“Then why do they want the guns?” Jerome asked.
“For the buffalo. So they can hunt without havin’ to get right amongst the shaggy critters and risk gettin’ trampled or gored. There’s a lot of ritual involved in the way they hunt buffalo, so they won’t give it up entirely, but they’re practical folks, too.” Preacher chuckled. “Like I said, they ain’t had much practice with firearms. So they’ll use ’em on the buffalo first and get good with them . . . then they’ll come after traders and immigrants and settlers.”
“Well, I hope you’re proud of yourself,” Corliss snapped. “You’ve put the means of killing white people in the hands of those red savages.”
Preacher’s voice hardened. “What I’ve done is saved our hair right here and now. I’ll be satisfied with that for the time bein’.” He turned away from the cousins and called out to the drivers, “Let’s get them teams hitched up. The ground’s dry enough for the wagons to roll this mornin’, so roll they will!”
Eighteen
The party led by Colin Fairfax and Schuyler Mims had stayed a good five to ten miles behind the other group ever since leaving St. Louis. Fairfax was careful to the point of obsession. He didn’t want Preacher to know they were behind him.
Following the trail continued to be easy, since the members of the Hart expedition took no pains whatsoever to conceal their tracks. Not only that, but even though Schuyler and Fairfax had never traveled this route before, they knew in general where it ran. Once they reached the Platte River, it was obvious the wagons were going to follow that stream all the way to the mountains.
From time to time, Schuyler rode ahead just to check on the wagons, one lone man drawing close enough so that he could see the lumbering vehicles through Fairfax’s spyglass. He was always careful. The plains weren’t as flat as they appeared at first glance. There were little depressions, gentle ridges, gullies, and dry washes that could be followed by someone who didn’t want to be seen. Schuyler took special care not to show himself on the occasional higher ground, and he shielded the lens of the spyglass with one hand whenever he held it to his eye, so that the sunlight wouldn’t reflect off it and possibly warn Preacher that the wagons were being followed.
The same storm that swept over the wagon train also barreled down on the men following it. The difference was that the riders, their mounts, and the packhorses that carried their supplies had no place to take shelter. As the lightning bolts began to smash into the earth around them, Fairfax hurriedly dismounted and screamed at the other men to get down and to pull their horses down, too. Out here on this flat ground, a man on horseback was more likely to be struck by lightning, which usually sought out the highest point around.
The roaring thunder and the shaking earth spooked some of the horses, and the men had a hard time wrestling them to the ground. One of the pack animals tore away from the man holding its reins and galloped across the prairie. The man started after the horse, but Fairfax bellowed over the uproar of the storm, “Let him go! Get down on the ground!”
The man did as he was ordered. A moment later, when the runaway packhorse had galloped perhaps a hundred yards, a jagged, eye-searing bolt of lightning sizzled down from the heavens and struck it. Schuyler saw it happen. He winced and had to look away as the horse fell as if it had been poleaxed.
When the rain started, the heavy drops pounded into the men like millions of tiny fists, pummeling them into a state of soaked misery. They struggled to keep the horses lying down, and choked as rainwater sluiced into their mouths and noses. Sheer terror coursed through them with each bolt of lightning that struck nearby. It was a hellish ordeal, and it seemed to last forever.
As Schuyler huddled there in the mud, a distant roaring came to his ears. As it happened, he had once seen a tornado back in Ohio, and he had never forgotten the funnel cloud’s ominous, deep-throated roar. He knew a twister was nearby now, and the knowledge turned his blood to ice in his veins.
But then the rumbling faded, and Schuyler’s fear subsided a little. The rain was easing up, as were the lightning strikes. That meant the storm was moving on.
When the rain had let up until it was just a drizzle, the men stood and allowed the horses to get back on their feet as well. Man and animal alike were soaked. Even though the clouds had begun to thin, it was late enough in the day so that darkness was about to descend.
“We’ll make camp here,” Fairfax decided. “Schuyler, take a couple of men and get the supplies off that horse that was struck by lightning. We’ll redistribute them among the other pack animals.”
Schuyler nodded and picked two men to go with him. As they neared the dead horse, his nose wrinkled. He had smelled horse meat cooking before and never cared for the smell. But that was what hung in the air now around the unfortunate beast. A large black spot on the horse’s head showed where the lightning had struck it. A similar spot on one of the rear legs marked the location where the terrible force had leaped out of the horse’s body to the ground. Everything in between had been blasted and seared by the lightning.
Working as quickly as they could, the men loosened the packs, removed them from the horse, and hauled them back to the spot where the others were making camp. A fire, even a concealed one, was out of the question because everything was too wet. Nor was there any place dry to sleep. It was going to be a long, uncomfortable night, but there was nothing they could do about that except endure it.
Schuyler ate a soggy biscuit and called it supper, then wrapped himself in a wet blanket and lay down on the ground. Even though it was summer, the dampness made a chill go through him. His teeth chattered and he twisted around, trying to find some comfortable position in which to lie. He never accomplished that, but he did finally doze off.
He woke up numerous times during the night, and began to think it would never be morning again. Finally, it was. Not getting in any hurry, the men welcomed the rising sun. They spread their blankets to let the growing warmth dry them out. Some of the men took off their clothes and spread them on the ground as well.
Fairfax came over to Schuyler and said, “It may still be too muddy for those wagons to travel. We can’t start after them until we know for sure one way or the other.”
“Because we don’t want to accidentally ride right up on them,” Schuyler said.
“Exactly.”
Schuyler stretched his back, which was stiff and achy this morning, and said, “So I reckon you want me to scout up ahead and see whether they’re movin’ again or not.”
Fairfax nodded. “That’s right. Are you up to it?”
“Sure. I reckon. I have to be up to it, don’t I?”
“It’s important,” Fairfax agreed.
“Lemme get some coffee, and then I’ll get started.”
Fairfax shook his head and said, “No coffee. There’s no place to build a fire where Preacher might not see the smoke.”
Schuyler grimaced. “Are you sure, Colin?”
“Sorry.”
Schuyler sighed and nodded. He went over to his horse, which he had picketed nearby the night before, and threw his saddle on the animal. He took the time to clean and reload his rifle and pistols, then mounted up and rode out, heading west by northwest with the Platte about a hundred yards off to his right. The river was so broad and sluggish that the downpour of the night before hadn’t had any noticeable effect on it.
Even though the sun was warm as it rose, the air didn’t have the sultry, oppressive heaviness of the day before. Schuyler wished that he’d been able to get some coffee and maybe something to eat before starting out on this scouting mission, but despite that, he began to feel pretty good. The air was clean and crisp, and he could see for a long way.
Not that there was much of anything to see. Even if the wagons were able to travel, the ground was still wet enough so that the vehicles’ wheels and the hooves of the oxen wouldn’t raise any dust. Schuyler would have to actually come within sight of the expedition to find out if it was on the move again.
That made him a little nervous. If he could see the wagons, that meant the people with the wagons could see him. And Preacher struck Schuyler as the sort of fella who would keep a close eye on his back trail.
Schuyler pushed on as the sun climbed higher in the sky, and after a while, he spotted some dark shapes on the horizon. Not the wagons, he knew. The light-colored canvas covers over the backs of the wagons were easy to distinguish, even at a distance. This was probably a small herd of buffalo, he decided. During the journey from St. Louis, they had seen quite a few of the great, shaggy beasts.
No, not buffalo, he realized a moment later. What he was looking at were riders, a good-sized group of them, and they were coming toward him. Instantly, he reined in and dismounted. He took the spyglass from his pocket and pulled it out to its full extension, then lifted it to his eye and squinted through the lens.
What he saw made his blood turn cold.
A dozen or more Indians were riding straight toward him.
They were at least half a mile away, and he didn’t know if they had seen him or not. He was just one man, which made him more difficult to spot than a group of riders. For a second, he thought about trying to find someplace to hide while the savages rode past, but a swift glance around told him there was no place on this trackless prairie that would offer enough concealment.
The Indians were coming on faster now, too, urging their ponies to a gallop. Schuyler let out a terrified curse as he realized they must have seen him. He didn’t have much experience with Indians, but he knew from stories he’d heard that they couldn’t resist the temptation to attack when they came across a lone white man.
Schuyler leaped into the saddle without even taking the time to put away the spyglass. He stuck it inside his shirt while he was using his other hand to haul his mount around in a sharp turn. Then he dug the heels of his boots into the animal’s flanks and sent it leaping into a run, back in the direction he had come from.
Back toward Fairfax and the rest of the men. Schuyler knew his only chance was to reach them before the savages caught up to him.
He leaned forward and banged his feet against the horse’s sides, urging it on to greater and greater speed. The animal responded, stretching out into a hard run, its legs moving so fast that they would have been a blur to anyone watching.
As swift as Schuyler’s horse was, though, the Indian ponies were faster. On and on they came, and every time he looked back over his shoulder, wide-eyed with terror, they seemed to be closer. It wasn’t just his imagination, he decided. They really were gaining on him.
He couldn’t hear anything over the pounding hoofbeats of his mount and the frantic hammering of his own pulse, but once when he glanced back he saw several spurts of smoke from the pursuers. The savages were shooting at him! It was bad enough that these plains were populated by such fearsome creatures. The idea that they possessed firearms was even worse.
The range was still too great for rifles, and Schuyler doubted if the Indians could hit him anyway, firing from the backs of galloping ponies like that. But there was such a thing as sheer bad luck, as he knew all too well. One of those shots might find its target in his back. He hunched even lower in the saddle.
It seemed to him that he should have gotten back to Fairfax and the others by now. His blood turned icy again as he wondered if he had somehow veered off of his original path enough so that he was going to miss the rest of his party and have to deal with the Indians by himself. He would put up a fight, of course, but it wouldn’t last long, outnumbered as he was by at least twelve to one.
Then he realized that it wasn’t possible he had gone astray. The broad, muddy expanse of the Platte River was still over there on his left now, shining in the sun about a hundred yards away. As long as he could stay ahead of the Indians, he had to run into Fairfax and the others sooner or later.
But the pursuers were less than a quarter of a mile behind him, he saw as he looked back again. They had cut his lead by more than half. And his mount was beginning to falter a little. The horse couldn’t keep up the breakneck pace for much longer.
Suddenly, Schuyler spotted riders ahead of him. His heart leaped; then he gulped as an even more frightening possibility occurred to him. What if more Indians had gotten ahead of him somehow, cutting him off from the rest of his group? If that was the case, he was well and truly doomed.
But within minutes, he could tell that the other riders were Fairfax and the rest of Shad Beaumont’s men. He recognized the buckskins, the coonskin caps, the rough work clothes, the broad-brimmed frontiersmen’s hats. Even though they probably couldn’t hear him yet, he shouted, “Indians! Indians!” as he waved his rifle over his head to signal alarm.
Fairfax and the others either saw the Indians or figured out from Schuyler’s actions that something was wrong, because they started spreading out in preparation to do battle. They galloped forward, helping to cut down the distance between them and Schuyler. As he clung to the back of his racing horse, he almost wept with relief at the sight of his companions.
Moments later, Schuyler reined in as Fairfax and the other men rode past him, firing at the Indians. Schuyler wheeled his horse to watch. The white men were better shots. A couple of the savages were hit and tumbled off their ponies. The others must have realized they had gotten themselves into a lot more trouble than they had expected when they started chasing Schuyler. The group of riders broke apart as the Indians turned to flee.
Fairfax shouted for his men to halt, dismount, and fire. Within moments, a ragged volley of shots rang out, and several more Indians pitched off their mounts. A couple of the ponies stumbled, obviously hit, and threw their riders. Some of Beaumont’s men leaped back into their saddles and dashed forward. They rode down the Indians on foot and blasted them into oblivion with pistols.
Two, maybe three, of the savages got away, Schuyler estimated. They would think twice before they attacked another white man they found riding alone, he thought with a grin of satisfaction.
Fairfax mounted up and rode around to check on the fallen Indians. One of them must have still been alive, even though from a distance Schuyler couldn’t see him moving. Fairfax got down off his horse, pulled out a pistol, and shot the Indian through the head. The savage’s body jerked then. In a calm, uunhurried manner, Fairfax reloaded his pistol and then put it away.
When Fairfax rode back to join him, Schuyler said, “Thanks, Colin. I’m lucky I didn’t get farther away from you fellas before those damned redskins jumped me.”
“You led them right back to us,” Fairfax snapped. “What if there had been more of them?”
Schuyler gaped at him in surprise, unsure why Fairfax was angry with him. “What was I supposed to do?” he asked. “I couldn’t fight all of them!”
“So you’d have gotten us killed to save your own hide?”
Now Schuyler was getting a little mad at his attitude. “I could see there were only a dozen or so of them. I knew you and the rest of the boys wouldn’t have any trouble handling them.”
“We heard shots. That’s why we started in this direction. I was afraid you might have run into trouble.”
Schuyler nodded. “Yeah, a few of ’em had rifles. But they didn’t seem to be very good shots.”
“Some of us could have gotten killed, even if it was by accident.”
“Well, damn it, if I hadn’t lit a shuck out of there, I would’ve gotten killed! It’s startin’ to sound like you’d rather that’s what I done!”
Fairfax shook his head and lifted a hand. “No, no,” he said. “You misunderstand, Schuyler. Of course you did the right thing by saving your own life. I just don’t want anything to interfere with this mission we’re on for Beaumont. I lost my head for a second, that’s all.”
“That’s fine, I reckon,” Schuyler grumbled, not completely mollified by his partner’s words. “I don’t want to let Beaumont down neither. If we do a good job for him on this, he’ll keep on workin’ with us. We’ll never b
e poor again, Colin.”
“We’re still a long way from rich,” Fairfax pointed out. “Did you see whether or not that wagon train had started out before you encountered the savages?”
Schuyler grimaced. “Hell! I never saw the wagons before those Injuns started chasin’ me. I don’t know any more about that than I did when I left. Sorry.”
Again, Fairfax shook his head. “There was nothing else you could do. And now, if the wagons didn’t push on this morning, they’re probably close enough so that Preacher and the others heard the shooting.”
Schuyler tried not to groan in dismay. “That’s liable to make them more watchful than ever, knowin’ somebody’s behind them.”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about it now. Are you ready to go see how far ahead they are?”
“You mean you still want me to do that?”
“Someone has to,” Fairfax said. “You’ve had more experience on the frontier than any of the rest of us.”
“A farm in Ohio ain’t really the frontier,” Schuyler muttered. But then he nodded and went on. “Yeah, I’ll give it another try. Sure hope I don’t run into any more redskins, though.”
“That goes without saying.”
“I better swap horses with one of the other men. I had to run this one pretty hard to get away from them Injuns. If I come across any more trouble, I’ll need a fresher horse.”
Fairfax nodded in agreement and called one of the men over. The fellow wasn’t too fond of the idea of swapping his mount for Schuyler’s played-out one, but Fairfax didn’t give him any choice in the matter. A few minutes later, Schuyler was on his way again, riding west on the trail of the wagon train.
An idle thought crossed his mind. It probably would have been better in the long run if they had managed to kill all of the Indians . . .
Nineteen
The wagons had gone about a mile when Preacher suddenly reined in at his position in front and turned his head toward the rear. If he’d had ears like Dog or Horse, they would have pricked forward quizzically at that moment, as he tried to decide whether or not he had just heard shots coming from somewhere behind them.
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