Preacher's Bloodbath

by Johnstone, William W.

  “Umm.” Nighthawk clenched a fist and thumped it lightly against his own chest.

  “Yes. Oh, my, yes. Even if the buzzards had picked it apart, there would be something left.” Audie swallowed hard. “The conclusion is inescapable. Someone cut poor Jacob’s chest open, pried those ribs apart, reached in there . . . and ripped out his heart!”

  CHAPTER 3

  Preacher heard singing in the night, somewhere up ahead of him. He reined his rawboned stallion to a halt and told the big, wolf-like cur who padded alongside, “Stay, Dog.”

  The mountain man swung down from the saddle, looped the pack horse’s lead rope around a nearby sapling, and took his long-barreled flintlock rifle—already loaded and primed—from its sling attached to the saddle. He moved forward through the darkness with his thumb curled around the rifle’s hammer so he could cock it in an instant if he needed to.

  The men he heard sounded peaceful enough, if a mite tipsy. Carrying on like that at night wasn’t the best idea—drawing too much attention to oneself never was, on the frontier—making Preacher suspect some jugs of tanglefoot were involved.

  No one could ever accuse him of drawing attention to himself. On the contrary, the big mountain man was famous for his stealth. On several occasions during his longstanding hostilities with the Blackfoot tribe, he had slipped into the enemy camp in the middle of the night, cut the throats of several, and then slid back out without ever being noticed. None of the survivors had even known he was there until the bodies were discovered the next morning.

  Because of that, some of the Blackfeet had taken to calling him Ghost Killer. Others called him the White Wolf because of his deadliness.

  The song’s ribald lyrics ended in laughter as Preacher saw the glow of a large campfire up ahead. The party that had made camp had to be a large one. The men didn’t seem to care about the size of the fire or the loudness of their singing. The fire would keep animals away, and a large, well-armed group of men didn’t have to worry much about being attacked.

  Still, such boisterousness went against the grain for Preacher. There was a time and a place for everything and nighttime in the wilderness wasn’t for loud singing.

  He was close enough to pause and call out, “Hello, the camp!” A fella didn’t just waltz in unannounced at night. That was a good way to get shot.

  The men fell silent.

  After a moment, someone responded. “Who’s out there?”

  “They call me Preacher.”

  “Preacher!? Well, the saints be praised! Come on in, you old he-coon!”

  The voice was familiar. “Is that you, Miles?”

  “Aye, ’tis!”

  Preacher hadn’t seen Miles O’Grady since the previous year. He had always gotten along with O’Grady and figured if the Irishman was part of the group, they were all likely to be friendly, but he kept his thumb on the flintlock’s hammer just in case as he strode forward and stepped out of the trees into the circle of light cast by the campfire.

  A quick head count told him there were fifteen men in the bunch. He looked around, saw several familiar faces in addition to O’Grady’s broad, ruddy one, and nodded to his acquaintances. It seemed a little odd to him, seeing all of them together.

  Most fur trappers were, by nature, solitary creatures, content with their own company except on those rare occasions when they attended a rendezvous. If they partnered up with anybody, only two or maybe three would be in a group.

  In the early days of the fur trade, large parties had been common. But like anything else, the customs had evolved over time.

  O’Grady moved toward Preacher and stuck out a hand. “Last I heard, you were over in the Wind River country.”

  Preacher shook his hand and drawled, “Yeah, but I didn’t have much luck there. Decided to see how the plews are over here. Looks like you fellas had the same idea.” He paused, then added meaningfully, “At the same time.”

  O’Grady’s mouth quirked. “Well, that’s not exactly why we’re all here together like this. It’s because of what’s been happening over in Shadow Valley.”

  Preacher frowned and shook his head. “I hadn’t heard of anything goin’ on over there.”

  “Well, it seems like ’tis not a very healthy place to be these days. Sit down, warm your bones by the fire, and I’ll tell ye all about it.”

  “Let me get my horses and my dog,” Preacher said. “I left ’em back in the woods a ways . . . until I found out what all the celebratin’ was about.”

  “’Tis not celebrating we are,” O’Grady said with a sigh. “More like trying to hold off the darkness with the power of song.”

  Preacher thought about the situation as he fetched Horse, Dog, and his pack animal. O’Grady, like most Irishmen, was given to bouts of melancholy. Whiskey would just make it worse. Maybe that was all that was going on.

  Preacher brought his trail partners back to the camp, unsaddled the big gray stallion, and took the supplies off the pack horse. He picketed both animals, although he knew from long experience that Horse would never willingly stray far from his side. Neither would Dog.

  He joined the other men and sat down on a log with several of them. O’Grady offered him a jug.

  Preacher shook his head. “Not right now. I’d rather hear about whatever it is that’s got you fellas spooked.”

  One of the men said, “I ain’t ashamed to admit I’m a mite scared. You don’t know what’s goin’ on in this part of the country, Preacher. It ain’t safe no more.”

  Preacher grunted. “Shoot, I don’t think these mountains were ever all that safe. If you don’t have Injuns wantin’ to kill you, bears and cougars and lobo wolves are always around. Not to mention avalanches and floods and forest fires. Seems to me like there’s always been a million ways to die once you get west of the Mississipp’.”

  “Yes, but this is worse than usual,” O’Grady said. “Nigh on to a dozen men have disappeared around here this year.”

  “What do you mean, disappeared?” Preacher asked with a puzzled frown.

  “Just that. Vanished. Dropped off the face of the earth like they never existed. Most of us know someone that’s happened to, and the rest have heard stories.”

  The men sitting in a circle around the campfire nodded solemnly.

  “That’s not the worst of it, though. We’ve found bodies”—the Irishman shuddered—“and the things that had been done to them.”

  It must have been pretty bad to affect O’Grady, thought Preacher.

  Although he hadn’t been in the mountains as long as Preacher had, Miles O’Grady was a veteran trapper who had been in his share of fights.

  “Indians have been known to torture captives,” Preacher pointed out. “Hell, one time a bunch of ’em planned on burnin’ me at the stake.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard the story,” O’Grady said. “Reckon we all have.”

  “I haven’t,” one of the other men said.

  Preacher didn’t know him, couldn’t recall ever having seen him before. The stranger was young, probably in his early twenties. Of course, Preacher couldn’t hold youth against a fella. He hadn’t even been shaving yet when he lit a shuck from his family’s farm and headed off to see the elephant.

  “Then you don’t know how Preacher got his name.” O’Grady seemed glad for an excuse to change the subject. “By the way, Preacher, this youngster is Boone Halliday.”

  Preacher reached over to shake hands. “Boone’s a pretty well-known name back in Kentucky.”

  “I know. That’s where I’m from. In fact, my ma named me after Daniel Boone.” The young man grinned. “I reckon that with a name like that, I couldn’t help but turn out to be a trapper and a long hunter, right?”

  Preacher wasn’t sure Boone Halliday could make that claim just yet. He appeared to be pretty wet behind the ears, which in his case stuck out rather prominently from the sides of his head. Boone had a shock of brown hair falling down over his forehead under the wide-brimmed, brown felt hat he wor
e. Actually, he looked more like he ought to be behind a plow somewhere instead of wandering around the high country.

  But every mountain man had to start somewhere, Preacher supposed.

  “Tell me about your name,” Boone went on.

  Preacher shook his head and waved a hand. “I disremember how it got hung on me.”

  “Well, I don’t.” O’Grady leaned forward eagerly.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Irishman launched right into the story. “Preacher was just a sprout, maybe not even as old as you yet, Boone, when he got himself captured by some Blackfeet who had a powerful grudge against him. They tied him to a stake, piled wood around his feet, and were all set to burn him the next morning, but he started preaching to them instead.”

  “Preaching?” Boone repeated. “Like in church?”

  O’Grady nodded. “One and the same.”

  “What made you decide to do that, Preacher?” Boone asked.

  There was no getting around it, so Preacher said, “While I was back in St. Louis, I’d seen a fella standin’ on a street corner goin’ on about the Gospel whether anybody was listenin’ to him or not. He kept it up for a long time, and when I came back after doin’ some other things, he was still at it. That stuck in my mind, so when the Blackfeet had me, I commenced to doin’ the same thing.”

  Preacher warmed a little to his topic as all the men looked on with great interest, even the ones who had already heard this story many times. “You see, Injuns take a keen interest in killin’. It’s not exactly a sport to ’em, although there’s a little of that in the way they feel. It’s more like, hell, I don’t know, an art, I guess you’d call it. They want to kill their enemies in the way they feel is right. But if you can distract ’em with somethin’ they find even more interestin’, they’ll hold off on the killin’ for a while. That’s what I figured to do by preachin’ at ’em.”

  Boone smiled. “It must have worked, since you’re still here.”

  “Oh, it worked, all right. When the sun come up the next mornin’, they didn’t set fire to all that dry wood they’d heaped around my feet. They just sort of gathered ’round and stared at me, and I kept on preachin’.” A wry smile appeared on the mountain man’s rugged face. “I was a mite wound up by then. I’d gone on all night, so I just kept goin’. I was pretty hoarse and worn out by then, but I’d figured out that my life depended on it.”

  Boone leaned forward, enthralled by the tale. “What happened?”

  “Well, they didn’t kill me. You’re right about that. They decided I was crazy.” Preacher tapped his temple. “Touched in the head. And since Injuns believe the spirits watch over folks like that, they didn’t dare kill me. Wasn’t nothin’ else they could do except let me go.”

  “So it was the Indians who first called you Preacher because of that,” Boone said.

  O’Grady said, “No, that was other trappers, once the story got around. A bit before my time, but I heard all about it, let me tell you. And the name stuck, didn’t it, Preacher?”

  “Seems to fit me,” the mountain man drawled.

  “Do you even remember what your real name is?” Boone asked.

  Preacher just shrugged. As a matter of fact, he knew good and well that his given name was Arthur. He’d gone by Art when he was a youngun. But that time was so far in the past that it didn’t matter anymore.

  He had allowed O’Grady to steer the conversation away from the bodies that had been found, but Preacher wanted to know more about them. “What about those dead fellas you came across?”

  O’Grady sighed. “I don’t like to think about that.”

  Mutters of agreement came from several of the other men.

  “This wasn’t all at once, you understand. Each man was found one at a time, over a space of several weeks. But they were all the same. Scavengers had been at them some, but they were freshly killed that you could tell what had been done to them.” The Irishman paused again.

  Impatient, Preacher said, “Well, spit it out.”

  O’Grady took a deep breath. “Their chests had been hacked open. With a knife or a hatchet, looked like. And their hearts were gone. Somebody had ripped them right out.”

  The air of hilarity that had gripped the group earlier had evaporated completely. Some of the men looked angry, some scared, some just a little sick.

  Preacher could understand all those reactions. “Where was this?” He looked toward the west, where he knew a long ridge lay even though he couldn’t see it in the darkness. “Over in Shadow Valley, you said?”

  O’Grady nodded. “You know the place?”

  “I ran some trap lines there, four or five years ago, I reckon it was. Didn’t have any trouble as I recollect. It was sort of gloomy for some reason, like there were clouds even when there weren’t, but nobody bothered me.”

  “No, I don’t remember any trouble there, either, until this year. But the men who disappeared . . . they were all either already over there or headed in that direction the last time anybody saw them.”

  One of the trappers said, “Got to be a bunch of bloodthirsty Injuns moved in. That’s the only explanation that makes any sense.”

  “If that were true and Indians were to blame, I’d almost welcome it,” O’Grady said.

  “Well, then, what do you think it is?” the man demanded.

  O’Grady hesitated, then said, “There are creatures . . . creatures that live in the bowels of the earth like . . . worms.”

  A couple men made rude noises.

  O’Grady glared at them and went on. “’Tis true, I tell ye! Once they were men, but in their evil they were banished underground, and there they’ve lived ever since, growing more twisted and depraved. They come up from their holes in the ground, fall on poor, unsuspecting souls, and devour their hearts!”

  “You’re crazy, O’Grady,” a man said. “Things like that don’t exist.”

  “If they don’t,” O’Grady said, “then why is every man born afraid of the dark?”

  None of the other trappers had an answer for that.

  Preacher rubbed his beard-stubbled jaw. “Miles, I ain’t sayin’ I believe you’re right about those critters, but if you are and they’re supposed to be stuck underground, how’d they get out?”

  “Earlier this year, the earth shook. It was a big quake, and I think it opened a path from the underground world to here. Or rather, to Shadow Valley. I think the mouth of hell waits over there.”

  Most of the men still looked skeptical, but a few appeared even more worried, including Boone Halliday. The youngster said, “How do you fight something like that?”

  “I never saw anything yet that hot lead or cold steel couldn’t kill,” Preacher said.

  “If any of us ever encounters those devils, I pray you’re right, Preacher,” O’Grady said. “I just hope Audie and Nighthawk haven’t run afoul of them.”

  Preacher stiffened. “What was that?”

  “Audie and Nighthawk. You know, the little fella and the Crow—”

  “I know ’em well,” Preacher cut in. “Shared many a campfire with ’em and fought many a good fight with them at my side. You mean to tell me they’re among the missin’?”

  O’Grady nodded solemnly. “I’m afraid so. It hasn’t been long, though. I saw them less than a week ago, and Audie told me in his long-winded way that they’d found the body of Jacob Rawley. Did ye know him?”

  “Met him a time or two,” Preacher said.

  “Well, Rawley went over into Shadow Valley to look for a friend of his who’d disappeared, and Nighthawk thought he heard shots and screamin’. They went to look and found Rawley’s body. His heart had been torn out just like the others. They buried him, then came back over the ridge.”

  “Then why’d they go back?” Even as he asked the question, Preacher knew the answer. “Audie was just too blasted curious to leave it alone, wasn’t he?”

  “The little fellow has an inquiring mind, no doubt about that. And where Audie goes . . . Nigh
thawk goes.”

  “This was a few days ago?”

  The Irishman nodded. “That’s right. Four days. Maybe five, come to think of it.”

  “And you haven’t seen them since?”

  “Nary a sign.”

  Preacher looked around at the other men. They shook their heads to indicate that they hadn’t seen Audie and Nighthawk, either.

  Preacher clenched his jaw. He didn’t have any better friends anywhere on the frontier than the former professor and the taciturn Crow warrior. If they were in trouble, he wanted to help them, and if anything had happened to them, he had to know. “I reckon that settles the question of where I’ll be headed in the mornin’.”

  O’Grady frowned. “You mean—”

  “Monsters in the earth or not, I’ll be goin’ over that ridge into Shadow Valley.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Miles O’Grady tried to talk Preacher out of the idea, but he wouldn’t be budged.

  “Besides,” Preacher said, “if I recollect right, I did pretty fair over yonder the last time I trapped that valley. Probably a good number of pelts to be had.”

  “I wouldn’t go into Shadow Valley for all the pelts in the Louisiana Purchase,” one of the trappers declared.

  Another man nodded. “I don’t mind riskin’ my life all the usual ways us fellas do, but what’s been goin’ on around here just flat-out gives me the fantods.”

  Several other men chimed in to express their agreement with that position.

  None of them volunteered to accompany Preacher on his search.

  After most of the men had turned in for the night, he went to check on Horse and his pack animal. Mostly, though, that was just an excuse to get up and move around a little. Dog went with him. A couple men were standing guard and the trappers would take turn doing so all night, but Preacher trusted Dog and Horse more than anything or anybody. If anything threatening was in the vicinity, they would sense it and let him know.

  When a growl sounded from deep in Dog’s throat and Horse’s ears pricked up while Preacher was scratching his nose, he paid attention. Moving without undue haste, he lowered his hand and closed it around the butt of one of his pistols. The weapon was double-shotted and packed an extra-potent powder charge. At close range, it would blow a considerable hole in a man.