The First Mountain Man (24 page)

“We're gettin' real close to Cayuse country,” Dupre reminded him.

“Yeah, that is a fact,” Preacher said. “Let's start circlin' for sign. We'll find her.” The mother's wailing had grown louder. He turned to Swift. “Somebody calm that female down 'fore she works herself into the vapors.”

Preacher left his horse and set out walking, slowly working in an ever-widening circle. He took the terrain to the northeast. Bogus Basin lay only a few miles away, near the edge of the Salmon River Mountains.

The thing that bothered Preacher most was that some of Red Hand's people might have been spying on them and seen a chance to grab a kid and done it. The young age of the girls wouldn't make any difference to a renegade—white or red. They'd mount her and then kill her.

Behind him he heard someone shout wildly, “Lord, Lord, everybody. Mary Ellsworth's gone into hard labor. She's gonna birth anytime now.”

“Wonderful,” Preacher said. He paused, his eyes picking up on a track. He knelt down and studied it, his skin growing clammy. Moccasin tracks. He carefully inspected the find. Four sets of Injun tracks and one set of little girl prints. They had her. If it was a Cayuse or even Blackfoot, they wouldn't harm the little girl. They'd adopt her into the tribe. Her life would be hard, but she'd be alive. They might beat her, but they wouldn't rape her. But Preacher had him a hunch these were renegades from Red Hand's bunch.

That put a whole new light on it.

9

He looked back. He was a good mile from the wagon train—too far for a shout and he didn't want to fire a shot into the air. Since this was brush country, and it had been dry, the renegades would have stashed their horses several miles away—not wanting to raise a dust—and approached the wagon train on foot. So now it was a race against time.

Preacher broke into a trot, saying with the tracks. And the Injuns were running now; he could tell that by the longer strides. One of them was making a much heavier print, so he was carrying the child.

I tole and tole and tole them women to keep their eyes open for their kids,
Preacher thought.
Don't never take your eyes offen them. Dammit!

But he knew this wasn't the woman's fault. The girl had probably been riding on the sideboard—called a lazyboard—or on the tailgate and Red Hand's people just popped out of the brush and snatched her off 'fore she could set up a squall. They snuffed a gag into her mouth and set off on a run once they got clear of the trail.

Preacher was gaining on them. He caught a glimpse of brown skin not that far ahead of him. He had his Hawken and his brace of pistols. Three shots and four of them. He'd have to make every shot count, and then, when the bastard totin' the child set her down to make a fight of it, Preacher would have to be close enough to cut him.

He wanted desperately to look behind him, to see if Beartooth or Dupre or Nighthawk or Trapper Jim might be closing, but he knew he couldn't risk it. He had to keep his eyes to the front.

He was only a few hundred yards behind them now. He had heard their running footsteps a couple of times. Approaching a huge boulder, Preacher took a chance and jumped, landing on top of the boulder and kneeling down. He pulled his Hawken to his shoulder and sighted one in, compensated for the distance, and squeezed the trigger. He saw the renegade throw up his hands and fall face down into the dirt. The three Injuns left paused for a second, then took off running. Preacher was off the boulder and running hard, knowing the shot would bring the others at a gallop.

The Lander girl must have worked the gag out of her mouth and really put her teeth to work on the renegade, for he let out a fearful holler and Preacher heard the slap as he struck the child.

The one Preacher had killed, he noted as he ran past him, was a Hidatsa, and the buck carrying the girl looked to be the same. Preacher hollered out, “Beater of little girls! Does your nightmare-in-the-blankets taste run to little boys, too?”

The brave stopped and turned around, his face a mask of war-painted hate.

Preacher didn't let up, he continued running toward the three Indians, now all stopped, hurling insults. “No wonder you are all lovers of men. No woman would look up such ugliness for fear of being struck barren.”

The Hidatsa threw the girl to the ground and Preacher shot him stone cold dead with one ball from a pistol that caught him in the heart and knocked him down.

“Run to yonder horsemen, girl!” Preacher shouted. “Run like the real red Satan was after you personal. Fly, child!”

One of the other renegades, a Crow, Preacher noted, lifted his rifle. Preacher hit the ground, rolling behind some rocks and working frantically to reload his pistol. The ball from the Indian's old Kentucky rifle whanged off the rocks as Preacher rammed home shot and powder and patch. Now his pistols were both double-shotted.

He chanced a look behind him and saw where Nighthawk had swept the girl up in his arms and was riding back toward the wagons at a gallop. Dupre and Beartooth were slowly circling Preacher's adversaries, cutting them off.

The two remaining renegades had disappeared, dropping to their bellies in the brush, hoping to slip away, and Injuns being what they were, the chances were good they'd do just that.

Dupre and Beartooth were staying in the saddle, scanning the area around them from that better vantage point.

“You all right, Preacher?” Dupre called.

“Dandy. Watch your butts, boys. There ain't nothin' more dangerous than an Injun who's in a trap.”

“I told Hawk to tell them others at the train to stay put. We'd take care of this. He's comin' back.”

Preacher had a pistol in each hand, the hammers back. He heard only the faintest of brushing sounds on the other side of the boulder. He quickly backed up and hunkered down amid some smaller rocks. He heard the rustling sound again and put it together. The buck was trying to snake up the other side of the huge rock. Preacher smiled as he heard a rifle boom. Dupre or Beartooth had spotted him, and that was that for another of Red Hand's crap and crud.

Preacher slipped from the rocks just as the last renegade rounded the boulder, a war axe in his hand and a look of raw hatred on his face. He screamed at Preacher and the mountain man put two lead balls into his chest, the impact knocking the buck back and flinging him dead against the boulder. He slid down, his blood smearing the stone.

“That's it,” Preacher called.

“For the time bein',” Beartooth added.

When they returned to the wagon train, Richard met them with a grin on his face that a charge of blasting powder couldn't have removed. “It's a girl!” he said proudly. “Mary Elizabeth just gave birth to a girl!”

“Wonderful,” Preacher said. “Something else for me to have to worry about.”

“Naturally, we'll have to camp here for a day or two until the mother regains her strength,” Richard said.

“Oh, naturally. It wouldn't do to move on. Not a-tall. It makes sense to stay here close to them four dead bucks out yonder in the brush. Seein' as how some of their own might decide to come after them for burial and spot us here restin' and decide to attack. That makes a lot of sense to me.”

He walked off, muttering to himself. But the wagon train stayed put for two days.

* * *

While they waited, Preacher thought about the re-crossing of the Snake, not that many more days ahead of them. He just didn't know how it could be done without taking days to build some rafts and ferry the wagons across.

“Got to be,” Dupre agreed. “There ain't no other way to do 'er.”

Preacher looked at Jim and Nighthawk. They both nodded their heads in agreement.

“And I got my doubts these wagons will hold together over the Cascades,” Dupre added. “You give any thought to that.”

“I been givin' lots of head-ruminatin' to that. I been usin' parts of my brain and I ain't put to work in years. Makes my head hurt, too. Let me put it to y'all this way: if we can beat back and put a good enough whuppin' on Bum and Red Hand in the Blues, we could chance a run down the Columbia. But that's a mighty big if, boys.”

“There might be some ol' boys camped on the Boise that'd lend us a hand,” Beartooth said.

“If
and
might
don't feed the bear, boys.” Preacher sighed and took a slug of coffee. “I agreed to see these people through, and that's what I'll do. Or they'll bury me out here in the wilderness.”

“We'll get them over the Cascades, then,” Nighthawk said. “I know trails. But . . .?” He smiled and shook his head.

“Yeah,” Preacher said glumy. “But.”

* * *

When the train reached the crossing where the Boise juts off from the Snake, there was evidence that trappers had been there, but only one man remained, a trapper who'd taken an arrow in his leg and it had gotten infected. He was near death when Preacher found him, propped up against a tree, waiting stoically for death to take him.

“You don't look so good, Ballard,” Preacher said. He struggled to maintain his composure, for the stench of the rotting leg was very strong.

“I feel a damn sight worser than I look, Preacher,” the dying man said. “And you can bet on that.” He cut his eyes to the wagon train, just them coming into view. “I heard y'all comin' for a long time. Didn't know what the hell it might be.”

“How come you didn't let them take your leg, Ballard?”

“I ain't never knowed no one-legged trapper. Be kind of hard to sit a horse, wouldn't it?”

“Might be. Never gave it much thought. They's missionaries in the train. I can get some of them to pray over you, if you'd like.”

“It'd beat the sound of my own voice, I reckon. That's all I been hearin' for a week. I thought I'd be long dead 'fore now. Why don't we make an e-vent of it. We can have singin' and shoutin' and preachin' and prayin'. If I set my mind to it, I reckon I could expire durin' all the festivities.”

“I'll see what I can do.”

“He wants
what?
” Edmond asked.

“A party and some prayin' and a jug.”

“That's grotesque,” Richard said. “The man needs salvation.”

“What he needs is what he wants,” Preacher told them. “I'll get the jug, you get to prayin' and the like.”

“I'll conduct this with dignity,” Edmond told the dying mountain man.

“I ain't interested in no dignification,” Ballard told him. “How dignified can I be with my leg all swole up the size of a tree and pisen all in my body? Gimmie that damn jug, Preacher.”

Ballard took him a long pull and sighed. “Mighty tasty. Now git some of them women to singin'. I'll get myself all ready to pass.”

“Is he serious?” a mover asked Beartooth.

“Shore. I once knowed a man who rode a hundred miles with two arrows in his stomach. By rights he should have died days 'fore he did. But he wanted to pass in the company of friends. So he hung on 'til he reached a camp. He fell off his horse, looked at us, said 'Howdy,' and died.”

The mover looked at the mountain man, not at all sure he was hearing the truth. He had learned that mountain men do, on occasion, tell lies.

“Lift your voices in some, sisters,” Ballard said. “And you might lift them skirst up some and show me a shapely leg, if you've a mind to. I ain't seen a white woman in nigh on two years.”

“Mind your manners, sir!” Edmond admonished him.

“Go to hell, boy,” the dying mountain man told him. “Preach or pray. But get to doin' something.”

A group of ladies began singing.

“That's better,” Ballard said. “That shore sounds sweet.” He took another long pull from the jug. “Pretty women, soft singin', and good whiskey. I can see the gates of Heaven openin' up now.”

“What you see is storm clouds,” Preacher told him. “It's a-fixin' to rain.”

“Not 'til I pass,” Ballard told him. “You mind them damn Cayuses, Preacher. Something's got 'em all stirred up. You got airy stogy on you?”

Preacher found the butt of a cigar and stuck it in Ballard's mouth and got a burning twig from the fire and lit it.

“Now I'm a contented man,” Ballard said. “You look after my good horse, Preacher. Give my rifle and my pistol to someone who needs them. And bury me deep so's the varmints won't get me.”

“I don't know of no varmint who'd want you, lessen it'd be skunk.”

“Well, you might be right there.” Ballard puffed on his stogy for a time, waving it in the air every now and then in time to the singing of the ladies.

Preacher had lifted Ballard's buckskin shirt and seen the deadly lances of blood poisoning from his gangrenous leg shooting all the way up to his chest. That the man had lived this long was nothing short of a miracle.

“They's some laudanum on the train, Ballard. You want me to fetch it?”

The mountain man shook his head. “No. Hard to believe, but most of the pain is gone. I think the pisen and the rot done killed it. I ain't been able to feel nothing below the waist in two days. Can't piss neither. So my kidneys ain't workin'. All in all, it's gonna be a blessin' to pass.”

“Been me, I'd had one of them ol' boys shoot me 'fore they left,” Preacher said.

“I axed 'em to. But they said they just couldn't do it. It was a pisen arrow, Preacher. You ever known of Injuns to use pisen arrows?”

“Yep. A few. You just got unlucky, Ballard.”

“You got that right. I'm gonna let them ladies sing about one more song, and then I think I'll pass.” He shook the jug. “Well, maybe two songs.”

“Oh, Lord God, our Savior!” Edmond thundered, his voice drowning out the singing. “Look down with pity upon this poor wretch of a man who lies dying before You . . .”

“Make it one song,” Preacher urged. “Believe me.”

Ballard took a mighty slug of the hooch and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“He isn't much, Lord,” Edmond intoned, “and I know his life has been filled with debauchery of the vilest kind . . .”

“Yes, it has,” the ladies said in a sing-song voice.

“It has?” Ballard asked. “Pray tell me, Preacher, what do them words mean?”

“It means you've enjoyed strong drink and whores.”

“He got that right,” Ballard said solemnly.

“. . . And his soul is dark with sin, Lord . . .”

“Is that feller tryin' to get me in or out of Heaven?” Ballard asked.

“Dark with sin,” the ladies sang.

“He's a savage, Lord! Just like the heathens he's lived with, and laid up with their savage women and lusted in their red flesh, Savior,” Edmond's voice rippled the leaves. “Wallowing in the blankets and stroking the hot naked flesh of sweating women.”

A couple of the ladies took to fanning themselves quite vigorously.

“I do recollect that Kiowa squaw that I took to one long winter. Married 'er, I did,” Ballard said. “She and the boy were killed by Blackfeet whilst I was runnin' my traps. Then there was a Fox woman that was mighty fine, mighty fine.” Ballard took him another long pull. “There was two or three more along the way, that I recall. But I ain't been no ladies man, that's for sure.”