CHAPTER 17
Count Stahlmaske was still in a bad mood because Roderick had ruined their chances of shooting some of the antelope. Preacher knew the nobleman was going to complain when he had to turn back to the river before much longer.
Luck was with them, however. They had only gone another quarter of a mile after spooking the antelope before they topped a small rise and saw a number of massive, shaggy animals spread out across a broad, shallow valley.
Preacher estimated there were about five hundred buffalo in the herd, which meant it was a small one indeed. Some of the vast herds farther west had a million or more of the creatures in them. In the past he had watched from hilltops while buffalo as far as the eye could see streamed past him like a brown river, the herd moving all day without ever coming to an end.
Stahlmaske jerked his horse to a halt and said, “Bison!”
“Yep,” Preacher agreed. “I reckon that’s their real name, at least accordin’ to what my friend Audie tells me, but everybody I know calls ’em buffalo.”
“Whatever they’re called, they’re magnificent.”
The count was whispering, so Preacher told him, “You don’t have to worry about them hearin’ you. Buffalo don’t hear all that well, and their eyesight is even worse. Mainly you have to worry about ’em catchin’ your scent, but the wind’s blowin’ toward us right now. You could almost walk right up to ’em if you wanted to.”
“I don’t want to walk up to them.” Stahlmaske lifted his rifle. “I want to shoot one of them.”
“We’re close enough. We’ll get down from the horses and you can take good aim—”
“Shooting them from this distance doesn’t seem very sporting. They won’t even know who is killing them. How do the Indians do it? I’m told they’re the greatest buffalo hunters of all.”
Preacher shook his head.
“That’s not the same thing. Indians hunt mostly with bows and arrows, so they have to get a lot closer. They’ll start a herd runnin’ and then get right in amongst ’em on their ponies—”
“Then that’s what I want to do,” the count interrupted. Without giving Preacher a chance to tell him what a damn fool notion that was, he kicked his horse in the flanks and sent the animal lunging forward at a gallop.
“Son of a—” Preacher grated before he bit back the rest of the curse and turned in the saddle to shout at Russell, “Simon, keep the rest of ’em here!”
Then he and Horse raced after the count.
Stahlmaske began shouting and waving his rifle in the air as he rode. Buffalo might not have the keenest ears in the world, but even they could hear this lunatic charging toward them, Preacher thought. Sure enough, they began to move, first in an ungainly trot, then a run that still looked a little awkward but covered the ground amazingly fast.
They couldn’t outrun Stahlmaske’s horse, though. It was a fine, strong animal, and it quickly began to catch up with the buffalo in the rear of the herd. Dust boiled up from the hooves churning across the prairie and obscured the figure on horseback.
As fast as the count’s horse was, Preacher’s stallion was faster. Horse stretched his legs and seemed to fly over the ground. Clouds of dust rolled around him, too. Preacher wanted to draw even with Stahlmaske’s mount before they were among the running buffalo. He knew that if the count’s horse stumbled and went down in the stampede, the buffalo would crush him into something that didn’t even resemble a human being.
The rumble of hooves filled the air so that Preacher couldn’t hear anything. Dust stung his eyes and clogged his mouth and nose. Stahlmaske was just ahead of him now. A few more strides and Preacher would be even with him.
The count lifted his rifle to his shoulder and fired into the charging brown mass beside him. It was a good shot, because the buffalo stumbled. Preacher knew the animal was hit. A second later the buffalo’s front legs collapsed and it went down, rolling toward Stahlmaske’s horse.
The horse screamed in fear as the dying buffalo tangled in its legs. Preacher was close enough now to reach over and grab the count’s arm.
“Kick your feet loose!” he bellowed at Stahlmaske.
The Prussian must have realized how much danger he was in. He kicked out of the stirrups just as his horse tumbled out from under him. If not for the incredible strength of Preacher’s grip, Stahlmaske would have fallen, too. Preacher jerked the man toward him, and Stahlmaske grabbed desperately at Horse’s saddle.
He was able to hang on for the couple of heartbeats that Preacher needed to pull away from the stampeding buffalo. The mountain man let go as soon as they were clear, and Stahlmaske crashed to the ground to roll over twice. Then he lay there, evidently stunned, as the buffalo herd moved on up the valley. They would stop in a few minutes, Preacher knew, and return to grazing, their momentary panic quickly forgotten.
He heard horses coming and turned to see the whole group galloping toward him and the count. Roderick was in the lead, barely staying in the saddle as he called, “Albert! Albert, mein Gott! Are you all right?”
Coughing from the dust he had swallowed and gasping for breath, Stahlmaske pushed himself into a sitting position and glared at Preacher, who sat nearby on Horse.
“You could have broken my neck, dropping me on the ground like that!”
“You’d have broken a lot more than your neck if you’d fallen in the middle of those buffs,” Preacher shot back at him.
“My horse—” The count stopped with a sharply indrawn breath as he turned his head to look at the gruesome remains of his horse.
“Yeah, that’s what you would’ve looked like,” Preacher said grimly. “So maybe you better be grateful the only thing that happened is you got dropped on your rear end.”
The others rode up and reined in. Roderick and the Ritter twins dismounted with awkward haste and hurried over to Stahlmaske. The count waved them away in irritation and snapped, “Get away from me. I’m all right.”
“Let me help you up,” Roderick offered, but his brother jerked his arm away.
Russell and Allingham moved their horses over beside Preacher. The senator said quietly, “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen, Preacher. I thought beyond a shadow of a doubt that the count was doomed.”
“He came mighty damn close,” Preacher agreed. “Roderick, you and your brother will have to ride double. We’re goin’ back to the riverboat.”
“Nonsense,” Stahlmaske said as he got to his feet. “Roderick, you give me your horse and ride with Heinrich or Hobart. What happened to my rifle?” He looked down at his clothes, stared at them in horror for a second, and then exploded in what had to be German curses. He sputtered, “I . . . I’m covered in . . . in . . .”
“You sure are,” Preacher drawled, and he figured he probably enjoyed that a little more than he should have.
Stahlmaske was still fuming—and reeking of buffalo droppings—by the time they got back to the Sentinel. Gunther came out to meet them. The count dismounted and shoved the reins of Roderick’s horse into Gunther’s hand. He stalked past the servant and went across the board that had been laid from the deck to the shore.
Gretchen Ritter, Margaret Allingham, and Sarah were at the railing on the passenger deck with Captain Warner. The captain called to the group, “I was just about to blow the whistle to let you know we’re ready to go again. Looks like you ran into some trouble.”
Ludwig and Egon hurried to take charge of the horses as the others swung down. Preacher shook his head to tell them that he would take care of Horse himself. He told Warner, “The count’s a mite shaken up but not really hurt.”
Stahlmaske probably heard that as he climbed the stairs to the second deck, but Preacher didn’t care.
Gretchen started toward the stairs to meet Stahlmaske, but Margaret put a hand on her arm to stop her.
“You might want to leave him alone right now, my dear,” the senator’s wife said. “A man whose pride and dignity have been wounded doesn’t want to be around the woman he’s going to marry until he’s had a chance to clean up a little.”
Gretchen nodded and said, “Danke. I think you are right, Mrs. Allingham.”
“I usually am when it comes to men,” Margaret said.
Preacher overheard that conversation and wondered again if it had been Margaret he had seen sneaking to the count’s cabin a few nights earlier. That late-night visit had not been repeated as far as he knew, but he couldn’t be certain that Stahlmaske and his lover hadn’t gotten together again.
Preacher unsaddled Horse and led the stallion back onto the barge. Horse’s speed was as responsible as anything else for saving the count’s life today.
As Preacher stepped ashore after tending to Horse, Allingham approached him and said, “Come up to the salon with me, Preacher. I’d like to buy you a drink.”
Allingham wasn’t actually buying anything—the American Fur Company was furnishing everything on this trip—but Preacher supposed it was the gesture that counted. He and the senator went aboard the riverboat, climbed to the second deck, and went into the salon where they joined Simon Russell and Captain Warner.
“Simon’s been telling me about what happened, Preacher,” Warner said. “Good Lord, I never heard of such a thing. Talk about snatching somebody from the jaws of death!”
“Hooves of death is more like it,” Preacher said with a wry smile.
“It would have been an ugly way to die, that’s for sure,” Russell said.
“And quite possibly the ruination of my career,” Allingham added. “The president is counting on me to see to it that Count Stahlmaske enjoys his visit to our country and returns to Washington safely. If anything were to happen to him . . .”
Allingham shook his head and didn’t complete the sentence, but he didn’t have to. His meaning was clear.
“Well, I think this deserves a drink,” Warner said, “and then I need to get back up to the pilot house. We’ve got several hours of daylight left, so we can put some more miles behind us.” He paused, then added, “I’d really like to get past Cougar Bluffs tomorrow.”