sound of that. If I recollect, I've heard that before. It escapes me what it means.”

Outside the cell, each man was given a bowl of water and a crudely woven towel with which to freshen up. Then the indifferent turnkey passed over a lump of coarse bread and a clay flagon of sour wine. “Eat up, eat up,” he snapped. “We don't have all day.”

Preacher shot him a flinty gaze. “Maybe you don't.”

Three uniformed soldiers joined the procession at ground level. In short minutes they found themselves once more in the open area of the forum. At this early hour few citizens filled the walkways and steps of the temples. They were directed to a building next to the Senate. Above the columns, inscribed on the portico of the Capitol, was the single word
“Curia.”

Preacher saw it and shrugged. “Looks like we get our day in court.”

Inside, they were rudely shoved through a curtained archway into a brightly lighted room, a hole in the domed roof to allow smoke out and sunlight in. Before them, three men sat on a marble dais. The one in the middle had a wide purple band around the hem of a toga. The ones flanking him had two thin lines on theirs.

“Who brings charges against these men?” the burly man in the center demanded.

“The tribune of the watch, Your Excellency.”

“What are those charges?”

A tall young man, his head swathed in bandages, stepped forward from a stool to one side. Preacher recognized him as one of those he had smacked with his rifle butt. “I, Didius Octavius Publianus, tribune of the
vigilii,
charge these criminals with trespassing in the domain of Nova Roma, of being enemies of the State, and spies for the Gauls.”

Gauls?
Preacher thought. How silly could someone get? He could not let that one lay. “Why, Your Worship, this whole thing is crazy. Downright redic'lous in fact. What Gauls? There ain't any Gauls anymore, an' this sure as hell ain't ancient Rome.”

Quintus raised a restraining hand. “Ah, but it is, my talkative spy. It is Nova Roma, New Rome. Let me introduce myself. I am Marcus Quintus Americus, First Citizen of Rome. These are my fellow judges, Publius Gra—”

Before he could complete the introductions, Preacher exploded. “By damn, I remember now. First Citizen means dictator.”

Quintus displayed a surprised, impressed expression. “Why, that's quite correct, my good fellow. Duly elected to that honored position by the Senate. You seem quite learned for such a rough and rude specimen of the frontier.”

“Just because I've spent most of my days out here, don't mean I didn't get any learnin'. I studied history, includin' ancient Rome, at the University of the Shinin' Mountains.”

“How odd. I've never heard of it.”

Preacher eyed Quintus suspiciously. “Small wonder. From that accent, I'd say you got your book-learnin' way back east somewhere. Maybe Princeton? Or Harvard?”

Quintus widened his eyes at this astuteness. An amused twinkle lighted the gray orbs. “You amaze me. That's quite remarkable. Harvard it was. Class of Thirty-six. I would really like to take some time to talk with you about this university of yours.” He sighed. “But, the duties of office, and your crimes, make that impossible. Tribune, are you ready to put on your case?”

“Yes, Your Excellency.” Quickly the tribune outlined the encounter in the forum the previous night. His version markedly differed from Preacher's recollection. He made note to dispute them when his turn came. The opportunity came too quickly for him to marshal his arguments.

“Is there anything possible you can say in your defense?” Quintus leaned forward to ask condescendingly.

“Only that it ain't so. Not the way he tells it. We was just takin' a little stroll through your fine city, seein' the sights, so's to speak. We come around this corner and these fellers jumped us right off. We had no idea who they might be, so we had to fight back. I will admit he was right about how many we downed before it was over. Musta been a baker's dozen or more.” He gingerly touched his head. “An' I must say they got in their licks, too. Well, no real harm done, an' no hard feelin's I say. Now, to that bein' an enemy of the state,” Preacher went on.