Again, Preacher interrupted him. “If they’ve gone to the trouble of comin’ after us, they ain’t gonna give up. They’ll stay on our trail until they catch us. The only thing that’ll make them change their minds is to spill enough of their blood to make ’em believe it ain’t worthwhile to keep fightin’.”
“Can we do that?” Edgar Merton asked with obvious doubt.
“Maybe. If we’ve got some high ground to hold.”
“Where are we going to find high ground?” Ryker wanted to know. “Except for those little hills back there, this country is flat as a table!”
“Not to the west. There are some badlands over in that direction. We get amongst ’em, we can put the wagons in a little canyon where the Sioux can’t get to us except one way. We can put riflemen up high, too, to pick some of ’em off.”
Oliver spoke up, saying, “If there’s only one way in to the canyon you’re talking about, that means there’s only one way out, too. We’d be trapped in there as long as they wanted to keep us bottled up.”
Preacher nodded. “That’s why we’ll have to kill enough of ’em to make ’em decide to go back where they came from.” He shrugged. “It’s a gamble, ain’t no two ways about it. But goin’ on the way we’re headed and tryin’ to outrun ’em . . . that’s certain death.”
A moment of silence followed that grim declaration. Finally, Edgar Merton said, “Well . . . if you’re sure . . .”
“I am,” Preacher said flatly.
“Then I suppose we should head west, as you suggest.” Merton raised a hand to silence Ryker when the man opened his mouth to protest. “Do we need to hide our trail, so there’ll be a chance they won’t find us?”
“We can try,” Preacher said. “It probably won’t do any good, but as long as it don’t slow us down, it won’t hurt anything, either.”
“Turn west, Oliver,” Merton ordered his son. “Follow Preacher. Mr. Ryker, pass along the change in plan to the other drivers and the rest of your men.”
“Sure, boss,” Ryker said, even though his jaw was clenched tightly in anger. He jerked his horse’s head around and rode back to the other wagons. As he did, he waved an arm to call in all the outriders.
Oliver Merton hauled on the reins and swung the team of mules around until they were plodding westward. Preacher caught Hawk’s eye and leaned his head toward the other wagons. He wanted Hawk to fall back again and keep an eye out behind them. Hawk nodded to show that he understood and turned his pony.
“You believe an attack to be inevitable, Preacher?” Edgar Merton asked.
“I do,” the mountain man replied.
“Realistically speaking . . . what are our chances of surviving?”
“Well, it ain’t like tryin’ to figure the odds in a poker game. Unless somebody’s cheatin’, there’s only fifty-two cards in a deck. We’re talkin’ about a hundred or more Injuns, plus the fellas in our bunch. That’s a lot to predict.”
Merton smiled faintly. “Is that your way of saying that we don’t stand much of a chance of making it out alive?”
“Nope. Just sayin’ we’ll get ready to fight, and then we’ll see what happens.”
Oliver kept slapping the reins against the backs of the mules, urging them on to greater speed. Trying to, anyway. The stubborn brutes didn’t want to cooperate. With a note of frustration in his voice, Oliver said, “Since it’s starting to look like we may never reach our destination, Father, don’t you think it’s time you tell me just where we were headed and what you intended to do there?”
Preacher cocked an eyebrow when he heard that. So Oliver didn’t know what they were after, either. That was interesting.
“That’s enough, Oliver,” Merton snapped. “You know your grandfather swore me to secrecy and said that I shouldn’t tell anyone until it was absolutely necessary.”
“It’s not necessary, now that we’re facing a great likelihood of death?”
“It won’t change anything for you to know,” Merton said stubbornly. “If it would, I would tell you.” He looked at Preacher. “I trust I can count on your discretion, sir?”
“The only thing on my mind right now is findin’ a good place to kill us some Sioux,” Preacher replied honestly.
* * *
Within an hour’s time, Preacher was able to make out the rising column of dust behind them. He had never doubted Hawk’s word, not for a second, but now he had visual confirmation of the pursuit.
But he could also see a low, lumpy dark line along the western horizon and knew that was the badlands, a mostly arid region of rocky draws and canyons, razor-sharp ridges, and an occasional sandstone spire towering over all of it. In many places, the ground and the rocks had red casts to them, so that when the sun washed over them at certain angles, it looked like some giant butcher had splashed buckets of blood over everything.
By tomorrow morning, it might look like that for real, Preacher mused.
The bleak assessment didn’t show on his face as he pointed out where they were going to Edgar and Oliver Merton.
“Been a good while since I spent much time in that region,” Preacher said, “but I’m pretty sure we won’t have to go too deep into it before we find one o’ those canyons like I was talkin’ about. I hope that’s true, because it’s hard to get wagons in and out o’ there. It’ll be slow goin’.”
“We have to find a good place,” Oliver said. “I . . . I don’t think I could stand it if something were to happen to Chessie . . . I mean, Miss Dayton.”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” his father responded sharply. “Honestly, Oliver, she’s just a common tavern wench. There are hundreds like her in any city. We shouldn’t have brought her along in the first place. You and Ryker are both too smitten with her.”
Oliver showed his irritation with Merton by slapping the reins harder against the mules’ backs. “Common?” he repeated. “Have you not taken a good look at her, Father? Chessie is far from common.”
Merton waved a hand. “She’s attractive, I’ll grant you that. But again, there are a multitude of attractive women in the world. You should know that. You’ve dallied with enough of them who were only interested in your money . . . just like your Miss Dayton.”
Oliver’s face flushed a dark red. He looked like he wanted to turn on the seat and punch his father. Instead he controlled his anger with a visible effort and said to Preacher, “Those tall rocks are very striking. Is that where you plan to put men to fire on the savages?”
“Yep,” Preacher said. “They’ll have to carry food and water up with them, along with powder and shot, because it’s liable to be a while before they’re able to climb down again. Best part about a perch like that is that it’s hard to fire an arrow that high.”
“I don’t think I’d care for being posted there. If that’s all right with you.”
“My son is scared of heights,” Merton said.
“It’s not that . . . I’d rather stay closer to Miss Dayton, so I can be sure she’s protected.” Oliver sneered at his father. “Surely you can understand that . . . or have all the shreds of chivalry inside you dried up?”
“Chivalry never paid a bill,” Merton muttered.
Preacher found their wrangling tiresome. He said, “You know where you’re goin’, Oliver. Just keep headin’ in that direction.” He pointed. “See them two spires settin’ sort of close together? Aim for them, and don’t slow down for nothin’.”
“I can do that, Preacher. What are you going to do?”
“Might be a good idea to scout around a little.” The mountain man turned in the saddle, caught Hawk’s eye, and waved him forward. “Hawk and I will be back when we’ve found a good place to fort up. Don’t worry, we’ll be here before you get to the badlands.”
Hawk loped up on his pony. He had a frown on his face, probably because he didn’t want to leave Chessie. That gal bewitched young men like some sort of . . . witch . . . Preacher thought.
“We’re gonna take a look aro
und up yonder,” Preacher told his son, then nudged Horse into a run. Hawk galloped after him toward the badlands.
CHAPTER 15
Preacher had led the wagons over the stoniest ground he could find in the race to the badlands. He hadn’t really expected that to do much good in hiding their trail, and obviously it hadn’t because the Sioux were still back there, closing in on them.
When you couldn’t avoid a fight, the thing to do was be in the best position to hurt your enemy while minimizing your own chances of getting hurt. The badlands offered a chance at that . . . the only real chance the expedition had.
Preacher and Hawk slowed their mounts as they entered the rocky, broken ground. Dog bounded ahead, leaping from boulder to boulder. Preacher tilted his head back to look up at the spires he had pointed out to Oliver Merton. There was a trail of sorts running between them. It would be rough going for the wagons, but Preacher thought they could make it.
“They look like gates,” Hawk said. “Or sentinels standing guard.”
“Reckon you can climb one of them?”
Hawk shrugged. “I would rather stay with the wagons.”
Like Oliver, Hawk wanted to stay close to Chessie so he could protect her. Preacher knew that, but he couldn’t allow sentiment to color his judgment. He said, “We need good shots up there.”
“Fine,” Hawk replied with a sullen tone in his voice. “But not yet. We must find a place for the rest of the expedition to take cover.”
The two of them rode between the spires and followed the trail a quarter of a mile into the badlands before it twisted sharply and sandstone walls heaved up on both sides. The way the walls leaned toward each other, it was almost like riding into a tunnel that was a hundred yards long.
At the far end, the landscape opened into a rough bowl, and on the far side was a narrow canyon cut into the rocky upthrusts surrounding the bowl. Preacher pointed to it and said, “That’s where we’ll put the wagons. We can make our first stand here at this gap, and if we can’t hold it, we’ll fall back to the canyon.”
“Do you still want riflemen on the spires?”
Preacher thought about it and then nodded. “The men up there can let the Sioux go on past, then start droppin’ ’em from behind when they try to attack through the gap. They’ll think they’re bottlin’ us up, but actually we’ll have them caught between two fires.”
“That could work,” Hawk said with a speculative frown. “There will be too many of them for us to wipe out, though.”
“I ain’t figurin’ on wipin’ ’em out. I just want to hurt ’em bad enough to make ’em light a shuck and leave us alone.”
“We may be able to do that,” Hawk said.
Preacher nudged Horse into motion again. “Let’s go take a look at that canyon and make sure it’ll work for what we need.”
They rode toward the opening. Dog ran ahead and disappeared into the canyon. The mouth of it was fifty feet wide, and the rough walls rose eighty feet to irregular rimrocks. As they entered the canyon, Preacher looked up and then pointed out several ledges.
“If we could get fellas up there, too, they’d have a good field of fire. If we put up just enough of a fight to draw the whole war party into the gap, then with riflemen on the high ground on both ends, we could trap them there.”
“And if they try to break out either end, we will be ready for them.” Hawk nodded. “Yes, that could work.”
Preacher looked around the canyon and asked, “Where’d Dog go?” The big cur was nowhere in sight, so Preacher supposed he had wandered off around a bend farther up the canyon. He whistled, but Dog still didn’t return.
A moment later, though, they heard a series of growls and snarling barks from the other side of that bend, followed by a sharp yelp that made Preacher stiffen in alarm. “What the hell!” he blurted. “Dog!”
He heeled Horse into a run. Hawk followed closely behind. They pounded along the canyon and around the bend. As they did, Preacher spotted Dog sprawled on the rocky canyon floor with a grotesque figure looming over him. It was human but red as a devil, with a shaven head and a wiry body that was nude except for a cloth twisted around its loins. The creature clutched a tomahawk and had it poised to finish off Dog, who was moving around feebly and whining.
Preacher shouted incoherently in rage as he whipped his rifle to his shoulder and fired. The red creature’s arm jerked violently as the rifle ball shattered its elbow. The tomahawk flew out of its fingers. Howling in pain, the creature whirled around and raced away.
Preacher galloped up to Dog and threw himself out of the saddle as Hawk rode on past in pursuit. The big cur was struggling to stand up. Preacher put his arms around his old friend and helped him. He saw a bloody patch on Dog’s head, between the ears, but the wound didn’t appear to be deep. Preacher figured the creature had struck at Dog with the tomahawk but landed only a glancing blow, stunning him.
Dog shook himself and growled as he looked along the canyon where Hawk and his quarry had disappeared. Preacher could tell now that Dog wasn’t badly hurt, and that fact made relief flood through him.
“Lucky for you that ol’ skull bone o’ yours is hard as rock,” he told the cur.
Somewhere along the canyon, another gunshot blasted. Preacher’s head jerked up at the sound.
Dog took off running, already throwing off the effects of his injury in his excitement. Preacher swung into the saddle and charged after him.
As they rounded the bend, Preacher saw Hawk on the ground, fighting with several more of the bizarre red creatures. He gripped the barrel of his rifle and slashed back and forth with it, trying to hold them off as they darted in and hacked at him with tomahawks.
Dog reached the melee first and hit one of the attackers from behind, driving the creature off its feet and tearing at the screeching thing with sharp teeth. Preacher rode down another one. Horse’s hooves snapped bones and pulped flesh as he trampled the creature. Preacher wheeled the stallion and yanked both pistols from behind his belt. They blasted, sending thunderous echoes cascading through the canyon, and two more of the red devils went down.
The others broke off the attack and fled, seeming to vanish into the rocky canyon wall. Preacher knew there had to be cracks and crevices there that served as escape routes.
Blood oozed from a cut on Hawk’s forehead, Preacher saw as he dismounted. The young warrior wasn’t too steady on his feet. Preacher knew that Hawk, like Dog, must have been clipped by a tomahawk, probably thrown at him from ambush. He gripped his son’s arm to brace him and said, “Are you all right, Hawk?”
Hawk didn’t answer the question directly. Instead he asked in a stunned voice, “What . . . what were those things?”
“Indians,” Preacher said. “Outcasts, some call ’em. They’re fellas who are so bad in one way or another that the rest of their tribes don’t want nothin’ to do with ’em. They’ve gathered up here, I reckon, and made their own little tribe.”
“Their skin was so red . . .”
“They crush and grind red sandstone into a powder and then plaster it all over themselves. I used to hear about ’em, but I figured they were just stories that squaws used to scare their young ’uns. Then some fellas I trust told me they had seen the critters with their own eyes, a good ways north of here, so I decided they were real after all. I reckon they’ve drifted down this way since then.”
“They looked insane,” Hawk said in a hollow voice. “Their eyes were like the eyes of snakes, but somehow worse.”
“Because they’re men,” Preacher said. “It ain’t comfortin’ to think that fellas like us could somehow wind up so twisted and evil.”
Hawk shook his head. “We cannot take refuge from the Sioux here. Not with these . . . demons . . . lurking close by, ready to attack.”
“We don’t have any choice,” Preacher said. “Maybe they’ll leave us alone, now that we’ve killed a few of ’em.”
“Do you actually believe this?”
A grim, humorl
ess smile tugged at Preacher’s mouth under the salt-and-pepper mustache. “Nope. But when you’ve got enemies on all sides, the only thing you can do is fight.”
* * *
Preacher sent Hawk back to guide the wagons into the badlands while he dragged the bodies of the dead Indians into a crevice where they would be out of sight. Hawk didn’t want to leave his father there by himself when it was possible the deadly outcasts could return, but Preacher had Dog with him and knew he could count on the cur to warn him if any of the creatures came near.
“He’s got their scent now,” Preacher explained, “and he don’t like it. He’ll let me know if they’re anywhere around.”
Hawk went, reluctantly. Preacher completed the grim task of disposing of the bodies, then explored the canyon further. It ran for about half a mile before narrowing down and ending in a wall of blank stone. The tiny chimneys the outcasts had used to escape were so small it didn’t seem possible that anything human could have writhed through them. Preacher considered the possibility that the creatures would return to attack the expedition and decided that guards would have to be posted to watch the back of the canyon, not just the direction the Sioux would come from.
Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place . . .
He hadn’t expected to run into such danger here in the badlands, but even if he had known about the outcasts moving into this region, he would have had to lead the expedition here. It was the only place they could put up a fight against their pursuers.
How bad did a fella have to be for his own tribe to cast him out? Preacher had heard that some folks back East believed all Indians were noble and peaceful and just wanted to get along with everybody. That was pure foolishness. Life on the frontier was hard and mean and bred hard and mean people, red and white alike. Most tribes tortured their enemies at some point. There was more than enough casual brutality to go around. Cannibalism was uncommon but certainly not unheard of. Preacher didn’t want to speculate too much about what those varmints might have done to make their own people turn on them. He recalled Audie quoting something old Bill Shakespeare wrote about how hell was empty and all the devils were here.
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