Preacher's Kill

by William W. Johnstone

“Early this morning,” the man replied. “Jim and me were supposed to wait here for a couple of days and take care of you and the Indian if you showed up.”

  Oliver said, “It didn’t bother you that Ryker was telling you to commit cold-blooded murder?”

  “Kid, I’ve ridden with Ryker long enough to know I didn’t want to cross him. That seemed like a quick way to wind up dead. You don’t know how snake-mean that fella can be.”

  “I know, all right,” Preacher said. “Comparin’ him to a snake probably ain’t fair . . . to the snake.”

  CHAPTER 28

  They had to go after Ryker, of course; there was no question about that. The man’s bad intentions were out in the open now. As soon as he got what he wanted, he would finish off Edgar Merton. Preacher was sure of that.

  For now, though, according to Hopkins, Merton was still alive. Hopkins had gotten a glimpse of him in the wagon as the rest of the expedition set off toward the Black Hills, leaving the two ambushers behind.

  That meant he was still of some use to Hoyt Ryker, probably to lead the others to a specific spot. But once Merton had outlived his usefulness . . .

  With Brill dead and Hopkins a prisoner, Ryker had six men left. Not terrible odds when Preacher and his companions caught up to them. In fact, if they could rescue Edgar Merton, the numbers would be almost even.

  “Did Ryker leave horses for you and your partner?” Preacher asked Hopkins, who had proven willing enough to cooperate that the mountain man had allowed him to sit up.

  “Yeah. They’re tied back on the other side of this hill.”

  “Two horses,” Hawk said. “Not enough for all of us without riding double.”

  Hopkins frowned and said, “Wait a minute. There are five of us.”

  Hawk put a hand on his knife and gave the man a cold stare. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to in order to make a shudder go through Hopkins.

  “W-wait a minute,” the man began to babble. “I helped you. I told you everything you wanted to know. You can’t just . . . just . . .”

  “Take it easy,” Preacher said. “You tried to kill us, mister. Hawk could cut your throat and never lose a minute’s sleep over it. To tell you the truth, I reckon I could, too. But you might be of some use to us later on, as long as you cooperate. Give us any trouble and we’ll leave you for the buzzards. Don’t doubt that for a second.”

  “No trouble,” Hopkins said. “I don’t owe Ryker or any of those other boys a damned thing!”

  Anybody who would betray his comrades that easily would turn on anybody else he threw in with, Preacher mused, so he knew better than to trust the man. For the moment, though, Hopkins was too scared to do anything except what he was told.

  “Tie his hands behind his back,” Preacher said to Hawk.

  “You intend to leave him alive? Even worse, to bring him along with us?”

  “Like I said, he might be able to give us a hand when we catch up to the rest of the bunch.”

  “He will slow us down.” Hawk frowned as he studied Preacher for a moment. “But you are not in a hurry to catch them, are you?”

  Oliver looked surprised to hear that. “What?” he said. “We have to help my father as soon as possible!”

  “Ryker ain’t gonna hurt your pa any more than he already has,” Preacher said. “He needs him, or he’d already be dead. Hate to be so blunt about it, Oliver, but them’s the plain facts of the matter.”

  “Ryker could have killed Father after they left here.”

  “Why would he wait? Why not do it as soon as he found out that your pa was headin’ for the Black Hills?” Preacher shook his head. “No, there’s got to be more to it than that, and that’s why he’ll keep your pa alive.”

  Oliver turned to Hawk and demanded, “Why did you say Preacher doesn’t want to catch them?”

  “I said he does not want to catch them too soon,” the young half-Absaroka warrior replied as he finished lashing Hopkins’s wrists together with rawhide thongs behind the man’s back. “He wants your father to lead Ryker to whatever was his objective all along, and lead us there at the same time.”

  Oliver looked at Preacher. “Is this true?”

  The mountain man shrugged. “We’re all headed for the same place,” he said. “And I don’t mean whatever’s on the other side of the divide, although that’s true, too. We might as well hang back, let your pa and Ryker get where they’re goin, and make our move then, when we find out what it’s all about.”

  “I don’t like it,” Oliver said, shaking his head. “I don’t like it at all.”

  Before they could discuss it any further, Chessie came out of the brush where she had gone to put her clothes on. Even under the circumstances, Hopkins’s eyes had almost bulged out of their sockets when he’d seen her crimson-dusted near-nudity covered up only by Oliver’s coat. Even now she wore only her undergarments, again with the coat over them, because her dress had been lost back in that avalanche.

  She must not have overheard any of the conversation she had interrupted, because she asked Preacher, Hawk, and Oliver, “Have you decided what we’re going to do?”

  “Evidently we’re going to take our time rescuing my father,” Oliver said with a bitter edge to the words.

  “What?”

  “Preacher thinks it would be better to let them reach these so-called Black Hills first.”

  Chessie looked at Preacher. “But why?”

  “You can tell her all about it, Oliver,” Preacher said. “Hawk and I are gonna go find those horses. Keep an eye on Hopkins while we’re gone.”

  “All right, fine,” Oliver said, not trying to keep the sullenness out of his voice.

  As Preacher and Hawk walked up the hill, out of earshot of the others, the young man said, “I understand why you believe your course is right, Preacher, but it would be better to cut that man’s throat and catch up to Ryker as soon as possible. You gamble with all of our lives to satisfy your own curiosity.”

  “Maybe,” Preacher allowed, “but just bein’ born puts you in the game with the highest stakes of all.”

  * * *

  It didn’t take long for them to find the two horses and bring them back. Preacher said, “Oliver, you and Chessie ride double on one of ’em. Hawk and me will take turns on the other horse.” He looked at Hopkins. “You’re gonna be hoofin’ it.”

  “That’s cruel,” Hopkins said.

  “You ain’t tryin’ to breathe through a second mouth cut in your throat, so I wouldn’t be complainin’ too much if I was you.”

  Hopkins shut up after that, but he still had a sullen expression on his face.

  Oliver mounted up first, then took Chessie’s hand and helped her climb onto the horse in front of him. He took the reins in his right hand while he slid his left arm around her to steady her.

  Hawk frowned at this arrangement but didn’t say anything. Preacher hoped the youngster was starting to realize there was no future for him and Chessie. There never had been.

  Preacher motioned Hawk into the other horse’s saddle, then put a hand on Hopkins’s shoulder and gave him a push toward the bottom of the slope.

  “Let’s go,” the mountain man said. “It’s still a good ways to the Black Hills.”

  They covered several miles that afternoon. As they headed north, Oliver asked, “What’s in these so-called Black Hills, anyway?”

  Preacher explained the beliefs the Sioux held about the region, then said, “I’ve heard tell of a few fellas tryin’ to do some trappin’ in there. There are plenty of creeks runnin’ through those hills, and that means plenty of beaver. I never ventured very far into ’em, myself. Heard too many stories about men who lost their hair for gettin’ greedy. And it just didn’t seem right, knowin’ the way the Sioux feel about the place.”

  “Surely you don’t believe it’s true, though,” Oliver said.

  “You mean about the Pahá Sápa bein’ the home of the spirits?” Preacher chuckled. “I’ve never run across any p
roof that it ain’t true.”

  “But those are heathen beliefs,” Chessie said.

  “From time to time, I been accused of bein’ a heathen. I figure there’s worse things. Mostly, though, it seems the only way to really find out the truth about what’s on the other side of the divide is by dyin’, and I ain’t quite ready to do that yet. So I’m content to be mystified for now.” Preacher grinned. “Audie taught me that highfalutin word. It’s a good one.”

  By evening, they had left the small range of hills behind and were back out on the prairie. As twilight settled down, they made a cold camp. Hopkins was exhausted from walking and had a headache from banging his head on that log. He stretched out on the ground and fell asleep almost instantly. Preacher had walked the same distance, but his muscles were like rawhide and he barely felt the effort.

  They would split the guard duty into three shifts among Preacher, Hawk, and Oliver. Chessie insisted that she could take a turn, but Oliver wouldn’t hear of it.

  “After everything you’ve been through, you need to rest,” he told her.

  “I haven’t been through that much more than any of the rest of you,” she said.

  “You were held captive by those terrible creatures longer than we were. You must have been terrified.”

  “I was,” Chessie admitted. “But then Hawk freed us, and that was a wonderful feeling.”

  Hawk didn’t say anything, but Preacher could tell he was pleased by Chessie’s words.

  The night passed quietly, as Preacher expected. He couldn’t rule out the possibility of the outcasts leaving the badlands and coming after them, but it seemed mighty unlikely because so many of them had been killed by the mountain man and his companions.

  Nor was there much chance of the Sioux they had clashed with earlier pursuing them. Of course, they might run across another band of Sioux. The tribe roamed all over these northern plains and up into Canada. But if that happened, it would be pure bad luck, with no way to foresee it.

  Hoyt Ryker and the rest of his bunch were well ahead. Preacher wasn’t worried about them. Ryker wasn’t going to slow down or turn back until he found out what was so important to Edgar Merton. Just as Preacher had anticipated all the way back in St. Louis, Ryker had seized the first good chance to betray his erstwhile employer. He wouldn’t abandon the search for answers now.

  And neither would Preacher.

  CHAPTER 29

  Preacher wasn’t the sort to take pity on a fella who’d done his damnedest to kill him, but the next day he allowed Thad Hopkins to ride the second horse for a while anyway. Hopkins had been stumbling along in obvious exhausted misery for most of the day when Preacher dismounted and told the man to take his place.

  Hawk and Oliver scowled when he did that. Preacher knew both young men would have left Hopkins for the buzzards if it were up to them, but that didn’t bother him. He had never lived his life by any code except his own.

  During the afternoon, a range of small mountains became visible on the northern horizon. Chessie saw them and asked, “Are those the Black Hills?”

  “That’s them, all right,” Preacher replied. “Beautiful country, once you get amongst ’em. You can see why the Sioux would think there was somethin’ sacred about them.”

  “Will we be there by nightfall?”

  Preacher shook his head. “No, not hardly. We’ll be doin’ good to get that far by the end of the day tomorrow. Might even be the next day.”

  “But they look so close!”

  Oliver said, “Distances are deceptive out here. So are the way things look. Those mountains are probably a lot bigger and more extensive than they appear from here, aren’t they, Preacher?”

  “Well, they ain’t as big as the Tetons, over west of here,” the mountain man replied. “They’re tall enough to be mountains, in spite of the name folks have hung on ’em, but when it comes to mountains out here on the frontier, they’re on the small side. Plenty big and rugged enough, though, if you’ve got to climb ’em. You’ll see when we get there.”

  Oliver gestured toward the wagon tracks they had been following for the past two days. “Will we be able to follow the trail once they get into the mountains?”

  “Should be able to. There are only certain ways you can take wagons in there.” Preacher looked up at Hopkins on the second horse. “How were you and Brill supposed to find Ryker and the others if you didn’t catch up before they got to the mountains? Did Ryker mention any landmarks Oliver’s pa might’ve told him about?”

  Hopkins frowned in thought, then said, “He figured we’d catch up. But he did say, in case we didn’t, that we ought to look for a place where two creeks flow in from the west through some deep gulches and come together to make one. Does that make sense to you, Preacher?”

  “Reckon maybe it might. I recollect a place like that from the last time I was through these parts. Pretty rough country thereabouts.”

  “Can you find it again?” Oliver asked.

  “I’ve been there before,” Preacher said, as if that answered the question. Which, as a matter of fact, it did.

  They made a cold camp again that night and stood guard in the same shifts as the night before. The next morning, they resumed the northward trek with the prisoner walking again.

  Being able to ride for a while the day before seemed to have lifted Hopkins’s spirits. As he trudged along between Preacher and the horse Hawk was riding at the moment, he said, “You know, I could walk a lot easier if you’d untie me.”

  “Your legs ain’t tied,” Preacher said. “You ain’t havin’ to hop along.”

  “Yeah, but it’s really awkward and uncomfortable with my arms pulled back and my hands tied behind me. You could tie them in front of me.”

  “Which would also make it easier for you to grab a gun or a knife.” Preacher shook his head. “If you’d shot me like you did your damnedest to, I reckon that would’ve been pretty uncomfortable for me. Like I’ve told you before, Hopkins, just be grateful you’re still alive. I’m the only one who wanted to keep you that way.”

  “This is true,” Hawk said solemnly from horseback.

  Hopkins sighed, kept his mouth shut, and plodded on.

  As Preacher expected, by the end of the day the Black Hills appeared to be just as far away as ever. Chessie was discouraged by their apparent lack of progress, even after a long day of traveling, but Preacher assured her that the next day, they would be able to tell a difference.

  That turned out to be the case, as by midday the mountains were noticeably closer, but even so, the group’s approach was maddeningly slow. It was late in the afternoon of the third day after escaping the outcasts before they actually drew near the wooded slopes.

  When they were still a mile out, Preacher called a halt and announced, “This is where Hawk and me will be leavin’ the three of you.”

  Oliver, Chessie, and Hopkins all stared at him in confusion.

  “We’re gettin’ close enough that somebody with a spyglass might be able to spot us if we kept goin’,” the mountain man continued. “Oliver, you and Chessie will ride in front, like you’re prisoners. Hopkins, you bring up the rear. Your hands will be tied to the saddle, so don’t get no ideas.”

  Oliver said, “If he’s behind us, he could turn and gallop off before I could stop him.”

  “And he’d be stuck tied to that horse out here in the middle of nowhere with no weapons and no supplies.” Preacher smiled coldly at Hopkins. “You can try it if you want, I reckon, but you’ll stand a lot better chance of comin’ through this alive if you do what you’re told.”

  “I don’t see how you figure that,” Hopkins said with a bitter edge in his voice. “Even if you’re able to get the better of Ryker and the others, which doesn’t seem very likely to me, you’ll just kill me when it’s over.”

  Preacher shook his head. “Cooperate and I’ll turn you loose. You’ve got my word on that.” He rested his hand on the knife at his waist. “If that ain’t to your likin’ . . .
”

  Hastily, Hopkins held up a hand and said, “No, that’s all right. I suppose I don’t have much choice but to go along with what you want.”

  “No other good choice,” Preacher said.

  Hopkins shrugged. “Tell me what to do.”

  Hawk dismounted and untied the prisoner’s bonds. Hopkins climbed onto the horse, grimacing at the painful play of stiff muscles. Hawk used the same strips of rawhide to lash the man’s wrists to the saddle in front of him. Hopkins winced as Hawk pulled the rawhide even tighter than before.

  “My hands are gonna get so numb they’ll fall off.”

  “You complain more than an old woman,” Hawk said.

  Oliver asked, “What are you and Hawk going to do, Preacher?”

  The mountain man gestured. “We’ll circle around on foot and come at the hills from a different angle, keepin’ low so we’ll be hard to spot. Wait here an hour to give us time to get there, then go straight on.” Preacher pointed. “Head for that little notch. We’ll be somewhere close by, keepin’ an eye on you. If Ryker left anybody behind to meet you, we’ll deal with ’em. If not, we’ll join up again and make camp, then push deeper into the hills tomorrow usin’ the same method, you three on horseback and me and Hawk lurkin’ around the vicinity.”

  “What about that other man?” Oliver said. “Brill. If there’s anyone waiting, they’re bound to notice that he’s not with us.”

  “Anybody from Ryker’s bunch will figure Brill got killed when him and Hopkins ambushed us. They’ll believe that Hawk and me are dead, too, otherwise Hopkins wouldn’t be waltzin’ up with the two of you as his prisoners. Make sense?”

  “Yes, I suppose it does. If one of Ryker’s men spotted you and Hawk with us, he’d hurry back to Ryker and warn him.”

  Preacher nodded. “Yep. You gonna behave, Hopkins?”

  “What choice do I have?” the man asked sullenly. “You’ll probably be somewhere close by, ready to put a rifle ball through my head if I try to double-cross you.”

  “Now you’re catchin’ on,” Preacher said with a grin. “Come on, Hawk. You, too, Dog.”