“It’s fortunate that you have important friends in high places, Morton. Nice to get advance warning that a regiment of troops is on the way, and that it would be guided by an experienced frontiersman.”
Morton Gross made light of his informant’s importance. “He’s only a clerk. The really important ones are so high up they don’t dare make direct contact with us, but my informant was able to read the letter sent to the former mountain man, Preacher.”
Praeger beamed as he bragged to his companions, “And now, if the men we sent to watch the Santa Fe Trail only do their job, our goal is in our hands.”
TWO
A day’s ride from Bent’s Fort, Preacher sipped from his first cup of coffee in night camp. Orange shafts slanted over his right shoulder and the night birds and katydids were gradually tuning up for their serenade. They suddenly went silent and Preacher stiffened a moment, then moved with studied casualness as he set aside the tin cup and draped a hand over the butt of his right-hand Walker Colt. A moment later a man’s voice rang out from among the trees.
“Hello, the camp. We done smelled coffee.”
Preacher looked up in that direction. “Howdy to you, stranger. If you be friendly, come on in. There’s plenty for both of us.”
“We be two if that’s all right by you?”
“Fine as frog hair. Come sit a spell.”
Two men entered the clearing on foot, leading their horses. The one in front had a broad, ample girth, chubby arms and legs, and a moon face. The one behind him had a skinny frame, gaunt as a scarecrow’s, with flat, dull eyes and big ears. He wore his hair in a boy’s “soup bowl” cut, Preacher noticed. The friendly voice came from him.
“They call me Fat Louie, though I can’t for the life of me figger why. Ain’t put on a single pound since before my voice changed. This lump o’ lard be my pard, Yard-Long Farmer. I reckon you can work out why the name,” he concluded with a wheezing cackle.
Yard-Long Farmer joined in the laughter. “Yup. When I was ten I had me the biggest tallywhacker of any kid under fifteen in our town,” he offered in the event Preacher could not puzzle through the nickname.
“Name’s Arthur,” Preacher responded evasively. He had heard of this pair and kept alert. “Sit a while.”
He poured coffee around and broke out some cornbread and a pot of molasses. While they munched and sipped, Fat Louie spoke flatteringly to Preacher.
“I tell ya, Arthur, you’re the very best we ever saw. We didn’t cut no sign of you whatsomeever. We wouldn’t have found this camp if we hadn’t near stumbled right into it. You been in the Big Empty long?”
“Since before my voice changed,” said Preacher dryly, mocking Fat Louie’s earlier turn of phrase.
Fat Louie seemed not to notice. “It certain shows. Say, that’s a mighty fine horse you’ve got. Looks like he could go a long ways, rid hard and put up wet, an’ not be harmed. Must be worth a pretty penny.”
“He’s out of a shaggy mountain mustang,” Preacher deliberately belittled his sturdy stallion.
Over the next half hour the conversation went much the same way. When Preacher came to his boots to pour more coffee, Fat Louie cut his eyes to Farmer. The chubby thug nodded slowly. Fat Louie agreed. They had this Arthur off his guard. At once, both rogues whipped out pistols and drew down on Preacher.
“Don’t get goosey, Arthur. We’ll just be takin’ all yer gear an’ yer horses an’ those fancy irons yer wearin’.”
Having been credited with inventing the words gunfighter and fastdraw, this did not faze Preacher in the least. He had known of this pair’s reputation for years, knew them to be cowardly trash who would kill him in a hot tick. He slowly turned toward the louts threatening him.
He spoke in a soft, flat tone. “I don’t think so.”
Fat Louie smirked over the barrel of his pistol. “Oh? What makes you say that?”
“Because you’ve got yourselves a little problem here. Most folks don’t call me by my given name. They call me Preacher.”
Yard-Long Farmer’s eyes went wide and he let his jaw drop before he gulped out a frightened, “Oh ... hell!”
Between the Oh and the hell, Preacher unlimbered a Walker Colt and shot Fat Louie in the center of his breastbone. Louie’s pistol bucked in his hand and he put a ball through the side-wing of Preacher’s long, colorful capote. Then his legs went rubbery and he sank to his knees.
Preacher immediately turned on Farmer and put a .44 ball in the hollow of his throat. Yard-Long went down, gargling his blood. His finger twitched and he fired one of the pair of pistols he held, sending the ball into his left calf. Pain sounded through his gurgles.
“Why? Why me?” he managed to choke out.
Preacher stepped over to him and removed the unfired pistol from his hand. Right then he heard the click of a caplock mechanism. Fat Louie had not yet gone off to meet his maker. Ignoring the question for a moment, Preacher turned to his right and fired in an almost casual way. His bullet went in one ear and out the other, ending forever the nefarious career of Fat Louie LaDeaux. Then Preacher dropped to one knee beside Yard-Long Farmer.
“You know, it’s too bad you and yer partner chose the wrong path to walk. Best you make your peace with the Almighty. You ain’t got much time.”
When Preacher reached Bent’s Fort, he encountered two old friends, Antoine Revier, a half-breed Delaware, and Three Sleeps Norris. Former mountain men who, like Preacher, could not leave the mountains after the fur trade collapsed, they moved like ghosts from one old haunt to another. Three Sleeps Norris burst out through the stockade gate with such animation that dust boiled up around his moccasins.
“I’ll be danged if it ain’t Preacher. Still got his hair, if he has growed a little potbelly.”
Preacher dismounted and they embraced, then danced around and around. “I don’t have a potbelly,” Preacher protested. “And I keep my hair by stayin’ on the watch for those who would lift it.” He stopped their caper and held Three Sleeps out at arm’s length. “I will say that you have grown a mite rounder since I last saw you.”
Three Sleeps faked a pout. “I ain’t no rounder. It’s these clothes.”
“Sure, sure, of course it is. Anybody else around from the old bunch.”
“Antoine Revier is inside now. Also Pap Jacobs is mendin’ from a broke leg. Nobody else at home but a couple of stuffy soldier-boys.”
Preacher frowned. This was embarrassing. “They’re waiting for me.”
Three Sleeps cocked his head to one side. “What? Preacher hangin’ with soldier-boys?”
“Not exactly hangin’. I got some papers for them. To be delivered. Back in Washington City.”
Three Sleeps gave Preacher a knowing wink. “Couldn’t be that you’re signed up to actual work for the Army?”
Preacher swallowed hard and rushed his words. “We’ll-talk-about-that-later. Now I want to wash the trail dust out of my throat.”
“Wal, come on. Old Turner has him a new spring house where he keeps his beer barrels. Like to crack yer teeth it’s so cold.”
The Bent brothers had long since departed from the private fort named for them. Currently a man named Ransom Turner occupied the trading post and saloon, and the immigrant’s store. The fortifications had deteriorated badly. The Arapaho were no longer a threat, and the Kiowa raided farther east. Turner, more a businessman than a frontiersman, had not bothered with repairs. One of the gates, Preacher noted, hung from a single huge iron hinge. They strode across the small parade ground to the front of the saloon to encounter another warm welcome for Preacher.
Seated at last at a table in the plank-floored saloon, Preacher drank contentedly from a large stein of beer, which he used to chase swallows of some whisky of dubious origin. He easily saw why his present companions preferred the beer. Across from him, Antoine Revier leaned toward Preacher. Beady, black eyes glittered with merriment under Revier’s thick mane of black hair and bushy brows.
“Sacré nom, it is go
od to see you again, Preacher. When was the last time?”
Preacher studied the traces of gray shot through Revier’s hair at his temples and in his luxuriant mustache. A lot of time had gone by. “The ’twenty-eight rendezvous, as I recollect.”
Antoine slapped a big hand on the tabletop. “You are right. It has been at least that long. What have you been doing of late? Met any of the other trappers?”
“Not in awhile. I did get crosswise of Fat Louie LaDeaux and Yard-Long Farmer jist the other day.”
Revier scowled. “Those two are bad business. They rob the dead— people they have just shot in the back.”
Preacher’s eyes sparkled. “Not anymore. They tried their game on the wrong feller.”
Revier and Norris sniggered. “Now that ’wrong feller’ wouldn’t happen to be called Preacher, would he?” Revier prompted. At Preacher’s nod, he went on. “Good riddance.”
Three Sleeps Norris tapped the side of his long nose. “I don’t mean to pry, but what brings you this far south, Preacher?”
“Like I said, Three Sleeps, later.”
Before Preacher could be asked more, the soft thumps of moccasin soles in the doorway drew their attention. A grizzled mountain man, one not known by any of the three. He nodded to the trio and crossed to the bar.
“Whisky,” he ordered. “You hear the latest, Ransom?”
“What would that be, Ev?” asked the proprietor.
“There’s word on the wind that a wagon train of pilgrims have been led astray somewhere up to the northeast. They was last seen along the Platte River.” Evan Butler turned to include Preacher and his companions. “What do you think, boys? I say we’ve got more than enough flatlanders shovin’ in around here. Present company excepted,” he added over his shoulder to the relative newcomer, Ransom Turner.
With his tongue, Preacher worried a scrap of jerky that had caught in his teeth. When he freed it he spat it on the floor. “I say half of those who have come into the High Lonesome are more than enough. Why, them that don’t want to tear up the sod and plant crops are Bible thumpers and Psalm singers. Most of them can’t button their trousers of a mornin’ without retraining, nor know which foot their boot goes on. Give me another beer, Mr. Turner,” Preacher said in an aside. “Them lost pilgrims out there can rot for all I care.” When the beer came, he quaffed a long draught and smacked his lips.
Quinton Praeger arose from the fragrant pile of pine boughs on which he had slept and stretched his long, lean frame, toughened by years of living out of doors. He was of an age with Morton Gross, yet he knew himself to be in far better shape. Years as a mining engineer had conditioned him to sleeping on the ground, and for him, unlike the rotund Gross, the Blackfoot bed of buffalo robes and boughs was a luxury. He reached down for his clothing and nudged the bare flank of the young woman who had pleasured him the previous night. She turned on her side and opened blue eyes. When she focused on Praeger, her expression registered disgust. But, as a slave to the Blackfoot, this white woman had no choice, Praeger knew.
Although he would have preferred a young, barely nubile Blackfoot girl, his host had offered this one and he would have offended by refusing. She’d been good, though, he had to admit. At least once he had gotten her suitably warmed up. They would be moving on today. Iron Shirt’s Traveling Medicine Show, Praeger reflected with amusement. Three more bands of Blackfoot to visit, then they would go to the Cheyenne. Before long they would have the entire frontier aflame.
Over a rack of open pit-roasted bison ribs, Preacher finally acknowledged that his earlier assumption had been correct. He could not nursemaid a battalion of baby Dragoons all the way to the Big Empty alone. He indeed needed someone to come along. So he began to fabricate an elaborate tale to spin for his friends. Licking grease off his fingers, Preacher tossed away one rib bone and cut off another.
“Now that our bellies are full and we’re feelin’ good, I’ll tell you all about what I come here for. Three Sleeps is right, I gave them papers to the soldier-boys. An’ ... though it galls me to admit it ... I done signed on for a job with the Army. You see, there’s this new-formed battalion of Dragoons . . .” Preacher went on to describe what he expected to find when he reached Jefferson Barracks. After talking of the well-known hazards of the vastly unforgiving mountains, he concluded with his sales pitch.
“ ’Course I knowed right off that it was gonna take men of courage and powerful wisdom to shepherd those green soldier-boys to Wyoming. I’ll have to be real careful and choosey as to who I pick.”
“Why, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard,” Three Sleeps Norris exploded. “Them greenhorns would be out there all alone. The nearest white settlement is more miles away than I can count, even if I take off my moccasins. Wyoming, plumb crazy.”
“Oh, I agree. No man in his right mind would pick that wild and wooly country for putting up a solitary fort. ’Course the government is gonna pay in gold, and plenty of it. They wrote me that I could pay three dollars, gold, a day for any who sign on.”
“Three dollars?” Norris and Revier chorused.
“Yep. That’s right. The way I see it, it’ll take the entire summer to get the job done. That comes to a total of two hundred seventy-six dollars.”
Antoine scratched his head. “Well, now, they sure are generous. Out here a man can live a whole year on that and have some left over. And it beats competin’ with a dozen other fellers over every dinky little bit of work that comes up. If you’ll have me, Preacher, I think I’ll come along.”
Three Sleeps nodded in agreement. “What you said about the competition for jobs out here is right, Antoine. Seems as how Preacher has got himself into a bear cave the first day of spring. Might be a couple of good fellers, like ourselves, could save his bacon for him. Count me in.” He extended a hand to Preacher, who shook on the bargain. Then Norris signaled for another round.
Preacher beamed at them with sincere gratitude. “I’ve done seen the soldier-boys, and they took off lickety-split back east. We can light out first thing in the mornin’.”
THREE
Night swiftly came on again at the edge of the Wyoming Bad Lands of the Great Divide Basin. Eve Billings hugged herself with tired arms. They ached from driving a team of six mules all day. Only two days previously had they found a way out of the Medicine Bow Mountains, at least that’s the range in which she believed them to have been. Eve teetered on the verge of losing her battle with despair.
How much more must she endure? How much could she ask her children to take in stride? First the loss of her husband, killed a month and a half ago by a war party of Sauk and Fox in Iowa Territory. Next, their captain and his trail guide had led the wagon train into a blind canyon in the Medicine Bow range. There the scoundrels had robbed and abandoned the settlers. When at last the party had found their way out of the mountains, this stark desert rolled over to the horizon to daunt them.
Resolutely she spoke aloud her foremost thought. “We have to move on.”
There was scant water for the stock, blistering heat, although it was only the end of May, and terrible chill at night. However could they find their way? In the distance, a coyote called for his mate, to be answered by half a dozen yaps and yelps. Eve shuddered and tightly clutched the barrel of the Model 40 Bridesburg Arsenal rifled musket her husband had so prudently provided as a necessity. A thin sliver of moon hung in the east, while the western sky still was washed in orange and magenta by the afterglow. Her eldest child, Charlie, came up to her and tugged at her apron as he had done as a babe.
“Mom— Momma, I’m hungry. Anna is cryin’ again and wants to eat. What are we goin’ to have?”
“There’s some bacon, and a few potatoes left.”
Charlie wrinkled his nose and twisted his ten-year-old face into a mask of repugnance. “Ugh! The bacon’s all green and slippery on the outside.”
“I’ll trim it. That’s all we have.”
“Why can’t we just go back?”
Eve’s heart ached at the misery and pleading in the expression of her son. “We can’t, Charlie. It’s two months’ journey back to New York State. In two months we’ll be in the Oregon Country. A new home, a new life.”
Charlie rubbed one bare foot over the other. “I don’t want a new home. I don’t want a new life. ’Sides, who’s gonna lead us to Oregon? Mr. Tate? Mr. Labette? They can’t find their way to the outhouse.”
A scowl formed on Eve’s high, clear forehead. “That sort of talk will get your mouth washed out with soap, young man. You are not old enough to fail to show respect to your elders. Mr. Pruitt seems to know what he is doing. At least he can hitch his mules without someone showing him how to do it.”
“Big help that is,” Charlie jeered, then dodged the swat Eve aimed at his rump.
“Back to the wagon, Charlie.” When she turned back, the stars shone brightly in the bowl of the sky. Maybe tomorrow help would come.
Twenty-four naked Blackfoot warriors stood in a solemn rank on the bank of the Bighorn River. Monotonously, two drummers struck the surface of the big drum with their milkweed and sacred pollen padded buffalo-hide strikers. Thummm and thummm the skin stretched over a large section of hollowed tree trunk sounded. The close-by walls of the Bighorn Mountains reverberated with the drumming. Before the men stood Iron Shirt, stripped of his loincloth and moccasins. For a man of such ambition and power, he had surprisingly average endowment. He raised his bare arms above his head to capture the initiates’ attention.
“My brothers, you are about to learn the mysteries behind my great medicine. First you must be purified. Part of that has already been accomplished in the sweat lodges. Now your fear of the white man’s bullets must be washed from you so that you are reborn into the society of the Iron Shield Strong Hearts.”
Blackfoot Messiah Page 2
