Blood on the Divide (6 page)

“Reload,” Preacher said, pulling out his two pistols.

A brave came screaming around the south end of the rock pile and Preacher shot him off his pony. Another jumped down from the rocks and Caleb smashed his face in with the butt of his rifle. Preacher's second .50 caliber pistol belched fire and smoke and another buck's days of warfare ended.

Caleb rammed home ball and patch and cocked his rifle just as a Blackfoot flung himself inside the circle of rocks. The mountain man dropped the muzzle of the Hawken and pulled the trigger, the muzzle only inches away from the buck's face. The brave was unrecognizable as he hit the ground.

To any Indian, fighting what appears to be a losing battle is stupid. The attack broke off and the remaining Blackfeet vanished. Preacher and Caleb quickly reloaded and got the hell gone from that area. They left the dead where they had fallen, knowing their friends would be back for them. Neither Preacher nor Caleb felt any rancor for the Blackfeet. No hard feelings. It was just one way of life clashing with another. Other tribes, such as the Crow, were working with the white man and making peace. But the Blackfeet would remain hostile for years, as would the Cheyenne, the Comanche, the Dakota, the Apache, the Kiowa, and many other tribes.

The mountain men were the first to see the writing on the wall, so to speak, although had it been really visible in print, many would not have been able to read it. The white man was coming, and in many cases bringing his wife and kids with him; they were coming just as surely as one season follows another. And the Indian would have no more success in stopping that westward advance of the whites than he would in stopping the snow that fell or the sun that shone. They would kill a few, but for every one killed, fifty, a hundred, a thousand would take their place.

And to the mountain man, it was sad, in a way. For their way of life was being taken from them as well.

Preacher and Caleb moved on, once more assuming their northwesterly course. Just wandering, hoping to see a valley they had not yet seen, or to belly down by a cold, rushing creek for a drink of water from a mountain runoff. They were of a breed whose time had just about run out. They had made their mark upon a land and the land would always bear that signing. Many mountain men would simply disappear into history and never be heard from again. No one would know what happened to them, or where they were buried, or if they were buried. For in the wilderness, death in a hundred different ways waited around every bend and twist in the trail. Some would go back East and write about their adventures for an eager public.

But not Preacher. Preacher would go on to become even a larger legend. He would be a larger-than-life guide, tracker, scout, warrior.

Miles from the site of the brief but deadly battle with the Blackfeet, Caleb whoaed and sniffed the air. “You smell that, Preacher?”

Preacher did. “Yeah.” His words were softly spoken. “That smell don't never change. Death up ahead.”

It was Jack Larrabee. His back was to a tree and his weapons were by his side. They had been carefully placed there. Two arrows protruded from his chest. Blackfeet arrows. Out of respect for his fighting ability, the Blackfeet had not scalped or mutilated the body of the mountain man. They had left his eyes in his head so he could see his way into the land that lay beyond earth life.

Casting about the battle site for sign, Preacher found four blood trails and Caleb found two more.

“He put up one hell of a fight,” Caleb remarked. “Two musket balls in him and two arrows 'fore they brung him down. They'll be singin' songs about Jack come this evenin' and for many more evenin's to come.”

“For a fact.”

The Blackfeet had also left his horse and his possessions, meager though they were.

The man had escaped the renegade attack on the wagon train only to be ambushed by the Blackfeet.

“He was trackin' the Pardees and another small group,” Preacher called, studying the sign on the ground about fifty yards from where Jack lay.

Caleb looked up from his digging in the rocky ground with a small shovel and nodded his head. “We'll take it up,” he said quietly. “What do you think about that, Preacher?”

“I reckon so, Caleb.” Preacher walked to his own pack horse and got a shovel. “Ain't no law books nor constables out here. Seems to me like if any sort of decency is gonna pre-vail, those of us who are at least tryin' to do some right has got to act as the law.”

“They's a word for that.”

“Vigilante.
Do it bother you?”

“Cain't say it do, mainly 'cause I don't know what it means or how to spell it. Somebody's comin'.”

“I know. I been watchin' Hammer. But he ain't all that upset. Must be somebody whose scent he's familiar with.”

But just in case, the men dropped shovels and picked up rifles.

“There ain't no need for nothin' like that.” The voice came out of the rocks and brush.

“Hell, it's Windy,” Caleb said, lowering his rifle. “Come on in, Windy. You can hep us plant Jack. You alone?”

“Rimrock's with me. You boys got airy coffee?”

“Shore,” Preacher said, easing the hammer down on his Hawken as the two mountain men came into view. “But we ain't gonna boil none here. Let's get Jack decent, or as decent as he'll ever be, and then move on a few miles.”

Windy and Rimrock were just about as disreputable looking as two men could get, and just about as opposite. They were shaggy and woolly and had fleas, but their courage was limitless and they knew the country from Canada to Mexico. They dismounted and walked over to where Jack lay, looking at the body, the arrows still sticking out of the body.

“Goddamn Blackfeet,” Rimrock rumbled.

“Get something to dig with,” Caleb told the pair. “But don't stand too close to me and Preacher. We had us a bath last week and we're still fairly fresh and pure. Did you never heared of no soap, Windy?”

“I run out. But you take Rimrock here, I don't think his mamma ever introduced him to soap.”

“Rimrock never had no mamma,” Preacher said. “He was found as a child in the woods and bears raised him.”

Caleb stopped his digging and looked at Rimrock. “Come to think of it, you and a griz do favor.”

Rimrock just smiled. He was one of the easiest-going people in the mountains, until he lost his temper, which wasn't often. Then he was awesome. Rimrock stood about six and a half feet tall and weighed about two hundred and eighty pounds. His horse was huge, looking more like a dray animal than riding stock. Windy, on the other hand, would have to stand on tiptoes to hit five feet two inches, and probably weighed about a hundred pounds . . . but it was all muscle and gristle and bone. To get on his pony, Windy usually had to find a large rock to climb up on. If one was not handy, Rimrock would just pick him up and throw him into the saddle. The two men had been partners for years, only occasionally going off on their own.

“Two musket balls and two arrows, hey,” Windy said, shaking his head. “He give them a run for it, I'll say that. And they respected him for it.”

Preacher told the newcomers about the wagon train and the settlement.

“We been up north, along the Powder. We ain't heard nothin' or seen nothin',” Rimrock rumbled in a deep bass voice. “'Ceptin' movers comin' in. Why, we seen five families 'tween here and the Powder. Place is gettin' all crowded up with folks. I never seen nothin' like it. Gettin' to be a regular city out here.”

“Trappin' up there?” Caleb asked.

“Naw. That's about over. We're just ramblin' around,” Windy told him. “I wonder how many made the rendezvous?”

“Probably a goodly number,” Preacher said, breaking off the arrows and trying to fold Jack's arms across his chest. They were locked in place. He gave up. “But I'll wager that in two, three years, there won't be no more rendezvous, nowhere. Anybody want to take me up on that bet?”

“You don't mean that!” Rimrock said, aghast at just the thought of it.

“It's over, Rim,” Caleb told the man. 'Furrin's done. We all got to find something else to do. Me and Preacher, we're travelin' light. No traps.“

“We don't have none either,” Windy said quietly. “It ain't worth the bother no more.”

“Gimme Jack's blanket over yonder,” Preacher said, pointing. “Rim, help me wrap him up. He's done stiffened up tight as a drumhead.”

They placed the mountain man on his back in the hole and buried his weapons with him.

“Put his blade in there with him,” Rimrock said. “He might meet up with a big-assed griz on his way. Windy, strip the saddle offen his horse and turn the poor animal a-loose. He was wild when Jack caught him, so he'll cut wild again.”

The men buried Jack Larrabee deep and covered him up and then layered the mound with heavy rocks to prevent the animals from digging up the body. Then the mountain men stood in silence around the mound for several minutes.

“Jack was a good man.” Windy finally broke the silence.

“He didn't have no back-up in him,” Rimrock said.

“He went out a-clawin' and a-scratchin' and a-bitin',” Caleb added.

Preacher put his battered old hat back on his head and said, “See you, Jack.” Then he turned and walked toward Hammer.

The others fell in line with him.

“Ain't gonna be no one left 'fore long,” Rimrock muttered, after tossing Windy into the saddle.

 

The men had settled in for the night, some miles from where Jack Larrabee lay cold in his grave. A hat-sized fire kept their coffee hot while they lay in their robes and blankets and drank coffee and jawed of men they had known and places they had been and sights they had seen.

“I heared you saved some pilgrim and then took them folks and their wagons all the way to the blue waters last year, Preacher,” Rimrock said.

“I did. Me and Nighthawk and Jim and Dupre and Beartooth. I can't say as I ever want to do nothin' like that again.”

“I'd left 'em along the trail,” Windy said. “Damn pilgrims.”

Preacher smiled. Windy would have done no such of a thing and everybody around the fire knew it. He just liked for people to think him sour and jaded and coldhearted. Preacher said, “If you'd a seen them fine-lookin' females I took over the mountains and rivers to the blue waters, you'd a still been out there with 'em, Windy.”

“Women!” Windy snorted. “I ain't got no use for women. Always wantin' to tie a man down.”

“What about that little Crow gal up on the Yellowstone?” Caleb asked with a smile.

Windy glared at him from across the fire and everybody hoo-hawed at him. Windy had come back to the lodge after too long a stay runnin' his traps and she had throwed all his possessions out on the ground, moved the tipi, and took up with another man.

Windy had been sorta testy about women ever since.

A fallen branch snapped out in the darkness and the four mountain men were out of their robes and blankets in a heartbeat, grabbing up rifles and flattening out behind cover, well away from the small fire.

A moan reached their ears. The mountain men did not move. They waited, rifles cocked. Something stirred in the brush, then another moan.

“I'm hurt, boys.” The words came weak and in no more than a whisper. “I'm Shields. Tom Shields.”

“I know him,” Windy whispered. “He's all right. Can you make it to the fire, Tom?”

“If it's the last thing I ever do, and it just might be. I'll make it. Them damn Pardees got lead in me.”

“You stay put,” Rimrock called, getting to his feet. He went out into the darkness and carried the badly hurt man into the camp and laid him down by the fire, his back against a rock. Preacher started to open Torn's bloody shirt and the injured man's hand stopped him.

“Don't waste your time, t'ain't no use in that.... Say, you be Preacher.”

“Yeah. Now I 'member you. You was at the rendezvous up on Horse Crick back in '35, I think it was.”

“Yeah. Just give me some of that coffee, boys,” Tom said. “And talk to me whilst I pass. I got lead hard, high and low. One lung's gone and my innards is on fire. I thought for a time I was gonna pass with no one clost to hear my tale.”

“The Pardees did it?” Caleb asked.

“Mighty right. Them and their kin and followers. They was drunk and mean and fixin' to burn my feet for fun when I broke and run. I been runnin' for might near two days. Walkin' and crawlin' and staggerin' is more like it.” He took a big gulf of coffee and all could see that the hand holding the cup had no fingernails.

Preacher looked at the hand and felt a killing coldness creep over him. “The Pardees tear out your fingernails?”

“Yeah. They did. They got some poor women and girls with 'em, too. And them poor creatures is bein' abused so's it's a mortal sin, it is. It's the most pitifuliest sight I ever did see. I 'spect they all dead by now. They'd shore be better off if they is.” He took another slug of coffee and drew a long, shuddering breath. “Them men is worser than any Injun that ever lived.” He coughed up blood.

“Where be they now, Tom?” Rimrock asked.

“Oh ... I wouldn't have no idee. They said something 'bout attackin' some wagon train of pilgrims somewheres. But I was in so much pain the words just didn't register in my head.” He closed his eyes for a moment and then said, “It's funny, boys. The pain is plumb gone. My head is real clear now. I was just then thinkin' how it was when we all furst come out here. You could ride for months and not see a white man. Now they's cabins a-poppin' up all over ever'place. They must be two hundred people out here now.”

Tom began to ramble and Windy took the cup from his hand before he could spill the hot coffee. He met the cold, dangerous eyes of Preacher staring across the dying man at him and sensed that their wandering was going to come to an end. He'd seen that look in Preacher's eyes before.

“Mighty peaceful, boys,” Tom said. “Things is all misty and sparklin' lights and blue like. I guess the Good Lord has decided to let my clock wind down.”

“We're goin' after the Pardees, Tom,” Caleb said. “At least, I am.”

“Count us all in,” Rimrock said, his face hard with anger. “We'll avenge you, Tom. You can go out knowin' that much. You got my word on that.”

“It's a good thing to have friends, I swear it is,” Tom said. “Gimme another swaller of that coffee 'fore I pass, boys. Say, you reckon they got coffee over on the other side? I've often wondered about that. I'm a coffee-drinkin' man.”

“Shore they do, Tom,” Windy said, his voice very gentle. “I'd bet on it. As a matter of fact, I want you to keep a pot hot for us. Will you do that?”

“You know I will,” Tom whispered. “It's all dark boys. I can't see nothin'.”

Rimrock took one of the man's tortured hands into his own big paw. “It's all right, ol' hoss. We're here with you.”

Tom Shields smiled and died.

* * *

The men stood around the rock covered mound in the new light of day. Preacher took off his hat. “Lord,” he said. “We done buried two good men in the past few hours. We ask You to receive them with kindness and charity. They wasn't perfect, but they were men to ride the river with. And I can't say no more good about a man than that. Amen.” He plopped his hat back on his head. “Let's ride, boys. We got some snakes to stomp on.”