Preacher's Bloodbath

Book 22: Preacher/The First Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Westerns

Synopsis

Preacher takes on the last of the Aztecs in his biggest, bloodiest showdown yet.

There are a million ways to die in the Rockies-and a million predators, natural or otherwise. But even a seasoned mountain dweller like Preacher is shocked by the latest horror lurking in the hills. Trappers are being hunted down like animals. Captured. Murdered. Mutilated. Their hearts carved out of their chests. Some of the victims were Preacher's friends. Now two others - Audie and Nighthawk - have gone missing. Preacher is determined to track them down before they end up on the chopping block. But nothing can prepare him for what's waiting at the end of the trail.

A secret cult as old as the Aztecs. A warrior priest with a lust for blood. And an epic battle that begins and ends-with the ultimate sacrifice.

Release date: December 29, 2015

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 336

Sample

The man burst out of the brush, eyes wide with terror as he ran, arms pumping, legs moving so fast they were almost out of control. Every few steps, he twisted his head to glance wide-eyed behind him as if Ol’ Scratch, the Devil himself, was behind him, closing in.

Might as well have been.

Based on his appearance, the terrified man looked like he shouldn’t have been scared of anything. He was tall and rugged, with broad, powerful shoulders that strained the buckskin shirt he wore. His bearded, weather-beaten face showed that he had spent a lot of time on the frontier. He had two flintlock pistols, a tomahawk, and a sheathed knife tucked into the sash around his waist, and he carried a long-barreled rifle. A powder horn and a full shot pouch bounced against his hip as he ran. He was armed for bear, as the old saying went.

But it wasn’t a bear that was after him. Even as terrible an engine of destruction as one of those creatures could be, what pursued the trapper was worse.

As he started up a bare, rocky slope, he lifted his frenzied gaze and saw a clump of boulders above him. If he could get in among those rocks, his pursuers couldn’t come at him all at once. At least he would be able to put up a fight . . . for a while, anyway. His heart slugged harder as he increased his pace.

He heard them howling as they crashed through the brush behind him. Like a pack of wolves, they were. Sometimes he could face down wolves and make them retreat, if he didn’t show any fear. That wasn’t going to work. His pursuers were worse than wolves.

With enough of a lead, he lunged into the clump of boulders and turned. His pursuers had reached the edge of the brush, charged into the open, and started up the slope after him. They wore buckskin leggings and tunics and had large necklaces of thick leather decorated with small, shiny rocks draped around their shoulders. They carried war clubs and spears and looked like they knew how to use them.

A man in the rear of the party, urging the others on, was dressed similarly but also sported a headdress styled to look like an eagle’s beak. A pair of actual eagle’s wings, stiffened so they would remain spread out, was attached to a harness strapped to his back. He carried a spear and shook it in the air as he shouted at his companions.

The trapper flung his rifle to his shoulder. He would have liked to ventilate that eagle-wearing varmint in the back, but he couldn’t get a clear shot at the man. He settled for drawing a bead on one of the warriors in front and pressed the trigger. The rifle boomed, and the target went over backwards as the heavy lead ball smashed into his chest.

The war chief or whatever he was yelled louder.

The trapper set the empty rifle close enough that he could snatch it up again and use it as a club, and drew both pistols. Already loaded, all he had to do was pull back the hammers as he planted himself in the narrow opening between two boulders.

Three of the attackers flung spears at him. He ducked one, and the other two bounced off the rocks. The leading edge of the charge was only about twenty feet away.

He leveled both pistols and pulled the triggers. The barrels gushed smoke and flame. Two more attackers went down, and the thunderous explosion of the shots made the others pause for a second—long enough for the trapper to dart back a few feet, drop the pistols, and snatch the knife and tomahawk from his belt.

The gap between the boulders was so narrow only one man at a time could get through it. Of course, the attackers could stand off a ways and chuck spears at him, but the odds of hitting him were small and soon they would be weaponless.

Through the opening, he saw his enemies hesitate, even though their leader was still behind them, exhorting them on.

A grin stretched across the trapper’s whiskery face. He had already killed three and was confident he would take more of them with him when he crossed the divide.

A faint scraping sound behind him was the only warning he got. As he turned, he caught a glimpse of a figure hurtling at him from the top of one of the rocks. Somehow, at least one of his pursuers had gotten around him.

The warrior crashed into him, the impact driving him against a boulder. He felt something snap and knew he’d probably broken a rib. Pain shot through him but it didn’t stop him from swinging the tomahawk. He felt bone shatter as he smashed it against the attacker’s head. The man collapsed.

More warriors crowded around the trapper. He slashed back and forth with the ’hawk and the knife as he tried to clear a space around him, but there were too many of them. One thrust a spear into his right thigh. The trapper yelled in a mixture of rage and agony. Then a war club caught him on the head and dropped him to his knees as the world began to spin crazily around him.

It was no use. They ripped his weapons away from him, along with the shot pouch and powder horn, and bore him the rest of the way to the ground. He writhed and tried to strike out with his fists, but strong hands gripped him and held him down.

He had never been a religious man and hadn’t set foot in a church since his ma had made him go back in Pennsylvania, long before he headed west to the Shining Mountains. But he had never considered himself a heathen. Knowing that his tormentors were about to kill him, he begged forgiveness for all his sins—and there were aplenty.

Instead of skewering him with spears or bashing his brains out with their clubs, the warriors picked him up and carried him out of the boulders. The fellow who wore the eagle headdress and wings stood with his arms folded across his chest as he regarded the captive with a look of haughty hatred. He spoke harshly in his gibberish of a language.

The trapper knew half a dozen Indian dialects but had never heard that one before.

The man made a sharp gesture. Several of the warriors swung their clubs, but instead of aiming the blows at the trapper’s head, they broke his legs and arms, snapping bones with great precision. He howled, and the cry resounded along the valleys and wooded slopes.

With the trapper completely helpless, the warriors picked him up again and carried him over to a low, squarish rock that had split off the mountain from above and toppled down in ages past. They laid him out on the rock and stepped back.

The war chief moved up beside the rock and sneered down at the trapper. He gestured again, and an old man the trapper hadn’t seen before came into view. The old man’s face was as brown and wrinkled as a nut. He placed a long cloak made of eagle feathers on the war chief’s shoulders and handed the chief a knife.

It was not the sort of hunting knife the trapper carried. The blade was made of flint chipped down to an edge. The handle, also made of stone, had been fashioned into the shape of a man kneeling far forward. The war chief grinned as he ran the ball of his thumb along the blade. A drop of blood welled from the cut as he leaned over the captive.

The trapper’s eyes widened and bulged from their sockets until it looked like they were going to pop out.

The war chief slashed the trapper’s buckskin tunic and ripped it aside, baring the man’s hairy chest. The trapper screamed as the chief began sawing with the blade.

The screams didn’t stop until the chief pulled the trapper’s bloody, still quivering heart out of his chest and thrust it aloft with a strident, triumphant cry.

Two men moved through the woods, each very different from the other. One was a Crow Indian, tall and muscular, with a rugged, middle-aged face that looked like it might have been hewn out of a redwood tree.

The Crow’s companion was little more than half his height, a white man in buckskins and coonskin cap. Despite his diminutive stature, he was broad-shouldered and brawny, too, with the upper body development of a much taller man.

As far as his weaponry was concerned, he carried a rifle with a barrel somewhat shorter than usual so he could handle it better. That was the only concession to his height. The two flintlock pistols at his waist were full-sized—as was his fighting heart.

“I don’t wish to cast aspersions on the acuity of your hearing or the veracity of your declarations, old friend,” the little man commented. “So I have no doubt that you actually did hear shots and screams from this direction a short time ago. But we’ve found nothing so far, and I begin to wonder if our search might be fruitless.”

The Crow regarded him gravely. “Umm.”

“Yes, I share your concern over Rawley. He was headed in this direction when last we encountered him, and the man’s notorious for his predilection for impulsive, reckless behavior. He easily could have waltzed right into trouble, just as you point out, friend Nighthawk.”

The trappers who operated in the Rocky Mountains, from above the Canadian border to the Sangre de Cristo far in the south, knew the little man only as Audie. His full name, the name he had used when he was a professor at one of the most prestigious universities back east, was a mystery. He had given up the academic life and come west to live a much simpler existence on the frontier. As he liked to put it, the dangers of grizzly bears, mountain lions, and hostile Indians were nothing compared to what lurked in the hallowed halls of the Ivy League.

Soon after his arrival in the mountains, he had won friends far and wide because he was able to recite from memory the complete works of Shakespeare and many other poets. Men who spent most of their time alone in the vast wilderness were desperate for any sort of entertainment, so Audie was a popular figure around the campfires.

Somewhere in his travels, he had fallen in with Nighthawk, a deadly, taciturn Crow warrior. An unshakeable bond had formed between the unlikely friends, and they had been trapping together for several years.

Nighthawk pointed.

Audie nodded his agreement. “Very well. We’ll continue in this direction for another half hour, and if we don’t find any sign of Rawley, we can turn back and return to our camp.”

As they moved through the woods, being cautious out of habit and taking advantage of the cover they found, Audie thought back to the previous evening, when Jacob Rawley had shared their campfire.

“There’s somethin’ mighty odd goin’ on in these parts,” Rawley said. “You recall Mike Dickinson? He vanished a couple weeks ago. Said he was gonna check some of the streams up there in Shadow Valley, toward Sawtooth Cliffs, and nobody’s seen hide nor hair of him since. Jack Phillips found some bones in the valley yonder, though. Human bones, he claims.”

“Did you see these skeletal remains with your own eyes?” Audie asked.

Rawley shook his head. “Naw, Jack claims he give ’em a decent burial, even though he couldn’t find all of the fella they came from. But he found what had to be a leg bone, and you recollect that limp Mike had on account of he busted his leg when he was a boy? Well, Jack said that leg bone he found had a place on it that looked like it’d been broke and then healed up years ago.”

“That’s hardly conclusive evidence some misfortune befell Michael. Besides, I’m not sure Jack Phillips has the necessary skill to positively identify human bones, let alone evidence of a previous fracture.”

“I’m just tellin’you what he told me, Audie.”

“Anyway, even if the bones did belong to Michael Dickinson, their existence doesn’t necessarily indicate foul play. We both know there are a myriad of methods a man can confront his mortality in these mountains.”

“Lots of ways to die, you mean?”

“Precisely. And it would require only a few days for scavengers to strip the bones clean.”

“You’re right about that,” Rawley admitted. “But Mike ain’t the only one who’s disappeared around Shadow Valley and Sawtooth Cliffs lately. There are three or four other fellas I ain’t seen in a good long while, and I’ve heard rumors that even more trappers are missin’. I think it’s Injuns.” He glanced at the Crow. “No offense, Nighthawk.”

“Umm.”

Audie frowned. “The tribes in this vicinity have been on the peaceful side in recent years, Jacob.”

“Yeah, well, you never can tell when something’ll get ’em riled up,” Rawley insisted.

“Besides, I don’t recall hearing of any tribe that actually lives in Shadow Valley.”

“They could’ve moved in from somewheres else. I reckon the best thing to do is head up yonder myself and have a look around.”

“Do you think that’s wise? I mean, if there is some sort of unusual depredation going on . . .”

“Mike Dickinson and me was trappin’ partners for a couple years. If he ain’t dead, maybe I can find him. And if he is ”—a grim cast came over Rawley’s face—“maybe I can settle the score with whoever done for him.”

“You’ll do what you think best, of course—”

“I always do,” Rawley declared.

And now it appears that Rawley’s stubbornness might have led him into more trouble than he bargained for, Audie mused as he and Nighthawk climbed a ridge. That is, if Nighthawk is right about what he heard earlier.

Audie had great faith in his old friend.

They paused at the top of the ridge. To the west as the landscape fell away was a broad valley, and on the far side of that valley, forming its western boundary, were the Sawtooth Cliffs.

It was actually the first time Audie laid eyes on them. Despite their wanderings, he and Nighthawk hadn’t been everywhere west of the Mississippi.

He had heard of the Sawtooth Cliffs numerous times, though, and usually when anyone spoke of them, it was to mention how ugly and sinister they looked.

That was true. The cliffs ran roughly north and south as far as the eye could see in either direction. They were at least two hundred feet tall, and the rim rose and fell in a jagged pattern that made it look like the teeth of a saw.

They look like the lower jaw of a gigantic predator, thought Audie. Teeth poised to rend and chew until there was nothing left of their prey . . .

Nighthawk swept a hand out to indicate the valley in front of them. “Umm.”

“Yes, Shadow Valley is a good name for the place,” Audie agreed. “It definitely has a gloomy atmosphere about it. Do you think Rawley is out there somewhere?”

Again, Nighthawk lifted an arm and pointed. Audie spotted what the Crow’s keen eyes had already taken note of. Dark shapes were circling lazily in the sky some distance away, closer to the cliffs.

“Carrion birds,” Audie murmured. “Never a good sign. Do we turn back or do we ignore those black-feathered, foreboding auspices and press ahead?”

Without answering, Nighthawk started down the slope. Audie went after him, catching up easily despite his short legs. He possessed a nimbleness few of the full-sized could match.

In the several hours it took them to cross the valley, the buzzards disappeared. That was a bad sign. It meant the birds had descended to feed. Whatever had caught their attention was no longer alive.

They had reached a point where the cliffs loomed over them when Nighthawk grunted, started moving faster, and climbed a bare slope toward a nest of boulders. Audie hurried to keep up with the Crow’s long-legged strides, following him.

Before they reached the rocks, Audie saw what had caught Nighthawk’s eye. Buzzards formed a dark mass as they fed on something lying on a rock slab. The ugly birds rose into the air, squawking in protest as the two men approached.

“Merciful God in heaven,” Audie breathed as he saw what the buzzards left behind.

It had been a man, and enough of his clothes remained to recognize what Jacob Rawley had been wearing when he’d visited their camp the previous evening. It was the only way Audie could tell who the dead man had been. Not much of his face remained.

The buzzards had been at his chest, too, and that was rather odd. Rawley’s buckskin shirt wasn’t torn open raggedly as the birds might have done to get at his flesh. It looked like someone had cut a slit in the shirt, then ripped it back. The straight edges of the cut remained, indicating that a blade had been used.

Rib bones were visible through the bloody, shredded flesh. Nighthawk leaned forward, studied the mutilated trapper for a moment, and then pointed at Rawley’s chest.

Stepping closer, Audie grasped instantly what had caught Nighthawk’s interest. “Good Lord. It looks like someone reached in there and pried those ribs apart. Why in the world—”

“Umm.” Nighthawk clenched a fist and thumped it lightly against his own chest.

“Yes. Oh, my, yes. Even if the buzzards had picked it apart, there would be something left.” Audie swallowed hard. “The conclusion is inescapable. Someone cut poor Jacob’s chest open, pried those ribs apart, reached in there . . . and ripped out his heart!”

Preacher heard singing in the night, somewhere up ahead of him. He reined his rawboned stallion to a halt and told the big, wolf-like cur who padded alongside, “Stay, Dog.”

The mountain man swung down from the saddle, looped the pack horse’s lead rope around a nearby sapling, and took his long-barreled flintlock rifle—already loaded and primed—from its sling attached to the saddle. He moved forward through the darkness with his thumb curled around the rifle’s hammer so he could cock it in an instant if he needed to.

The men he heard sounded peaceful enough, if a mite tipsy. Carrying on like that at night wasn’t the best idea—drawing too much attention to oneself never was, on the frontier—making Preacher suspect some jugs of tanglefoot were involved.

No one could ever accuse him of drawing attention to himself. On the contrary, the big mountain man was famous for his stealth. On several occasions during his longstanding hostilities with the Blackfoot tribe, he had slipped into the enemy camp in the middle of the night, cut the throats of several, and then slid back out without ever being noticed. None of the survivors had even known he was there until the bodies were discovered the next morning.

Because of that, some of the Blackfeet had taken to calling him Ghost Killer. Others called him the White Wolf because of his deadliness.

The song’s ribald lyrics ended in laughter as Preacher saw the glow of a large campfire up ahead. The party that had made camp had to be a large one. The men didn’t seem to care about the size of the fire or the loudness of their singing. The fire would keep animals away, and a large, well-armed group of men didn’t have to worry much about being attacked.

Still, such boisterousness went against the grain for Preacher. There was a time and a place for everything and nighttime in the wilderness wasn’t for loud singing.

He was close enough to pause and call out, “Hello, the camp!” A fella didn’t just waltz in unannounced at night. That was a good way to get shot.

The men fell silent.

After a moment, someone responded. “Who’s out there?”

“They call me Preacher.”

“Preacher!? Well, the saints be praised! Come on in, you old he-coon!”

The voice was familiar. “Is that you, Miles?”

“Aye, ’tis!”

Preacher hadn’t seen Miles O’Grady since the previous year. He had always gotten along with O’Grady and figured if the Irishman was part o. . .