Blackfoot Messiah

by William W. Johnstone

  “Ummm. You’ve got a point. All you can hope for is none of them powder men has got three thumbs.”

  “You goin’ out with the new detail?”

  “No. I’ve had an invite to take nooning with Eve Billings. She’s promised something special.”

  Merriment twinkled in the eyes of BSM Muldoon. “Sure an’ ye’ve the sound of a man that’s been already caught.”

  A twinge radiated from the area of Preacher’s heart. “Not in the least. I’ve been alone, on my own, for too many years to change my ways.”

  Laughing, Muldoon turned back to his paperwork. “Now, that’ll be the day, it will.”

  Bored by lack of something destructive to do, Blake Soures and three of his henchmen decided to pay a visit to the sutler’s store at the new fort. They had a hanker to try out some of the whiskey the government-contracted civilian merchant had in stock. They rode inside the stockade shortly after noon the same day, having noted the watering detail on the way.

  “Somebody’s mighty stupid around these parts,” opined Eden Dillon. Yellowed, snaggy teeth made an unhealthy slash in the lower part of his mouth. “They ain’t gonna git no water outta rock.”

  Blake Soures nodded agreement. “The thing for our Indian friends to do is catch them out in the open, watering horses. Be a regular slaughter.”

  They dismounted at a freshly built, raw, yellow pine tie-rail and looped reins. With his accustomed swagger, Soures led the way into the saloon side of the sutler’s store. There, the first thing he saw was a large sign in bold, black, capital letters.

  HARD LIQUOR SALES PROHIBITED

  TO ENLISTED AND NCO

  PERSONNEL

  (OFFICERS and CIVILIANS ONLY)

  by Order of Lt. Col. Danvers, Commanding.

  Soures pointed it out to his subordinates. “Well, lookie here. Aren’t you glad you didn’t sign on to wear one of those pretty blue uniforms?”

  Pete Price leaned toward Blake Soures. “I betcha we found out who thought up puttin’ this place on a finger of rock.”

  “It ain’t natural, that’s what.” Dillon was put out. “Not right to get between a man an’ his whisky. Downright barbarian.”

  From behind the bar, a jovial-faced man urged them toward the planks. “Seein’ as how none of you gentlemen are soldiers, step right up and enjoy a drink.”

  While the four outlaws settled themselves at the bar, the barkeep poured into large, fish-eye shot glasses. With a deft flick of his wrist, he distributed them to his new customers. “You’re new here, so first round is on the house.”

  Soures answered him with a big grin and a hearty voice. “Now, that’s mighty nice. Much obliged, my good man.” He had listened intently to the conversations of Quinton Praeger and his associates and now often made a conscious effort to mimic their speech mannerisms when he addressed strangers.

  With a good-natured smile, and a wink, the barkeep informed them, “The next one’ll cost you double.”

  Soures eyed the man over the rim of his shot glass, which he had raised to his lips. “Sounds like a place I know of down in the French Quarter of New Orleans.”

  Entermann, the sutler, gave Soures an expression of innocence. “I’ve never been in N’awlins.”

  They shared a laugh and Soures downed his whisky. A moment later, Preacher entered the saloon. He came up short on the threshold and eyed the strangers with immediate suspicion. To the best of his knowledge, there wasn’t a white man within two hundred miles. Except, of course, the ones rumored to be with Iron Shirt. Preacher broke his momentary freeze and crossed the plank floor to the far end of the bar.

  From there, he could keep an eye on all four hardfaced men. For their part, they wasted little time before turning cold, killer’s eyes on Preacher. Their threatening demeanors sent warning jangles along the arms of the mountain man. Ordinarily, he did not wear his pair of Walker Colts inside the fort, only he’d had no time after returning from the water detail to remove them, because of his noon invitation from Eve. Sight of these four set his fingers itching to close around the butt of at least one .44. When they had made clear their awareness of his presence, Preacher seized the main chance.

  “You fellers is new around here. Might I ask what brings you to Fort Washington?” Recently, Danvers had grandiosely named his small compound after the Father of His Country.

  Constantly on the prod, Pete Price made a snotty reply. “You might ask, but you won’t get any answers. So, butt out.”

  Even more on guard, Preacher tried calming words. “Now, now. That’s hardly the way to answer a polite question. Seein’ as how I’m the unofficial welcoming committee, I only sought to make you feel at home.”

  “We don’t need a welcome,” snapped Soures. “Who are you to be pokin’ your nose into our business?”

  “Folks call me Preacher.”

  Thought of the thousand dollars in gold bonus for killing the mountain man named Preacher galvanized Blake Soures. His hand sped to his sash and the butt of a .60-caliber pistol while he shouted to his underlings.

  “We got us a thousand dollars, boys! Get him!”

  With his outside holsters, Preacher beat all four easily. A Walker Colt filled his right hand and he had the hammer falling before the speediest, Pete Price, could clear the barrel of his long single-shot pistol from his belt. A thunderous clap announced the detonation of the powder load in one chamber of Preacher’s Colt.

  A powerful fist slammed into the lock plate of Price’s pistol and rammed it painfully back into his gut. He doubled over painfully and his finger reflexively twitched. An accomplished shootist, Pete Price had cocked the cumbersome firearm before drawing it clear. As a result, another loud blast filled the room and Price blew a fist-sized hole in his left thigh. He went down shrieking in agony while blood spurted from his femoral artery. Now, Preacher had only three to contend with.

  Hot lead cut a painful path across the top of Preacher’s left shoulder. An instant later the Walker spoke again. Its message went to a wooly-faced hard case with mean little pig eyes and a smoking pistol in his left hand. He had fired too soon, Preacher noted. The muzzle was still high. He learned of his mistake when the messenger of death split his breastbone and ripped a hole through his left lung.

  Preacher went to one knee, the .44 Colt erupting a third time. Glass tinkled when the ball shattered the chimney of a wall-mounted coal oil-lamp, after it exited the back of the head of surly Eden Dillon. Preacher cut his eyes to Blake Soures, who had taken refuge behind the bar.

  Intent on making the perfect shot, Soures did not recognize the dreadful image of the Grim Reaper crouched before him in the person of Preacher. A fourth ball fluttered through the air with the leathery rustle of the death angel’s wings. The lead pellet smacked through the bar front and ended in the hinge of Soures’ right elbow. With a howl and a curse, he propelled himself backward, fumbled left-handed with the pistol in his waistband and drew it.

  By then, Preacher had the fourth piece of frontier trash to deal with. Their weapons fired as one. Preacher immediately flattened out on the floor.

  “You got him! You got him, Earl!” Soures shouted as he came full upright in time to hear the bad news.

  “No, I didn’,” Earl gargled out through the blood welling in his throat. “He . . . got . . . me.”

  Horrified, Soures cut his eyes to the floor. He focused at once on the black hole that formed the muzzle of Preacher’s Walker Colt. Flame blossomed in that darkness, then a stunning agony seared through the chest of Blake Soures. He fired his pistol blindly. The slug put a shower of splinters in the face of Preacher, who fired his second Colt into the exposed gut of his would-be killer. Soures died before he hit the floor.

  “Damned unfriendly fellers, I’d say,” Preacher offered to a bug-eyed Hyman Entermann.

  “B’God, Preacher, you are faster than a scalded cat.”

  “I’ve worked at it a mite. Now, I think I’ll have me a beer. Gun-fightin’ gives me a thirst.”
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br />   A moment later, the Provost Marshal, Captain Preston, and three of the afternoon guard detail rushed into the sutler’s store. “What’s going on here?” the officer demanded.

  “Nothin’ now,” Preacher answered laconically.

  “How did these bodies get here?”

  Preacher took a pull on his beer and made a sour face. “Preston, I swear, you don’t have a sensible question to ask. What you should be findin’ out is who started the shootin’.” His annoyance rang in his voice.

  “Well . . . who did start the shooting?”

  Nodding toward the jumble of broken and spilled bottles and the body sprawled among them, Preacher spoke simply. “That one there did.”

  With almost a simper in his prim, disapproving voice, the Provost Marshal declared, “Brawling is prohibited in this establishment or anywhere at Fort Washington. Brawling with firearms is a flogging offense.”

  “You won’t be floggin’ this mother’s son.”

  Captain Preston gauged the man he addressed. “Oh? And why not?”

  “Take a look around you, Captain Preston. There’s four of them here. An’ they were ready for me. An’ I’ve got five loads left for this revolvin’ pistol here.”

  Hyman Entermann interrupted. “It was self-defense, Captain. This one back here said they would be paid a thousand dollars gold for killing Preacher. Then he went for his gun. Preacher beat him. End of story. Now please have your men remove this filth from my establishment.”

  Preacher beamed at the bantam rooster attitude of the sutler. “Yer a good man, Brother Entermann.”

  “There’ll be an investigation,” Captain Preston grumbled darkly. Then he made a curt gesture to the guards.

  Preacher had the last word. “Don’t count on it.”

  Three days later, Preacher awakened as usual an hour before dawn. He pulled on a long-sleeved flannel shirt against the morning chill and stretched out the kinks. He struck flint to steel, ignited the hat-sized fire he had laid out the previous night and put on water to boil for coffee.

  He was working on his second cup in the pearly light of a peaceful dawn when the Blackfoot, Cheyenne and Sioux attacked.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Lieutenant Brice had the water detail for the Company horses. He kept in mind everything Preacher had told his friend, Tom Judson. For one thing, he never looked directly at anything in the shadows of the trees that grew along the gorges that formed the watershed for Goose Creek. Although he could not put a name to it, Brice had a particularly active itch between his shoulder blades.

  It came as no surprise to him, then, when his roving gaze picked out feathers where there should be none. Neatly trimmed feathers at that. Controlling his urge to draw his Dragoon revolver from the saddle holster and fire, he brought up the nose of his drinking horse and ambled over to his platoon sergeant.

  “Sergeant Meaney, pass the word quietly for the men to prepare to draw and fire a cylinder load into those trees over there on my command. Then we get these horses the hell away from here.”

  “May I ask what it is, sir?”

  “Indians, Meaney. Too damned many of them for us to hold off on our own. I have me an itch that tells me they are all around the fort.”

  Sergeant Meaney nodded his understanding. “I have a sore gut that tells me the same, sir.”

  “Very well. Be careful about it, don’t let the savages suspect we know they are there.”

  Throughout their exchange, Lieutenant Brice used all his will to keep from looking at the spot where he had seen the feathers. Now he rode with a tense back to the location, expectant of an arrow at any second. He reached the far end of the formation, told Corporal Grange about the hostiles and then looked back over the detail with every show of boredom.

  To his satisfaction, he saw every man had his hand near or on the sheepskin covers of his pistol’s holster. “All right, men . . . do it now!”

  His own Dragoon pistol came free, and he had the hammer back before the muzzle centered on the area where the feathers had been before. “Fire!”

  A thunderous roar swelled up in the creek bed, as twelve Dragoons emptied six rounds each from their pistols. Immediately they smoothly changed weapons. Lieutenant Brice stood in his stirrups.

  “Back to the fort at the double.... Hooo!”

  With exceptional skill, the platoon had the entire company’s horses on the move and up and out of the creek bed before the hidden Blackfoot could recover from the blazing curtain of lead delivered by the Dragoons. They came on soon enough. Whooping and yipping, all of the Indians broke from concealment and splashed across the creek. In the lead, Red Elk, a Cheyenne, raised his rifle and fired blindly.

  His bullet cracked over the heads of the trailing soldiers. It only served to move them faster. Thinking quickly, Lieutenant Brice put Sergeant Meaney at the head of the string of horses and turned back to hastily form a rear guard. The crackle of their pistols drowned out the war cries of the Blackfoot. The sudden, unexpected conflict triggered a premature opening to the battle.

  While the Dragoons raced for a small sally port near the corral inside the stockade, a long line of Blackfoot warriors whipped their horses to a gallop on the long, steep slope beyond the fort to the west.

  Fully a hundred Blackfoot warriors swept down the steep slope to the west of Fort Washington. An equal number of Cheyenne charged toward the main gate. Behind them loomed the Sioux. Frantically, the sentries labored to swing closed the gates. A bugle blared hysterically. Dragoons on fatigue details dropped their brooms and pitchforks and ran for their Hall carbines. Others spilled from their tents, drawing suspenders over their long-sleeved underwear. Half a dozen ran for the cannon. Preacher made for his lean-to to recover his rifles.

  “Knew they would be comin’,” he shouted to Three Sleeps Norris, headed in the same direction from their cookfire.

  Three Sleeps spat a quid of tobacco from his mouth. “Damn right. Jist a matter of time.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Danvers’s adjutant stood in the middle of the parade ground and bellowed orders. “Companies A and D to the west wall. Companies B and C to the north wall. Get that cannon moving!”

  Dust boiled up inside the compound as Dragoons dashed back and forth, uncertain as to whether they should dismount and man the walls or form as skirmishers for a future counterattack. Gradually the officers calmed and directed them. Rifles crackled from outside.

  Return fire started at once. Preacher heard Captain Dreiling’s firm voice steadying his troops. “Hold your fire until they’re well within range. Hold fast, men. Take careful aim. Ready . . . fire!”

  A swath of lead balls flung thirty-five Cheyenne warriors from their saddles. “Reload . . . take aim . . . fire.”

  Two Moons had the contentment of a man whose dream had come true. He fully believed again in the medicine of Iron Shirt. Now that they traveled down the long-promised warpath to drive out all whites, the Blackfoot war chief banished all doubts. His warriors would be in the second wave to dash down the high mount. They had been given the honor of scaling the wall and fighting the soldiers hand to hand. The first surge, made up of braves from Iron Shirt’s band, who were supposed to give covering fire, had already ridden half the distance to the high, pole barricade. Two Moons reflected on the past moon of difficulties.

  It had taken a lot more effort than Iron Shirt’s white men had expected. Not an easy task to get a warrior, proud of his individual feats of bravery, to work as part of a team. Even now the white man’s word tasted strange in the mouth of Two Moons. What was a team, and what made it a better way to fight? Why was it superior to the way we have fought since the ancestor days? Where is the honor to be won if everyone holds back to shoot at the enemy from behind rocks and from the protection of gulley banks?

  There was little glory in counting coup on a dead man. That was for boys beginning their seasons as warriors. Two Moons recalled the time when his sap ran fresh and hot. He had gone on a raiding party against the Cheyenne. The
y had stolen horses and ridden away without a scratch. The Cheyenne followed them. When the Red Top people came up to them, they offered challenge. A younger Two Moons had ridden out ahead of the line of his Raven Society brothers and shouted insults at the Cheyenne. He had exposed his manhood and waved it in the faces of the enemy while he told them what he would do with it when they had been conquered. Then he had charged directly at them, an arrow nocked and ready. The Cheyenne stared at him as though frozen.

  Two Moons shot one Red Top warrior in the chest, then struck another with his bow. Two perfect coups, and right in front of his brothers! A line of fire ran across the point of his shoulder as a Cheyenne lance barely grazed him. He whirled and rode back, then all the Blackfoot charged.

  The Cheyenne fought like Dark Spirits. One of them had a white man’s fire-stick— no, a rifle— the older Two Moons corrected himself. With it, he killed two of the Blackfoot. Yet, when the fighting ended, Two Moons and his brothers rode away victorious, dripping scalps tied to their bows, and with more Cheyenne horses than they had started with. Now, the Red Top people fought with them, not as enemies. How the world had turned upside down. Two Moons shook his head in wonder.

  From the tree line north of the fort, Spotted Horse could hear the solid thuds when the high gates swung together. The soldiers would be protected now, he thought. How foolish, the Lakota leader thought, for a man to lock himself inside a small place to fight. Only the clear, open plains suited a warrior’s soul. Beyond him, on the narrow shelf that jutted out from the base of the foothills, the Cheyenne, led by Red Elk, raced toward where the soldiers waited. The Sahiela— the Cheyenne—our cousins, are brave and they fight well. Yet, only our braves can match the ferocity of the Blackfoot. Spotted Horse spat as he thought the word for their traditional enemy. How is it that we come to fight beside them?