Absaroka Ambush

6

Steals Pony had not seen any Cheyenne or Kiowa with the bunch, and Preacher would have been surprised if he had seen any. This was mostly a band of young men led by a sub-chief called Broken Nose. Steals Pony said that Broken Nose was always leading young men off to fight.

“How many in this bunch?” Preacher asked.

“Forty perhaps. No more than fifty.”

“We’ll drive them off with the first volley,” Rupert said.

“Don’t count on it, son,” Snake told him. “When the Arapaho decides to fight, he’s a fighter. They might spend all night just creepin’ up on us, and be five feet away from us come the dawnin’. Then they’ll hit us. Don’t never underestimate an Injun. They’ll fool you ever’ time.”

“I should take you men back east with me so you could teach classes on frontier fighting.”

“They wouldn’t believe us, son,” Preacher said. “You didn’t, so why should they?”

“We ain’t got no fancy de-grees from universities,” Blackjack said.

“Let me inject this viewpoint here,” Steals Pony said. “I started to say that what we all lack in book knowledge and formal education, we probably more than make up for by possessing a deep well of basic common sense. But then I quite suddenly realized that any man who would voluntarily choose to spend his entire life, more often than not, alone, with no one to converse with except his horse, in the deep wilderness and towering, snowcapped mountains, with violent, sudden death all around him every day, sleeping on the ground instead of a bed, and wandering as aimlessly as the wind and as free as an eagle, really might not be as smart as he thinks he is.”

“Ain’t that purty?” Snake said. “That damn Delaware is a regular poet, by God.”

“Yeah,” Blackjack agreed. “Go on, Steals Pony. Say something else.”

“You really want me to?”

“Shore! That was plumb purty.”

“All right. How about this: here come the Arapaho.”

The first attack was only a feeler on the part of the Indians. A few arrows were hurled at the wagons and a few shots were fired at the attackers. Neither the arrows nor the lead balls hit anything of importance.

“Hold your fire until you’re sure of your targets!” Preacher shouted. “They’re just feelin’ us out, lookin’ for weak spots.”

Steals Pony retrieved several of the arrows and carefully inspected them. They appeared to be newly put together and were finely made, the arrowhead made of carefully worked bone. He knew the glue that helped hold the feathers to the shaft was made of a mixture of buffalo hooves and hide, the strings from a bull buffalo’s sinew.

“What’s wrong?” Preacher asked in a hoarse whisper, after watching Steals Pony for a few seconds.

“The arrows are new,” the Delaware said.

“All of them?” Blackjack entered the conversation.

“All of them.”

“We’re in trouble.” Snake added his voice. “Them arrows more than likely mean they’ve planned and prepared for this. I got me a hunch Bedell and what’s left of his bunch came through here and stirred ’em up. Maybe by ambushin’ a small band of ’em. Kilt women and kids, probably. Damn trash.”

“Broken Nose!” Preacher shouted from his position. “Why are you attackin’ us? We ain’t done you or your people no wrong.”

But only the silence of early night greeted Preacher’s question. And that told Preacher and the other mountain men a great deal.

“Why won’t he reply?” Eudora asked.

“Because they’re close and that would give away their positions. Them firin’ the arrows is back a good ways. We got Injuns layin’ out yonder not more than twenty feet from the wagons. They’ll lay still as a rock for hours. I don’t think they’re gonna give up this fight as easy as I first thought. They’re mad about something.”

Those Arapaho who were laying back some distance from the wagons began shouting taunts at the pioneers. But since only the mountain men spoke in their tongue, the shouted insults and taunts were incomprehensible to the women. But they still got the message.

Steals Pony grunted as one particularly offensive insult was hurled directly at him.

“Wagh!” Blackjack said. “That there was right personal, Steals Pony.”

Blackjack raised his voice and told Broken Nose that before this was over, the Arapaho was going to find his tongue cut off and shoved up into a place that was located very near where Broken Nose surely kept his brains.

Broken Nose screamed his outrage at that.

“What did Steals Pony say to make that savage so angry?” Eudora asked.

Preacher told the women close to him.

“My word!” Faith exclaimed.

The Arapaho laying back then really started shouting the insults, filling the air with obscenities.

“They’re gettin’ ready to charge,” Preacher said. “That hollerin’ will cover any slight sound the attackers will make. Get ready. Pass the word.”

The faint sound of weapons being cocked was heard all around the wagons. Preacher had his rifles propped up against a wagon wheel; his hands were filled with his multi-shot pistols; half of the barrels were double-shot. He knew that the first wave would come in fast and close, and probably several, or more, would get inside the protective circle of wagons. And he wanted all the firepower he had for this first, close-up charge. Since there was practically no chance of an attack from the rear, due to the bluffs, Preacher had assigned only a few of the women to guard the rear. “Hold your fire until you’re sure you can put one down,” Preacher told the women. “They’re gonna be real close—close enough to smell the wood smoke on ’em—so don’t panic. They’re countin’ on you ladies to panic. Let’s give ’em hell, gals.”

With a silent urge the first wave of attackers came out of the night like deadly wraiths.

The attacking Arapahos were met by an almost solid wall of heavy-caliber lead balls. One buck leaped between two wagons directly at Preacher. Preacher lifted his right-hand gun and stopped the Arapaho in midair, the twin-balls slamming into his belly and chest. He fell back—his bare chest and belly torn open and bloody—dead before he hit the ground.

One suddenly screaming Arapaho leaped at Faith, his lips peeled back in a snarl. She lifted her rifle and shot him in the face, the ball entering his open mouth and exiting out near the top of his head. He fell soundlessly to the earth and did not even twitch.

Yet another enraged buck got inside the circled wagons and managed to get his hands on Eudora’s shirt. She bodily threw him against the side of a wagon and proceeded to club his head in with the butt of her rifle.

“Come on in, you bastard!” Blackjack roared over the sounds of screams and gunfire, closing his hands around the neck of a very surprised buck and dragging him over a wagon tongue. With one quick and powerful move, the huge mountain man snapped the warrior’s neck. Blackjack then picked the man up effortlessly and tossed him back outside the wagons.

Snake looked down to see a dusty hand closing around one of his spare rifles. The aged mountain man slashed down with his razor sharp knife and the Arapaho was suddenly one-handed. The Indian screamed in pain and rolled back out into the night, blood streaming from his mangled arm.

The attack ended abruptly, the brown shapes rushing back into the darkness, carrying or dragging their wounded, dead, and dying.

“Get a head count, Rupert,” Preacher said. “Let’s see what damage they done. Every other woman reload and face forward and keep your eyes sharp; the others tend to the wounded. And we got some. I heard ’em scream.”

One woman was dead, four were wounded. But the wounded were not hurt too bad. They were in some pain, but would live.

Preacher knelt down beside one woman with an arrow stuck in her shoulder. “Get some whiskey,” he told Eudora. “And pour some down her throat.” When the lady had taken several good slugs, Preacher took a taste himself, wiped his mouth, and grasped the shaft of the arrow. “This ain’t gonna be no fun, but I got to do it.”

“Do it,” the woman said through gritted teeth.

Eudora and Wallis held the woman’s arms while Preacher pushed the point of the arrow all the way through. The woman shrieked once and then passed out.

“Good,” Preacher said, breaking off the arrowhead and then pulling the shaft out. He poured whiskey into both entry and exit wounds and then left her for the women to bandage and tend.

“Who’s dead?” Preacher asked Rupert.

“Miss Shivley. She took an arrow right through the throat.”

“Let’s wrap her up and stash her under a wagon ’til mornin’. We’ll plant her then. Any livestock get hurt?”

“None. Will the savages return this night?”

“They’ll be back.”

The attackers were back long before Preacher anticipated their return. Something was really eating at them and he could not figure out what it was. But nevertheless, he had his people ready for the angered Arapaho. But this time they not only came slipping out of the night on foot, they were charging their ponies into the battle, with many of them leaping over the tongues and into the circle.

“It’s all up to you, ladies!” Preacher yelled. “We’re gonna have our hands full out here.” He was yelling as he ran to face a buck charging him in the semigloom, the only light coming from the moon. The warrior had a long lance and there was murder in his eyes. Preacher lifted his right hand pistol and fired, the ball striking the Arapaho in the throat, lifting him off his horse and sending him tumbling and rolling on the ground.

Ol’ Snake had two bucks backing up. Neither one of them liked that long bladed Bowie knife that glistened and gleamed in the faint light. And they didn’t like the sight of the blood that dripped from the blade. Arapaho blood. Snake faked to one side while a buck went with the fend, and Snake brought up a pistol with his left hand and shot the Arapaho through the heart just as Steals Pony picked up a dropped lance and threw it. The lance went all the way through the other brave and pinned him to the side of a wagon. He died soundlessly.

Blackjack picked a buck up bodily and brought him down back-first over his knee. The sound of the Indian’s back breaking was audible even over the screaming and gunfire.

Preacher jerked a buck off his horse and both of them fell to the ground. They came to their feet fighting and the Arapaho swung a war-axe, but Preacher caught the Indian’s wrist and stopped his swing cold in an iron grip. The brave tried to kick Preacher and Preacher flipped him over one hip, bouncing him off the side of a wagon. The Arapaho lost his axe and jerked out a knife. Preacher jerked out a pistol and ended that brief argument with one ball through the heart.

He looked around. The clearing held no more live hostiles. Preacher raced to the wagons and faced the attack from the night. But the attack was over. The Arapaho had taken quite a beating in the two charges and they had had enough.

Preacher had him a sudden thought. “Broken Nose!” he shouted. “Wait.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Faith demanded angrily.

“Hush up, woman. Broken Nose! You hear me?”

“I hear you, Preacher. What trick do you have now?”

“No tricks, Broken Nose. You and your people fought bravely and well. I would not have such brave men to wander forever in the darkness. That would be wrong. We will carry them to the edge of the wagons. You and your people can pick them up there for proper burial. Is that fair?”

“Good thinkin’, Preacher,” Snake whispered, walking up. “He’ll owe you for that and won’t attack no more.”

“It is a trick!” Broken Nose called.

“No trick, Broken Nose. I give you my word. And you know I don’t break my word.”

“That is truth,” the voice came out of the night.

“Think of the wives and mothers of your fallen men. If you bring them back home, the women won’t have to slash themselves in grief.”

“That is also truth,” Broken Nose said, his voice calmer now.

Preacher stepped into the space between two wagons, holding his rifle high. “I’m puttin’ down my rifle, Broken Nose. And my pistols.” He laid his Hawken down and his pistols beside it. “I’m goin’ back to fetch one of your brave men, Broken Nose.”

“And the rest of us, too,” Blackjack said, laying down his weapons.

“We’ll tote them to the clearin’,” Snake said.

“I shall meet you at the wagons,” Broken Nose said. “And I, too, will be without weapons.”

“Bring some of your people with you,” Preacher said. “With horses so’s you can take your dead back home,” Preacher told Eudora, “Put on some coffee and fix something to eat,” I’m gonna get to the bottom of why peace-lovin’ Arapaho attacked us.”

Preacher and the mountain men handled the bodies with the respect due to the dead and the Arapaho noticed this. When the dead had been carried off, Preacher invited Broken Nose and some of his people inside the circle.

“No tricks, Broken Nose. We fought us a fight, now it’s over. I want to know why you wanted to fight us. Let’s have coffee and food and talk some.”

Broken Nose stared at Preacher for a long moment. Then a very faint smile creased his mouth. “Yes. That would be a good thing. There is no need for more blood to be spilled. Your women are warriors, Preacher.”

“Ain’t they, though?”

Broken Nose waved a few of his men forward and stepped over the tongue and into the clearing. “Leave your weapons outside the wagons,” he told them. When they hesitated, he again said, “Leave your weapons!”

They dropped their weapons and followed him.

The women had heated up a stew and made strong coffee. The men ate without speaking. When all had finished, Broken Nose rubbed his belly and belched loudly. The others too laid their bowls aside and belched. When the chief quit eating, everybody was finished. They all wiped the grease from their fingers on their skin and leggin’s. “Good,” Broken Nose said, in perfect English. “Very good. Your women not only can fight like men, they can cook too. How are they in the robes?”

“Tolerable,” Preacher said, keeping his face straight despite the hard looks shot his way by Faith, Eudora, and others within earshot. “Only tolerable.”

“That is too bad,” Broken Nose said sorrowfully, looking at Bertha Macklin. “Nice round ass on that one.” He shrugged his shoulders philosophically. “Well, one cannot have everything. At least they are good for something.” He did not see Faith pick up a frying pan and start toward him, nor did he see Eudora grab the skillet from her and lead her off. “It is time for the truth. We were lied to, Preacher. A man by the name of Be-bell passed by and told us of a wagon train with women dressed like men. He said that from the seas of grasses to the east, all the way across, the women had lured Indian children to the wagons and then slaughtered them. I should have known when I saw you with the wagons that it was a lie. For that I am truly sorry.”

“If we didn’t make mistakes, Broken Nose, we wouldn’t be human, would we?”

“Preacher, as always, speaks the truth.”

“I wonder if he’s spreadin’ that lie all the way across?”

“Probably. But the closer he gets to the great mountains, the Ute, the Shoshoni, the Cheyenne, and the Crow, they will know he speaks nothing but lies. They might cut his tongue out.”

“No, I want do to that,” Rexana said, walking up to collect the bowls. She added another part of Bedell’s anatomy she wanted to cut off.

When she had gone, Broken Nose shuddered. “Sleep lightly, Preacher. You are in the midst of savages, surely.”