Preacher and the Mountain Caesar (6 page)

Preacher did not let up. He shook both combatants like small children and then threw them away Ty Beecham bounced off the ground and started to get back on his boots. Preacher reached him in two swift strides and towered over the fallen man.

“Don't.”

All at once, Beecham saw the wisdom in this and remained down. Not so Hoss Furgison. He came at Preacher with a yodeling growl. Preacher mimicked it and danced around like an Injun, flapping a hand over his mouth in time with the sound that came out. Somehow that further enraged Furgison, who, blinded by the taunts, abandoned all semblance of a plan.

He walked into a short, hard right to the chest, which he had left unprotected in order to grapple for a bear hug. Unkindness followed unkindness for Hoss. Preacher stepped in and pistoned his arms into a soft belly, until Hoss hung over the arms that punished him. Preacher disengaged his arms and stepped away. Hoss fell to his knees.

“You'd do yourself a favor if you stayed there, Hoss. I wasn't fixin' to do any real harm. Push it, an' by dang, I surely will.”

“You win, Preacher. You win,” Hoss panted.

Tall Johnson looked to the old man. Grudgingly, the graybeard dug under his grimy buckskin shirt and pulled out a small pouch. From it he took a large gold nugget, crusted in quartz. Tall reckoned it to be worth what the old feller said.

“You got enough in yer pocketbook to have paid, had yer man lost?” the ancient demanded with ill grace.

Tall puckered his lips and threw the sore loser a wry look. “Well, now, we'll never know, will we?”

“Don't get another hidey-ho goin', Tall,” Preacher admonished. “I still have to go after those brats.”

“So you do,” Tall answered cheerily. “And I wish you the joy of it.”

“Dang it, Tall, if my knuckles weren't so sore, I'd knock some of the dust off 'em on that ugly puss of yours.” So saying, Preacher stomped off for the front of the trading post and his trusty Cougar.

* * *

Preacher reined in and dismounted. The troublesome pair had found a stretch of slab rock that made it impossible to track them. Instead of crossing directly over, Preacher skirted around the edge counterclockwise, leading Cougar. He had gone only a quarter of the way when he found traces. Something about them bothered him.

Then he saw it clearly. These prints had been made by moccasins, right enough, and Terry had been wearing the pair Preacher had given him. But these were of a different pattern than those the boy had. These marks had been put down by an Arapaho. Preacher continued his search, and found no sign of where the children had left the wide stretch of exposed granite. Had the Indians taken the boy and girl?

One way to find out. He set out to follow the trace left by the Arapahos. An hour later, he encountered their evening camp. Among them he soon found old friends. Bold Pony was an age with Preacher, and in fact they had spent several summers together as boys in their late teens. Now the Arapaho settled Preacher down to a ritual sharing of meat and salt.

Bold Pony had held his age well, Preacher noted. He still made a strapping figure, his limbs smooth and corded with muscle. He wore the hair pipe chest plate of a war chief and proudly reintroduced Preacher to his wife and three children. His boy was eleven, with a shy, shoe-button-eyed little girl of eight next, followed by a small boy, a toddler of three.

“Makes a feller know how many summers have gone by,” Preacher confided. “Last I saw of you, that biggest of yours was still peekin' at me from behind his momma's skirts.”

“You have weathered the seasons well, old friend,” Bold Pony complimented.

“Yep. Well . . . beauty is as beauty does.” Preacher's observation didn't mean a damned thing, but Bold Pony nodded sagely, arms crossed over his chest.

“What brings you into the hunting place of the Arapaho?” Bold Pony got right to the point as he pushed aside his empty stew bowl.

Preacher described in detail his encounter with Terry and Victoria, described them and recounted how they had managed to bowl over Frenchie Pirot and make an escape from the trading post. Bold Pony nodded several times during the explanation, then sat in silence as he lighted his pipe.

After the required puffs sent to the four corners of the world, and the two to the Sky Father and Earth Mother, Bold Pony drew one more for pleasure and passed it to Preacher. “We know of these children,” he said with a scowl.

Preacher repeated the ritual gesture and sucked in a powerful lungful of pungent smoke. “Do you now? Any idea where they might be right now?”

Bold Pony accepted the pipe back, puffed and spoke. “I may know that. My son and his friends”—he nodded to the other lodges in the small encampment—“range far on their boyish hunts. It is possible they saw these young white people not long ago. It is possible that they are with their no-account family in a canyon not far off. One that is hidden from the unskilled eye.”

“Is it also possible,” Preacher asked after another drag on the pipe, “that you can give me directions on how to find that canyon?”

A hint of a smile lighted the face of Bold Pony. “It is possible, old friend. I could tell you simply to follow your nose. They are dirty, an unwashed lot. You can smell them from far off. Or I could tell you to follow your ears. There are many children there, and they seem to squabble all the while—very noisy. Or I could tell you to journey half a day to the east until you come to a big tree blasted by the Thunder Bird. There you would find a small stream that comes from a narrow opening to the north. Follow that and you will find them.”

“I am grateful, old friend.”

“It is good. Now we must eat more or my woman will be unhappy.”

“I'd rather to be off right away. But—” he looked up at the stout, round-faced, beaming woman and waggled one hand in acceptance—“I reckon another bowl of that stew wouldn't do no harm. Half a day will put me there a mite after the middle of the night. I can hardly wait,” he said to himself with sarcasm.

6

Eight men, who were dressed in traditional diaperlike loincloths and spike-studded sandals, marched out of a stone archway after the clarion had sounded and the portcullis had been raised. Four of them looked entirely unwilling. They had every reason to be, considering that they were captives from an ill-fated wagon train, not professionals, as were their opponents. When the eight reached the lavish, curtained box, they halted and raised their weapons to salute the imperator in the sanctioned words.

And, right here on the sands of the Coliseum of Nova Roma, they really were about to die. At least the four pilgrims were, who possessed a woeful unfamiliarity with the odd weapons they had been given. One had a small, round, Thracian shield and a short sword. The second had the spike-knuckled caestus of a pugilist—a fistfighter. The third had the net and trident of a
retiarius
. The fourth bore a pair of long daggers, with small shields strapped just below each elbow, in the style of the Midianite horsemen. The professionals bore the appropriate opposing arms. They looked expectantly beyond their soon-to-be victims of the
imperator.

Marcus Quintus Americus rose eagerly and gave the signal to begin with his gold-capped, ivory wand. At once, the gladiators ended their salute, each squared off against his primary opponent, and the fight commenced. Shouts of encouragement and derision rose from the stone benches filled with spectators. Many of these people, the “citizens” of New Rome, had been here for years. Not a few had formerly been the inmates of prisons and asylums for the insane. Whatever their origins, they had acquired a taste for this bloodiest of sports. That pleased Quintus, who resumed his seat on the low-back, X-shaped chair beside his wife, Titiana Pulcra, the former Flossie Horton of Perth Amboy, New Jersey.

“Rather a good lot, this time, eh?” Quintus asked the striking blonde beside him.

Pulcra/Flossie tossed her diadem of golden curls and answered in a lazy drawl. “Come, Quintus, you know the games bore me. They are so gruesome.”

From her far side, the small voice of Quintus Faustus Americus, her son, piped up. “But that's what makes them so exciting, Mother.”

Pulcra gazed on him coolly. “I was addressing your father, Faustus. Really, Quintus, for a boy of ten years, he has truly atrocious manners.”

“Eleven, my dear,” Quintus responded. “He'll be eleven on the nones of September.”

“Which makes it all the worse. He needs a proper teacher. There's geography, history, so many things, including manners, he should be taught.”

“Eleven is a good enough time to begin formal education,” Quintus countered. “A boy needs to be free to indulge his adventurous spirit until then, doesn't he, son?” he added fondly as he reached across his wife to tousle the youngster's yellow curls.

Quintus Faustus Americus had his mother's coloring, her gray eyes and pug nose as well. A thin, wiry boy, he had inherited his father's sadistic traits. He enjoyed tormenting small animals and treated all other children as inferiors. Gen. Gaius Septimus Glaubiae summed up the lad best, as being mean-spirited, filled with a deep-seated evil.

“Yes, Father. Oh, look!” Faustus blurted, pointing to a small, nail-bitten finger on a fallen man on the sand. “He's gone down already. I told you he was too old and frail. You owe me ten dinarii.”

“Done, my boy. Right after the games end,” Quintus responded laughing.

Out in the arena, the oldest immigrant lay in a pool of blood, his life slowly ebbing, while the professional gladiator who had downed him with a simple, straight sword thrust with his
gladius
stood over him. He looked up at the box. Quintus gave him the sign to dispatch the unfortunate.

A short, sharp scream came from the old fellow when the
gladius
pierced his heart. To the left of the unfeeling gladiator, a sturdy young farmer, who had been bound for Oregon, smashed a surprising blow to the face of his opponent with the
caestus
. Blood flew in profusion. A chorus of boos came from the audience.

“I say, rather good!” Quintus cheered on the amateur. “Smack him another one.”

Before the brave farmer could respond, his opponent's length of his chain with the spiked ball at the end lashed out and struck him solidly in the chest. Yanked off his feet by the effort to extract the spike point from the deep wound, the farmer fell face-first to the sand. His opponent closed in and stood above his victim while he swung the wicked instrument around over his head. The farmer rolled over, eyes wide with fright, and lashed out with his blade-encrusted fist. The tines dug into the partly protected calf muscle of the professional gladiator, who leaped back with a howl.

“He's going to die anyway, isn't he, Father?” The small hand of Faustus tugged at the edge of his father's toga.

“Yes, of course, they all are.”

Gray eyes alight and dancing, Faustus clapped his hands. “Oh, good.”

Two attendants rushed from the gladiator entrance portal to help the wounded professional off the sand. Another, armed like a Nubian, complete with zebra-print shield and long spear, took his place. He quickly finished off the second of the four pilgrims. With the farmer dead, that left only two. Faustus grew more excited with each feint and thrust of the four men before him. He stuffed his mouth with popped com, a feat made difficult by the broad, wet smile that exposed small, white, even teeth, like those of a wolverine. A great shout came from the crowd as one surviving immigrant stumbled over the body of the first man slain and went to one knee.

“Oh, splendid!” Faustus squeaked as the gladiator in Thracian armor swiftly closed in on the off-balance amateur.

With cold deliberation, the Thracian swung his curved sword and cleanly decapitated the downed outsider. Faustus bounced up and down on his cushioned chair, his breathing roughened, as little gasps escaped his lips. His eyes grew glassy. He moaned softly as the headless corpse toppled sideways to flop on the sand. To his right, his mother gave him alarmed glances.

“Hasn't it been quite a good day at the games, my dear?” Quintus remarked idly to Pulcra.

“Yes, I suppose it has. Apparently Faustus thinks so.”

Faustus licked his lips repeatedly now and groped for more popped corn while he fixed his lead-colored eyes on the death throes of the last captive. A low, soft moan escaped as the hapless man breathed his last.

Quintus spoke in low, confidential tones to his wife. “I only hope the men I sent will be successful. And, that they get back in time for the birthday games for Faustus. We will have the spectacle of spectacles when that living legend, Preacher, is on the sand. What a crowning event that would be for the boy's birthday!”

* * *

Preacher had other things on his mind at the time. Slipping unseen through the woods in late afternoon, he spied out the Tucker compound shortly before sundown. To grace it with the name of “compound,” Preacher reasoned, had to be a gross exaggeration. It consisted of a low, slovenly cabin, the second story of which seemed to have been added as an afterthought. A rickety corral stood to one side, partly shaded by a huge old juniper. The mound and the recessed doorway of a root cellar occupied space on the opposite side. Right off, Preacher spotted a dozen brats.

They stair-stepped from a toddler of maybe two to a gangly youth of perhaps fifteen. The younger ones went about blissfully naked. The older ones were every bit as ill-clothed as had been Terry and Vickie. While Preacher observed, he began to note that all of them appeared to have some physical or mental defect. All except Terry and Vickie, who showed up in the last glimmer of twilight.

Perhaps they had a different poppa, Preacher speculated. Or another momma? A moment later, the situation became clearer when three adults showed themselves in the tree-shaded, bare, pounded ground in front of the cabin. The man and one woman looked enough alike to be twins, both with black hair and eyes, like most of the children. Preacher recalled the speculation on the part of Ruben Duffey.

That seemed to make more sense when he studied the other woman, whom he saw to be fair, with long, blond hair and pale blue eyes. To Preacher's consternation and as an assault on his sense of propriety, the man was openly affectionate to both women. He hugged them and bussed them heartily on their cheeks, held hands with the dark one while she gathered in the children.

Like most youngsters, the black-haired tribe frisked about some, holding out for only a few minutes more before surrendering to the indoors. The dusky woman cupped hands around her mouth and let out a raucous bellow.

“All right, that's enough. Inside this minute or no supper for anyone.”

They scampered for the house with alacrity. All except Terry and Vickie, who coddled along as though reluctant to face a meal in that house. Terry continuously scuffed a big toe against the firm ground. Preacher continued to watch until the adult trio disappeared inside. Disgusted by this ménage
à
trois, and apparently an incestuous one at that, he settled back to lay plans for how he would deal with them. Some of the alternatives he came up with seemed distinctly grim.

* * *

Deacon Phineas Abercrombie and Sister Amelia Witherspoon stood stock still, thoroughly astounded. The men who surrounded their three-wagon train, which comprised their “Mobile Church in the Wildwood,” looked exactly like soldiers of Ancient Rome. Yet, how could that be? Here, in Wyoming Territory, in the year of our Lord 1848? One of them came forward into the fiickering bonfire-lighted clearing from the surrounding woods.

He bore a large Imperial Eagle on a long, wooden rod; the laurel leaf wreath, which, like the eagle, appeared to be of pure gold, encircling below it the famous emblem of Rome— S.PQ.R.,
Senatus
,
Populusque, Romanus
—Deacon Abercrombie recalled this from his Latin studies. “The Senate and the Roman People.” What madness could this be?

One, obviously their leader, stepped forward, haughty, fierce-eyed, every inch the domineering Roman centurion in his crested helmet, cuirass, kilt and greaves. “What are you barbarians doing in the realm of Nova Roma?”

New Rome?
the stunned deacon echoed in thought. That accounted for it, then, his dizzied mind supplied. Still unsettled by this apparition, he spoke in a near babble.

“Why, we are not barbarians. We are Christian missionaries. We have come to spread the word of God to the heathen lands, to do the work of the Lord.”

Cutting his eyes to a subordinate, the centurion commented, “Good Christians, eh? We'll get to see the lions again, eh, Sergeant?” His smile was decidedly unpleasant, Abercrombie thought.

His
contubernalis
(skipper) produced a wicked smirk. “That'll be just jolly. I hope they save this fat windbag for last,” he went on, with a nod to Abercrombie.

Astonished that he had no difficulty in understanding their Latin, Deacon Abercrombie flushed with crimson outrage at the depiction of himself. He was about to launch into an indignant protest when the centurion's next words stoppered his mouth.

“All right, round them up and get them in chains. First I want to ask a couple of questions.” He turned to Abercrombie and spoke in perfect English, albeit heavily laden with a Southern accent. “We're looking for a man. He's been wounded, and probably traveling slow. Have any of y'all seen such a person?”

While Deacon Abercrombie struggled to frame a reply that included a protest, a startled yelp from his right silenced him. “Take your hands off me,” Sister Amelia snapped. “I'll not abide any man to touch me, let alone a rude stranger.”

A hard-faced legionnaire barked back at her. “Shut up, lady. The
contubernalis
says we put you in chains, that's what we're going to do.”

“Why, the very idea! The nerve. How dare you treat us like this?”

“Sister, please,” Abercrombie interrupted in an attempt to defuse the situation.

The soldier acted as though he had not heard a word. “Because we've got the weapons, Sister. Now, cooperate or suffer for it.”

Quickly the twenty men and sixteen women were rounded up and thrust into chains. Few voiced protest. Several women began to pray aloud or to sing hymns. The crude legionnaires laughed among themselves and made nasty comments. Soon, the job had been completed. The centurion had as yet to get an answer to his first question. He bore in on Deacon Abercrombie.

“You seem to be in charge of all this. I want an answer, or it will go hard on y'all.”

Abercrombie tried to compose himself. “What was the question?”

“Have you seen a wounded mountain man?”

“No.”

“That's all? Just no?”

Deacon Abercrombie sighed in frustration. “No, none of us has seen such a person.”

With eyes narrowed, the centurion put his face right in that of Abercrombie. “You sure y'all ain't hidin' somethin'? Not bein' entirely truthful?”

“Sir, I am a churchman. I do not lie.”

The centurion pointed contemptuously at the Bible tucked under the deacon's left arm. “You ask me, that's all you do, is lie. Pack of nonsense between those leather covers. I'll ask one more question; then all of you back in your wagons or on horses. Have you, by chance, encountered a scruffy man goes by the name of Preacher?”

Several of the cowed missionaries shook their heads in the negative. Abercrombie drew himself up and glared defiantly at his interrogator. “Of that, I am absolutely certain. Had we encountered anyone with so outlandish a pretension in this wilderness, we would have remembered.”