Preacher's Quest

by William W. Johnstone

  Snell shook his head. “No, there’s too damned many Sioux and Arikara and Pawnee in these parts. Might even be some more Crows come down this way from the north. We ain’t takin’ any chances. It’ll be cold camps for us for a while.”

  There was some complaining from the men about that, but not too much. None of them wanted to cross Snell openly and risk making him mad. They all seemed to know how ruthless he could be.

  Sinclair slid down from the horse first and then reached up to help Faith dismount. Even under these dire circumstances, he liked the feel of her trim waist under his hands. As they stood there beside the horse, Snell approached, his hand on the butt of his pistol.

  “Hardcastle, you and Singletree tie these two up,” he ordered. “Sinclair first.”

  “You don’t have to do that,” Sinclair said. “We won’t try to escape.”

  Snell’s lip curled in a sneer. “You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?”

  “Where would we go?” Sinclair waved a hand at the vast prairie around them. “I don’t know where we are. I wouldn’t have any idea how to get back to the nearest outpost of civilization. It would be utterly foolish for us to try to escape.”

  “Maybe so.” Snell shrugged. “You’re gonna be tied up anyway, just because I don’t trust you.”

  Sinclair seethed inwardly as his hands were jerked roughly behind his back and lashed together with rawhide thongs. “At the very least, you don’t have to treat Miss Carling this way,” he said.

  Snell chuckled. “Don’t you worry about the lady. She’ll be took care of just fine.”

  Faith’s eyes widened with fear at the sound of that, and Sinclair went cold all the way through. The other men laughed softly and exchanged glances. Sinclair knew they planned to abuse Faith. So did she.

  He had to try to prevent that. Quickly, he said, “Whatever it is you want from me, I promise you that I’ll never cooperate if you lay one finger on Miss Carling. I’ll die first.”

  Snell gestured to one of his men, who kicked Sinclair’s knees out from under him and forced him to sit down on the ground next to one of the cottonwoods. Once he was there, a rope was wrapped around his chest and the trunk of the tree, tying him securely to it.

  “You really don’t know why we grabbed you, do you?” Snell asked. “You ain’t got any idea just how rich you really are.”

  Sinclair stared at him, completely confused now. “I’m not rich. I’m just Mr. Carling’s servant, and trust me, the wages he pays me have never been extravagant.”

  “You damn fool! Your uncle was Senator Ambrose Sinclair.”

  Faith gasped in surprise. She was still untied, but a couple of the men stood near her, ready to grab her if she tried anything. However, she was too stunned to do anything except look at Sinclair and ask, “Chester, did you know anything about that?”

  He shook his head, every bit as shocked by the news as she was. “I . . . I knew that the senator and I had the same last name, of course, but Sinclair isn’t that uncommon a name. My parents never said anything about it.”

  “Those soldier boys came out here lookin’ for you,” Snell went on, “because the senator died and left all his money to you. His friends in the War Department got the Army involved. The lieutenant was supposed to take you back to Saint Looey and turn you over to the lawyers who represent your uncle’s estate.” A grin spread across his face. “Instead, we’re gonna take you back, and you’re gonna be so grateful to us for our help that you’re gonna have a bunch o’ money sent to one of the banks there so’s you can give it all to us.”

  Too much had happened. Sinclair was having trouble wrapping his mind around all of it. But he managed to say, “What’s going to happen if I don’t cooperate with you?”

  He was afraid he already knew the answer to that. Snell confirmed the hunch by saying, “Then it’ll be too bad for this pretty redheaded gal. Now, I won’t lie to you. We’re gonna be takin’ turns with her all the way back, so she’s gonna be pretty hard-used by the time we get there. But she’ll be alive. You just think on that, Sinclair. She’ll be alive. And if you want to keep her that way, you’ll do as you’re told.”

  A whole gamut of emotions had ranged over Faith’s face as Snell spoke, ranging from terror to loathing to outright revulsion. Now her features were set in angry lines as she said, “Don’t listen to him, Chester. My God, let them go ahead and kill me now! I’d prefer that to the humiliating fate this little toad is describing.”

  Snell’s cocky grin disappeared, and his hand moved to the handle of the knife sheathed on his hip. He didn’t like being called a toad. “You better watch your mouth, bitch,” he snarled. “I want to keep you alive. That don’t mean I can’t do some carvin’ on you if I’m minded to.”

  Faith’s chin rose defiantly. “I’m not afraid of you,” she said, even though Sinclair could tell that she certainly was.

  “Stop it,” he said sharply. “Snell, listen to me.”

  Snell stopped glaring at Faith and switched his hostile gaze to Sinclair. “You ain’t in any position to be givin’ orders, mister.”

  “You have to have my cooperation in order to get your hands on any of that money,” Sinclair pointed out. “I’d say that gives me some say in what happens.”

  “The only thing you got any say in is whether or not this gal lives or dies.”

  Sinclair shook his head. “No, that’s not true. Unless you cooperate with me, then somewhere on the way back to St. Louis, I will do something that forces you to kill me. Either that, or I’ll leap off a cliff, or throw myself in a river, or something else that results in my death. Listen to me, Snell, and understand: If anything happens to Miss Carling—anything!—I’ll make sure that you never see a cent of any inheritance I have coming to me.” He looked around at the others. “All of you understand that? I’ll cooperate freely . . . as long as Miss Carling is completely unharmed.”

  “Gettin’ ridden ain’t gonna harm her,” one of the men growled.

  “Shut up!” Snell snapped. With his eyes narrowed menacingly, he glared at Sinclair and went on. “I don’t like bein’ threatened.”

  “Neither do I,” Sinclair returned calmly. “And I won’t have Miss Carling threatened, either.”

  “You’re a damn stubborn bastard, ain’t you?”

  “You don’t know how stubborn,” Sinclair said.

  Snell spat disgustedly. “The hell with it! Have it your way, Sinclair.” He looked at the other men. “Nobody bothers the lady.”

  Again, they looked like they wanted to complain, but no one did.

  Snell turned back to Sinclair. “But make no mistake about this, mister . . . you better cooperate when we get to Saint Looey, or else what those Injuns had planned for this gal will look like a damned picnic in the park compared to what I’ll do to her!”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Snell was moving fast, pushing himself, his men, and his prisoners at a hard pace. Preacher had hoped to catch up to them before nightfall, but when it got too dark to continue tracking, he estimated that Snell and the others were still several hours ahead.

  Willard Carling didn’t want to stop. “We know where they’re going,” he said. “Why can’t we just keep heading in the same direction?”

  “Because we might lose the trail and go right past ’em in the dark,” Preacher explained. “Or else we could stumble into the middle of ’em and get ourselves killed, not to mention your sister and Sinclair.”

  Carling sighed and said, “That makes sense, I suppose. Still, I hate to think of Faith being in the hands of those . . . those barbarians any longer than she has to be!”

  Preacher nodded. “I understand. Reckon we all do. But it’ll be a different story tomorrow.”

  They made a cold camp, ate sparingly of the rations they had brought with them from the Sioux village, and then stretched out on the ground to get a little sleep. Preacher and Rip took turns standing guard during the night. No one seemed to feel very rested when they set out a
gain early the next morning before the sun came up, as soon as there was enough gray light in the sky for Preacher to be able to see the tracks left by the horses they were following.

  The three wounded soldiers began lagging behind, despite Lieutenant Corrigan’s promise the day before that they wouldn’t hold back the rescue party. Preacher finally had to fall back and tell Corrigan, “You fellas push on as best you can, but we’re goin’ on ahead.”

  Corrigan nodded wearily. “Yes, of course. I understand, Preacher. We’ll keep coming along and try to catch up later.”

  Preacher returned the nod and wheeled his horse. He galloped ahead to rejoin Rip, Carling, and Hodge.

  “So it’s just the four of us again,” the journalist said.

  “We’ll see,” Preacher said. “Maybe that’ll be enough.”

  It was around midday when Carling suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, my God! I see something. Is that them?”

  “Yep,” Preacher replied. “I spotted ’em a ways back but didn’t want to say anything until I was sure.” He pulled back on the reins and brought his horse to a halt.

  The other three men followed his lead, but Carling said anxiously, “What are we stopping for? Shouldn’t we be riding even faster, so that we can catch up to them?”

  “Out here on these plains, they’d see us comin’ for a long way,” Preacher said. “They’d be ready for us before we ever caught up to ’em. We’ve got to hang back now, out of sight, until night falls again and they’ve made camp.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then Rip and me slip in there and kill all those bastards,” Preacher said.

  Carling stared at him. “Just like that?”

  Preacher nodded. “Just like that.”

  Faith had been tied to one of the trees the night before, just like Sinclair was, and although he had grown angry when she winced in pain as she was lashed to the cottonwood’s trunk, at least she hadn’t been molested otherwise. Sinclair didn’t know if his threat would keep her safe all the way to St. Louis, but right now he was just grateful that they had survived another night with her honor intact and both of them reasonably healthy.

  During the day, the group continued traveling southeastward. Snell said, “We’ll hit the Missouri River in a few days, and we can follow it all the way down to Saint Looey. Shouldn’t take us more’n a couple o’ weeks.”

  The thought of spending two more weeks as the prisoners of these men was almost more than Sinclair could bear, but they might not have any choice.

  “We’re gonna run short of supplies before then, Luther,” the bald man said. Sinclair had learned that he was called, not surprisingly, Baldy, and he wasn’t as dimwitted as he seemed on first impression.

  “We’ll be all right,” Snell said confidently. “We can do some huntin’. In fact, next game we come across, we’ll see if we can get us some fresh meat.”

  That afternoon, they spied a herd of antelope about a quarter of a mile away. Snell picked out several of the men and told them to try to bring down a couple of the animals. “Don’t waste a lot of powder and shot, though,” he warned them.

  The men rode off toward the herd. A few minutes later, Sinclair heard shots as they fired at the fleet-footed beasts. Spooked by the shooting, the antelopes bolted, raising a cloud of dust as they raced off. But two of them were left behind on the ground, never again to run gracefully across the plains. Snell’s men set to work dressing out the carcasses. “Fresh meat tonight,” Baldy said gleefully, clapping his hands together like a child.

  Once the men had harvested all the meat they wanted from the slain antelopes, the group pushed on. They made camp beside another stream as evening began to settle down once more over the prairie.

  “We’ll risk a fire,” Snell decided, “but get that meat cooked in a hurry, because I want the fire out before it gets good an’ dark.”

  While Baldy tended to that, several of the men tied Sinclair and Faith to trees, as they had been bound the night before. The smell of the roasting meat made Sinclair’s stomach clench tightly, reminding him of just how little he had eaten for days now. It had been barely enough to keep him going.

  Tonight, though, there was plenty of food. Tied up as they were, Faith and Sinclair couldn’t feed themselves, but Snell and Baldy cut off pieces of antelope steak, speared the chunks of meat on their knives, and fed the two prisoners that way. Faith wrinkled her nose a little at the somewhat gamy smell and taste of the meat, but she was hungry enough that it didn’t stop her from eating.

  As Snell had ordered, the fire was extinguished before full darkness had fallen. Comfortable, and with full bellies for the first time in a while, most of the men stretched out on the ground and fell sound asleep in a matter of minutes. Snores filled the air.

  Snell was still awake, though, as was the man called Vickery. They had the first guard shift. Even though Snell had mentioned several times that he wasn’t worried about anybody coming after them, out here it was always possible that a wandering band of Indians would stumble on them. If that happened, the men would need as much warning as possible so that they could fight back. That was the reason for the guards.

  The moon hadn’t risen yet, but there was enough light from the stars for Sinclair to be able to see Faith as she sat on the ground several feet away from him, her back pressed against the tree trunk. Even though she couldn’t move very much because of the tightness of her bonds, she shifted around as much as she could, trying to find a comfortable position. Sinclair wished that he could take her in his arms and let her rest her head against his shoulder. He was sure both of them would sleep better in each other’s embrace. The odds were against them ever getting an opportunity to make that happen, however.

  Sinclair wanted to stay awake as much as he could, just to make sure that none of the men got any ideas about trying anything with Faith during the night, but weariness stole over him, making his eyelids heavy and forcing his head to droop forward until his chin rested on his chest.

  But he came instantly awake when he suddenly felt the kiss of cold steel against the skin of his wrists.

  Somebody was cutting the rawhide bonds that held him to the tree.

  The sound of shooting during the afternoon had driven Willard Carling almost into a frenzy.

  “They could have run into more Indians!” Carling exclaimed as he bounced up and down a little in the saddle. “We ought to go and see! They may need our help! Faith could be getting scalped right now!”

  Preacher reached over and gripped Carling’s arm, squeezing hard enough to penetrate the artist’s near-hysteria. Carling yelped in pain, but settled down.

  “Take it easy,” Preacher advised. “I’ve heard the shots from plenty o’ battles in my time, and that doesn’t sound like one to me. It’s more likely they’re doin’ some huntin’.”

  “Hunting?” Carling repeated with a frown.

  Rip said, “Yeah, they’re prob’ly runnin’ short on supplies, just like us. Could be they came across a herd o’ buffalo or antelope and went after some fresh meat.”

  “You really think so?”

  Preacher nodded. “Yeah. Listen, the shootin’s already stopped.”

  “What should we do now?”

  “The rest of you stay here,” Preacher decided. “I’ll get close enough to take a look and make sure there wasn’t any trouble.”

  While Rip and the two Easterners waited, Preacher dismounted and scouted ahead on foot, dropping to hands and knees and crawling when he got close enough so that Snell’s bunch might have spotted him otherwise. He worked his way close enough to see several of Snell’s men skinning and dressing out the carcasses of a couple of antelope. He and Rip had guessed correctly.

  Carling heaved a sigh of relief when Preacher returned and reported what he had seen. “Did you see Faith?” Carling asked. “Could you tell if she was all right?”

  “Her and Sinclair were ridin’ double,” Preacher said. “Looked like their hands were tied. But as far as I could tell,
they both seemed to be fine other than that.”

  “Thank God.”

  Rip said, “It’s good that they shot them antelope.”

  Preacher nodded in agreement.

  “Why?” Jasper Hodge asked with a frown. “What does it matter?”

  “Because tonight when they stop to make camp, they’ll likely cook some steaks and have themselves a little feast,” Preacher said. “Man with a full belly sleeps sounder than one who’s on short rations.”

  “Oh,” Hodge said, seeing the light. “You mean it’ll be easier to sneak up on them.”

  “That’s what I just said, ain’t it?”

  They continued following the larger group of riders. At dusk, the smell of roasting meat drifted to their nostrils. Preacher and Rip exchanged grins.

  “Goodness, that smells delicious,” Carling said. “I hadn’t realized how hungry I am until I caught a whiff of those . . . what did you call them, antelope steaks?”

  “That’s it,” Preacher said.

  Rip added, “And if we’re lucky, it’ll be the last meal for those ol’ boys.”

  That comment cast a grim air over the four men as they rode slowly across the plains. A few minutes later, Preacher had them dismount.

  “Now we wait,” he said.

  Time dragged by as the sunset glow faded from the sky and stars began to appear in the deep blue-black vault of the heavens. Darkness cloaked the landscape, and still Preacher waited.

  Finally, when several hours had passed, he said quietly, “Here’s what we’ll do. Rip and I will go in first, bein’ mighty quiet about it, and try to get to Sinclair and Miss Faith before anybody knows we’re there. We’ll cut them loose and send them out of the camp before we open up on Snell and his pards. When you fellas hear the shots, you come chargin’ in on horseback. You’ll be leadin’ the other two horses. Come a-shootin’ . . . but make sure you know who you’re shootin’ at before you pull the triggers.”

  Hodge asked, “Can’t we just try to free Sinclair and Miss Carling without killing all those men?”