Preacher and the Mountain Caesar

by William W. Johnstone

  Any newly made corporal would have known to see that such vital information be relayed upward. The First Citizen sighed before he spoke. “Gaius Septimus, I chose you as my constant companion and commander of my legions because you are awfully good at what you do. The years you spent with the barbarian army before leaving their ranks for—ah—a freer life are invaluable to Nova Roma. You must maintain the proper attitude among your subordinates. Is that not possible?”

  Gaius Septimus Glaubiae, whose real name was Yancy Taggart, responded with such vehemence that it shook the pleats of his kilt and rippled his long, scarlet cloak. “Not when all I have to work with is border trash and frontier riffraff, Marcus Quintus.” They had been speaking in the classical Latin as taught at Harvard and other schools in the East. Gaius/Yancy now changed to English for the benefit of the three men standing behind him as he went on. “Speaking of which, I have brought the new men along this morning to introduce them to you. Then there is some rather bad news to relate.”

  Marcus Quintus raised a hand imperiously. “Spare me that for now. Bring these newcomers forward.”

  Gaius gestured to the trio standing a respectful three paces behind the general. They came forward and made a halfhearted effort at the proper salute: clinched right fist brought upward to strike the left breast. Gaius winced. Then he took on the formalities.

  “First Citizen, let me introduce our newest recruits for the legions. This is Claypool, Grantling, and Wooks. Men, the First Citizen of Nova Roma, Marcus Quintus Americus.”

  They saluted again, and Marcus Quintus smiled at them, rather like a shark contemplating an unguarded baby dolphin. “You could not have come at a better time. You will be given proper Roman names once you have proven yourselves in the ranks and learn Latin. Until then, your barbarian names will have to do. Gauls, aren’t you? The names sound like it. Never mind,” he hurried on. “I am entrusting to you an important mission, outside the realm of Nova Roma. Recently, five of your fellows were sent out to capture a notorious individual who might be a threat to Nova Roma. I have learned only this morning that they have failed to return, with or without their captive, the legendary mountain man, Preacher. It is his destiny to fight gloriously in the coliseum,” Marcus Quintus continued.

  While he rambled on, Gaius Septimus let his thoughts roam over what he knew of the man who called himself Marcus Quintus Americus and had the audacity to take the title First Citizen. Glaubiae/Taggart considered Quintus to be more than a few flapjacks shy of a stack. Born Alexander Reardon, into the fantastically wealthy Reardon family of Burnt Tree Plantation, Duke of York County, Virginia. He’d had the best education affordable. Only, somewhere around the end of his primary school, Yancy Taggart recalled, Alexander had begun to fixate on Ancient Rome. As little Alexander grew, so did his mental disorder.

  By the time he had graduated from Harvard, he was, as the rough-and-tumble mountain men would put it, “nutty as Hector’s pet coon.” When his father died in a riding accident, Alexander inherited. Alex quickly converted everything into gold and set out to establish his dream, Nova Roma, the New Rome. Yancy saw Alexander as some sort of combination of Caesar Augustus and Caligula. For, oh, yes, Alexander had a vicious, sadistic streak. And his sexual appetite would have shocked even the emperor Tiberius.

  In addition to a number of slaves he had brought from the old plantation, Marcus Quintus had enslaved many Indians, and the hapless victims of raids on cabins or wagon trains. These he had put in the charge of Able Wade, now named Justinius Bulbus, master of games and owner of the new Rome’s gladiator school. Over the years, Quintus had constructed a replica of the Circus Maximus and the Coliseum of Trajen. And he had revived the practice of throwing Christians to the lions. In this case, cougars, Septimus corrected himself.

  The physical appearance of Quintus lent to his persona as a Roman emperor. Although tall and broad shouldered, Quintus was built close-coupled, with a bit of a pot belly, and a balding pate, fringed with yellow-brown hair. In a toga, with his gold-strapped sandals and golden circlet of laurel leaves, he looked every inch the emperor. Gaius Glaubiae reflected bitterly that he had deserted from the United States Army for something far better than this madman. Yet, he never sought to put it all aside. He yielded far greater power, and enjoyed far more comfort and luxury now, than even the product of his wildest dreams. He jerked slightly to free his mind as he realized that Marcus Quintus had been addressing him.

  “Yes?” he asked coolly.

  “I want you to see that these men have everything they will need for a long journey in the wilderness and send them on their way.”

  “Right away, of course.” Septimus gestured for the three scruffy drifters to leave the room. “Now, I have something else. I regret to say it is also the doing of Centurion Lepidus.”

  “Go on,” came Quintus’ icy invitation.

  Quickly, Septimus outlined the situation in which two legionnaires had been wounded and a third killed, and how the mountain man who had done it had managed to escape. He concluded lamely with the familiar remark: “The centurion saw nothing in that threatening enough to report it until this morning. It happened two days ago.”

  Rage boiled in the face of Quintus. “He is Legionnaire Lepidus as of now. I’d have him in the arena if he weren’t a citizen. By Jupiter, this is outrageous. I want you to put out cavalry patrols at once to find the trespasser. He must not be allowed to carry his story to the outside world.

  “It is far too early, as you must know, for New Rome to begin a war of conquest among the Celts and Germanic tribes. They, and the barbarian Gauls, must remain in ignorance for a while longer. There are still more of them than there are of us,” he cautioned. Then a twinkle came to his eyes. “Although I have a way to make each of our legionnaires the match of any ten of the savages. It will be revealed at the auspicious time.”

  “And when will that be, Quintus?”

  A crafty look stole over the face of the First Citizen. “Mars will make it known to me.”

  Mars! My God, he has gone totally mad. Septimus shook such thoughts from himself and made to answer. “It shall be as you will, First Citizen. I will not fail you. And Lepidus shall be dealt with. Ave Caesar!”

  Once Septimus departed, Quintus left his audience chamber and passed down a narrow, dimly lighted corridor into the bowels of the palace. Two turns and down an incline, he came to what appeared to be a solid, wooden plank wall. Behind a hanging tapestry, his hand found a lever and pulled it away from its recessed niche.

  A hidden panel swung outward, and Quintus swept the tapestry aside and entered. Flint and steel provided the spark to ignite a pine-resin torch. The flames danced through the room, banished shadows and revealed a soft, metallic glow from the long racks of carefully maintained weapons.

  Several makes of the finest, most modern rifles lined the walls. It always calmed Quintus, gave him renewed confidence, to view his magnificent arsenal. Now he crossed to a rack of Winchester .45-70-500 Express Rifles and caressed the butt-stock of one while he purred aloud his sense of impending triumph.

  “Soon now, my beauties. Very soon now, I will call in all of this border trash my good Septimus has recruited and enlisted in the ranks of our legions. Their testing will be done before long. When my legions are welded into ranks, they will be trained and honed into a fine-edged fighting machine. Then we will march to the north against the red savages, acquiring new colonies for Nova Roma.” He paused to stroll over to where a rank of six twelve-pound Napoleons rested on their high-wheeled carriages. He patted the muzzle of one affectionately.

  “That will test the mettle of my men for the time when they will conquer the true, Gallic enemy to the east. We shall claim every scrap of land from Canada to Mexico and east to the Mississippi. Oh, how mighty shall be the name of Rome!”

  * * *

  Preacher spent an uneasy night. It just weren’t natural, but them two brat-kids insisted on sleepin’ all huddled together like peas in a pod. Swore they di
dn’t do anything naughty, only that they couldn’t sleep any other way. Weren’t right at their age. Though from his observations, they seemed a good mite younger actin’ than their ages would account for. Boys of twelve were usually on the edge of being serious.

  This Terrance, or Terry as his sister called him, seemed no more grown up than an eight-year-old. It worried Preacher. Was they both touched in the head a little? Could be, what with all their talk of violence, robbin’ an’ killin’. Huh! What was he doin’ wastin’ his time frettin’ over the lives of a couple of woods waifs? It didn’t sit right. He had set out for Trout Creek Pass to jaw with others about strangers comin’ into the High Lonesome. Couldn’t take time to stew over a couple of candidates for an institution for wayward children. Take what they had done just this afternoon.

  It wasn’t warm enough for a man to take a decent bath, what with this late snowfall and the coming of fall. Yet, when they had stopped for their nooning, those two scamps had flung off their clothes and jumped into the creek buck naked. For a swim! Not a hurried bath, mind, just to play. Enough to drive a man to the crazy house. Preacher had yanked them out, one by one, and wiped them dry with an old flannel shirt. Gave them a good talking to, he thought. At least until he heard their giggles behind his back. What was a body to do?

  * * *

  Hunkered down in the brush, Philadelphia Braddock hid on the edge of a stand of golden aspen and watched the strange men from the valley search for him. He was good, one of the best, and he knew it. Braddock had left a confusing trail that should keep these amateurs meandering through the Big Empty country for a good long time. And they would never catch a glimpse of him.

  A good thing, too. His shoulder hurt like the fires of hell. In a fight he would have to rely on pistols. He remembered the spear cast that had wounded him. It had been from a distance that made a pistol shot an iffy matter. It made him shiver to think about it. Ah! There they went. Hounding off on another false scent. Must be light-headed from all this blood loss. And maybe infection, though he didn’t want to think of that. Thing was, those fellers all seemed to be in some sort of uniform.

  And they acted like soldiers. But whose? He’d never seen the likes in all his born days. Not live ones, anyhow. He had to get back to Bent’s Fort and tell someone what he had stumbled onto.

  Through the haze of fatigue and weakness, Philadelphia Braddock recalled that Trout Creek Pass lay a lot closer. That would have to do, he decided. He couldn’t hold out much longer than that. Quietly he eased back into the aspens, their brittle yellow leaves giving off a dry bone rattle as they quaked in the slight breeze.

  With a maze of zigzags over the next hour, Philadelphia Braddock left the last of the thoroughly confused soldiers far behind. When he lined out on the trail south out of Wyoming Territory, headed for Trout Creek Pass, he had time to reflect on the men he had seen. Funny, he mused, they looked like them fellers I seen in paintings of the Crucifixion of Christ.

  He held that thought until he made night camp and refreshed himself on broiled rabbit. He could sure use some bison. Man feeds himself regular on bison heals right fast.

  5

  Thin ribbons of white smoke rose above the saddle that separated Preacher and his young charges from the trading post in Trout Creek Pass. Preacher had never been so weary of a self-imposed duty as this one. Had this pair been grown up, their bones would be picked clean by buzzards and coyotes by now. Being as how they were children, he felt obliged to spare them and bring them to folks who would see to their proper upbringing.

  Although, he had to admit, it might be too late. It was written in the Bible that a child must be made straight in his ways by the age of seven or he was lost to righteousness. It was a hard thing to think of little nippers of eight, nine, ten or eleven roasting forever in hell because they had not been brought up right the first seven years of their lives. That was deeper theology than Preacher had delved into for a long while. He shook the images from his mind and plodded on. Terry and Vickie sat astride the pack saddle frame on a not-too-willing horse.

  “When we gonna get there?” Terry asked.

  “Yeah. We’ve never beened there before,” Vickie chirped.

  “You’ve never been there,” Preacher corrected the girl.

  She made a face. “That’s what I said.”

  Preacher calculated the angle of the sun. “We’ll be there by mid-afternoon. Those are the noonin’ cook fires, an’ ol’ Kevin Murphy’s smokehouse you see beyond the rise. He makes the bestest smoked hams. An’ his bacon will melt in your mouth.”

  “Ugh!” Terry blurted. “I wouldn’t like that. I like to chew mine. Is it spoilt or something?”

  “Just a figger of speech. Means that his bacon is delicious. Now, you two quit pullin’ my leg. I’ve got a sudden, bodacious thirst a-buildin’, an’ I figger to tend to it soon as I get you all settled in.”

  “Where are we gonna stay?” Vickie demanded.

  “I been over all that before. You’ll go to whoever will take you in.”

  Fear showed in both their faces. “You won’t split us up, will you?” Terry asked nervously.

  It was the first time Preacher had seen such emotions displayed by either, except for when he’d broken up their attack on his person. “I’ll try not. No tellin’.”

  “We won’t go to different folks.” Terry grew stubborn.

  “If you send us, we’ll run away.” Vickie cut her eyes to her brother for confirmation. He nodded solemnly.

  Preacher lost hold of it for a moment. “Dang, can’t you blessit tadpoles ever make things easy for a feller? I can’t guarantee anythin’ because I don’t know what situation we’re gonna come into. Put a rein on them jaws until we get there.”

  Terry and Vickie resumed a sullen, sulking silence. Terry’s pink underlip protruded in a pout. Preacher snorted in disgust.

  * * *

  Preacher reached the trading post at a quarter past two that afternoon. “Tall” Johnson, as opposed to his cousin and partner, “Shorty” Johnson, greeted Preacher from the roofed-over porch of the saloon half of the frontier general store.

  “Preacher, you old dog. I heard that you were holed up for the winter.” His eyes widened when he took in the children. “You a fambly man now, Preach?”

  “Not for any longer than I can help it, Tall,” Preacher grumbled. “You wouldn’t happen to be in the mood to play father, would you?”

  Tall Johnson wheezed out his laughter. “Shorty would never hear of it. He sees kids as somethin’ like warts. A feller needs to cut them off his hide as soon as possible. Besides, brats needs wimmin. An’ we ain’t got no wimmin. Decent ones, that is. Just a couple of Utes.”

  Preacher faked a disapproving glower. “Utes is ugly, Tall.”

  “Not this pair. Now, you just take that back, Preacher, or you buy the first drink.”

  Preacher’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “I’ll not take it back, an’ I’ll be proud to buy you the first drink. Soon’s I get shut of these youngins.”

  Tall Johnson made his point markedly clear. “A feller could die of thirst before that happened.”

  Preacher chuckled. “Chew a pebble, Tall.”

  He dismounted and helped the children down. He took them with him into the trading post side of the large, stout log building, which had been built like the corner tower of a fort, the windows narrow, with thick shutters into which firing loops had been cut.

  Ruben Duffey, the bartender, greeted him warmly. “Hog-raw, if it ain’t Preacher. What you got there?” he asked. “Sure, it’s a couple of partners you left out in the rain to shrink?”

  “Nope. They’s kid-chillins right enough.”

  “Seems I might know them, don’t I? Lemme get a closer look?” Duffey studied Terry and Vickie a moment, and his full lips turned down in distaste. “I was right, Preacher. Ye’ve got yourself a pair of genuine juvenile criminals on your hands, don’t ye know? Sure an’ it’s a better thing if ye bring them with me. I’ve go
t the right place for them. Come along then, won’t ye?”

  Preacher led the youngsters in Ruben’s path, out through the back hallway, past a storeroom. Outside, the smiling Irishman directed them to a small storage building with a low door and no windows. He opened up and made a grand gesture with a sweeping arm to usher them inside.

  “Faith now, an’ we’ll just lock those heathen devils’ spawn in here for a while. Could be we might get enough men together later on to decide their fate, don’t ye know?”

  “They are that bad, Ruben?”

  “Aye, every bit of it an’ more, I’m sayin’.”

  They walked back inside, and were joined by Tall Johnson. Ruben poured whiskey for the three of them; then he told Preacher the real story behind Terrance and Victoria. His tale, in his lilting Irish brogue, took the listening men back three years.

  “There was this family, there was. Name of Tucker. Sure an’ they was dressed like rag-a-muffins. Don’t ye know, I, like most folks, saw somethin’ strange about them right off, we did. A whole passel of kids they had, an’ nerry a whole brain among ’em, there wasn’t. There was something even more strange about them, wouldn’t ye know? This Tucker and his mizus looked enough alike to be brother and sister. Sure an’ they could be, for all I know. They squatted around the post for a few days; then they hauled out to a canyon some thirty miles northeast of here.

  “That’s when things started happenin’.” Ruben leaned close and spoke in a confidential manner. “Sure an’ things started disappearin’. A man would lose his shovel, or a pig, or maybe a couple pair of long johns a-dryin’ on a bush. Then a prospector turned up dead. One day, ol’ Looney Ashton come in for a nip of the dew. He swore an’ be damned that two nights before, out around his digs, he saw that two-headed pair sneakin’ off with a brace of mules that belonged to Hiram Bittner. It was the full moon an’ he saw them right clear.”