Preacher's Rage Read online

  “Preacher can do this,” Hawk said, “but so can I.”

  Preacher cocked an eyebrow at his son, although Hawk couldn’t see that in the dark shadows. “Are you volunteerin’?”

  “I can cross the creek without them knowing I am there,” Hawk said. “The men are probably all asleep except for the guards. Even if one woke, he would take me for another of his companions. I can see whether there really is a prisoner, and if such exists, perhaps free her.”

  “You’d be takin’ a mighty big chance,” Preacher said.

  “There is no other way to be sure.”

  The boy was right about that, Preacher thought. He considered for a moment, then said, “I’ll take care of the guards. Charlie, Aaron, White Buffalo, you’ll be posted directly across the creek from the cave. You keep the place covered with your rifles while Hawk checks out the camp. Hawk, if you’re about to get caught, light a shuck outta there and dive into the creek. The rest of you open fire. That’ll give Hawk enough cover to swim back over here.

  “All that make sense?”

  Murmurs of agreement came from the others.

  “If there is a prisoner, I will free her and try to slip out of the camp with her,” Hawk said. “If you can dispose of the guard at one end of the bluff, as well as the one on this side, we can flee in that direction.”

  “I’ll try to take care of all of ’em, but I’ll get rid of the one at the south end first, after the one on this side of the creek.”

  Strategically, it was a sound but risky plan. A lot depended on Hawk’s stealth. However, Preacher knew how capable the young warrior was. Hawk stood a chance of succeeding, and on the frontier, a chance was all a man could ask for, most of the time.

  “Wait here,” Preacher told the others. “I’ll come back and get you once there ain’t no guard on this side of the creek.”

  * * *

  Hawk felt no impatience as he waited for Preacher to return, only anticipation for the task at hand. He still thought the most reasonable approach would have been to fill that cave with rifle and pistol balls and kill as many men as they could, but even though he wouldn’t admit it, the arguments advanced by Charlie and Aaron—and by his own father—had swayed him somewhat. The man called Hemming had sounded like he spoke the truth when he mentioned the young woman, and if such a prisoner did exist, she didn’t deserve to die.

  “I still don’t see how you’re going to do this,” Charlie said as they waited. “You can’t make yourself invisible.”

  “There are always shadows in life, and a man who knows how can blend into them,” Hawk said. “One who knows when to move and when to be still can go anywhere and not be seen.”

  Aaron said, “I hope you’re right. If they do discover you, get out of there as quickly as you can. We’ll cover you.”

  Hawk smiled grimly in the darkness. “Just be sure not to strike me with your covering fire.”

  “Do not worry,” White Buffalo said. “I will instruct these two on what they should do.”

  “That is a great weight off my mind,” Hawk said, knowing that White Buffalo would never hear the dry tone in his voice.

  A few minutes later, Preacher returned and told them that the plan’s first part was complete. “The guard on this side of the creek’s taken care of. If none of the others show up to relieve him any time soon, we won’t have to worry about that. Come on.”

  After reminding Charlie and Aaron to move as quietly as possible, Preacher led the way along the bank toward the spot directly across from the bluff and the cave underneath it. To Hawk’s eyes, the moonlight was almost like the middle of the day. He had no trouble seeing where he was going, but he reminded himself that the vision of his white friends was not as sharp as his.

  A short time later, they were in position behind a thick log that lay on the bank parallel with the stream. Hawk propped his rifle against the log, then drew out his pistols and laid them on top of it. Since he would be crossing the creek underwater, the firearms were of no use to him on this mission. He would be armed only with his knife and tomahawk.

  “You fellas keep your eyes open,” Preacher told White Buffalo and the two trappers. “Hawk, are you ready?”

  “I am.”

  “I’ll go after those other guards, then.” Preacher clasped his son’s upper arm for a second. “Good luck.”

  “And to you, Preacher,” Hawk replied. They didn’t need any more sentiment than that between them.

  Preacher drifted back off to the south and disappeared. Hawk swung his legs over the log and catfooted toward the creek, which was about ten yards away. He dropped to hands and knees and then onto his belly. He crawled to the water’s edge and slipped into it, disturbing it no more than a sleek beaver would have as he entered the stream.

  CHAPTER 8

  Like all mountain streams, the water in this one was cold and flowed swiftly as it closed over Hawk’s head. He had taken a deep breath just before he slid into the creek. It was about five feet deep, so he was able to swim underwater without touching the bottom. The moonlight was a wavering, silvery glow on the surface above him, but otherwise he was surrounded by darkness.

  The creek was no more than thirty feet wide, so he swam across it with strong strokes in a matter of moments. His hands, reaching in front of him, touched the western bank. Under the bluff, no grass or brush grew, so he didn’t feel any roots brushing his fingers. Only dirt and rock. He found some rough spots to hang on to and pulled himself closer.

  He eased his head above water where the bank rose a couple of feet. He could pull himself up onto it with ease, but water would stream from his body and buckskin garments, and that would make some noise. He needed to take it slow in order to be as quiet as possible. With that thought in mind, he reached higher and found another handhold.

  Hawk heard several men snoring as they slept under the bluff’s looming overhang. One man muttered, evidently talking in his sleep. Another rolled over restlessly. That one might pose a problem, Hawk thought as he pulled himself up higher. His head came above the bank so he was able to look into the camp.

  It wasn’t really a cave, he saw, because it was open at both ends, but in other ways it might as well have been. The overhang provided shelter from the elements, along with concealment. It hadn’t been able to hide these men from Hawk and his companions, though.

  Only a few embers still glowed in the campfire, and the orange light they cast was swallowed up quickly by the shadows. Hawk lifted himself all the way out of the water and rolled onto the bank. He lay on his belly, head raised, using his finely honed senses to the utmost.

  He smelled the lingering scent of woodsmoke from the fire, the food these men had eaten for supper, the unwashed flesh of their bodies mingled with pipe tobacco and the tang of whiskey. White man’s smell, Hawk thought with more than a little disdain. He inched forward.

  He was able to pick out the dark shapes that told him where the men were sleeping as he charted a path among them then moved into the cave.

  As he passed within a few feet of some of them, he thought again of the stories he had heard about Preacher. It would be easy to slip the knife from the sheath at his waist, clap a hand over an enemy’s mouth, and slit his throat, cutting deep so the hot rush of blood could be felt on his hand. Hawk was tempted, but there was always a chance something could go wrong and an alarm might be raised, and he hadn’t determined yet whether these men really did have a woman prisoner—or not.

  If they didn’t, perhaps on his way back out of the camp he could send a few of them over the divide, as Preacher called it.

  A faint crackling and rustling came from up ahead, near the place where the rear wall of the cavelike area met the ground. Hawk paused in his exploration and frowned. He had heard noises like that before. They were the sort of thing that came from a pile of pine boughs being used as a bed when whoever was sleeping there moved around a little. As far as he could tell in the poor light, all the thieves had bedrolls and were using them. Of
course, one of them could have piled up some branches to sleep on them instead . . .

  Or they could have done that for a prisoner, who wouldn’t have a bedroll. Hawk certainly couldn’t rule out the possibility.

  He crawled forward again, heading toward the sound he had heard.

  A shape became visible ahead of him. The right size for a human being, he thought, and not an overly large one, at that. He watched as the person shifted around, evidently searching for a comfortable way to lay. Again the rustling sound accompanied the movement.

  Hawk was only a couple of feet away. He pushed himself up on his left elbow and reached out with his right hand. He wanted to see if the person was bound.

  Before he could touch the figure, it jerked back and gasped. The prisoner, if that’s who it was, must have been awake enough to see him close by. Hawk acted swiftly, lunging forward and following the sound of the gasp to clap his hand over the person’s mouth.

  “Shhh,” he hissed, adding in a barely breathed whisper, “I am a friend.” He spoke in the Crow tongue. The Crow and the Absaroka were related, and so were their languages.

  Hemming had said that the prisoner was an Indian woman, and in this region that meant there was a good chance she was Crow. Even if she wasn’t, she might understand enough to know what he meant.

  She started to thrash around anyway. Hawk knew she was going to make so much noise she would rouse the others, so he did the only thing he could to keep her still and quiet until he could convince her he meant her no harm. He pushed himself even closer and lay on top of her, crushing her against the pine boughs underneath her.

  Without even thinking about it, he had known she was female as soon as he put his hand over her mouth. The smooth skin of her face told him that much. Now, the soft curves of the body molded against his offered unmistakable proof. Hawk had been with a few girls before, back in the days before his people had been wiped out, so he knew what they felt like in such an intimate position.

  However, it was not the time to be thinking about such things. He lowered his head until his lips brushed against the soft folds of her right ear. The smell of the bear grease in her hair filled his nostrils. He breathed, “My name is Hawk That Soars. I am Absaroka. I have come to free you from these evil men.”

  She was still squirming some, as much as she could with his weight holding her down, but when he spoke those words, she stopped. She lay there without moving except for the rise and fall of her chest. Hawk felt a fluttering and knew that was the wild beating of her heart.

  “Are you bound?” He didn’t take his hand away from her mouth because he didn’t fully trust her not to make any noise.

  She nodded under his touch in reply to his question.

  He used his other hand to explore and found that her arms were pulled back in what had to be a miserably uncomfortable fashion. Her hands were tied behind her back, he thought. Hemming had been telling the truth about that. About everything where the prisoner was concerned, evidently.

  “I have to move my hand. You will not cry out.”

  A shake of her head. He hoped she meant it. He lifted his hand, and other than a soft exhalation of breath, no sound came from her.

  Hawk paused to listen intently to the snoring and the other small noises from the rest of the camp. So far his daring incursion seemed to have gone undiscovered. The men were sleeping peacefully.

  If he could free this girl and slip out of the camp with her, Preacher, who had probably killed the other guards already, and the others could open fire on the thieves.

  “I will cut you loose,” Hawk whispered into her ear. “Lie very still.” He slid his knife from its sheath.

  The girl raised her left shoulder and turned slightly. A soft grunt came from her as she twisted her arms around so he could reach them. He felt along smooth, warm flesh until he came to the rawhide thongs around her wrists. Then, very carefully—he didn’t want to cut her—he worked his blade under the bindings and began to saw at the tough rawhide.

  His jaw clenched tightly. He knew how important stealth was, but eagerness to be out of this thieves’ den welled up inside him. He worked at the bonds and gradually they began to part and fall away. Finally her wrists were free. She made a tiny mewling sound as she moved her arms, and he knew she must have suffered greatly from being tied.

  He sat up and turned to find her feet. More rawhide thongs were lashed around her ankles. He sawed on them for what seemed like an eternity before cutting through them at last. He put his knife away and spent several minutes rubbing her feet and calves because he knew that more than likely, they were numb from the circulation being cut off. The girl whimpered again as the blood began to flow.

  Hawk regretted causing her pain, but it was necessary. If they had to make a run for it, Hawk didn’t want her to stumble and fall because she couldn’t feel her feet.

  As he rubbed her calf, he became aware that his heart was beating faster. That was because he knew how much danger surrounded them, he told himself. He switched to the other calf and felt the taut muscles under the smooth skin.

  When he thought that enough feeling had probably returned to her feet and legs, he bent close to her ear again and told her, “I will crawl toward the creek. You come right behind me and go everywhere I go. I will keep you safe, but you must be as quiet as you can.”

  “I will, Hawk That Soars,” she said.

  It was the first time he had heard her voice. As Hemming had said, she was young . . . but fully grown. Hawk already knew that, of course, from lying on top of her.

  He didn’t want to start thinking about that again, so he turned, stretched out on his belly, and began crawling through the camp toward the creek. The girl followed him. He felt her touch him on the foot now and then, probably to make sure she was still right behind him in the darkness.

  The men continued to sleep. Hawk covered five feet, then ten. He began to believe they would reach the creek and slide into its icy embrace without being discovered.

  * * *

  Preacher had long since lost count of how many men he had killed in his life . . . not that he was the sort who would keep track of such a thing, anyway. What he did know was that he had never killed a man who didn’t have it coming.

  He was confident that was true of these guards as well, but he wished he knew a little bit more about who they were. Still, they were part of the same group that had tried to kill him and his friends, and they had left behind that fella Hemming to watch for any pursuit, and Hemming had done his damnedest to blow a hole in Hawk.

  That might not be enough evidence to hold up in a court of law back east, but it was more than enough for the court of mountain man justice. Getting far away from such strictures was another reason Preacher had headed for the tall and uncut.

  So he came up behind the varmints without them ever knowing he was there, looped his arm around their necks, and drove his knife into their backs, right between the ribs and into the heart. Each of the guards died without ever knowing what was happening until too late. And even then, they’d probably been scratching their heads in puzzlement when the Devil greeted them with a big ol’ grin on his face and a pitchfork ready for the proddin’.

  Preacher killed the guard at the south end of the bluff first, then circled the massive upthrust of rock and did for the varmint at the north end. The way was clear in both directions for Hawk if he had to make a hurried exit from the camp.

  Preacher had just lowered the body of the guard at the north end to the ground and was straightening from that task when a branch snapped somewhere behind him.

  The explanation for that unexpected sound flashed instantly through his brain. Hawk had missed a fourth guard. The fella had been posted somewhere upstream, probably where the canoes were cached. He had spotted Preacher, realized trouble was afoot, and was sneaking closer so he could see what was going on.

  Preacher turned, crouching, and hoped he could fade into the shadows so maybe the varmint would decide his eyes h
ad been playing tricks on him.

  No such luck. The man stiffened, rasped a curse, and a second later orange flame spurted from a rifle muzzle as a shot blasted. Pretty good shooting for bad light, too, Preacher realized as he heard the ball hum past his head. The fella hadn’t missed by much.

  But even a narrow miss was usually fatal on the frontier. Preacher jerked the tomahawk from his belt and threw it. His aim was deadly. He heard the thunk! of razor-sharp steel striking flesh and biting deep into it, followed by a clatter that had to be the guard dropping his rifle. He had given a warning shout as soon as he fired, but he wouldn’t be yelling again. Preacher felt pretty confident of that.

  The damage had been done, though. More yelling erupted in the camp under the bluff. Preacher hoped Hawk had the good sense to get out of there, mighty quicklike.

  * * *

  Hawk heard the shot and the shout but didn’t know what had happened and at the moment didn’t care. He and the girl were surrounded by men who would kill both of them without a second’s hesitation. He surged to his feet, grabbed her arm, and hauled her up beside him. “Run! Into the creek!”

  They dashed toward the water. Around them, yelling men struggled out of their blankets and leaped up from bedrolls. Because of the thick shadows underneath the bluff, Hawk and the girl were just more shadows flitting through the darkness.

  Somebody was keen-eyed enough to spot them, however, and bellowed, “Stop him! He’s stealing the girl!”

  Hawk didn’t let go of her arm. She panted and gasped as she ran alongside him. A man on his knees reared up and made up a grab for Hawk, who barely slowed down as he kicked the man in the head.

  The girl cried out and jerked back against Hawk’s grip. Someone had hold of her and was trying to pull her away. Hawk twisted around, drew his knife, and thrust at the shape. He felt the blade bite into flesh. The man screamed and fell back. Hawk jerked the girl toward the creek again. She stumbled and started to fall.

  Hawk’s arm went around her. Still gripping his knife in that hand, he was careful not to slash her as he swept her off her feet. Cradling her against him—not that easy because she was a substantial girl despite her slenderness—he rushed toward the creek.