The rest of the war party had scattered and taken cover behind trees as well. The ambushers had done a good job of choosing their hiding place. They were able to lay down fire all across the rough trail leading toward the notch and keep the Assiniboine pinned down.
Some of Bent Leg’s warriors sent arrows arching toward the boulders, but at this range if any of them hit their target, it would be just pure luck. Preacher, Lorenzo, Audie, and Nighthawk opened fire on the rocks, but most of their shots ricocheted harmlessly.
“Hold on!” Preacher called to his companions. “We’re just wastin’ powder and lead. They’re dug in up there, and there ain’t much we can do about it from where we are.”
He looked along the line of trees where the war party had taken cover, and his heart leaped into his throat when he spotted Bent Leg lying behind one of the pines with Two Bears working over him. It was obvious that the chief was wounded.
“You fellas make it hot for those varmints for a minute,” Preacher told his friends. “Bent Leg’s been hit. I’m gonna go see how bad it is.”
As soon as Audie, Nighthawk, and Lorenzo had reloaded their rifles, Audie said, “All right, Preacher, go!”
They opened fire as the mountain man sprinted toward the tree where Bent Leg lay. Audie fired first, then Nighthawk, then Lorenzo, spacing out their shots to give Preacher as much time as they could.
By the time Preacher reached the tree, Two Bears had Bent Leg sitting up with his back propped against the trunk. Preacher knelt behind a nearby tree, since that one wasn’t big enough to shield all of them.
“How bad is it?” he called to Two Bears, who was wrapping a strip of cloth around Bent Leg’s upper right arm.
Bent Leg answered the question himself before Two Bears could.
“I live,” he said. “I can fight.”
Two Bears grunted and shook his head.
“His arm is broken. I will bind up the wound, then tie branches on it as splints.”
“My arm is not—” Bent Leg started to say, then he stopped and groaned as Two Bears straightened his arm. From the look on the chief’s face, Preacher knew that bones were grinding together in there as Two Bears worked them back into place.
“You cannot go on,” Two Bears said as he started looking around for broken branches he could use as splints. “You must go back to the village.”
“The warriors of the Assiniboine need their chief!” Bent Leg protested.
“And they will still need their chief when they return,” Two Bears said.
Preacher picked up a couple of branches and tossed them over to Two Bears.
“Use those,” he suggested. “They look like they’ll keep that arm straight until he can get back to the village and the women can take care of it properly.”
Two Bears gave Preacher a curt nod, which was as close as he was going to come to saying thanks, the mountain man thought. That was fine with him. He didn’t need or want Two Bears’ gratitude. The only thing that mattered was rescuing those prisoners.
When Two Bears had the chief’s broken arm splinted, Bent Leg leaned back against the tree and sighed.
“You will lead the war party now,” he told Two Bears.
Two Bears nodded again and said, “Of course. We must get around the men Snake Heart left behind.”
The snow continued to fall, slowly but steadily getting thicker. White had already started to accumulate on the ground and on the tree branches.
Two Bears went on, “I will circle around and attack them from behind.”
“By yourself?” Preacher asked. “They’ll kill you if you do. Half a dozen rifles against a tomahawk and a knife ain’t my idea of a fair fight.”
Two Bears glared at him.
“Then what do you think we should do, white man?”
“Let me and Nighthawk go,” Preacher suggested. “I’ll give him my two extra pistols. If we can get amongst ’em before we open fire, we’ll make the odds look a heap better in a hurry.”
Bent Leg looked up at Two Bears and nodded.
“It is wise,” he said. “Preacher and the Crow are known for their stealth.”
“No one is stealthier than Two Bears!”
“Maybe not,” Preacher said, “but I reckon Nighthawk has probably handled pistols more than you have.”
Two Bears didn’t like it, but he couldn’t argue with the logic of Preacher’s argument.
Preacher caught Nighthawk’s attention and motioned back the way they had come from. As the Crow began to withdraw, Preacher said, “Dog, you come with me, too,” and slipped through the trees. The Gros Ventre continued firing from the rocks, but to be honest, they weren’t the best shots in the world, Preacher thought. A lot of the balls went high, whipping through the branches and dislodging some of the snow that had started to deposit on the boughs.
A couple of the Assiniboine had taken charge of the horses and led them back away from the standoff. Preacher told Nighthawk, “Come with me,” and went to Horse. He drew the two extra pistols from their sheaths and handed them to the Crow.
“They’re loaded and charged, and I know you know how to use ’em,” Preacher went on. “You and me are gonna circle around and hit them varmints from behind. Those pistols are double-shotted, and so are the ones I’m carryin’. Hell, when we cut loose our wolf, we might just take down the whole bunch with one volley.”
It would take a lot of luck to accomplish that, but it wasn’t out of the question. At the very least, they could do enough damage with the four pistols to make the odds a lot closer to even. Preacher was more than willing to take his chances in almost any hand-to-hand fight.
Moving quickly on foot with Dog trotting along beside them, Preacher and Nighthawk made their way through the woods at right angles to the trail they had been following. The going was rough because of thick brush, but the two men were good at finding openings where none seemed to exist.
When they had covered several hundred yards, Preacher turned back toward the ridge. The growth would make it hard for the Gros Ventre to spot them now. Preacher blinked away snowflakes that landed on his eyelashes and melted as he and Nighthawk started up the slope.
The shooting continued, rifles cracking in the rocks and down below in the trees as Lorenzo and Audie kept up a return fire. But here in this snowy wilderness, the reports seemed almost muffled somehow. It was as if nature was trying to impose winter’s peace on the land, but man kept stubbornly resisting it.
Preacher gradually maneuvered himself and Night hawk above the Gros Ventre bushwhackers hidden in the boulders. They went to their bellies and crawled through the snow until they came out on a jutting lip of land that overlooked the cluster of rocks.
From the sound of the shots, Preacher had estimated that there were six Gros Ventre riflemen. A quick head count confirmed that. All the raiders seemed to be uninjured, which meant that none of the arrows or rifle shots fired from below had found their marks. That didn’t surprise Preacher.
He put his mouth close to Nighthawk’s ear and said, “We need to get down there closer. These pistols ain’t accurate for distance work.”
Nighthawk nodded but didn’t say anything. He gestured toward the slope in front of them, which was pretty steep as it led down to the rocks where the Gros Ventre were crouched.
“Yeah, I see what you mean,” Preacher agreed. “If we slide down, we’ll be right in the middle of ’em by the time they know we’re comin’.”
Nighthawk nodded gravely.
“And I don’t need to be doin’ much jumpin’, anyway, on account of this crease in my side,” Preacher went on. “So this’ll work out for the best. You ready?”
Nighthawk took the pistols from behind his belt and cocked them by way of answer.
With a tight grin on his face, Preacher slipped closer to the edge. He swung his legs around so he could slide down feet first. He motioned for Dog to stay. When the time came, he would give the big cur the order to attack.
Nighthawk moved up
beside Preacher and nodded again to indicate his readiness. Preacher cocked both of his pistols and lifted them. He used his legs to pull himself forward, and suddenly his weight tipped him in that direction as well. He started sliding down the hard-packed slope toward the rocks.
Instinct must have warned one of the Gros Ventre warriors. He glanced around as he reloaded his rifle, then yelled in alarm and leaped to his feet. He swung his rifle up, but before he could fire, Preacher was practically on top of him. The pistol in the mountain man’s left hand roared, and the raider was thrown back as both balls from the weapon smashed into his chest.
The fight was on.
CHAPTER 23
As Preacher reached the bottom of the slope, he swung his right-hand pistol toward a spot behind a particularly large boulder where three of the Gros Ventre crouched. He pulled the trigger, and the weapon went off with a deafening boom as the extra-heavy charge of powder detonated.
Two of the three raiders went down. One of them had his throat torn out by the shot, while the other doubled over as the second ball punched into his guts.
But that left the third warrior, and he let out a screech of hatred as he jerked his rifle up and fired.
Preacher felt the hot breath of the ball as it went past his beard-stubbled cheek. He yelled, “Dog!”
The big cur sailed off the top of the slope in a leap that carried him right into the man who had just fired at Preacher. The raider tried to scream, but Dog’s strong jaws locked on his throat before he could get a sound out. Dog’s weight knocked the man off his feet, and the long, sharp teeth finished the job of savaging him by ripping out his throat.
During the brief battle, Preacher had heard Nighthawk’s two pistols go off. He swung around now to find out how the Crow was doing. He was in time to see Nighthawk finish off the last of the Gros Ventre with a blow that sent the head of his tomahawk biting deep into the man’s skull.
All six of the bushwhackers were accounted for.
The shooting from the trees down below had stopped. Preacher figured Audie and Lorenzo must have heard the pistols and realized that Preacher and Nighthawk had launched their attack.
But just to be sure that nobody got trigger-happy, Preacher shouted, “Hold your fire! Me and Nighthawk are comin’ out!”
He stepped away from the boulders where the others could see him and waved to them.
“Come ahead! The varmints have all gone under!”
Within a few minutes, Audie, Lorenzo, and the members of the Assiniboine war party had hiked up the slope to join Preacher and Nighthawk. Bent Leg was haggard from the pain of his broken arm, but still firmly in command.
“None of our warriors were killed in this ambush,” the chief told Preacher, “but three besides myself were injured badly enough to go back to the village. You are four fewer now.”
“Yeah, well, six of them are dead.” The mountain man grinned as he waved a hand at the corpses. “We’re whittlin’ ’em down.”
“The snow still falls. Their deaths cost us time we may not be able to afford.”
Preacher glanced at the bodies again. Dead men cooled off quick in weather like this. The snow was starting to stick to their faces.
“You’re right,” he told Bent Leg. “We need to get movin’ again.”
Two Bears said, “I lead the war party and give the orders, white man, not you.”
“Fine,” Preacher snapped. “As long as we get those prisoners back safe and sound, I don’t give a damn who’s in charge.”
Two Bears looked like he wanted to say something else, but after a second he turned and called to his men, “Mount up!”
Once the wounded had turned back to the village and the rest of the war party was back on the trail leading up to the notch in the ridge, Lorenzo rode next to Preacher and said, “I’m startin’ to pick up some of the lingo, but I couldn’t keep up with all the jabberin’ goin’ on. Who’s in charge here, you or Two Bears?”
“Two Bears is the war chief,” Preacher said. “He’s givin’ the orders.” He paused. “As long as they’re the right ones and don’t seem likely to get us killed.”
“And if what he wants to do ain’t the right thing?”
“Then we’re liable to have trouble,” Preacher said.
Snow had started to collect in the notch when Deaver, Snake Heart, and the rest of the Gros Ventre raiding party rode through it, but the passage was far from being blocked.
A short time earlier, they had heard a lot of shooting coming from down below. Deaver hoped that meant any Assiniboine who were coming after them had been wiped out by the men Snake Heart had left behind. They would know later, when those men either rejoined them … or didn’t.
For now, Deaver was confident that they were still ahead of any pursuit. Snake Heart seemed to be equally confident, because he called a halt on the other side of the notch so they could rest their horses.
Deaver and his partners dismounted. Caleb Manning came over and asked, “Are you gonna talk to Snake Heart about those women now, Willie?”
“Don’t get in such a hurry,” Deaver snapped. “I said I’d talk to him when we got back to the Gros Ventre village.”
“I know. It’s just been a long time since any of us have been with a woman.”
Deaver gestured toward the rocky ground, which was rapidly acquiring a coating of snow.
“You reckon this is a good place for carryin’ on?” he asked sarcastically.
“Well, no,” Manning admitted. “I was just hopin’ we could get things settled with Snake Heart, so we’ll know what’s waitin’ for us when we get back to the village.”
“Let’s just worry about gettin’ back there first.”
Manning didn’t look happy about it, but he nodded.
Despite what Deaver had said to his lieutenant, his eyes kept going back to the Assiniboine woman he found so striking. Like the other captives, she had her hands lashed together in front of her with rawhide thongs, but her legs were free so she could ride.
When the Gros Ventre warrior who had been riding double with her lifted her down from the pony, as soon as her mocassin-shod feet touched the ground she swung her clubbed hands against the side of his head in an unexpected blow.
The impact made the warrior stagger to the side. The woman seized the opportunity to run. She dashed toward the notch in the ridge.
Deaver wasn’t sure where she thought she was going. She couldn’t possibly get away. Her path took her fairly close to him, and as the warrior she had struck yelled for her to stop, Deaver took a swift step and reached out to wrap his arm around the woman’s waist and jerk her to a halt.
She cried out in frustration, twisted in his grip, and started flailing at him with her bound hands. Deaver got his other arm up to block the blows. She kicked at his shins but couldn’t do any damage.
Then she surprised Deaver by yelling at him in English, “Let me go, you bastard! Let me go!”
Deaver threw his head back and laughed.
“Speak the white man’s tongue, do you, girl?” he demanded.
The others, white and Gros Ventre alike, gathered around to watch the entertaining spectacle of the young woman struggling against Deaver. It didn’t last long, because Snake Heart strode up and barked, “Give her to me!”
Deaver glanced at the reed-thin, pockmarked war chief and saw the jealousy and anger burning in Snake Heart’s eyes. He felt an immediate, primitive urge to challenge Snake Heart for this woman.
He couldn’t afford to indulge that urge, though, so he shoved her toward the Gros Ventre. Snake Heart grabbed her, sliding one arm around her neck and using his other hand to bring up his knife. The tip of the blade pricked the soft skin under her chin.
“Next time you try to escape, you die,” Snake Heart said, using English since that was a common language for them.
Deaver figured that was a hollow threat. Snake Heart wanted the woman; he wasn’t going to kill her.
But she probably didn’t know that,
and no matter how feisty she was, it was hard for anybody to argue with a knife at the throat. Deaver saw the fight go out of her—at least for now—as she sagged slightly in Snake Heart’s grip.
“How are you called?” the war chief asked. He pressed a little harder with the knife when the answer was slow in coming.
“I am … Raven’s Wing,” the young woman said, tight-lipped because of the cold steel barely digging into her skin. Deaver knew she didn’t want it going any deeper.
“Raven’s Wing,” Snake Heart repeated. “Never again will you fly like the raven, Assiniboine. Your wings are clipped. You are Snake Heart’s woman now.”
Well, that was a mighty sorry development, thought Deaver, but he couldn’t say that he hadn’t seen it coming, even though he had recognized Snake Heart’s interest in the woman only moments earlier. That had been enough of a warning, so he knew what was going to happen.
The question now was, what was he going to do about it? The last thing he wanted to do was to fight Snake Heart over the woman. That could ruin the whole gun-smuggling scheme while it was still in its infancy, before he had a chance to grow rich from it.
Anyway, she was just a squaw, he told himself. There were plenty of Indian women out here on the frontier. If he couldn’t have this one, he’d just get himself another.
But he sure wished he hadn’t looked into those dark, fiery eyes and felt their pull. It had been a long time since he had wanted a particular woman this badly.
“You might thank me for grabbin’ her,” he pointed out to Snake Heart.
The Gros Ventre looked at him coldly.
“The woman would not have gotten away.”
“Maybe not, but I made sure of that. And if you want to pay me back for helpin’ out like that …”
“What is it you want?” Snake Heart asked impatiently.
This was a chance to make Manning and the others even more loyal to him than they already were, Deaver sensed. He said, “My men have been a long time without a woman. When we return to your village, I know they’d appreciate if they got to spend some time with those prisoners … and if you’d allow them to do that, I’d appreciate it, too.”
Preacher’s Fury Page 15
