Absaroka Ambush

by William W. Johnstone

  Preacher did not expect any pursuit, and none came. Bedell was too smart to send men into what might be an Indian ambush. Long after the wagons were out of sight, Preacher and Rupert rode back to the ambush site. The wagon had been abandoned, but the mules had been taken. It looked like Bedell didn’t have any spare drivers. Preacher grinned at that. The bastard was going to have less drivers come the dawnin’.

  “Take the canvas, Rupert,” he told the young officer, “and the rope. I’ll see what they left in the bed.”

  “What about him?” Rupert asked, pointing to the dead man hanging half out of the tail of the wagon.

  “That ought to tell you what kind of people we’re dealin’ with. They didn’t even take the time to bury him. Sorry bunch of bastards. Leave him.”

  “But ...”

  “Shut up, Rupert. Do what I tell you to do. I warned you about arguin’ with me.”

  Rupert closed his mouth and turned his head as Preacher carefully removed his arrow from the dead man’s neck. “It’s a good arrow,” he said.

  Bedell’s people had not even bothered to inspect what contents remained in the bed of the wagon. Much of it was useful to Preacher and his small group. Preacher took the dead man’s pistols to give to the ladies, and fine pistols they was, too. He started to take the dead man’s hat, for it was a good one, until he saw lice crawlin’. He decided to forego the hat.

  “I still think we should bury the poor wretch,” Rupert tried again.

  “Stop thinkin’, Rupert. I’ll tell you when to think. Let’s get gone.”

  Bedell didn’t believe for one second that Indians had been responsible for the ambush of the wagon. The handsome, well-dressed man sat drinking coffee and staring morosely into the dying flames of the fire. The sounds of weeping women were all around him as the outlaws continued their raping and defiling, but Bedell paid no attention to it.

  The man who ambushed the wagon, and it was one man, Bedell was sure of that, was Preacher. His men had said that they’d seen Preacher take at least two balls into him days back, one of them to the head. The wounds must have been slight, Bedell concluded. But no matter. Preacher would be dealt with in due time. He had more men waiting to join up with the group when the wagons cut north some days ahead. They would more than make up for the men Preacher had killed thus far.

  But Preacher was still the fly in the ointment. He had to be killed, and so did those who were with him.

  Damn the luck! Bedell thought. Faith Crump had gotten away and that was the card Bedell had counted on to play. Old Man Crump would have paid a fortune to get his daughter back. With that money, plus the money the gold brought—and the gold was there, all right, Bedell knew that—he could live like a king for the rest of his life.

  Damn Preacher’s eyes! Bedell thought. Goddamn the man to hell! When the wagons linked up with the men from California, Bedell would assign all the new men to kill Preacher and grab Faith Crump. It had to be. It was the only way. He had already promised the women to some of the men, and they would be taken to California and sold into brothels . . .

  “Oh, God, no more!” a woman pleaded with an outlaw. “Please, God, no!” Her pleadings ended with a scream of pain and several other women laughed in the night.

  Bedell paid no attention to it. Neither did one of the guards stationed around the protective circle. He couldn’t because he was dead, his throat cut from one side to the other. Preacher had then lashed him to a wagon wheel so’s he’d look like he was standing up, and then made his way to the horses. He moved quietly, whispering to the animals and petting them. Preacher had a way with horses, and none of them so much as blew. He led several away from the wagons and picketed them. Then he returned to the wagons.

  He passed up several wagons, for the outlaws were busying themselves with the ladies in them, until he came to a wagon that was silent. He peeped in. Gayle Hawkins, Brigitte Wilson, and Bertha Macklin were all trussed up like hogs, with gags in their mouths. Preacher slipped into the darkened wagon.

  “Don’t make a sound, ladies,” he whispered. “Not one sound or we’re all dead.”

  The women, wide-eyed in shock, surprise, and relief, nodded their heads in understanding. Even in the darkened bed of the wagon, Preacher could see that the women had been savagely beaten. They were all naked and had been used badly. Preacher cursed silently at the brutality of the outlaws and tried to keep his eyes from the bareness of breasts and the whiteness of bruised thighs. He slashed the ropes and the woman quickly slipped into britches and shirts and boots.

  “One at a time, gals,” Preacher whispered. “It gets real chancy from here on. Follow me and don’t trip on nothin’. Don’t make a sound.”

  They almost made it without incident. They had just reached the horses when a guard found the dead man and sounded the alarm. The camp was instantly alert.

  “Ride!” Preacher told the women. “Ride like the devil and his demons is after you.”

  “They are,” Brigitte said bitterly, and bit her lips against the pain as she settled into the saddle.

  Shots were fired from the circle, but Bedell would not allow pursuit.

  “No!” Bedell shouted the camp into silence. “We stay right where we are for the night and we’ll mount a party come the dawn. Blundering around in the dark, in unfamiliar country will just get more of our people killed. Stand down for the night, but double the guards.”

  After a moment of hugging and rejoicing among the women, Preacher put a halt to it. “Pack it up and let’s get gone. Bedell will have men out come the mornin’ lookin’ for us. We’ll swing wide around the wagons, then follow the river for a time.”

  “For how long a time?” Gayle asked, fatigue in her voice.

  “Till I say we stop. Let’s go.”

  Preacher pushed the tired group hard for several hours. Then he let them sleep for a few hours, and then rolled them out and pushed them hard for several more hours. Just at dawn, he finally allowed them to stop and make camp.

  “Fix something to eat and get some rest,” Preacher told the exhausted group. “I’ll stand first watch and then wake you up, Rupert. It’s not only Bedell and his people we got to look out for, it’s the Injuns as well. We been real lucky so far. But the further west we travel, the more likely that is to change . . . at any moment. Eat and rest.”

  Preacher let them rest for four hours. A slight noise made him quickly turn around. Eudora was up and pouring a cup of hot black coffee. “Get some rest, Captain,” she told him, picking up her rifle. “I’ll stand the next watch.”

  Preacher smiled at her and nodded. So complete was his trust in the New Englander, that he went right off to sleep and didn’t wake up until the middle of the afternoon.

  He opened his eyes and without moving, looked around him as much as he could while lying on his side. Rupert was on guard, and keeping a low profile of it. Madeline was cooking, the small fire built under branches to break up the smoke and she was using wood that was nearly smokeless. It hadn’t taken these women long to learn. Eudora was sitting with her back to a large rock, a rifle across her knees. Preacher had the thought that Eudora would be one hell of a fine wife . . . as long as her man stayed true to her. But God help him if he ever strayed.

  Preacher stirred and Eudora cut her eyes to him. “All quiet as far as we can see, Captain.”

  Preacher nodded and accepted the cup of coffee from Madeline. The women he’d taken from the train the night before had washed up and changed into cleaner britches and shirts. None of the group, including Preacher, were real sanitary and sparklin’ clean at the moment, but they were trying to stay alive, not set no records for cleanliness.

  Preacher ate some bacon and beans that was flavored with molasses, and some pan bread. The hot food hit the spot. He polished off his meal with another cup of coffee, pulled out his pipe and stuffed it, then lit it up. “Everybody et?” he asked.

  Eudora nodded her head and smiled at him. “All except Bertha, Gayle, and Brigitte. I wante
d them to rest as long as possible. They had a bad time of it, Captain.” In spite of his ample use of mountain slang, she knew that Preacher had more than the average amount of education for the time and certainly for the place, and could read and write and do sums as well as most. And he could speak better English than he usually did, for he had done so with her. He used what most would consider terribly bad grammar because he could get the same thing said in far less words.

  “They’s a better place I recall about five miles further on. It ain’t a bad ride, neither.” He smiled, but the humor did not reach his eyes. “And it’s a hell of an ambush spot.”

  Bertha and the others had awakened, and were stretching the kinks out and getting coffee and food. “Y’all eat,” Preacher said. “Then we’ll move to a better spot. But attackin’ the last wagon is out for the time bein’. They’ll now be wise to that trick and cautious.”

  “So what will you do?” Bertha asked. “Or rather, what will we do?”

  Preacher smiled again. These gals had their dander up now. They were out for blood. God help any of those outlaws who fell into their hands. The outlaw’s death, Preacher thought, would be a slow and painful one. He’d seen personal what Indian women did with prisoners. It wasn’t an experience Preacher had any desire to go through.

  “We kill some outlaws.”

  “Good,” Brigitte said. She pulled a hunting knife out of a sheath and went to work sharpening it on a rock.

  Preacher had him a thought about what she had in mind. He shuddered.

  Fifteen

  Knowing that Bedell and his people would be doubly cautious after Preacher’s raid, he let them alone for this night. It was probably for the best, ’cause the women needed the rest and, Preacher admitted to himself, so did he. He was still not 100%, but he knew he would be in a few more days.

  Just before the fire was doused for the night, Preacher ruminated awhile and then stared hard at Faith, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Faith?”

  She looked up. “Yes?”

  “Your pa is worth considerable, ain’t he?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s quite wealthy.”

  “Like in thousands of dollars?”

  Faith smiled. “Like in millions of dollars, Preacher.”

  “Your ma?”

  “She came into quite a vulgar sum of money when her parents died a few years ago.”

  Preacher nodded his head. “Part of it is comin’ together now.” He cut his eyes to Eudora. “I figure Hempstead ain’t your real name, Eudora. But it’ll do far as I’m concerned. You got in a mite of trouble back east and your daddy bailed you out in the nick of time and sent you west. You reckon they’s any way that Bedell might know who you really are?”

  “If he reads the newspapers, yes,” Eudora admitted. “And I see what you’re driving at. I think you’re right. My father is a prosperous man, but not wealthy like Faith’s parents. But both would pay a lot of money to get us back.”

  “But only Bedell and Jack Hayes would be in on it. Maybe one or two more. The rest of them scum would be kept in the dark. Bedell promised the women to the trash to do with as they pleased. He wanted the supplies and the mules to use in his quest for gold, and Faith and Eudora for ransom. The men would be more likely to stay with him for the long haul if they had women to use along the way. Bedell planned this out long and hard, and it has damn near worked. So in his mind, we all got to die. Bertha, ladies, did any of you see what happened to Steals Pony, Snake, and Blackjack?”

  The new trio all shook their heads. Brigitte said, “No. It was all so confusing and it happened so fast.”

  “I got to think they made it out,” Preacher said. “I have to keep thinkin’ that.”

  Preacher rolled up in his blankets and lay for a time before drifting off to sleep. There probably would be no more chances to grab any women from the train. If they had any sense, the outlaws would be placing the women in the center of the circle now. Of course, Preacher thought, if they had any sense, they wouldn’t be outlaws.

  He had to keep cutting down the odds. Had to keep nibbling away at Bedell’s men. And Preacher knew that he was the only one to do that. Rupert had courage and would stand and fight. But the young officer was not a frontiersman. The ladies would also fight, but they wouldn’t be much good at sneakin’ in and out.

  Preacher tried to figure how many women were captive. About a hundred, he concluded. That was too damn many for Bedell’s men to guard effectively. Then he opened his eyes wide as another thought came to him: there would be women escaping. All odds pointed to that. And if Preacher and his group stayed in front of the wagons, the women would be escaping from one terrible fate right smack into another one. Alone and unarmed in a hostile environment.

  “Damn!” Preacher muttered. “Double damn,” he added.

  “What are you damning now?” Faith whispered from a few feet away.

  “Go to sleep,” Preacher told her.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all, Preacher ruminated. Attacks from the rear would mean Bedell would have to switch more men from the front and the flanks. And after a couple of hit and run attacks on the rear, Preacher could change tactics and strike from the front. Yeah. The more he thought about that, the better he liked it. And he’d hit them just as they were ending the day on the trail, and the men would be tired and not terribly alert, maybe hit them just as they were all waking up, grumbling and sleepy. “Yeah!”

  “Now what?” Faith asked.

  “Go to sleep,” Preacher replied, and closed his eyes.

  The group unanimously agreed to Preacher’s plan.

  “Of course some of the ladies will be getting away,” Eudora said. “I didn’t even think of that.”

  “I didn’t either ’til last night,” Preacher said, rolling up his blanket and canvas ground sheet. “Let’s hit the trail and come in behind ’em.”

  That afternoon, as the group swung in behind the wagons, staying back about five miles, they came upon a body sprawled beside the trail. The woman was naked and she had been savagely horsewhipped.

  “Leigh Maxwell,” Brigitte said. “She always fought her attackers until they beat her to the ground.”

  Eudora covered the lady with a ragged blanket. Preacher rolled her up in the blanket and tied it securely with rope.

  “They done this to set an example,” Preacher said. “Try to keep the other ladies in line. Fetch the shovel, Rupert.”

  Preacher cut his eyes to the ladies. They were angry and it showed. This single act of viciousness had knotted the group together even more firmly. If there had been any reluctance on anyone’s part, it was gone now. Even Rupert was cussing under his breath. Quite ungentlemanly like, too. The young man had some really terrible things to say about Bedell and his men.

  “You got anything else to say about codes of conduct, fair trials, and lawyers and sich, boy?” Preacher asked him, taking his turn with the shovel.

  “Not a thing,” Rupert replied tersely.

  “Think you can shoot one of them bastards or their low-life bitches down in cold blood, now, do you?”

  The look Lt. Rupert Worthington gave Preacher was savage. “Without hesitation.”

  “Good. You just might survive out here, then.”

  Preacher stood away from the group as the ladies lifted their voices in Christian song and Eudora spoke a few words over the lonely grave.

  Be hundreds, maybe thousands more of graves like that one, Preacher thought, as the ladies sang a final song over the remains of Leigh Maxwell. When easterners start scratchin’ the itch to move west, and the floodgates open, folks will be turnin’ this route into a regular graveyard.

  We damn shore got a good start on it with this run, he concluded to himself.

  The group tagged along behind the wagons for two more days after the burying of Leigh. Preacher made no moves against the outlaws.

  “I want them to get a little careless,” he told Eudora. He’d already spotted the two figures stu
mbling along, far in the distance, and knew he’d been right in his decision to swing in behind the wagons. Two women had managed to escape their cruel captors. If this kept up, Preacher would have to steal some more horses.

  Rupert galloped. “You see them, Preacher?” he asked, excitement in his voice.

  “I been seein’ them, Rupert. But you’re gettin’ better at takin’ in what’s around you. See the ladies, Eudora?”

  “Now I do.”

  They were Maude and Agnes, sisters from Baltimore city. And they was wore to a frazzle.

  “They’ll come after us,” Agnes said, after a long drink of water and a bite of food. “They told us all the other evening that if anyone escaped, they’d track us down and kill us slow. They can’t be more than an hour or so behind.”

  “Good,” Preacher said with a smile. “We’ll not only cut the odds down some, but we’ll have us spare mounts, too.” He looked around. “Right over there,” he said, pointing. “Let’s get into position.”

  This was perfect ambush country, and Preacher was an expert at picking the right spot from which to launch one at Bedell’s men. He positioned the ladies and warned them not to move anything except their eyes. Agnes and Maude were left to rest, for the two women were running on only a slim reserve of strength. They both had been badly used and beaten more than once.