Preacher's Pursuit (The First Mountain Man)

by William W. Johnstone

  Preacher went to the aid of Uncle Dan, who’d been retreating before a fierce rush from one of the warriors. Preacher crashed into the Cheyenne’s back. Both men sprawled to the ground. Preacher got his good hand on the back of the man’s head and drove it down into the dirt.

  The Cheyenne twisted and knocked Preacher off him. As Preacher fell to the side, Uncle Dan swooped in with a knife and drove it into the Indian’s back. The Cheyenne thrashed for a second and then lay still.

  That left Pete Sanderson. The burly mountain man had his hands wrapped around the throat of the final Cheyenne warrior. “Stay back!” he growled at his friends as they rushed forward to help him. “I got this red-skinned son of a bitch right where I want him!”

  The next second, though, the Indian brought a knife up from somewhere and drove the blade into Sanderson’s belly. Sanderson screamed and heaved as the Cheyenne ripped the knife sideways, disemboweling him. At the same time, a sharp crack sounded, and Preacher knew it was the Indian’s neck breaking. Both men collapsed in death.

  “Oh, Lord, Pete!” Uncle Dan cried as he rushed to his nephew’s side. Preacher looked on grimly as the old-timer cradled Sanderson’s head on his lap and cried like a baby.

  He left the old man to his grief and picked up a pistol as he turned away. A quick check told him it was still loaded. Dennison and the other two men from the settlement were the only ones left alive here other than the grief-stricken Uncle Dan. Preacher told him, “Gather up all the rifles you can and get ’em reloaded, just in case there’re any more Indians out there.”

  Dennison nodded. Preacher thought it likely that the war party had numbered only a dozen or so, and all of them were dead. But he didn’t want to bet anybody’s life on that assumption.

  He loped off toward the rocks where he had left Laura. He had already been gone longer than he’d intended.

  Laura wasn’t alone, though. Her brother and Flagg had found her. They stood over her as she sat with her back against one of the rocks, and as they heard Preacher come up, they turned to face him.

  Each man held a rifle…and they brought the muzzles to bear on Preacher.

  “I daresay you’re the luckiest man alive, Preacher,” Clyde Mallory said. “But it appears that your luck has finally run out.”

  Chapter 31

  “Clyde, no!” Laura gasped. “There’s no reason—”

  “There’s every reason in the world,” Mallory said. “Do you think Preacher will let us go, knowing what he knows about us?”

  “Not much chance o’ that,” Preacher said. “Lots o’ good folks died back yonder at the settlement because o’ you, Mallory. There’s got to be justice for that.”

  “Justice? Justice?” Mallory laughed harshly. “You call it justice that you upstart Americans—you filthy rabble!—thumb your noses at the greatest empire in the history of the world? You call it justice when a good man…our father…dies trying to teach you a lesson?”

  “I ain’t here to argue about what happened all those years ago,” Preacher said. “I’m just sayin’ you got to answer for the harm you done.”

  “Go ahead and shoot him,” Flagg urged. “Willow will be back with the horses any minute now. Don’t give him a chance to call his friends.”

  “I think you’re right,” Mallory said. “We can’t afford to waste any more time.”

  The rifle in his hands snapped up.

  Laura lurched up off the ground and cried, “No!” as she grabbed the rifle barrel. The weapon exploded, but Laura had already forced the barrel down so that the ball went into the ground at her brother’s feet.

  Preacher was moving at the same time, darting to his right and raising the pistol. Flagg swung his rifle toward the mountain man and jerked the trigger. The rifle and Preacher’s pistol roared at the same time.

  The lack of a jarring impact told Preacher that Flagg’s shot had missed. Flagg had stumbled back against the rock behind him, though, and the rifle slipped from his fingers as he tried to stay upright. He pressed a hand to his chest as he leaned to the side. Dark worms of blood crawled through his fingers.

  He toppled onto his side and didn’t move again.

  With an incoherent cry of rage, Mallory knocked Laura aside and lunged at Preacher, swinging the now-empty rifle like a club. Preacher ducked under the sweeping blow and tackled Mallory. They went down as Preacher heard shouts from the other men, who must have been startled by the shots.

  Mallory fought like a madman, slashing punches at Preacher as they rolled over and over. With only one good arm, Preacher couldn’t fend them all off. The Englishman’s fists crashed against his head, stunning him. That gave Mallory the chance to lock his hands around Preacher’s throat.

  Preacher grabbed Mallory by the hair and butted him in the face. That knocked Mallory’s grip loose. Preacher slammed a knee into his belly and followed it with a jabbing punch to the face. Mallory’s insane rage allowed him to ignore the pain of both blows and grab hold of Preacher’s broken arm. Preacher howled in pain as Mallory twisted the busted wing.

  They were in a fight to the finish. Preacher had no doubt of that. He didn’t particularly want to kill Clyde Mallory, but the Englishman wouldn’t stop as long as there was breath left in his body.

  And the shape Preacher was in, he wasn’t sure if he could stop Mallory either. Mallory bulled into him again, knocked him on his back. Panting, Mallory grabbed a rock as big as a man’s hands clasped together and raised it into the air above his head. His eyes locked with Preacher’s for an instant in the dim light.

  That night in the trading post, they had fought side by side, shoulder to shoulder, back to back. Comrades in battle. Brothers in arms.

  But that had all been a lie, Preacher knew now. Clyde Mallory was a murderous beast, and in another second that rock would come down and smash Preacher’s brains out…

  The crack of a pistol made Mallory jerk. His eyes opened wide. The rock slipped from his fingers and thudded to the ground next to Preacher’s head. Mallory opened his mouth, but nothing came out except a tendril of blood.

  Then he fell forward, collapsing on top of Preacher. Preacher rolled him aside, and knew from the dead weight of him that Mallory had been shot. He saw the bloodstain on the back of the Englishman’s shirt.

  Wearily, Preacher pushed himself up and looked around, expecting to see Uncle Dan, Dennison, or one of the other men from the settlement.

  Instead he saw Laura Mallory standing there with the still-smoking pistol in her hand and an agonized expression on her face.

  “I couldn’t,” she said, “I couldn’t let him…”

  Her knees buckled, and as she fell Preacher saw the huge dark stain on her back, too. He scrambled to his feet and sprang to her side, not even feeling the pain from his broken arm or his other injuries anymore.

  “Laura,” he said as he dropped to his knees and pulled her into his lap. “What—”

  Then his hand moved to her back and found the broken shaft of the arrow. She had been hit as they were fleeing after all. But she had told Preacher that she was all right, that he should keep going. And she hadn’t said anything about it when he left her…

  She opened her eyes and breathed, “There’s been…enough killing…enough dying…Preacher…”

  His name came from her lips in a long, quiet sigh, and then her head fell loosely against his shoulder. Preacher squeezed his eyes shut as he held her.

  The men from the settlement found them there like that a few moments later. They didn’t say anything, just stood there with rifles ready in their hands in case more hell broke loose.

  But for once it didn’t, and the night grew quiet save for the rasp of Preacher’s breathing as he sat there on the ground holding the body of Laura Mallory.

  “We’re two of a kind, ain’t we, old fella?” Preacher said to Dog. “Beat all the way to hell an’ back, but still alive and kickin’ somehow.”

  The big cur just licked his hand. Mallory hadn’t killed Dog, just knoc
ked him senseless for a while. Dog had recovered and come into camp while Uncle Dan was resetting and resplinting Preacher’s broken arm.

  “Try not to get it busted again ’fore it heals up this time,” the old-timer had said.

  “I’ll try,” Preacher had promised. “And Dan…I’m sorry about Pete.”

  “He was a good boy,” Uncle Dan had said with a sigh. “A mite ornery at times…but hell, ain’t we all?” A grimace twisted his bearded face. “I ain’t lookin’ forward to tellin’ his ma.”

  It had taken all night to patch up everybody’s wounds and tend to the burying. They didn’t see Flagg’s squaw until dawn, when she came riding in from wherever she’d been. Preacher went to meet her and pointed out the mound of freshly turned earth where Flagg’s body lay.

  She rode over to it, dismounted, looked at it for a moment…

  Then spat on it, got back on the pony, and rode away. Nobody tried to stop her.

  Now Preacher checked the cinches on Horse’s saddle, since he hadn’t fastened them himself. Dennison had done that. Preacher nodded in satisfaction and told the man, “Much obliged.”

  “You’re welcome. You sure you ain’t comin’ back to the settlement with us?”

  Preacher shook his head. “Nope, I’m headin’ east. Got somethin’ to do. You fellas tell Corliss and Jerome and the rest of ’em what happened. Tell ’em I’ll be back through those parts one o’ these days, the Good Lord willin’.”

  “All right,” Dennison said with a nod. “If you’re sure.”

  “Never been more sure o’ anything in my life.” Preacher grasped the saddle, got a foot in the stirrup, and swung up awkwardly one-handed. He settled himself in the saddle and took hold of the reins.

  “Hold on!” Uncle Dan called out as he rode up. “I’m goin’ with you.”

  Preacher frowned. “I didn’t ask for no comp’ny—”

  “Hell, I know you didn’t, but you can’t even saddle a horse by yourself with that busted wing. Somebody’s got to look after you till it heals up. I done elected myself to the job.” He paused. “Anyway, I got to go back home and tell the folks there about what happened to Pete.”

  Preacher thought about arguing, but then he sighed and smiled faintly. “I reckon me and Dog and Horse can use the comp’ny after all.”

  The two men rode away a few minutes later, not looking back. Preacher had already said his farewells to Laura Mallory, and the same was true of Uncle Dan and Pete Sanderson. They headed east across the trackless prairie. There were no trails and damned few landmarks, but that didn’t really matter.

  They were frontiersmen. They knew where they were going.

  “St. Louis, eh?” Uncle Dan said after a while.

  “How do you figure?”

  “That’s where we’ll find that varmint Beaumont, ain’t it? None o’ this mess would’a happened if he hadn’t made a devil’s bargain with them Englishers.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Preacher agreed. “I thought it might be a good idea to look him up and have a word or two with him.”

  Uncle Dan grunted. “Yeah. A word or two. I figured to say a few things to the gent myself, since I got a score o’ my own to settle.”

  Preacher nodded. He couldn’t deny Uncle Dan the chance for vengeance, any more than he could deny it to himself.

  With almost her last breath, Laura Mallory had said there had been enough killing.

  But that wasn’t true, Preacher thought as he and Uncle Dan urged their horses into a gallop toward civilization and Dog bounded along behind.

  There hadn’t been enough killing. Not yet.

  Not as long as Shad Beaumont was alive.

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  Copyright © 2009 William W. Johnstone

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  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  Following the death of William W. Johnstone, the Johnstone family is working with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Mr. Johnstone’s outlines and many unfinished manuscripts to create additional novels in all of his series like The Last Gun-fighter, Mountain Man, and Eagles, among others. This novel was inspired by Mr. Johnstone’s superb storytelling.

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  ISBN: 0-7860-2162-4