First Mountain Man/first Mountain Man: Preacher

Book 0: Preacher/The First Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone

Genres: Action & Adventure; Historical Fiction; Westerns

Synopsis

Johnstone Justice. Made in America. An ordinary boy with extraordinary dreams. A man whose legend spreads across the frontier. Ride the epic saga of an American hero and the battles that forged his soul in these classic tales in the legendary Preacher series. In 1812, a boy filled with wanderlust and courage runs away from home, westward, into a vast, dangerous land. Along the way he learns the rule of the frontier: do whatever it takes to survive. By the time the boy—now a young man—is hired to lead a wagon train through the last leg of the Oregon Trail, he has acquired a nickname known throughout the West: Preacher. Armed with a long gun, he is as fierce as the land itself. For the brave pioneers who are counting on this mountain man to lead them to a Northwest paradise, the Preacher’s cunning and fighting skills will mean the difference between life and death. But even Preacher can’t see all the dangers ahead, or how his legend as a frontiersman will lead him into the most violent fight of all . . .

Release date: March 27, 2018

Publisher: Pinnacle

Print pages: 560

Sample

They were in trouble and Preacher knew that for a hard fact. The Arapaho bucks back yonder had been wearing read streaks on their faces. To an Arapaho, the color red could mean three things: earth, man, or blood. In this case, Preacher pretty well knew it meant blood, and they weren’t in the best of positions, either. They were caught with the Shoshoni just to the west of them, the Blackfoot to the north, the Crow to the east, and the Arapaho and the Cheyenne to the south and everywhere in the immediate surroundings.

All in all, it was not a good place to be. Preacher, traveling alone, never gave it much worrying time. He knew how to stay alive in hostile country. But with four pilgrims—that was quite another matter.

And two of them females, no less. That only added to the problem.

“Git up on them horses,” Preacher told them.

“We don’t have the proper saddles for the ladies,” the mouthy man said. “And by the way, my name is Edmond. You know Melody and Richard. This is Penelope.”

“Well, I am just thrilled beyond words. Now, get up on them damn horses!”

Nobody moved.

With a snort of disgust, Preacher climbed up the gently sloping bank, slid down the other side, and fetched his own animals, leading them around to the others. They still hadn’t made a move toward the ponies.

He swung into the saddle and led an Indian pony over to the group. He looked at Melody. “Mount up, sister. I’ll get you outta here. Move, woman!”

Melody didn’t hesitate. She stepped up on a log, hiked up her skirts, and swung onto the horse’s back. Preacher handed her the reins. “Let’s go.”

“What about us?” Penelope shrieked.

“Keep your voice down, woman!” Preacher said. “You’d but a hog-caller to shame. If you wanna come with us, put your butt on that pony’s back and come on.”

“Barbarous cretin!” Edmond said. “You’d leave us, wouldn’t you?”

“You see my back, don’t you?” Preacher called over his shoulder. “That tell you anything?”

“Are you really going to leave them?” Melody whispered.

“Naw,” Preacher returned the whisper. “But they don’t know that.”

She grinned at him. Preacher winked at her.

“I’m a worker in the house of the Lord, sir,” she reminded him.

“You’re a woman first,” he told her. “And a hell of a woman, at that.”

She blushed and tried to adjust her bonnet, pushing some blonde hair back under the brim and almost fell off the pony.

“Hang on, sister,” Preacher told her. “You’re all lucky them Injuns took saddles from the dead pilgrims for their ponies. You’d be plumb uncomfortable if you was ridin’ bareback.”

“I can just imagine,” Melody muttered.

“I bet you cain’t, neither. Here come the others. I figured I’d get them movin’.” He looked with approving eyes at the way the men sat their saddles. They could ride. Penelope, on the other hand, was bouncing up and down like a little boat on a great big lake in the middle of a storm. “Grab ahold of that saddle horn, sister,” Preacher said. “And hang on. The damn thing ain’t for tootin’, you know.”

She gave him a dark look and muttered something under her breath.

“Must you use profanity?” Edmond said.

“Will if I want to, and I want to, so hush up and stay in line. And don’t get lost. Which way’s what’s left of the wagon train?”

“On the Oregon Trail,” Richard said.

Preacher whoaed up and twisted in the saddle. “Somebody’s been playin’ games with you folks. The Oregon Trail is ’way, ’way south of here. People, you was lost!”

“As a goose,” Melody said. “I knew that, but nobody would listen to me.”

Richard and Edmond both looked embarrassed. Richard said, “I suspected our guide didn’t know what he was doing. He drank a lot.”

“I know lots of guides who drink a lot,” Preacher said. “That ain’t got nothin’ to do with it. Where’d you folks outfit and jump off from?”

“Missouri,” Melody told him. “Our guide told us we would bypass Fort Hall because he knew a better route.”

“Damn fool,” Preacher muttered. “All right. How far north is the train?”

“I would say about fifteen miles,” Edmond said. “No more than that, I’m sure.”

“Probably not that far,” Preacher said. “Injuns wouldn’t travel that distance in these mountains ’fore torturin’ and rapin’. If that’s what they had in mind.”

“Perhaps you could take us on to Oregon?” Edmond suggested.

“I’ll take you somewheres,” Preacher said, and pointed his horse’s nose north.

Night draped the mountains before they could reach the site of the wagon train. Preacher killed a couple of rabbits with a sling and stopped before dark to build a small fire. While the meat was cooking, he said, “We’ll eat, then move on a couple of miles and make camp for the night. It’s gonna be cold, so you folks use your saddle blankets for warmth.”

“But they smell!” Penelope complained.

“You will too ’fore you get where you’re goin’,” Preacher told her. “Like a bunch of polecats—but you’ll be alive. So shut up.”

Preacher let the others eat the rabbits while he chewed on jerky and ate a handful of some berries he’d picked. He was used to lean times. These pilgrims looked like they’d never missed a meal in their lives.

He carefully put out the fire and moved them north a couple of miles for a cold camp. Melody was the only one who didn’t complain, even though she was just as uncomfortable as the others.

She’ll do, Preacher thought. She’s tough.

Their eyes met in the darkness through the dim light of the quarter moon. She blinked first, then laid her head on the saddle. Preacher grinned and rolled up in his blankets.

Across the small clearing, Edmond had watched the silent exchange through hot eyes, and bristled in anger.

They all saw the buzzards long before they reached the site of the ambush and massacre. Those carrion birds who had not yet feasted on dead flesh soared and circled and wheeled and waited their turn in the sky, while the others staggered around on the ground, too full and heavy to lift off.

“It ain’t gonna be pretty,” Preacher warned. “I’ve seen it before. When you puke, don’t get none on me. Where are you folks from anyway?”

“Philadelphia,” Richard said.

“Shoulda stayed there. This country’s too crowded as it is. Can’t ride for five days without seeing some damn body.”

“It’s called progress,” Edmond said.

“It’s a damn nuisance, is what it is,” Preacher retorted.

“Must you swear constantly?” Melody asked.

“Yeah, I must. I’m gettin’ in practice for our rendezvous down south. Although it don’t look like I’m gonna make it.”

“I’ve read about those affairs,” Richard said. “Then you’re a real mountain man.”

“I am.”

“What drove you to this horrible existence?” Edmond asked.

Preacher turned to look at the city man. “Horrible? What’s so horrible about it? I’m as free as an eagle, wild as a grizzly, mean as a wolverine, tough as a cornered wolf, and quick as a puma. I can out drink, out cuss, out fight, out dance, out sing, ride farther and faster than any man, and tell more lies than any ten men. And I’m good-lookin’, too.”

Melody laughed at his words.

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” Edmond admonished him.

“Why?” Preacher asked. “For bein’ what the good Lord intended me to be? You are what you are, I am what I am. It’s just as simple as that.” He reined up and let the horses drink. “This here’s what we call Shine Crick. I know what your guide was up too, now, but he was flat out wrong. He’d been listenin’ to lies about a trail through the wilderness just to the west of us. There ain’t no wagon trail through there. You’d have to go north over a hundred miles and then cut west. But even then, that would be a tough pull. Windin’ way. Get caught there in the winter, and you’d die. You people were listenin’ to a fool. What happened to him anyways?”

“When the savages attacked, he ran away,” Melody said. “I watched him leave.”

“You know his name?”

“Jack Harris,” Edmond said. “I did not like him. He was a lot like you.”

“Jack Harris ain’t nothing like me,” Preacher told him. “Jack’s a back-shooter and a coward. Brags a lot about how brave he is, but when it comes down to the nut-cuttin’, he ain’t nowheres to be found.”

“He claimed to be a mountain man,” Melody said.

Preacher snorted. “He’s a hanger-arounder, is what he is. He tell you about the time I whupped him down at Bent’s Fort? No, he wouldn’t mention that. I whupped him to a fare-thee-well, I did. He ain’t liked me to this day.”

“What was the fight about?” Richard asked. Although the man was in considerable pain, he’d come up in Preacher’s eyes by not complaining about his missing ear and by pulling his weight.

“He insulted my mother. Now, you can insult me all day long—if you do it in a friendly manner—and I’ll just insult you back. But leave my dear sainted mother out of it. Or get ready to get bloody.”

The wind shifted and brought a horrible stench with it, wrinkling the noses of the missionaries.

“That’s . . . the wagon train?” Melody asked, getting a little green around the mouth.

“Yep,” Preacher said. “What’s left of the bodies, that is. Buzzards’ll try for the soft parts first. Belly and kidneys. It ain’t a real pretty sight. I’ve seen yards and yard of guts all strung out like rope. Why, I recollect one time, I come up on this Pawnee village that’d been hit by a band of Injuns that didn’t like ’em very much—nobody likes the Pawnee. And I seen . . .” Preacher went into great long gory detail until the sounds of retching stopped him. Penelope and Edmond were off their ponies, kneeling down in the trail.

“What’s the matter with you two?” he asked, with a very definite twinkle in his eyes. “Something you ate don’t agree with you, maybe?”

Richard and Melody dropped off their ponies and headed for the bushes when they approached the wagon train. It was evident that the Indians had spent several hours torturing some of the survivors, and many Indian tribes could be very inventive when it came to torture.

“Savages!” Edmond blurted. “They need the word of God even more than I thought.”

“Is that right?” Preacher asked with an odd smile. “Savages, huh? ’Ppears to me I read where they was still cuttin’ off folks’ heads in France and drawin’ and quarterin’ folks over in England. Big public spectacle. Ain’t them religious countries? Would you call that civilized?”

Melody and Richard returned from their hurried trip to the bushes, both of them pale. The stench from the bodies was horrible. Articles of clothing and broken pieces of furniture were scattered all over the area, along with what remained of tortured men and women and older kids.

“Where are the young children?” Penelope asked, her voice no more than a whisper and her face very pale under her bonnet. “There were a dozen or more boys and girls.”

“Injuns took them to raise,” Preacher said. “They do that sometimes. If the child behaves, they’ll live. Some tribes won’t harm a child at all. Others will kill them outright. Injuns are notional. Just like white folks, you might say.”

“I don’t know any white person who would harm a child!” Edmond said.

“Then you don’t know many of your own kind,” Preacher told him shortly. “You folks start gatherin’ up clothing you think might fit you and what food and powder and shot that might be found. Get yourselves some warm clothing.”

“Stealing from the dead!” Penelope said.

Preacher turned slowly and looked at her. “Lady, you are beginnin’ to wear on me. Do you—any of you—know the trouble you’re in? I don’t think so. We’re smack in the middle of hostile Injun country, and from the paint on them dead bucks, they’re on the warpath. Somethin’s stirred them up. And it’s reasonable to think that they ain’t the only tribe that’s took up their war axes.” Preacher knelt down and began drawing in the dirt. The others leaned over to watch him.

“Now pay attention,” Preacher said. “We’re here. Dry Crick is behind us here. The South Fork of the Shoshone is to our west. The Oregon Trail is ’way to hell down here. ’Way I see it is like this: we got hostiles on the warpath all around us. We’d be damn fools to try to make it south to the wagon trail.” He looked at all of them for a moment, then sighed. “I reckon I’m stuck with you. I can’t in no good conscience leave you. Hell, you’d all die. Don’t none of you seem to know north from south or what’s up or down.”

“Now, see here!” Edmond protested.

“Shut your fly-trap,” Preacher told him. “And don’t argue with me. I been makin’ it in these mountains for years. You’re just a helpless baby in the wilderness. And folks, if you think this is wild, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. We couldn’t make it with wagons where I’m thinkin’ of carryin’ you, but on horseback. . .” He shrugged his shoulders. “. . . We got a chance. We’re goin’ into the Big Titties . . .”

“The what?” Penelope blurted, high color springing onto her cheeks.

“Mountain range that was named Les Grand Tetones by a French trapper ’cause they reminded him of big tits,” Preacher said, ducking his head to hide his grin. The grin did not escape Melody. “It’s wild, people. It’s the most beautiful and wildest thing you’ll ever see. And it’s slow goin’. But it’s the safest way. We might run into some Bannocks in yonder; but I get on well with the. Likewise the Nez Perce further on west and north. Good people. It’s our only shot, folks, and we got to take it. Now look around for a bottle of whiskey.”

“My word, man!” Edmond said. “Are you thinking of getting drunk at a time like this?”

Preacher gave him a look of disgust. “No, you ninny. Take a look at your friend’s head. Where his ear used to be. It’s fillin’ up with pus—infection, to you. I got to open it up, clean it out, and cauterize it with a hot blade. The whiskey’s for him, to ease the pain. Even with that, y’all gonna have to hold him down. If we don’t do that, he’ll die. So shut your mouth and get to lookin’.”

Preacher slowly circled the ambush site on foot and concluded that the Injuns who had done this had not been back. No need to, for at first glance there was precious little left to plunder. He began searching the rubble, grateful that the Injuns had not burned the wagons. They had raped and killed and tortured, run off the horses and mules. They’d eaten the oxen, then lay up in a stuffed stupor for a day or so. But this was a sight that Preacher had seen more than once since pilgrims began pushing west. He knew all the secret places where folks liked to stash valuables.

He found a cache of food in one wagon, including several pounds of coffee. Preacher immediately set about building a small smokeless fire out of dead wood and made a pot of coffee.

“Man, we have to bury the dead!” Edmond said.

“You bury ’em if you’re in that big a hurry,” Preacher told him. “There ain’t enough left of most of ’em to bother with. You’d best worry about stayin’ alive. The dead’ll take care of themselves. I’m fixin’ to have me some coffee.”

Preacher drank the hot strong brew while the others rummaged around, picking up this and that, stepping gingerly around the torn and bloated bodies.

“You women find you some men’s britches and get in ’em,” Preacher called from the fire. “Be easier ridin’ that way.”

“I most certainly will not!” Penelope squalled in outrage at just the thought.

“Either you do it, or I’ll snatch them petticoats offen you and dress you myself,” Preacher warned her. “I ain’t gonna put up with them dress tails gettin’ snagged on bushes and such. My life and your lives are at stake here. Damn your modesty.”

Preacher looked westward and shook his head. He’d been in the Tetons, but never with a bunch of persnickety pilgrims, and certainly with no females draggin’ along.

“Disgraceful!” Penelope said, holding up a pair of men’s britches and shaking them.

“Just get in them,” Preacher said. “Be right interestin’ to see what you ladies look like without all them underthings hidin’ your natural charms.”

“You are a vile, disgusting man,” Edmond told him.

“Maybe,” Preacher said, sipping another cup of coffee. “But I’m the only hope you got of stayin’ alive. I’d bear that in mind was I you.” He looked at Richard, standing with the bottle of whiskey Preacher had found. “Drink it down, missionary. Get stumblin’ drunk.” He took out his knife and laid it on the stones around the fire. “This ain’t gonna be no fun for neither of us.”

The Indians became darting shapes in the night, utilizing every bit of cover as they worked their way closer to the fort and the wagons. So far, although two dozen shots had been fired from the defenders, Preacher was the only one to have scored a hit.

“Don’t fire until you’re sure of a target!” Preacher yelled. “Goddammit, save your powder and shot. This ain’t St. Louis. You can’t go to the store and buy more.” He dropped back down beside Greybull. “Damn pilgrims anyways. I’d hate to be saddled with guidin’ them fools.”

Another fire arrow lanced the night and this one landed on the canvas of a wagon, igniting it almost instantly. Greybull drilled the Indian who fired the arrow and the brave doubled over, mortally wounded from the .54 caliber Hawken.

Men and women ran to put out the fire and the Indians showered them with arrows. One woman was struck in the throat and died horribly, the life gurgling out of her, and a man went down screaming with an arrow in his stomach. Children were laying under their parents’ wagons, many of them screaming in fright.

“Welcome to life on the frontier, folks,” Preacher muttered without malice. “I ’spect it ain’t at all like the big adventure it was painted to be.”

“They’re using ladders to breech the north wall!” a young soldier shouted.

“Did you tell the kitchen people to have lots of boilin’ water ready?” Preacher asked his buddy.

Greybull chewed and spat. “Yep.”

“Well?”

“The lieutenant said he wouldn’t do nothin’ like pourin’ no boilin’ water on folks. Said that was agin the rules of war.”

“Until that boy grows up, we’re gonna be in trouble, Greybull.”

“Yep. Must be two, three hundred Blackfeet out yonder.”

Both men were lifting their rifles to their shoulders.

“At least,” Preacher said.

“Wait a minute,” Greybull said, lowering his rifle. “What the hell’s that chantin’?”

Preacher listened for a moment. “Them back over that ridge is singin’ their death songs. But . . . why? And why the rush to attack us? Ain’t none of this makin’ no sense, Greybull.”

From out in the darkness, far away from the light of the burning wagon, came the angry shouting voice of a Blackfoot. Greybull and Preacher listened intently to the hard words.

“My sweet Jesus,” Greybull whispered. “Is he sayin’ what I think I’m hearin’?”

“Yeah,” Preacher told him, his words hard and grimly offered. “He damn shore is.” Preacher tapped on the logs of the wall. “Can anybody hear me in yonder?” he called.

“Right here, Preacher,” a trapper he knew slightly said. “I heard them words, too.”

“Get to usin’ an axe, Jim. Get some men choppin’ and make us a space big enough to get folks through and do it quick. And get the lieutenant over here.”

“Right, Preacher.”

Only a few heartbeats passed before the voice of Maxwell-Smith came through the logs. “Yes, Preacher?”

“Now listen to me, Lieutenant,” Preacher said, steel in his words. “I ain’t gonna say this but once. Don’t let no Injun come over the walls. Don’t touch none of them. We got to get all these pilgrims inside the walls and keep the Injuns out. Now you get them goddamn pots filled with water and keep it hot. When they try to come over, you dump it on them. You got all that, Lieutenant?”

“I hear you, Preacher. Boiling water poured on the flesh of those poor wretches out there. But can you give me a reason for the barbaric behavior?”

“Them’s their death-songs they’s singin’ out yonder, boy. The white man’s done brought smallpox down on them. Whole villages has been wiped out. And them out yonder got it too. They want to die in battle—but not before they infect us. Now, is that good enough for you?”

“I’ll get right on it,” Maxwell-Smith said, his voice filled with horror.

“You do that.” He turned to Greybull. “Them on the other side’ll be through in two jigs. Soon as the hole’s cut, I’ll start workin’ them pilgrims over here. We got to do this fast.” He handed him his Hawken. “Little extry firepower, Greybull. I’m gone.”

The wagon was almost burned down to smoldering char as preacher made his way into the knot of men and women.

“They’re through!” Greybull called.

“Get to the wall,” Preacher told the first bunch. “Grab what you can and run like hell. Move, people. Move!”

“What’s the meaning of this?” the wagon master confronted him. “I give the orders out here.”

“Not no more, partner,” Preacher told him. “If you want to live, you do what I tell you to do.”

“I don’t take orders from you . . . you smelly, shaggy reprobate!”

“Then you can go right straight to hell,” Preacher replied. “I ain’t got the time to fart around with someone as dumb as you.” He shoved the man out of the way.

The wagonmaster grabbed him by the shoulder and spun Preacher around, his fist drawed back for a blow. He never got the chance to throw it. Preacher put him on the ground, butt first, and a hard left and right to the jaw. Then he went about his business of gathering up those pioneers who would go into the fort.

And not all of them would.

“I don’t believe you!” one man said. “And I’m not leaving my wagon out here for the savages to plunder and burn.”

“Then stay here,” Preacher said, and pushed past him. It was cold on the mountain man’s part, but he was doing what he felt was necessary, and he didn’t have much time. And he also knew what smallpox could do. He’d had it and survived it, as had Greybull. They’d been with some Mandans when it struck their village, and it was a horrible sight to witness.

About half of those in the wagon train chose to leave their wagons and run for the fort. Preacher held several sets of parents at pistol-point while Greybull and two young soldiers forcibly took their young children from them and ran for the fort.

“I’ll see you in hell for this!” and man shouted.

“You’ll be there ’fore me,” Preacher told him.

Then the enraged Blackfeet struck the fort and there was no time for anything except survival as the infected and sick and dying Indians threw themselves against the thick walls of the fort. They came out of the night in silent waves of fury and hate.

The first wave was repelled by shot. On the heels of that one came another with makeshift ladders. Boiling water was poured on them and they ran shrieking into the night, burned horribly.

Those pilgrims who had refused to leave their wagons fared not well at all. It did not take the Blackfeet long to overwhelm them, and the Indians were in no mood to take prisoners for slavery or barter.

The screaming of those being tortured played hell on the nerves of the defenders inside the fort.

“What are they doing to them?” Edmond asked nervously, standing beside Preacher on a rampart.

“Injuns can get right lively with their torture,” the mountain man replied. “And if they’re a mind to, they can make it last for days. Each tribe has its own favorite way of torture, and there ain’t none of it very pleasant.”

“What happened to the tame Indians who were living around the fort?”

“They run off ’fore the Blackfeet got here in force.”

Flames from the burning wagons illuminated the night, highlighting the bodies that littered the ground around the walled fort. Moaning from the wounded mingled with the screaming of those being tortured. A man from the wagon train came stumbling out of the night, his head on fire and his hands tied behind his back. His shrieking was hideous.

Preacher lifted his Hawken and shot him dead.

“My God, man!” Edmond said.

“I put him out of his misery,” Preacher said. “They’d gouged out his eyes and set his hair on fire. You ever seen a man who’s brains was cooked?”

“Ah . . . no.”

“It ain’t a nice sight.”

An arrow whizzed between them and fell to the earth on the grounds inside the walls.

“When we whup them,” Preacher said, “and we will do that, eventually, we got a real problem. Those of us that’s had the pox has got to go out there and burn them bodies to kill the germs. You been scratched, Edmond?”

“Yes. All of my party received the cowpox.”

“Good. Y’all can help then. Hudson’s Bay sent supplies of smallpox vaccine to all its forts. The lieutenant said his people had been vaccined.”

Greybull came hunched over to them. “From what I been able to pick out of the night, the Blackfeet’s lost a lot of people. Whole villages wiped out. A Mandan just slipped through and he sayin’ that all along the Missouri there ain’t nothin’ but death. His whole tribe was wiped out. He says that folks is runnin’ away from it, headin’ west, and that’s how it got here so fast. He says that people of his tribe is killin’ themselves right and left. Said the talk is it started over at Fort Union. Brought in by someone on a keelboat.”

Preacher nodded his head. “Listen to that,” he said, as the chanting and singing grew louder, coming to them from out of the night. “Them Blackfeet’s gone crazy. They’re workin’ themselves up into a killin’ rage.”

“Can’t say as I blame them,” Greybull replied. “I’d rather die quick than linger in pain for days with the pox, havin’ the skin rot off me.”

Edmond shuddered. “You are rather graphic in your description, sir.” He paused. “A thought just occurred to me. Those savages we encountered the night before we reached the fort. Do you suppose . . . ?”

“Yeah, they probably had it, or suspected they did. But you all been vaccined, so you ain’t got nothin’ to worry about. What you got to worry about is right out yonder.”

The singing and chanting stopped. The sudden silence gathered all around them.

“What does that mean?” Edmond asked.

“It means they comin’ straight at us,” Preacher said. “Like right about now!” He lifted his Hawken and blew a hole in the chest of a running brave.

The ground on all sides of the fort was suddenly transformed into a mass of charging Blackfeet, some of them carrying makeshift ladders. They threw ladders against the log walls and began climbing up. Buckets and pots containing hot water were dumped on the Indians, scalding them. They flung themselves off the ladders, screaming in pain, running away into the night. Men were firing straight down from the ramparts, the heavy caliber rifles and pistols inflicting horrible damage on the Indians at close range. The cool night air became thick and choking with gunsmoke and the stench of death.

Although outnumbered by at least twenty to one—and probably more than that—the defenders of the fort held the high ground, so to speak, and fought savagely, once again breaking the Indian attack.

Lieutenant Maxwell-Smith made his way along the ramparts to Preacher. “While it is quiet, I am going to stand half of my men down for a rest and some tea.”

“Good idea. They damn sure earned a rest,” he complimented the young officer. “We just might have broken their spirit this last charge. Them Blackfeet might think their medicine has turned bad and fall back to ponder on it some.”

“I’ll have the men in the towers keep a sharp eye out.”

Preacher watched the young man leave and said, “I think he learned something about the frontier this night.”

Edmond mopped his grimy, sweaty face with a handkerchief. “I know I certainly did.”

Most of those inside the fort managed to catch an hour or so of sleep that night. The Indians made no more charges against them. They settled back to harass them with arrows and an occasional gunshot, for many of them did not have rifles, and those that did were not very good shots, not having sufficient powder and shot to practice.

The sun rose to a sight of mangled bodies on all sides of the fort. More than a dozen of those men and women who had refused to leave their wagons had been stripped naked, tortured, then tied to a wagon wheel and burned alive. Even the children had been killed, a sure sign of the Indian’s rage over the white man bringing his deadly diseases to them.

“I ’spect we can salvage ’bout half them wagons,” Preacher opined. He glanced at Richard, looking out grim-faced at the carnage that lay before them. “Any clothing found out yonder will have to be handled careful-like, with a stick, and boiled ’fore anyone uses it.”

“Yes. Have the Indians gone?”

“I don’t know. I doubt it. Mad as they is, I don’t ’spect they’ll give up too easy.” He was studying the body of a Blackfoot that lay on t