Absaroka Ambush

by William W. Johnstone

“I know Jack Hayes. He’s a murderin’, stealin’, rapin’, no-good, and has been that all his miserable life. And anyone who rides with him is just as bad.”

  Rupert shook his head vigorously. “Sir, I have studied the law at a very fine university. I know something about the law. And what you are proposing just won’t do. There is such a thing as due process. Every accused person is entitled, under the constitution, to a fair trial. You can’t just kill somebody because you think they might be planning some evil deed.”

  The mountain men exchanged glances. “Why not?” Blackjack asked. “We’ve all done it before.”

  Lt. Rupert Worthington had supper with Eudora Hempstead, Cornelia, and Anne. He confessed to them his worry about Preacher and what he might do.

  “I can’t leave the train,” Rupert said. “None of us can. I mean the men in my command. We are under strict orders to stay with the train at all costs—even if it means my life and the lives of my men. Otherwise I would send a runner back to alert the Army at Fort Levenworth.” He sighed. “I am certainly impaled upon the horns of a dilemma.”

  Eudora sopped out her plate with a hunk of bread. “I agree with Preacher,” she said. “Ambush the murdering scum.” She popped the bread into her mouth and chewed.

  “Miss Hempstead!” Rupert said, horrified. “I cannot believe you said that.”

  “Why not? I come from seafaring stock, Lieutenant. For over a hundred and fifty years my people have answered the siren’s song of the sea. Ship’s captains all. And they worked their way before the mast, from cabin boy to master. Do you know much about the sea, Lieutenant?”

  Rupert shook his head no.

  “Ships signal with flags. They talk with flags. They have flags for every conceivable occasion and threat. Ships that sail under no flag do so at considerable risk to themselves. Many a ship has been blown out of the water for refusing to show their colors. Or to strike them,” she added without a smile.

  “This is not the sea, Miss Hempstead,” Rupert replied softly.

  “Same as,” she told him. “It’s a vast, ever changing, constantly windswept landlocked sea. Those men behind us are deliberately staying behind us—out of sight. Like pirates until they make their move to shoot and board. We can’t let them get ahead of us, Rupert. Preacher can’t take that chance. They’ll ambush us at their leisure. I see Preacher’s methodology.”

  “What he is suggesting is murder, Miss Hempstead.”

  “When there is no one in the woods when a tree falls, does it make a sound?” she asked with a smile.

  “What? Oh. Yes. I see your analogy. There is no law out here.”

  “Except for survival,” Eudora said gently.

  Rupert thought about that for a moment. “It comes down to whose life is more important, theirs or ours.”

  “I suppose it does,” Eudora said.

  “You should have studied for the law, Miss Hempstead. It might have altered your views.”

  “Women aren’t allowed to do that, Lieutenant.” She smiled. “Yet.”

  Across the wide inner circle formed by the wagons, the mountain men sat, drinking coffee and talking quietly. “I’d forgot how strange the laws is back in the States,” Ned said. “Plumb goofy, I say.”

  “I sure hope that way of thinkin’ never gets past Missouri,” Ring offered.

  “It will,” Steals Pony said sourly. “And in our lifetime, too.”

  “We been out here too long, boys,” Snake said, stretching out on his blankets with a contented sigh. “We should have gone back from time to time to polish our manners, I reckon. Most of our kind did, you know?”

  “Most of our kind will be gone in a few more years,” Preacher said. “Quite a few has done hung up their buckskins and donned fancy pants and is makin’ their way pretty good in California. Rubbin’ elbows with the genteel and livin’ in houses and workin’ in stores and the like. No thank you.”

  “What are we gonna do about all that trash followin’ us, Preacher?” Blackjack asked.

  “I don’t know,” Preacher admitted. “Way Rupert acted to my suggestion, I reckon we’re just gonna have to let them attack us ’fore we do anything.”

  “That’s foolish,” Charlie said.

  “So is haulin’ a hundred and fifty women ’crost the damn wilderness,” Preacher countered. “I reckon we all done won the grand prize for foolish. So I’ll apologize now for gettin’ you boys in this mess.”

  “We came along because we wanted to, Preacher,” Steals Pony said. “Besides, what else did any of us have planned?”

  “Yeah,” Blackjack said. He looked over at Preacher and smiled. “I knowed what you was doin’ back yonder in my camp. I just played along with you. I think we all done earned the right to act foolish if we want to.”

  “I personal think we’re doin’ the right thing,” Snake said. “Hell, I heped open up this country. It’ll be fun to see it all again.” He was thoughtful for a moment. “Cause I ain’t gonna git another chance,” he added mysteriously.

  “All this talk ain’t givin’ us no answers ’bout what to do with them followin’ us,” Charlie said. “And I shore don’t like the idee of waitin’ for them to attack us. That purely cuts agin the grain far as I’m concerned.”

  Preacher drained his coffee cup and tossed the dregs to one side. “Well, boys, I think I’m sorta in a jam. In one way I’m in charge of this fool’s parade, but on the other hand, the army is in charge.”

  “Now we are in trouble,” Blackjack grumbled.

  Preacher smiled. “How old was you when you first come out to the wilderness, Blackjack?”

  The big man grunted. “You do have a point. A lot younger than Rupert, that’s for sure. Surely he ain’t as dumb as he sounds ’bout half the time. You know, it sure seemed back then like we knew a lot more about livin’ than he appears to.”

  “We did,” Charlie agreed. “These young folks nowadays . . . I don’t know about ’em. Seems like they ain’t got no respect for their elders. You can’t tell ’em a damn thing. They know it all. Country’s goin’ to hell in a handbasket, ’way I see it. Why, I heard from my sister back home two/three years ago, and she told me the kids are a-sparkin’ each other at a mighty young age nowadays.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “It’s pitiful. Morals has gone to hell.”

  “You mighty right ’bout that,” Snake said.

  Blackjack grinned. “I come out just ’fore you did, Preacher. Wasn’t it grand?”

  “It was, for a fact.” And that got the men off spinning tall tales far into the night. Why, it was at least 8:00 P.M. before they wound down and hit the blankets.

  Preacher heard the first drops of rain begin falling just about midnight, he figured, and pulled his robe over him more snugly. The Delaware had said before the men retired that it was going to rain for two or three days. Up to this point there had been only a few brief showers that didn’t last too long. Now the ladies were going to see a mighty soggy trail.

  “Walk!” Faith said, standing in the downpour, hands on her shapely hips. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”

  “Probably,” Preacher told her. “I’m here, ain’t I? But you still gonna walk.”

  “Why?”

  “’Cause I ain’t gonna put no more strain on them mules and oxen than needs to be, that’s why. Look at them ruts yonder, Missy. They’re deep and gonna be a lot deeper ’fore the day’s done. The ground’s already soaked. Look at them clouds behind us. This is one of them storms that’s comin’ out of the east. And they’re always bad. We’re gonna have rain for about three days.”

  “Who says so?”

  “Steals Pony. That’s who.”

  “That’s ridiculous! Nobody can predict the weather with any degree of accuracy.”

  “The Delaware can.”

  “Poppycock and balderdash!” She stamped her little booted foot and it sank about ankle deep.

  “It’s rainin’ ain’t it? You can’t deny that. Just like he said it would.”


  “We will all catch pneumonia and perish out here!”

  “Naw. It’s unnatural warm for this time of year. You’ll just get wet, is all. You’ll dry out.” He grinned. “Get a bar of soap and take a bath. I’ll hold the canvas so’s nobody can see you.”

  “You are a vile and evil man, Preacher,” Faith flared at him. “Your thoughts alone will surely guarantee you a place in the Hellfires.”

  Preacher laughed at her and that made her madder than ever. She flounced around and tossed her strawberry curls and jumped up and down in the mud and sank a little deeper. She sure was cute when she was all flustered up.

  “Pass the word, Eudora,” Preacher called. “Everybody who’s drivin’ oxen will walk, and only the driver will stay on the box behind the mules. The rest of you—walk!”

  “You are perfectly horrid man!”

  “Walk, Missy, Walk!” He looked down at her feet, which were out of sight in the mud. “Providin’ you can pull your boots out of that mess.”

  In a downpour that reduced visibility to only a few hundred feet, the wagons rolled out, with the women slogging along beside them. Long before the nooning period, most of the women had removed their slickers and tossed them into the wagons; they were just too hot.

  Preacher—as did the other mountain men—had him a hunch this unnaturally warm weather was only a fluke. It was not yet mid-April, and the weather could, and probably would, abruptly shift and turn very cold. Here on the plains, this warm rain could just as easily have been sleet slashing at them.

  About an hour before the nooning, Preacher made up his mind. “Find us a place to hole up,” Preacher told Steals Pony, his mouth only a few inches from the Delaware’s ear, because of the howling winds. “There ain’t no point in goin’ on through all this crap. They’ll be a bad accident if we keep on like this.”

  “Have already found one, Preacher,” Steals Pony said. “Just up ahead. Maybe a half an hour. No more than that.”

  “Lead us to it.” Preacher rode over to Eudora’s wagon. “Follow Steals Pony. We’re gonna sit it out.”

  She nodded and lifted the reins, hollering at her big mules, which were just as unhappy with the weather as the women.

  The place Steals Pony had found was a thin stand of trees. The women circled the wagons and climbed under the canvas to change into dry clothing. Preacher rode around the wagons several times, seemingly oblivious to the raging elements. Something was wrong, but he couldn’t put a finger on it.

  “What’s wrong, Captain?” Eudora shouted, during Preacher’s third pass.

  He rode over to her wagon. “I don’t know. But something is. Get a head count, Eudora. I got a bad feelin’.”

  One wagon and three women were missing.

  Eight

  “Nora Simms, Betty Rutherford, and Phyllis Reed,” Eudora told the men, who had strung up a sheet of canvas and were crouched under it. “But they were in the center of the column. How could they just disappear?”

  “Easy, in this weather,” Blackjack said. “I’ll wager it was during that real bad spell when couldn’t none of us see nothin’.”

  “Eudora,” the soft southern voice came from the edge of the group. They all turned to face April Johnson, a slim and attractive young woman from Georgia.

  “I overheard Nora and her group talkin’ the other night. I thought they were only funnin’, They were talkin’ about turnin’ back. Then they saw me and all of them laughed. I . . . should have reported it. I’m sorry.”

  “It isn’t your fault,” Eudora said, putting an arm around the smaller woman’s shoulders. She looked at Preacher and he jerked his head toward the wagons. Eudora led the young woman away, back to her wagon.

  “We wasn’t a mile out when that bad storm hit,” Preacher said. “I figure we’ve come five miles. So if they kept on and didn’t stop, they’re a good eight to ten miles back.” He waved at a Missouri man. “Saddle us some fresh mounts, Felix. The best in the herd.” Felix took off at a run. “Snake, you and Charlie stay with the women. Let’s go, boys. We got to find them women ’fore Indians or that trash that’s followin’ us does.”

  Lieutenant Worthington burst onto the scene. “Is it true about the women?”

  “Yeah. It’s true,” Preacher told him. “Stay with the wagons and be sure to post extra guards this night. The goddamn Pawnee love to strike in this kind of weather. And in this part of the country, them goddamn Pawnee are liable to be right over the next rise.”

  Preacher rarely spoke of the Pawnee without putting some sort of oath before them. Preacher and the Pawnee just did not like one another. Never had. But he never underestimated them. The Pawnee were sly, slick, and the best horse thieves on the plains. The story goes that a Crow warrior decided to rest during the heat of the day. He tied his horse’s reins to his wrist and stretched out and went to sleep in the shade of trees. A Pawnee came along, looked at the scene, and smiled. When the Crow awakened, the reins had been removed from his wrist and his horse was gone.

  That’s why Preacher never underestimated the Pawnee.

  “We’re gonna have to be ridin’ with lady luck beside us, Preacher,” Ned remarked. “You know we’ve had Injuns all around us for several days.”

  “Yep,” Preacher said, swinging into the saddle of a tough-looking, long-limbed roan. “Keep your powder dry, boys. Let’s go.”

  The women stood silently and watched the men ride out into the drenching rain, heading east. The men did not push their mounts, but left at a steady gait. They would alternately trot and walk their horses to save them.

  About a mile from the wagon train, the men split up, left and right, staying about a hundred yards apart, to better spot where the errant wagon had left the train.

  Ned had summed up the feelings of all the men on this ride. None of them expected to see the women again. At least not alive. If Indians had found them, anything might happen. They might be taken as slaves and treated reasonably well, after they were repeatedly raped. If it was a war party looking for scalps, they would be raped and then killed. If they were lucky. If the Indians were in a bad mood, the women might be tortured. There was simply no way of telling about Indians. Some would not harm them at all. They would just look at them and ride off, leaving the women be, to fend for themselves. But the plains Indians were warriors, fierce fighters; killing a woman meant no more to many of them than killing a poisonous snake, and no Indian held to the same moral code as the so-called civilized white people. The Indian was neither evil nor morally wrong—not to their way of thinking—to them it was the white people who were terribly cruel and unfeeling. Indians respected the land and most of the creatures who inhabited it with them. Not so the white man. The white man raped the land and cut down all the trees. He diverted the flow of water to suit his needs and to hell with what others thought. He killed off all the game, left nothing, and would not share. The Indian never killed more than he needed. White men would kill game for something they called sport and take only the best cuts, leaving the rest to rot. That was a sin to an Indian. And the white man lied. Everytime he opened his mouth he told great lies. You just could not trust most white men to keep their promises. Many people believed the western Indian knew nothing of how the eastern Indians were treated by the whites. That was a ridiculous theory and showed the arrogance and ignorance of the whites. As the tribes were pushed west, they brought their tales with them, and they were told over and over again. It was no wonder the Indians distrusted the white man. And the Indians knew that many whites believed that the only good Indian was a dead one. It was no wonder that many Indians soon believed the same to be true about whites.

  The Indians were not necessarily wrong in their beliefs and way of life. They were just different.

  After a few miles, the men reined up in a ragged group of trees to rest their horses and talk.

  “We got to be gettin’ close now,” Blackjack said. “And the hair on the back of my neck is standin’ up, boys.”

  “They’re a
ll around us,” Steals Pony said. “Pawnee. I sense them.” He shook his head and his eyes touched those looking at him. “And I think they are Bearmen.”

  “Damn!” Ring said. “That would be our luck.”

  The Bear Society was a very elite one among the Omaha and the Pawnee. And they were feared by all. They were fierce fighters; like bears, unpredictable and dangerous.

  “If they took the women, we’ll not never get them back,” Ned said.

  “No,” Preacher agreed. “We sure won’t. We’ll be lucky to stay alive. The Pawnee hate me worser than they do the Assiniboins. And that includes anyone who rides with me. Goddamn Pawnee,” he added, as all the men knew he would. Preacher stood up from his squat and gathered the reins. “Well, this ain’t doin’ nothing but gettin’ us wet. Let’s ride.”

  The men mounted up and headed out, but riding much more slowly now. To a man they knew they were in trouble. They had spent all their adult lives in hostile country, and all could sense the danger that lay around them, lurking silently behind the silver shield of the hard-pouring rain.

  The men carried their pistols under their buckskin shirts and in covered holsters on their saddles; the rifles were carried in hardened skin cases that could be discarded in a second. And a second might be all the time they would have should the Bearmen of the Pawnee attack out of the storm. Long-bladed knives and war-axes were readily at hand.

  Steals Pony reined up and with a wave of his hand signaled to the others. He had found where the women’s wagon had left the train. The men gathered around and looked. The rutted tracks were still clear.

  “Headin’ straight back, following the trail,” Ned remarked. “Foolish, foolish ladies.”

  A few hundred yards later, the fears of the men were silently confirmed. The tracks left by a dozen unshod ponies were clearly visible. And the Pawnee were closing on the wagon very quickly.

  “How many you make it, Steals Pony?” Blackjack asked, staring at the churned-up earth.

  “At least twelve,” the Delaware said. “Maybe as many as fifteen.”