While Jerome, Corliss, and the hired teamsters were doing that, Preacher motioned Jake over and introduced him to Red Horse. The boy stared up at the chief with wide, awestruck eyes. He didn’t say, “Howdy,” until Preacher jogged his shoulder to remind him to be polite.
“What’s the matter with you, boy?” Preacher asked him. “Ain’t you never seen any Indians in St. Louis? I know they come to the settlement to trade sometimes.”
“I never seen any this close before,” Jake replied. “I was always a mite scared of them. Pa always said—”
Preacher squeezed Jake’s shoulder this time to shut him up. He didn’t want to hear what Jonathan Brant had had to say about Indians. It would be nothing but ignorant claptrap, and Red Horse and his people had already been insulted once today by Corliss Hart.
“While we’re here, some of the young fellas in the village might show you how to shoot a bow and arrow and throw a tomahawk and things like that,” Preacher suggested.
Jake’s face lit up. “Really?”
“Yeah. Just get your chores done first.”
Red Horse told Jake, “My son will come and get you. You will sleep in our lodge tonight.”
Jake looked up at Preacher. “You reckon that’ll be all right?”
“Sure. Now get back to the wagons and help the fellas get those teams unhitched.”
Jake hurried off to tend to the chore. The other warriors returned to the village, leaving Preacher and Red Horse standing there alone. In a low voice and in the tongue of the Missouri, Red Horse said, “I did not expect you to return with people like this, Preacher. They are not like us.”
Preacher was gratified that Red Horse treated him as an equal, referring to him as if he were a member of the tribe. That was a sign of high respect among the people of the plains.
“They are not like us,” he agreed, “but they are not bad men. They go to the mountains to trade with the human beings who live there, and with the white travelers who will pass through on their way to the great water beyond the mountains.”
Red Horse grunted. “They will all lose their hair, even the boy.”
“Not if I can help it,” Preacher said.
* * *
After failing to kill Preacher and steal his load of pelts on the first day the mountain man had come to St. Louis, Schuyler Mims and Colin Fairfax had sold their horses in order to get money for food and whiskey. The broken-down nags hadn’t brought much money, and it hadn’t lasted long.
But now that they were flush with the funds Shad Beaumont had advanced them, they bought a couple of better mounts, and Schuyler followed the wagon train when it left that morning, hanging far enough back so that he wouldn’t be spotted. Fairfax had given him the spyglass, so he was able to stop from time to time and watch the wagons rolling due west. At midday, Schuyler turned back, convinced that the wagon train wasn’t going to deviate from the course that Preacher had set all morning.
When he reached the settlement again, he went straight to the boardinghouse and found Fairfax in the room on the second floor. “They’re headed west,” he reported.
“For God’s sake, we knew that,” Fairfax said. “What other direction could they go to reach the mountains?”
Schuyler frowned, crestfallen at his partner’s harsh tone. “Well, yeah, sure, but they might’ve angled off one way or the other. If we get Beaumont’s men and set off after ’em right now, we might be able to catch up before nightfall.”
“We don’t want to catch up to them that soon.” Fairfax reached for his beaver hat. “I’ve been thinking about that very thing. Come on, let’s go see Beaumont.”
Schuyler looked confused, but he followed Fairfax out of the boardinghouse. He had always trusted Fairfax to do most of the thinking, and didn’t see any reason to change that now.
A different but equally dangerous-looking bodyguard admitted them to Beaumont’s house. He led them to the dining room, where Beaumont was just finishing up what looked like a fine meal. The boss criminal waved them into empty chairs at the table, but didn’t offer them anything to eat or drink. Schuyler tried not to lick his lips as he looked at the remains of the meal.
“The Harts’ wagon train left town early this morning, just like they planned,” Fairfax said. “Schuyler followed them to make sure they didn’t try anything tricky, like swinging off on some different route.”
“But they didn’t, did they?” Beaumont guessed.
“Nope,” Schuyler said. “Headed west, straight as an arrow.”
Beaumont patted his lips with a napkin. “Now I suppose you need men to go with you when you follow the wagons?”
Fairfax nodded and said, “As many as you can spare. This is going to be a bit of a tough nut to crack. I’m not worried about the Harts, but some of the men working for them appear to be competent. And of course, there’s Preacher.”
“Yes,” Beaumont said with a smile, “there’s Preacher. Will twenty men be enough, do you think?”
Schuyler tried not to let the surprise he felt show on his face. With twenty of Beaumont’s men, plus him and Fairfax, they would outnumber the men with the wagon train by more than three to one. Even Preacher couldn’t win out against odds like that. Schuyler knew Fairfax well enough to see that his partner was impressed, too.
“That should be fine,” Fairfax said. “We’ll need enough supplies for a fairly lengthy journey.”
“It shouldn’t take you long to overtake the wagons,” Beaumont pointed out. “Men on horseback can move a lot faster than those heavy vehicles, especially when they’re being pulled by oxen.”
“Yes, but you wanted the goods in those wagons so you could set up your own trading post, right?”
Beaumont nodded. “That’s right.”
“Then why not let the Harts and their men do the hard work of taking them most of the way?” Fairfax suggested.
Beaumont considered that idea, and slowly he began to nod. Something like respect was visible in his eyes as he said, “That’s a good idea, Colin. You can trail them and hit them closer to the mountains. That way you won’t have to take the wagons as far once you’ve gotten rid of the Harts and their companions.”
Fairfax smiled, pleased at Beaumont’s response.
“When do you want to start?” Beaumont went on.
“Tomorrow morning. It won’t hurt anything for the wagons to have a lead on us. We want to stay far enough back so that no one will notice us until it’s too late.”
“But not so far back that you’ll lose the trail.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Fairfax said. “Schuyler here is one of the finest trackers west of the Alleghenies.”
That was news to Schuyler, but he kept his face carefully impassive. He supposed he could follow a trail well enough, even if he wasn’t the expert that Fairfax made him out to be. Anyway, the men with the wagons weren’t trying to cover their tracks. They wouldn’t know that they were being followed.
And with any luck, they wouldn’t have any idea until it was too late to save their lives.
* * *
Jake had a fine time playing with Green Grass, Red Horse’s son, during the evening. Meanwhile, Preacher brought Corliss and Jerome to Red Horse’s lodge, and the three white men sat by the fire with the Missouri chieftain and smoked a pipe with him. Preacher had explained the tradition to the cousins from Chicago and told them that it would cement their friendship with Red Horse and the tribe he led.
“The more friends you can make out here, the better,” Preacher told them.
“It’s rather like having a drink in a rich man’s drawing room, isn’t it?” Jerome said.
Preacher nodded. “I reckon. I’ve never been in a rich man’s drawing room, but it must be sort of the same.”
“Except this is a filthy hovel you’re talking about,” Corliss put in.
Preacher gave him a stern look. “Don’t say anything like that while we’re in Red Horse’s lodge,” he warned.
“Of course not. Do you
think I’m an idiot?”
Preacher didn’t answer that question.
The evening passed without any unpleasant incidents, however. Corliss was on his best behavior, and Jerome hit it off well with Red Horse. Later, when they went back to the wagons, Preacher told the cousins, “You did fine, both of you. Next time either of you come through here, you can stop at the village and be welcomed as friends.”
“Should we post guards tonight as usual?” Jerome asked.
Preacher shook his head. “No need. The dogs will raise a ruckus if anybody comes skulkin’ around the village who ain’t supposed to be here.”
Preacher spread his bedroll under one of the wagons, as was his custom, and then checked on Horse before he turned in. He had moved the stallion inside the circle of wagons and picketed him where there was some graze. Horse had a bucket of water, too, courtesy of Jake, who had been suitably impressed by the big, gray, rangy animal. Horse was an ugly varmint, but he had plenty of speed and more stamina than any mount Preacher had ever seen. With only occasional rests, Horse could run all day without faltering.
Preacher fell asleep quickly, as he usually did when he was comfortable with his surroundings. His slumber was deep and dreamless, and when he awoke, it happened instantly, with his eyes opening and all his senses alert. He knew from that reaction that something must have happened to wake him.
Without making a sound, he sat up underneath the wagon and lifted one of his pistols from the ground. Just as he had the night before, he listened intently for any telltale sound. Hearing nothing but the normal, quiet noises of an Indian village at night, he slid out from under the wagon and stood up to look around.
The village was dark and peaceful under the vast, star-filled sky, and so was the wagon camp. Padding along noiselessly in stocking feet, Preacher went all around the wagons, searching for any sign of trouble.
He didn’t find a single one.
A troubled frown creased his forehead. The night before, he had put his unease down to the fact that Gil Robinson had been sleeping on guard duty, even though he wasn’t fully convinced that was what had awakened him. Tonight, he didn’t have even that excuse, since no one was standing guard.
But nothing unusual was going on either. Preacher shook his head in disgust, and went back to the wagon where he had been sleeping. He didn’t want to consider the idea that he might be losing his grip, that his years in the wilderness had made him a mite touched in the head, so that he heard things that weren’t really there. That was a bad way to be, and Preacher wasn’t convinced that was what was going on.
Instead, as he lay there trying to go back to sleep, he told himself to trust his instincts. They had never played him false in the past.
He might not know what it was, but something was wrong here. He was sure of it.
Thirteen
Nothing else happened to disturb Preacher’s slumber, but he was still uneasy the next morning anyway. No one else seemed to be, though. Jake had enjoyed the hospitality of Red Horse’s lodge and became good friends with Green Grass, and Corliss and Jerome were pleased that the first day of the expedition had gone so well.
But there were a lot more days to come before they reached their destination, Preacher reflected, and a lot more chances for something to go wrong.
It was a little late in the morning before the wagons rolled out. The sun was already up, but it was still an orange ball low on the horizon.
Preacher had saddled up Horse, and now he rode fifty to a hundred yards in front of the lead wagon with Dog trotting along beside him. From the way Horse pranced along, the big stallion was grateful for the chance to stretch his legs again. Preacher ran him a little bit, just to get some of the kinks out. Horse tossed his head, happy to be back on the trail.
The terrain along the river was just as easy as it had been the first day out of St. Louis. The wagons’ course wasn’t quite as straight as it had been the first day because now they were following the bends of the broad, muddy stream. Preacher could have led the party over some shortcuts, but he didn’t see any real need to do so. Better to let the pilgrims get used to following a river. If they were able to do that, it would greatly increase their chances for survival if anything should happen to him. He wasn’t indestructible, after all, and accidents happened sometimes.
During one of the times when they stopped to rest the teams and let the oxen graze, Jerome took a new flintlock rifle from one of the wagons and handed it to Jake, along with a powder horn and a shot pouch. Jake accepted the weapon with a glowing smile on his round face.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, giving the kid a gun?” Corliss asked. “He’s liable to blow his own foot off, or even shoot one of us!”
“That’s why he has to prove to me that he can handle a weapon safely,” Jerome said. “Preacher, can you show him how to shoot it?”
Jake said, “I already know how to shoot.”
“Let’s see you load that rifle then,” Preacher suggested.
Because he was short, Jake had a little trouble with the rifle’s long barrel and equally long ramrod. But he was able to pour powder from the horn down the barrel, wrap a patch around a heavy lead ball from the shot patch, and shove the ball home with the ramrod, seating it firmly on the powder charge. Then he pulled back the hammer and put a pinch of powder in the pan.
“All right, it’s charged and primed and ready to shoot,” Preacher told the youngster. “Don’t point it at anybody. See that rock out yonder?” He pointed to a rock that jutted up about a foot from the earth, some twenty yards distant from the wagons. “See if you can hit it.”
“I can hit it,” Jake declared as he lifted the rifle to his shoulder. The weapon was heavy, and the barrel weaved from side to side as Jake placed his cheek against the smooth wood of the stock and tried to sight in on the rock that was serving as his target. He took a deep breath, and the barrel steadied.
Jake pressed the trigger.
The hammer struck the flint, and the spark set off the powder in the pan, which in turn ignited the charge in the barrel. It went off with a dull roar. The recoil kicked back hard against Jake’s shoulder, staggering the boy. Black smoke poured from the muzzle. Jake caught his balance and then waved a hand in front of his face, trying to clear away some of the smoke so that he could see the rock again. He let out a whoop of triumph as he saw what Preacher had already seen.
A white streak on the rock showed where the rifle ball had glanced off it. Jake had hit the target on his first shot.
Jerome saw the evidence of Jake’s accuracy, too, and nodded. “All right, I’m convinced,” he said. “You can keep the rifle, Jake.”
“Thanks, Mr. Hart!”
Corliss shrugged and said, “Well, maybe he won’t shoot anybody else . . . if we’re lucky.”
Beaming with pride, Jake carried the rifle across his knees as he rode on the wagon seat next to Jerome. The wagon train pushed on, still following the Missouri, as it would until they reached the little settlement of Westport, which truly marked the edge of civilization’s westward expansion. Heading southwest from there, there were no more towns until the Mexican city of Santa Fe. Heading northwest, there were no real settlements short of the ones along the Pacific coast in the Oregon country, only a few scattered British and American forts established in order to help protect the fur trade.
It was a big, wild country out there. Preacher and men like him called it home, but whether or not it would ever be settled was a question still open for debate. If it was to be settled, trading posts like the one the Hart cousins intended to establish would be the first real step in that direction.
After several days of travel, the Missouri River curved to the northwest and then took a more westerly turn. The members of the party had fallen into a routine by now. The weather had cooperated, and each day the wagons were able to cover a good stretch of ground. As the miles rolled away behind them, the nagging feeling that something was wrong continued to plague Preacher from time to
time, even though he had seen no evidence of trouble.
Thinking that someone might be following them, he doubled back on their trail one day, riding more than a mile in the direction they had come from. His keen eyes searched the horizon, and narrowed in suspicion as they spotted a faint haze of dust in the air. Some more wagons, or a good number of riders, were back there several miles behind the wagon train. That didn’t have to mean anything; the dust could have come from a hunting party of Indians, or some immigrant wagons, or even a troop of army dragoons on patrol.
But he was going to keep a close eye on the wagon train’s back trail. If the followers came too close, he would have Jerome and Corliss and the other men circle the wagons.
Anybody who tried to raid this wagon train would get a hot-lead welcome. Preacher would see to that.
* * *
Schuyler hadn’t had any trouble following the trail so far. The wagons were so loaded down with cargo that their wheels cut deep ruts in the dirt. Not only that, but it had quickly become obvious that they were following the river.
“We can get ahead of ’em any time we want,” he told Fairfax one night while they were gathered with Beaumont’s men around a tiny fire that had been built down in a depression so that its glow wouldn’t be visible to the people they were stalking. No sense in warning Preacher that somebody was back here.
Fairfax shook his head. “We don’t want to get ahead of them, not for a long time yet.”
“Yeah, I know. I was just sayin’, in case you’d changed your mind—”
“I haven’t,” Fairfax snapped. “We’re sticking to my original plan.”
Schuyler nodded, trying not to frown. Fairfax had been pretty sharp with him lately. He had been that way with all of them really. Shad Beaumont had made it clear to his men that Fairfax was in charge, and obviously he liked being in command. He barked orders and strutted around like some sort of military officer. He had even started treating Schuyler that way, forgetting that they had been partners ever since they’d started traveling together. Sure, Schuyler preferred to let Fairfax do most of the thinking, but that didn’t mean he liked it when the other man bossed him around.
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