Preacher and the Mountain Caesar

by William W. Johnstone

  He got right down to business. “Things have changed. We shook ’em up a little an’ they put their legions out in the field. They’s camped all around the city. So we’ll not be scalin’ any walls right off. Put your men to makin’ ladders fer it, anyway. We’ll need ’em after we deal with the soldiers, I reckon.”

  “How do we do that?” Philadelphia inquired.

  Preacher gave him a smile. “I thought you’d never ask. First thing is we’ve got to draw them out. I see you brought along a couple dozen more than we had at our last camp together. That’s good.”

  “We’re more than a hunderd an’ fifty strong now, Preacher,” Philadelphia announced. “An’ that could git bigger by tomorrow.”

  “Even better. Cold camp tonight. We don’t want our Roman friends knowin’ we’re here. I know it’ll be hard not gettin’ in some drummin’ an’ singin’, Bold Pony, Blind Beaver, but you’ve both done some war trail sneaks before, I’m sure. We can all dance up a storm oncest this is over.” The war leaders nodded solemnly. “Now here’s how we get them to come to us. First off we have to get rid of all those watch towers they’ve built. Then, the morning after that’s done, we show up in a double line on the last ridge. That’ll make us ringtailers and the Cheyenne.”

  “Vhat about the Arapaho?” Karl Kreuger asked nastily from the sidelines. “You goin’ soft on dem vor a purpose.”

  “Nope. Not at all. Matter of fact, they’ve got the hardest part of all. Before we show ourselves to the Romans, they’ve got to sneak down into that valley durin’ the night . . .” Preacher went on to describe where the Arapaho warriors would go and what they would be doing.

  “Sounds complicated,” Philadelphia Braddock observed.

  “It ain’t. Not if ever’one does what he’s supposed to. If all of us keeps our place and not act on our own, we can have this over before nightfall.”

  “You said they had cannons,” a voice came from a mountain man Preacher did not know.

  “Those we take care of the same time we empty the watch towers. Which reminds me. Duke an’ me learned a whole lot about how they are run. After the soldiers are tooken care of, we leave two men in each tower to make the morning signal. Then those boys can join the rest of us. As far as the cannons go, I found these little things in one of the towers we hit last night. Must be used for holdin’ somethin’ together. Thing is, they’ll serve our purpose.” Preacher unwound from his squat on the ground and went to his saddlebags.

  From them he took a buckskin bag about six inches long. From it, he removed three dull, grayish objects. They had been flattened on one end, and the opposite one tapered to a fine point. He raised his arm to show them around.

  “While the towers are being silenced, Duke an’ me and a couple others will slip in among the Romans and spike the touch holes of those big guns.”

  That didn’t sound too good to Philadelphia. “Won’t they hear you doin’ that?”

  Preacher gave him a confident smile. “Not if we use padded wooden mallets. A couple of pops on each, then break them off. Those tired soldier-boys will think it’s just horses stompin’ in the night.”

  “If you say so,” Philadelphia relented, still unconvinced.

  “I want to go with you, Preacher,” Terry pleaded.

  “No. You’ll stay on the ridge with them towers. An’ that’s final.”

  “When do we get all this started?” another mountain man asked.

  Preacher swept his arm in an inclusive gesture. “We’ll git us a little rest now. Then, when it is good and dark tonight, it all begins. Them Romans will never know what hit them.”

  * * *

  Prudence, as much as good luck, guarded Preacher and the five mountain men with him as they glided across the tall grass of the central meadow. For some reason, he had noted, the cannons had been left outside the temporary palisades of the nightly encampments of each cohort. He had no way of knowing that the cause was ignorance and laziness—twelve—pound Napoleons weighed over a ton, and were hard to move around.

  The generals had decided where they would fight the enemy when he came, and so the long guns had been laid to provide the maximum effect. There they would stay. Coincidentally, that put three cannons on each flank of the supposed Roman main line of resistance. Well and good, Preacher figured. Shortly before sundown, Haymaker Norris, who claimed to have put his trapping aside for two years to serve in the Mexican War as an artilleryman, instructed the sabotage party in the proper way to spike a cannon. Along with the mountain men who were to take out the watch towers, they set out on foot at midnight.

  Leaving a cold camp, their night vision was not affected in the least. Those who used tobacco chewed on sweetened leaf or, like Preacher, chomped on the butt of an unlighted cigar. They moved with astonishing speed and silence. No one spoke; not a loose item of equipment or clothing clattered or rattled. Not even a clink came from the Roman plumb bobs—for that’s what the lead spikes were identified as by Four-Eyes Finney, who had been an apprentice carpenter before he ran away to the Big Empty. It seemed no time until they had crested the first of three ridges that separated them from New Rome. Preacher called a short halt there to catch their wind. Funny, neither he nor any of them had needed to do that in the past, even packing around some respectable wounds.

  He eased over to each of the men with him and repeated whispered advice.

  “We’d best be givin’ some time for those boys up ahead to do their dirty work.”

  “Another ridge to cross,” Four-Eyes Finney reminded him.

  “Then we’d best be gettin’ there,” Preacher declared as he set off along the trail. The others followed at once without having to be told.

  * * *

  When Preacher and his companions reached the watch tower beside the main southern trail, not a living person remained there. The other force of mountain men had done their work well and vanished into the night to their next objective. Preacher again ordered they take a breather. They had made it this far without another stop, which pleased him. Now the hard part would begin.

  “We’ll take the cannons on the right flank first. That’s our left,” he added for the benefit of Blue Nose Herkimer.

  “I know that,” Blue Nose whispered back in mock irritation.

  “You do now,” Preacher responded through a low chuckle.

  They began their descent five minutes later. Avoiding the roadway in order not to be seen, the mountain men angled across the basin, through the tall grass nearly invisible even to one another. Preacher’s long, meticulous survey of the valley paid off. He had a fairly accurate map of the terrain in his head. It took not the least effort to direct the spiking party to a wide, deep ravine that cut diagonally across to the Roman right flank.

  At five minutes after three in the morning, they arrived at their objective. The perfect hour, when the circadian rhythm of human life ebbed lowest. It was the time of deepest sleep, when dreams formed and the body became sodden with relaxation. Working two to each gun, the mountain men placed the spikes, then rapped on them with padded mallets. The soft thuds that accompanied each blow did indeed sound like the stomp of a hoof. Preacher had insisted that they not strike together or too rapidly.

  His precaution paid unexpected dividends. When the last spike had been broken off, they entered a small gully on hands and knees. Preacher’s keen hearing picked up soft voices speaking in English from the main gate to the camp as they passed it.

  “Lazy cavalry. Picketed their horses outside the camp,” came a scornful remark.

  “All right with me,” the other sentry answered. “I don’t like the smell of horse crap at breakfast.”

  A soft chuckle rose for a moment. “Considering what they feed us, how can you tell the difference?”

  Like soldiers anywhere, Preacher thought as he crawled away.

  They reached the second trio of cannons without incident. Preacher squared off on the flattened top of a lead plumb bob and gave it a whack. Ice shot down his spine
a second later when an inquiring voice came from behind the palisade.

  “What’cha doin’ out there with horses?”

  Preacher thought fast. He’d have to make some response. Fortunately the question had been in English. “Early patrol. The generals are getting nervous.” He could speak as correctly as any man when he chose to do so.

  “You horse soldiers have it made,” came an envious response.

  “Don’t we though?” Preacher hoped the man would shut up with that. He did not like the idea of chatting away with the enemy when there were so many so close.

  “Good luck,” served as words of dismissal. Preacher let go a soft sigh of relief.

  Plop! came from another cannon touch hole. Then again. Then it was Preacher’s turn. He took a swat, then glanced nervously at the stockade. Two more followed his. He suddenly realized he was sweating bullets. Much of this could take years off a life. He tugged at the spike to check its set, then hit it on the shaft. It bent but did not break off. Damn. He did not dare risk another. Preacher raised his hand to signal the others, and they stole off into the darkness, their task completed.

  * * *

  Preacher’s small party, and those who had attacked the watch towers around the rim, waited out the rest of the night on the intermediate ridge. Their horses would be brought up to them. Elated, and relieved that they had encountered no difficulties in the night’s activities, Preacher chose to spend his wait on a good snooze. He reckoned as how he would need every bit of alertness and stamina he could recover during the day to come. An hour before dawn, the main force arrived. Preacher roused himself to speak with the leaders.

  “Yellow Hawk, I want you and your warriors to take your place where I told you about now. Have ’em keep low and be danged quiet. They must stay complete out of sight until I give the signal.”

  Preacher had brought along six fat, greasy, paper-wrapped sticks of blasting powder from the trading post. He had caps and fuse for them in his saddlebag. Some would be used to distract and confuse the enemy, or to blow down the gates to the city. The first one would be to signal the Arapaho to attack.

  “Have them take plenty water gourds, too. Wouldn’t do for ’em to get too thirsty to fight proper.”

  Yellow Hawk nodded his understanding. “You have fought many more battles than I, Ghost Wolf. It is good to have wise counsel. Only one thing worries me. That we are not to fight in the open, pick our enemy and count coup before we slay him and go for another. We have never fought this way before.”

  “Let’s hope you never have to again,” Preacher said fervently, recalling his earlier thoughts on the subject. “But this time it is important. The way the Romans fight makes it so. Now, if you please, go on and put the braves in the right places.”

  Preacher turned his attention to the others. “Philadelphia, you’ll lead our boys in this fracas. I’ll be quarterin’ the field between you an’ the Cheyenne. It’s gonna be pure hell to keep them dog soldiers from breakin’ ranks and countin’ coup before we can spring the trap. So I’ll mostly be with them.”

  “Think they’ll listen to you?” Philadelphia asked with an eye on the patient Indians who remained with their mountain men allies.

  “They’d better, if they want to stay alive. In the right hands, them javelins have might near the range of a Cheyenne arrow. They ain’t like a head-heavy flint lance point. Timin’. Everything in this counts on timin’. We’re outnumbered, sure’s hell. But if we do this right, there won’t be enough Roman soldiers left to form one of those . . . what do you call them ten-man outfits?”

  “Contaburnium,” Buck Sears supplied.

  “Yeah. That’s the one.”

  Buck scratched his head. “You seem so sure of this, Preacher. Did you learn it from some army feller?”

  “I’ll tell you about it later, Buck. Right now, I want to go convince Blind Beaver to keep a lid on his men.” Before he could do that, he had one more task to complete. He squatted before Terry and put a big, hard hand on one slim shoulder.

  “You do right like I said. Stay here on this ridge tomorrow. Don’t move a muscle.”

  * * *

  Shortly after the sun rose two fingers over the eastern rim of the valley, the mountain-man-and-Indian army crested the ridge to the south. Not a signal went out to announce their arrival. Below, in the camps of the legions, the soldiers went about their morning fatigue duties of taking down the stockade and tents. The approaching host had ridden halfway down the reverse slope when someone first noticed them.

  Brassy blasts on the long, straight, valveless trumpets sent the men hastily to their weapons. Tent mates helped one another into their breastplates and greaves. Bawling NCOs brought order to the ranks, which formed in the traditional Roman squares. By then, the bandsmen had been assembled.

  While the invaders walked their horses onto the floor of the meadow, the buccinae hooted and the clarinae tooted, while the timpanii throbbed and rumbled in fine martial style. Lastly, the legates of the legions appeared, dashing on their powerful chargers, the cavalry legion of Varras swinging into the traditional position in the order of battle. They took their reports from their adjutants and began to exhort the legionnaires to do their utmost in battle. The enemy rode inexorably closer.

  At about two thousand yards, their double line began to change shape. The flanks, two ranks deep, curved inward, while the middle, consisting of three ranks, hung back slightly. When they had molded in a bison-horn formation, they halted. All of this brisk human activity had frightened the small animals and birds to flight or silence. When the invaders halted, an eerie silence enveloped both sides. Curious eyes studied the “barbarians.”

  Equally curious eyes took in the boxlike formations of the legions from the other side. Squinty Williams nudged Philadelphia in the ribs. “What they all bunched up like that for? They’re just askin’ for a shower of Cheyenne arras.”

  “We’ll find out soon enough, I reckon, Squinty,” Braddock replied. “Accordin’ to Preacher, the old-timey Romans were real mean fighters. Whupped ever’body they went against.”

  “Wull, they didn’t never come against us fellers, I bet.”

  Philadelphia stifled the laugh that rose in his chest. “No, Squinty, they didn’t.”

  Abruptly the drums opposite them began to throb. Bull-roar voices bellowed orders. In full regalia, complete with cavalry and band, the Roman legions began to march forward like a single man, rather than nearly nine hundred.

  * * *

  Marcus Quintus Americus gazed over the ranks of his brave legions. Pride swelled his heart. They were ready. They surely were honed as fine as any soldiers could be. They had about a thousand stadia to cover, and then the cannons would open up. The legions had heard them fired enough not to falter when they blasted away. And then the cohorts would pick up the pace to a trot, pilae slanted forward at eye level to these unprotected barbarians.

  Riflemen would open up at the same time. This should be over soon enough that he could be back in the palace for a soothing bath and a light lunch. How tedious these matters could be. It would bloody the legions, which they would need. Knowledge of New Rome had undoubtedly become wide-spread outside the valley. Secrecy could not be maintained forever, he knew. Yet, he had hoped to keep the true enemy ignorant of his power and intentions for a while longer. A sudden shout came from ahead of him at the left-hand battery. It was repeated by stentorians until he could make meaning of the sounds.

  “The cannon have been spiked! The cannon are useless!”

  Those fateful words chilled Quintus. Everything hinged on the artillery. He looked about him in serious despair. He had to act. He must do something, and it had to be right.

  23

  It wouldn’t do to start off with all this fanfare and then retreat in the face of a determined, if small, hostile force. There could not be more than a hundred and fifty of them, Marcus Quintus made a quick, inaccurate tally. Be decisive. The words mocked him. Yet, he must do something. Marcus
Quintus turned to the trumpeter beside him.

  “Sound for the legates,” he commanded.

  With a nod, the signalman put the mouthpiece of his instrument, one which had been coiled to compact it, to his lips and blew. It produced a mellower note than the straight trumpets. At once, Glaubiae, Bruno and Varras turned the heads of their mounts and cantered to the center. They saluted formally.

  Quintus spoke brusquely, not meeting their eyes. “I am sure you heard the disastrous news. Somehow those barbarians had the wit to infiltrate our encampment and spike the cannons. That places the burden of victory more directly upon your soldiers. We will advance within range of our archers and pilae. The cavalry is to divide and take positions to sweep those thin flanks back on the main body.”

  “First Citizen,” Varras spoke urgently. “I recommend against splitting my force.”

  “Why not?” Now Quintus glared directly into the black eyes of Varras. “Given a good shower of arrows and javelins, these unarmored louts will break ranks and flee. You will be able to slaughter them at your leisure.”

  “Need I remind you that they all have guns. Even most of the red savages.”

  Quintus found that a subject for contempt. “Savages cannot hit what they shoot at. See that it is done as I have said. I will take the center in my chariot.”

  He dismounted and climbed to the platform of the gold-chased chariot. There he drew a silver inlay gladius and held it at the ready. Disgruntled, yet keeping their tongues silent, the legates of the three legions of New Rome rode back to their commands. There they conveyed the orders of their supreme commander, and the cavalry departed for the flanks of the mountain men’s formation.

  When they reached the desired location, Quintus raised his sword and ordered his troops forward. The band began again, and the soldiers stepped out with a steady, measured tread. They came right on until a distance of only fifty yards separated them from the invaders. Not unlike an exercise on the drill field, the commands barked from centurions to sergeants to the men. Javelins hissed through the air while arrows arched above and moaned their eerie song.