The Blackfoot twisted desperately, trying to get out of the path of Preacher’s attack, but he was no match for the mountain man’s lethal speed. The tomahawk smashed against the Blackfoot’s jaw with such terrible force it practically tore the bottom half of the man’s face off.
The warrior didn’t suffer for long. A split second later the tomahawk looped back and shattered his skull, dropping him already dead to the ground.
A few yards away, Hawk broke his man’s arm with a stroke of his weapon and then kicked the man in the belly, doubling him over. The tomahawk rose and fell, crushing the back of the warrior’s skull and dumping his corpse in the dirt.
With all the women screaming, Preacher knew their hysterics would soon attract the attention of the other warriors and bring them back at a run.
Some of the old men and older boys moved toward Preacher and Hawk, obviously wanting to fight them but made wary by the violent spectacle they had just witnessed.
“Stay back,” Preacher told them in the Blackfoot tongue as he and Hawk stood shoulder to shoulder. Dog was in front of them, growling menacingly. “We do not make war on women, children, and old men.”
“You are the Ghost Killer!” an old man said in a voice that quavered with age. “Why have you come among us?”
“To seek revenge for the spirits of the cruelly slain Absaroka!”
“Tall Bull said they had to be slain. He said they were not like the Blackfeet, so they must die.”
“Tall Bull was wrong, and now all the Blackfeet will pay for his evil arrogance.” Preacher’s voice rose. “The Ghost Killer swears this! The woman and children will cry and be left alone to mourn their husbands and fathers because of Tall Bull alone!”
He and Hawk backed away. It would have been nice to kill all the warriors Tall Bull had left in the village, but Preacher figured they had sent a pretty potent message already by killing five more men and penetrating the village in broad daylight.
Preacher knew the words he had spoken would infuriate Tall Bull even more when the war chief heard them. Not only that, but he would have to respond to the challenge Preacher had flung in his face, otherwise his grip on the tribe would slip even more than it must have already.
The old men and the boys didn’t press them as they retreated toward the creek. Preacher glanced toward the ridge and saw some of the warriors starting back to find out why the crying in the village had grown louder. He and Hawk would have some pursuers on their trail, he knew, but he was confident they could slip away.
Another figure rushed out from the group in the village, and a clear voice cried, “You say you do not make war on women, but you will fight this one or die!”
Winter Wind charged them, her long, buckskin-clad legs flashing over the ground. She had a tomahawk in one hand, a knife in the other, and a killing hate blazed in her eyes.
CHAPTER 28
“Go!” Hawk flung over his shoulder at Preacher as he leaped forward to meet Winter Wind’s attack.
Reacting faster than Hawk, Preacher had already pulled one of the pistols from behind his belt. He cocked the hammer, leveled the gun, and squeezed the trigger. It was one of the trickier shots he had ever made in his life, firing past Hawk. With the pistol double-shotted, there was always the chance one of the balls would clip the young man. In the split second before he pulled the trigger, he shaded his aim to the right as much as he dared.
The shot was perfect. Both balls whipped past Hawk without touching him. One missed Winter Wind as well, but the other struck her in the upper left arm. Preacher’s intent had been to stop her, not kill her.
She cried out in pain and dropped both weapons as she clutched her wounded arm with her other hand. Her momentum carried her a couple stumbling steps forward before she twisted and collapsed.
“Come on!” Preacher shouted at Hawk. “Let’s go!” The sound of the shot would make the warriors converge faster on the village.
Hawk came to a stop and stared for a second at the fallen Winter Wind, who lay on the ground writhing in pain and shouting angrily, then he whirled and dashed toward Preacher and Dog.
All three of them flew off the creek bank in high, arching leaps that carried them all the way across the stream below and landed them on the lower opposite bank. Dog hit running, but Preacher and Hawk fell and rolled before they were up on their feet again.
Outraged howls lifted from the village behind them. The warriors had found their fallen comrades and discovered that Preacher and Hawk had been inside the village itself.
The two raiders didn’t have time to conceal their tracks. Speed was all that mattered, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the inevitable pursuit. They ran through woods and across meadows. Preacher couldn’t hear the Blackfeet anymore, but he knew they were on the trail already.
Neither man wasted any breath talking. They moved at top speed toward Beartooth, taking them in the opposite direction from the isolated canyon where they had left White Buffalo, Charlie Todd, and Aaron Buckley. That was the best way to protect the location of the hideout and keep the old-timer and the two greenhorns safe.
Exhaustion finally forced them to stop and rest for a few minutes. Hawk leaned over and rested his hands on his knees as he breathed heavily. Preacher leaned against a tree trunk. His pulse was galloping madly.
“You . . . you shot that girl,” Hawk said after a minute or so.
“You were gonna . . . fight her,” Preacher said. “Shootin’ was . . . quicker.”
“I would have . . . fought them all . . . and given you . . . a better chance to escape.”
“Thought you didn’t want to . . . throw your life away.” Preacher was getting his breath back. “You wouldn’t have stood a chance . . . against the whole bunch.”
“You did not . . . kill her.”
“I just wanted to stop her, and stop you from wastin’ time better spent givin’ those varmints the slip . . . which is what we’re gonna do now. After we came through the pass, I saw an area on the mountain’s shoulder where it breaks off in a series of cliffs. They looked rugged enough to climb, and we wouldn’t leave no trail goin’ up ’em. We’ll head for that spot.”
Hawk straightened and nodded. “I know the place you mean. I saw it, as well. It will be a hard climb, but we can do it. Then we can work our way over to the pass and up the other side of the valley, back to the canyon where we left the others.”
“We ought to make it by sometime tomorrow,” Preacher said. “You up to movin’ fast again?”
“I will lead the way,” Hawk said.
Preacher smiled as the young man moved out on the run. He and Dog followed close behind.
* * *
A few times during the long afternoon, they caught sight of the pursuing warriors far behind them, but the Blackfeet never came close enough to start howling in anticipation of catching their quarry.
Preacher and Hawk reached the cliffs in the gloom of twilight. The almost sheer rock walls loomed above them with an air of overpowering menace. Hawk tipped his head back to peer up at them, and Preacher could sense what the young man was thinking.
“We can climb ’em,” the mountain man said.
“In the dark.” Hawk sounded skeptical.
“If we climb ’em in the dark, ain’t no way those fellas who are chasin’ us will be able to see us, is there? As far as they’re concerned, we’ll have vanished into thin air, and that’ll spook them Blackfeet even more.”
“You are right,” Hawk said, but he didn’t sound particularly convinced. “What about Dog?”
“He can get back to the canyon on his own. If the Blackfeet spot him, they’ll just take him for a wolf.” Preacher went down on one knee and curled his fingers in the thick fur on the back of Dog’s neck. “You go on back to White Buffalo and those two young fellas, Dog. Hawk and me will see you when we get back to the canyon.”
The big cur whined softly.
“I know,” Preacher said. “But there ain’t no wa
y you can climb these cliffs. You’d have to be a mountain goat, and you ain’t. Now skedaddle, and we’ll see you tomorrow.”
Dog turned and trotted off, but he paused once and looked back before he disappeared into a thicket of trees.
“Perhaps White Buffalo is not the only one who can talk to animals,” Hawk said when Dog was gone.
“Anybody can, if they just pay attention.” Preacher started toward the base of the first cliff.
“Wait,” Hawk said. “I will go first. If you fall, you will not knock me off, too.”
“All right, then,” Preacher replied with a chuckle. “Up you go.”
The climb was a harrowing one. Preacher and Hawk had to move extremely slowly, working by feel to find each new handhold and foothold before they entrusted their weight to it. They measured their progress in inches, but it was steady.
The darkness that closed in around them had another advantage. As they climbed higher and higher, they couldn’t see how far it was to the ground below them. All that existed for them was the small area of rock face to which they clung.
When they came to the top and rolled over onto level ground, both men just lay there for long minutes as their muscles quivered with relief.
When Preacher finally sat up, he said quietly, “Well, that wasn’t so bad. Now we just got to do it two or three more times.”
Hawk groaned. “Are you made of the white man’s iron, Preacher? Or the red man’s flint?”
“I’d say some o’ both, but that’s a better description of you, I reckon.”
Hawk sat up and rested his arms on his drawn-up knees. “How can a man as old as you keep going like this?”
“I’ve found the years don’t matter as much if you just don’t let yourself feel ’em.” Preacher tapped a fist lightly against his chest. “In my heart, I’m still the kid who came out here more ’n twenty years ago to see what was on the other side of the mountain. The body’s bound to slow down some as time goes by, but if you can keep that kid alive inside of you, you can always do more than you think you can.”
Hawk thought about that and nodded slowly. “Those are good words. I will remember them.”
“I wasn’t actually tryin’ to teach you a lesson or nothin’ like that. You asked me a question and I just answered it, that’s all.”
“I do not mind you teaching me things. My mother said you were the smartest man she ever knew.”
Preacher snorted. “I never claimed to be no genius. My little pard Audie might be, but I ain’t.”
“But you have much wisdom to impart.”
“Aw, hell, you’re just havin’ sport with me now!” Preacher jerked a thumb upward. “You’ve lollygagged around enough for a while. Get up that cliff!”
In the starlight, he thought he caught a glimpse of Hawk grinning as the young man stood up and trotted toward the base of the next cliff rising above them.
* * *
The climb took all night. When they finally reached the top of the last cliff they were high above the valley of the Blackfeet, even though Beartooth itself still towered dizzyingly above them. Confident they had escaped any pursuit from Tall Bull and his warriors, they stretched out on the ground and slept. Preacher relied on his instincts and keen senses to rouse him if any sort of threat came near them.
Utterly exhausted, they slept for several hours. Preacher woke first, stood up and stretched stiff muscles, then took a look around to make sure everything was all right. They seemed to be the only ones on the side of the mountain except for the birds in the trees, a few small animals rustling in the brush, and some goats higher still on the bare, rocky sides of the peak above the tree line, like the ones he had mentioned to Dog.
“Rattle your hocks, son,” he said in English to Hawk.
The young man sat up, yawned hugely, and said in the same tongue, “What is . . . rattle hocks?”
“Shake a leg. Get movin’. We got places to go. White Buffalo and Charlie and Aaron are probably startin’ to get a mite worried by now, since we didn’t show up yesterday.”
“We did not tell them when we would be back,” Hawk pointed out.
“No, but I’ll bet they’re gettin’ restless anyway, and it’ll still take us most o’ the day to get back from here. That is, if we don’t run into any more trouble. I don’t want those fellas wanderin’ off and gettin’ theirselves into some tight spot.”
Hawk nodded and pushed himself to his feet. “You are right—” He broke off as Preacher suddenly stiffened.
He’d caught a whiff of a rank, distinctive odor. The mountain man wheeled around swiftly—
Just in time to see the huge, shaggy figure of a grizzly bear burst out of some nearby brush and charge them.
CHAPTER 29
The most dangerous creature on the frontier, other than man himself, was the grizzly—Old Ephraim, as some of the mountain men referred to the beasts. Eight feet and sometimes more than a thousand pounds of furred, ferocious, bad-tempered fury.
Worst of all was a mama with cubs nearby. Preacher didn’t know if that was the case and didn’t care. This bear was mad as hell, and the reason didn’t matter.
He didn’t want to fire his pistols. The sound of shots could travel a long way in the thin air and would serve as a beacon to any Blackfoot warriors still searching for them. He didn’t really have much of a choice, though.
He jerked out both pistols, which were already loaded and primed, cocked them, and pulled the triggers. In the mountain stillness, the double boom was as loud as a peal of thunder. He knew he hadn’t missed a target as tall and wide as the grizzly. All four balls had gone into that incredibly powerful body . . . but they didn’t slow the attacking bear.
It continued charging toward Preacher and Hawk. At first glance the massive creature’s gait appeared lumbering, but the bear covered ground with surprising speed.
Preacher knew it was almost impossible to outrun a grizzly on open ground. Sometimes, if a man scampered fast enough, he might reach a tree in time to climb it and get out of the bear’s reach that way. Then he could hang on for dear life and pray the bear would get bored and wander off.
Sometimes the bear just pushed the tree down and got the unlucky fella anyway.
There weren’t any trees big enough and close enough for Preacher and Hawk to even attempt that. Preacher knew he had only one option.
He dropped the empty pistols, yanked his knife from its sheath, and leaped ahead to meet the bear’s charge.
“Preacher, no!” Hawk cried, but it was too late to stop the mountain man.
Anyway, there was nothing Hawk could do. His arrows would have even less effect on the grizzly than Preacher’s pistol shots had.
Preacher yelled and waved his arms. Bears couldn’t see very well, although they had keen senses of smell and hearing, so it took quite a bit to distract them. This grizzly slowed as Preacher continued hopping and waving right in front of him. A huge paw tipped with razor-sharp claws slashed at the mountain man with blinding speed.
The blow could have knocked Preacher’s head right off his shoulders or ripped his chest open to the spine, depending on where it landed. He made sure it didn’t land at all by ducking under it and then whipping the knife around in a stroke that cut through the underside of the bear’s front leg.
As the grizzly bellowed, Preacher darted closer. The blade flickered in and out as he thrust it several times into the bear’s body. He jerked back, trying to get out of reach, but a swipe of the grizzly’s other paw caught him on the shoulder.
Luckily it was the back of the paw that struck him. Instead of having his flesh ripped open, Preacher was just knocked off his feet. He landed hard but managed to roll. As he came upright again, he saw a couple arrows sprouting as if by magic from the thick carpet of the bear’s chest. Hawk had planted the shafts there, Preacher knew. The grizzly swung toward the young man, searching for the new source of irritation.
That put the bear’s back toward Preacher and gave the mountain ma
n a chance to try something else. He raced forward and bounded onto the grizzly’s back. His legs locked around the muscular body, and he buried his left hand in the shaggy pelt and hung on. He reached around the bear’s shoulder with his right hand and drove the knife into the animal’s throat again and again.
The bear tried to roar, but the sound was choked and bubbling as blood poured from the gaping wounds in its neck. It reached futilely for Preacher but the fumbling paws couldn’t find him.
Preacher switched his attack, thrusting the knife into the bear’s side, trying for its heart. Again and again he struck.
The bear lurched forward and fell. Preacher realized too late the grizzly wasn’t collapsing on the verge of death. The canny beast was trying to roll over and crush the annoying varmint clinging to its back.
Preacher let go and flung himself out of the way but wasn’t able to avoid all the terrible weight. Some of it pinned his leg, and for a second it felt as if every bone was going to be ground to powder.
The bear’s momentum carried it off Preacher, freeing the mountain man, but when he tried to spring to his feet, he couldn’t. His leg was just a useless lump of unfeeling flesh. He didn’t know if it was broken or if the nerves were just stunned, but either way, it wouldn’t respond to his commands.
The bear was up again, in bad shape from its wounds but still full of rage and ready to rend and kill. Its beady little eyes looked around, but before it could spot Preacher, another arrow flew through the air and lodged its flint head in the bear’s right eye.
The grizzly threw its head back and tried to bellow in pain, but more blood gushed from the wounds in its throat. It stood high on its hind legs and pawed at the air, striking out instinctively.
Hawk threw the bow aside, dashed around behind the bear, and leaped onto the grizzly’s back as Preacher had done. Instead of using his knife, he reached around and grabbed the arrow protruding from the animal’s eye. With a savage shout, Hawk rammed it home, driving the flint head all the way into the grizzly’s brain.
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