7
Preacher halted the train about a mile from Rocky Creek and he and Dupre, Nighthawk, and Beartooth rode up to the crossing. No Indians were in sight, but the four of them knew that accounted for nothing in this country.
“Quiet,” Preacher observed. “But a peaceful kind of quiet.”
“Right,” Dupre said dryly. “Like that bird singin' yonder that ain't no bird.”
“I gleaned that right off,” Beartooth said. “So they're waitin' for us in them rocks over yonder crost the crick. Now, I consider that to be downright nasty, sneaky, unfriendly, and not a-tall to my likin'.”
“Yeah,” Preacher said with a grin. “Not nothin' like any of us would do.”
“You got you an idee,” Beartooth said. 'Ever' time you grin like 'at, I know you got something sneaky wigglin' around inside you headbone.”
“I do for a fact. Let's ride on back and get things set up. We'll give them renegades something them that live through can tell their grandkids.”
“Real easy like and not in no hurry,” Preacher told Swift, “I want you to pick out twelve of the best shots in the train and get them ready to load up, six in each wagon. Three to a side. I want them to have at least three rifles loaded up and pistols at the ready. Beartooth and Nighthawk is on the south right now checkin' to see if we're bein' spied on. Rig the canvas so's it can be jerked up from the inside. Have Jim drive one wagon, and a damn good man on the seat of the other. We're gonna turn this ambush around.”
The warbling of a bird reached them. Preacher smiled. “That's Nighthawk tellin' me it's clear. When you get your men picked out, load ever'body up on the south side of the wagons so's the Injuns won't see what's goin' on.”
“Where will you be?” Swift asked.
“Me and Beartooth will be in front. Dupre and Nighthawk to the rear. What we'll do, you and me, is have a big argument on the banks with me yellin' that we can only take two wagons acrost at a time. Then we'll move 'em out.”
Swift looked doubtful. “I hope this works,” he finally said, with a shake of his head.
Preacher grinned at him. “Me and Beartooth's gonna be in the front. What are you complainin' about?”
Preacher walked back to where the two wagons were being prepared. With only the flaps facing southward lowered, men busied themselves off-loading the wagons' contents, making room for the marksmen. The mountain men double-shotted their pistols and checked their rifles.
“Me and Nighthawk found signs that show some lazy-butt Diggers has joined this bunch,” Beartooth said. “This bunch mostly is tribal castouts. For a Digger to throw somebody out of the tribe means they really must have done something awful.”
“I ain't never heard of a digger ever throwin' nobody out,” Dupre said. “Most of 'em's too damn lazy to take the time for a meetin'.”
Preacher told Swift, “Make your people ready for an attack. We can't circle here, so keep everybody in the wagons, or right near them. Guns ready.”
“We're ready,” Trapper Jim called.
“Come on, Swift,” Preacher said. “Let's us walk down to the bank and have a quarrel.”
The two men stood on the banks and shouted at each other for several minutes, with a lot of finger-pointing at the other side of the creek. Finally, the wagon master threw up his hands and stalked off.
“Bring 'em on,” Preacher shouted. “Beartooth, bring my horse down here, will you?”
“You think they bought it?” Beartooth asked, when Preacher had swung into the saddle.
“I hope so.” He cocked his Hawken and Beartooth did the same. “We're gonna have to fire these things like pistols,” he told the big mountain man with a grin. “So get a good grip on yourn. I'd hate for you to lose it and you have to go wadin'in the crick after it. Your feet's so dirty the water'd be ruint for miles downstream.”
“Wagh!” Beartooth said. “You ain't token a bath in so long even the fleas is a-leavin' you. I oughtta shove you offen your horse so the poor animal could take a decent breath. It's a wonder he ain't dropped stone dead from havin' to smell you.”
They insulted each other while the wagons were lumbering down the trail to the creek.
“I reckon we'll play this here game out like we see it oncest we're crost,” Beartooth said. “Watch your top-knot ifn you have the leave the saddle, ol' son.”
“Same to you, Bear-Killer. Here they are. So here we go.”
They stepped their horses into the creek and began the crossing, staying close to the first wagon, driven by Trapper Jim. They felt the attack would begin as soon as the second wagon was fully out of the creek and past the top of the embankment. The renegade Indians would, in all likelihood, be content with slaughtering those in the two wagons rather than face defeat or taking heavy losses by waiting until the entire train was over.
“In the rocks left and right,” Beartooth whispered. “Unless a rock has taken to growin' a hand.”
“Yep. That's a careless Injun. Tell you what, just as soon as the last wagons crost, we kick these hammerheds into a gallop and get past them boulders. I'll swing left and you swing rightâthat's the side your furthest leg is on,” he added with grin, “and we'll come up 'hind 'em.”
“I would tell you to keep low in the saddle,” Beartooth responded with a smile, “but you so damn scrawny and poor as it is, if an Injun gets an arrow in you it'll be pure luck. Never seen a man afore that has to stand in the same spot twicest to make a shadder.”
“Don't worry none 'bout takin' no arrow-points, Beartooth. They's so much lard and blubber on you it won't do no damage to amount to much.”
They stepped their horses onto the bank and started up the slight incline.
“The only place Beartooth might take an arrey is in his butt,” Trapper Jim called. “Way it hangs out over the sides of that saddle makes a right temptin' target.”
“I don't know why I 'ssociate with the likes of you people,” Beartooth said. “Way you continue to heap insults upon the poor head of this humble child of God.”
“Wagh!” Preacher said, then spat. “You bring it all on yourself. Any man who'd winter with a squaw as ugly as that female you took up with back in '31 is beyond redemption. I thought you'd took up with a bear first time I come up on you two. What was her name? She Who Frightens The Sun?”
Beartooth grinned. “She cooked good and was right cosy in the robes, though.”
“I 'spect she were that. 'Course you had to kill nine deer to get enough skins for her dress. First time that woman reared up in front of me I jumped ten feet in the air. I thought I done come up on a Sasquatch.”
“I allow as to how she were a queen compared to that Assiniboin you took for a bride back in '28.”
“I
had
to marry up with her,” Preacher said. “It was either that or they was gonna kill me. I'm tellin' you, her father was desperate to get shut of that girl. He didn't name her Squalls a Lot for nothin'. First time she hollered at me the whole damn tipi fell down.”
The second wagon reached the crest of the bank and Preacher let out a wild whoop and Hammer took off like he'd been shot out of a cannon.
Preacher cut left and Beartooth cut to the right just as the rocks on both sides of the trail were suddenly swarming with rogue Indians.
The canvas on the wagons was jerked off and the riflemen inside leveled their weapons and cut loose with a volley. These Indians never had a chance. Taken completely by surprise, they were cut down and their blood began staining the rocks and boulders by the creek.
Preacher left his horse and slammed into a buck, knocking him to the ground. He sprang to his feet with a knife in one hand an a pistol in the other. Preacher shot him at nearly point-blank range with the Hawken and the ball passed right through him, the impact knocking the brave off his moccasins. Preacher used his rifle like a club, cracking the skull of a buck who came screaming at him.
Dropping the Hawken, Preacher jerked out two pistolsâdouble-shotted as usualâand took two more out with them, the balls doing fearful damage to the braves.
A brave jumped at Beartooth and the huge man grabbed him by the neck and hurled him against a boulder, breaking the warrior's back with a horrible cracking sound.
Nighthawk turned as a renegade Saukâidentified by his distinctive necklace of grizzly bear clawsâcursed Nighthawk for a mangy Crow dog. Many of his tribe had been pushed west by the ever-moving and encroaching whites. Nighthawk lifted a pistol and drilled the Sauk through the heart, then ran to help his friend, Dupre, who was struggling with two Indians who wore Sioux markings.
Nighthawk clubbed one with the butt of his pistol, smashing the man's skull. Dupre threw the other one to the ground and shot him in the head.
Trapper Jim had left his wagon seat, a pistol in each hand, and two dead Indians lay at his feet.
“It's over!” Preacher shouted. “Stop firin'. It's over.”
Men coughed nervously and rubbed at eyes that watered and smarted from the thick gray smoke from their black powder weapons. The mountain men went about the grisly task of finishing off those warriors who were badly wounded.
“Stay in the wagons,” Preacher told the movers. “This ain't nothin' you need to get involved in. It's just something that has to be done. Reload all your weapons. That'll give you something to do.” He shook his head, but he was proud of the movers. They had conducted themselves well.
Nighthawk knelt down beside a badly wounded, gut-shot Cayuse and spoke in his own language. “You are dying. Do you want me to hasten death?”
“I want you to do nothing, Crow puke,” the defiant warrior told him. “Except leave so I do not have to look upon your stupid, ugly face. I do not want that to be the last thing I see in this life.”
Nighthawk rose. “Then I shall certainly abide by your wishes, Cayuse vulture shit.”
He walked away, leaving the buck to die alone.
“You ever see so damn any tribes in one spot?” Dupre asked, as the mountain men met back on the trail. “I counted eight tribes. They's a dead Cree over yonder.”
“Worries me,” Preacher admitted, as Swift yelled from the other side.
“When do we cross?” the wagonmaster yelled.
“Bring 'em on over!” Trapper Jim shouted, waving at the man. He climbed back on the seat and pulled his wagon on ahead, the second wagon following.
“Worries you?” Nighthawk said, pointing to a dead Indian. “That's a Crow over there. I knew him as a good man. It's hard for me to believe that a Crow would join up with such a band of puke and maggots.”
The men gathered their horses and got off the trail as the wagon train began its crossing of the creek. No one asked if the mountain men were going to bury the dead Indians. By now, they knew they would not. But they did help drag them out of sight so the womenfolk wouldn't have to look at the mangled and bloody bodies.
The wagons lumbered across slowly, the creek crossing going well until a wheel came off and dumped some of the wagon's contents into the now muddy water.
“Don't try to drive them wagons around it,” Preacher hollered out the warning. “They's rocks on one side and a drop-off on the other.”
“Rig a skid!” Swift shouted. “Helpers down here, boys. Let's step lively now.”
Melody walked her horse across the creek to sit side-saddle and watch the proceedings. She wrinkled her little nose at the smell of death that hung heavily around the ambush site, and very pointedly ignored Preacher.
“That woman wants to share her blankets with you, Preacher,” Dupre said.
“She's a looker,” Beartooth said.
“I'd sooner bed down with a coyote,” Preacher said. “I done told that woman fifteen times to leave me be. It's like tryin' to get shut of a hongry bear when you're totin' fresh-kilt meat.”
“Why don't you bed her down and then just ride off?” Dupre suggested.
“If I done that, she'd be followin' me around forever, totin' a bedroll. I can just see it now. All the rest of my days, I'd have this female followin' me acrost the plains and the mountains. No matter where I might wander, she'd be right behind me, callin' out, 'Come back, Preacher. Preacher, come back,' Lord, I'd be the laughin' stock of the West.” He shook his head as his friends broke out in laughter.
Melody cut her eyes to the group of mountain men, unaware of the Indian who was only a few yards from her. He had not moved during the ambush. He lay between a rock and a small bush. He was one with the earth, conspicuous to anyone who might glance his way and actually see what lay before them. But the Indian knew that while whites look at many things, most of them actually see very little.
All around him movers strained and grunted and swore as they finally got the wagon with the broken wheel out of the creek and up the grade. No one saw the lone brave. He was going to die, and he knew it. It didn't matter. He had sung his death song hours before. He moved only his eyes as he planned out his final few minutes on this earth. Up swiftly, one short jump, and the honey-haired woman on the horse would be dead. No matter if the others killed him. That was not important.
But the horse didn't like the strange scent in his nostrils. He kept fighting the bit, wanting to leave this place, the smell of the warrior making him nervous.
Preacher looked at the skittish horse, wondering if there was a snake over there. Something was sure making that horse nervous. Melody was having a hard time controlling the animal, and Preacher knew she was a good horsewoman. Something was very wrong. He left the group and walked toward Melody, reflex making him cock the Hawken as he walked.