“Not a bit. But he’s covered with bruises. I don’t see how he stood up to that much punishment.”
“People have written Preacher off for dead plenty of times. I did it myself once, before I knew better. But that old man will always surprise you. He can stand up to just about anything.”
“Maybe not what they’ve got planned for him,” Matt said. “The Colonel’s decided none of the Indians came here with Preacher, so he figures it’s all right to go ahead and get rid of him.”
“They’re going to find out different.”
Anger filled Smoke at the thought of the beatings Preacher had been forced to endure. They had even more of a score to settle with the Colonel now, he thought.
Matt’s hand gripped Smoke’s arm.
“That may not be the worst of it, Smoke,” he said. “Wildflower is dead.”
That terrible, unexpected news made Smoke catch his breath. He stiffened, his hand instinctively going to the butt of his gun as he asked, “Are you sure?”
“I heard all about it from Randall. He’s the ramrod of the Colonel’s crew of gun-wolves. While they were bringing Wildflower and Little Hawk here after they kidnapped them from Two Bears’s village, she tried to get away. She got hold of a knife and stabbed one of the men, and he lost his head and shot her. Then Randall killed him for disobeying orders.” Matt paused. “I get the feeling that Randall and the Colonel are both a little loco, Smoke. They rode together in the Union cavalry during the war, and the Colonel especially seems to think he’s still commanding an army unit about half the time.”
“Just because a man’s loco doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous.”
“I thought the same thing,” Matt said.
“What about Little Hawk?”
“He’s in the mansion, too. The Colonel’s housekeeper has been taking care of him. As far as I’ve been able to find out, he’s doing fine. He’s too young to understand that his ma is dead.”
“Poor little varmint,” Smoke muttered. “When we take Preacher out of there, we’ll have to bring Little Hawk with us, too.”
“A shootout with a baby in the middle of it?” Matt sounded pretty doubtful about that.
“Maybe there won’t be a shootout.”
“The Colonel’s got a dozen men standing guard. I don’t see how we’ll get in and out without swapping lead with them.”
Smoke rubbed his chin in the darkness and said, “Those hombres need something else to keep them busy. Maybe I can come up with something to accomplish that.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Since they know you already, stick close to the house. I’m going to head back out to Standing Rock’s camp and break the bad news to him. Then he and his men are going to pretend to attack the town in order to draw off the Colonel’s guards. When that happens, you and I will get Preacher and the little boy.” Smoke paused, then asked, “How’d you get in good with them so quickly, anyway?”
“I pitched in to help Randall when one of his own men tried to bushwhack him. The fella was a friend of the man who killed Wildflower. He’d been nursing a grudge against Randall ever since that happened.”
“That was a lucky break for us,” Smoke said, “but bad luck all around for everybody else. This whole thing is about the railroad, isn’t it?”
“Yep. The Colonel sent a message to Two Bears saying that he has both Wildflower and Little Hawk, and if Two Bears wants them back he and his people have to get off the land the Colonel wants.”
Smoke’s eyes narrowed as he said, “If the Colonel and this fella Randall happen to get in our way when we go in there . . .”
“I’m sort of hoping they do,” Matt said. “We need to hurry, though, Smoke. The Colonel told Randall to wait until after the housekeeper had gone to bed to kill Preacher. She’s been taking care of him, and the Colonel didn’t want her to find out about it until after everything was over. I don’t have any idea what time she turns in, but it might be soon.”
“I’m on my way to fetch Standing Rock right now. Good luck, Matt.”
“Reckon we can use all of that we can get,” Matt said.
If the hostler at the livery stable thought it was odd that Smoke was taking the ’Palouse back out only a couple of hours after bringing him in, he didn’t say anything. Smoke handled the saddling up himself and rode out of town at a leisurely pace so as not to draw attention, and then put the big horse into a gallop toward Standing Rock’s camp as soon as he was clear of the settlement.
Even though Smoke had been over the route only once, and that during the day, he didn’t have any trouble finding the place he was looking for. Once he had been over a trail, he was always able to retrace it. He turned up the canyon and began following the little creek.
He expected Standing Rock to have sentries out, so when he came close to the camp he called softly, “It’s Smoke Jensen. Hold your fire.”
Standing Rock himself was standing guard. Smoke recognized the warrior’s voice when he said, “Jensen. Come ahead.”
Smoke wasn’t looking forward to telling the man that his wife was dead. Even after all these years, he remembered how hearing about the tragic fate of his first wife, Nicole, had been like a knife in his guts. For a long time, he had been almost consumed by grief and the hatred for her murderers that gripped him. The fact that their son, Arthur, had been killed, too, had just made it worse.
At least Standing Rock would still have his son, once they succeeded in rescuing Little Hawk from the Colonel. That would be scant comfort for Standing Rock at first, but any comfort was better than nothing.
Smoke dismounted and led the ’Palouse forward into the trees. He said, “Standing Rock, I have to talk to you.”
Standing Rock came out of the shadows. He asked, “Have you found my wife and son, Jensen?”
There was no good way to do this. Smoke said, “I know where Little Hawk is. He’s all right. But I’m sorry, Standing Rock, Wildflower is dead.”
He heard the hiss of breath through Standing Rock’s clenched teeth. Other than that there was silence for a second. Then the warrior said in a low, intense voice, “No! You lie!”
Standing Rock took a step forward, and Smoke knew that the man’s first instinct was to strike out at him. He was ready to stop Standing Rock without hurting him too much, if he had to.
“I’m sorry, but it’s true. She was killed while they were bringing her here to use her as a hostage to force your people to move. For what it’s worth, the man who shot her when she tried to escape is dead, too. And your son is alive and unharmed, Standing Rock. Remember that.”
Smoke heard the harsh rasp of the warror’s breathing as Standing Rock struggled to come to grips with the awful news he had just heard. Minutes went by. Smoke didn’t want to rush him because he knew how much Standing Rock was hurting right now, but Preacher still had that death sentence hanging over his head.
Finally, Standing Rock said, “My son . . . where is he?”
“Little Hawk is in the house of the man responsible for everything, the man who owns that settlement and almost everything in it. And Preacher is there, too, being held prisoner. He was captured when he tried to rescue Little Hawk. That’s why he never came back from scouting the town.”
“We will ride in and free both of them. And anyone who tries to stop us, we will kill!”
“I understand why you feel that way, Standing Rock,” Smoke said.
“You do not know!”
“The hell I don’t,” Smoke replied with a hard edge in his voice. “I was married to a woman who was killed by evil men, too. They murdered my child as well. So I know good and well why you feel like riding in there and shooting everybody you see. But most of the people in the settlement are innocent. They don’t have anything to do with the Colonel and his plans.” Smoke paused. “Anyway, you ride in on a rampage like that and you’ll just get yourself killed along with all your men, and the Colonel will still have Little Hawk. Matt and I have a plan, though, and w
e need your help to carry it out.”
Again Standing Rock didn’t say anything while precious time slipped past. But then he asked, “If this plan of yours succeeds, my son will be free? He will be returned to me?”
“That’s right.”
“And the men responsible for this evil? They will pay with their lives?”
“I reckon you can count on that,” Smoke said.
Chapter 40
Mrs. Dayton brought Preacher more stew for supper, along with a cup of hot tea this time. He didn’t know why Randall hadn’t come back up to the attic to carry out another beating, but he was grateful for the respite.
The housekeeper had brought a blanket with her, too. After she finished feeding Preacher, she said, “Here, let me drape this around you.”
“That’s all right, ma’am,” he told her. “I know I ain’t got no shirt on, but it stays pretty warm up here.”
That was an understatement. During the day, depending on how brightly the sun was shining, the little windowless chamber right under the roof could get almost unbearably hot. When Preacher was strung up from the beam, sweat sometimes rolled off his torso.
“Nonsense,” Mrs. Dayton insisted. “It’s going to get pretty chilly tonight. I can feel it in my bones. You wouldn’t argue with a woman’s intuition, would you?”
“I learned a long time ago not to argue with a woman, period,” Preacher said as he summoned up a grin. “It’s a plumb waste of time and energy.”
“That’s right,” she said. She put the blanket around his shoulders and tucked the trailing ends into his lap.
“Careful, ma’am,” the guard warned her. “You shouldn’t be gettin’ that close to the old varmint.”
She gave him a scornful look as she straightened.
“The poor man is tied hand and foot,” she pointed out. “About the only thing he could do is bite me, and I hardly think that he’s going to do that.”
“No, ma’am,” Preacher said. “I’m a heap too chivalrous to go around bitin’ ladies . . . less’n they want me to, and at my age, that ain’t too likely to happen.”
She laughed as she picked up the tray with his empty bowl and cup on it.
“I hope you can at least draw a little comfort from that blanket tonight,” she said.
“Yes’m, I’ll try,” Preacher promised, although he still didn’t think that he needed the blanket.
Then he moved his bound hands slightly and realized he was wrong about that.
Very wrong.
Mrs. Dayton nodded to him and went out. Preacher kept his face expressionless and let his head droop forward a little in an attitude of despair that was far from what he was really feeling.
With a little careful exploration, moving his fingers so slowly the guard wouldn’t notice, Preacher was able to determine that a fold of fabric on the inside of the blanket had been pinned closed, forming a small pocket. Preacher felt a small, hard object inside that crude pocket. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it had to be something Mrs. Dayton knew she shouldn’t be giving him, otherwise she wouldn’t have concealed it like this.
Carefully, Preacher removed the pins and dropped them between his legs onto the cot. The hidden object slid out into the palm of his hand. It was a small shaving razor, closed at the moment.
Was she trying to help him escape? That was sure what it seemed like. He didn’t think she had smuggled the razor to him so he could shave off his whiskers.
The guard usually went out of the room with Mrs. Dayton, but this hombre had lingered. He leered at Preacher and said, “You think you’re a tough old bird, don’t you?”
“I been alive a hell of a long time,” the mountain man replied. “I must’ve been doin’ somethin’ right all these years.”
“Or maybe you’re just a lucky son of a bitch.”
“I’ve had my share of luck,” Preacher admitted as he eased the razor out of its handle. “The thing of it is, you got to be prepared to take advantage of that luck when it comes along.”
“It’s not coming along for you,” the man said, still sneering. “You’re done, mister. The Colonel’s tired of messin’ with you. And when the Colonel gets tired of something, you know what he does with it? He gets rid of it! Haw, haw!”
“Is that so?” Preacher tested the razor’s keenness with his thumb, and then pressed it against the ropes around his wrists. He began to saw back and forth with slow, short strokes. “Are you sayin’ I ought to be worried?”
“No, it’s too late for that. You ought to be prayin’ instead of worryin’.”
Preacher’s eyes narrowed.
“There’s an old sayin’ about how the Good Lord helps those who help themselves.”
“Yeah, but there’s not a blasted thing you can do to help yourself, old man.”
The guard turned toward the door, and Preacher knew he was about to leave. He said, “Hold on, hold on.”
Looking annoyed now, the guard glanced around and asked, “What do you want?”
Preacher felt some of the strands of rope part. He said, “If this is gonna be my last night on earth, the way you’re actin’ like, I, uh . . . well, I don’t really want to spend it by myself.”
The razor cut through another strand.
“What the devil do you want out of me?” the guard demanded. “I’m not gonna sit around and sing hymns with you, if that’s what you’ve got in mind!”
“Hell, no!” Preacher exclaimed, and he hoped his voice was loud enough to cover the small sound the rope made when he tensed his arms and broke the last strands binding his wrists. While he was tied he had kept working his fingers a little from time to time so his hands wouldn’t go completely numb, and that effort paid off now because he was able to grasp the razor’s handle. He went on, “I was hopin’ you’d go to the saloon and bring back one of the gals who work there.”
“You want me to fetch you a whore? An old buzzard like you?” The guard threw his head back and laughed. “Why, you crazy old coot! What do you think you could do with a whore?”
“More than you,” Preacher said he lunged up off the cot and slashed the razor across the guard’s throat. Blood spurted out of the gaping wound in a grisly fountain.
The gunman’s eyes bulged out in shock, pain, and horror. He made a gurgling sound, but he wasn’t able to scream. As he reeled back, he clawed at the gun on his hip. He got his hand on the revolver’s butt, but wasn’t able to draw it before Preacher grabbed him in a bear hug, pinning his arms to his sides. They swayed there, both men struggling desperately even though they moved very little, as blood continued to bubble from the guard’s severed arteries and veins. It flowed down between them and coated Preacher’s bare chest like a crimson beard.
After a moment, the guard’s efforts weakened. From a distance of a few inches, Preacher watched as life faded from the man’s eyes. He didn’t let go, though, until he was sure the guard was dead. Then he carefully lowered the man onto the cot. The heavy thump of a body falling on the floor might attract attention downstairs, and Preacher didn’t want that.
A wave of dizziness and weakness went through him as he bent to cut the ropes around his ankles with the razor. He had to put his free hand on the cot to steady himself.
“You ain’t as young as you used to be, old son,” he muttered to himself.
When his arms and legs were free, he straightened and looked down at himself with distaste. He was covered with blood and looked like a particularly stringy carcass ready to be strung up in a butcher’s shop.
That couldn’t be helped. He closed the razor and tucked it in the waistband of his trousers. Then he pulled the guard’s revolver from its holster and checked the cylinder. There were five rounds, with the hammer resting on an empty chamber. The gunman had been smart in that respect, even though he was dumb as a rock in others. Preacher took another half-dozen cartridges from the loops on the man’s gun belt and clutched them in his left hand, since he didn’t have any other way to carry them.
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sp; A creaking stair step made him whirl around in that direction. The gun in his hand came up, ready to fire with his finger tense on the trigger.
Mrs. Dayton gasped and flinched back, her eyes widening as she found herself staring down the barrel of the weapon.
“Oh, my God,” she whispered as she stood there in the opening at the top of the stairs. “So much blood.”
“None of it’s mine,” Preacher said as he lowered the revolver. “I put that razor you hid in the blanket to good use.”
A shudder went through her as she glanced at the dead guard on the cot. She averted her eyes and said, “When the guard didn’t follow me downstairs I knew something had happened. I came back to tell you that you have to get out of here. The Colonel plans to have you killed tonight!”
“I ain’t surprised. I’m obliged to you for your help, but I sure didn’t expect it.”
She drew in a deep, ragged breath and said, “I . . . I just couldn’t let it go on. I was outside the door of the library when I heard him tell Randall and that other man to get rid of you and dispose of the body after I went to bed tonight. There have been so many things he’s done over the years . . . such terrible things . . . and I always turned a blind eye to them because he was kind to me and I . . . I had grown to care for him. But it’s finally too much. To have a woman and her child kidnapped . . . to bear the ultimate responsibility for her death and for that baby growing up without a mother . . . you see, I had a child once . . . I doubt if Hudson even remembers . . . and then to order you killed like that, so coldly, so casually . . . it was just one murder too many. . . .”
The words spilled erratically from her mouth, and Preacher knew she was edging toward hysteria. He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. She flinched, but didn’t pull away from his bloodstained grip.
“You done the right thing,” he told her. “I’m sorry the Colonel maybe ain’t the same man he once was, but you got to look at things the way they are, and he’s got to be stopped.”
“I know,” she whispered. “Right now, though, I want you to leave. Get away while you can, before they kill you.”
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