Preacher's Blood Hunt Page 13

  Blood Eye and the other two men he had knocked out were still unconscious. He had no time to deal with them. As the makeshift fuse sputtered and sparked behind him, he turned and started circling toward the corral and the posts where the prisoners were tied.

  The rest of the so-called fort was quiet. Evidently the two men who had walked behind the cabin were the only ones who had heard his struggle with Blood Eye.

  The mountain man reached the cabin closest to the corral and crouched in the deep shadows next to it. From where he was, he could watch the cabin where he had set the fire.

  He couldn’t see any sign of flames. Had the little pyre failed to ignite? Had it not caught the cabin on fire after all?

  Then he spotted a faint glow above the cabin’s roof, and a moment later little orange tongues of flame licked into view. They grew rapidly and set the shake roof on fire. The dry wood went up with a whoosh!

  Yelling came from inside the cabin, the smoke having roused the occupants from sleep. The door burst open and men dashed outside. Their shouts were louder as they called for help and bellowed, “Fire! Fire!”

  More men appeared and ran toward the burning cabin. When several men emerged from the cabin beside which Preacher waited and dashed toward the blaze, he figured it was safe to make his move.

  With his rifle in his left hand and his knife in his right, he ran toward the prisoners.

  Will Gardner and Gray Otter lifted their heads as he approached. Preacher called softly to them, “It’s all right! I’m a friend!”

  He ran behind the post where Gray Otter was tied. “Pull your hands up as far as you can and hold them apart.”

  When Gray Otter had done so, the mountain man leaned down and slashed the rawhide bonds. Gray Otter sagged forward.

  “See if you can untie your feet while I cut Gardner’s hands loose.” Preacher moved over to the other post.

  As Gardner lifted his hands and held them apart as much as he could, he asked, “Who are you, mister?”

  “They call me Preacher. I’ve got a grudge against Druke, too.”

  “I’ve heard of you. I reckon you started that fire.”

  “Seemed like the thing to do at the time,” Preacher replied dryly.

  He was worried that some of Druke’s men would discover Blood Eye and the other two men he had knocked out. That would warn them that something else was going on besides just a simple fire.

  Gray Otter was still working at the ankle bonds.

  Preacher hurried back over there. “I’ll get ’em.” He slid the blade between Gray Otter’s ankles and sawed through the rawhide. The strips were tough but no match for the razor-keen edge of Preacher’s knife.

  “I’ve got mine.” Gardner pushed himself to his feet, then staggered a little. “Feet are a little numb from being tied for so long.”

  He stepped over to Gray Otter, clasped his friend’s upraised hand, and hauled back. Gray Otter came upright.

  “Can you run?” Gardner asked tensely.

  Gray Otter nodded.

  The cabin that Preacher had set on fire was completely engulfed by flames. Men ran around it, yelling and using buckets filled with water from the nearby stream in an attempt to put out the conflagration. They weren’t going to be able to save the cabin, but they might keep the fire from spreading.

  The hellish red light from the blaze stretched across the compound toward the corral. If any of Druke’s men looked in that direction, they would know the prisoners were no longer tied to those posts.

  “Let’s go,” Preacher said. “We don’t have much time.”

  He led the former captives at a trot toward the corral. The horses had smelled the smoke from the burning cabin and were skittish in the way that animals always instinctively fear fire.

  Preacher ducked between the poles. Gardner and Gray Otter followed him. The mountain man went to one of the horses that appeared to be the least spooked, a big, dark animal that stood facing him as he approached.

  He held out a hand, let the horse smell him, and then scratched the horse’s nose. When he was confident that the horse wouldn’t dance away from him, a bound put him on its back.

  He looked over and saw that his two companions had chosen mounts as well and gotten up on them. Preacher heeled his horse forward and rode over to the gate. He lifted the rope latch holding it closed.

  At that moment, renewed shouting from the direction of the burning cabin caught his attention. Several men were running toward the corral. Flame bloomed in the darkness as they fired pistols.

  Preacher swung the gate wide and shouted to Gardner and Gray Otter, “Scatter ’em!”

  The former prisoners yelled and drove their mounts against the other horses. Already spooked, that was all it took to make the horses stampede wildly through the open gate and run away from the fire.

  Preacher, Gardner, and Gray Otter were right behind them. They used the stampeding horses for cover and leaned over the necks of their own mounts to make themselves smaller targets.

  With a hand gripping his mount’s mane, Preacher guided the horse toward the trees. He let out a shrill whistle, a summons for Dog to follow them.

  With chaos and commotion behind them, muzzle flashes spurting redly in the night, and rifle balls humming through the air, Preacher, Will Gardner, and Gray Otter lit a shuck away from Fort Druke.

  CHAPTER 24

  Preacher led the way toward the spot where he had left Horse and the pack animal. The horse he was on seemed to be a good sturdy one with decent speed, but he wanted his usual mount under him while they tried to get away from Blood Eye, Druke, and the rest of the killers.

  If Preacher was sure of one thing, it was that Blood Eye would come after them.

  If things had worked out differently, he would have killed the renegade Crow and considered it a good job well done.

  Preacher had never been one to mope over things and wish they were different, but rather deal with life the way it was. That made his goals rather simple: put some distance between themselves and Fort Druke; give the slip to any pursuit; find a place to hole up; and then figure out things from there.

  Even though they had been in the valley for months, Gardner and Gray Otter seemed content to let Preacher take the lead. A few minutes later, he rode up to Horse and transferred from one mount to the other without touching the ground in between.

  “You fellas have been dodgin’ Druke for quite a while,” he said to his two companions. “Is there a particular place you want to head for?”

  “There’s a cave we’ve been using as a hideout,” Gardner replied. “I don’t think Druke knows about it. If he did, he would have come after us there before now.”

  “Can you find it in the dark?”

  Gardner laughed. “We can. You want me to lead the way?”

  Preacher had untied Horse and the pack animal. “Go right ahead. I’ll bring up the rear.”

  “I think I should warn you. It’s kind of crazy, but I think I saw a wolf following us a few minutes ago.”

  It was Preacher’s turn to laugh. “That was no wolf. That was Dog.”

  “A friend of yours, I take it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I didn’t get a very good look at him, but good enough to know that I’m glad he’s on our side!”

  Gardner heeled his horse into motion again. Gray Otter fell in behind him. Preacher was last in line, leading the pack animal. The horse he had ridden away from Druke’s stronghold followed along, although Preacher had no way to lead it.

  Gardner seemed to know where he was going. Preacher had to give him credit for that. The young man set a fairly fast pace despite the darkness.

  Preacher listened for sounds of pursuit behind them, but didn’t hear any. He thought they had a pretty good lead on Druke’s men, and the way the horses had scattered, it was going to take awhile to round them up.

  Gardner led the small party toward the mountains about halfway between the pass that opened in King’s Crown
from the east and Fort Druke, which lay toward the northwestern peaks. He found a trail that ran back and forth through the foothills and ascended gradually.

  When Preacher glanced back after a while, he saw that they had climbed quite a bit without it being obvious. The valley floor lay a couple hundred feet below them.

  The pines thickened until the riders had to proceed single file. A thick carpet of fallen needles muffled the thuds of the horses’ hooves. After a time, they came out of the trees and found themselves facing a sheer sandstone bluff that rose another hundred feet.

  Gardner rode toward the bluff, as if expecting his horse to climb up it like a fly.

  Preacher was curious, but he didn’t ask any questions. He figured he would find out what Gardner’s intentions were in good time.

  As they reached the bluff, Preacher finally saw what Gardner and Gray Otter had known was there all along. A narrow ledge, almost invisible from a distance, zigzagged back and forth up the sandstone face.

  “I wish we had our own ponies,” Gardner said as he paused at the base of the trail. “They’re sure-footed, and they’re used to this route. I don’t know about these horses.”

  “Take it slow and easy,” Preacher advised. “I don’t reckon we need to rush. I don’t think Druke and his bunch are anywhere close to us.”

  “Let’s hope you’re right.” Gardner hitched his mount forward and started up the back-and-forth trail at a deliberate pace.

  Gray Otter went along behind him, following closely, but not too close. It was never a good idea to crowd a person on a mountain trail. That had a way of leading to disaster.

  Preacher came next, then the pack animal. The extra horse stopped at the base of the trail, seemed to study it for a moment, then turned and trotted away.

  Preacher let the animal go. He could have rigged some sort of lead rope, but had chosen not to. In the fairly close confines of King’s Crown, with mountains all around them, it was highly doubtful that their survival would depend on an extra horse.

  The darkness and the narrow trail made for a nerve-wracking climb, but at least it didn’t last very long. When they reached the top Preacher saw that they were on a bench about a quarter mile wide, dotted with trees and brush.

  A rocky slope rose on the far side of the bench, but it wasn’t nearly as steep as the bluff. When they reached the slope, Gardner dismounted and led his horse up. Gray Otter and Preacher followed suit. The angle was steep enough that Preacher was winded after a while.

  What he had taken for a patch of shadow on the mountainside was actually the mouth of a cave. He called to Gardner, “That’s your hideout?”

  “That’s right. Nobody but us knows that it’s up here. And now you, of course.”

  “I don’t figure on spreadin’ the news. You ought to have a good view of the whole valley from up here.”

  “We do,” Gardner agreed. “That helps us keep track of what deviltry Druke is up to.”

  “How’d you wind up declarin’ war on him and his bunch, anyway?”

  Gardner paused. “We saw what he was doing to the other trappers in the valley. Somebody had to stand up to him and try to put a stop to it.” The young man shrugged his shoulders. “I have this . . . flaw in my character, I suppose you could say. I can’t stand to see someone else being mistreated. Do whatever you want to me and I might put up with it, but try to hurt or take advantage of someone else, especially someone innocent, and I’ll do my best to oppose you.”

  “I don’t reckon anybody could call that a flaw,” Preacher said. “Sounds like a mighty good quality to me.”

  “Well, sometimes it gets me into trouble.” Gardner glanced at Gray Otter. “I’m sorry to say that sometimes it gets those I care about into trouble, too.”

  Gray Otter appeared to pay no attention to him. Preacher had a hunch the Indian wanted to fight Jebediah Druke just as much as Gardner did.

  They reached the cave a few minutes later. The opening was big enough that the horses could be led through it one at a time. Once they were inside, the echoes told Preacher that the cave opened up into a fairly large chamber.

  He heard the faint metallic ring of flint and steel, and light suddenly flared up. Preacher’s eyes adjusted to the glare, then he saw that Gardner had lit a torch fashioned from pitch-coated rags wrapped around a branch that was stuffed into a crack in the cave wall.

  Gray Otter untied a rawhide thong that held back a blanket hung over the entrance. The blanket fell so that it draped the entrance and blocked the light from the torch.

  That was smart and told Preacher that the two of them had devoted some thought to making the hideout secure.

  He looked around. The cave was about forty feet deep and maybe thirty feet wide. Big enough so that horses could stay on one side and people on the other.

  In fact, a crude fence of plaited rawhide lay on the stone floor. Once the horses were led into the left side of the cave, that fence could be pulled up and fastened to keep them there.

  Water filled a basin in the rock. Preacher couldn’t tell if it was natural or if someone had hollowed it out. But either way it served to provide water for the horses.

  The other part of the cave was furnished with rough shelves on the walls to hold supplies, a fire pit located under a natural chimney that would carry the smoke out, and a pile of thick buffalo robes on the floor.

  “Not exactly all the comforts of home,” Gardner said with a grin, “but we like it. We don’t actually spend much time here. We prefer being out in the open.”

  “Can’t blame you for that,” Preacher said. “I’m the same way.”

  Gray Otter went to a pile of firewood in the corner, selected several branches, and returned to the fire pit to start building a fire. Gardner took the torch from the wall and lit the branches when Gray Otter had them ready.

  When the fire was going, Gardner took a package wrapped in oilcloth from one of the shelves. “We still have a little salt pork, Preacher. We’d be glad to share it with you.”

  “I don’t want to cause your supplies to run short.”

  “If it weren’t for you, we’d still be tied to those posts facing death in a few hours. I think we can spare some salt pork.”

  “Well, in that case I’m much obliged. I’ll throw in the makin’s for some biscuits. We’ll have us a feast.”

  “Might as well. And then after we’ve eaten”—Gardner’s face and voice became grim—“we’ll figure out how we’re going to stop Jebediah Druke and that murderous Indian of his from hunting us down and killing us.”

  CHAPTER 25

  The red haze of fury that seemed to hang in front of Jebediah Druke’s eyes made the light from the burning cabin more garish. He waved his arms at his men still throwing buckets of water on the blaze in a vain attempt to quell it, and shouted, “Forget the damned cabin! Let it burn! Round up the horses, now!”

  Sam Turner hurried up to Druke. “There’s something around back here you need to see, Jebediah.”

  “What is it now? More proof of how incompetent all the rest of you are?”

  Turner didn’t answer that. He just hurried around the burning cabin.

  Druke followed his second in command, still seething with anger.

  The flickering light from the flames washed over three dark shapes on the ground. Two men had sat up already; the third still lay senseless on the ground.

  One of the men who had regained consciousness was Blood Eye. He stood up sharply as Druke and Turner approached.

  For one of the first times in Druke’s memory, the renegade Crow wasn’t stoic and expressionless. Lines of rage were etched into his leathery face. His good eye burned with a killing passion.

  “Where is he?” Blood Eye demanded.

  “Who?” Druke asked.

  “The man who did this!”

  “He got away,” Druke said. “And that’s not all. He freed the prisoners and took them with him.”

  “Gray Otter? Gone?”

  “Yeah, and G
ardner, too.”

  It struck Druke as a little odd that Blood Eye seemed more concerned with Gray Otter getting away than he did about Will Gardner’s escape, but he pushed that thought aside. He had more important things to worry about. Somebody else had challenged him, had defied his rule in King’s Crown, and that couldn’t be allowed to stand.

  “They scattered the horses, too,” Druke went on, “but I’ve got the men rounding them up. We’ll be able to get on their trail soon.”

  “My horse was not with the others,” Blood Eye muttered. “I will go after them now.” He started to turn away.

  Druke took hold of his arm and stopped him.

  Blood Eye’s head snapped around as he glared a warning at Druke for touching him. Druke returned the glare, and his gaze was just as steady and angry as Blood Eye’s. They were two very dangerous men. After the stalemate continued for a few tense seconds, Blood Eye looked away.

  Druke knew better than to take that gesture as surrender. He knew Blood Eye didn’t want to waste time arguing.

  “Did you see who did this?” Druke asked.

  “A tall man in buckskins.”

  “One of the other trappers from the valley?”

  Blood Eye shook his head. “None of them are brave enough to invade your stronghold. Even if such a man existed, I would have killed him when we fought. This man is one we have not seen before.”

  “As fast and strong as you, huh?”

  “Almost,” Blood Eye replied.

  It seemed to Druke that since Blood Eye was the one who’d wound up on the ground, unconscious, there wasn’t really any “almost” about it. It wouldn’t serve any purpose for him to point that out, however, so he kept the thought to himself.

  Blood Eye started to turn away again when Druke stopped him by saying, “I know where they might be headed.”

  “Tell me,” Blood Eye snapped.

  “One of my men was doing some scouting a few days ago and saw Gardner and Gray Otter going into a cave in the mountains about ten miles from here, back around the valley to the southeast. You know it?”