CHAPTER 19
Instantly, Preacher snapped his rifle to his shoulder and pulled back the hammer, but before he could press the trigger, he realized that the angle was all wrong. He couldn’t take a shot at the outcast because Hawk was in the way.
Hawk was aware of the threat, though, and as the tomahawk flashed toward his head he let go of the rock with his right hand and clung to it with his left and a couple of precarious toeholds. He caught the outcast’s wrist before the blow could land and stopped the tomahawk cold. With a grunt of effort that Preacher could hear down below, Hawk twisted on the cliff face and yanked his attacker off the rimrock, then let go.
With a screech, the first outcast pinwheeled down the eighty feet and crashed on the hard-packed dirt of the canyon floor. He landed with a soggy thud that sounded like a dropped gourd busting, and Preacher knew he wouldn’t be getting back up again.
Hawk wasn’t out of danger. He had pulled himself halfway over the brink, but his legs still dangled. Another of the shrieking red lunatics appeared, looming over him with a lance.
By now, though, Preacher had backed off a few steps and was in position to risk a shot. The long-barreled flintlock boomed. Shooting up at an extreme angle like that was tricky, but Preacher was one of the deadliest marksmen west of the Mississippi.
The rifle ball caught the second outcast under the chin, bored up through his brain, and blew off the top of his skull. His head jerked back but he remained on his feet for a second, already dead, before he pitched forward and plummeted into the canyon to land a few feet away from his fellow outcast.
Hawk’s legs disappeared as he rolled over the edge of the rimrock. More shouts came from above. One of Hawk’s pistols boomed, and a third outcast flew over the brink to fall into the canyon. This one screamed and flailed in midair, to no avail. There was nothing to stop his deadly descent. He landed face-first with bone-shattering force.
Preacher reloaded his rifle while that was going on, then gripped the weapon tightly as the sounds of battle continued above him. He couldn’t see what was going on, and so there wasn’t a blasted thing he could do about it.
When the yelling stopped a few moments later and the echoes died away, silence descended on the canyon. Oliver was looking up at the rimrock, too. He said in a worried voice, “Preacher . . . ?”
The mountain man didn’t reply. There was nothing he could say, nothing he could do except wait.
A couple of seconds later Preacher heaved a sigh of relief when Hawk appeared at the top of the cliff, leaning out to look down at them and wave. Preacher knew the signal meant his son was all right.
A moment later the basket woven out of wooden strips came into full view as Hawk began lowering it at the end of a braided rope.
When the basket was in reach, Preacher caught hold of it and guided it to the ground. Dog sniffed and pawed at it. Preacher said, “He smells Chessie’s scent on it. That proves they hauled her up in it.”
Dog weighed too much for Hawk to haul him up in a dead lift by himself, so Preacher nodded toward the rope and told Oliver to climb up first. Oliver swallowed hard, looking decidedly nervous about the prospect, but he said, “I was the one who wanted to come along on this rescue mission, so I guess I can’t allow my fears to hold me back. I’m really not fond of heights, though.”
“It ain’t too late for you to go back and join the others,” Preacher told him. “You’d have to hurry, but I figure you could catch up.”
Without hesitation, Oliver shook his head. “Scared or not, I’m not turning back.” He grasped the rope, running his hands over its rough strands, then tightening them. “How should I do this?”
“Use the footholds like Hawk did, but you can hang on to the rope instead of havin’ to find handholds. Take it slow and easy. When you’re doin’ something like this, it’s best not to get in a hurry.”
Oliver swallowed, nodded, tightened his hands on the rope, and lifted his right foot. When he had it planted solidly on a little knob protruding from the rock wall, he hauled himself up and found a good place to put his other foot.
Even with the rope to help him, it took longer for Oliver to climb the side of the canyon than it had for Hawk. The young half-Absaroka warrior had disappeared again. Preacher figured he was keeping watch for more of the outcasts. The renegades had left four men to guard their back trail and there was a chance there might be more of them waiting nearby to ambush the rescue party.
Finally, Oliver reached the top and lurched out of sight. Preacher waited, hoping the young man was just catching his breath. After several seconds that seemed longer, Oliver looked over the edge and waved, as Hawk had done earlier. Hawk appeared, too, and called, “Put Dog in the basket.”
Preacher helped the big cur into the conveyance. Dog got in but whined and turned his head to look up at the mountain man. Preacher said, “I know you don’t like it, old son, but it’s the only way you can come with us, and we need you along. Just stay calm, and Hawk and Oliver will have you there before you know it.”
Dog reared up and put his front paws on the edge of the basket. Preacher forced him to sit down again, then looked up at Hawk and Oliver and nodded. They took hold of the rope and heaved.
Dog barked unhappily as the basket lifted off the ground. “Dog, quiet!” Preacher commanded. Dog didn’t bark again, but he continued growling and whining as the basket rose in front of the cliff. It twisted and tilted a little at the end of the rope, causing Preacher’s jaw to tighten. He wasn’t sure if he could catch Dog if the cur fell out of the basket, but he would have to try.
Dog sat still, though, and the swaying subsided. The basket reached the top of the cliff. Hawk and Oliver grabbed the handles attached to it and swung it onto solid ground. Preacher couldn’t see Dog anymore, but he could imagine his old friend hopping out of the basket and shaking himself, glad to have his paws back on the earth.
Hawk let the basket down again. Preacher grasped the rope and started the climb. With his wiry strength and long years of experience at all sorts of arduous tasks, he made it to the top faster than either of the two younger men had.
Hawk was waiting for him. He leaned down and took hold of Preacher’s arm to brace the mountain man as he stepped up onto the rim. Preacher looked around and saw one of the outcasts lying facedown a few yards away while Dog sniffed delicately at him. Preacher could tell from the odd angle of the Indian’s head that Hawk had broken his neck.
“Seen any more of the varmints?”
Hawk shook his head. “They left four men to watch this route and ambush anyone who came after them. They probably believe that was sufficient. We killed them all. They will not be expecting it when we catch up to them.”
“Maybe not,” Preacher said, “but we’ll still have a devil of a time takin’ ’em by surprise. As despised as they are, everywhere they turn, they wouldn’t have survived this long unless they were crafty little bastards.”
“They fight hard for their puny size, too,” Hawk allowed grudgingly.
“Are we going to stand around and talk,” Oliver asked, “or are we going to follow them?”
“We’re goin’,” Preacher said. “Dog, find.”
As Dog loped off, nose to the ground, Preacher took a look at their surroundings. The badlands to the west, the direction Dog was heading, rose gradually in a series of twisting, razor-backed ridges. The landscape was almost barren, with no grass and only an occasional gnarled, stunted bush or tree. It didn’t seem like anything, human or animal, could live here, and yet Preacher knew that a multitude of life existed in the badlands. Snakes, lizards, spiders, rats, and buzzards called this region home.
So did the outcasts. He could understand why they had drifted here. No one else wanted this hellish place. They had come here to be left alone.
Preacher would have been more than willing to do that. If Chessie hadn’t been kidnapped, all the members of the expedition would be gone by now, heading on to whatever mysterious destination Edgar Merton had in mind.
Instead, the warped hatred brewing in those diseased brains had led the outcasts to strike at the people who had dared to enter their domain . . . and now this encounter wouldn’t end without more killing.
Preacher, Hawk, and Oliver trotted after Dog as the big cur headed up the slope of the nearest ridge.
* * *
By the time the sun lowered toward the jagged peaks to the west, Preacher and his companions hadn’t seen any more of the outcasts. In fact, if not for Dog’s sensitive nose, they wouldn’t have been able to tell that they were still on the right trail. The Indians were expert at not leaving any tracks. Dog had Chessie’s scent, though, so Preacher was confident they were heading in the right direction.
“We’re not going to find them before it gets dark, are we?” Oliver asked when they stopped to rest and drink a little from their canteens.
“Probably not,” Preacher said. “They had a start on us, and they know where they’re goin’. We have to take it a little slower to make sure Dog don’t lose the scent. If he did, that’d mean backtrackin’ and it would put us even farther behind.”
“What are we going to do?” A panicky edge had crept into Oliver’s voice. “We can’t travel at night, can we?”
Preacher shook his head. “Not in country like this. Too big a risk that we’d fall in a ravine and break a leg.”
“Then we’re not going to be able to rescue Chessie from them before they have a chance to . . . to . . .”
“They’ve already had a chance to do that, if that’s what they had in mind when they took her,” Preacher said bluntly. “We got to hope they’re plannin’ somethin’ else for her.”
He didn’t say it, but some of the fates those creatures might come up with for Chessie would be worse than anything Oliver was afraid of. Pointing that out wouldn’t accomplish anything, though.
“We’ll push on for a while,” he continued, “and then we’ll start lookin’ for a good place to make camp.”
An hour later, as shadows began to gather, Preacher called a halt again, this time at a little notch in a ridge. A large slab of rock overhung the opening to create a cavelike space. Preacher noticed Oliver glancing up at it nervously.
“Worried that it might fall on us?” he asked.
“It does seem to be perched rather precariously up there.”
Preacher shook his head and said, “It’s been like that for years. Ain’t budged since the last time I was through these parts and probably never will unless there’s an earthquake or somethin’ like that.”
“But what if there is an earthquake?”
“Then I guess we’d have somethin’ to worry about,” Preacher said with a grin. “It ain’t like we’re exactly safe to start with, though.”
“No, I suppose not,” Oliver admitted. “Those . . . things . . . are still out there somewhere, aren’t they?”
“Perhaps closer than we know,” Hawk said.
Clearly, that comment didn’t make Oliver feel a bit better.
Preacher decreed that there would be no fire, so their supper consisted of jerky and some biscuits they had brought along with them from the wagons, washed down with more water from the canteens. Dog wandered off and came back with a long-tailed rat’s carcass held between his jaws. He lay down to gnaw on it and growl softly.
That made Oliver shudder. “Are you sure he really is a dog and not an actual wolf?” he asked.
“I ain’t sure of anything of the sort,” Preacher said. “All I know is he’s a good trail partner and ain’t never let me down yet. We’ll take turns standin’ guard tonight, but Dog there is the real sentry. He’ll let us know if there’s anything skulkin’ around that shouldn’t be.”
Figuring that trouble would be less likely to crop up during the first part of the night, Preacher told Oliver to stand watch first.
“Wake Hawk in a few hours, and then I’ll take the last turn. You reckon you can stay awake, Oliver?”
“I don’t have any choice in the matter, do I? Our lives may depend on my alertness.”
Preacher nodded and said, “Now you’re startin’ to understand.”
He and Hawk rolled up in their blankets and went to sleep almost instantly, the way frontiersmen learned to do. Also like most frontiersmen—the ones who survived, anyway—Preacher slept lightly, so that he could be fully awake in the blink of an eye.
Dog stretched out at his side. Preacher didn’t know how long he had been asleep when a low rumble from the cur’s throat woke him. His eyes opened, but other than that, he didn’t move. His gaze roamed around the camp, searching for any sign of trouble.
From where he lay, he could see both Hawk and Oliver. The young easterner sat on a rock on the far side of the notch. His rifle lay across his knees. Preacher’s keen eyes, well adjusted to the night, saw Oliver’s head turning as he looked back and forth. He was awake, and he was trying to do a good job of standing guard.
But he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head, and that was where Preacher caught a hint of movement. A stray beam of starlight reached into the thick shadow behind Oliver and struck a glint of reflection from something. A knife, maybe, or the flint head of a tomahawk.
Death was afoot in the darkness, and it was creeping up behind Oliver Merton.