The Violent Land Page 7

  “Preacher,” Matt breathed.

  Chapter Eleven

  Eight men came up the hill toward Preacher. He heard one of them saying something about getting the horses before it got dark, and another said that as soon as it was dark, they could ride down there into the gap and finish off the job.

  “A lot of them are just women and kids, so they won’t give us any trouble,” the hired killer said. “And Klaus told us the men are nothing but farmers and shopkeepers. We don’t have to worry about them, either.”

  Preacher stepped out from behind the tree, pointed his guns at them, and said, “You can worry about me instead, you no-account snake.”

  The men had rifles in their hands, but it took them a second to swing the weapons up. In that blink of an eye, each of Preacher’s guns had already roared twice. Four shots that cut down three of the men and wounded another.

  And Preacher kept shooting.

  The bushwhackers were fighting back by now, and the storm of lead raging around his head forced Preacher to duck behind the tree again. Chunks of bark and splinters of pine flew in the air as slugs chewed into the trunk.

  Preacher thrust his right-hand gun around the tree and fired again, then weaved to his left and snapped a shot around that side. Another man was down, blood and brains leaking from the hole in his head. Another stumbled back and forth, shrieking in pain as he clutched at his belly where one of Preacher’s slugs had torn through his entrails.

  That left three of the bushwhackers on their feet, and they had thrown themselves behind trees, too. The hammer of Preacher’s right-hand gun clicked on an empty chamber, and a second later the left-hand gun did the same.

  “He’s empty!” one of the men called to the others. “Rush him before he can reload!”

  That would have been a bad mistake on their part if he’d had a spare gun, Preacher thought ... but he didn’t.

  That didn’t make any never-mind to him. He still had his Bowie. Those old boys were about to think they had cornered themselves a grizzly bear.

  Before that could happen, Matt burst out of the woods behind them and yelled, “Hey!”

  The bushwhackers spun toward him, but Matt’s guns were already spitting fire and lead. The barrage of bullets knocked two of the men off their feet, but the third one was able to get his Winchester going and cranked off three swift shots that made Matt dive to the side to avoid being ventilated.

  Preacher figured Matt would have taken care of the buzzard anyway, but there was no point in taking a chance. The old mountain man drew his Bowie knife from its fringed sheath as he stepped out from behind the tree.

  His arm flashed back and then forward, and the knife flew across the intervening space to bury its heavy blade in the would-be killer’s back. The man let out a cry of pain, dropped his rifle, and stumbled forward a couple of steps as he tried to reach behind him and pull the knife from his back.

  He failed. His legs went out from under him and he pitched forward in a limp sprawl.

  Matt climbed to his feet and said, “I would have gotten him in a second.”

  “I know, I know,” Preacher said. He strode forward to retrieve his knife. “Just savin’ you some bullets.”

  “Are there any more of them around?”

  Preacher cocked his head to listen.

  “I don’t hear no more shots comin’ from over here. You reckon we got ’em all?”

  “Sounds like it,” Matt agreed. “We’d better take a look around, though.”

  Preacher grunted.

  “After we make sure all of these varmints are dead.”

  “That goes without saying,” Matt said.

  “If it goes without sayin’, why’d you just say it?”

  Matt grinned, shook his head, and said, “Come on.”

  It didn’t take long for them to confirm that all the men whose bodies were scattered around the slope were dead. As they began moving quietly among the trees in search of more bushwhackers, Matt said, “I don’t suppose you left any of the ones you ran into alive, did you?”

  “Wasn’t time for that,” Preacher said. “How about you?”

  “Well, I tried to take one of them prisoner, but he wasn’t having any of it.”

  “I ain’t surprised. All the ones I seen were hardcases. Low-down hired gun-wolves.” Preacher paused. “Except for three of ’em.”

  Matt looked over at the old-timer with interest.

  “What about those three?” he asked.

  “They was city fellas, and furriners, at that. They spoke that Dutch jabber, like young Dieter. And I heard one of those gunnies say somethin’ about a man called Klaus. I reckon he might’ve been the one who hired ’em to ambush the wagon train.”

  “You think this Klaus was one of the men you killed?”

  “Don’t know,” Preacher said. He tapped his shirt where he had stowed the wallets of the dead foreigners. “But I got their bona fides right here. We can have a look at ’em later, once we’re sure the fight’s over.”

  Another flurry of shots came from the other hill. From the sound of them, they weren’t directed at the wagons anymore.

  Matt looked across the gap and said, “Smoke’s bound to be in the middle of that ruckus.”

  “He usually is,” Preacher agreed.

  Smoke had heard the furious outbreak of shooting on East Kiowa Peak a few minutes earlier, and he felt confident that Matt and Preacher were the cause of most of it. He knew that both members of his adopted family could take care of themselves, but despite that, they were outnumbered and he would be glad to see them again and know for certain that they were all right.

  Of course, he and Dieter were outnumbered, too, and they got proof of that when several of the bushwhackers spotted them and opened fire.

  Smoke grabbed Dieter’s arm and dragged him down behind some rocks as bullets whined around them.

  “Keep your head down,” Smoke told the young man. “Those slugs can ricochet.”

  “Have they broken off their attack on the wagon train?” Dieter asked as he pressed himself to the ground.

  “Seems that way. They’re coming after us now.”

  “Good. At least they won’t harm any more of my friends.”

  “I’m sure that gal’s all right, Dieter,” Smoke said as another slug spanged off a rock near his head. “She’s probably forted up inside one of the wagons.”

  “I pray it is so.”

  Smoke heard men shouting, and the shots that had him and Dieter pinned down in the rocks increased even more.

  “They’re making a break for their horses,” he said.

  “You mean they are abandoning the attack?” Dieter asked.

  “That’s what it sounds like to me. They just want us to keep our heads down until they can get away.”

  “We must stop them!”

  Dieter put his hands on the ground in preparation for pushing himself to his feet.

  Smoke grabbed the young man’s shoulder this time.

  “Hold on, hold on,” he said. “We’ve spooked them enough to make them light a shuck out of here. Considering the odds, that’s a pretty good job of work.”

  “But we cannot allow them to get away!” Dieter protested. “They may have killed some of the people with the wagons.”

  “They probably did,” Smoke agreed grimly. “But getting yourself killed won’t change that.”

  “Justice must be done!”

  That was an admirable goal, but Smoke was practical enough to know that it wasn’t always possible. He and Dieter had killed several of the bushwhackers, and he figured Matt and Preacher had done for some of the others over on the eastern peak. That might have to count for settling the score in this case.

  At least until Smoke could figure out who was responsible for this ambush. Then things might be different.

  The shooting stopped, but Smoke still heard men forcing their way through the brush. He raised up enough to empty his Colt in that direction, but he figured he was just hurrying t
hem on their way. Sure enough, as the echoes of his shots rolled across the hills, he heard the swift rataplan of hoofbeats climbing the hill.

  “They are getting away,” Dieter said with despair in his voice.

  “Yeah, but now we can get down there to the wagons and see just how bad folks are hurt.”

  Dieter nodded.

  “Yes. We must rattle our hocks.”

  They stood up and began climbing the hill, heading back toward the place where they had left their mounts. Along the way they passed the place where Smoke had left the tied-up bushwhacker. The man was gone. One of his companions must have come along and turned him loose, as Smoke had halfway expected would happen.

  The horses were still there. Smoke and Dieter swung into their saddles and rode quickly down the far slope. When they reached the bottom of the hill, Smoke led the way around it toward the wagon train.

  The wagons hadn’t moved, Smoke saw as the big, canvas-covered vehicles came into view. The wagons weren’t the only thing he saw. He spotted two riders coming from the direction of the other hill.

  “Dieter, ride ahead and let your folks know that we’re friends,” Smoke said. “They’re probably pretty jumpy after going through that ambush, and if they see strangers coming, they’re liable to start shooting again. They ought to recognize you, though.”

  “That’s a good idea,” Dieter agreed. He heeled his mount into a gallop and headed toward the wagons.

  Smoke lifted a hand to catch the attention of Matt and Preacher. He had been pretty sure from the start that they were the two riders he saw, and as he came closer he was able to confirm that. Relief went through him. It appeared that both of them were all right, although the sun was down now and the light was starting to fade, so Smoke couldn’t be sure of that.

  They angled across the gap to rendezvous with him. Matt called, “Smoke, are you hit?”

  Smoke reined in as they joined him. He shook his head and said, “A few slugs came close, but none of them tagged me. How about you two? It sounded like you had a real war going on over there.”

  “That was mostly Preacher,” Matt said with a grin.

  “The boy’s just peeved because I killed a heap more of those varmints than he did,” the old mountain man said.

  “But we’re both all right,” Matt added. “How about Dieter?”

  “He did just fine,” Smoke said. He nodded toward the rider now coming toward them. “I sent him ahead to let the folks with the wagons know that we’re friendly.”

  “Good idea,” Preacher said. “Don’t want a bunch of greenhorns gettin’ trigger-happy.”

  Dieter brought his horse to a stop and took off his high-crowned hat. As he waved it over his head, he called, “Herr Jensen! Smoke! Come! You are welcome!”

  Smoke lifted a hand to acknowledge the invitation, then said to his companions, “I reckon we get to go meet ourselves a baron.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Now that the danger seemed to be over, the immigrants had emerged from cover and were milling around the wagons. Smoke, Matt, and Preacher headed for the lead wagon, where Dieter had gone after waving them in. Dieter had dismounted and stood beside the wagon now, talking to a tall man and a woman with fair hair under a thrown-back sunbonnet.

  The tall man turned toward the three of them as they rode up. He carried himself with the stern, rigid bearing of a military man, an aristocrat ... or both. Which, according to Dieter, Baron Friedrich von Hoffman was.

  Dieter said, “Your Excellency, this is Herr Smoke Jensen, Herr Matt Jensen, and, uh, Herr Preacher. Gentlemen, His Excellency Baron Friedrich von Hoffman.”

  Von Hoffman extended his hand to Smoke.

  “Herr Jensen,” he said. “Young Schumann tells me that we owe you a considerable debt of gratitude. Without the assistance of you and your companions, those ‘bushwhackers,’ as Schumann calls them, might have wiped us out.”

  “We were glad to pitch in and lend you folks a hand,” Smoke said as he shook hands with the baron. Von Hoffman turned to Matt and Preacher and shook with them as well.

  Then he gestured toward the young woman and introduced her.

  “My cousin, Fraulein Erica von Hoffman.”

  All three men tugged on their hat brims, and Smoke said, “Ma’am. It’s an honor.”

  He saw the way Dieter was looking at Erica von Hoffman, and he knew this was the young woman Dieter wanted to court. To the youngster’s way of thinking, though, that was impossible because of who he was ... and who she was.

  Smoke didn’t see things that way, but it was hard for a fella to get over the attitudes that had been drummed into him while he was growing up. That was certainly true in his own case, Smoke mused, since he had been raised to be bold and fiercely independent, as well as fair and forthright, and he liked to think he was still all of those things.

  “Herr Jensen,” Erica responded with a polite smile. As far as Smoke could tell, she had come through the attack without being wounded.

  That wasn’t true of everybody, though. He heard sobbing and wailing coming from elsewhere in the wagon train and knew those were the sounds of mourning over slain loved ones.

  “You lost some folks, didn’t you?” he asked von Hoffman.

  The baron nodded curtly.

  “Three men, one woman, and one child.” Von Hoffman’s voice was flat and hard, but Smoke thought he heard an undercurrent of pain and loss in it. “And perhaps a dozen more wounded, some of them seriously. Our casualties could have been much worse, but still I regret every one. Schumann tells me that you killed some of the men who attacked us?”

  “That’s right. Maybe as many as twenty, all told.”

  Von Hoffman’s rather bushy eyebrows rose in surprise.

  “The four of you killed twenty men?”

  “More or less,” Smoke said. “I reckon we can get a better count when we haul in the bodies tomorrow. The ones the scavengers haven’t carried off by then, anyway.”

  “My God,” von Hoffman murmured. “This really is a violent land, isn’t it?”

  “It’s a land that’s whatever an hombre makes of it,” Smoke said.

  “I assure you, I meant no offense, Herr Jensen. My own homeland has seen its share of blood being spilled.”

  Smoke figured it was time to change the subject.

  “My ranch house isn’t far from here,” he said. “Dieter found you a good campground just ahead about half a mile. Why don’t you get the wagons moving while you still have some light, and you can make camp up there. We’ll show you the way. Then you and your cousin can come back to the house and have supper with us.”

  “We are honored by the invitation,” von Hoffman said formally. “I should probably remain with my people, though, to make sure they are safe. The men who attacked us could return.”

  “That’s not very likely,” Smoke said, “but you can post some guards and I’ll send some men over to help. Matt, how about you riding back to the ranch and telling Pearlie to send four men to the Snake Creek pasture?”

  Matt nodded and reached for the dangling reins of his horse.

  “I can do that,” he said. He smiled and nodded politely to Erica again. “Fraulein von Hoffman, I’ll see you back at the ranch.”

  “Yes, of course, Herr Jensen,” she said. “I look forward to it.”

  Smoke heard something in her voice and saw a look on her face that told him she was mighty impressed with Matt. From the way Dieter was frowning, he had noticed Erica’s reaction, too. Matt was a ruggedly handsome devil, Smoke supposed, and women had a habit of being impressed by him.

  He hoped that wouldn’t cause trouble between Matt and Dieter. They didn’t need any more complications while these pilgrims from far away were on Sugarloaf range.

  It took awhile to get the wagons rolling. Everyone in the group was still scared and upset, especially those who had had loved ones killed or wounded. Some of the oxen had been killed, too. They had to be unhitched from their traces, the wagons moved, and oth
er oxen from the small herd being driven along with the wagon train hitched up in their places.

  With all of that to take care of, dusk was settling down pretty thickly over the landscape by the time the wagon train reached the broad, open pasture next to the creek.

  At least the immigrants had plenty of experience pulling the wagons into a circle and setting up camp. They went about those chores efficiently, although an air of stunned sorrow still hung over the entire group.

  While that was going on, Pearlie arrived with three of the ranch hands, all of them well armed.

  “Matt told me you wanted me to send over four men, but I figured I’d come myself,” Smoke’s foreman explained. “I’ll take charge of settin’ up guard shifts and make sure there’s a good man on each of ’em.”

  Smoke clapped a hand on his shoulder and said, “Thanks, Pearlie. These folks have been through a lot today. They’ll need somebody giving them a hand.”

  “We’ll take good care of ’em, don’t worry about that.”

  Smoke wasn’t worried. Pearlie was a good man, one of the best.

  He took Pearlie over to von Hoffman and introduced him to the baron, assuring him that Pearlie would see to it the camp was well guarded.

  “We can head for the ranch house now,” Smoke went on.

  “As soon as I freshen up and change,” von Hoffman said.

  “We don’t stand on ceremony out here, Baron,” Smoke said. “You’re fine just the way you are.”

  “With the smell of gunpowder clinging to my clothes?” Von Hoffman smiled thinly and shook his head. “But then, the smell is quite common on the frontier, isn’t it?”

  Smoke might have taken offense, but he didn’t think von Hoffman was trying to be insulting. The hombre just wasn’t used to watching what he said around folks. Where he came from, he could say whatever he wanted and nobody would ever dare to complain about it.

  The frontier would knock that attitude out of von Hoffman sooner or later, Smoke thought. He said, “I’d worry more about what my wife will say if the food she fixed gets too cold.”