Mackey turned and rode slowly after the others. Jamie watched him go, then said quietly, “He was trying to tell us something.”
“Maybe,” said Preacher.
“If we can get our hands on Davidson, and Lieutenant Tyler officially relieves him of command, we can put an end to this.”
“Problem is, Davidson made it pretty plain that he’s attackin’ again in an hour. That means more men are gonna die on both sides unless we can figure out a way of sneakin’ into their camp and gettin’ our hands on Davidson in broad daylight. To do that, we’re gonna need a mighty big distraction.”
Jamie said, “You sound like you’ve got an idea brewing in that head of yours, Preacher.”
The mountain man looked back at the canyon, nodded his head, and said, “Maybe I do. Just maybe I do . . .”
* * *
“You want Big Thunder to fight?” The massive warrior raised both fists and shook them in front of him. “Big Thunder is always ready to fight!”
“It’ll be dangerous,” Preacher told him. “You’ll be runnin’ quite a risk. But if you stay back outta good rifle range, I think it’ll work.”
Broken Pine laid a hand on Big Thunder’s arm and said, “You do not have to do this.”
Big Thunder shook his head. “That white man . . . that O’Connor . . . he thinks he beat Big Thunder. Not this time! This time Big Thunder will win!”
Preacher hoped that was true, but the actual outcome of the fight wasn’t the most important thing. They needed to keep the soldiers watching something else, and a second showdown between those two titans ought to do it.
“All right, you know what to do,” Preacher said. He looked at Broken Pine. “Give me and Jamie and Hawk and Tyler time to get where we need to be, then send Big Thunder out there. Even if O’Connor don’t take up the challenge, just havin’ the big fella out there hollerin’ ought to garner a lot of attention.”
“Like Goliath shouting at the Israelites,” Lieutenant Tyler said with a smile. “Only in this case, it’ll be more like Goliath versus Goliath.”
Hawk had already said good-bye to Butterfly and their children. He and the three white men went to the far end of the canyon and began climbing out of it. Preacher told Dog to stay with the Crow, and while the big cur didn’t like it and whined a little in complaint, he followed Preacher’s command, sitting there and watching the four men ascending the rough stone wall. The sides of the canyon were steep but not sheer, and there were plenty of footholds and handholds to make climbing easy.
When they reached the top, the four men stayed low to decrease the chances of being spotted and began working their way south along the ridge. They traveled well out of sight of the area along the river where the soldiers were gathered before they descended from the ridge and headed for the stream. They waded across it and started back up the other side.
Preacher had told Broken Pine to allow an hour for them to get in position. Broken Pine didn’t have a watch, of course, but he had a good sense of how much time was passing.
When that hour was up, Big Thunder would walk out of the canyon, stride boldly toward the troops, and start yelling for Sergeant O’Connor to come out and fight him. If O’Connor took up the challenge, that would be a battle for the ages, thought Preacher. He had tussled enough with Big Thunder himself to know that the huge warrior was actually a smart fighter. He learned from every clash, and the next time it was harder to defeat him. O’Connor probably wouldn’t be expecting that.
Preacher, Jamie, Hawk, and Tyler used all the cover they could find as they approached their destination. Every tree, rock, and clump of brush came in handy.
Quietly, Jamie asked Tyler, “Do you believe Davidson will think of posting guards on the troop’s rear?”
“There’s a good chance he has. I’ve known Edgar a long time. I never liked his attitude, but he did well in his classes at West Point and has a good grasp of tactics and procedures.”
“We’ll keep our eyes and ears open, then,” Preacher said. “We need to spot those guards before they spot us.”
Jamie said, “I don’t want them killed if we can avoid it. We’re trying to stop the killing, not pile the bodies up higher.”
“I didn’t plan on killin’ ’em,” Preacher replied in a slightly exasperated tone. “There are other ways to put ’em out of action.”
“Just so we understand each other.”
A few minutes later, Preacher motioned for them to stop. He signaled silently toward some trees up ahead, then pointed at Hawk and indicated the warrior should go to the left. Preacher tapped his own chest and gestured toward the right. He made a patting gesture with both hands to indicate that Jamie and Tyler should stay where they were.
Jamie nodded. Preacher and Hawk faded off into the brush, moving with almost supernatural stealth.
Even though morning light washed over the landscape, sneaking up on a couple of inexperienced young soldiers wasn’t nearly as difficult as slipping into a Blackfoot village. Preacher had done that many times as a younger man, enough so that the Blackfeet had dubbed him the Ghost Killer and halfway believed that he was some sort of phantom and not quite human.
A few moments later, Preacher found himself behind a uniformed dragoon who stood with his rifle butt resting on the ground at his feet. The trooper never had a chance to lift the weapon. Preacher looped his left arm around the soldier’s neck and closed it hard enough to stifle any outcry. At the same time, he tapped the butt of his right-hand Colt against the man’s head. The soldier’s knees buckled, and Preacher lowered him to the ground.
It was the work of less than two minutes to cut several strips from the man’s uniform shirt and use them to tie him securely, hand and foot. Preacher wadded up another strip of cloth and shoved it into the trooper’s mouth, then tied it in place as a gag. The mountain man left him lying there facedown, confident that the soldier wouldn’t be able to raise the alarm or cause any other trouble.
While he was doing that, he’d heard a faint rustling in the brush and wasn’t surprised to see Hawk emerge and nod curtly to indicate that the other guard was taken care of, as well. The two of them went back to join Jamie and Tyler.
“There may be some more guards scattered around,” Preacher whispered, “but we’ve got a gap in their defenses now. Let’s get down in the brush right along the river’s edge and have a look-see.”
As they advanced, Tyler watched his companions so he could try to imitate them and move as quietly as they did. For the most part, he was successful. He stepped on a few branches, but Preacher didn’t think the cracks when those branches broke were loud enough to warn the inexperienced troopers.
They crouched in the thick growth beside the river and parted it enough to study the other bank. The mounted dragoons were visible through the trees as they waited for Lieutenant Davidson’s order to attack the Crow holed up in the canyon. Preacher could tell that most of the young soldiers were nervous about going into battle again. They fidgeted with their rifles, turned their heads this way and that, spoke to each other in low tones. He spotted Sergeant O’Connor stalking around and knew that the burly noncom had survived the previous night’s action. Preacher had had a hunch that was the case, and the sight of O’Connor now confirmed it.
He saw Davidson as well, sitting calmly on a rock and writing in a small notebook he had propped on his knees. An inkwell was on the rock beside him.
Preacher nudged Jamie, nodded toward Davidson, and whispered, “He’s gettin’ all the details down so he can put’em in his report and make himself look like a big hero.”
“With any luck, he’ll never get a chance to do that,” replied Jamie. “I know the truth about him, and I have some friends in the army. Everything that’s happened here will come out, all right, but not the way Davidson wants it to.”
Hawk tapped Preacher’s arm and pointed upstream. About fifty yards away, a tree had fallen so that it formed a bridge across the river, which narrowed down at that point. Pre
acher nodded. That would be the easiest, fastest way for them to get across and into the temporary army camp.
Suddenly, a shout came to their ears. “O’Connor!” the deep voice bellowed. “White man! Sergeant O’Connor! Come out and fight Big Thunder, you coward!”
Jamie smiled and said, “That old boy’s got a pair of lungs on him, doesn’t he? I can make out every word he’s saying.”
“So can the troopers,” Preacher said. “Look.”
On the other side of the river, O’Connor, who had paused to talk to Davidson, swung around sharply to glare toward the open ground between the river and the canyon. The mounted dragoons edged their horses forward a step or two. Davidson stood up quickly, snapped shut the book he had been writing in, and stowed it away inside his uniform jacket. He left the pen and inkwell on the rock as he strode forward.
O’Connor hurried along beside him, talking fast. Preacher could tell how angry the sergeant was. O’Connor waved his arms and rumbled something Preacher couldn’t make out. Davidson spoke to him, and O’Conner gestured emphatically again.
All the while, Big Thunder continued shouting his challenge, spicing it with insults. Not obscenities, since Indians seldom if ever indulged in such things, but Big Thunder’s descriptions of O’Connor’s cowardice were certainly colorful.
Abruptly, O’Connor yanked off his cap and tossed it aside, then peeled out of his jacket. Davidson cried, “Sergeant, I forbid you to—”
O’Connor ignored him, stalked through the line of mounted men, and made his way across the prairie toward the spot where Big Thunder waited, flexing his arms and bellowing and all but pawing the ground like a maddened bull.
O’Connor was the one who was maddened. He had reached the breaking point, and as he let out an incoherent shout of rage, he broke into a run and charged toward Big Thunder. Yells of encouragement went up from the watching soldiers.
“That’s it,” Preacher said. “Let’s go!”
CHAPTER 30
Out on the flats, Big Thunder and Sergeant Liam O’Connor came together like a couple of bull moose battling for leadership of the herd. Big Thunder’s legs were spread slightly, and his feet were planted solidly on the ground. He knew from the battle the previous night that O’Connor liked to punch rather than wrestle, so he was expecting the wild, roundhouse swings that O’Connor aimed at his head. He ducked under them, drove forward, and rammed his shoulder into O’Connor’s stomach.
As O’Connor’s momentum carried him forward over Big Thunder’s back, the massive warrior wrapped his arms around O’Connor’s waist and heaved upward. O’Connor yelled again, but this time in alarm rather than rage, as he found himself flying upside down through the air. He crashed down on his back with stunning force.
Big Thunder whirled, his speed surprising in such a mountain of a man. He went after O’Connor, intending to stomp him into the dirt, but O’Connor, even though the fall had knocked the air out of him, managed to get his hands up and grab Big Thunder’s upraised foot as it started to come down. O’Connor twisted hard, and Big Thunder went down, too.
O’Connor gulped air and went after him. He hooked punches into Big Thunder’s ribs and tried to drive his knee into the warrior’s groin, but Big Thunder writhed aside and took the blow on his thigh. He smashed an open-handed right across O’Connor’s face, then grabbed the sergeant by the throat and flung him to the side. That gave him time to roll the opposite direction and surge to his feet.
O’Connor came up at the same time and instantly charged at Big Thunder, again swinging powerful punches. But this time when Big Thunder tried to duck underneath O’Connor’s fists, O’Connor was ready. He brought the side of his right hand down hard on the back of Big Thunder’s neck. Big Thunder grunted and lost his balance, falling to one knee. He got his left hand down on the ground in time to catch himself. But as soon as he did that, O’Connor’s right foot came up in a vicious kick that caught Big Thunder on the jaw.
That knocked Big Thunder sprawling on his back. O’Connor came down on top of him with both knees in Big Thunder’s belly. Big Thunder couldn’t breathe and couldn’t get out of the way of the punches that O’Connor slammed into his face. Left, right, and then again, each blow jolting Big Thunder’s head back and forth. His features were swollen and smeared with blood.
Big Thunder got his hands up, dug his fingers into the front of O’Connor’s uniform shirt, and bucked up into a roll that threw O’Connor off him. Big Thunder heaved on the white man’s shirt at the same time. The crushing weight went away from Big Thunder’s belly. He wound up propped on his elbows with his chest heaving like a bellows.
O’Connor recovered and came at him again. Big Thunder flung up a hand and got it on O’Connor’s face. He clawed at the sergeant’s eyes, got a thumb in one of O’Connor’s nostrils, and tried to rip the sergeant’s nose right off his face. O’Connor roared in pain and punched Big Thunder in the throat. Big Thunder’s hand slipped away from O’Connor’s face. O’Connor hit him in the ribs again. Big Thunder swung a backhand that knocked O’Connor away from him.
Both men seized the opportunity to catch their breath as they clambered back to their feet. The pummeling they had taken left them battered, bruised, and bloody, and their movements were stiffer and slower now as brutally punished flesh rebelled. But the urge to fight was still strong in both men. O’Connor made the first move, bulling in as he swung his fists at Big Thunder.
Big Thunder didn’t try to avoid the punches this time. He simply absorbed them, ignoring the damage they did as he allowed O’Connor to get closer to him. When he made his move, O’Connor couldn’t get out of the way in time. Big Thunder caught O’Connor under the right arm with his left hand and used his right to reach down and grab O’Connor’s left thigh. With a deafening shout of effort, he lifted O’Connor off the ground and raised the sergeant above his head. It was a jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring display of sheer brute strength the likes of which none of the men watching this battle had ever seen before. Every soldier’s gaze was riveted on the scene as Big Thunder poised the struggling O’Connor above him for a second, then slammed him to the ground with incredible force.
That was when gunshots blasted behind the soldiers, closer to the river.
* * *
Preacher led the way to the log and was the first to dash nimbly across it, with Hawk right behind him, then Jamie and finally Lieutenant Hayden Tyler. When Preacher reached the opposite bank, he darted to his left and ran through the trees until he stopped next to one of them and pressed himself against the trunk.
Davidson was still out there among the mounted dragoons, watching as the battle began between Big Thunder and O’Connor. They couldn’t reach Davidson while he was surrounded by the soldiers, so Preacher motioned for his companions to take cover, too. Hawk had already done so, following his father’s lead, and now Jamie and Tyler did as well.
Preacher breathed shallowly as he waited. From where he was, he could see Big Thunder and O’Connor throwing each other around. It was a battle for the ages out there, and under other circumstances, Preacher would have enjoyed witnessing such an epic struggle.
Right now, though, he just wanted to get his hands on Edgar Davidson so he could put an end to all the trouble.
After several interminable minutes, Davidson turned away from the spectacle in disgust. He had ordered O’Connor not to fight the giant Crow warrior and the sergeant had disobeyed the command. Davidson clearly didn’t like that, but there was nothing he could do about it now. He stalked away from the soldiers and through the trees, heading back toward the rock where he had been sitting and writing in what was probably his journal. From the looks of it, he intended to collect the pen and inkwell he had left there.
Preacher was ready for him. He moved fast, stepping up behind Davidson and sliding his left arm around the lieutenant’s throat. Davidson didn’t even have a chance to gasp before Preacher had him locked in a tight grip.
“It’s over, Lieutenant,” Preacher
said quietly in Davidson’s ear.
Davidson struggled briefly but soon realized the futility of it. He stiffened as Jamie, Tyler, and Hawk appeared.
“I’m sorry it’s come to this, Edgar,” Tyler said. “But you’ve exceeded your authority, caused the death of numerous soldiers, and endangered all the other troops under your command. Therefore, I am officially relieving you of that command.”
“Better accept it while you still can,” Preacher said as he eased off a little on the pressure of his hold on Davidson’s throat.
Instead, Davidson gasped, “You . . . you traitor! I’ll have you shot! You . . . you . . .”
He continued sputtering incoherently. Preacher shut that off by tightening his grip again.
“All right, Lieutenant,” he said to Tyler. “I reckon you’d better go out there and let the soldiers know they’ll be followin’ your orders from here on out.”
At that moment, a great shout rose from the troopers, then was stilled abruptly. Something must have happened in the fight they were watching. Preacher hoped Big Thunder was all right. He started to turn Davidson a little so he could look in that direction, but as he did, a cry of alarm sounded and he saw that one of the dragoons had dismounted for some reason and noticed them. The young soldier jerked his rifle toward them and fired.
The ball whined harmlessly past Preacher’s head. An instant later, the Colt that had leaped into Jamie MacCallister’s hand blasted, as well, the bullet kicking up dirt at the trooper’s feet and making him leap backward. He lost his balance and fell, sitting down hard.
The shots had gotten all the soldiers’ attention, of course. They jerked their horses around toward the river and lifted their rifles. Lieutenant Tyler stepped out of the trees and shouted, “Hold your fire! Hold your fire!”
The familiar command, coming from the familiar figure in an officer’s uniform, made the men lower their weapons. They were still tense, though, and they stiffened in their saddles even more as Preacher forced Davidson out into the open and Jamie and Hawk followed them.
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