Preacher looked around, studying the terrain. They were near the head of the valley. Snowcapped peaks rose in a solid line to the east and north, closing in to pinch off the valley. To the west was an area of ridges and gullies and spires of rock, a broken land.
A land made for ambushes, Preacher thought as his eyes narrowed.
Knowing the Blackfeet weren’t going anywhere, he turned and descended from the hill, taking Dog with him. They headed west, toward the badlands. Somewhere in that direction they would find Hawk, White Buffalo, and the two young white men.
* * *
From time to time, Preacher stopped and gave the call of a loon. It was the signal he and Hawk had agreed on to help them find each other.
Night had almost fallen before he heard an answering call a good distance off to the southwest. He and Dog headed toward it, and when, after a while, Preacher tried the loon call again, the response was louder and clearer. They loped toward a wooded ridge that loomed darkly in the dusk.
“Preacher!”
The mountain man heard his name called softly. He said, “Here,” and Hawk came out of the gathering shadows. Preacher put his right hand on the young man’s left shoulder for a moment, and Hawk returned the gesture.
“How are you doin’?” Preacher asked.
“The wound on my head is much better,” Hawk replied. “The world no longer spins without warning. Have the Blackfeet made a new camp?”
The boy believed in getting right down to business, Preacher thought. He pointed to the northeast. “Yeah, they’re settin’ up their village beside a lake about five miles yonderways, I’d say. It’s a mighty nice place. Better even than where they were before, I reckon.”
Hawk’s mouth twisted bitterly in the gloom. “They should have no home. They should be condemned to wander in squalor and misery for the rest of their lives.”
“And for all the generations to come?”
“It would be justice,” Hawk insisted.
“Maybe so, but you go to holdin’ grudges like that for long, sooner or later nobody really knows why all the killin’ and the hatin’ is goin’ on. It’s just somethin’ they do . . . and that ain’t no way to live.”
“You are not one of our people. You do not know.”
Preacher let it go. Hawk would figure out that he had to let go of his hate sometime . . . or he wouldn’t, and in the end it would consume him.
Either way it was up to the boy—No, it was up to the man Hawk had become, Preacher corrected silently. “The rest of the bunch all right?” he asked.
“Yes. White Buffalo never stops complaining.”
Preacher grinned. “I might worry about him if he did. What about Aaron and Charlie?”
“They have done well,” Hawk said with a note of grudging respect in his voice. “I can speak to them only so much in their white man’s tongue, but they listen and try to do as I say. They have caused no trouble.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Where’s your camp?”
Hawk turned to point. “Back there in those trees, along the base of the ridge.” He paused. “We have a haunch of deer cooking.”
Preacher’s grin widened. After several days of living on pemmican and creek water, that sounded mighty good to him.
* * *
“So they’ve stopped and plan to stay where they are for a while,” Aaron Buckley said as the five men sat around a small fire and gnawed on roasted venison. “What do we do?”
“They’ve come a pretty far piece,” Preacher said. “They didn’t waste any time doin’ it, neither. That won’t sit well with Tall Bull and the other warriors. It’ll feel too much like runnin’ away from a fight.”
“Well, that’s what they did, isn’t it?” Todd asked.
“Yeah. Tall Bull probably told everybody they were doin’ it to protect the women and young’uns, but it’ll stick in their craw anyway. There’s one more thing to remember . . . we haven’t hurt any of the women or kids.” Preacher glanced at Hawk. “That’s why you try not to make war on anybody except the warriors. Keep the hostilities between fightin’ men, and in the end they can’t use what you done to stir up even more hard feelin’s.”
Buckley said, “Some military strategists claim that to win, you have to completely annihilate the enemy.”
“Well, I reckon that would do the job, too. Wipe ’em out and sow salt so nothin’ ever grows there again. I heard tell about a fella name of Hannibal who did that. You know where Hannibal is today?”
“Why, he’s, uh, dead, I suppose,” Buckley said with a frown.
“Yep. Ever’ bit as dead as the folks he conquered. I wonder if he’s restin’ easy in his grave, though.” Preacher shrugged. “Reckon we’ll never know.”
Hawk made a disgusted noise. “You are too . . . soft in the heart,” he told Preacher in English.
“That’s somethin’ I ain’t often been accused of. I reckon the twenty or thirty Blackfoot warriors I’ve sent over the divide in recent weeks would dispute it, too.” The mountain man’s voice hardened. “I’ll kill whoever’s in need of a killin’, and don’t you ever forget it.”
A strained silence hung over the camp for a moment, then Buckley asked, “So what’s our next move?”
“We need to draw Tall Bull and his men outta the village. They’ve come all this way. They’re hopin’ they’re safe now and that their troubles are behind ’em.” Preacher smiled. “We’ll show ’em that ain’t true. I figure that’ll make Tall Bull so mad he’ll decide to hunt us down once and for all, even if it takes every last one of his warriors to do it.”
“Uh . . . how many did you say there are?” Todd asked.
“Twenty-seven. Might be a few more I didn’t see that night.”
“So we could be facing as many as thirty bloodthirsty warriors . . . and there’s five of us. That’s, uh, six-to-one odds.” Todd shook his head. “Not very promising.”
“Five-to-one. You didn’t count Dog. I never said we’d kill ’em all at once, neither. What we’ll do is, Hawk and me will pay the Blackfeet a visit in their new village, and when we light a shuck outta there, we’ll make sure they see which way we’re goin’.”
“And which way will we be going?” Hawk asked in English.
“Toward the badlands west of that lake. If we can get Tall Bull to follow us in there with all of his men, we’ll be waitin’ for ’em . . . and either they’ll come out . . . or we will.”
“A desperate plan,” Buckley said, nodding slowly. “One that sounds like it might work . . . but even though they’ve fled, Preacher, they’ll be on their guard, especially since those men you told us about never came back. They may hope otherwise, but they’ll be expecting trouble.”
“Sure,” the mountain man agreed, “but I don’t figure they’ll be expectin’ it from the direction I plan to come at ’em.”
* * *
Night lay thick and dark over the lake. On the shore, fires blazed high and warriors stood around the outer edge of the village holding bows or tomahawks as they stood sentinel. Preacher counted eight of them as he stroked through the water with his face barely above the surface, as sleek and smooth and silent as an otter.
A few feet away, Hawk swam the same way, cutting almost noiselessly through the lake. They had entered on the far side, holding on to a log and kicking to propel themselves toward the Blackfoot village. When they were close enough, Preacher had signaled for Hawk to let go of the log and start swimming, so their approach would be quieter. He had done likewise.
All the guards were facing away from the lake. The idea of someone attacking them from that side of the new village hadn’t occurred to them. Preacher was glad to see his hunch had been correct.
All he and Hawk had to do was make it ashore before they froze to death.
Fed by springs and snowmelt, the mountain lake was icy enough to chill a man all the way to his bones in a matter of minutes. He was stripped down to the bottoms of a pair of long underwear, and Hawk wore only a loincloth. The
y had tomahawks and knives slung around their necks on rawhide thongs.
Preacher paused and pointed right. In the starlight that glittered on the water, he saw Hawk nod in understanding. They split up, Hawk going right, Preacher heading toward the left side of the village as they looked at it from the water.
Preacher hadn’t thought it was possible to be any colder than he was in the lake, but when he pulled himself onto the bank and a night breeze hit him, an even deeper chill coursed through him. He ignored it, clenching his jaw so his teeth didn’t chatter. There would be plenty of time to warm up later, when the night’s work was done.
Being careful not to let the tomahawk and knife clatter together, he took them from around his neck. He was out of reach of the glow from the fires, but he was concerned he might be spotted anyway, since so much of his pale skin was on display in the darkness. He stayed in the shadows as much as possible as he seemingly floated toward the nearest guard like a ghostly phantasm.
On the other side of the village, Hawk should be doing the same thing, Preacher knew.
His first target was on edge, pacing back and forth for a short distance as his head kept turning from side to side. He peered nervously at the woods.
The knife first, Preacher decided. Nice and quiet-like. . .
The guard died a moment later, with Preacher’s left arm clamped around his neck and the mountain man’s knife buried in his back. Preacher pulled the blade free and lowered the body to the ground.
The plan was for him and Hawk to kill as many of the sentinels as they could before being discovered. It was unlikely they would be able to dispose of all the warriors Tall Bull had posted to watch over the village, but however many they sent over the divide, it was that many fewer for the war chief to bring with him when he pursued the two stealthy killers.
Those odds Charlie Todd worried about got better with every Blackfoot that died.
Preacher closed in on the next guard on his side of the village. The man was more stolid than the first one, standing still with his arms crossed over his broad chest. He gripped a tomahawk in one hand, a war club in the other.
The warrior was big and looked strong. Best to put him down quick, Preacher thought. A stroke with the tomahawk to the back of the head would crush his skull without him ever knowing he was in danger. It would be noisier—couldn’t stave in a fellow’s head without a pretty good thud—but Preacher figured it was worth the risk. As he moved a silent step closer, he raised the tomahawk.
At that moment, somewhere behind him, a woman let out a piercing scream.
CHAPTER 38
Preacher and Hawk had waited late enough to launch their attack that Preacher hoped everyone in the village would be asleep except the guards.
Clearly, that wasn’t the case.
Such things couldn’t be planned for, only dealt with as they came up. Preacher dealt with that one by leaping forward and striking swiftly as the broad-shouldered sentinel in front of him started to turn around.
Another shrill scream from the woman ripped through the night as Preacher’s tomahawk slammed down on the warrior’s head. He felt bone crunch under the impact, and from the way the Blackfoot dropped like a rock, he knew some of those bone shards had driven deep into the man’s brain.
A screeching wildcat landed on his back an instant later. More than likely, the woman was married to the guard and had been sneaking out to see him when she spotted Preacher. She was attacking him out of sheer fury at seeing her man struck down.
Her fingers clawed him like an eagle’s talons. He felt the rough nails rake over his skin. She went for his eyes, but he twisted his face away from her groping hands.
Preacher grabbed the woman, bent forward, and flung her over his head. He wasn’t trying to hurt her, necessarily, but he wasn’t going out of his way to be gentle with her, either. He figured she had called the tune, and she could dance to it.
He heard shouting and the rapid slap of footsteps on the ground. As he turned in that direction he saw one of the other guards rushing at him, tomahawk in hand.
The man was already close enough to swing his tomahawk at Preacher’s head. Preacher blocked the blow with his own weapon and lashed out with his left fist at the same time, crossing a sharp blow to the guard’s solar plexus. The punch knocked the warrior back a step and caused him to lower his tomahawk. Preacher’s backhanded slash crushed his jaw and sent him moaning to the ground.
Preacher put the Blackfoot out of his misery an instant later with a two-handed stroke that buried the tomahawk in the man’s brain. He wrenched it free and whirled to meet a new attack from two more sentries drawn by the commotion.
The rest of the village would be waking up. Preacher knew he couldn’t afford to waste any time. He dropped to the ground, caught himself with his free hand, and swung his right leg in a sweeping move that took the legs of both men out from under him. That took them by surprise, and they were unable to stay upright.
Preacher pushed himself up, lunged, and chopped down at the nearest of the fallen men. The tomahawk took him in the throat and ripped it open, at the same time crushing his windpipe. He gurgled and thrashed as blood spouted like one of those geysers down in Colter’s Hell.
The other man recovered quickly enough to slash at Preacher with a knife. The mountain man broke his wrist with little more than a glancing blow. The man scrambled after the knife he had dropped, reaching for it with his other hand, but Preacher kicked him in the jaw. The heel of his foot struck with such force the Blackfoot’s neck broke with a sharp crack.
All sorts of yelling was going on. Preacher leaped to his feet and looked around to see warriors boiling out of the tepees.
Time to go.
He let loose with another loon call. It worked as a signal to Hawk, and the crazy-sounding, high-pitched racket might well unnerve the Blackfeet, too. Preacher raced for the trees.
He heard feet slapping swiftly on the ground behind him and looked over his shoulder to see Hawk’s familiar shape catching up to him.
“You are slow . . . old man!” Hawk said.
“Ain’t always the fastest . . . who wins the race,” Preacher replied as Hawk drew even with him.
Arrows began to whip through the air around them and strike the ground near their racing feet. Howls of outrage pursued them as well. They could still hear the yelling as they entered the trees, but the trunks and the thickly woven branches provided cover for them where the arrows were concerned.
“Leave plenty o’ sign!” he called to Hawk. “We don’t want ’em to have any trouble . . . followin’ us!” He wondered if Tall Bull was canny enough to figure out that his enemies were trying to lead him into a trap.
The war chief might be so desperate to destroy them that he wouldn’t care about the risks. In fact, that was pretty much what Preacher was counting on.
* * *
A pair of rocks some fifty feet tall stood at the edge of the badlands. Preacher had noticed them when he was scouting the day before and had described them to his companions. Made of red sandstone, the massive rocks would look like flame when the sun came up in the morning.
“Sounds like the gates to Hell,” Aaron Buckley had commented.
“Reckon that’s about right,” Preacher had said, “because what’s beyond ’em don’t exactly look pleasant, either. Lots of sharp rocks and sticker bushes that’ll claw you like a panther.”
Those rocks were big enough to be seen even at night, and as they approached the badlands, they were what Preacher and Hawk steered for. Their flight from the new Blackfoot village had finally warmed them up after their midnight swim in the cold lake. In fact, both men were covered with a fine sheen of sweat from their run.
They paused before they reached the rocks and Preacher gave another loon call. Another such call answered. It didn’t sound as real as the one Preacher had given voice to, but it was the best Charlie Todd could do. Buckley hadn’t been able to master the call at all when Preacher tried to teach them.
/>
“They wait for us, just as they said they would,” Hawk said.
“I didn’t doubt they would.”
The two of them trotted on into the gap between the rocks. The shadows were thick, but Preacher was able to spot Buckley and Todd when the two young men stepped out to greet them.
“Preacher!” Buckley said. “Are the Blackfeet right behind you?”
“Naw, they wouldn’t have been able to follow us in the dark,” the mountain man said. “But we left a trail they can follow when the sun comes up, and it’ll lead ’em right here.”
“How many of them did you kill tonight?” Todd asked.
“A few. Don’t reckon the number matters. Tall Bull still has enough warriors to make things plenty hot for us if he catches us . . . which same I don’t reckon on lettin’ happen.”
“We have your clothes and the rest of your gear,” Buckley said. “White Buffalo and the animals are waiting on top of a little mesa about half a mile away. I took careful notice of the landmarks between here and there so we can find it again.”
“Yeah, it wouldn’t do to get lost while we’re waitin’ for the Blackfeet to show up.”
Preacher took his buckskins from Buckley and pulled them on. Hawk got dressed as well.
Preacher felt good about getting his guns back. He stuck the pistols behind his belt and cradled the rifle in his left arm. “Lead on, Aaron. We’ll go back to the camp and get some rest, and then tomorrow mornin’ . . . the last part o’ this war gets started.”
* * *
The mesa where White Buffalo, Dog, Horse, and the pack mule waited was a shallow one, and the slope of its sides was gentle enough it could be climbed without much trouble. White Buffalo greeted them with his customary reserve, but Preacher could tell the old-timer was glad to see them.
They all gathered around a small fire. It was a special occasion of sorts, so Preacher brewed some coffee. Hawk and White Buffalo weren’t interested in it, but Buckley and Todd were quite appreciative.
“This seems like the first coffee I’ve had in a year,” Todd said after he took a sip of the strong black brew and sighed.
Preacher's Hell Storm Page 23
