Preacher's Showdown Read online

  Preacher nodded. “More’n likely. But it’s late enough in the day we can just go ahead and make camp here for the night. It’ll have to be a cold camp, though. I don’t reckon we’ll find any buffalo chips dry enough to burn right now.”

  “You mean we’re going to be stuck here until the ground dries out?” Corliss asked.

  “Yeah, but that won’t take too long. It might even be dry enough come mornin’. If it ain’t, then it should be by day after tomorrow, for sure.”

  “I hope you’re right. I hate to be delayed.”

  “Might as well take it easy and not worry about it,” Preacher advised. “Gettin’ a burr under your saddle over somethin’ you can’t do a blamed thing about will just angrify your blood.”

  “I’ll certainly pay heed to that bit of homespun wisdom,” Corliss said.

  Preacher’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything else. He was getting used to Corliss acting like a jackass more often than not.

  They ate an early supper of cold beans left over from the midday meal; then everyone turned in except for Preacher, who planned to stand the first turn on guard by himself. After the storm moved on, the clouds had broken up, allowing the sun to shine for a few minutes before it set. A faint red glow remained in the western sky as the camp grew quiet. With Dog sitting beside him, Preacher watched until it faded completely to black.

  The thoroughbraces on one of the wagons creaked a little as the weight on them shifted. The noise was so slight that anyone with ears less keen than Preacher’s might not have noticed it. But he heard it and turned his head to look as a figure climbed out of one of the wagons and dropped silently to the ground.

  That was the wagon shared by Jake and Jerome. The fella who had just climbed out was too big to be the boy, so that left Jerome. Probably answering the call of nature, Preacher thought, but since he couldn’t be sure about that, he cat-footed along behind the figure as Jerome walked out onto the prairie, away from the wagons. He was sure going out a long way, Preacher thought, if all he wanted to do was dig a hole or some such.

  Preacher suddenly veered off to the side as he heard somebody coming up behind him. Whoever it was didn’t move as quietly as Jerome did. Preacher dropped to a knee, and then flattened out on the ground as he waited to see what the hell was going on here. The moon hadn’t risen yet, but the starlight was enough for him to see the second person from the wagon train come up and join Jerome, who had stopped about a hundred yards away from the vehicles.

  Preacher’s jaw tightened as he watched the two of them embrace. He heard Jerome say, “Thank God you weren’t hurt during that storm this afternoon, darling. I don’t think I could stand it if anything happened to you.”

  “And I feel the same way, Jerome,” Deborah Morrigan said. She moved closer to him, and Preacher knew from the way their heads came together that they were kissing.

  Well, hell, the mountain man thought.

  Seventeen

  The Indians showed up the next morning. They sat on their ponies, a dozen strong, about two hundred yards away on the bank of the Platte River. Preacher was the first one awake, as usual. He spotted the Indians as the sky began to turn gray, but since they were just sitting there, he didn’t do anything about it.

  Best to wait and see what they had in mind. Could be they were friendly.

  Or could be they were just trying to make up their minds whether they wanted to kill these white interlopers in a land they considered their own.

  Preacher hadn’t said or done anything about the encounter he had witnessed the night before either. Jerome and Deborah had hugged and sparked and talked quietly for a while, then slipped back to the wagon train separately. Preacher stayed where he was until they were safely in their wagons, then returned to the circle of covered vehicles himself.

  The fact that Jerome was romantically involved with his cousin’s fiancée was bothersome because it held the potential for causing trouble, but other than that, Preacher didn’t see that it was any of his business. He planned to keep his mouth shut about what he had seen, although he reserved the right to make a discreet suggestion to Jerome that he and Deborah ought to be careful.

  The whole thing might not amount to a hill o’ beans, though, Preacher thought as he watched the Indians sitting there on their ponies—because it was possible that none of them would survive the rising of the sun long enough to worry about such problems as romance.

  He found some buffalo chips that had dried out enough overnight to burn, built a fire, and put the coffee on to boil. The Indians would smell it and take it for a sign that he wasn’t worried about their presence. That might help determine what they did. Like animals, they would be quicker to attack if they sensed fear or weakness.

  Preacher walked over to where Blackie slept under one of the wagons and nudged the man’s foot with the toe of his moccasin. After having been on the trail with all these folks for a while, Preacher had determined that the soft-spoken Blackie was the toughest and most experienced of the lot. Blackie proved that by the way he woke up at Preacher’s prodding, instantly alert but calm and clear-headed.

  “We got company,” Preacher said in a quiet voice.

  Blackie slid out from under the wagon, bringing his rifle with him, and stood up. “Cheyenne or Arapaho?” he asked, equally softly.

  “Not sure. They ain’t close enough yet to tell. But it don’t make much difference.”

  “No, I reckon it don’t,” Blackie agreed.

  The two tribes were close allies and had fought on the same side many times, most notably against their hated enemies the Kiowa. Both the Cheyenne and the Arapaho sometimes got along with white men and sometimes didn’t.

  “Wake up the other drivers,” Preacher said. “I’ll let Jerome and Corliss know. We go on about our business like the Indians aren’t there, except for makin’ sure that there are rifles close at hand. Make sure everybody understands that. If anybody starts the ball, I don’t want it to be one of us.”

  Blackie nodded. “Got it.” He moved off to follow Preacher’s orders.

  Preacher went to the wagon shared by Jerome and Jake and stuck his head in the entrance flap at the rear of the vehicle. It was too dark inside to see much, but he heard Jake snoring, and then made out Jerome lying wrapped in blankets on top of some crates. He reached into the wagon to grasp Jerome’s foot and give it a shake. Jerome stirred, lifting his head and smacking his lips.

  “Rise and shine,” Preacher said. “Injuns have come to call.”

  That news made Jerome sit bolt upright. “Indians!” he yelped.

  That woke Jake, which was all right; the boy had to know what was going on sometime. He sat up, knuckling his eyes, and said, “Injuns? Did you say Injuns, Preacher?”

  “Yeah, ’bout a dozen of ’em sittin’ a couple of hundred yards away, watchin’ us.”

  Jerome reached for his rifle. “Are they going to attack?”

  “Too soon to tell. Right now they’re just watchin’. Come on out of the wagon, but don’t panic. They might just want to parley and then ride on. If they do, we’ll have to give them some gifts. I reckon it’ll be all right to break into the trade goods?”

  “Yes, of course,” Jerome answered without hesitation. “Take whatever you need to placate them. The last thing we want to do is fight Indians.”

  Fighting Indians wasn’t so bad, Preacher thought. He had done that many times before. What they wanted to do was avoid getting killed by Indians.

  He backed away from the wagon and turned toward the one where Deborah slept, which was next in the circle. Corliss was already climbing out from under it, having been awakened by the men moving around. He yawned and stretched, clearly unconcerned, until he saw the grim look on Preacher’s face and asked, “What’s wrong?”

  Preacher didn’t say anything. He just raised his arm and pointed outside the circle of wagons toward the Indians. Corliss’s eyes widened in alarm as he saw the mounted figures, and he exclaimed, “Oh, my God! Savages!
”

  “You had to figure we’d run into ’em sooner or later,” Preacher pointed out. “They consider this their country, you know.”

  “Yes, of course.” Corliss bent down and reached under the wagon for the rifle he had left there. As he straightened with the weapon in his hands, he went on. “Are they going to attack?”

  “Good question. I reckon we’ll find out after a while.”

  “Damn it, how can you be so calm in a situation like this?”

  “Won’t do any good to run around like a chicken with its head cut off,” Preacher said. “We might as well go on with our breakfast.”

  “How can you even think about eating at a time like this?”

  “Because I ain’t et since supper last night, and my belly’s empty, that’s how.” Preacher turned toward the fire, adding over his shoulder, “Better wake Miss Morrigan, but tell her to keep her wits about her. The steadier we all are, the better our chances o’ comin’ through this alive.”

  Corliss looked like he doubted that. In fact, he looked like he wanted to start taking potshots at the Indians, which was downright worrisome. The possibility bothered Preacher enough so that he stopped and said, “Nobody fires a shot unless I give the word. You understand that, Corliss?”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” Corliss said with a nod. “You must know what you’re doing. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

  “Not much about this situation that I like,” Preacher said.

  By now Jerome and Jake had climbed out of their wagon and the other drivers were up and moving around. Everybody was awake and alert except for Deborah. Preacher wished she was a better hand when it came to loading a rifle. They had plenty of rifles and ammunition if it came to a fight, but it would be better if a couple of people could spend their time reloading. From what Preacher had seen, Jerome was the worst shot among the men. If Preacher needed to, he would assign the chore of reloading to Jerome and Deborah. Even though Jake was a boy, he was a decent shot, so he would need to handle one of the rifles. Preacher hated the thought of telling a youngster to do his best to kill as many of the enemy as he could, but sometimes such things couldn’t be avoided.

  But there was still a chance that violence could be avoided, so Preacher was going to hang on to that hope as long as possible.

  He cooked breakfast, and still the Indians sat out there. Everyone ate, but they did so with one eye on the mounted figures, who had remained motionless ever since Preacher had first seen them. They might have almost been statues, if it weren’t for the wind ruffling the long manes of the ponies and tugging at the feathers tied to strips of buckskin that were attached to the lances they carried. If their goal was to make the whites nervous, they had sure as hell succeeded.

  Deborah had emerged from the wagon looking pale and drawn. Corliss stayed close to her and from time to time put an arm around her shoulders in a reassuring gesture. Preacher saw the glances Deborah threw toward Jerome, though, and figured that she wished it was him comforting her and not his cousin. He noted Jerome’s reaction to those glances as well. Clearly, Jerome was more concerned with Deborah’s safety than with his own.

  Preacher was hunkered next to the fire, sipping the last of his coffee, when Blackie said his name in a quiet voice. Looking up, Preacher saw that the one-eyed man was gazing toward the Indians. Preacher turned his head and looked and saw the same thing Blackie had noticed.

  One of the Indians was riding slowly toward the wagons.

  Preacher straightened to his feet. The others noticed what was going on, and Corliss asked, “What does that mean, that only one of them is coming in?”

  “It’s a good thing,” Preacher said. “They want to talk.”

  “Is that their chief?” Jake asked.

  “Probably a subchief in charge of that huntin’ party,” Preacher explained. “The big chief’ll be back at their village, wherever that is.”

  Jerome said, “How do you know it’s not a war party?”

  “Because now that that fella’s closer, I can see he ain’t painted for war. He’s Arapaho. I suspected as much from their lances, and now that I’m gettin’ a better look at the beadwork on his shirt, I’m sure. Every tribe does things like that a mite different.”

  “Are these . . . Arapahos . . . hostile?” Deborah wanted to know.

  Preacher gave her an honest answer. “They can be. But I figure this bunch was just out huntin’ and came across us. They ain’t lookin’ for trouble. As long as we keep our wits about us, there’s a good chance they’ll go on about their business.” He leaned his rifle against a wagon wheel as the Arapaho warrior brought his pony to a halt about fifty yards away. “I’ll go talk to him.”

  “Is that safe?” Jerome asked, clutching his own rifle.

  Preacher nodded. “Safe enough. His honor won’t let him try anything tricky. He’d be shamed if he did.”

  Preacher stepped over a wagon tongue and walked toward the Indian. His stride was calm and unhurried. When he was about a dozen feet from the mounted man, he stopped and moved his head in a curt nod.

  The Arapaho tapped his chest with a clenched fist and said in his native tongue, “I am Antelope Fleet as the Wind.”

  Preacher nodded again. “I have heard of you. It is said that you are a brave and honorable warrior.” That was stretching the truth. Outright lying actually, since he’d never heard of this fella before. But he knew what Antelope Fleet as the Wind wanted to hear. He tapped his own chest and went on. “I am called Preacher.”

  The look of recognition on the Arapaho’s face was genuine, or Preacher missed his guess. “The slayer who comes in the night? The confounder of the Blackfeet? Brother to the wolf?”

  “I’ve been called all those things,” Preacher admitted.

  “Why do you travel through the land of the Arapaho? Who are those white men with you?”

  “They are my friends,” Preacher said, stretching the truth again. “We go to the Shining Mountains, to trade with the human beings who live there and with other whites who will come as well in wagons like those.”

  Antelope Fleet as the Wind made a face. “There are no human beings in the Shining Mountains. Human beings live on the plains. And if more white men come in wagons like those, we will stop them and burn them, so the white men will know this is the land of the Arapaho and will not come back.”

  “We are not the enemy of the Arapaho,” Preacher insisted. “We will not trouble you or interfere with your hunting. We wish only to travel on to our destination in peace.”

  Antelope Fleet as the Wind thought about it for a long time and then finally nodded. “The Arapaho are a fierce, warlike people, much to be feared,” he declared.

  Preacher nodded. “This I know.”

  “But we do not fight those who do not seek to fight us. You and the other white men may go in peace, Preacher, if you will tell those you encounter about the honor and courage of the Arapaho.”

  “Of course,” Preacher agreed.

  “And if you give us each a rifle and powder and shot for them.”

  That was what ol’ Antelope had been angling for all along, Preacher knew. Everything else had been just a prelude. Now that the proposed deal was out in the open, Preacher shook his head.

  “We will give you two rifles, one horn of powder, and a pouch of shot,” he counter offered.

  “Ten rifles,” Antelope Fleet as the Wind snapped.

  “Four,” Preacher said.

  “Eight.”

  “Six.”

  A shrewd look appeared on the face of the Arapaho subchief. He was ready to split the difference.

  But before he could suggest that, Preacher said again, in a firm voice that showed he wasn’t going to budge, “Six.”

  “I have twelve men,” Antelope said, obviously angry.

  “And half of them will have rifles,” Preacher countered. “You can arm the other half some other time.”

  “Six horns of powder.”

  “Three.”

>   They settled on four, along with a commensurate amount of ammunition. That ended that part of the negotiation. Now they just had to agree on the details of delivery.

  “We will leave the rifles, powder, and shot here where we are camped,” Preacher said. “You and your men can get them after we leave.”

  Antelope Fleet as the Wind looked like he wanted to haggle some more, but at this point there was no real reason to do so. He nodded and said, “This is good.”

  “And each of us will go on our way in peace.”

  “There will be no fight today,” the Arapaho promised.

  Preacher’s jaw tightened. Antelope Fleet as the Wind would keep his word. The hunting party would not attack the wagon train—today.

  But he wasn’t promising anything about tomorrow or any other day. He was a sly devil, but it wasn’t really anything Preacher hadn’t been expecting. He nodded his agreement. A lot of things could happen to divert the Arapaho from attacking them later. It was a chance Preacher had to take in order to get the wagons safely on their way today.

  Antelope Fleet as the Wind turned his pony and rode back toward the other warriors. Preacher swung around and strode toward the wagons. Neither man worried about any trickery on the part of the other.

  Corliss, Jerome, and Jake all wore anxious expressions when they met Preacher as he got back to the wagons. “What did he say?” Corliss asked. “Are they going to attack us?”

  “Not today,” Preacher replied.

  “Not today?” Jerome repeated. “What does that mean?”

  “Just what I said. They’re gonna go on their way, and we’re gonna go on ours. All we have to do is leave behind six rifles and some powder and shot for ’em.”

  “Six rifles!” Corliss looked astounded and angry. “You’re arming those savages?”

  “In case you ain’t noticed,” Preacher said, “they’re already armed. They’ve got lances and bows and arrows. If they just wanted to kill us they could probably manage to get it done with that they got. And there’s a good chance none of ’em can shoot a rifle worth a damn. They ain’t had enough practice.”