Nimbly, Preacher stepped aside from the charge and grabbed the front of Roland’s shirt. He threw the young man to the ground again. Stubbornly, Roland struggled back to his feet.
Some of the bullwhackers had noticed what was going on and started yelling, “Fight! Fight!” The men began to converge, hustling around the wagons to watch. Preacher caught glimpses of Lorenzo and Bartlett among them.
For the most part, he ignored the spectators. Pointing a finger at Roland, he said, “Now that’s enough. I don’t want to fight you—”
“You’re gonna have to,” Roland interrupted. “I’m going to thrash you, Preacher.”
“Not on your best day and my worst one, boy,” Preacher said.
“You’ve got to pay for hurting Casey—”
She broke into his breathless declaration, saying, “Roland, no! You don’t have to defend me.” She came up beside him and clutched his arm. “I’m fine.”
He looked over at her. “He made you cry.”
“It doesn’t matter. I was just being foolish.”
Roland shook her off. “I don’t care. I won’t let him get away with it.”
With clenched fists, he started toward Preacher again.
Preacher held up a hand, palm out. “Blast it, Roland, back off. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You’ll have to kill me to stop me,” Roland said through gritted teeth.
“Roland!” Leeman Bartlett called out sharply. “Stop this foolishness right now. I won’t have my son brawling in the mud over some woman. Stop it, I say!”
Roland ignored the orders his father barked at him, just as he ignored Casey’s pleas to end the fight. His face was set in grim lines, as he continued his menacing advance toward Preacher.
The mountain man watched him closely, wondering if he would have to knock the boy out to get him to settle down. Preacher was ready to react if the youngster threw a punch.
Before that could happen, a shrill scream of terror suddenly split the night. It came from outside the circle of wagons. Everyone’s head jerked in that direction. A shot boomed out, followed by another scream.
Preacher reacted instantly, jerking the pistols out of his belt and breaking into a run toward the sounds. As he pushed his way through the oxen, which slowed him down, he heard a man yell, “No, no!” then the plea abruptly choked off in a hideous gurgle.
Preacher broke free of the livestock and hurdled a wagon tongue. It was dark on that side. Only a faint flickering glow from the campfire reached the area, but it was enough to show Preacher a huge, swiftly moving shadow. He couldn’t make out any details. The thing was just a deeper patch of darkness.
Both pistols roared and bucked in Preacher’s hands as he fired. It was too dark for him to tell if he hit the thing, but he didn’t see how he could have missed at that range. He jammed the empty guns behind his belt and yanked his heavy hunting knife from its sheath. He wasn’t sure how much good the blade would do against a monster, but he would put up the best fight he could.
As he stood ready, the misshapen form wheeled around and lurched away, vanishing into the thick shadows of the night in a heartbeat.
It left behind something on the ground.
Preacher moved over to the dark, sprawled shape and dropped to a knee. He recognized the harsh, bubbling sound he heard as the sound of a man trying to draw breaths through a ravaged throat. He put out a hand, felt the hot wet stickiness of freshly spilled blood. Preacher rested his hand on the man’s chest and found a faint heartbeat, but a second later it grew still. The tortured breathing stopped.
The man was dead.
There was nothing Preacher could do for him. There never had been. The mountain man turned his head and bawled, “Somebody bring a light!”
Men were making their way toward the spot. Some of them had grabbed rifles from the wagons. One of them turned back to fetch a lantern.
The bullwhackers babbled questions as they crowded around Preacher. He said, “Hold on, hold on. I know you all want to know what happened, and so do I. Let’s wait for that light.”
Lantern light bobbed with each step as the man carried it all the way around the circle instead of cutting through the center where the oxen were milling around. A faster and certainly easier route. Preacher ordered, “Everybody step back and give him some room,” as the man approached.
He held the light high above his head as he came up to the scene of the tragedy. Startled curses came from the men as the flickering glow washed over the bloody corpse lying on its back. Lifeless eyes stared up from the man’s pale, bearded face.
Preacher recognized the man as one of the bullwhackers but didn’t know his name. “Who is it?” he asked in the stunned silence that followed the curses.
“His name was Hammond,” Leeman Bartlett replied in a stunned, hollow voice. “Ben Hammond. My God, what could have done that to him?”
The man’s throat was nothing but a raw, gaping wound. Blood had poured from it, flooding down the front of his shirt. Preacher was surprised Hammond had lasted as long as he had.
That wasn’t his only injury. Several deep gashes started on his forehead and angled across his face. One eye had been popped from its socket, and most of his nose was torn away. Similar gashes crisscrossed the luckless bullwhacker’s chest. His bloody shirt was shredded.
Roland and Casey had joined the others gathered around Preacher and the dead man. Casey made a horrified sound and turned her face away from the gruesome sight. Roland slipped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him.
“Are those . . . claw marks?” the young man asked, sounding like he couldn’t believe what he was saying.
Preacher had already figured that out. From the size of the shape he had glimpsed in the darkness and the way it had mauled Ben Hammond, there was only one thing the monster could be.
“Yeah, those are claw marks,” he answered Roland’s question. The fight between them seemed to have been forgotten. “The marks of a grizzly bear on a rampage.”
“A grizzly bear,” Bartlett repeated. “That hardly seems possible. They live in the mountains, don’t they?”
“Most do,” Preacher said, “but sometimes they start to roam, and you can find ’em just about anywhere west of the Mississippi.”
“You reckon that’s what’s been followin’ us?” Lorenzo asked.
Preacher nodded. “I know it is. Dog’s not scared of much of anything in this world, but even he’s liable to get spooked by a griz. Same goes for the horses. They catch even the faintest scent of a grizzly bear, they’re gonna get nervous. A bear doesn’t mind gettin’ wet, so that’s why it was out wanderin’ around durin’ that storm when I caught a glimpse of it.” Preacher got to his feet and shook his head. “It all makes sense now, and the only reason I didn’t think about a grizzly bear sooner is because like you said, Mr. Bartlett, you just don’t think about runnin’ into the critters out here on the prairie.”
“But what can we do about it?” Bartlett wanted to know.
Preacher nodded toward the dead man. “You can bury this poor fella. The griz is gone. I saw it take off for the tall and uncut after I took those shots at it.”
“Maybe you wounded it,” one of the men suggested. “Maybe it went off to die.”
Preacher shook his head. “Not likely. Even if I winged the thing, it’ll take more’n that to put him down. You can’t shoot a grizzly once or twice and kill it, not unless you’re a good enough shot to put a ball right through one of his eyes into his brain. Even then, he’s liable to stay on his feet for a little bit before he realizes he’s dead. And it don’t take long for one of those varmints to do a lot of damage. Looks like he swatted Hammond three or four times. Probably didn’t take more than a few seconds.”
“Everyone stay alert tonight,” Bartlett ordered.
As if he had to tell them to do that, Preacher thought wryly. All the bullwhackers were so spooked and upset by Hammond’s death they might not sleep at all.
; “And stay together as much as you can,” Preacher added. “I don’t know what Hammond was doin’ over here by himself, but the bear might not have come after him if he hadn’t been alone and well away from the fire. He was just too temptin’ for ol’ Ephraim to resist.”
“Old Ephraim,” Roland repeated with a surprised look on his face. “The bear has a name? You . . . you know this bear?”
Preacher grinned humorlessly. “That’s just somethin’ mountain men sometimes call a grizzly. I ain’t rightly sure how it got started, unless one time a fella saw a griz that reminded him of a friend of his called Ephraim, and the name stuck.”
One of the bullwhackers stepped up and said, “Ben was worried about one of the wheels on his wagon. He thought a hub nut was workin’ loose. I reckon he came around here to check on it.”
“A man’s life is a mighty high price to pay for somethin’ like that. Like I told you, stay together as much as you can. And keep your rifles handy.”
The bullwhackers began to drift back toward the fire, muttering among themselves and looking around nervously as they did so. Preacher couldn’t blame them. The night held more terror than it had before. They had seen for themselves how swiftly and brutally death could strike.
The man who had told Preacher about Hammond checking on the wheel lingered, as did the man who held the lantern. “Ben and me were good friends,” the first man said. “I’ll fetch a shovel and start diggin’ a grave for him so he can be laid to rest proper-like.”
Preacher nodded. “I reckon he’d appreciate that. I’ll give you a hand. Lorenzo, how about you stay and stand guard while we’re doin’ that?”
“Sure, I can do that,” the old-timer said. “I hope that grizzle-bear don’t come back, though. I ain’t never seen one of the critters, and it’ll be just fine with me if I never do!”
Bartlett said, “Now that he’s made his kill, what do you think the chances are that he’ll leave us alone the rest of the journey, Preacher?”
“That’s hard to say,” Preacher replied. “He’s been stalkin’ us for several days. I don’t see any reason for him to go off and leave us alone now. Besides, he didn’t get a chance to drag Hammond off before I ran up and scared him away, so he didn’t get what he really wanted.”
“Do you mean . . . food?” Roland asked hollowly.
“He’s probably been livin’ on prairie dogs. That ain’t enough to keep a big varmint like him goin’. He needs some bigger prey.” Preacher peered off into the blackness, as if he could see the bear lurking in the darkness. “And I reckon we’re it.”
CHAPTER 11
Nothing more was said that night about the fight between Preacher and Roland Bartlett. Ben Hammond’s sudden, unexpected, and bloody death had everyone too shaken up to worry about such things.
Preacher thought about it, though. Roland had made it pretty clear how he felt about Casey. The question was whether she would give up on her feelings for Preacher and turn to the younger man instead.
It would sure simplify things if that was what happened, Preacher told himself.
That wasn’t the only thing on Preacher’s mind. He pondered the advisibility of going out to track down and kill that rogue grizzly, perhaps taking Lorenzo with him. The old-timer didn’t know all that much about the frontier yet, but he was smart and brave and would do what Preacher told him to do without arguing about it. Preacher was convinced they hadn’t seen the last of the bear, so the question was whether he went after it or waited for it to come to them again.
On top of that were the other troubles that had plagued the caravan since its departure from Independence. The terrible storm and the cyclone it had spawned could have meant disaster for the wagon train. Likewise the raid by Garity and the rest of that outlaw bunch. In both cases, luck had been with Preacher and his friends, and they had dodged pure catastrophe by the narrowest of margins.
How long could their luck hold? Preacher asked himself that question, but he didn’t have any answers.
He wasn’t an overly superstitious man, but he couldn’t help wonder if Hammond’s death was an omen. Maybe fate had turned on them and was no longer on their side.
Those thoughts ran through Preacher’s head while he helped dig Hammond’s grave. Lorenzo stood nearby with his rifle ready, keeping a watchful eye on the darkness outside the circle of light cast by the lantern. Preacher and a couple bullwhackers got the grave dug fairly quickly. Hammond’s body was wrapped in a blanket. The actual burial would wait until dawn.
With everything going on in his mind, Preacher’s slumber was restless that night. He spent a lot of time prowling around the camp, rifle in hand and both loaded pistols in his belt, just waiting for trouble.
It didn’t show up. The bear didn’t pay a return visit to the camp, and neither did Garity and his men.
As the sun peeked over the horizon, the members of the party gathered by the grave. Once again, Leeman Bartlett brought out his Bible and said words over the deceased. Since Ben Hammond had been one of them and not an outlaw, the prayers were more extensive. Some of Hammond’s friends spoke as well, testifying to what a good fella he had been and how he hadn’t deserved to end up like that.
A lonely hole in the ground was how he would end up, Preacher mused. A forgotten grave, tended by no one, mourned by no one. Six months after he’d been laid to rest, no one would even be able to tell he was there. The earth would have reclaimed him. Preacher had long since resigned himself to that same fate. No man who lived a life such as he did was going to die in bed with a bunch of kids and grandkids and great grandkids around him.
At least he hoped not.
When the speechifying and praying was finally over, some of the men got to work filling in the grave while Preacher, Lorenzo, and Leeman Bartlett walked over to the creek bank to look at the stream. It had gone down quite a bit during the night, as Preacher had thought it probably would.
“What do you think, Preacher?” Bartlett asked. “Can we make it across?”
“I reckon so,” Preacher replied. “The creek’s still runnin’ pretty fast, but it ain’t near as deep now. You’ll be all right.”
“Good,” Bartlett said fervently. “Being stuck here for two nights is more than enough.” A smile creased his lined face. “I’m ready for some good luck for a change.”
He just didn’t know how lucky they really were, Preacher thought.
They’d had breakfast, so all that was left to do was hitch up the oxen and saddle the horses. As Preacher was putting his saddle on the big gray stallion, Lorenzo came up to him and asked, “Are you thinkin’ about goin’ after that bear, Preacher?”
The mountain man smiled. “You must’ve read my mind, Lorenzo. I pondered on it, sure enough. But I reckon it might be better if I stayed with the wagons. Ain’t no tellin’ when Garity and his bunch might make another try for ’em.”
“Well, that’s true. I figured I’d go with you if you went, and I got to tell you, I wasn’t lookin’ forward to it. I hope that bear just leaves us alone from here on out.”
Preacher hoped so, too, but he was going to be surprised if things turned out that way.
The wagons crossed the creek without incident and rolled on west as the sun rose higher in the sky. Since the oxen had had a day to rest, they seemed stronger and pulled harder in response to the popping of the bullwhips and the raucous shouts of the freighters. The miles fell behind them.
Preacher rode in front with Bartlett and Lorenzo most of the time, galloping ahead every now and then to get the lay of the land. The terrain wasn’t quite as flat. There were some rolling hills, and Preacher had reined in at the crest of one of those long, gentle slopes with Dog beside him when he spotted some movement in the distance. It was too far away for him to identify. Could have been some buffalo or antelope . . . or men on horseback. Preacher couldn’t tell. But whatever it was, they were moving away from the trail.
Even though the distant movement wasn’t an immediate threat, it was a good
reminder that they weren’t alone out there, Preacher told himself. The landscape might seem vast and empty, but it really wasn’t.
When he returned to the caravan, he saw Casey and Roland riding together beside one of the wagons. The young woman hadn’t spoken to him all day. That was all right with Preacher, but still he felt a little pang of loss. Casey was a fine gal. Although he had enjoyed the time they spent together he knew she would be better off with somebody other than him.
The jury was still out on whether that particular somebody was Roland Bartlett.
Other than the one glimpse Preacher had of movement in the distance, they didn’t see anyone all that day or the next. In fact, a week went by without the wagon train encountering anything except wildlife. The days were long, hard, and tedious, but Preacher knew there wouldn’t be many more of them before the caravan reached the Cimarron Cutoff.
Of course, once they got past that point, the trip would just get even harder.
Casey had been avoiding him for the most part, and when she did speak to him, she only said what she had to. Preacher wished there had been some way to handle the situation without offending her, but like everything else in life, it was what it was.
She came to him one night and said, “Preacher, I need to talk to you about something.”
He frowned. “Sounds a mite ominous.”
“No, we just need to get something settled.”
He shrugged. For a second there, he had thought she was going to tell him that she was in the family way, since they had been together a number of times during the trip from St. Louis to Independence. Preacher knew it was possible there were some half-breed Indian kids with his features running around various villages where he had wintered, but he was reasonably sure he didn’t have any children by white women. He wasn’t certain what he would have done if Casey had told him she was expecting.
“I was about to take a walk around the camp,” he told her. “Why don’t you come with me? We can have a little privacy for our talk.”
“That’s a good idea.”
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