Preacher's Peace

by William W. Johnstone

  They rode on till sunset, covering almost thirty miles. McDill was glad to put as much distance between himself and that damned Dog as humanly possible.

  * * *

  When the sun had gone down, Art’s eyes opened. Dog was there, breathing in his face and occasionally licking it with his scratchy tongue.

  A fever had gripped him, and he shivered as if it were wintertime and sweated as if he were lying under the desert sun. Because it was getting dark and the stars hadn’t come out yet, he could not even see Dog, only a black shadow where the animal’s head should be.

  Where am I? he wondered. It took a while for him to recall what had happened to him. His fevered brain was weak, and drifted away to strange places. He knew he was thirsty, realized after a while that he was suffering from a fever, and felt incredibly intense pain in nearly every part of his body. After a while he lifted one hand and touched his neck. He felt the bandage there, covered with dried blood. He felt his face, a stubbly growth of beard there, and winced when he ran his hands over the still-open wounds from the giant bear’s claws. He tried to sit up, but could not. His head spun and he fell unconscious again....

  He dreamed about Jennie . . . the beautiful Creole woman he had last seen in St. Louis. Their lives were intertwined in ways he did not understand. He couldn’t have a regular woman in his life, not the life he had chosen that kept him away from people and from civilization for months, even years at a time. It was no life for a refined woman like Jennie. It would kill her. And he loved her too much for that. Or did he? What was love anyway? What did it mean to say, “I love you”? He had never said that to any other person, even Jennie.

  He saw her in his dream. She was dressed in a fancy white dress that showed off her caramel-color skin.

  She was calling to him, but he didn’t know what she was saying, couldn’t hear her because there was a roaring in his head like a great wind. She beckoned with her arms open, as if she wanted to take him in an embrace, to be with him as a woman is with a man . . . but he couldn’t get any nearer to her, no matter how hard he tried. The pounding pain in his head was so great that he thought it would explode. Still, he strove with all his might to reach her.

  All the memories of his first wanderings and his own captivity came rushing back at him when he saw Jennie’s face in his dream. Then the dream changed and he was the young mountain man on his first journey in the country of the upper Missouri, when the river became his woman and he followed her to his destiny. He had been alone then....

  He had shot a turkey with his Hawken, and had built himself an oven to cook the bird when suddenly a voice startled him from his task. It was a man in soiled buckskin and homespun who called out to him.

  “Hello the camp!” The man was tall, gaunt, bearded. “You campin’ all by yourself, are you, young feller?”

  Art thought for a moment about lying to the stranger, telling him that he wasn’t alone, but he realized that the man had probably already scouted the area and would know that he was lying. And if Art lied, it would be a sign of weakness and fear, a sign that he was afraid to admit that he was alone.

  In his fevered dream it was as real as if it were happening for the first time.

  “I am alone,” Art said.

  The man stuck out his hand, calloused and gray. “Bodie is the name. How are you called?”

  Bodie . . . he had driven a mule named Rhoda and traded her to Art for the horse the youth had stolen in his escape from Lucas Younger, who’d held him in slavery. He remembered how Younger had been about to shoot him when Art jerked at the chain that bound him and caused Younger to shoot himself—dead. Bodie then traded him the mule, a more surefooted animal for where Art was going. He also told Art about the Rendezvous, because Art was so green he had never even heard of such a thing. And most importantly, Bodie, the crusty old mountain man, had told Art to look up some friends of his.

  Art heard Bodie’s voice now, loud and clear in his mind:

  “Listen, when you get up into the mountains, if you run into a couple o’ ugly varmints—one is named Clyde, the other calls himself Pierre—why, you tell ’em that ol’ Bodie says hello, will you?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ll do that,” Art said. Then Bodie said some things that Art had never forgotten, even to this day.

  “This be your first time in the mountains, boy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I thought so. Well, watch yourself up there. Winter comes early to the high country. Before too much longer you’re goin’ to be needin’ to go to shelter. You any good with that there Hawken?”

  “Tolerable,” Art replied.

  “Then I advise you to get you some meat shot, couple o’ deer, an elk, maybe a bear. A bear would be nice ’cause you’d also have its skin to help you through the cold.”

  “Thanks for the advice.”

  A bear . . .

  Now the image of the huge grizzly sow that had nearly killed him came back to Art in a feverish nightmare that took his breath away and left him sweating and panting for thirst. He was running . . . running . . . running . . . away from Jennie, away from the bear, away from McDill, away from Bodie, away from Clyde and Pierre, away from his family—away from everybody he had ever known in his life. His whole body ached from the running, yet he could feel the bear’s hot breath on his neck, as if she was going to leap on him and devour him in that gaping pink maw of a mouth. Her razor-talons swiped at him, and he could feel their sharpness slicing into his skin. He was naked, alone, running—running for his life from the giant she-bear, and there was no way to escape, no way to fight, no way... no way... “You campin’ all by yourself, are you, young feller?” Alone . . . alone . . . alone . . .

  Dog’s breath in his face suddenly shocked him awake. He sensed it was nearly sunup. His body felt limp and damp from the night sweats. He wasn’t even sure if he was alive or dead. Had he been dreaming all those things? He slowly moved his hands over his body under the blanket that Montgomery and Matthews had carefully placed over him. The morning air was cool and he gulped it in like water. His hands felt the bruises, bandages, and broken bones that he had become.

  I’m in one hell of a mess, he thought, wincing with every slight move he made. But he felt that the fever had passed, and weak as he was, maybe there was a chance he could survive.

  Dog stood there, slowly wagging his matted tail. It was the most beautiful sight Art had ever seen. He was still alive. He struggled for an hour until he could finally sit up. He looked around. No canteen, no food, no rifle, no horse.

  “They really left us with nothin’,” he said out loud to Dog. But he had his knife. He could feel its cool blade against his leg. That was something.

  “Thanks for your help, Dog,” he said. “Now, let’s get something to eat. You know any fancy restaurant around here?”

  Twelve

  For the first four days, unable to walk, Art crawled. He stayed by the river so he could be close to a source of water. It was already September, he calculated, and winter would come sooner than any man liked in this high country. Just as Bodie had told him so many years ago. He crawled, not knowing where he was going. He had to keep moving, somehow to get back to the fort or to find some other human being—anyone.

  He had heard some of the remarkable survival stories of other men who had been lost in the wilderness with no weapon, no food, no one else. He had been a man of the mountains himself for a dozen years, through every season, every condition of nature. He was determined that he too would survive.

  He ate berries and nuts that he found close to the water’s edge, and he crawled on, sleeping at night, moving during the daylight hours. Luckily, he still had his clothes and his knife. And Dog. So he felt he wasn’t totally alone.

  His fever lingered for several days, but slowly receded, lessening with each slow, agonizing mile and each troubled night of sleep. The nights were getting cold.

  One day he rested on a flat, open table away from the river, during the afternoon, with th
e sun warming his face. He dozed off for a few minutes, then awoke with a start. He noticed that Dog was silent, staring at something. Looking about five yards ahead, in the direction that he was moving, Art saw a rattlesnake coiled, sunning itself. He could have sworn the snake was looking at him too.

  When he moved slightly to sit up, the snake’s tail rose and rattled. It was on the alert and preparing to strike. Art moved his hand imperceptibly, feeling the dry grass, groping for something he could use as a weapon. He found a rock about the size of his own fist.

  The rock felt hot from sitting in the sun. Art’s hand closed around it. The snake rattled, raised and lowered its head. Art gripped the rock.

  He tried to measure the distance and figure out how much time he would have when the snake moved to strike. Best to try when the snake was still coiled, which made a better target.

  Holding his breath, he squeezed the rock and in a quick blur of motion flung it at the rattlesnake. He hit it, and the rock smashed the snake’s head into the earth. Art forced himself halfway upright and half-crawled, half-walked over to the snake. It was still moving. He took his knife and quickly sliced the reptile’s head off, then cut the body in half

  He was so starved that he started chewing on the snake, biting off a piece, chewing the innards and spitting out the skin. Then he bit off another piece and ate it. He didn’t even think of the foul taste and the idea of eating a raw, bloody snake. He was so hungry he would have eaten anything that wouldn’t poison him.

  From that point he could walk, though slowly and with great pain. He cut a tall stick to use as a sort of crutch. He continued, day after day, to keep to the river, and he found edible roots that he could dig with the knife and stones. The water of the river brought new life into him, and even though he was incredibly sore from his injuries, he bathed in its cold current and washed away blood and ache and trail dirt. He lay out naked in the sun to dry and drink in the healing warmth and rays of the sun.

  Dog stuck with him each painful step of the way. Day in and day out, the faithful beast was there. Dog was able to capture a stray rabbit or squirrel for himself, and sometimes ate the food that Art dug from the earth.

  Art tried to keep track of the days, repeating the count to himself each morning and night: six days, ten days, fifteen days.... He headed toward the east and south as the great river wound its way through the badlands.

  “Well, Dog,” he said aloud one day, “where do you think we are? Any hope we’ll find the fort or any human being soon?”

  The animal looked up at the young mountain man, cocking its head and growling with impatience.

  “All right, boy, if that’s the way you feel about it. I was just asking a question. Don’t bite my head off, now.”

  Art laughed. He couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed. He lifted his head and felt the sun strike his face full on, and he breathed in the high plains air and swung his arms around. He realized that he wasn’t in constant pain anymore. Oh, sure, there were pains and aches and bones still mending, and he depended a lot on his walking stick-crutch. But for a few minutes he felt better, felt that he might survive after all.

  He thought about his men. Wondered where they were and what they were doing. McDill, no doubt, had taken over the leadership of the party—which he had felt was his all along. He vaguely remembered when McDill had returned to the camp to check on him. He felt then that he was going to die, but Dog had warned the man off, probably saved Art’s life. McDill had taken Art’s horse and rifle and canteen. He had left him there to die.

  Art wasn’t angry at McDill, but he knew that he would probably have to kill him when they next met—if they ever met.

  Three weeks into his arduous trek, the mountain man awoke one morning to the sound of something moving on the earth. He felt it first, then heard it: far away but getting closer. What the hell? Then he knew—it was a herd of buffalo moving across the land, probably approaching the river to ford.

  The herd must be late in leaving the high plains for the lusher, taller grasses south of the Upper Missouri and the warmer hills and valleys of the lower country. Art looked around for Dog, didn’t see him. The wolf-dog had heard the same thing he had and gone in search of the herd.

  It took him two hours to walk about a mile through a densely treed area above the river and into an open hilly stretch. Clouds streamed across the sky, sometimes blotting out the sun and taking away the shadows from the land. He climbed a low hill, and when he got to the top he could see for several miles, and there, like a sea, was the wandering herd of buffalo.

  He saw Dog, who stood like the wolf he was, salivating at the sight of enough meat for a thousand lifetimes.

  If only he had his favorite Hawken, he could take down one of the huge beasts and have real food for the first time in weeks, and a buffalo-skin blanket for the increasingly cold nights! His body was still mending, and he could walk better and better each day, but he certainly couldn’t run—yet. So there was no way he could hunt on foot.

  The vast herd was moving south, rumbling over the brown-green grass of the low rolling hills. He couldn’t even imagine how many there were. He followed Dog, who trotted closer to the moving mass of brown and black animals.

  Dog’s hunting instincts took over. Art watched with fascination as the wolf-dog got closer and closer to the western edge of the herd and watched, inspected the passing animals for potential targets. Dog would pause, run alongside the herd for about a hundred yards, circle back and look, then run again. The larger animals ignored the comparatively small beast who yipped and howled at them.

  In the middle distance, about a half mile away, Art could see a pack of wolves out in the open, circling, trying to identify a likely victim, just as Dog was. Then Dog saw them too, some of his own kind.

  He ran in their direction, barking and howling. The pack ignored the newcomer, sticking together tightly. Dog retreated, ran back toward Art, even wagged his tail, which was unusual for the mongrel.

  “All right, boy,” Art said. “We’ll stay clear of them and they’ll stay out of our way.” He began hiking to the north, the direction from where the herd was coming. He kept the same wide distance between the wolf pack and himself, not wanting them to sniff him out as a potential meal himself.

  Dog went about his business, plunging back into the fringes of the advancing herd of bison. It didn’t take him long to cut out a youngster and turn him around and separate him from the rest of the herd. The calf was confused, scared, and it started to run away from Dog, to the west. Art moved after it. He knew Dog could take the calf down, but he didn’t want to lose it to the wolf pack, who hadn’t yet culled a calf or an injured adult for themselves.

  The calf ran in crazy circles, and Dog pushed it farther away from the herd, over a low hill into a narrow ravine. Soon it could not see the herd at all, and bellowed like a wounded pig. Dog closed in. Art watched the whole thing happen. He drew his knife as he walked closer to the buffalo.

  Even though it was a calf, the animal must have weighed more than four or five hundred pounds. It was unsteady on its legs in unfamiliar territory. It was scared of Dog and frightened to be apart from its family for the first time ever. It would be the last time too.

  Dog attacked, leaping at the hapless calf’s legs. It tripped and fell, breaking a spindly leg. It bleated in pain. Dog attacked again, this time going for the animal’s throat. He tore into it viciously, immediately drawing blood. The buffalo calf tried to fight off the wolf-dog, but the harder it fought the worse it got—Dog held onto his prey, digging his teeth deeper into the poor calf’s flesh.

  Art hobbled closer, approaching with his knife drawn. He waited for his chance as the two animals struggled, then fell onto the calf and plunged the knife into its heart. He rolled off the big body as blood leaked out, soaking the earth.

  Art heard the wolves approach from behind him. He swung around, holding his walking stick and knife. “Yah, yah, yah!” he challenged. Dog turned too and growled
, his mouth dripping with blood and saliva.

  The wolves—there were seven or eight of them—looked at these two creatures protecting their kill. Certainly they outnumbered the man and his dog, and might be able to fight them, but something about the threatening noises and movements of the two made them pause and back away. Then the pack leader turned and trotted off toward the buffalo herd, and the others followed.

  “That’s the way to do it, Dog,” Art said.

  Dog growled in agreement, then turned back to the kill. The young buffalo lay there like a small mountain, and Art set to work immediately dressing out the carcass as best he could by himself with a single knife. Dog patrolled the immediate area to make sure that none of the wolves came back to try again to claim the kill.

  He wasn’t finished by nightfall, so he and Dog slept right there at the site. The next morning he rigged a very primitive travois to carry away some meat and skin to a camp by the river. There he made a fire for the first time in weeks and cooked some of the meat for himself. Dog ate his supper raw, burped, and lay down for a nap.

  Art ate his fill, then scraped the hide and washed it in the river and set it out, pegging it to the ground to dry. He felt better than he had since his encounter with the grizzly, finally healing and regaining some strength.

  For the next few days he traveled with the travois, dragging it behind him, eating the meat each night for supper. He worked on the buffalo skin to soften it in order to make a blanket. The nights were fast getting colder, and he did not know how far he was from any human contact or civilization.

  As the days passed, he resolved that he was going to catch up to his men—one way or another—to reclaim leadership of the expedition. He would have quite a story to tell Mr. Ashley—and Jennie—when they all returned to St. Louis.

  * * *

  The Blackfoot village had mourned their dead from the ill-fated attack led by Wak Tha Go against Art’s exploratory party. Now, nearly two moons later, the people were restless for revenge. They had lost sons and brothers, and they had trusted the hotheaded war chief to bring them victory and count many coups against the white invaders. It had not happened.