As the sun lowered toward the looming mountains, Preacher used the same stealth he had employed earlier to stay out of sight, even though he was traveling fairly rapidly. Along the way he scared up a nice fat rabbit and brought it down with a throw of his tomahawk. He would take supper back to his friends, as well as the location of the new campsite.
Darkness had settled over the landscape when he neared the cave. He stopped outside the brush barrier and hooted like an owl, then again. That was the signal they had agreed to use whenever one member of the group returned to the camp after dark. He expected to hear the call of a whip-poor-will in return, since that was the countersignal.
Instead, White Buffalo’s cracked old voice called, “Preacher! Is that you?”
Instantly, Preacher knew something was wrong. White Buffalo shouldn’t have spoken up like that without being sure who was outside. Preacher pushed through the brush and hurried into the cave.
A tiny fire burned near the rear wall. The flames weren’t bright enough to be spotted from outside through the brush, but they lit up the cave well enough for Preacher to see White Buffalo sitting with his back against the wall. He had his left arm cradled with his right. A bloody rag was tied around the forearm.
Horse and the pack mule were there, but Hawk and Dog were gone.
Preacher saw no sign of Winter Wind, either.
“White Buffalo, how bad are you hurt?” he asked as he moved swiftly to the old-timer’s side.
“It is nothing. A cut. It bled enough to weaken me, since at my age I have little blood to spare.”
“I reckon Winter Wind must’ve done it?” Preacher asked grimly as he knelt in front of White Buffalo.
“I told you she was a Blackfoot devil.”
“You got too close to her again.”
White Buffalo sighed. “Now is not the time for blame. What is important is that she got away.”
The blood that had seeped from the wound into the rag tied around White Buffalo’s arm wasn’t completely dried yet, which told Preacher the incident hadn’t happened that long ago.
“Hawk went after her?”
“He said he would find her and bring her back,” White Buffalo replied with a nod. “And he said he would not kill her unless he was forced to, since you wanted her to stay alive.”
“Not if it comes down to a fight to the death.” Preacher grimaced at the thought of Hawk hesitating at just the wrong moment and winding up dead, all because he was trying to honor his father’s wishes.
Maybe Preacher could prevent that, if he moved quickly enough. Hawk and Winter Wind couldn’t have too big a start on him. If he caught up in time, he could help Hawk recapture the woman.
“He took Dog with him to help trail her?”
White Buffalo nodded again. “I am sorry, Preacher—”
“We’ll hash that out later,” Preacher said. “You can tell me the whole story then. Right now I’m gonna get after ’em.”
He didn’t have Dog to help him, so tracking them down in the darkness wasn’t going to be easy. He assumed, however, that Winter Wind would want to get back to her village and warn Tall Bull and the others as fast as possible.
All he could do was start in that direction and hope he could find them.
* * *
As he trotted through the shadows, it occurred to Preacher that Winter Wind might have tried to throw off pursuit by fleeing in a different direction instead of heading straight back to the village. If that were the case, it would be a pure guess which way she would have gone. He decided trying to figure it out would be a waste of time. Sooner or later, unless Hawk captured or killed her, she would try to reach the village, so Preacher hurried in that direction to head her off and keep her from getting to Tall Bull.
The stars provided plenty of light for Preacher to see where he was going. Staying in the shadows, he paused from time to time to listen intently. He didn’t really expect to hear anything, since Hawk and Winter Wind were both skilled at moving silently. Sure enough, Preacher heard no sounds except the usual night noises and moved on toward the Blackfoot village.
It was early enough in the evening that the scent of smoke from the cooking fires drifted to him a short time later. He followed it until he was getting close to the village and stopped where he could get a look at the place from a wooded knoll about a quarter mile away.
Everything about the village appeared to be peaceful. The fires had died down, but their embers still glowed orange in the night. A few people were moving around. Preacher spotted them occasionally when they moved between him and the remains of the fires.
No commotion of any sort told him Winter Wind hadn’t returned with the news of her capture, escape, and discovery of the hideout being used by the men who had been plaguing her people. If nothing happened by morning, Preacher would assume Hawk had stopped her . . . one way or another.
Preacher settled in to wait and watch. His position commanded a good view of several approaches to the village. Winter Wind might still get past him, but it wasn’t likely. Once the moon came up, it would be even easier for him to spot her if she tried to reach the village.
He hunkered down to ease his muscles. He had traveled a long way to find a new camp and back again, and his journey wasn’t over yet. He might have to stay near the village all night, then return to the cave in the morning. If Hawk had dealt with the problem of Winter Wind, Preacher would need to lead him and White Buffalo back to the canyon where Charlie Todd and Aaron Buckley were waiting.
Well, it wasn’t the first time he had gone for a long spell without any rest, he told himself, and likely it wouldn’t be the last. Out on the frontier a man did what he had to in order to survive . . . or he died.
No two ways about it.
Preacher had long since mastered the art of letting his mind drift into a relaxed state while his senses remained alert and his body was ready to move at an instant’s notice. In that almost dreamlike consciousness, he wondered why the Blackfeet hated everybody so much, especially the white men who had come to the mountains to explore and trap.
Many years earlier, when he was just a young man, he had talked to an old-timer at a rendezvous who claimed to have been with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark when they went up the Missouri River on behalf of President Thomas Jefferson to explore what was then called the Louisiana Purchase. That veteran frontiersman had talked about an encounter between Lewis and Clark’s party and a group of Blackfoot warriors.
The meeting had started off friendly enough. Probably the Blackfeet had never laid eyes on any white men before, and like all Indians, they were curious.
An argument had broken out, most likely over something trivial, and one of the explorers wound up firing his rifle at the warriors, killing one of them.
That was how it all started, the old-timer had claimed. Ever since, the Blackfeet had hated all white men and done their best to kill them.
Preacher didn’t know if the story was true, but it seemed plausible enough. All he was really sure of was that the Blackfeet were his enemies, and the feeling was mutual.
Sudden movement down below broke him out of his reverie. A figure had bolted out of the shadows under some trees and ran across open ground, heading straight for the Blackfoot village.
Preacher didn’t need a closer look to know that running figure was Winter Wind . . . and it seemed he was the only hope of stopping her before she delivered her news to Tall Bull.
CHAPTER 23
Preacher could have brought her down with a shot from his rifle, but that would have defeated the purpose. The Blackfeet would hear the shot and be roused in a matter of moments. Instead, he ran down the slope through the trees.
Her course took her close to the knoll, so he was only about twenty feet from her when he broke out onto the flat and angled to intercept her. She spotted him right away and veered away from him. He knew she was going to scream, and the Blackfeet might well hear that, too.
He jerked his tomahawk from beh
ind his belt and flung it at her legs.
The weapon’s long wooden handle got caught between her calves and caused her feet to tangle together. With a cry of startled dismay, she fell forward into the grass.
Preacher was on her in an instant, but even as fast as he moved, Winter Wind was able to roll over and meet his attack. She thrust her legs up in an attempt to kick him and lever him aside.
Preacher grabbed her ankles and pivoted sharply, hauling her around with him so fast her body came up off the ground. When he let go of her ankles, she flew through the air for several feet before crashing down again. Her landing was hard and knocked the breath out of her, leaving her stunned.
Before she could do more than gasp for air a couple times, Preacher was kneeling beside her with the tomahawk held high and poised for a killing strike. “You start to yell and I’ll stave your head in before you can get more than a peep out,” he warned her. “I’ve done my damnedest to keep you alive, girl, and I ain’t real happy about the way you’re tryin’ to pay me back for that kindness.”
“It . . . it is not kindness . . . to be spared by an enemy!” she said breathlessly. “It is . . . a humiliation!”
“Then I reckon you’d rather me go ahead and dash your brains out.”
“It is what you would do . . . if I was a man!”
“Well, you’re right about that,” Preacher said. “I ain’t too happy about what you did to White Buffalo, neither. That old codger coulda bled to death, the way you cut him.”
In the faint starlight, he saw Winter Wind sneer.
“I did not cut the old man. He did it himself, trying to stop me. He tripped and fell on his own knife.”
White Buffalo hadn’t mentioned that, but to be fair, Preacher hadn’t given him much time to explain. And a good thing, too, or else he might not have been able to head off Winter Wind and keep her from reaching the village.
“We can talk about it after we get back to the cave. You’re comin’ with me.”
“You will have to kill me to keep me from crying out to my people!”
“You really do have a hankerin’ to die, don’t you?”
“A warrior can aspire to nothing more than dying in battle. Give me a weapon. We will settle this between us, and I give you my word I will not call for help.”
“Forget it,” Preacher said. “I ain’t fightin’ you.”
“I will—”
“No, you won’t.” With that, he walloped her on the jaw again. He didn’t know what she was about to say and didn’t care. He figured her jaw was probably getting pretty sore, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that.
* * *
He met Hawk and Dog on the way back to the cave.
“Again?” the young man said as he looked at the tied, gagged figure draped over Preacher’s shoulder.
“Oh, she did her best to convince me to kill her, so she could die with honor at the hands of an enemy the way a warrior should, but I didn’t feel like cooper-atin’.”
“I should have caught her,” Hawk said in a surly voice. “Truly, she runs as fast as the wind.” Grudging admiration sounded in his voice.
Hawk and Dog fell in alongside the mountain man as he strode along with the captive.
Preacher asked, “How’d she get away?”
“She must have found a rock with enough of an edge on it to saw through her bonds. I can only guess she worked at them all day while you were gone. She had no knife or other weapon, and White Buffalo and I did not disturb her, as you wished. She got loose while Dog and I were out hunting. When we came back to the cave, we found White Buffalo there, wounded. She tried to kill him.”
“Not accordin’ to her,” Preacher said with a faint smile. “She says White Buffalo tried to stop her when she was gettin’ away, and tripped and fell on his own knife.”
For a moment, Hawk didn’t say anything. Then, “I suppose it could have happened that way. Whoever is to blame for the wound, I bound it up as quickly as I could and then went after her. Dog was able to pick up her trail right away, but she had a good lead on us.” He paused, then added stubbornly, “We would have caught her.”
“Maybe, but not in time. She would have made it to the village.”
“She would have if she had gone straight there, too, but she tried to throw us off by circling around. That gave you time to reach the vicinity of the village before her.”
“Reckon you could say she outsmarted herself.”
“And now we are right back where we started, with a prisoner we do not need,” Hawk said, sounding disgusted.
Preacher didn’t respond. He didn’t want to say anything about the canyon or where it was located. He couldn’t be sure Winter Wind wasn’t pretending to be unconscious. She was pretty good at that, he recalled.
When they got back to the cave, Hawk did the two owl hoots to let White Buffalo know it was them. A shaky whip-poor-will call answered.
“You brought that evil woman back with you,” the old man said in an accusing tone as they came in with the prisoner. “I hoped you would finally have sense enough to kill her.”
“Our plans haven’t changed,” Preacher said.
“Your plans,” White Buffalo said with a disapproving sniff.
Preacher placed Winter Wind on the ground in just about the same spot she’d been when he left that morning. She was awake, he saw, just as he suspected. Her dark eyes blazed with hatred.
He checked her bonds and gag and was satisfied they would hold, even though he had done the job hastily. He said, “Dog, guard,” and then motioned with his head for Hawk and White Buffalo to follow him outside the cave.
He walked away in the darkness, far enough he was confident they were out of earshot, before he turned to the other two.
White Buffalo started to say something, but Preacher held up a hand to stop him. “If you’re gonna try to tell me how everything happened, you can save your breath, old-timer. Fact of the matter is, I don’t care. She got loose, but she didn’t get away and she didn’t tell Tall Bull where to find us. I reckon that’s all that matters . . . and pretty soon, even that won’t be important.”
“You have found a place for us to move the camp,” Hawk said.
“Yep,” Preacher said with a nod. “It’s a mite farther away from the Blackfoot village and in some ways it ain’t as good as this cave, but in other ways it’s better. Anyway, I never expected we’d stay in one place the whole time we were makin’ ol’ Tall Bull’s life a livin’ hell. I figured we’d have to move around some. The canyon’s just our second stop.”
“Where is this canyon?” Hawk asked.
Preacher explained where the canyon was located in general terms, then described the narrow cleft that led to it. “A couple men could hold off a good-sized war party for a long time,” he concluded.
“Could not warriors climb to the high ground above the canyon and rain down arrows on any defenders?”
“Not easily. The cliffs are too tall and sheer for that. I reckon it’s possible they might be able to work their way around and get above us, but they’d have to go a mighty long way around. Not only that, but they’d be exposed to get a shot at us.” Preacher patted the stock of his flintlock rifle. “As long as I’ve got powder and shot, I could pick ’em off. It’d be rainin’ all right . . . rainin’ dead Blackfeet. After that happened a few times, they might not be so eager to try it again.”
“This canyon sounds like it might be a good place,” Hawk admitted. “We can still venture out to strike against Tall Bull, and White Buffalo can guard the place.”
“Well, there’s somethin’ else I haven’t told you fellas yet. We’ve picked up a couple o’ unexpected allies.”
“Allies?” Hawk repeated. “What sort of allies?”
“A couple greenhorn trappers who are all that’s left of an expedition that came out here after pelts.”
“White men, you mean,” Hawk said in a disgusted tone.
“I’m a white man, you know.”
“You are Preacher. You are different.”
“Maybe. But these fellas are in a bind. They don’t have the sort of experience they need to keep ’em alive out here. It’s pure luck somethin’ ain’t killed ’em already. There’s a heap of different ways to die out here, and they’re bound to stumble over one of ’em sooner or later.”
For the next few minutes, he filled his companions in on the story Todd and Buckley had told him.
White Buffalo said, “Waugghh! It sounds like an Absaroka infant knows more than these white men.”
“You probably ain’t far wrong about that. But they got rifles and powder and shot, and they’ll be two more warm bodies in a fight. Reckon we can’t ask any more than that from ’em right now, but you can’t ever tell. They might turn out to be fiercer than we think they are.”
“That would not take much,” White Buffalo said haughtily.
Hawk nodded toward the cave. “What about the woman?”
“If she got loose as good as I had her tied up before, she can get loose from the bonds on her now,” Preacher said. “In the mornin’ we’ll leave her there in the cave, just like we planned. Don’t say nothin’ in there about where we’re goin’ or even let on that we’re leavin’ for good. She’ll get that idea after we’ve been gone for a while.”
“Then she will go back to Tall Bull and tell him everything she found out about us.”
“Which don’t amount to much,” Preacher pointed out. “She can tell him there’s three of us, one white man and two Absaroka, and that’s all.”
“She can tell him that his enemy is the one called Preacher.”
“That’s fine. Some of those yarns that’ve been spread around about me are pretty exaggerated, but if he wants to believe ’em and they get on his nerves, then so much the better. I like the idea of Tall Bull bein’ worried the Ghost Killer is gonna get him.” Preacher chuckled. “I hope I come to him in his dreams and make his sleep restless. Then he’ll know that when the two of us finally meet up . . . one of us is gonna die.”
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