Preacher's Kill

The big cur leaped with the speed of a striking snake. Oliver didn’t have time to let out a yell and probably didn’t even see Dog coming before the animal slammed into him and knocked him sideways off the rock.

At the same time, the outcast who had been sneaking up on Oliver swung a tomahawk through the space where the young man’s head had been a heartbeat earlier. The blow would have split Oliver’s head open if it had landed.

As it was, the miss threw the Indian off-balance. He stumbled forward a couple of steps. Preacher lifted one of his pistols and fired. A tongue of flame a foot long spurted from the muzzle. Both balls from the double-shotted gun smashed into the outcast’s chest and flung him backward.

Screeches filled the air as several more of the renegades attacked from the shadows. Dog whirled to meet their charge and knifed among them, razor-sharp teeth slashing right and left. Preacher came up on his knees with his other pistol in his hand. A dark shape loomed over him, and he fired into the middle of it. The outcast doubled over with a groan and collapsed.

Hawk surged to his feet and leaped to Oliver’s side. Another outcast lunged at them, striking downward with a tomahawk. Hawk blocked it with his rifle’s barrel, then smashed the butt into the man’s face and knocked him over backward. Oliver struggled to stand, then gave up the effort and fired his rifle from where he lay on the ground. In the muzzle flash, Preacher saw a hate-twisted face shattered by the rifle ball that crashed into it.

Hawk grabbed Oliver’s arm and half lifted him as he backed toward Preacher. Dog fell back to the mountain man’s side as well. All four of them put their backs to the rock and waited to see if the attack was going to continue.

Instead, Preacher heard the rapid slap of bare feet on rock and hard-packed dirt as the outcasts who were left from this raiding party retreated into the night. As those sounds faded, Oliver gasped, “Are . . . are they gone?”

“For now, maybe,” Preacher said. “But they ain’t gone far, and there ain’t no way of knowin’ how many more of them are out there.”

“I’m not complaining, mind you, but since they obviously knew we were there, why didn’t they just shoot arrows at us?”

Hawk said, “They enjoy killing too much. They like to do it at close range. I have seen enough of them now to understand that.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Preacher agreed. “You wouldn’t think primitive varmints like that would take pride in anything, but I reckon they do. They like doin’ their killin’ hand to hand.”

“What are we going to do?” Oliver asked. “I . . . I can feel them all around, watching us. It’s awful. Like waking up and being surrounded by venomous snakes.”

“You ain’t far wrong with that comparison. But the only thing we can do is wait for them to jump us again, or wait until mornin’, when maybe we can take the fight to them. They know these badlands too good for us to go after ’em in the dark. That’d be the same as askin’ to have our throats cut.”

“What you’re saying is that it’s going to be a long night.”

“I reckon that’s just about the size of it,” Preacher said.

* * *

No one slept again that night. The men reloaded their weapons and sat with their backs against the rock and guns at the ready. Dog lay in front of them, head up and ears cocked for the slightest sound.

Once they heard a series of howls in the distance. Oliver leaned forward and asked, “Is that wolves?”

“No, it’s them damn outcasts,” Preacher replied.

“What are they doing?”

“Carryin’ on about somethin’. Could be the ones who jumped us earlier got back to the main bunch and told ’em what happened. They’re bound to be disappointed that we ain’t either prisoners or dead.”

“My God.” Oliver let out a despairing groan. “And Chessie is helpless in the hands of those devils! She must be terrified out of her mind.”

Preacher hoped that was indeed the case, because if Chessie was scared, it meant she was still alive. But even if she was, the creatures could take out their displeasure on her when they found out that Preacher and his companions had killed more of them.

Those bodies were heaped just outside the notch. Hawk and Oliver had placed them there earlier while Preacher and Dog stood guard. Preacher could see the corpses, but only as vague dark shapes against the rock.

Eventually, as a faint tinge of gray that heralded the approach of dawn crept into the eastern sky, Preacher realized he could no longer see the bodies of the slain outcasts. He stiffened in surprise, then a little shiver ran through him. Sometime during the night, more of the Indians had slipped close enough to the camp to lay hands on the corpses and drag them away, all without making a sound or in any other way betraying their presence. To a man with senses as keen as Preacher’s, that seemed almost impossible, but he saw the evidence of it now with his own eyes and had no choice but to trust them.

The dead outcasts were gone, and they sure as hell hadn’t gotten up and walked away by themselves.

Preacher nudged Hawk and whispered, “Take a look. What do you see out there?”

“Nothing,” Hawk replied, then he, too, tensed enough for Preacher to feel the reaction against his shoulder. “Nothing,” Hawk repeated. “But where . . . ?”

“The others came and got ’em,” Preacher said.

“What are you talking about?” Oliver asked.

“The bodies are gone.”

“You mean scavengers got them, or . . . Oh no. You don’t mean . . .”

“Yeah,” Preacher said. “And we didn’t see or hear ’em. Neither did Dog.”

Oliver cursed bitterly. “What chance do we have against creatures like that?” he asked.

“As long as a fella can fight, he’s got a chance. Or would you rather turn back, leave the badlands, and catch up with the rest of the expedition?”

“You mean abandon Chessie? I can’t do that!”

“Oliver, you got to realize there’s a chance she ain’t still alive, even now,” Preacher said. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but it’s true.”

Oliver took off his hat and covered his face with a trembling hand. After a moment, he lowered his hand and said, “But there’s a chance she is still alive, that we might be able to rescue her and bring her to safety.”

“That’s why we’re here,” Preacher agreed. “If there wasn’t a chance, we wouldn’t have gone after the little bastards in the first place.”

Hawk added, “Until there is proof otherwise, I choose to believe that Chessie lives.”

“So do I,” Oliver said. “When it gets light enough, I believe we should take up the trail again.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do,” Preacher said.

* * *

By the middle of the day, the three men had penetrated deep into the badlands. When they paused to gnaw on more jerky, Oliver asked, “How will we ever find our way out of here once we’ve rescued Chessie?”

Preacher didn’t address the assumption the young easterner made. Instead he said, “Gettin’ out won’t be too hard. Well, knowin’ the right way to go won’t be, anyway. Those damn outcasts are liable to have somethin’ to say about how easy it actually is to get out.”

“Assuming that we leave any of them alive,” Hawk put in.

“Since we don’t know how many of ’em there are, that’ll be hard to say until the time comes.”

“You haven’t answered my question, Preacher,” Oliver said.

“About how we’ll know which way to go? That’s easy. We’ll just head northeast. That’ll take us out of the badlands sooner or later and ought to put us not too far away from those hills where I told your pa and Ryker to make camp and wait for us.”

“And you’ll just know which direction northeast is?” Oliver said with a puzzled frown.

“Does not everyone?” Hawk said, looking equally puzzled. “A man has but to look around to know where he is and which way he should go.”

Preacher chuckled. “You let Hawk and me worry about that, Oliver. We ain’t the sort to get turned around very easy.”

“But if something were to happen to the two of you?” Oliver persisted. “After all, this is a dangerous errand on which we’re bound. You can’t guarantee anyone’s survival.”

Preacher couldn’t argue with that statement. He pointed at the sun and told Oliver, “You steer by that. This time of year it comes up a ways north of due east, so if you aim toward the sunrise every mornin’, you’ll get where you’re goin’.”

Preacher didn’t add that if he and Hawk were dead, it was highly unlikely Oliver and Chessie would survive on their own. Although he supposed that stranger things had happened. None that he could recall right offhand, however.

They pushed on. The badlands lay in a band twenty miles wide and forty miles long that stretched west into the foothills of a range of snow-capped peaks. Preacher, Hawk, and Oliver could see those mountains ahead of them, and in the clean, thin air, they looked almost close enough to reach out and touch. Preacher knew that a lot of rugged terrain lay between him and his companions and those mountains. He hoped they wouldn’t have to cover all of it before they caught up to the outcasts and their prisoner.

At midafternoon, Dog suddenly let out a whine and stopped as he was about to enter a long, narrow defile. Preacher halted, too, and held up a hand in a signal for Hawk and Oliver to do likewise. His eyes narrowed as he peered along the gash in the red sandstone. The outcasts ground the rocks into powder and plastered it all over their bodies so they could blend into their surroundings and not be seen until it was too late. Preacher searched intently for ambushers lurking inside the defile.

He didn’t see any of the outcasts, but he spotted something else, a flash of blue that didn’t belong here in these dull surroundings. He pointed it out to Hawk and Oliver and whispered, “Either of you recognize that?”

“Good Lord!” Oliver said. “That . . . that’s the same color as the dress Chessie was wearing the last time I saw her!”

He started to spring ahead, but Hawk was too quick for him. The young warrior caught hold of Oliver’s arms from behind and dragged him back.

“Wait!” Hawk said through clenched teeth. “Rushing into that canyon may be just what they want you to do.”

“But . . . but that could be Chessie!” Oliver struggled to get loose, but Hawk’s grip was too strong.

“I’ll go take a look,” Preacher said. “You two stay here. Come on, Dog.”

The mountain man and the big cur started forward between the steep stone walls. Their gazes roamed constantly from side to side and up and down. The spot of blue was fifty yards into the canyon, partially concealed by a large rock. As they neared it, Preacher tried to decide if there was a body inside the cloth, but from where he was, he just couldn’t tell.

Finally, he and Dog were close enough for Preacher to reach out and snag the fabric with the muzzle of his rifle. He pulled it into the open and felt relief go through him as he realized it was a dress, all right, but it was empty. He half turned and held the rifle out so Hawk and Oliver could see the garment.

“Oh my God,” Oliver said in a voice choked by emotion. “It’s hers! It’s Chessie’s dress!”

“Yeah, but she ain’t in it,” Preacher said. “And she ain’t here, either.” He took the dress from the end of the rifle and looked it over. It was dirty and torn in places, and it had a long rip down the front of it. That made his mouth tighten into a grim line. The Indians had torn the dress off Chessie, but that didn’t mean they had done anything else to her. They could have wanted the dress to leave here as a means of taunting their pursuers.

Or as bait for a trap, he realized suddenly as he heard a faint grating sound from somewhere above him. He reacted instantly, yelling, “Dog, out!” as he flung himself toward the canyon mouth.

Almost as quickly, he stopped short as rocks plummeted down from above. One great bound had carried Dog past the area where they were falling, but Preacher saw he wasn’t going to make it in time and threw himself back the other way. A terrible rumble filled the narrow canyon and rebounded from its walls. Rocks the size of fists pelted Preacher and made him stumble, but luckily none of them struck him in the head and knocked him unconscious. If that had happened, he would have been buried forever.

With the rockslide getting worse all around him, he gathered his strength and launched himself into a headlong dive, not knowing if it would carry him beyond the worst of it or doom him. But it was his only chance, so he took it.

When he landed, he kept rolling. A slab of rock as big as he was slammed into the ground mere feet away. He covered his head with his arms as best he could and felt rocks hammering at him. Finally he came to a stop and lay there choking and coughing as roiling clouds of dust clogged his mouth, nose, throat, and lungs. Gravel slid around him, half burying him. Preacher was too stunned to move, other than to shake from the racking coughs.

After an unknowable time, the air began to clear and the mountain man’s coughing subsided slightly. He gathered his wits and his strength and managed to lift his head and look around. He had to blink several times to clear enough of the dust from his eyes so he could see. When he shook his head, more dust from his hair swirled around his face and made him cough again. He needed to stop that, he thought.

A few yards away, a wall of boulders and smaller rocks completely filled the defile at the spot where he had found Chessie Dayton’s dress, confirming that the garment had been the bait in a trap. The outcasts had sprung that trap, but it had failed. He was battered but alive.

Alive . . . but cut off from Hawk, Dog, and Oliver.