Preacher's Fire

Chapter 7

Preacher and Uncle Dan split up, the old-timer skulking off to the right while Preacher made his silent, deadly way through the darkness to the left. Preacher made it clear through hand gestures that they were to locate and dispose of as many of Beaumont’s men as they could in the time they had left before Buckhalter gave the signal to begin the attack on the wagon camp.

There was no way to know how much time that would be. The only thing Preacher was sure of was that it was running out with every second that went by.

He hoped that the robbers weren’t clustered together. If they were, he and Uncle Dan were out of luck, and so, maybe, were the immigrants. They needed lone targets that could be handled without raising a ruckus and alerting the other bandits that all was not going as planned.

The sharp tang of whiskey came suddenly to Preacher’s nose. One of the men must have brought along a flask, he decided, and the hombre was fortifying himself with some liquid courage before the attack. Indulging that thirst was bad for a fella’s health sometimes, Preacher thought as a fierce grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. He tightened his grip on his knife as he spotted the man kneeling beside the trunk of a tree, facing toward the camp. This time, taking a drink of whiskey was gonna be downright fatal.

A minute later, Preacher was moving away from that spot, leaving another dead man behind him with a slit throat. This wasn’t the first time he had conducted such a deadly mission in the dark of night. In the past he had slipped among his enemies on numerous occasions, killing them swiftly and silently. Because of this ability, some of the Indian tribes in the mountains called him the Ghost Killer; others knew him as the White Death. But all of them, deep down, feared Preacher and what he could do.

The minutes ticked by, and with them went the lives of four more of the bandits. That made at least seven of them, Preacher thought, and chances were that Uncle Dan had disposed of a few more by now, too. They were whittling down the odds, just as he had set out to do.

But they wouldn’t get a chance to do any more whittling, because as he rose from the corpse of his latest victim, two shots suddenly rang out from the camp, one right after the other. Preacher knew that had to be Buckhalter’s signal.

Harsh yells came from dozens of throats as the men hidden around the perimeter of the camp leaped to their feet and rushed toward the wagons. They had no idea that there were fewer of them now than there had been a short time earlier.

Were there fewer enough to make a difference?

Preacher didn’t know.

But he was going to take down a few more of them and see if that helped.

He was already on his feet. He shoved the knife back in its sheath and pulled both pistols from behind his belt. His thumbs looped over the hammers and pulled them back. As he ran forward, more shots sounded from the camp. That would be Buckhalter and whoever else was working for him, striking like vipers in the midst of the pilgrims they were supposed to be guiding to a new life, not an unexpected death.

Preacher ran up behind one of the attackers. He didn’t waste time or breath calling out to get him to turn around. He just pointed his right-hand pistol at the man’s back and blew a hole in the son of a bitch. The man fell, plowing up the dirt with his face.

The attackers began to open fire, probably thinking that one of their own had fired that shot. Preacher veered to his left and closed in on one of the other bandits as the man charged toward the wagons. The fella wore a coonskin cap with an especially bushy tail that bounced on his back as he ran.

He must have heard Preacher coming, because he turned his head to look just in time to catch both balls from the double-shotted pistol in the face. The coonskin cap flew in the air as the man’s head was blown out from under it.

Preacher leaped past the falling body and headed for another of the attackers about twenty yards away. This one must have seen him shoot the other man, because he turned and brought up the rifle in his hands. Preacher went diving to the ground as flame gouted from the barrel.

He rolled and came back up on his feet, still moving. The man was only a few feet away by now. He reversed his grip on the rifle, holding it by the barrel so that he could swing it like a club. Preacher went under it, lowering his shoulder and crashing into the bandit. The man went over backward, with Preacher landing on top of him.

The collision and the fall stunned the man long enough for Preacher to drop his pistols and grab the rifle instead. He wrenched the flintlock out of the man’s hands and brought the butt down hard in the middle of his face. Preacher felt bone crunch under the impact. The man arched his back for a second, then sagged back to the ground in death.

Preacher dropped the rifle, snatched up his empty pistols, and tucked them behind his belt as he came to his feet. He loped toward the camp. Muzzle flashes lit up the night all around him. More shots came from inside the camp, but they were directed outward now. That meant the immigrants were putting up a fight.

Preacher had lost sight of Uncle Dan and hoped that the old-timer was all right. Dan Sullivan was a tough old bird, though, and could take care of himself. Preacher had problems of his own, such as the man he came up behind as the varmint knelt and aimed a rifle toward the wagons.

Before the man could fire, Preacher drew his knife and threw it. The blade went into the man’s back to the hilt and drove him forward. The rifle slid from his fingers. Preacher grabbed the knife, ripped it free, and plunged it in again just to make sure, then ran on toward the wagons.

He saw a rifle spurt flame between two of the vehicles and heard the ball whine past his head. The pilgrim who had fired the shot thought he was one of the bandits!

That realization made Preacher pick up speed. The rifleman would have to reload before he could fire again. That delay gave Preacher a few seconds to reach the wagons and let the defenders know who he was. He hurdled the wagon tongue as the man struggled with a ramrod, trying to get it down the barrel. Preacher could see him by the dim light that came from the embers of a nearby cooking fire.

“Hold on!” Preacher called. “I’m a—”

He was about to say “friend” when a gun blasted close beside him. He felt the sting of burning powder against his face. The roar was so loud it hit his ear almost like a fist and made him stagger. He twisted his head around and saw Lorraine Donnelly standing there with a smoking pistol in her hand. He knew he was lucky she had hurried her shot and missed him, although the pistol ball must have come within a whisker of him at almost point-blank range like that.

The man, who Preacher recognized now as Ned Donnelly, had finished reloading the rifle. He started to bring it up as Preacher yelled, “Hold your fire, damn it! It’s me, Preacher!” Half-deafened as he was, his voice sounded strange in his ears.

Donnelly hesitated, giving Preacher the chance to push the rifle barrel aside. “Preacher?” Donnelly said.

“That’s right. You’re under attack by bandits. Don’t let ’em inside the circle of the wagons, and you’ve got a chance.”

“You’re not one of them?”

“Hell, no! I’ve been out there tryin’ to stop them. Where’s Buckhalter?”

He thought that if he could bring down the gang’s leader, the other bandits might not put up as much of a fight.

Donnelly just shook his head. “I . . . I haven’t seen him. I heard him yelling something a little while ago. He’s still around somewhere.”

Maybe he was, and maybe he wasn’t, Preacher thought. After firing that signal, Buckhalter might have slipped out of the camp to keep his own hide safe during the attack. Preacher wouldn’t put it past the man for a second.

Lorraine stepped closer to him and said, “I’m sorry I shot at you, Preacher.”

“You didn’t know who I was,” he said. “No harm done.”

Other than the ringing in his ears, and she didn’t have to know about that.

“Do you need powder and shot for your pistols?” She held out a powder horn and shot pouch toward him.

Preacher grinned and took them from her. “I dang sure do.” With swift, practiced efficiency, he began reloading the weapons.

When both pistols were charged and ready, he handed the powder horn and pouch back to Lorraine and said, “You’d better hunt some cover, ma’am.”

“I’m going to stay right here and reload for Ned,” she declared without budging. “We have two rifles.”

And they’d be liable to need them, Preacher knew. He nodded curtly and settled for saying, “Keep your head down as much as you can. Where are your youngsters?”

“In the wagon, between our trunks.”

That was as good a place as any for the boys. Preacher nodded again and began loping around the circle to see how the rest of the defenders were holding up.

A frightened yell made him head for one of the gaps between wagons. As he approached, he saw one of the immigrants wrestling with a tall, hatchet-faced bandit who looked like a half-breed. The pilgrim had an ax, but as Preacher came closer, the bandit wrenched it away from him and swung it. With a grisly thunk! the blade split the immigrant’s skull, sinking deep into his forehead.

The half-breed didn’t have time to enjoy his triumph. His face turned into a crimson smear as Preacher fired one of the pistols into it. He stuck the empty gun behind his belt and reached down with that hand to pull the ax free, trying not to think about the sound it made as it came loose. Another bandit bounded up onto the wagon tongue and started over. Preacher met him with the ax, whipping it back and forth so that the razor-sharp blade opened up deep slashes across the man’s chest. The man fell off the wagon tongue, and as he landed facedown on the ground, Preacher swung the ax up and brought it down in the back of the man’s head.

He had lost track of how many members of the gang he had killed in the past ten minutes or so. He knew he had made a pretty good dent in their numbers, though, so it didn’t really surprise him when the shooting began to die down. The attack had been blunted before it even began, and now it was losing the rest of its momentum.

Preacher saw one of the defenders go down with blood welling from a wound in his arm just as he finished reloading a rifle. Leaping to his side, Preacher took the weapon from him and said, “I’ll put it to good use, friend.” He lifted the rifle and aimed at another muzzle flash from the attackers. The rifle boomed as he pressed the trigger, and Preacher was rewarded by a howl of pain from his target that trailed off into a gurgling moan.

Several more shots sounded, and then a tense, eerie silence fell over the camp and the surrounding area. Preacher didn’t know if any more of Beaumont’s men were out there. Maybe they were all dead. It was possible, too, that the survivors had given up and lit a shuck out of there.

“Preacher!”

He looked around and saw Uncle Dan trotting toward him. The old-timer’s beard was streaked with red from a bullet graze on his cheek, but other than that he seemed to be all right.

“I think they’ve rabbited,” Uncle Dan said as he came up.

“I hope you’re right. You think we should go have a look-see?”

“I don’t know any other way to be sure, even though I ain’t all that fond o’ the idea.”

Preacher chuckled. “Neither am I. We’d best reload all our guns before we venture out there.”

“I’m going with you.”

Preacher looked around and saw that Ned Donnelly had come up on his other side. He shook his head, saying, “I ain’t sure you ought to do that.”

“I am,” Donnelly declared. “I’m the captain of this wagon train. The safety of its members is my responsibility.”

Donnelly should have thought of that before he hired a skunk like Buckhalter, Preacher thought, then told himself that maybe he was being a mite unfair. Donnelly hadn’t had any real reason to suspect Buckhalter of treachery until today.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

As soon as their weapons were reloaded, the three men left the camp, moving warily through the darkness. Preacher whistled softly for Dog, and the big cur came loping up to him. Having Dog along would make it a lot easier to locate any two-legged varmints still lurking in the shadows.

The three men and the dog circled the camp several times, working their way farther out each time. They found numerous bodies, but no live bandits. The survivors might have taken some of the dead and wounded with them, but they hadn’t lingered long enough to retrieve all of their fallen companions.

When Preacher was satisfied that the threat was over, at least for tonight, he led Uncle Dan and Donnelly back to the camp. As they walked through the gap between the wagons, he was surprised to hear a familiar blustery voice saying, “That man Preacher was behind the attack, I tell you! He and the old man were scouts for that band of thieves! They came in here and spun that cock-and-bull story about savage Indians being ahead of us so that we wouldn’t suspect an attack was about to come from the other direction!”

Uncle Dan let out a low whistle. “That varmint don’t give up easy, does he? He’s tryin’ to bluff his way through!”

“Let me handle this,” Donnelly said. He stalked toward the large group of immigrants gathered on the other side of the circle and raised his voice. “Mr. Buckhalter!”

Buckhalter stopped talking and turned to see who had hailed him. As he spotted Preacher and Uncle Dan following Donnelly, he grabbed for a pistol at his waist and yelled, “There they are! Get them!”

None of the pilgrims made a move, though. Donnelly was in the way. He raised his hands and called out, “Everyone listen to me! Mr. Buckhalter is mistaken! Preacher and Mr. Sullivan had nothing to do with the attack on us! They fought side by side with us and helped defend us against the robbers!”

Buckhalter’s beard jutted out defiantly. “I didn’t see that!” he declared. “And I don’t believe it!”

Lorraine Donnelly stepped forward. “It’s the truth,” she said in a loud, clear voice. “I was about to speak up myself, but my husband beat me to it. With my own eyes, I saw Preacher and Mr. Sullivan battling the attackers.”

“That’s not possible!” Buckhalter blustered.

Donnelly stopped in front of him. “You’d better not be calling my wife—or me—a liar, Mr. Buckhalter. You’re simply mistaken.”

“No, he ain’t,” Preacher drawled. “He’s lyin’ . . . and for a good reason. He’s the boss of the gang that’s been trailin’ you ever since the wagons left St. Louis. He set up the attack.”

Buckhalter’s face darkened in fury. “That’s a bald-faced lie!” he bellowed.

“Give it up, Buckhalter,” Preacher said. “I heard some of those varmints talkin’ before you gave the signal for the attack to begin. And I know that all of you are workin’ for Shad Beaumont, too.”

At the mention of Beaumont’s name, the flush disappeared from Buckhalter’s face. He paled instead, because he had to realize now that the game was up. His hand moved toward the pistol at his waist. Preacher was ready to grab his own gun.

But before he could, a roar sounded behind him, and what felt like an avalanche crashed down on him.