Twenty-two
Schuyler thought the mountains were mighty fine-looking, and he couldn’t wait to get there. The summer heat on the plains had grown worse over the past week. He was looking forward to the weather being a little cooler once they reached the peaks.
And of course, once they got to the mountains, they were going to kill Preacher and all the others and take those wagons and all the goods they carried.
Schuyler was looking forward to that, too. It was the first step toward being rich.
Actually, Fairfax planned to strike once the wagons reached the foothills. He wasn’t going to wait until they were in the mountains proper, because it would be harder to set up an ambush once the terrain became too rugged. They sat beside the tiny fire built in a hole some of the men had dug earlier, so the flames wouldn’t be visible, and figured out what they were going to do.
“The first thing is to get around that wagon train and move on ahead of it,” Fairfax said. “Once we’ve done that, we can find a suitable spot for a trap.”
One of the men said, “As many rifles as we’ve got, we ought to be able to kill all of ’em in one volley. They won’t never know what hit ’em.”
“Preacher’s mine,” Schuyler said.
Fairfax frowned. “You’ve had three shots at him and missed with all three. I think anyone who can bring that bastard down should go ahead and do it.”
“Damn it, Colin! I had good reasons for missin’ him those other times.”
“Yes, like the fact that you’re a poor shot.”
Schuyler swallowed the anger he felt. He trusted Fairfax and wouldn’t go against anything he decided, but all the same, Fairfax hadn’t had to bring up the bad luck that had dogged Schuyler the other times he’d tried to kill Preacher. There’d been no good reason to do that.
“Preacher is too dangerous to take any chances with him,” Fairfax went on. “Anyone who has a good shot at him, take it. I want that son of a bitch dead as soon as possible when we hit the wagon train.”
Schuyler knew his partner was right, but it rankled him anyway. If he got the chance, he promised himself, he was going to take Preacher down. Then Fairfax would be proud of him.
The next morning, the gang of killers and thieves crossed the Platte River so they could begin swinging farther north and west to get around the wagon train. They had to be careful because of the treacherous mud and quicksand, but they were able to make the ford without any incidents. Schuyler was surprised when, a short time later, they came to another broad, shallow, muddy stream.
“If that was the Platte we forded back yonder, what river is this?” he asked as he and Fairfax reined their horses to a halt and the rest of the gang followed suit.
“According to the maps I studied back in St. Louis,” Fairfax said, “the Platte splits somewhere out here. That must have been the South Platte we crossed earlier, and this is the North Platte. I never noticed the split when we passed it. This river is such a maze of channels, it’s hard to tell where it ends and where it begins.”
They forded this stream, and then rode almost due north for several hours before turning west again. Ever since leaving St. Louis, they had held their horses back to keep from gaining too fast on the wagon train. Now the men pushed their mounts at a faster pace, and the horses responded, loping easily across the prairie toward the still-distant mountains.
During one of the times when they had stopped to rest the horses, Schuyler gazed off to the south and spotted something jutting up on the horizon. “What’s that?” he asked Fairfax as he pointed at it.
“I don’t know,” Fairfax replied with a frown. “Let me get my spyglass.”
He studied the distant landmark for a few moments, then passed the spyglass to Schuyler. When Schuyler peered through the lens, he was able to tell that the thing was a spire of rock that rose straight up into the air from a broader base.
“Chimney Rock,” Fairfax said. “I remember seeing it marked on some of the maps. The trail Preacher and the others will be following goes right past it.”
“Damn, it must be tall to stick up like that when we’re miles away from it.”
“Indeed.” Fairfax closed the spyglass. “I hope Preacher and his companions are suitably impressed when they pass it.” He smiled. “It may be one of the last such natural wonders they ever see.”
* * *
As with everything else out here, the travelers saw Chimney Rock long before they reached it. Jake leveled an arm at it and asked in an excited voice as he pointed, “What’s that?”
“Chimney Rock,” Preacher explained from his saddle as he walked Horse alongside the lead wagon. “Tomorrow we’ll pass Scott’s Bluff, and a couple of days after that we’ll be in the foothills, skirtin’ around the Laramies so we can cut over to South Pass. Another week and we can start lookin’ for a good place to start buildin’ that tradin’ post.”
“Another week,” Jerome muttered. “My God, is this trip never going to end?”
Jerome still hadn’t recovered from Deborah going back to Corliss. Preacher figured that was understandable. Jerome wasn’t what you’d call handsome, nor was he as big and strong as Corliss. He’d probably always played second fiddle to his cousin. For a few days, though, he’d had something that Corliss had failed to hold on to—Deborah’s affections. Sure, it had been hard on Jerome when she’d slipped through his fingers through no fault of his own and he’d lost her back to Corliss.
But out here on the frontier, a fella couldn’t afford to spend too much time brooding over lost loves and suchlike. There was too much work to do, and too many dangers that could come out of nowhere.
Like the war party that suddenly boiled around the base of chimney rock and galloped straight across the prairie toward the line of wagons.
Preacher saw them coming and bellowed, “Circle the wagons! Circle the wagons!” He could tell from the way the Indians drove their ponies over the grassy plain that they meant business. There wouldn’t be any negotiating with these fellas.
By now, the men had had enough practice so that drawing the wagons into a circle was second nature to them. They had to keep their wits about them now, though, and perform the maneuver faster than they ever had before. There wouldn’t be time to unhitch the teams and move the oxen into the protection of the circle, so some of the beasts would probably die. Corliss and Jerome had brought along extra oxen, of course, and as the wagons were circled, Preacher drove those animals into the center of the formation.
He saw Jake jump down from the seat of the lead wagon and run to the back of the vehicle. The boy reached inside and pulled out an armful of powder horns and shot pouches. He was getting ready to perform his reloading chores, and that was good.
Corliss pushed Deborah inside their wagon and told her, “Stay down!” The vehicle’s thick sideboards would stop an arrow or a lance and most rifle balls, too. As long as Deborah hugged the floor of the wagon, she ought to be safe.
Gil Robinson, Lars Neilson, and Blackie all hurried to find good positions from which to fire. Pete Carey ran over to Jake and gathered up some of the powder horns and shot pouches. Rifles in hand, Corliss and Jerome crouched at the rear of their wagons. The Indians were only about a hundred yards away when Preacher surveyed the circle and gave a curt nod of satisfaction. The men had spread out so that they could defend in every direction.
The fact that the Indians hadn’t started shooting yet probably meant that they didn’t have any rifles, Preacher thought. That was a good thing. The fact that the wagon train’s defenders were armed with good, accurate rifles would help them counter the war party’s superior numbers. Preacher figured there were at least thirty of the Indians.
He swung down from the saddle, knelt beside one of the wagons, lifted his rifle to his shoulder, and set out to cut down some on the war party’s numbers.
The weapon belched smoke and flame as its charge of black powder detonated with a roar. Preacher barely felt the recoil. As he lowered the rifle and began the process of reloading, his muscles functioning without conscious thought, he squinted through the cloud of smoke and saw one of the Indians lying sprawled on the ground. The others continued the attack. More shots blasted out from the defenders. Preacher heard the faint flutter of arrows flashing through the air. One of them buried itself in the side of the wagon with a solid thunk! The shaft quivered from the impact, no more than a couple of feet from Preacher’s head.
But as long as the arrows missed, it didn’t matter by how much. Preacher had the flintlock charged, loaded, and primed again less than thirty seconds after his first shot. He lifted it, drew a bead on another of the Indians as the war party split up to encircle the wagons, and fired. Once again, one of the warriors toppled off the back of a galloping pony.
The other defenders weren’t as fast at reloading as Preacher was, nor were they as accurate with their shots. But with the help of Jake and Pete Carey, they kept up a pretty steady fire, and gradually their shots began to take a toll. Several more Indians fell, and a couple of the ponies collapsed when they were hit.
The attackers were doing some damage of their own. Oxen bellowed as they were skewered by arrows. Most of the wounds weren’t fatal, since the beasts were protected by thick slabs of muscle, but they were painful and would prove mortal if enough of the shafts found their targets. One of the Indians came close enough to drive a lance halfway through an ox before a ball from Preacher’s rifle blew half his head off his shoulders in a gory spray of blood and bone and brain matter.
That Indian was also close enough for Preacher to recognize the war paint. These warriors were Pawnee, good fighters and nearly always hostile to whites. Preacher had known there was a good possibility the expedition would run into some of them, although he had hoped they would be lucky enough not to.
The Indians were riding in a circle around the wagons now, the hooves of their ponies kicking up enough dust that it was difficult to see them. That made aiming hard, too. Bloodcurdling whoops came from their throats as they poured arrows at the wagons.
A shout of pain made Preacher look back over his shoulder. On the other side of the circle, Lars Neilson staggered back from his position with an arrow jutting from the upper part of his left arm. The big Swede dropped to his knees, grimacing in pain. At the same time, one of the Pawnee warriors leaped his pony through the gap between wagons that Neilson had been defending. With a savage cry, he lunged his mount toward Neilson, lance poised to impale the Swede.
Preacher’s rifle was empty, so he snatched the tomahawk from behind his belt and flung it. The weapon flashed through the air and struck the Indian in the forehead. The blade buried itself in the warrior’s brain and drove him backward off his pony.
Still wide-eyed in pain, Neilson looked around at Preacher and managed to nod his thanks. Then Pete Carey hurried over to the Swede and helped him back to his feet. With the arrow still in his arm, Neilson picked up the rifle he had dropped. Carey took it from him and began reloading it.
Preacher turned back to his own killing work.
At least half the members of the war party were down. They must not have been expecting the men with the wagon train to put up such a stiff fight. After a few more minutes of whooping and galloping around and firing arrows at the wagons, they turned their ponies and raced off into the distance. The dust cloud they had caused gradually began to dissipate.
Preacher walked around the inside of the circle, checking on everyone. He started with Jake Brant. “You all right, son?” he asked the youngster.
Jake’s face was smeared with black grime from the powder he’d been handling as he reloaded. His hands were even more stained. But he wasn’t injured, and a grin broke out across his face as Preacher came up to him.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “I was scared, but I just kept loading rifles and handin’ ’em to Mr. Corliss and Mr. Jerome.”
Preacher clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You done good work. A man who never gets scared ain’t brave, he’s just a durn fool. It’s the fella who’s scared but does what needs to be done anyway who’s really got the most courage.”
Jape beamed at the praise.
Preacher turned to Corliss and Jerome. “How about you two?”
“We’re all right,” Jerome said. He looked over at his cousin. “You shot more of those savages than I did.”
“It wasn’t a competition,” Corliss said. “I just wanted them to go away and leave us alone.” He went to the rear of the wagon and pushed the canvas flap aside. His voice was tight with worry as he asked, “Deborah? Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she said as she appeared in the opening, looking pale and shaken but otherwise unharmed. “I was really frightened because I kept hearing arrows strike the wagon. A few of them tore all the way through the canvas. But I stayed down like you told me to, Corliss, and I was fine.”
He reached up to help her down from the vehicle. “Well, you don’t have to worry anymore. The savages are gone. Better not look out there, though. There are quite a few bodies lying around.”
Deborah shuddered at the thought of the ground being littered with the corpses of the warriors.
“Don’t be so sure the trouble’s over,” Preacher advised Corliss.
“What do you mean? The Indians left.”
“For right now. Ain’t nothin’ stoppin’ ’em from comin’ back.”
Corliss and Jerome both frowned. Clearly, they hadn’t thought about that. Jerome said, “How likely is that? They lost quite a few of their men. Surely they won’t risk attacking us again.”
“Not unless they go back and get a bunch more warriors to come with them next time. As war parties go, this was a small one. They were probably just hopin’ to steal some ponies from another tribe or somethin’ like that. They didn’t expect to run across a wagon train. They should’ve passed us by. They won’t make the mistake of hittin’ us with a small group again.”
“But they might not come back at all, right?” Corliss asked.
“They might not,” Preacher admitted. “You can’t ever tell which way an Indian’s gonna jump.”
A quick check of the other men confirmed that the arrow wound in Lars Neilson’s arm was the only injury the defenders had suffered. A couple of the oxen were dead and would have to be replaced on the teams. Preacher got the uninjured drivers busy tending to that while he looked at Neilson’s arm.
“Take it out, yah?” the Swede asked in a voice thinned by pain.
“Yeah, but it ain’t gonna be pleasant,” Preacher warned as he sat Neilson down on a lowered tailgate. “I can’t just pull it out, ’cause the barbs on the arrow will cause more damage that way. I’ll have to push it all the way through.”
Neilson’s eyes widened with fear at that prospect, but he swallowed hard and said, “Do what you bane have to do.”
Preacher took hold of the shaft and snapped it off close to where the arrowhead was buried in Neilson’s arm. But not too close, because he had to leave enough so that he could push the arrowhead all the way through. “Hang on,” he said as he took hold of Neilson’s arm with his left hand, put his right hand against the arrow, and shoved as hard as he could.
Neilson screamed and jerked as the bloody arrowhead finished tearing a channel all the way through his arm and popped out on the other side. Preached grabbed it and pulled what was left of the shaft the rest of the way through. Neilson’s eyes rolled up in his head. He might have passed out and fallen off the tailgate if not for Preacher’s firm grip on his arm.
The ordeal wasn’t over for Neilson. Preacher called for Jerome to bring over the jug of whiskey that was kept in the lead wagon for things just like this. Neilson whimpered as Preacher poured the fiery liquor through the wound. Then Preacher said, “Jake, fetch me a powder horn.”
“Gott hilfen mir!” Neilson gasped. Preacher figured the words meant God help me. “What are you going to do now?”
“Got to fix these wounds so they’ll heal up and not fester,” Preacher explained as he sprinkled black powder around the bloody openings. Then he took an unloaded pistol, cocked it, and held it close enough to the entrance wound so that when he clicked the hammer against the flint, one of the sparks set off the powder with a flash. The stink of burned meat filled the air as Neilson yelled again. Preacher repeated the process with the exit wound.
“They ought to be all right now,” he assured the shaken Neilson, “but we’ll keep an eye on ’em, just to be sure.”
“Them Gott-damned redskins,” the Swede choked out. “This is their fault. I almost wish they would come back so I could kill some more of them.”
Preacher laughed. “Well, I hope you don’t get your wish, Lars.” He turned to Jake. “Can you get some clean strips of cloth, wrap ’em around Mr. Neilson’s arm, and tie ’em good an’ tight?”
“Sure, Preacher,” the boy said. He hurried off to find some makeshift bandages while Preacher went back to the other men.
“We’ll be pullin’ out as soon as we can,” he told them.
Corliss waved a hand at the Pawnee corpses. “What about them?”
“The rest of the bunch will be comin’ back to get their bodies,” Preacher said with a nod. “That’s one reason we don’t want to be here when they do. Let’s put some ground between us and them.”
“That sounds like a good idea to me,” Jerome said. He shuddered a little as he glanced at the sprawled bodies. “We were lucky, weren’t we, Preacher?”
Preacher nodded. “Damned lucky,” he said.