Absaroka Ambush

by William W. Johnstone

  Through the confusion of smoke and dust, Preacher watched helplessly as half a dozen or so made it to their horses and raced down the canyons to the south.

  “That’s it!” Preacher shouted, standing up and waving his arms. “Stop shootin’!”

  Eudora and her sharpshooters ceased firing—the women in the wagons had not had to fire a shot—and Preacher and the men worked their way into the rocks. It was carnage.

  Many of the dead had taken the heavy rifle balls through the head or neck; several had been shot half a dozen times or more. A few were still alive, but their wounds were grievous and none of the mountain men—Rupert included—felt any great compulsion to offer any comfort or aid.

  Snake had gone in cutting and slashing and he lay among the dead, shot several times. The old man had sliced the life out of three outlaws before his soul had left his body to meet the Man Above. Snake lay on his back with a smile on his lips, his right hand still gripping his knife.

  One of the wounded outlaws that the rescued women had said had been particularly cruel, savage, and twisted, both to the kidnapped women and the boys, let out a fearful shriek as Steals Pony took his scalp. The Delaware left the pervert flopping around on the rocky ground. Rupert’s eyes took in the scene with no emotion showing on his face.

  A dying outlaw, his chest and belly covered with blood, gasped to the young officer, “You a white man, but you as bad as that damn Injun!”

  “Thank you,” Rupert said. “I consider that quite a nice compliment.” He walked on.

  “How many dead?” Preacher called.

  “Thirty-four,” Rupert said, completing his body count. “Well, when the six still alive do expire there will be thirty-four dead.”

  “Help me!” one gut-shot outlaw called out weakly.

  One of the women from the train helped him. She remembered him as one of those who had raped her repeatedly. She shot him between the eyes.

  After that, the five outlaws still alive did not call out for help.

  Preacher gently wrapped up Snake’s body in his blankets and tied the old mountain man across his saddle. He sighed and then turned to face the others. “Y’all go on. I’ll catch up with you in a week—maybe less than that, maybe more than that. All depends. You won’t have no more problems. Injuns witnessed this here fight... such as it was. They pulled out when the shootin’ stopped. They’ll pass the word. The train won’t have no more trouble from Injuns. They ain’t never seen so much firepower as we showed today. They won’t want to come up against that.”

  “You wish us to bury the dead, Captain?” Eudora asked.

  “Hell, no! Leave ’em for the buzzards and the varmints. Take their horses, guns, and supplies and head on west.” He looked at Steals Pony. “How many you figure got clear?”

  “Twelve or so, I think. Not many more than that. Bedell, of course, was one of them.”

  “We get these women to the Willamette, then I’ll take care of Bedell and what’s left of his gang. I’ll do it if I have to track that bastard clear to New York City.” Preacher swung into the saddle and took up the lead rope to Snake’s pony. “I’ll catch up with you. Move ’em out, Blackjack.”

  Preacher headed for a place that he knew the Indians called the Silent Rocks. On a hill there, he buried Snake and covered the grave with rocks. He buried Snake facing west, for the old man had requested that, said he always liked to sit and smoke his pipe and watch the sun goin’ down. Gave him a right peaceful feelin’.

  Preacher took off his hat and held it by his side while he pondered on what he might say. “You done good, Snake,” he spoke softly in the waning light of day. “You was a man to ride the rivers with, and we sure nuff rode a many of ’em, didn’t we? We seen some country and had some fights. But it’s your time to rest now. You sure earned that right. If any man did, you did. There ain’t a whole hell of a lot of us left, Snake. And ever’ time I plant another, I feel like I’m losin’ a part of myself.” He sighed heavily.

  “I’m gonna turn your pony loose. You caught him wild, and he’s a good’un. He’ll hang around here for a day or two, doin’ his grievin’ for you in his own way, and then he’ll find him some mares and sire some fine offspring. I ain’t gonna chisel your name in no rocks, ’cause you asked me not to. I don’t know what else to say, Snake.”

  Preacher sat for a time by the mound of rocks, smoking his pipe as the sun went down. His thoughts were all jumbled up. Talkin’ with that man from Washington had got him to thinkin’ hard ’bout his mother and father. After all this was over, he thought he might just take him a ride back east. See his ma and pa ... ’fore it was too late to see anything except a grave. But first he had to get back to his valley and get his Appaloosa. Then he was going after Bedell and what was left of his gang. The ones that had got away were the bad ones, Villiers, Trudeau, Pierre, Gar, Slug and Pug—two brothers—and Tater had all run, one of the dying outlaws had told him. He had also begged for forgiveness, but Preacher had told him he was sorta short on that at the time.

  There was also Able, Eli, Monroe, Logan, Wade, Jack Hayes, Rat-Face, Tom Cushing, and of course, Victor Bedell still alive. Preacher knew some of them, but some of them were completely unknown to him. ’Ceptin’, of course, the knowledge that there wasn’t a single one in the bunch worth a bucket of scummed over, stinkin’ buzzard puke.

  Preacher sat by the grave of his old friend for a long time, lost in his many thoughts. The sun was long gone over the mountains and darkness had settled in hard around him before he made a move, and then it wasn’t very far. He’d already unsaddled and picketed his horse, so he just ate a couple of biscuits, drank some water, and rolled up in his blankets.

  Preacher was up before the sun and fixed coffee and bacon, sopping out the grease with chunks of pan bread he’d taken from the wagons. In the saddle, he paused and turned once to look at Snake’s grave. “Goodbye, ol’ hoss. You rest easy and be sure to ride ol’ Hammer ever’ now and then for me. Tell Hammer I’ll be along sometime. We still got trails to ride.”

  Then he rode toward the west.

  BOOK THREE

  The sword of justice has no scabbard.

  Joseph De Maistre

  One

  It was several weeks before Preacher caught up with the wagons, and all could sense the change in him. And not just because he was riding a beautiful gray rump-spotted Appaloosa. The spotted horse was bigger than most of his breed, and had a mean look to his eyes, although he was gentle with Preacher and seemed devoted to him, which he was.

  “What’s his name, Preacher?” Rupert asked.

  “Thunder.”

  “You’ve changed,” the young officer said.

  “I reckon I have.”

  “Why?”

  “I got to get these ladies to the coast, and then I got Bedell and his bunch to deal with.”

  “Vengeance is mine, sayest the Lord.”

  “Not this time, Rupert. Not this time.” Preacher rode on ahead.

  He kept mostly to himself, ranging miles ahead of the wagons.

  “I can’t believe a man would love an animal so much that he would be obsessed with revenge over it,” Faith remarked to Steals Pony one evening.

  “There have been more men killed over horses and dogs than over women, lady,” the Delaware replied. “Long years ago, Preacher found a little wolf pup whose mother had been killed. Preacher raised that wolf. Some whites say a wolf cannot be tamed. Whites say many foolish things. A wolf cannot be tamed like a dog, but if you gain that wolf’s trust, in that respect the wildness within can be tempered. Preacher and that wolf were inseparable for several years. Then, a man named Ben Parsons killed the wolf. Killed it because he didn’t like Preacher. This was back in, oh, I just don’t remember. Preacher finally caught up with Parsons at the rendezvous of ’28, on the south end of Bear Lake. Walked up to him, called him out, leveled a pistol, and shot the man dead. Preacher is not a man you want to cross.”

  “Preacher killed a man over his
wolf?”

  Steals Pony shook his head. “No. Preacher didn’t own the wolf. You can’t own another living thing. You can take care of it, love it, be a friend, but you can’t own it. Preacher and the wolf were friends. Like that young man who lives down in the Colorado Rockies with a cougar and a wolf. Jamie Ian MacCallister.”

  “What do you mean, he lives with them?” Eudora asked. “You mean, they stay in the house with him?”

  “If they want to, yes. His wife doesn’t seem to mind. His young son sleeps with the puma. Rest assured, no one is going to bother the child when that puma is near,” Steals Pony added very dryly. “That cat weighs about a hundred and fifty pounds. Very impressive animal.”

  Faith shook her head, sensing a story here for her father’s paper and for her own fledgling publication. “Where have I heard the name MacCallister?”

  “The lone survivor of the Alamo,” Blackjack said. “Jamie came out here right after the Alamo fell. He married up with the gal who helped nurse his wounds and they come west soon as they could. I understand it took her a few months to get used to the way certain dangerous animals flocked to Jamie, but she soon settled right in. She don’t allow bears in the cabin though. She do draw the line there.”

  “Imagine that,” Faith said, the sarcasm thick in her voice.

  “What happened after Preacher shot that man?” April asked.

  “Nothing,” Steals Pony said. “Nobody liked Ben much anyway.”

  “It’s finally getting through to me,” Rupert said, refilling his coffee cup. “And I don’t mean any ugliness or criticism in what I’m about to say. You people have brought it all back to the basics. Your laws are so simple that they are difficult to understand. You have taken your laws from the ways of the animals, in a manner of speaking.”

  “You’re right to a degree,” the Delaware agreed. “Back when we were actively trapping, a man would see another person’s traps, but you never bothered them. Stealing from a man’s traps could get you killed, and rightly so. Same with a man’s cabin. If you were in need, you could use it, but if at all possible, replace what you used. Steal a man’s horse, kill his horse or dog, and you get killed. Respect is the key. I respect your way of life, you respect mine. I respect what is yours, you respect what is mine. If a person chooses to disrespect the rights and property of others, well, we don’t see the point of keeping that person alive. Because he isn’t worth much. He takes more than he gives.”

  “But among civilized people, that way of thinking went out centuries ago,” Faith pointed out.

  The Delaware smiled. “Civilized people, you say?” He chuckled. “On this journey, dear lady, you have seen many Indian tepees. But you have yet to see one with a lock on the entrance.”

  Five and a half months after leaving Missouri, the wagons were at last within sight of their destination. Since the aborted ambush of Bedell, there had not been a single shot fired in anger, and very few other mishaps for the ladies on the train.

  Madeline Hornbuckle said, “Perhaps God, in His Wisdom, decided we had been punished enough.”

  The women had forded rivers, struggled over mountain ranges, fought Indians, outlaws, and the elements, seen their numbers cut by a third, and now they were within an easy day’s ride to the valley.

  Eudora abruptly halted the wagons.

  “What the hell’s goin’ on?” Preacher demanded, riding up to the lead wagon. “Yonder’s the damn valley!”

  “We camp here,” Eudora told him.

  “What!”

  “We camp here,” she repeated.

  “Why?”

  “So the ladies can bathe and fix their hair and change into proper attire,” Rupert said. “It will do you no good to protest, Preacher. Believe me.”

  Preacher opened his mouth, then closed it shut after taking a good look at the set features of Eudora and Faith. He slowly nodded his head and swung down off of Thunder. “I reckon we’ll camp here for the night.”

  The men were quickly ordered to stay the hell out of the circle of wagons. Eudora pointed to a grove of trees about a hundred yards or so from the wagons and the mountain men needed no other instructions. They dutifully trudged over to the trees and made their own camp. Young Louis thought he might be exempt. Eudora gave him a swift kick in the butt with her boot and Louis quickly joined the men.

  Some of the men from the Willamette Valley decided they’d ride over to check out the ladies. It took them about fifteen seconds to realize they had made a ghastly mistake. Looking at the muzzles of fifty rifles will do that to a man. They joined the other men under the trees.

  And it was then that Preacher realized he had been wrong about the man from Washington. The ladies were expected, and they were spoken for. It made him feel some better about politicians ... but not much.

  “This is becoming a regular yearly visit for you, Preacher,” the chief banker of the post said to him, accepting a cup of coffee.

  “Not no more,” Preacher told him. “This is my last run. Somebody else can look out after them poor pilgrims from here on in. You got my money?”

  The banker handed Preacher a thick envelope. Preacher thanked him and took his friends aside to divvy up.

  “More money than I’ve seen in many a year,” Blackjack said. “I think I’ll leave the mountains and head on down to Californey and buy me a little business of some sort.”

  “You lie,” Steals Pony told him.

  “Shore, I do,” Blackjack replied indignantly. “You didn’t expect me to tell the truth, did you?”

  “That would be a novel experience, to say the least,” Steals Pony replied.

  “What you gonna do, Delaware?” Blackjack asked.

  Steals Pony cut his eyes to him. “Ride with Preacher if he wishes.”

  “Yeah,” Blackjack said brightly. “I think that there’s a right good idea.”

  But Preacher shook his head. “No, I ’ppreciate it. I truly do. But it’s my fight, boys. And mine alone. It’s a personal thing with me. I lost good friends on this run. They’d still be alive if it wasn’t for me. Now they lay moulderin’ in the ground. Them that we could find, that is,” he added bitterly. “Y’all lay around the post and enjoy yourselves. After I say my goodbyes, I’ll be pullin’ out ’fore the dawnin’.”

  Preacher walked away.

  “I don’t feel a bit sorry for Bedell and them scum that ride with him,” Blackjack said. “But I’d shore hate to have Preacher on my trail.”

  Faith had walked up while Preacher was stating his intentions of going it alone. She had just washed her hair and was toweling it dry. “Don’t tell me,” she said. “Let me guess. He’s going after those men, but the reason for his doing so, other than they killed some of his friends, is mainly because they killed his horse.”

  “You’re learning lady,” Steals Pony told her. “You’re learning.”

  “I never will understand that man!” she said, stamping her little foot.

  That night, long after the wagons and most of the tents had gone dark and nearly everyone was sleeping, Preacher pushed back the flap on Faith’s tent and stood for a moment.

  She lay in her blankets, the lone lit candle highlighting the sheen of her strawberry blonde hair. Her shoulders were bare, and it wasn’t hard for Preacher to see that under the blankets, everything else about her was bare, too.

  “I thought you’d come by to say farewell,” she said.

  “I’m here.”

  “And?”

  Preacher smiled and laid his rifle aside. She watched him kneel down by her bed and take off his shirt. She noted the bullet scars and knife scars and the place where he’d once had an arrow cut out. He was powerfully muscled. He reached out and gently touched her face with a hard and calloused hand.

  “Is that the best you can do?” Faith asked.

  Preacher chuckled softly and pinched out the candle.

  When she awakened the next morning, Preacher had been gone from the camp for several hours. He had left her a note o
n his pillow.

  I know yore goin to writ about me. I dont mind. Just tell the truth.

  “I shall, Preacher,” Faith whispered. “Oh, I shall!”

  Two

  The Appaloosa was a strong horse and loved to roam. Preacher had known when he’d first laid eyes on him he was the first horse he’d seen in a long time that would be a match for Hammer. By the time Faith had awakened, Preacher was miles from the Willamette Valley, heading east.

  Preacher knew he had a long way to go and not a whole lot of time in which to do it. He guessed that it was the first week in September, and in the high-up country, light snow would already be dusting the land. What he had to do was talk to some Indians and they’d spread the word about Bedell. Then it wouldn’t be long before somebody would have seen something and reported it. He did feel for certain that Bedell and his men would not chance heading back east. To do that would risk a hangman’s noose.

  Preacher headed straight east, taking the trails that he knew would get him there the fastest. After traveling for days, and speaking with dozens of Indians from many tribes, he got a fix on Bedell’s location. A band of friendly Nez Perce did their best to trade him out from under Thunder, giving up when they only realized Preacher was not about to trade away his horse. It was then they told him about the band of white men—not mountain men—who, so they had heard, had been spotted repeatedly in the area of the land that smokes and thunders.

  Preacher smiled at the news. He knew exactly where the land was that they were talking about. He’d wintered south of there a time or two, in a place called Jackson’s Hole, and knew the area the Indians stayed out of ’cause they considered it to be spirit-haunted. A Frenchy had named the place Roche Jaune. Yellow Stone.

  If Bedell and his people wasn’t real careful, they’d get lost as a goose in that area, for the place had canyons that were so deep they would boggle the mind and dotting the landscape were holes, from which there were sudden fountain bursts of scalding hot water.