“What do you want with MacCallister?”
“Now, damn it, that’s my business. Wolf or no wolf!”
“I’m makin’ it my business,” Preacher said in a flat voice, “because Jamie MacCallister’s a good friend of mine. And it just so happens . . . I’m part of the same bunch he is.”
That appeared to surprise Lomax. “Oh. At first I thought you was a highwayman, or somethin’ like that.”
“Not hardly.”
“Then who are you? I reckon that’s a fair question, since you asked the same of me.”
“They call me Preacher,” the mountain man said.
Even in the darkness, he could tell that Lomax’s eyes got bigger. “Preacher,” the man repeated. Then, with a note of pride in his voice, he went on. “Yeah, I’ve heard stories about you, too. And I was about to whip you. I would have, if that wolf-dog hadn’t butted in.”
“Son, I was just gettin’ warmed up. There’s a good chance Dog saved your life by tacklin’ you when he did, otherwise I might’ve forgot Jamie asked me to bring you back alive.”
“MacCallister wants me?” Lomax sounded both confused and surprised.
“He wanted to know who was followin’ us, and why. And so do I. So tell me your business with Jamie.”
Lomax regarded him for a long moment, then said vehemently, “No, sir! No, sir, I won’t. What I got to say, I’ll be sayin’ to Jamie MacCallister his ownself, nobody else. If that ain’t good enough, just . . . just go ahead and shoot me! I’d rather die that way than bein’ mauled to death by some vicious critter.”
Preacher stood there in silence as the seconds ticked by. Finally, he said disgustedly, “Nobody’s gonna shoot you, and I ain’t gonna sic Dog on you . . . yet. If you’re that bound and determined to talk to Jamie, I reckon that’s what he’d want. Throw your saddle back on your horse and let’s get outta here.”
“You’re gonna take me to MacCallister?” Lomax sounded like he couldn’t believe it.
“That’s right. But I’ll have a gun on you the whole time, and if you try any dirty tricks, I’ll blow a hole clean through you.”
“No tricks,” Lomax promised. “I just want to say what I’ve come to say . . . and then we’ll see what happens.”
Chapter 13
“Hello, the camp!” Preacher called a short time later as he and Roscoe Lomax approached the spot where Jamie and the others had stopped for the night. They had built a small fire, and Preacher actually did smell coffee, as well as bacon, instead of just imagining it. The mingled aroma reminded him of how long it had been since he’d had anything to eat.
Lomax rode in front of him. Preacher hadn’t tied the bullwhacker’s hands, but he still held the Colt Dragoon with the barrel resting on the saddle’s pommel. The revolver was ready for instant use if Lomax tried anything fishy.
So far, the man had cooperated, once Preacher agreed to take him to Jamie. Maybe he actually was telling the truth about having something to say to the big frontiersman.
“That you, Preacher?” Jamie called back in response to the mountain man’s hail.
“Yeah, I’m comin’ in. And I’ve got another fella with me, so don’t shoot him unless I say so!”
A booming laugh came from Jamie. “I reckon we can do that. Come ahead.”
Preacher nudged Horse into motion again. “Go on, Dog,” he told the big cur. Happily, Dog raced on into camp.
“I still don’t see how you can travel with a critter like that,” Lomax groused.
“A lot of folks might say the same to me about ridin’ with you,” Preacher shot back.
Lomax muttered something Preacher couldn’t make out as they rode up to the circle of flickering yellow light cast by the campfire. Jamie, Sutton, and the dragoons were all on their feet, waiting to see who Preacher had brought with him.
When Jamie laid eyes on the visitor, he exclaimed, “Lomax!”
“So you do know this hombre,” said Preacher.
“I know him, all right, I just never expected to see him again. Or at least not so soon.” Jamie scowled at Lomax. “The last time I saw him, he was out cold on the floor of a cantina in Santa Fe. I was the one who put him there.”
“Yeah, but before that, we had a drink together, remember?” Lomax said.
After a second, Jamie shrugged and nodded. “I suppose we did.” The grim cast of his rugged face relaxed a little. “As I recall, we spent that time watching everybody else in the cantina whaling the tar out of each other.”
“Yeah, it was a pretty good brawl.”
“A brawl that you started.”
“If you hadn’t had your big ol’ feet stuck out in the way—” Lomax stopped short, drew in a deep breath, then asked, “All right if I get down off this horse?”
“Go ahead,” said Jamie. “It goes against the grain to turn visitors away from a fire, even someone like you.”
Lomax and Preacher both swung down from their saddles. Colonel Sutton motioned for a couple of his men to take care of the horses. Jamie stalked forward, planted his feet firmly, and hooked his thumbs in his gunbelt as he confronted Lomax. “Now, what was that you were saying about somebody’s big old feet?”
Lomax grimaced and said, “I’m sorry about that, MacCallister. My temper just got the best of me for a second there. That’s a never-endin’ struggle for me.” He paused, then went on. “I know it was my fault for not watchin’ where I was goin’ that night, and I wanted to say as much. That’s why I followed you up here . . . to tell you I’m sorry for that ruckus we had down in Santa Fe.”
Jamie looked like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He stared at Lomax for several long seconds, then squinted his eyes and cocked his head a little to the side. “You’re trying to tell me that you came all this way just to apologize?”
“That’s right,” Lomax stated, and the defiant expression on his face looked like he was daring anybody to cast doubt on his motive. “I knowed you had a big ranch in Colorado, so I headed there first, only before I could ride in and speak my piece, I spotted you leavin’ with these here soldier boys.” The bullwhacker waved a big hand at the dragoons. “That got me curious. I wondered where you were goin’, so I decided to trail along for a while and see.” The broad shoulders rose and fell in the buffalo coat. “I didn’t have nowheres else I had to be. I work when I feel like it, and just then I felt like indulgin’ my curiosity.”
The story was just odd enough to be true, thought Preacher. Jamie looked like he couldn’t make up his mind whether to believe it or not.
After a moment, Jamie shook his head. “There’s got to be more to the story than that, Lomax. If you want me to believe that you didn’t follow us intending to cause trouble, you’re going to have to tell me more. What convinced you that you were in the wrong and ought to apologize?”
“Reckon I could have some coffee first, and maybe a little somethin’ to eat?” asked Lomax. “I had a cold camp, back there where Preacher jumped me, and jerky and water ain’t a very satisfyin’ supper.”
The group had plenty of supplies, so Preacher wasn’t surprised when Jamie’s natural Western hospitality came to the surface again. “Yeah, go ahead and sit. Preacher, you need to eat, too.”
“Just what I had in mind,” the mountain man said.
The rest of the men resumed their supper as Preacher and Lomax joined them around the fire. Once they had cups of coffee and plates of bacon, beans, and biscuits, Jamie said, “All right, Lomax, let’s have the story.”
Lomax swallowed a mouthful of food, washed it down with a swig of coffee, and then said, “When you walloped me, MacCallister, you came mighty close to killin’ me.”
Jamie frowned. “You were out cold, but I didn’t think I hit you hard enough to do any real damage.” He grunted. “Especially considering how hard that head of yours is.”
“Yeah, my skull’s pretty thick,” Lomax agreed with a chuckle. “Problem is, when I fell down, I landed on the back of my head, and the floor of that c
antina was even harder. My pards hauled me out of there, and I didn’t come to for more ’n a day.”
“Is that the truth?” Jamie asked, his frown deepening.
“I got no reason to lie about it. And when I did wake up, I was still outta my head for another three or four days. My friends had jobs waitin’ for ’em on a wagon train headin’ back up the trail to St. Louis, but they paid a gal name of Mirabel to look after me. You might remember her. She was dancin’ in that cantina.”
“I remember her,” Jamie said with a solemn nod. “She nursed you back to health?”
“That’s right. It took a while before I was able to get my brain workin’ right again. Durin’ that time, I . . . I kept thinkin’ I was back in the past, growin’ up in Ohio and then headin’ west to make my fortune.” Lomax’s voice had taken on a hollow tone while he was talking, and although he stared into the fire, he seemed to be looking at something a million miles away.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever thought back over all the things you’ve done in your life,” he went on. “It was even worse ’n that for me. I wasn’t just rememberin’ all those times. It was like I was livin’ ’em all over again. And let me tell you, it weren’t pleasant. I’ve done some things—” His voice choked off, and for a long moment he couldn’t continue.
Silence hung over the camp, broken only by the faint crackle of flames in the campfire and the quiet noises made by the horses as they shifted around on their picket ropes.
“I always liked to boast about what a hell-roarin’ he-wolf I am,” Lomax finally went on. “But I’ve done some mighty cowardly things. I’ve turned my back on friends and other folks who needed me. I’ve made promises I knowed good and well I wasn’t gonna keep. I hurt folks who didn’t deserve it. When you get right down to it, I was a sorry, no-good son of a gun. Ain’t no other way to say it. And there I was, experiencin’ all that in my head again, only this time I saw it all clear as day, without makin’ any excuses for what I done, and . . . and it shook me clear to my bones, MacCallister. It purely did. I ain’t sayin’ I’m the worst fella to ever come down the pike. I reckon I ain’t, but I ain’t good, neither, and when I finally come out of it and realized where I was and what’d happened, I figured I had to at least try to make some things right, even though there ain’t no way I can ever square up accounts for the rest o’ my life. And the place to start was with you. Tellin’ you I’m sorry for that fight I started. I’m hopin’ you’ll forgive me.”
Considering the sort of man he was, it was a long speech, possibly the longest Lomax had ever made in his life that didn’t include any of the drunken boasting he had talked about. To Preacher’s ears, it had sounded heartfelt and sincere, too. Lomax was probably capable of spinning a yarn to trick somebody, but Preacher didn’t believe that was the case here.
Jamie had started out looking very skeptical, too, but he seemed to grow more convinced the longer he listened. The silence dragged out for several seconds after Lomax finished, but then Jamie said, “You just want me to forgive you?”
“Yep. That’ll be a start, anyway.”
“But it was just a blasted cantina brawl!” Jamie exclaimed. “I’ve been mixed up in dozens of them. If you hadn’t started it, there’s a good chance something else would have. Feeling guilty about something like that is no reason to go traipsing over hundreds of miles of frontier.”
“Maybe not for most folks, but it seemed to me like what I ought to do,” Lomax said stubbornly. “If you don’t want to accept my apology—”
“Hold on, hold on. I never said I wouldn’t accept your apology. I’m still just surprised by it, that’s all.” Jamie shook his head. “The idea that you’d just up and get religion never crossed my mind, Lomax.”
“It ain’t so much religion. Nobody appeared to me and told me to start doin’ good or anything like that, like in the story about Moses and the bullrushers or whatever they was.”
Colonel Sutton ventured, “I believe it was a burning bush in which the Lord appeared to Moses—”
“I said I didn’t recollect exactly what the story was, remember?” snapped Lomax, then immediately looked contrite again. “Beggin’ your pardon, Colonel. Like I said, I still have a problem with this short temper o’ mine. But I’m workin’ on it. I give you my word on that.”
Jamie said, “Well, for what it’s worth, I forgive you for your part in that brawl, Lomax. Now maybe you should forgive me for clouting you like that, if it nearly killed you.”
“You ain’t to blame for that, MacCallister. It was all my own doin’. I don’t hold no grudges against you, not a blamed one.”
“That’s good to know,” Jamie responded dryly.
Lomax looked around at the group and said, “So tell me . . . where are you fellas bound for?”
Jamie glanced at Sutton, who said, “It’s not a secret.”
“We’re headed for Fort Laramie first to meet up with some other folks,” Jamie told Lomax. “Then on up into Blackfoot country to look for some people who disappeared there five years ago.”
“Disappeared five years ago in Blackfoot country?” repeated Lomax. “Well, hell, MacCallister. They’re bound to be a long time dead by now!”
“That’s pretty much what we figure, too, but we have to be sure.”
“They must’ve been mighty important folks.”
“To some people, I suppose,” Jamie said.
After all that talking, Lomax went back to his supper, hungrily polishing off the rest of his food and slurping down the coffee still in his cup. With that done, he sat back on the rock he had chosen for his seat and let out a loud belch.
“Careful,” Preacher said. “The Blackfeet’ll hear us comin’ .”
“Won’t matter,” Lomax said. “You can’t go skulkin’ around their territory without them knowin’ about it. They won’t take kindly to it, neither. I never had any dealin’s with ’em since most of my time’s been spent down in the Southwest, but I’ve heard plenty of stories. No matter what you do, there’s a good chance you boys are headed straight into trouble.” He paused. “Which makes me feel kinda foolish over what I’m fixin’ to ask you, but I’m gonna do it anyway.”
“What’s that?” asked Jamie.
Preacher had a feeling he already knew the answer, and the big bullwhacker confirmed that a second later.
“Can I come with you?” Lomax asked.
Chapter 14
After what had happened in Santa Fe, and knowing Roscoe Lomax’s reputation, Jamie was reluctant to let the bullwhacker join their group, no matter how genuinely contrite Lomax appeared to be. He believed that most men deserved a second chance, however, so he talked it over with Preacher and Colonel Sutton, the three of them moving over next to the horses to have their discussion out of earshot of the men around the fire.
“What about it, Jamie?” Sutton asked. “Is this man trustworthy?”
“I don’t know, Colonel. He has a reputation as a troublemaker, but maybe he’s changed.”
“He’s a fightin’ man, I can tell you that much,” said Preacher. “When the two of us tangled, I had my hands full. He claimed he would’ve beat me if Dog hadn’t jumped into the fracas, and I don’t believe that for a second. But he’s tough, ain’t no doubt in my mind about that.”
“If we run into trouble up there in Blackfoot country,” Sutton mused, “it might not hurt to have another good fighting man on our side.”
Jamie nodded slowly. “There’s that to consider. We’re going into an unknown situation, but one thing we do know is that the Blackfeet won’t welcome us with open arms. Lomax is right about that.”
“It’s up to you,” the colonel said. “I don’t want to do anything that you don’t agree with or that makes you uncomfortable. We’ll send the man packing, if you want.”
Jamie thought about it for a moment longer, then said, “No, I’m willing to take a chance on him.”
“You should be the one to tell him, then.”
The three of
them went back to the campfire. Jamie gave the bullwhacker a hard stare for a few seconds and then said, “All right, Lomax. Consider yourself one of us. You can come along on the mission if you want to . . . as long as you don’t cause any problems.”
A grin creased the man’s face under the bushy beard. “I’m much obliged to you, MacCallister,” he said. “I reckon comin’ along and helpin’ out is the best way for me to prove to you that I meant what I said about bein’ sorry.”
“Just keep a tight rein on that temper of yours,” Jamie advised. “Where we’re going, being hotheaded is a good way of getting in trouble.”
“Or gettin’ dead,” Preacher added.
* * *
The party reached Fort Laramie three days later. The outpost was located within a large bend of the Laramie River, so that the stream bordered it on the east, west, and south sides. Only a short distance downstream, the Laramie flowed into the larger North Platte River.
That confluence of waterways meant it was a good location for a trading post. That had led the famed fur traders Robert Campbell and William Sublette to establish Fort William at this spot, a stockade-type fort constructed of thick logs. Over time, the log stockade had been replaced by even thicker, sturdier adobe walls with several castlelike guard towers spaced around the perimeter.
Eventually the place had been renamed Fort John, and when the army took it over a few years later, it had become Fort Laramie with the addition of new buildings for stables, a blacksmith shop, officers’ and soldiers’ quarters, a bakery, a guardhouse, and a powder magazine to house and support the fort’s garrison. It was an impressive post.
As Jamie, Preacher, and the others rode toward it, Lomax frowned and pointed to the conical hide lodges scattered around the outside of the fort. “Those are redskin tepees, ain’t they?” he asked. “I hope the Injuns livin’ in ’em are friendly.”
When All Hell Broke Loose Page 9
