At that time of year, it was hot, too. By the middle of the day, with the sun high overhead, the temperature was uncomfortable and Preacher was glad for the shade his wide-brimmed brown hat provided. He missed the cooler air of the high country that he could see behind him whenever he turned in the saddle and looked back over his shoulder.
The trail led beside one of those long, streaked ridges. Preacher was thinking about calling another halt when he spotted Dog up ahead, trotting toward them. Preacher knew Dog wouldn’t be back if he hadn’t been successful in finding Hawk.
Preacher dismounted as Dog came up to them. He dropped to one knee, scratched the big cur’s ears, and asked, “Did you find Hawk, old son?”
Dog turned, ran away a few yards, then stopped and looked back at the mountain man.
Preacher grinned. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down.” He stood up and turned to look at the Crow warriors. “I’ll go ahead on foot and scout around some with Dog. You fellas wait here.”
“Big Thunder will go with Preacher,” the massive young man said. He started to climb down from his horse.
Preacher held up a hand and said, “No, Big Thunder. I’m obliged to you for offering, but that’s not a good idea. I’ll go by myself this time. You need to stay here with Broken Pine and the others. Don’t worry, I’ll come back and get you before there’s any fightin’. You won’t miss out on anything.” He looked at the others. “None of you will. You can bet a warbonnet on that.”
“All right, Preacher,” Broken Pine said with a nod. “But if we hear shooting—”
“You’ll know to come a-runnin’ and be ready for trouble,” Preacher agreed. He motioned for Dog to lead the way.
After they had followed the ridge for about half a mile, a wide canyon opened up on Preacher’s left. Dog angled into it.
The canyon serpentined through the rugged landscape, making numerous wide bends. Preacher relied on Dog to make sure no ambushes lurked around any of those blind spots. Smaller canyons branched off here and there, and Preacher figured even smaller canyons intersected them. Some of those canyons would connect up, more than likely, forming a maze where a man could get lost in a big hurry if he didn’t pay attention to where he was going—and where he had been.
Preacher’s own instincts along those lines were excellent. Once he had traveled a route, he never forgot it. He was confident he could find his way back out, and any time he couldn’t, Dog could.
He wasn’t sure how far along the canyon they had gone—the way it twisted around, estimating distances was all but impossible—but after a while, Dog stopped, looked back at Preacher, and whined.
“We’re gettin’ close, are we?” Preacher asked quietly. He moved up alongside the big cur, paused long enough to give one of Dog’s ears a scratch, then eased forward. The canyon took another of those bends right up ahead. Preacher took his hat off, leaned forward, and reached a spot where he could see around it.
Right away he spotted the mouth of one of those smaller canyons about a hundred yards away, on the left side of the one he and Dog had been following. That was the only such opening he spied. The main canyon was empty, so Preacher knew it had to be what—or who—was in the smaller one that had Dog’s hackles up.
He drew back and whispered, “That’s where they are, huh? I wonder if there’s a back door into there.”
In the labyrinth of canyons, that was possible. He looked up at the ridge beside him. It was fairly steep, but it fell back in a series of terracelike ledges that he thought he might be able to climb. The differing horizontal streaks of color followed those ledges.
“Stay,” he told Dog. “I’ll be back.”
He used the thin length of rawhide he carried in his possibles pouch to rig a sling for his rifle and arranged the long-barreled weapon on his back so it would be out of the way. Then he found the likeliest-looking place and started climbing it.
The ridge’s sandstone face was rough enough that Preacher had no trouble locating footholds and handholds. He reached the lowest ledge and moved along it until he found a good place to continue the ascent. In that back-and-forth fashion he rose higher and higher above the canyon floor.
The sun was bright and hot. Sweat trickled down the mountain man’s back. Several times during the climb, he hit a stretch that seemed impassable. Stubbornly, he kept searching and each time found a route that he could handle, so he didn’t have to climb all the way down and start over. He wanted to avoid any such delays. While it made sense that Angry Sky would keep the prisoners alive if he intended to use them as bait, truthfully he didn’t need all of them, and Preacher knew it. As long as there was a chance any of them were still alive, he would continue to try to rescue them.
Unfortunately, Angry Sky was probably well aware of that fact, too.
The interminable climb finally came to an end, and Preacher rolled onto the top of the ridge. It wasn’t very wide, fifty feet at most, and on the other side it dropped in the same sort of terracelike ledges. Ahead, another ridge came in from the left and merged to form a plateau. The smaller canyon Preacher had seen cut through there.
Several rock spires jutted up even higher on top of the ridge. Preacher was about to stand up and catfoot toward the smaller canyon when he caught a glimpse of movement behind one of those spires. He froze where he was, flat on the ridge crest, and waited to see what was going to happen.
A couple of minutes dragged by, then a buckskin-clad warrior stepped out from behind the rock spire far enough for Preacher to see him in profile. The Blackfoot peered along the canyon, which meant he wasn’t staring directly at Preacher, but he was looking in the mountain man’s general direction.
Preacher was absolutely motionless, not even breathing. He knew that movement caught the eye faster than anything else. That was how he had spotted the Blackfoot sentry, after all. The man had shifted around restlessly and given away his position. Angry Sky wouldn’t be happy if he knew about that. The guard’s carelessness probably came from him knowing that he was watching for only one man . . . as far as he knew.
Preacher thought he was going to have to risk taking a shallow breath, but the man drifted back behind the rock spire. Instantly, Preacher shifted his pistols, knife, and tomahawk around behind his back and started crawling closer. He had to get a look down into the canyon to see what sort of situation he would be facing when he tried to rescue the prisoners.
That meant he would have to deal with the guard. If there was only one, and if none of the other Blackfeet came to relieve him any time soon, that wouldn’t be too much of a problem. Preacher stayed low, ready to freeze in place again if he needed to.
Slowly, foot by foot, Preacher closed in on the rock spire. He aimed for the side of it away from the canyon, thinking an approach from that direction would give him the best chance of surprising the sentry. He was careful not to let any of his weapons scrape on the ground as he crawled.
Finally, he reached the spire. He lay there for a moment and heard the guard moving around a little on the far side of the rock. No voices, though, which he hoped meant the Blackfoot was alone. With great caution, Preacher climbed to his feet, making not a single sound. He shifted his pistols, knife, and tomahawk again so he could reach them easier, pressed his back against the spire, and slid around it.
The guard was facing the other direction, still watching the main canyon. He was probably supposed to give some sort of signal to the rest of the war party in the smaller canyon if he spotted Preacher. Judging by his casual attitude, he had no idea that the man he was supposed to be watching for was within arm’s reach of him at that very moment . . . nor that his life would be ending very shortly.
Preacher hesitated and looked down into the smaller canyon. Due to the canyon’s narrowness and the ridge’s height, he couldn’t really see who was down there or what was going on. The faint murmur of voices reached his ears. The combined force of Blackfoot warriors and white renegades was hidden in the canyon, all right. He was certain of tha
t. And the prisoners had to be with them, too.
A faint whisper of steel against leather was the only sound as Preacher slipped his knife out of its sheath. Only a narrow space separated the spire from the drop-off into the smaller canyon, so he knew he would have to be careful and not allow the guard’s body or anything else to drop down there. The resulting clatter if that happened would alert Angry Sky and his men and they would know something was wrong.
When Preacher struck, it was almost too fast for the eye to follow. His right hand went around the guard’s head and clamped over his mouth and nose so he couldn’t even snort. His left drove the knife into the man’s back. Long years of experience in such grim work guided the blade between the Blackfoot’s ribs. It pierced his heart and made him spasm as death swiftly claimed him. Preacher pulled the dying man back against him and pressed both of them tight against the spire until he was sure life had fled from his enemy.
Then Preacher dragged the man back around the spire to where there was more room and lowered the corpse to the ground. He took the man’s knife and tomahawk. He never knew when extra weapons might come in handy.
While he’d been crawling toward the spire, he had studied both rims of the canyon and hadn’t spotted any more sentries so he was free from the threat of discovery. He moved along the rimrock above the smaller canyon, still being careful not to dislodge any rocks that might fall and warn those below that someone was moving around up there.
He was looking for that back door he had thought about earlier and after searching for a quarter of a mile, he found it. The canyon narrowed down and petered out. The ledges had ended even sooner, so the walls were practically sheer. But more of those rock spires rose like rotted teeth in ravaged gums, and a man with a rope could wrap it around one of them, climb down into the canyon, and get behind Angry Sky, Jefferson Scarrow, and the rest of that bloodthirsty bunch.
The trick would be freeing the prisoners and getting them out the same way with arrows and rifle balls flying around them.
Preacher knew that would be impossible. But he had the glimmering of an idea . . .
CHAPTER 26
Broken Pine and the other young Crow warriors were waiting where Preacher had left them when he and Dog rejoined them. They were sitting against the base of the ridge, maybe not quite as alert as they should have been under the circumstances, but Big Thunder had been watching for Preacher.
He sprang to his feet as soon as the mountain man came into view. A grin split the massive warrior’s face. “Preacher is back,” he announced.
The other three warriors scrambled up, as well.
Broken Pine asked, “Did you find them?”
Preacher nodded. “They’re in a small side canyon about a mile from here. Looks like there’s only one good way in, and we wouldn’t have a chance if we attacked it head-on.”
“What else can we do?”
Dark Neck declared, “I will not ride away when there are Blackfeet to be slain.”
“Neither will I,” Kicking Elk added.
“Nobody’s ridin’ away,” Preacher said. “You three fellas are gonna try to fight your way in as soon as it gets good and dark.”
Broken Pine frowned at him. “I thought you just said such an attack would stand no chance.”
“Well . . . you’re gonna make ’em think you’re tryin’ to fight your way in, anyway.”
Understanding appeared on Broken Pine’s face. “You want us to keep them occupied while you do something else.”
“Yep. Big Thunder, can you climb?”
An even more childlike grin appeared in the face that seemed to be made out of stone slabs and lumps. “Big Thunder is the best tree climber there is!”
Preacher smiled at his enthusiasm. “There ain’t any trees around here for you to climb, Big Thunder, but how are you at climbin’ rocks?”
“Big Thunder can climb anything!”
Preacher nodded at that confident declaration. “You’ll get a chance to try. And I know from firsthand experience that you’re mighty strong. I need you to climb to the top of the ridge and haul some folks up on a rope.”
Big Thunder turned to the sandstone wall and started looking for a good place to climb.
“No, not right here and now,” Preacher went on. “I’ll take you to the place and tell you what to do, but not just yet. All right?”
“Big Thunder will do whatever Preacher says. Preacher is the only man who ever defeated Big Thunder. He is a great man.”
“I’m glad you think so, instead of wantin’ to wallop me some more.”
“We will fight again someday. Big Thunder likes to fight!”
“We’ll see about that,” Preacher promised vaguely. He never wanted to tangle with the towering galoot again, but Big Thunder didn’t have to know that.
With Big Thunder mollified for the moment, Preacher explained his plan to Broken Pine, Kicking Elk, and Dark Neck.
He began by describing exactly where the small canyon was, then said, “You fellas will head down there when it gets closer to night. Big Thunder and I will climb up on the ridge and head for a place where I can get down into the canyon by usin’ the rope I’ve got on Horse’s saddle.”
“Big Thunder will hold the rope!”
“No, not just then. I’ll tie it around a rock that’s stickin’ up in a good place for it.”
Big Thunder looked disappointed, so Preacher went on. “But you’ll have plenty to do a little while after that.”
“Big Thunder will go down in the canyon with Preacher and kill Blackfeet?” The giant warrior’s thick fingers flexed in anticipation. Preacher didn’t know if Big Thunder was thinking about strangling Blackfeet. . . or just tearing them apart with his bare hands.
“I need you to stay on top of the ridge. Then, your friends here will attack the canyon and keep all the varmints in there busy for a spell while I free the prisoners and take them to where the rope’s hangin’ down. That’s when you haul ’em up and outta there.”
Big Thunder frowned, evidently deep in thought as he considered everything Preacher had said, but finally he nodded in understanding.
“Big Thunder can do that.”
“I never doubted it. That’s why I came up with the idea in the first place.” Preacher turned back to the other Crow. “Take Horse with you and keep him close. Ride to where you can throw some shots into the mouth of the canyon where they’re holed up. Gallop around, fire some arrows in there, yip a lot like there’s a whole war party of you. Don’t stay out in the open too long at a time, though. I don’t want anything to happen to you fellas.”
“When do we do this?” Broken Pine asked.
Preacher thought about that question for a couple of seconds before answering. He didn’t want to give any sort of signal from atop the ridge, because Angry Sky might be canny enough to notice it and realize that someone was up there.
“Wait until this much of the moon is above the horizon,” he said, holding up his hand so there was about an inch of space between his thumb and forefinger. “I’ll start down into the canyon as soon as the moon touches the horizon. Durin’ the time it takes to rise that much more, I can get down there, figure out what to do, maybe take care of a guard or two, and start freein’ the prisoners.”
“How long do we continue the attack?”
“If you can keep the varmints busy for fifteen minutes or so, that’ll give me time to get Butterfly loose and out of the canyon, and probably Aaron and Charlie, too. Hawk and me will take our chances if we have to. We’re used to it.” Preacher paused. “But if Angry Sky and the rest of that bunch come boilin’ outta there and start after you, you fellas light out as fast you can. Don’t wait for nobody or nothin’, and don’t look back.”
None of them seemed happy about that, but Broken Pine said, “If we all get away, where will we meet?”
Preacher had to think about that, too. “We’ll follow the top of that ridge as far as we can. Angry Sky can’t get to us very easily as long as
we’re up there. Remember the place close to the western edge of the basin where all those rocks were in a circle?”
Broken Pine nodded. “The Devil’s Eye?”
“That’s what your people call it?”
“No, some white trappers who came through several summers ago gave it that name.” Broken Pine blew out a disdainful little breath. “The Crow people are not that fanciful.”
“Well, just so we all know where we’re headed. We’ll meet you there as soon as we can. But if the pursuit’s close behind you and you can’t stop there, don’t worry about it. Just head on back to your village. Not even a mad dog like Angry Sky would attack it.” Preacher looked around at the four young men. “Everybody clear on what we’re doin’?”
They nodded and muttered agreement.
“Maybe we ought to hunt some shade and rest a mite, then,” Preacher said. “It’s liable to be a busy night.”
* * *
During the rest of the morning, Hawk could sense the anger and frustration growing among his captors, red and white alike. Angry Sky had expected Preacher to already have shown up, but there had been no warning from the guards posted at the canyon mouth or the one on top of the ridge. They would have let the others know right away if they saw any sign of the mountain man.
Around midday, Jefferson Scarrow drifted over to the prisoners. “It’s beginning to look as if your friend Preacher is going to leave you to your fate, gentlemen.”
“He won’t do that,” Charlie said. “He rescued me once before, remember? That didn’t turn out so well for you. And it’s going to be worse this time, mark my words.”
Preacher's Rage Page 19
