Preacher's Pursuit (The First Mountain Man) Read online

  Mallory didn’t trust Flagg as far as he could throw the man. Anyone who would betray his own countrymen for money would certainly betray a foreign agent for more money.

  But Mallory had taken precautions to see that that didn’t happen. Without going into detail, he had warned Flagg not to double-cross him. Flagg had denied that he would ever do such a thing, of course, but his word meant nothing to Mallory.

  Mallory rode alongside the lead wagon. A man named Vincent handled the reins. Like all the other drivers and workers who had accompanied the wagon train west from St. Louis, they had been well paid to follow orders and keep their mouths shut. They had to know that something underhanded was going on, but they didn’t care as long as they got their money.

  The sun was overhead at midday as the trail the wagons were following skirted a long, wooded ridge to the north. Mallory held up a hand in a signal for the wagons to halt as he spotted two riders descending that ridge.

  He recognized Ezra Flagg, even at a distance. The telltale eagle feathers fluttered at the end of Flagg’s rifle barrel.

  The man with Flagg sported feathers, too, but they were tied in his hair. A small shiver went through Mallory as the riders drew closer and he was able to make out the ruthless cast of the second man’s copper-hued face. Mallory had seen a few Indians in St. Louis, but they had been what the Americans called “friendlies.”

  The warrior riding at Flagg’s side appeared to be anything but friendly.

  Vincent called from the seat of the stopped lead wagon, “That’s a redskin comin’, Boss. Where there’s one o’ those devils, there’re likely to be more.”

  “I’m well aware of that,” Mallory snapped. “Your job is to drive the wagon, Vincent, not to offer advice.”

  Vincent shrugged, but his hand moved closer to the butt of the pistol at his waist. “Maybe so, but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna sit by and let some painted, feather-wearin’ bastard take my scalp.”

  “For God’s sake, there’s not going to be any scalping! We’re here to do business with the Indians, not to fight them.”

  Understanding dawned on Vincent’s face. “Those rifles hid in the false bottoms o’ the wagons…you’re gonna sell ’em to the redskins?”

  Mallory turned his head to give the man a hard stare. “Do you have any objections to that?”

  Vincent looked back at him for a long moment, then finally shook his head. He said, “As long as I get my money, mister, you can sell anything you want to anybody you want.”

  “You’ll get paid, have no fear of that.” Mallory turned to look at the approaching riders again. “But as a matter of fact, we’re not selling those weapons to the Indians. We’re going to give them away.”

  A surprised expression appeared on Vincent’s face, as if he thought that the Englishman he was working for had lost his mind. Mallory knew exactly what he was doing, though. The money to purchase those rifles and to outfit the wagons to carry them in concealment, as well as to buy the supplies that furnished the ostensible reason for the journey west, had come from Lord Aspermont, which meant that it came from high levels of the British government.

  Which meant, in the most basic terms, that it came from the king, although quite possibly William himself knew nothing about it. This king had never been much more than a figurehead. A circle of influential men, including Lord Aspermont, determined policy, trying to strengthen the Empire in anticipation of the inevitable ascension to the throne of the young Princess Victoria.

  Flagg and Walks Like a Bear were only about fifty yards away now. Mallory composed his thoughts and kept his expression carefully neutral as the two men approached and drew rein to halt their horses. Mallory walked his horse forward to greet them, not stopping until only a dozen feet separated him from Flagg and the Blackfoot chief. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to greet them, so he just sat there and waited for Flagg to say something first.

  Flagg smiled coldly and said, “Howdy, Mallory. Looks like you didn’t have any trouble gettin’ away from the settlement.”

  “Of course not. Everyone accepted my story that the wagons were returning to St. Louis for more supplies.”

  Flagg nodded toward his companion. “This is Walks Like a Bear, war chief of the Blackfeet.”

  Mallory gave the chief a solemn nod and asked, “Does he speak English?”

  Flagg chuckled. “Not a lick. He hates white men so bad he won’t have nothin’ to do with ’em, includin’ learnin’ their lingo. I figure he’d like to kill you right now, just ’cause you’re white.”

  “He seems to tolerate you without any difficulty,” Mallory pointed out.

  “That’s ’cause I’m helpin’ him get somethin’ he wants.”

  “I thought perhaps your, ah, wife was one of his people.”

  Flagg shook his head. “Nope. She’s Crow. And she ain’t my wife, I told you. The Crow hate me ’cause I stole her, and that’s another reason Bear here puts up with me. The Blackfeet an’ the Crow been fightin’ and killin’ each other for years, and the Crow bein’ my enemies makes ol’ Bear like me a mite better. Or hate me a mite less, dependin’ on how you want to look at it.”

  “That’s all very interesting, but let’s get on with it, shall we? I take it that the chief knows about the rifles?”

  “I told him all about ’em,” Flagg replied with a nod. “He can’t wait for him and his bucks to get their hands on ’em.”

  Mallory turned in the saddle and called to his men, “Open those false bottoms and get the rifles out!” He turned back to Flagg and the Blackfoot and added, “I’m surprised that the chief doesn’t have his men with him.”

  “Oh, they’re here,” Flagg said, a sly smile on his face. “You can’t see ’em, but they’re up there in that timber. Bear don’t trust you. You try to trick him or double-cross him, and you’ll see his men fast enough. They’ll be the last thing you see,” Flagg added.

  “There’ll be no tricks or double crosses…on either side.”

  Flagg shrugged. “I got no reason to cross you, Mallory. And these redskins, well, they’ll kill you straight out, or they’ll torture you for a few days if they’re in the mood to, but they won’t lie to you.”

  Vincent and Mallory’s other men unloaded the wagons, using iron bars to pry up the false bottoms in the vehicles and then wrestling out the crates containing the new flintlocks. Mallory dismounted and took a rifle from one of the crates when Vincent had wrenched the lid off. He carried the weapon over to Flagg and Walks Like a Bear and held it up to the war chief.

  The Blackfoot took the rifle and studied it for a minute or so, finally grunting in approval. Flagg leaned over in the saddle to take a closer look and said, “Wait just a damned minute. That gun’s got no flint. It won’t fire.”

  “Of course not,” Mallory said. “I’m not going to turn over functioning weapons to a bunch of savages. The flints have been removed from all of them.”

  An angry flush darkened Flagg’s face. “That was the deal, Mallory.”

  “Don’t worry, we have the flints,” Mallory assured him. “But it will take some time to make the rifles workable. That will give my men a chance to get away before the savages can decide to try out the weapons on them.”

  “They weren’t gonna do that,” Flagg said, but Mallory thought the man was lying. The Blackfeet had planned on killing them all and taking the rifles.

  “Well, now they won’t have to resist the temptation.”

  Frowning, Flagg went on. “You said somethin’ about your men gettin’ away. What about you?”

  “Oh, I’m not going anywhere,” Mallory said. “Vincent and the other men will return to St. Louis with the wagons, but I’m staying here.”

  “Here?” Flagg repeated. “Where?”

  “With you and the chief.” Mallory smiled. “I’m going to be there when those damned American upstarts learn to their everlasting regret that they never should have come out here in the first place.”

  Chapter 15
r />   Preacher found beavers in several of his traps, so by the next day after the gang of would-be killers left the valley, he had a good start on another load of plews. He was glad that Fairfax and the rest of the men were gone, but doubt still plagued him a little.

  Why had they come after him to start with? It had to be more than a desire for vengeance on Fairfax’s part, he thought, no matter how much the man in the beaver hat hated him. Bringing that many men west cost a considerable amount.

  With that uncertainty in mind, Preacher’s senses remained at a high level as he made the rounds of his trap lines. Of course, there was nothing unusual about that. He always stayed alert. Best way to stay alive, he had learned.

  So when Dog suddenly stiffened, his hackles lifting, and let out a deep-throated growl, Preacher instantly lifted his eyes to search for a threat. He had been scraping the hide from one of the beavers he had skinned, but he put the knife aside and reached for his rifle instead.

  Horse was grazing a few yards away on the tree-shaded bank of the stream where Preacher had found the beaver in one of his traps. The stallion lifted his head and peered off into the woods. His ears twitched.

  Horse was looking in the same direction as Dog. Preacher knew the animals smelled something that he couldn’t, and they didn’t like it.

  “All right, Dog, go see what it is,” he said in a low voice as he straightened to his feet.

  Without hesitation, Dog streaked off into the brush.

  “Stay, Horse,” Preacher told the stallion. Then he followed Dog, moving at a more deliberate pace. His eyes moved constantly as he threaded his way through the trees.

  After a few moments, he heard Dog growling again. The sound held an added urgency now. Preacher broke into a run as Dog barked. Running made more noise, but Preacher had a hunch there was no time to waste.

  He broke out of the trees in a small clearing at the foot of a bluff. He’d made camp in this spot a time or two, he recalled.

  Somebody else occupied the clearing now. An Indian, Crow by the looks of the decorations on his buckskins, had his back pressed against the bluff’s granite face. He had a tomahawk gripped in one hand, and he waved the weapon back and forth in front of him as if he were trying to fend off the big cur.

  Dog wasn’t trying to attack the Indian, though. He just stood there, growling and barking, keeping his quarry pinned against the bluff.

  Not that the man was going to run off, Preacher saw. The Indian was hurt. His shoulders were hunched over like he was in pain, and the tomahawk’s movements were slow and feeble. His left arm was pressed across his belly. Blood dripped onto the ground at his mocassined feet.

  It must have been the blood Dog smelled, Preacher thought. That, along with the distinctive odor of the rancid bear grease that the Indian had rubbed on his hair, was enough to tell the big cur that something was wrong.

  Preacher saw all of that in a heartbeat when he entered the clearing. The wounded man looked up, saw Preacher, and snarled. He spat out some words.

  Preacher spoke the Crow lingo pretty well. He understood what the wounded man was saying. It was a challenge and a warning at the same time, a defiant vow to kill the white man if Preacher came a step closer…after, of course, killing the white man’s devil wolf.

  “He’s not a wolf,” Preacher said in the Crow tongue, surprising the man. “He’s a dog…and I mean you no harm, friend.”

  Calling any Crow warrior “friend” was stretching things a mite where Preacher was concerned. He had killed a heap of them, and they had tried to kill him plenty of times.

  But Preacher had never encountered this particular Crow before and had nothing against the man, who seemed to be alone. Not only that, but the way the fella was bleeding, he didn’t represent much of a threat. He seemed to be unarmed except for the tomahawk.

  “Who…are you?” the man asked.

  Preacher hesitated before answering that. If he admitted who he was, the wounded warrior might try to kill him, just on general principles.

  But Preacher wasn’t in the habit of lying, also on general principles, so he said, “Some call me Preacher.”

  The man’s eyes widened. “Some call you…Crow Killer!” he grated.

  “I’ve been called lots of things. The point is, I don’t have any reason to kill you. I’d like to help you.”

  The man shook his head and said, “You cannot help me. The hated Blackfeet have…stolen my life…and the lives of my friends.”

  Preacher wasn’t surprised to hear that the man wasn’t out here alone. He wasn’t painted for war, so he’d probably been part of a hunting party. This area was shared on a tentative and often bloody basis by the Blackfeet, the Crow, the Shoshone, and the Sioux. The Crow were usually a mite farther east, the Blackfeet more to the north. But they ran into each other from time to time, usually with violent results.

  “Where are the others?” Preacher asked.

  “All…dead,” the wounded man panted. “Their bodies lie…I do not know…somewhere not far…I no longer know where I am…”

  It was quite an admission for an Indian to say that he was hurt so bad he didn’t know where he was. Preacher knew that was what this man meant. The fella had lost a lot of blood and probably wouldn’t last much longer. He sure as hell wouldn’t if he didn’t let Preacher help him.

  That decision was out of the wounded man’s hands, along with the tomahawk. With a groan, he slumped forward and the weapon slipped from his fingers. He landed on his knees, caught himself with the hand that had held the tomahawk, and with the last of his strength lifted his head to glare murderously at Preacher.

  “Stay…back!” he gasped. “I will kill…”

  He pitched forward on his face, the rest of the threat unvoiced.

  Preacher hurried forward. He kicked the tomahawk well out of reach, just in case the Crow warrior found some unguessed-at strength somewhere, and then knelt at the man’s side. He found a pulse in the man’s neck. It was fast and irregular but still there.

  Carefully, Preacher rolled the wounded man onto his back. He lifted the buckskin shirt and saw the arrow shaft protruding a couple of inches from the man’s belly. He hadn’t been able to see it before because of the way the man had kept his arm pressed to his midsection. The arrowhead was buried deep in the man’s gut. Either he had snapped off the rest of the shaft himself, or he’d fallen and broken it off that way.

  Didn’t really matter. The fella was as good as dead. Nobody recovered from a belly wound like that.

  The Crow stirred and groaned. His eyelids flickered open. Preacher saw the agony in the man’s eyes. The Crow’s lips moved. Preacher leaned closer to make out the words.

  “If you would…help me…end my suffering.”

  Preacher nodded. A quick slash across the man’s throat with his razor-edged hunting knife would usher him into the next world with swiftness and a lot less pain than he was going through now.

  But first, something prodded Preacher to ask, “What happened to you and your friends?”

  The man blinked and looked confused, as if puzzled why Preacher would be asking him such a question at a time like this. But if there was a Blackfoot war party in the valley, Preacher wanted to know about it.

  More importantly, the folks back at the trading post and settlement needed to know about it.

  “We were…hunting,” the wounded Crow managed to say. “A party of…Blackfeet…attacked us.”

  “A war party?”

  “They were…painted for war.”

  A chill went through Preacher at those words. He had suspected as much, but hearing it confirmed brought home the danger that the settlers faced. He wasn’t worried about himself; a man alone could easily avoid a larger group. He could probably even pick off a few of them if he wanted to.

  But there wasn’t time for that. He needed to get back to the settlement and warn the folks there. If everybody forted up inside the stockade at the trading post, they would have a chance to fight off the attac
k. Anyone caught outside the fence would probably be slaughtered, though.

  The wounded man drew Preacher’s attention back to the here and now by saying, “You said…you would help me.”

  “That’s right, I did.” Preacher reached for his knife.

  But before he could draw it, the Crow’s back arched and his eyes opened wide. His breath came out of him in a long sigh as he sagged back to the ground, and when the last of the air left his body, his life went with it. His dark eyes, open and staring, began to glaze over.

  Preacher took the time to press the man’s eyelids closed. If things had been different, he would have honored the warrior’s spirit by seeing that his body was laid to rest properly, in the Crow fashion.

  But there was no time for that now. As he straightened, he glanced up through the trees at the sky and judged the amount of light remaining. Even going back to fetch Horse right now and riding as hard as he could, it would probably be dark before he could reach the settlement.

  All he could do was hope that he would be in time, he thought as he said, “Come on, Dog,” and broke into a run through the trees.

  It would have been all right with Colin Fairfax if he never had to spend another night alone in this wilderness. The terrors he had experienced during his long trek back to St. Louis the year before had come back to him with the fall of darkness.

  Even though the situation was much different—he had a horse now and was well armed, with plenty of provisions—as night closed in he had felt again like the cold, starving, miserable wretch he had been for long weeks during his journey. Unwilling to build a fire since he didn’t want to give away his continued presence in the valley, he sat in the dark, eyes wide with fear, hands clutching his rifle, until exhaustion finally claimed him.