They had reached a point where the cliffs loomed over them when Nighthawk grunted, started moving faster, and climbed a bare slope toward a nest of boulders. Audie hurried to keep up with the Crow’s long-legged strides, following him.
Before they reached the rocks, Audie saw what had caught Nighthawk’s eye. Buzzards formed a dark mass as they fed on something lying on a rock slab. The ugly birds rose into the air, squawking in protest as the two men approached.
“Merciful God in heaven,” Audie breathed as he saw what the buzzards left behind.
It had been a man, and enough of his clothes remained to recognize what Jacob Rawley had been wearing when he’d visited their camp the previous evening. It was the only way Audie could tell who the dead man had been. Not much of his face remained.
The buzzards had been at his chest, too, and that was rather odd. Rawley’s buckskin shirt wasn’t torn open raggedly as the birds might have done to get at his flesh. It looked like someone had cut a slit in the shirt, then ripped it back. The straight edges of the cut remained, indicating that a blade had been used.
Rib bones were visible through the bloody, shredded flesh. Nighthawk leaned forward, studied the mutilated trapper for a moment, and then pointed at Rawley’s chest.
Stepping closer, Audie grasped instantly what had caught Nighthawk’s interest. “Good Lord. It looks like someone reached in there and pried those ribs apart. Why in the world—”
“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 Three
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 packhorse’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 long-standing 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 packhorse. 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 wore. 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.
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2016 J. A. Johnstone
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
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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 Gunfighter, Mountain Man, and Eagles, among others. This novel was inspired by Mr. Johnstone’s superb storytelling.
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ISBN: 978-0-7860-3577-9
First electronic edition: February 2016
ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-3578-6
ISBN-10: 0-7860-3578-1
Notes
1 The Union Pacific Railroad employed 331 Chinese and 150 whites in their coal mine in Rock Springs, Wyoming. On September 2, 1885, Chinese and white miners, who were paid by the ton, had a dispute over who had the right to work in a particularly desirable area of the mine. White miners, members of the Knights of Labor, beat two Chinese miners and walked off their jobs. That evening the white miners, armed with rifles, rioted and burned down the Chinese quarter. No whites were prosecuted for the murder of twenty-eight Chinese and $150,000 in property damage, even though the identities of those responsible were widely known.
2 In the book Snake River Slaughter, Matt helped Kitty Wellington deliver five hundred horses to the U.S. Army at Fort Sheridan near Chicago. He felt a particular attachment to Kitty, because he had known her in the Soda Creek Home for Wayward Boys and Girls, the orphanage where they both were residents.
The Great Train Massacre Page 29
