“Everybody knows Blind Pete,” Heath said worriedly. “What if somebody comes along and wants to know what happened to him and why we’re there?”
“What business would it be of theirs?” Deaver snapped. After a second he shrugged and went on, “But we could always say that we found the place that way and don’t know what happened to Pete. Nobody could fault us for movin’ in and buildin’ a new cabin there. It’s a good spot.”
“That’s true,” Jordan admitted.
“And who knows, maybe some of the tradin’ post didn’t burn,” Deaver went on. “We rode off and didn’t wait around to see. We might be able to salvage some of it.”
Plunkett rubbed his chin and narrowed his eyes in thought.
“That’s true,” the Englishman said. “And I can’t think of a place that’s any better.”
“Neither can I,” Heath said.
“If that’s what you fellas want to do, it’s fine by me,” Jordan added.
“It’s settled, then,” Deaver said. “We’ll make for Blind Pete’s place.”
“There’s one thing that’s not settled,” Jordan said. He exchanged glances with Plunkett and Jordan.
Trying not to let his irritation show, Deaver asked, “What are you talkin’ about, Fred?”
Jordan lifted a hand and pointed at Raven’s Wing, who still stood stiffly near the tree she was tied to, not looking at her captors.
“I’m talkin’ about that squaw, Willie,” Jordan said. “Do you still intend on keepin’ her all to yourself, or are you gonna share her with your friends and partners like a good fella?”
CHAPTER 31
Preacher knew from the horse droppings along the trail that the men he was after were ten to twelve hours ahead of him. That much time wasn’t going to be easy to make up, but he kept moving at a brisk pace, hoping to whittle down the gap as much as he could.
It would be better once his friends caught up to him. Then they could head south on horseback, which would make things go a little faster.
The problem was that he didn’t know where Deaver and the others were going, so he couldn’t follow the trail at night. Dog might be able to track their quarry by scent, even in the dark, but that was too risky. They would have to cut down the lead during daylight hours.
That meant Raven’s Wing might have to spend several nights as a prisoner. The thought made Preacher’s jaw clench in anger.
Next time he wouldn’t hesitate. He would kill that bastard Willie Deaver on sight.
The blood loss he had suffered and the strain of the past few days had drawn Preacher thin and haggard. His reserves of strength were low.
But his righteous rage was strong, and that was enough to keep him moving.
Despite that, he was glad when, around midday, a bark sounded behind him. He stopped and turned to see Dog bounding through the woods toward him. Not far behind the big cur rode Audie, Nighthawk, Lorenzo, and Two Bears. The Crow had hold of Horse’s reins and led the rangy gray stallion.
Preacher leaned on his rifle as the men rode up to him. Audie reined in and said, “Good Lord, Preacher, you look like you’re on your last legs.”
“I’m fine,” the mountain man said. “Just lemme rest a minute, and we’ll head on after Deaver and that bunch.”
“You are certain Raven’s Wing is with them?” Two Bears asked.
“I saw the footprints of a woman fleein’ from the Gros Ventre village. All the other prisoners are accounted for, so I don’t know who else it could’ve been.”
Two Bears thought about that for a moment and then nodded.
“I am satisfied it was her,” he said. “And you know the white men captured her?”
“All the signs were there. There was a struggle, and when the varmints mounted up and rode away, Raven’s footprints disappeared, too.”
Two Bears sighed.
“We must find them as quickly as we can.”
“Damn right,” Preacher said with a nod. “I’m ready to ride if you fellas are.”
He swung up onto Horse’s back and settled himself in the saddle. Everyone in the group was an experienced tracker except for Lorenzo, so Preacher was content for the time being to fall back and let someone else take the lead. Two Bears did so, and soon Preacher found himself being rocked to sleep by the stallion’s steady gait.
His slumber was light, though, and uneasy, haunted by fleeting nightmares that concerned Raven’s Wing. He was just as glad when the terrain grew more rugged and he was jolted awake.
As the afternoon began to wane, the men stopped and Nighthawk dismounted to examine the tracks they were following. After several moments on intense study, the Crow looked up and said, “Umm.”
“That’s what it looks like to me, too,” Audie said.
Lorenzo took his hat off and scratched at his head, running his fingers through his white hair.
“I’m damned if I know how you do that,” he said. “It don’t sound like nothin’ but a grunt to me.”
“Nighthawk and I have been riding together for a long time,” Audie explained. “He’s actually very articulate.”
Lorenzo rolled his eyes.
“If you say so. What’s he tellin’ us now?”
“That Deaver and the others are still about eight hours ahead of us,” Audie said.
Nighthawk nodded gravely.
“We’ll have to make camp soon,” Audie went on. “We can’t risk losing the trail in the darkness. If that were to happen, it would just delay our rescue of Raven’s Wing that much longer.”
“The Assiniboine do not believe in torture,” Two Bears said, “but I pray to the spirits that those white men suffer long and painful deaths. If I can, I will make it so.”
“Let’s just find a place to camp and worry later about how we’ll kill those varmints,” Preacher suggested.
They made a cold camp and gnawed on jerky for their supper. Although the Gros Ventre village had been left far behind, everyone knew they needed to take turns standing guard anyway.
“Not you, Preacher,” Audie said. “You need more rest.”
“Blast it, I don’t want nobody coddlin’ me,” Preacher objected.
“Ain’t nobody coddlin’ you,” Lorenzo said. “There’s five of us, and four shifts oughta be enough. Maybe tomorrow night I’ll be the one who gets to sleep all the way through.”
Preacher groused a little more but finally nodded. He spread pine boughs on the cold, muddy ground to make a bed and rolled up on them in his blankets. He had to admit it felt mighty good to rest.
He dropped off to sleep immediately, and this time he was lucky. His sleep was the deep, dreamless oblivion of exhaustion.
Tension gripped all four men around the campfire as Jordan’s question hung in the air. Deaver’s first impulse was to pull out a pistol and blow a hole right in the middle of the other man’s smirk.
But he forced a smile onto his face instead and said, “Ever since we partnered up, it’s always been share and share alike, ain’t it?”
As he spoke, he glanced at Raven’s Wing. She was pretending not to listen to what was being said, but he could tell from the little tremor that went through her that she knew exactly what was going on.
Looks of relief crossed the faces of the other men.
“It’s glad I am to hear that, I am,” Plunkett said. “No man wants to have trouble with his partners.”
“So it’s settled?” Jordan pressed. “We all take turns with her?”
“Sure … once we get back to Blind Pete’s place.”
“Wait a minute,” Darwin Heath said with a frown. “Nobody said anything about waiting until we got back there.”
“Well, that’s the way it’s gonna be,” Deaver said, his voice firm enough to show that he didn’t intend to allow any argument. “Listen, we’re gonna be movin’ pretty fast for a few days. Anybody who’s not standin’ guard needs to be gettin’ some rest, so we’ll be able to stay in the saddle for those long hours. There’ll be plenty of ti
me for messin’ with the girl once we’ve got things squared away for the winter.”
Jordan gave him a suspicious frown.
“You mean she’s not gonna be warmin’ your blankets, either, until we get there?”
Deaver hated to agree to that, but it was one way of postponing trouble. For now, he needed the other three men, and even if he wasn’t willing to give them what they wanted, at least he might be able to keep their resentment under control by keeping his own urges suppressed.
“That’s what I mean, all right,” he said with false heartiness in his voice.
What he really meant was that he would stall them until he no longer needed them, until the cabin was built on the ruins of Blind Pete’s place, and then it would be time to dissolve their partnership … permanently. Come spring, he would need more men to help him bring in another shipment of rifles, but men who were willing to do just about anything for the right payoff were easy to find, even in sparsely populated mountains such as these.
In the meantime, once he dealt with Jordan, Plunkett, and Heath, he would have the rest of the winter to spend alone with Raven’s Wing, just the two of them, snug in that new cabin while the storms raged outside.
Just thinking about it widened the smile on Deaver’s face.
“So we’re in agreement?” he said. “We’ll all keep our hands off the squaw for now?”
Jordan nodded reluctantly.
“I suppose that’s fair,” he said.
Deaver told himself to keep a close eye on that one. Jordan just might be the type to try a double-cross.
It was a damned shame when a man couldn’t even fully trust his own partners, he thought without a trace of irony.
The next three days dragged by for Preacher. Each day he and his companions cut farther into the lead held by Deaver and the other gun-smugglers, but still they hadn’t caught up. They left the mountains behind, crossed a long stretch of flats, and trekked over another range of mountains.
That night as they made camp, Preacher realized that they weren’t very far from where he had first run into Willie Deaver and the rest of that lowdown bunch.
Blind Pete’s Place.
Was it possible Deaver and the others could be making for the trading post? They might need supplies by now. Preacher and his friends were certainly low on provisions. Nighthawk had been able to snare a few rabbits for fresh meat, but the little animals didn’t go very far when they were divvied up among five men with healthy appetites.
At least the weather had cooperated. The days had been warm and sunny for the most part, melting the snow and drying up the mud it left behind. That was common at this time of year: a series of increasingly bad storms until winter finally settled in and didn’t depart for months.
Preacher had regained some of his strength, too, although the long days in the saddle and the skimpy diet had taken a toll on him. Overall, though, he was better.
Once Raven’s Wing was safe and Deaver and the rest of those varmints were dead, he would be even better, he told himself.
He sat down on a log alongside Audie and said, “It occurs to me that we ain’t far from Blind Pete’s Place.”
“The trading post? Do you think we should stop there?”
“What I’m thinkin’ is that Deaver and them might be headin’ for it,” Preacher said.
“Pete wouldn’t stand for any trouble. He wouldn’t like it that they’re holding Raven’s Wing prisoner, either.”
“They might not actually take her to the tradin’ post. Deaver could leave her somewhere close by with him or one of his men to guard her, and the rest of ’em could ride in and stock up on supplies.”
“Well, yes, that sounds feasible,” Audie said. “We know Pete doesn’t have a very high opinion of Deaver and his friends, but he doesn’t play favorites. He wouldn’t refuse to sell to them.” Audie thought it over for a moment, then went on, “Do you think we should head straight there so that maybe we can get ahead of them?”
“I’m not sure we could manage that,” Preacher said. “But I’ll bet this coonskin cap I’m wearin’ that’s where they’re headed.”
“So we need to be careful and not just ride in without checking things out first.”
Preacher nodded and said, “That’s what I’m thinkin’.”
Now that he had come to that conclusion, the hours seemed to pass even more slowly. A part of him wanted to mount up and gallop toward Blind Pete’s, right then and there.
But it would be smarter to wait until morning and continue following the trail, Preacher knew.
Even so, his impatience made for a long night.
The next morning, they set out as soon as there was enough light in the sky for them to see the hoofprints they were following. By the time the sun was up for a couple of hours, Preacher had spotted several familiar landmarks. He knew they ought to reach the trading post by the middle of the day.
He was leading the way when he realized that Blind Pete’s was on the other side of a ridge that loomed in front of them. Preacher held up a hand to call a halt.
“We’d best do some scoutin’,” he told the others. “From the top of that ridge I’ll be able to look down and see if the horses we been followin’ are in the corral.”
“If they are,” Two Bears said, “we will ride down and kill the white men.”
“Only if they’re all there, and Raven’s Wing is with ’em,” Preacher countered. “If they’ve got her stashed somewhere, we need to find out where before we kill all of ’em. Otherwise, we’re liable to have a mighty hard time findin’ her.”
Two Bears grunted. Obviously, he was impatient, too, but he would have to keep his impulsive nature under control. Otherwise, they might be needlessly risking Raven’s life.
“Audie, you and me will go first,” Preacher went on. “The rest of you wait here.”
Nighthawk said, “Umm,” and nodded, as if saying that he would enforce Preacher’s decision.
“Dog, stay,” Preacher told the big cur. Then he and Audie rode toward the ridge.
It took them a while to work their way to the top of the rugged slope. They dismounted before they reached the crest, with Preacher helping Audie down from his horse, and went the rest of the way on foot, carrying their rifles. When they made it to the top, they dropped to their bellies and crawled forward until they could look down on the far side into the valley where the trading post was located.
Preacher’s jaw tightened and his breath hissed between his clenched teeth in surprise when he saw the burned ruins of Blind Pete’s Place. The stone chimney and fireplace still stood, as did half of one wall, but the rest was just debris. What the hell had happened here?
What really took the mountain man’s breath away, though, was the sight of Deaver and the other three men, their saddle mounts and pack animals, and sitting on the nearby stump of one of the trees Horst Gruenwald had cut down when he built the place …
Raven’s Wing.
She was alive.
That knowledge made Preacher’s heart leap. He had thought she was still alive, but it was nice to have confirmation of that. Now he could start thinking about ways to rescue her from her captors.
The sound of a gun being cocked behind him made him roll over quickly and reach for one of his own pistols.
He stopped the motion without drawing the weapon, because he found himself staring down the broad barrel of a blunderbuss capable of blowing his head clean off.
CHAPTER 32
“Gott in Himmel!” a thick, Teutonic voice exclaimed. “Preacher?”
The mountain man looked up into the beefy, unshaven face of Horst Gruenwald, better known as Blind Pete. Pete wore buckskins now, instead of the homespun shirt, corduroy trousers, and canvas apron he had usually sported in the trading post.
That wasn’t the only difference. His left hand had strips of cloth bound tightly around the palm to form a wide, thick bandage that left his fingers free. The fingers didn’t move, though. They were held toge
ther and hooked into a claw-like shape that clenched around the musket he held.
Pete’s right hand was gone, and in its place was an iron hook bound to his forearm with rawhide. He had used the hook to cock the musket, and now it rested on the trigger, ready to pull it.
Pete lowered the weapon, though, as he recognized the two men.
“Und Audie,” he went on. “What are you doing here? I thought you went to spend the winter with the Assiniboine, ja?”
“Never mind that,” Audie said. “What happened to you, Pete?”
Pete nodded toward the burned-out remains of his trading post and said, “That verdammt Willie Deaver and his friends happened. The same day you fellows had that trouble with them, they came back later that night and attacked me.” Pete scowled and looked embarrassed at the same time. “I am sorry, Preacher. They forced me to tell them where you planned to go.”
“That’s all right, Pete,” Preacher assured him. “They must’ve treated you awful bad to make you talk.”
“They pinned my hands to the floor with knives and then set the place on fire to burn down around me.”
“Good Lord,” Audie muttered.
“But I did not die as they hoped,” Pete went on. “The knives were turned so that I was able to cut myself loose with them.”
“You mean you cut your hands wide open to get loose,” Audie said.
Pete nodded and said, “Ja. It was very bad, but better than burning. I crawled out of the flames. A day or two later, some trappers found me nearby, unconscious. They treated my wounds as best they could, but my right hand could not be saved. I had them take a tomahawk and chop it off.”
Preacher could only imagine what that had been like. He wasn’t sure but what he would have preferred dying to losing a hand like that.
“By then the ashes had cooled enough that I was able to find this hook in the rubble. I knew it was there, and I hoped it had not melted in the flames. I was fortunate that it hadn’t. My new friends helped me, gave me some clothes and this gun, and in return I promised to repay the favors once the trading post is rebuilt.”
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