She was a frail little woman in appearance, sad of eye with mousy-colored hair streaked with dingy gray. Like so many women who followed their husbands to little homesteads on the prairie, she had aged beyond her years. Hard work and hard weather took a toll on a woman’s life. Preacher almost felt justified that his happening upon the tiny homestead was in fact the woman’s salvation. After he and his two sons left this place, she would toil no longer. That thought caused him to smile graciously when she offered a dipper of water. “Thank you kindly, ma’am,” he said, taking the dipper from her bony hand. “The Lord’s blessings upon you,” he added.
Mary Weldon stepped back and stood watching the huge man as he turned the dipper up and gulped the water, ignoring the waste that splashed around the sides and soaked his heavy beard. When her husband had called out that someone was coming, she had hurried outside the cabin, hoping that it was Marci and John, her sister and brother-in-law. It was a foolish hope she at once realized. It was far too early in the spring for them to have made the journey. They would most likely arrive toward the middle of the summer. Life would improve a great deal when they got there. The lonely days that stretched end to end were the worst part of Mary’s existence. It would be so grand when Marci was there to talk to and help with the work. It would make life a whole lot easier for her husband as well. Franklin and John were close friends and had spent many a night over the past several years planning to start a new life in the west. She and Franklin had decided to go ahead and make the journey. Marci and John had promised they would not be far behind.
She glanced at her husband standing at the edge of the creek, watching the two younger men water their horses. Strange guests, she couldn’t help thinking. She had no doubt that the savage Indians needed the Word of God, but it seemed a foolish mission for one man and his two sons—especially when the cavalry patrol that passed through the week before had warned her husband that there had been Sioux raiding parties reported since the weather let up. I reckon they ain’t no crazier than we are for trying to make a home here, she thought. The Indians she had met could certainly use a little religion.
The huge man in the black hat and the heavy bearskin coat handed the dipper back. Guessing her thoughts, he grinned and commented, “Life’s kinda hard for a woman out here, ain’t it, ma’am?”
“I guess life’s hard for most folks,” she replied without emotion. “Don’t do no good to complain, though.”
“No, ma’am, it shore don’t, but if you’re a Christian woman, your reward will come in Heaven, though you toil here on earth.”
“I suppose so,” she said with little enthusiasm for the prospects. She hoped the self-proclaimed preacher wasn’t about to get wound up for an impromptu sermon. She was thinking about the little pot of stew she had left warming over the fire. It would hardly be enough to feed extra mouths, especially those on the likes of these three. “I guess we’re just thankful for the few crops that make it here.”
Preacher’s grin widened. “Have you accepted Jesus as your savior?” She nodded. “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away. This here’s one of them times when the Lord taketh away.” With that, he pulled his pistol from the holster on his belt and held it up before her. Puzzled, she stared at it for just a moment before he turned the muzzle toward her and calmly pulled the trigger, sending a bullet through her brain. Mary Weldon’s toil on earth had ended.
Down by the creek, Franklin Weldon was startled by the sudden discharge of the pistol. Turning to see his wife crumple to the ground at Preacher’s feet, he was paralyzed with shock, unable to even cry out. When he saw the pistol in Preacher’s hand, his mind was impacted with the reality of what had taken place. He started to run to his wife, only to be felled by a blow to the back of his skull. Grinning at the fallen man’s helpless struggles to get up, Quincy Rix held his pistol to the back of Franklin’s head and dispatched him to join his wife.
“Goddamn!” Zeb cried out gleefully, excited by the flow of blood.
“Watch your mouth,” Preacher warned. He would not tolerate blasphemous language from his offspring. “Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain.” He paused then, watching his eldest son’s reaction. When Zeb appeared to be properly contrite, Preacher ordered the disposal of the bodies. “Let’s put these poor sinners in the ground, and give ’em a proper service.” He cocked an eye in Quincy’s direction. “And, Quincy, mind you handle the woman’s body respectfully. I don’t mind you fondling all over an Injun woman, but these was peaceful white folks.”
“We gonna scalp ’em, ain’t we, Pa,” Quincy asked hopefully, “so’s it looks like Injuns done it?” That was the usual routine whenever they struck a miner’s camp, a lone trapper, or an isolated homestead like this one.
Preacher Rix cast a patient glance in his son’s direction. “Now there ain’t hardly no need to scalp ’em if we’re fixin’ to bury ’em, is there?” Seeing the blank look on Quincy’s face, he glanced at Zeb, only to find a similar expression. “If they’re underground,” he explained, “nobody’s gonna know if they was scalped or not.” When he saw the light of comprehension finally appear in their faces, he went on. “Now find a shovel and bury these folks, and I’ll say a few words over ’em.”
While his sons followed his instructions, he turned his attention to the cabin and the possible spoils to be taken. He hadn’t expected much in the way of valuables, but he was disappointed to find nothing beyond a few pots and pans, some clothes, and a shotgun. “Dirt poor,” he mumbled, angered by their meager existence. Sniffing the air like a coyote, he detected the odor of food. Turning toward the source of the smell, he saw the iron pot hanging over the edge of the coals in the fireplace. He peered into the simmering pot to discover some kind of stew. Rabbit, he thought, or groundhog. He dipped in his fingers to extract a morsel of meat. Rabbit, he decided and looked around for a spoon. After consuming half the contents of the pot, he set it aside for his sons to finish. Looking around him then, he decided to burn the cabin. So he broke a chair in pieces and threw them in the fireplace. When he had kindled a strong blaze, he pulled firewood, furniture, bedclothes, anything that would burn to the fireplace, and stacked the material at the mouth. He stood in the middle of the cabin watching the fire take hold until the blaze began to find the pine sap in the walls. Satisfied that the cabin would go up in flames, he picked up the pot of stew and went outside to join his sons.
Zeb and Quincy made short work of what stew their father had left in the pot. Then they squatted on their haunches to watch the cabin go up. It didn’t take long before the pine walls collapsed and the sod of the roof smothered most of the flames. “All right, boys,” Preacher said, “finish up that grave, and I’ll pray over ’em.”
* * *
Jordan Gray sat motionless in the saddle, studying the lone plume of smoke snaking up from the distant hills to the south. It was too big to be smoke from a campfire, and too close to the settlements to be an Indian camp. Not being in a particularly curious mood, he was prone to avoid all signs of human contact. He had spent a long, hard winter—mostly in the rugged Big Horns—moving from camp to camp to avoid being discovered by roving Sioux and Cheyenne hunting parties. It had been a difficult winter, with little game to be found in the narrow passes, and a constant search for feed for his two horses. That kind of existence would be hard for most men, but he had adapted to it, moving his camps fast and often. Out of necessity, he had learned to quickly skin and butcher any game he had been fortunate enough to happen upon, packing the meat on his packhorse, and fading immediately into the hills before encountering any curious Indians who might have heard his rifle.
Turning his attention back to the smoke trailing up into the gray afternoon sky, he considered avoiding it, as had been his custom during the winter months just past. He thought about it for a moment before deciding. As best as he could guess, he could be no more than a long day’s ride from Fort Laramie. The smoke he was seeing was most likely from a settler’s cabin and might mean someone was in trouble. With that thought in mind, he nudged his horse gently, and the mottled gray mare moved forward again at a slow walk.
His mind alert to the prairie around him, he gave little thought to the reasons for his self-imposed exile to the cold harsh peaks of the mountains. The solitude of the windswept towers, where winter temperatures plunged unmercifully, could drive a lone man crazy if it didn’t kill him. To Jordan, the time spent alone in the frigid mountains had been a period of healing in his mind. It had been harder on his horses than it had been on him, and much of the time had been spent seeking shelter and food for them. The thought prompted him to reach down and pat Sweet Pea’s neck. Sweet Pea, he laughed to himself. A more unlikely name for the often belligerent horse, he could not imagine. She had belonged to his old partner and friend, Perley Gates. Perley had named her Sweet Pea in hopes it might help her disposition. It hadn’t. But though she might possibly be the rankest-looking horse west of the Missouri, Jordan would wager none could match her for strength and stamina—and she had accepted him. So looks be damned, he wouldn’t trade her for any two horses.
Like the heating of iron in the smithy’s fire, the winter had served to temper Jordan’s soul to a hardness that caused him to give little concern to what might lie ahead. He was even able to at last store the memory of his late wife and son away in a safe place in his mind, to be brought out whenever he chose to remember. It had taken a while for the scar tissue to form over the mental wound left by the violent slaughter of his young family, but in time it had healed. The men responsible for the death of his wife and child were in the ground, slain by his own hand. He no longer questioned the sense of the killings, having come to the conclusion that life itself made no sense. His senses sharpened, his mind attuned to the wilderness in which he rode, he would fight to survive—not for a concern for the future, but merely out of a natural reaction of his own instincts, like that of the wolf or the coyote.
When he reached the gentle line of hills, he discovered that they bordered a wide stream, still swollen with runoff from the melting snow. He paused to survey the column of smoke again. He was close. The fire appeared to be no more than a few hundred yards away, probably beyond the trees that hugged the stream ahead, where it made a sharp bend toward the west. It was then that he saw hoofprints. Coming from the east, they turned to follow the stream toward the foot of the hill, and they left a clear trail through a patch of snow—tracks of three shod horses, not likely belonging to Indians, and something peculiar caught his eye, so he dismounted to take a closer look at the tracks. One of the horses evidently had a slight spur on one shoe, an imperfection that should have been filed off. It was so slight that the owner of the horse probably wasn’t even aware of it. Jordan wouldn’t have noticed it had it not been for the clear imprint in the snow. In fact, most men would not have noticed even then. But Jordan Gray was not most men. Perley Gates had taught him well when it came to reading sign, and when a man chose to live alone in Sioux country, reading sign often meant the difference between living and dying.
After carefully scanning the way before him, he stepped up in the saddle again and nudged his horse forward, guiding the ungainly mare around the few patches of snow still remaining in the shade of the trees.
As he approached the bend, he heard voices. His immediate reaction was to quickly guide the mare away from the stream and up the slope that separated him from the fire. Pulling his rifle from the saddle sling, he dismounted. Leaving the horses standing in the trees, he made his way to the crest of the small hill.
It had been the cabin of settlers. The logs that had formed the framework for the sod walls and roof had collapsed and were still smoking with small flames burning the remains of a few wooden chairs that had been thrown together in a pile. Jordan cast no more than a glance at the burned-out cabin. His attention was claimed by the three men standing around a shallow grave near a small corral. White men, they appeared to have their heads bowed in prayer. At least, two of them did. The other was the one whose voice Jordan had heard when he approached the bend in the stream. Towering over his two companions, he appeared to be addressing his words toward the heavens. His deep voice boomed out from under the broad rim of a black flat-crowned hat as he delivered his eulogy, his arms outstretched as if besieging the Lord to accept the poor souls lying in the freshly dug grave. All three men wore heavy bearskin coats, so Jordan couldn’t help thinking that they presented a picture of a pack of wolves surrounding a kill. He was almost of a mind to withdraw, concluding that there was nothing to be done for whoever occupied the grave, but his suspicious nature dictated a need to know the circumstances of the tragedy.
Moving with the stealth of a man self-trained to survive in a hostile environment, Jordan made his way down the slope, almost to the bottom before the three men knew they had a visitor. Sensing his presence, the tall man jerked his head around to discover the sudden appearance of a stranger who seemed to pop out of thin air. His lead was followed by his two companions. All three stood gaping at the formidable figure dressed in animal skins and carrying a Winchester rifle at the ready. Recovering quickly, the man in the black hat spoke.
“Well, howdy, neighbor. You kinda startled us there. Where’d you come from?” Jordan didn’t answer, and the four men stood silently measuring one another for a few moments. Anticipating Jordan’s unspoken question, black hat offered an explanation. “Injuns.” He gestured with one hand toward the smoldering ruins of the cabin. With the other hand, he motioned for his companions to stay calm. He was smart enough to sense a lethal danger in the wild-looking stranger. “With spring a-comin’, the Injuns has been raidin’ between here and Fort Laramie.” He shook a sympathetic head toward the grave. “I only wish we coulda got here soon enough to help these poor souls. God’s will,” he added. “It ain’t for mortals to question His will. I’m sure these folks has found a better place.”
Jordan shifted his gaze quickly around the clearing and back to the three men before him. He had seen the results of an Indian raid before. This didn’t have the appearance of one. It was too tidy. However, he had no real reason to disbelieve what he was being told. He fixed his gaze to study the three. The man who had so far been the only one to speak was quite a bit older than his two companions. A full beard, which spread unkempt like a wild bush, was streaked with gray, and it shook with the deep resonance of his voice, like sage in a gentle wind. He was a big man, his massive frame exaggerated by the bulky bearskin coat he wore. Jordan cast a cautious eye at the two younger men. Seemingly vacant of thought, they both gaped stupidly at him, and Jordan wondered if there was half a brain between the two of them. The older man spoke again.
“My name’s Nathaniel Rix. Most folks call me Preacher Rix because I’ve chosen to dedicate my life to bringin’ the word of God to the heathens. These here is my boys, Zeb and Quincy.” He paused then, as if waiting for his sons to acknowledge their introduction, but they continued to stare at the stranger. “They don’t say much,” Preacher explained after a moment. Manufacturing a smile, he asked, “Just who might you be, young feller?”
“I might be Jordan Gray,” Jordan replied dryly. He was a pretty good judge of men, and he didn’t judge this one to be a man you could turn your back on. In fact, he was highly suspicious that the three of them might have had more to do with the funeral just completed than the simple act of burial. “Indians, you say?”
“Yes, sir. Sioux, I suspect, judgin’ by the arrow we found in the woman’s body.” Without taking his eyes off Jordan, he cocked his head to the side. “Show him the arrow, Zeb.” Zeb’s blank stare turned to a foolish grin, and he moved immediately to obey his father’s command. Going over to the corner of the corral where the horses were tied, he pulled an arrow from beneath a strap on the saddlebag. Returning at a trot, he held it out for Preacher to take. Holding it up in evidence, Preacher said, “That’s a Sioux arrow for sure.”
Jordan couldn’t dispute it. He was satisfied that it was a Sioux arrow all right, but what he couldn’t say for sure was whether or not they had found it here. There was no trace of fresh blood on it.
“We wiped it clean,” Preacher said, anticipating Jordan’s thought. Turning to look at the grave, he went on. “Them poor folks never had a chance. I suspect the heathen savages jumped ’em early this mornin’. We come along too late to help ’em, but I’m thankful that the Lord guided me here to say some words of comfort over ’em.” He shook his head sadly. “I just wish we coulda got here in time.” Then, as if to justify the slaughter, he said, “God’s will. The Lord has His plan. It ain’t for us to question it. Them souls is better off now than they was tryin’ to scratch out a livin’ in this wilderness.”
Jordan couldn’t deny that, but he couldn’t rid his mind of the suspicion that Preacher and his sons were responsible for the deaths of whoever was buried in that grave. He had no proof, and there was the remote possibility that everything Preacher had said was the right of it. It left him with a feeling of anger and, at the same time, helplessness. There was nothing he could do for the dead.
Seeking to discourage any thoughts Jordan might have about sharing the plunder, Preacher spoke again. “Dirt poor, they was. They didn’t have much, but I reckon what was left is rightfully our’n since we found ’em and buried ’em.”
“Yeah, I reckon,” Jordan replied sarcastically. “It’s kinda unusual the Indians didn’t take those horses there. That’s what Indians are usually after.”
“Yeah, I wondered about that myself,” Preacher said, responding to the sarcasm in Jordan’s tone. “Could be they was scared off when we rode up.”
“Could be,” Jordan replied. It was obvious that he would never know what actually happened here. He had nothing to base his suspicions on but his own gut feeling. At any rate, what was done was done, and there was no way he could change it. Maybe the huge man was a man of God. It was said the Lord moved in mysterious ways. “I’ll be on my way,” Jordan announced abruptly.
“Lord be with you,” Preacher Rix said as Jordan withdrew from the clearing. “If you’re headin’ back toward Fort Laramie, you might tell ’em the Injuns massacred these poor folks. I don’t know what their names was.”
Jordan only nodded in reply, keeping a wary eye on the three until he reached the trees at the base of the hill. Not until he had a few sizable cottonwood trunks between him and the clearing did he turn and quickly make his way back to his horses. Sweet Pea seemed to sense her master’s urgency and was off at once as soon as she felt him settle in the saddle. Up over the crest of the low hill and down the opposite slope, leading his packhorse, he guided the mare through a stand of pines, using the base of the hill for cover until he deemed it safe to cut back toward the prairie. He wanted to make sure he was out of reasonable rifle range before exposing his back on the open prairie.
Behind Jordan, Preacher Rix growled, his tone the same as if warning a dog to sit still, “Quincy.”
“He’s gonna git away, Pa,” Quincy complained, his gaze fixed upon the spot where Jordan had disappeared.
“No, he ain’t. Just hold your horses. We’ll git him.” He gave Zeb a warning frown as well. “You boys is too anxious to git your hind ends shot off.” Preacher had not missed the steady gaze of the hunter in Jordan’s eye and the way the man had carried the rifle in his hands. He would warrant that Jordan had used that rifle before—for more than meat for the table. It was a fine-looking Winchester rifle, and Preacher intended to have it, but he didn’t plan to risk getting shot while going about it. “We’ll wait here for a spell till it gits closer to dark. He’ll be makin’ camp pretty soon. That’s when we’ll git him.”
* * *
Jordan was not the only soul attracted by the column of smoke in the afternoon sky. Painted Wolf and his companions had also noticed it. Numbering only six, the Lakota hunting party approached the hills cautiously lest they be surprised by a Shoshoni war party or an army patrol. Crossing over to a ridge to the west of the smoke in order to take advantage of the setting sun at their backs, the Lakota hunters dismounted and made their way to the crest on foot.
“White men,” Painted Wolf uttered as Red Feather crawled up beside him.
They puzzled over the scene below them: the charred timbers of the burned-out cabin, the three white men lounging around the ruins. Then Painted Wolf noticed the freshly turned mound of dirt near the corral, and the picture became clear. “They have killed the people who built the house,” he said.
“They have fine horses,” Red Feather said. Painted Wolf nodded. He had already considered the prospect of taking the three saddled horses and the two in the corral. At the moment, he was calculating the risk involved in doing so. The three men were heavily armed. He and his companions had only two rifles among them, his single-shot Springfield and Red Feather’s Henry. Their four companions carried only bows. Red Feather’s Henry had a bent magazine, so in effect, it was no more than a single-shot rifle as well. It would be well worth the risk to capture the weapons. It would be a great thing indeed to return to camp with horses and rifles.
“We outnumber them, but we should move farther down the slope to bring our bows in range,” Painted Wolf suggested.
Red Feather was not in complete agreement. “I think it would be better if we use our rifles from here. See how the white men lie around. They are easy targets, even at this distance. We could kill two of them before they know we are here.” He looked to either side of him to see nods of approval from the others.
“Very well, then,” Painted Wolf conceded and slid the bolt back on his Springfield to insert a round in the chamber.
* * *
Preacher Rix paused to cock an ear to the wind. Had he heard something on the ridge above the cabin? He wasn’t sure. Like a fox, he tested the wind, listening and searching the trees with narrowed eyes. Then he glanced over at his two sons, both sprawled on the ground, Zeb snoring. After a long moment, when he detected no other strange sounds, he decided it was time to leave. “Git up, boys. It’s time to ride.” He turned to his side, preparing to get to his feet when he felt the wind of the bullet that snapped by his face. Half an instant after, he heard the sharp crack of the rifle, followed almost at once by a second shot and a cry of pain from Quincy.
Quick as a cat, the huge man dived for cover behind the smoking corner post of the cabin. “Zeb! Quincy!” he yelled at his sons. “Take cover!” He turned to see Zeb dragging his brother to safety.
“I’m shot, Pa,” Quincy whined.
Preacher, concerned for his youngest, but also busy searching the slope above them, asked, “How bad?”
“Got him in the leg,” Zeb answered.
Preacher turned to take a quick look before returning his gaze toward the slope. Quincy was holding the calf of his right leg and rocking back and forth with the pain. The sight served to anger Preacher. With no thought of pity for Quincy’s suffering, he was instead filled with indignant rage that Jordan Gray had evidently doubled back to bushwhack them. Too bad for him he missed, he thought. Vengeance is mine, so sayeth the Lord. It occurred to him then that the shots did not sound like they came from the Winchester Jordan carried. Someone else was taking shots at them. He sharpened his gaze, scanning the hillside for signs of movement. “Keep a sharp eye, boys,” he called out. “Quincy, stop that blubberin’. You ain’t dyin’.”
After a few more moments had passed, two more shots rang out. This time Preacher saw a faint muzzle flash from a pine thicket near the top of the ridge. He immediately drew a bead on the spot and cranked out a blistering barrage with his repeating rifle. Judging by the pause between shots from the hill, he felt pretty sure that there were only two rifles, and they were evidently single-shot weapons. “Zeb,” he ordered, “you and Quincy keep pepperin’ that thicket near the top. We’ll run them bastards outta there.”
Up on the ridge, the Lakota hunters suddenly found themselves in an untenable position. Rifle slugs flew around them like angry hornets, clipping branches and smacking pine trunks. All six hugged the ground in an attempt to avoid the stinging assault. It might have been the better plan to work their way in closer to bring their bows in range, but there was no time to debate that at the present. Red Feather’s plan might have been successful had it not been for the poor luck to shoot just as their targets decided to move. At any rate, there was no need for discussion as to what action to take at this turn of events. They were drastically outgunned. There was no choice but to withdraw before one or more of the party was killed. Crawling most of the way, they retreated to their ponies and took flight.
“Yonder they go!” Zeb exclaimed excitedly when he caught a glimpse of the Indians near the top of the ridge. He jumped to his feet and emptied his rifle, firing as rapidly as he could.
“After the heathens!” Preacher yelled, and he and Zeb ran for their horses.
“Pa!” Quincy whined, still sitting beside the smoking cabin and holding his wounded leg.
Preacher gave his younger son no more than a cursory glance. He had blood in his eye, and his only thought at that moment was to kill Indians. “You’ll be all right. Stay here and watch them horses. Me and Zeb’ll carry out the Lord’s vengeance.” He wheeled his horse and kicked it hard with his heels, charging up the slope behind the cabin with Zeb close behind.
In his lust for Sioux blood, Preacher forgot about the lone white man on his way to Fort Laramie. He and Zeb galloped across the prairie beyond the line of low hills that shielded Franklin Weldon’s cabin. Catching only an occasional glimpse of the fleeing Indians whenever the Lakota hunters topped a rise, he soon realized that his horse was no match for the swift Indian ponies. This only served to frustrate him, and he banged away unmercifully with his heels in an attempt to force more speed out of his rapidly tiring mount. Finally he reined the lathered horse to a stop, searching the land before him. The Indians had disappeared on the seemingly open prairie. He was reluctant to give up the chase, but his anger had at last cooled to the point where he could consider the likely prospect that the Indians might be lying in ambush in one of the many shallow draws ahead. He turned as Zeb pulled up beside him. “They got away. Let’s go back and take care of your brother.”
He would not realize it until later, but his rabid chase after the Lakota hunters had cost him any opportunity to track Jordan Gray. It had been a costly encounter. A lot of ammunition had been wasted with no meat to show for it. Preacher’s concern now was to replace the spent cartridges, and that would mean finding a source better than the settlers he had just buried. Franklin Weldon had been poorly armed.