Forty Guns West (15 page)

“Howdy,” Preacher said. “I got a message from Bones if you be Lige.”

“I'm Lige. What's on your mind?”

“Well, Mister Lige, don't get mad at me, I'm just deliverin' the message. Bones said for your men to bring your cups and come on over. They's whiskey a-plenty and food for all. Says both our bunches had best get to know one another. But he said for me to tell you to keep your butt out of his camp. Says if you show up he'll stomp your gizzard out.”

“He said
what?”
Lige hollered.

“Oh, he said a lot, Bones did. But I dasn't repeat most of it. It was right insultin' and personal.”

“You tell me, mister!” Lige growled the words, as a large crowd gathered around.

“Well, now, don't get mad at me,” Preacher said.

“I'm not gonna get mad at you. You just tell me what Bones said.”

“Well, he said you smelled worser than a skunk and prob'ly had about as much sense as a jackass. And he called your mamma some real turrible names, he did. I just won't repeat them slurs aginst a good woman. I just won't do it. God might strike me dead.”

Lige was so mad he was hopping up and down.

“If you don't mind,” Preacher said. “I'd like to leave that bunch of name-callers over yonder and join up with you, Mister Lige. I think Bones is settin' up an ambush for your boys. That's what it looks like to me. Besides that, I just cain't abide a man who'll call another man he don't even know a low-down, no-good, buzzard-puke-breath, dirty son of a bitch like Bones said you was.”

Lige's eyes bugged out and his face turned red. His ears wriggled and his adam's apple bobbed up and down. “You stay here,” he said to Preacher, finally finding his voice. “I think you a good man. Let's ride, boys. We got a nest of snakes to clean out.”

Within seconds, the camp was deserted. Preacher grinned and began wandering through the camp, picking up what supplies he felt he might need. “Gonna be real interestin' over at Bones's camp in about five minutes. Real interestin'.” Chuckling, Preacher faded into the night.

“Riders comin', Bones,” a guard called. “Looks like that new bunch.”

“Now, what you reckon that pack of ninnies wants?” Van Eaton asked.

“They certainly are coming in quite a rush,” Baron Zaunbelcher remarked.

Lige and his group rode right through the camp, knocking over pots and scattering bedrolls and sending men scrambling to get out of the way.

“What the hell do you think you're doin', you half-wit?” Bones yelled to Lige.

Lige and his men jumped off their horses. “I got your message, you big mouth no-count!” Lige yelled, marching up to Bones. “And this is my reply.” Lige rared back and flattened Bones with a right to the mouth.

Lige's men jumped at Bones's men and the fight was on.

Preacher could hear the shouts and yelling and cussing more than a mile away. Carrying several huge sacks filled with powder horns, food, weapons, candles, matches, and what-have-you, Preacher walked away toward the high-up country. He would have taken several blankets, but they all had fleas hopping around on them.

Bones jumped up and popped Lige right on his big snoot. The blood and the snot flew and Lige's boots flew out from under him and he landed on his butt.

Bob Jones had tied up with Mack Cornay and the two men were flailing away at one another. Derby Peel had squared off against Van Eaton and the men were exchanging blows, each blow bringing a grunt of pain and the splattering of blood. Fred Lasalle looked around for somebody to hit and his eyes touched on Sir Elmore Jerrold-Taylor, standing beside a fancy wall tent. Fred walked over to the clean shaven and neatly dressed Englishman and without a word being said, slugged him right on the nose. Elmore hollered and grabbed at his busted beak. He drew his hands away and looked at the blood. “I've been wounded!” he yelled.

Jon Louviere jumped on Fred's back and rode him to the earth while Stan Law busted Baron Wilhelm Zaunbelcher in the mouth. With a roar, the Prussian drew back one big fist and sent Stan rolling through the dirt, then turned and kicked Fred Lasalle hard in the belly with a polished boot. That put Fred out for the duration.

Will Herdman jumped on Andy Price and went to pokin' and gougin' and kickin' and bitin' until Andy threw him off and began stomping on him. That went on until Cantry, a good friend of Will's, ran over and hit Andy on the head with a club. Andy's eyes rolled back, he hit the ground, and he didn't wake up for an hour. Will, battered and bloody, said to hell with it all and stretched out beside Andy.

The men in the camp, with the exception of the nobility, who quickly retired to their tents and tied the flaps closed, fought until they were exhausted. Almost to the man, they fell down to the ground and lay there, chests heaving.

Finally, Bones, lying flat on his back in the grass, managed to gasp out to Lige, “What in the hell brought on all this, you igit?”

“Don't you be callin' me no igit, you low-life,” said Lige, who was also stretched out on the cool grass. “And you know what brung it on.”

“I don't neither!”

“Do too!”

“Don't!”

“Does!”

“I do not!”

“You think about it. You know!”

“I don't know! Why the hell do you think I'm askin'?”

Even though he wasn't a very smart man, that managed to get through to Lige. He thought about it for a moment. “You sent a feller over to our camp to see me and he said you said a lot of bad things about me.”

“I never sent no feller over to see you! And I ain't said no bad things about you. I
thought
a bunch of bad things, but I never said 'em aloud.”

Lige ruminated on that for another moment. He raised his bloody head and looked around. “Say, where is that feller anyways?”

“Back yonder at our camp, I reckon,” Sutton said, holding a rag to his bloody mouth.

A tiny spark of suspicion entered Bones's head. He raised up on one elbow, the eye that wasn't blackening and closing because of a right cross from Lige's fist narrowed. “What did this here feller look like, Lige?”

“Wal, he were dressed in buckskins. Sorta tall and you could tell he was muscled up right good. He were clean shaven 'ceptin' for a moustache. And he moved real quiet like. Come to think of it, and I just thought of it, he had the coldest, meanest eyes I ever did see.”

Bones flopped back on the ground. “You igit! That there was
Preacher!”

“Preacher?”
Lige hollered. “You mean the man we're a-huntin' come a-struttin' and a-sashshaying bold as brass right up into the big fat middle of our camp and tole me them lies?”

“Yeah.” Bones heaved himself up to a sitting position. “Now you might git some idea of the type of man we're huntin'.”

“Nervy ol' boy, ain't he?” Lige muttered around a swollen mouth.

“You could say that,” Bones replied.

When Lige and company returned to camp, Lige found a note written on a scrap of paper and stuck on a tree limb. He laboriously read the missive.

“What do it say, Lige?” Fred Lasalle asked, peering over Lige's shoulder.

“It says, 'Git out of these mountins. I won't warn you agin. This here is yore only warnin'. Preacher?”

“The man must think he owns these here mountains!” Hugh Fuller said.

“Yeah!” a man called Billy said. “To hell with him.”

A huge hulking monster of a man whose hands extended past his knees, giving him a distinct ape-like appearance, said, “I don't like this feller Preacher. I'm a-gonna tear his arms out when I find him and beat him to death with 'em.”

“Way to go, Lucas,” a much smaller man, only about five feet tall yelled. “That'll be fun to watch.”

Lucas grinned at the man. What teeth had not rotted out were green and his breath could cause a buzzard to faint. “You and me, Willie. We'll catch this Preacher and be rich.”

“All right, boys,” Lige hollered. “Gather round. Come on, come on. I got things to say.” When the camp had quieted down and the men gathered in a circle, Lige said, “At first light we start huntin' this murderin' no-count. And we'uns is gonna be workin' side by side with them ol' boys over yonder in the other camp. I think . . .”

“Hey!” a man hollered. “My powder horn's gone. Jeff, didn't you lay out a side of bacon to slice?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Well, it's gone too.”

The men all ran to their bedrolls and blankets and tents. Soon, many of the men were cussing and stomping around.

“Preacher stole all the stuff,” Bob Jones said. “He took enough powder to blow up half these mountains.”

Preacher wasn't at all interested in blowing up the mountains. He had others things in mind.

* * *

The Cheyenne war chief called Bear Killer sat on his horse and looked down at the huge body of men in the valley below. He, along with representatives from the Ute, Arapaho, Kiowa-Apache, and the Southern Comanches were all traveling east, to make peace with each other. The location was about seventy-five miles east of Bent's Fort. The gathering of various tribes and the making of peace between them had been the idea of High Backed Wolf, a Cheyenne chief, a very famous warrior, and a man known for his diplomatic skills. He felt it was foolish to fight amongst themselves. After the historic meeting, which history only skims over very lightly, those tribes never again made war against the other.

Bear Killer looked down at the white men and shook his head. “Preacher cannot fight so many men and win. Perhaps we should wait until darkness comes and slip into the camp of the white men and help Preacher,” he said to one of his warriors.

But the warrior shook his head. “No. Standing Bull said that Tall Man of the Arapaho told him that Preacher wants no help. This is a personal matter.”

“Ummm. Yes. I remember. Preacher is indeed a brave warrior. I hope we never have to fight him again.”

“Little Eagle told Stands Alone that the white men down there smell terrible. They do not wash their bodies and are very loud and vulgar. They kill animals and birds and leave them to rot on the ground. They do not dig proper places to dispose of their waste. They are not good people. They are wasteful and ignorant.”

“I hope Preacher kills them all. If there are any left upon our return, we shall give Preacher some help in ridding our land of these worthless men. Without his knowledge, of course.”

The Indians waited until the whites had passed and then rode on to their historical meeting on the Arkansas.

Several miles away, watching from near the timber line, Preacher could just make out the long double line of riders as they headed north. Preacher mounted up and headed south, staying in the timber far above the valley floor, no more than a shadow as he worked his way along.

He saw Bear Killer and his warriors and they saw him. The men passed within a few hundred yards of each other, lifted right hands, palms out, and rode on without speaking. Preacher picketed Thunder near water and began working his way toward the sprawling camp of the man-hunters. Using his spy glass, Preacher studied the camp. It was just about like he'd figured. Bones had left no guards behind. Only the cooks and servants were there, and Preacher wanted them gone. So far they had taken no part in the man-hunt, and Preacher held no animosity toward them. He spent the better part of an hour working his way up to the camp.

Preacher almost scared one of the servants out of his shoes when he suddenly rose up out of the grass about a yard from the man and said, “Howdy!”

The man dropped a load of tin plates he'd just washed and clutched at his chest, his mouth open and his eyes wide with fear. The others stood still and stared at Preacher. None of them made any move toward the rifles that had been placed around the camp in case of hostiles attacking.

“Relax,” Preacher told the cooks and servants. “I ain't here to do none of you no harm. Y'all dish me up a plate of that good-smelling grub and a cup of coffee and we'll talk.” Preacher sat down on the ground while a cook quickly served up a heaping plate of food.

Preacher thanked the man and said, “You boys reckon you could find your way out of these mountains?”

“Certainly,” a man-servant replied. “I served in the British Army before gaining employment with the Duke. My experience with rugged terrain is vast.”

“Is that a fact? Well, was I you boys, I'd busy myself packin' up and then I'd get the hell gone from here. Y'all ain't tooken no part in huntin' me, and I'm obliged to you for that. Your bosses is miles north of here, lookin' for me in all the wrong places, as usual. Now boys, when they do catch up with me, it's gonna get right nasty. Start packin'.”

The servants and cooks exchanged glances. One said, “What about the savages?”

“They ain't gonna bother you none. They got themselves a big pow-wow down on the Arkansas. The four main tribes is gonna make peace with each other. 'Sides, they's enough of you and y'all's well armed. It would take a powerful big bunch of Injuns to attack you. When you get down to Bent's Fort, you ask around and hook up with supply wagons headin' back east and tag along with them for extree safety.”

Several of the men turned and began packing. The others soon followed suit. One said, “The horses do not belong to us. There will be warrants issued for our arrest.”

Preacher smiled. “There ain't nobody gonna be alive to issue no warrants, boys. There ain't none of that bunch gonna leave these mountains. Or damn few of them. So y'all take whatever you feel like takin'. Now, y'all seem like right nice fellers. So I'm gonna give you some advice. Y'all are all foreigners. You don't know nothin' about the West, and the men who has spent their lives out here. Look at me.”

The cooks and servants stopped packing and looked.

Preacher patted the stock of his rifle. “This is the law out here, boys. No fancy robed judges or high-falutin' lawyers or badge-totin' lawmen. This is all there is. Now y'all hooked up with some mighty bad company. Maybe you didn't know what you was gettin' yourselves in for. I'll think that. 'Cause if you give me reason to think otherwise, I'd not look kindly upon you.”

“We were told it was a hunting expedition,” one said. “We had no reason to think it was anything else. We did not learn the truth until we were far from civilization back in Missouri—if civilization is the right word—and were in the middle of all that vastness.”

“Pack and git!”

When the men had left, Preacher began gathering up all the blankets, tents, food, clothing, and medical supplies. He piled everything up and then went to the other camp and did the same. Then he set fire to the mess and began running across the valley floor to the slopes. When Bones and the gentry spotted the smoke, they'd come gallopin'. Preacher smiled as he ran effortlessly across the meadow. There was gonna be some mighty irritated folks when they saw what he'd done. Mighty irritated.