CHAPTER 10
Preacher’s swift reflexes and uncanny instincts had saved his life many times in the past, and the same was true of Hawk. Both of them dived forward on the ground and rolled as more gunfire roared somewhere close by. Bullets scythed through the air above them. Preacher heard a couple of slugs strike the iron stew-pot and ricochet off with wicked whines.
Around the wagon train camp, women and children screamed in fear while men shouted curses and questions that did no good. The immigrants were under attack, and they had to fight back or have the camp overrun.
Preacher wound up on his belly. The two Colt Dragoons had already leaped into his hands as if by magic. A few feet away, Hawk pushed himself up onto one knee and lifted his flintlock rifle as he searched for a target.
A shouting figure leaped through one of the nearby gaps between wagons. He carried a double-barreled shotgun that he swung up toward a woman hustling along with several children in front of her as she tried to get them to safety.
The leering, evil grin on the shotgunner’s face disappeared in a red smear as a round from Preacher’s right-hand gun smashed his jaw. An instant later, Preacher’s left-hand gun spewed fire and sent a bullet coring through the shotgunner’s brain. The would-be murderer dropped to the ground bonelessly.
Next to Preacher, Hawk drew a bead on another man who had invaded the camp and planted a heavy lead ball in the center of the attacker’s chest. The impact slapped the man off his feet like a giant hand.
Preacher shoved up onto his knees and saw a woman running toward him with her face twisted in lines of terror. Preacher would have tried to protect her, but he never got the chance. She stumbled suddenly, caught herself, and gazed down in horror at the bloody arrowhead protruding several inches from her chest. The arrow had struck her in the back and gone all the way through her body. She made a sad, sighing sound that was probably just the exhalation of her dying breath and toppled forward.
Preacher looked past the woman and spotted the man who had fired the arrow. The raider was already nocking another shaft on his bowstring. He was an Indian, but he was dressed mostly in white man’s clothing. That told Preacher the gang attacking the wagon train was a mixture of red renegades and white outlaws.
Didn’t really matter. They were all murderous bastards as far as Preacher was concerned. He fired both Dragoons at the same time and blew a pair of fist-sized holes through the man’s belly as he drew back the bow. The arrow he loosed as he doubled over, dying, plowed into the ground.
It was pretty clear what had happened. The raiders had sneaked up in the darkness, fired a couple of volleys from outside the circle of wagons with the intent of killing as many of the immigrants as possible, then had charged into the camp to mop up and slaughter the rest of the defenders.
Preacher wasn’t going to let that happen. He surged to his feet and dashed through the camp, one of his revolvers booming every time he spotted a man he was certain belonged to the gang. His instincts never betrayed him, and neither did his aim. His deadly accurate fire took a surprising toll among the raiders.
Hawk had dropped his empty rifle and pulled the pair of flintlock pistols he carried from behind his belt. These weapons would fire only once, as well, but he had picked up the habit from Preacher of double-shotting them with a heavy powder charge. That made them even more deadly, although somewhat riskier for the man wielding them.
The pistols roared and cut down three men among a group of attackers clambering over a wagon tongue to try to get into the camp. Then Hawk dropped the pistols and flung himself among the stunned survivors. By the time he reached them, he had his knife in one hand and his tomahawk in the other. Those weapons flashed back and forth, blood flying in the air every time they landed a blow.
Preacher and Hawk weren’t the only ones mustering a surprisingly stout defense. Major Powell might have kept referring to himself by his rank because of vanity, but he had served in the Mexican War and evidently hadn’t forgotten what he knew about commanding men in battle. His stentorian voice boomed out, rallying the immigrants. Several of them formed a ring of riflemen and protected each other as they fired back at the attackers.
When Preacher’s Dragoons were empty, he pouched the irons and drew his knife. However, before he could throw himself back into the fray, a shrill whistle sounded and the raiders who were still on their feet broke and ran. It was more of a rout than a retreat. Several men were wounded and stumbling, but they managed to stay on their feet and make it out of the wagon train camp.
Preacher let them go. He figured the outlaws hadn’t expected the immigrants to put up such a fight. They had decided to cut their losses and get out of here while they could.
But the possibility that they might double back and try another attack, thinking the immigrants wouldn’t expect it, couldn’t be ruled out. For that reason, Preacher said to Hawk, “Grab your guns and get ’em reloaded.”
He proceeded to do the same with the Dragoons, replacing the empty cylinders with loaded ones from the leather pouch attached to his belt. While he was doing that, he asked Hawk, “You get hit by any of that lead flyin’ around?”
“No. What about you?”
“Dodged it all, I reckon.” Preacher thought about Margaret Lewis and the way the widow had been struck down without warning, mere moments after he’d met her, as well as the woman who had been killed by the arrow. “I was a heap luckier than some.”
Hawk just grunted as he poured powder from his powderhorn down the barrel of his rifle.
Preacher snapped the reloaded revolver closed and looked around for Major Powell. He spotted the wagonmaster not too far away and strode over to him. Blood dripped down Powell’s cheek from a cut opened up by a bullet grazing him.
“Do you know how many folks you lost yet?” Preacher asked.
Powell shook his head. He was pale in the firelight and looked shaken to his core, but he glared furiously at the same time.
“No, but too many, you can be damned sure of that,” he said. Wearily, he scrubbed a hand over his face and smeared the blood on his cheek. “What happened? Who were those men?”
“Desperadoes, I reckon. I’ve heard of gangs who trail wagon trains and jump ’em when the time’s right. There’s never any shortage of sorry sons o’ bitches who’d rather steal and kill than work for an honest livin’.”
“That’s certainly the truth,” Powell said. “I know of such atrocities happening, of course, but I never ran into anything like this before. Honestly, I didn’t believe anyone would attack such a large, well-armed group, even the savages. Speaking of which . . . I think I saw some Indians among that bunch.”
“You did,” Preacher confirmed for him. “I spotted one myself.” The mountain man pointed with a thumb. “He’s layin’ over yonder somewhere with a couple of well-deserved holes in his belly.” Preacher went on briskly, “You need to round up some good men who weren’t hurt, or not too bad, anyway.”
“So we can go after those marauders?”
“So you can post guards in case those varmints come back.” Preacher managed to keep his tone neutral as he answered Powell’s question. “I know you’re mad and I don’t blame you a bit, but you don’t want to go chasin’ after that bunch in the dark, in unfamiliar territory. They’d just ambush you and wipe you out.”
“But we have to avenge the people we lost! Why, Jason Dawlish himself is dead, cut down by a bullet fired by one of those outlaws.”
“Folks will have to elect themselves a new captain, then. I’m sorry about Dawlish. He seemed like a good man, the few minutes I knew him.” Preacher shook his head. “But gettin’ more fellas killed won’t avenge nobody. To be honest, Major, the best thing you can do right now is bury the dead, tend to the wounded, then turn around and head on back down to South Pass. I’m assumin’ most of these folks will want to go on to where they were headed, and the safest way of doin’ that is by stickin’ to the regular trail.”
Powell sighed heavily and said, “To be honest, I was thinking the same thing. I don’t know whether Churchill Pass exists or not, but South Pass does, there’s no doubt about that. We can make it through there without too much risk.”
“I’m glad to hear that’s the way you’re leanin’.”
“Preacher . . . I saw what you and Hawk did during the battle. I had my own hands full, of course, but the way you whirled among those raiders with your guns spitting fire . . . I’ve never seen such a thing. And Hawk fought magnificently, too. I don’t think we could have driven them off without the two of you. I would have been honored to have both of you under my command during the war.”
“I’m obliged to you for those sentiments, Major. Now, let’s see what we can do for the folks who are hurt . . .”
* * *
Appleseed Higgs was cussing a blue streak as he limped across the hidden clearing where the outlaw camp was located. A bullet had gouged a chunk out of his upper left thigh, and it hurt like blazes.
A short time earlier, when they got back to camp, Charlie Harkness had poured some whiskey onto the wound—after first giving Appleseed a good swig from the jug, of course—and bound a rag around the leg to serve as a bandage. Appleseed had been shot enough times to know that the injury wasn’t really serious, as long as he didn’t get blood poisoning, but it was annoying as all hell. Appleseed should have been sitting down somewhere with his leg propped up, taking it easy.
He wanted to talk to Winter, though. The Blackfoot woman stood at the edge of the firelight, a smoldering cheroot clamped between her teeth, looking mad enough to chew nails instead of that smoke.
She glanced at Appleseed as he came up to her, and the expression in her dark eyes was as cold as the season she was named after. She asked around the cheroot, “How many did we lose?”
“Five dead, their bodies left behind,” Appleseed reported. “And another fella died on the way back here. Plus we got four or five hurt bad enough they ain’t gonna be any use for a while, and damn near ever’body picked up some sort of nick. Like me with this leg o’ mine. I can get around, but I ain’t very spry.” He cocked his head a little to one side. “You may be the only one who came through the fight without a scratch, Winter.”
Her gaze got even colder, although he wouldn’t have thought that was possible.
“What are you saying, Appleseed?” she demanded.
Hastily, he held up his hands and said, “Not a thing, not a damn thing. I wouldn’t say nothin’ bad about you, Winter. Hell, I wouldn’t even think it. I been ridin’ with you for a good long spell. You know how I feel about you.”
That was true. Appleseed had thrown in with Winter back in Missouri, when she was first starting to recruit a gang of cutthroats and thieves. Not many men believed that a woman could lead such a band, but Appleseed had sensed right away just how smart and dangerous she was. They had robbed stores and banks and held up stagecoaches, and they had never come close to getting caught. Any man who decided he wanted to take over the gang—or just take unwanted liberties with Winter herself—she killed swiftly, mercilessly. The fellas who stayed with her learned quickly not to cross her.
Just because she was a woman didn’t mean she was weak or soft. Appleseed wasn’t sure he had ever been around anyone more dangerous.
Winter never let her guard down, even with him, but now and then she had made a few comments that led him to believe she’d always been that way. Back in the mountains, growing up with the Blackfeet, before she had ever seen any white men, she had longed to be a warrior.
The men in her tribe weren’t having any of that. Eventually, she had become an outcast, and that led to her heading east and finding her way among the whites. She dressed like a white man, carried herself like a white man, and in that poncho she wore, with her hair tucked under her hat, it was difficult even to tell that she was a woman. Her copper skin and her features gave away her Indian heritage, but a lot of people took her for a half-breed. Most even figured she’d been raised white.
It was a remarkable transformation, Appleseed had thought more than once. And that was because Winter Wind was a remarkable woman.
“See to it that the wounded men are cared for,” she said now around the cheroot. “I want them to recover as quickly as possible. Also, I want you to visit the trading posts. Find men to replace the ones we lost. More, if you can get them. We need a bigger gang.”
“To go after other wagon trains later, right? I mean, you ain’t thinkin’ about tryin’ to jump this particular bunch of pilgrims again, are you? Sure, we hurt ’em, probably pretty bad, but we’d be outnumbered even worse now, and they’ll be on their guard. I reckon we couldn’t take ’em by surprise again.” Appleseed ran his fingers through his beard. “They’ll probably turn around and light a shuck for South Pass, anyway.”
Winter said, “I care nothing about those immigrants. It is the two men who joined forces with them yesterday I want.”
Appleseed’s leg was paining him worse. He wished he could sit down on the log they used for a bench, not far from the fire. But Winter was still standing, so he supposed he ought to stay on his feet, too.
“You mean the old mountain man lookin’ fella and the redskin?” He let out a low whistle of grudging admiration. “Yeah, them two were holy terrors, wasn’t they? Never seen anybody move quite that fast or shoot quite that good. I reckon things might’ve turned out different if those two hadn’t come along yesterday and thrown in with that wagon train. Just our bad luck, I suppose.”
Winter puffed on the cheroot for a moment, blew out a cloud of smoke, and said, “Not bad luck. The white man was Preacher.”
Appleseed’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead in surprise.
“Preacher!” he said. “Dang, I’ve heard plenty of stories about that varmint. Are you sure it was him?”
“I got a good look at him in the firelight. It was Preacher. I will never forget him.”
“You’ve met him before?”
A faraway look came into Winter’s eyes as she said, “It was ten years ago, perhaps a little more. Preacher had long waged war on the Blackfoot people, but this time he set out to destroy an entire village, to kill all the warriors who lived there and leave the women and children defenseless. They fought him, of course. Preacher had the help of his bastard son, an Absaroka youth called Hawk That Soars. But still, it was just the two of them against many, many Blackfoot warriors.” The note of bitterness in her voice was plain to hear as she went on, “Even so, they triumphed. They brought bloodshed and destruction to my people. I fought them. No one believed I could be a warrior because I am a woman, but I fought Preacher and Hawk That Soars and almost defeated them. In the end, though . . .”
Her face might have been carved out of wood as she sighed, but the bleak iciness of her soul sparkled in her eyes and made it clear how that previous clash had turned out.
“I vowed that I would make myself even more of a warrior,” she went on after a moment. “And I swore that someday, I would find Preacher and Hawk and kill them. Now that time has come. Fate has delivered them into my hands.”
Appleseed frowned and responded, “I thought you said we weren’t goin’ after that wagon train.”
“We are not . . . unless Preacher and Hawk accompany it. But they rode up from a different direction and may have business here in the foothills or the mountains. I intend to watch and follow them, whether they go with the wagons or not, and when the time is right, I will return here, gather everyone together, and strike for vengeance long overdue.”
Appleseed scratched at his beard again and slowly nodded. He was about to say something, but then he got distracted by something he picked out of the tangled growth hanging down over his chest. He studied it for a second, crushed it between his fingers, and then wiped them on his greasy buckskin trousers.
“You need to be careful,” he told Winter. “Preacher’s supposed to be half mountain lion, half grizzly bear, and half whirlwind. Although . . .” He chuckled. “Come to think of it, a fella could say pretty much the same thing about you. Don’t worry, Winter. I’ll take care of ever’thing else so you can track them varmints to their lair. Can’t think of but one problem with this deal.”
“Problem?” Winter repeated with a frown.
“Them fellas.” Appleseed inclined his head toward the rest of the gang. “Helpin’ you settle your score agin Preacher ain’t gonna put no money in their pockets. I don’t know how they’re gonna feel about that.”
“They will do as I say,” snapped Winter.
“Well, sure, sure, you’re the boss, but they figure on gettin’ a good payoff for anything they do.”
Winter considered that for a moment and then said, “I will not take a share of the money from our next two . . . no, our next three jobs. What would have been my share will be divided among those who ride with me on this quest.”
“Now that’s a deal I can sell,” Appleseed said with a nod. “And after Preacher and Hawk are dead?”
“We will loot the frontier from one end to the other,” said Winter Wind.