Preacher's Hell

Book 32: Preacher/The First Mountain Man

by William W. Johnstone, J.A. Johnstone

Genres: Action & Adventure; Historical Fiction; Westerns

Synopsis

Legendary bestselling western authors William W. Johnstone and J.A. Johnstone return with the blazing new installment in their long-running series featuring Preacher, the First Mountain Man, in a classic showdown between Good and Evil, as he promises to protect two little angels from one devil of an outlaw . . .

They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. For Preacher, that road begins at a remote trading post in the Bitterroot Mountains. At first, it’s a friendly reunion with his old buddies Audie and Nighthawk. But then, a young Indian woman and her grandfather are attacked by a vicious gang of thieves—and all hell breaks loose. When the smoke clears, the gang’s leader, who goes by the name Mack Ozark, .has escaped, the grandfather is dead, and the woman is mortally wounded. Before she dies, she begs Preacher to look after a bundle she is carrying. Inside, wrapped in a blanket, are two blond-haired, blue-eyed babies. They’re clearly twins—and clearly not hers . . .

Who do the babies belong to? And what is a man like Preacher supposed to do with them? The only clue is a pair of gemstone necklaces around the babies’ necks. Preacher’s friend Audie recognizes the stones as star garnets from a nearby valley, where they head off to find the twins’ mother. Along the way, they realize they’re being followed by Mack Ozark.. He knows the babies’ father stole a fortune in jewels. He knows the babies’ blanket contains a map to the hidden gems. But he doesn’t know just how far a man like Preacher will go to protect those little angels—and send a devil like Ozark straight to hell . . .

Publisher: Pinnacle Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

Preacher looped his thumb over the hammer of his rifle and said, “I got a hunch we’re walkin’ into a trap, boys. I know that’s what we figured on, but just to make sure, how do you feel about turnin’ around and goin’ the other way?”

“Umm,” the tall, broad-shouldered Indian standing nearby replied.

“You’re absolutely correct, Nighthawk,” said the diminutive figure standing between the buckskin-clad frontiersman and the towering Crow warrior. “That would indeed feel as if we were running away, and doing so has always stuck in my craw, shall we say? In the Scriptures, the Book of Lamentations advises us not to flee from trouble but to face it head-on. It’s widely believed that the Prophet Jeremiah was the author of Lamentations, and he certainly was one to face his troubles and not run from them. You make a very good point, my friend.”

“So what you and Nighthawk are sayin’, Audie, is we should go ahead,” Preacher drawled with a faint smile on his rugged, beard-stubbled face.

“Indubitably.”

The man called Audie stood only a little taller than Preacher’s waist. He didn’t even come that high on Nighthawk. Despite his small stature, he was wiry and muscular and a fierce fighter when he needed to be.

Generally, though, Audie preferred to outthink trouble if he could. He had spent years as a professor of natural history and philosophy at an Eastern university before turning his back on the academic life to head west and become a mountain man. He had fit in surprisingly well in the untamed mountains, especially after he’d met Nighthawk and the two of them had become inseparable friends.

During their travels, the two of them had encountered Preacher, who was already becoming a legend west of the Mississippi despite being a relatively young man.

Over the years since then, they had shared many adventures—and much danger and hardship. Preacher had no better friends than these two.

So when he’d heard talk that they were headed for Dutch Charley’s, an isolated trading post in the Bitterroot Mountains northwest of the Yellowstone country, he had pointed his stallion’s nose in that direction, too, figuring he would find them there and trail along with them for a while.

As it turned out, he’d run into Audie and Nighthawk before any of them ever reached the trading post. Dutch Charley’s was still a couple of days away on the other side of Wailing Woman Pass. The three of them would make the rest of the journey together.

The problem was, Audie and Nighthawk had trouble dogging their trail.

“We ran into a bunch of ne’er-do-wells three days ago,” Audie had explained to Preacher as they sat next to the faintly glowing remains of a campfire their first night together. “They did everything correctly. They hailed the camp before they came in. They spoke respectfully and politely and shared some of their provisions.”

“Umm,” Nighthawk had chimed in.

“But as my esteemed friend points out, one could almost smell the villainy on them. We both saw how they eyed not only the pelts we’ve taken but also our supplies and our pack horses. Their avariciousness was as plain as the proverbial nose on your face.”

“Did they have any pack animals with ’em?” Preacher had asked.

“No. The only supplies they had were what they carried on their saddle mounts.”

“Umm.”

Audie had laughed. “Indeed. They had lean and hungry looks, as the Bard had Julius Caesar say of Cassius, only their expressions were born of actual deprivation rather than naked political ambition. I’m not sure which is more dangerous, the hunger for power or the hunger for food!”

“They didn’t try nothin’ that night, though?” Preacher wanted to know.

Audie shook his head and said, “No, perhaps because they realized that the presence of strangers had put us on the alert and they would have preferred to take us by surprise. But ever since, our instincts have told us that we were being followed. I trust my own instincts quite a bit, but Nighthawk’s are infallible. Those men are out there, all right, just waiting for a good chance to kill us and steal all our belongings.”

Preacher had taken a sip of strong black coffee from the tin cup in his hand.

“I don’t doubt it a bit,” he said. “How many varmints are there?”

“Six that we saw. I suppose it’s possible others could have stayed back out of sight and not come into camp.”

Preacher mulled that over for a moment and then shook his head. “More than likely not. They only had three-to-one odds. I can see why they’d be a mite leery of tanglin’ with you two.”

Audie laughed and said, “Surely, they wouldn’t have counted me as a full opponent. But of course, Nighthawk is approximately the size of two men, so that would balance things out, would it not?”

“Don’t sell yourself short—so to speak.”

That brought another laugh from Audie.

“Folks out here in the high country know who you and Nighthawk are,” Preacher went on. “Chances are, those fellas have heard tell of you and don’t want to risk a fight out in the open. They’d rather find someplace they can ambush you. That’d tilt the odds a mite more in their favor.”

“That does sound like a reasonable scenario,” Audie agreed. “Do you have any thoughts on where such a suitable ambush site could be found?”

“We got to go through Wailin’ Woman Pass to make it to Dutch Charley’s,” Preacher had said. “Either that or go the long way around, and that’d add fifty miles to the trip. Did you happen to mention that’s where you fellas are headed?”

“No,” said Audie, “but they could see for themselves that we have a load of pelts. Charley’s is the closest place we can dispose of them, so it being our destination is a logical assumption to make.”

“Knowin’ that, they could ride around you and push hard to make it to the pass first. Then they could lay in wait there like the skulkin’ varmints you took ’em to be.”

“I can certainly see that happening,” Audie said, nodding. “We’ll just have to be ready for them.”

So, for the past day and a half, the three friends had traveled with all their senses alert but had seen no sign of potential trouble. Now they had reached Wailing Woman Pass, so called because when the wind blew at just the right speed through its narrow confines, it created a moaning sound like a woman consumed with grief.

On the other side, the trail led down into a beautiful landscape of rugged mountains, lush meadows, towering evergreens, and fast-flowing streams. The trading post was located on one of those streams and they would reach it by nightfall—but only if they survived the trip through the pass.

Almost sheer stone walls rose seventy or eighty feet on either side of the opening through a saw-toothed ridge that ran for many miles roughly north and south. The pass was no more than twenty yards wide.

What made it intimidating was that instead of cutting straight through the barrier, as most passes did, it zigged and zagged so that travelers had to cover almost a mile in length to traverse a ridge half a mile wide. A man couldn’t ride more than a hundred yards without having to go around a sharp bend, followed by another and another.

Preacher, Audie, and Nighthawk had dismounted to study the pass as much as they could before they started through it. After the brief conversation about the possibility of riding into a trap, the men swung up into their saddles again, Nighthawk giving Audie a hand as he usually did.

Preacher nudged the heels of his high-topped boots into Horse’s sides and sent the rangy gray stallion walking forward. He called, “Dog, stay with me.”

The big, shaggy cur, who looked as much like a wolf as he did a dog, had started to bound ahead of the riders. He stopped at Preacher’s call, looked back over his shoulder, and whined softly. He was used to ranging far out in front of the mountain man, searching for trouble as well as rabbits or any other small critters he might scare up.

Dog wanted to do that now, but he obeyed the mountain man’s command. He and Preacher and Horse had been trail partners for a long time. They made a formidable team, but Preacher was definitely the leader.

“I don’t want you runnin’ into a bunch of no-count robbers,” Preacher said to Dog as he caught up to the big cur. “Chances are they wouldn’t shoot you ’cause they wouldn’t want to tip their hands, but we can’t count on that. Don’t worry: if there’s any fightin’ you’ll be able to get in on it.”

Dog paced alongside the big stallion, clearly holding himself in and not liking it.

Preacher led his own pack horse, then Audie came next, followed by Nighthawk who led the two pack horses he and his friend had brought with them. One of those animals was loaded with the beaver pelts they had taken, while the other carried their supplies.

“Times sure have changed,” Preacher said without looking around, knowing his companions could hear him in the close confines of the pass. “I remember a day when you’d have both o’ them pack animals loaded down with plews and have to split up the provisions on your saddle mounts. I ain’t sayin’ the streams are all trapped out, but the beaver sure ain’t as plentiful as they once were.”

“The demand is less, too,” Audie pointed out. “Gentlemen don’t wear beaver hats as much as they used to, nor do ladies sport fur mufflers and jackets. Given time, the beaver population will recover.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Umm,” Nighthawk said as he brought up the rear.

“You’re right, the beaver will be as plentiful in the mountains as the buffalo are on the plains,” Audie replied to his friend’s comment. “Nothing could ever destroy all of them.”

Preacher grunted. “I wouldn’t put nothin’ beyond the ability of civilization to destroy it.”

“But civilization is progress.”

“So they say,” Preacher responded, “but I ain’t convinced.”

“In truth, neither am I. That doubt is a major reason I’m out here in the mountains instead of inside the ivy-covered halls of learning. I wanted to see this land in all its glory and majesty while I still had the chance.”

The conversation was interesting, as it always was when talking to Audie and Nighthawk. They were a couple of mighty smart hombres.

But the talking served another purpose, as well. Preacher wanted it to sound as if he and his companions were just ambling along through the pass, not paying any particular attention to their surroundings, so that the bushwhackers—if there were any waiting for them—would believe they were riding blindly into the trap.

The reality was that Preacher’s keen eyes were moving constantly, searching the walls ahead of them on both sides for any telltale signs of lurking danger. His rifle was ready in his hands. He could cock it, raise it to his shoulder, and fire in less than a heartbeat.

All he needed was a target.

The rifle was a .54 caliber model 1841 Whitney Armory weapon with a percussion lock rather than a flintlock like the rifles Preacher had used for many years. It was more dependable, more resistant to the elements, and a beautiful piece of work with brass trim and gleaming wood.

It fired only one shot, however. Preacher had become a mite spoiled by the Paterson Colt revolvers he had been carrying ever since a troop of Texas Rangers had presented them to him a couple of years earlier. He liked them so well he had bought a second pair that he kept stowed in his belongings.

The Colts carried five rounds apiece. When a fella wound up fighting for his life as often as Preacher did, having ten shots at your disposal could make a heap of difference. It could mean life or death, in fact.

He was still yammering on about the blight of civilization when he heard something from around the next bend. It was just a soft thump, but that was enough to tell him something had fallen from one wall.

At the same time, a low growl sounded from deep in Dog’s throat and the hair on his neck ruffled up.

“I heard it,” Preacher told the big cur. “Might be nothin’. Might be somebody gettin’ ready to start the ball. Only one way to find out.”

He drew the rifle’s hammer back and held it one-handed as he guided Horse around the next turn. Spotting movement from the corner of his eye, he turned his head and lifted it.

A short distance ahead, at the top of the left-hand wall, a man’s head and shoulders rose from behind a rock and a rifle barrel thrust out.

Preacher had only an instant to react and a small target at which to aim. Even so, he didn’t hesitate.

The rifle sprang to his shoulder and boomed as he squeezed the trigger.

The ambusher on the rimrock never got a chance to fire his own weapon. His head jerked back, and his hat flew off as the ball from Preacher’s rifle smashed through his brain. The rifle slipped from his suddenly nerveless fingers and fell to the floor of the pass as its former owner slumped forward over the rock he had used—unsuccessfully—for cover.

Behind Preacher, another rifle boomed. Either Audie or Nighthawk had fired this shot; he didn’t look around to see which because he knew it didn’t matter.

From the top of the stone wall to the right, a man screamed. Preacher saw the ambusher lurch upright and topple over the brink, turning over completely in midair before crashing lifelessly to the ground.

A swift rataplan of hoofbeats sounded from around the next bend. Preacher rammed the empty rifle back in its saddle scabbard and put the stallion’s reins in his teeth. He reached down to his hips and drew both Paterson Colts as he leaned forward and prodded Horse into a run with his heels.

Four men on horseback swept around the bend and charged toward Preacher and his friends. The would-be robbers had posted a single rifleman on each rim, their job being to cut down two out of the three intended victims. Then the other four would attack from the front and wipe out the remaining man.

But it hadn’t worked out that way. Preacher, Audie, and Nighthawk were still alive and kicking, and they were ready to take the fight straight to their attackers.

That was what Preacher did, guiding Horse with his knees as he thundered toward the four men. The guns in his hands roared and spouted flame and powdersmoke.

One of the attackers flung his hands in the air and pitched off his horse, shot clean through the body by Preacher.

Another jerked backward and dropped the gun he held, but he managed to stay mounted as his horse veered to the side. That didn’t do him any good because Dog raced forward, launched himself into the air, and crashed into the wounded man, knocking him out of the saddle. The big cur landed nimbly on all four paws and sprang on top of the man, whose yells turned into a grotesque, bubbling scream as Dog’s sharp teeth tore into his throat.

Nighthawk charged up alongside Preacher, eager to get into the fight. The giant warrior’s arm drew back and flashed forward. The tomahawk he threw spun through the air so fast it was hard for the eye to follow.

The weapon seemed to reappear almost as if by magic as it struck one of the remaining men in the forehead. The tomahawk’s keen edge cleaved into the man’s skull and lodged there as blood welled around it. The dead man fell, but one foot hung in a stirrup and the madly charging horse dragged him on past Preacher, Nighthawk, and Audie.

That left just one attacker, and by now he must have realized what a terrible mistake he and his companions had made. He hauled back hard on his horse’s reins and tried to turn the animal. The mount stumbled and lost its balance, going down in a welter of flailing legs. It rolled right over its former rider.

Preacher and his friends reined in and were out of their saddles quickly. Nighthawk trotted around the pass, checking to make sure the would-be robbers were dead. He didn’t bother with the one Dog was still savaging, nor with the one whose horse had fallen. Preacher and Audie approached that man, their guns out and ready.

After rolling over the man, his mount had struggled to its feet and moved off several yards. The animal appeared not to have been injured in the fall.

The same couldn’t be said of its rider. The man lay on his back, gasping and moaning. The white, jagged end of a broken bone stuck out of his right thigh, with blood heavily staining that leg of his woolen trousers. His left arm was twisted at an unnatural angle, either broken or with a dislocated shoulder. And blood leaked from both corners of his mouth to make crimson trails across his bearded jaws.

“This one of the varmints who paid a visit to your camp?” Preacher asked Audie.

“Yes, I recognize him,” Audie replied. He shook his head and said to the injured man, “I sincerely wish you had decided to resist temptation, my friend.”

“You g-go straight to … to hell, you sawed-off little bas—”

The man got that far in his insult before a spasm went through him. His head jerked back, and cords stood out in his neck. More blood welled from his mouth.

“I’m all … b-busted up inside,” he said when he was able to talk again. He stared up at Preacher and Audie, his eyes wide with agony. “P-Please … f-finish me off.”

“I don’t know,” Preacher said. “I’ve never cottoned to low-down thieves, and you was about to call my friend here a dirty name, not to mention bein’ so rude as to bring up him bein’ short. There’s a heap of wolves in these mountains. Seems to me it’d be fittin’ if we was to go off and let them deal with you—”

Audie brought up the old flintlock pistol he held and squeezed the trigger. The weapon’s dull boom echoed back resoundingly from the walls of the pass. The injured man jerked once as the heavy lead ball smashed into his forehead and put him out of his misery.

Nighthawk had come up behind them. As the shot’s echoes faded, he said, “Umm.”

“I agree, there was no point in prolonging the torment this poor fellow was enduring,” Audie said. “I know you weren’t being intentionally cruel, Preacher. The frontier is a harsh taskmaster and strips away much of a man’s gentler nature.”

“I was fixin’ to shoot him,” Preacher said. “To tell the truth, I figured he might not see it comin’ as much with me jabberin’ at him that way.”

“Ah, I understand now. You were just trying to be kind in your own rough fashion.”

“Well, I might not go quite that far,” the mountain man said. “Like I told the varmint, I never have cottoned to thieves.”

They rounded up the robbers’ horses and drove them on through the canyon. They would trade the animals and the gear once they got to Dutch Charley’s.

They left the dead men where they had fallen. As Audie had said, the frontier was a harsh taskmaster, and scavengers had to eat, too.

Even though, during his long, adventuring years, Preacher had traveled the length and width and breadth of the West and seen just about everything there was to see, when the three friends emerged from Wailing Woman Pass, he was struck by the sheer beauty of the landscape spread out before them. The colors were breathtaking—the deep blue sky, the dazzling white clouds, the soothing, restful, green pine-clad slopes. Rugged gray peaks reposed in the distance like huge, slumbering behemoths. Wildflowers provided splotches of bright color in the valleys. White foam frothed on the icy blue, swiftly flowing streams. There was no prettier place on God’s Earth than the high country, to Preacher’s way of thinking. He might roam here and there and probably would always be too fiddle-footed to do otherwise, but this was home, and here he would always return until the day came for him to cross the divide. When he did, he hoped it would be here.

Something of what he was feeling must have shown on his face, because Audie looked over at him and said softly, “It’s the same with me, Preacher. There’s nowhere else like it.”

The encounter with the thieves slowed them down enough that the sun had gone behind the Bitterroots and twilight was beginning to settle down over the land by the time they came in sight of Dutch Charley’s Trading Post. It was a sprawling log building that had started out fairly small and been added on to several times over the years as Charley’s business increased. Behind it was a barn with an attached corral, and not far from the barn was a squat building that served as a blacksmith shop whenever Charley wanted to fire up the forge.

One of the numerous creeks that flowed through the region ran nearby. Charley, who also had an engineering bent, had constructed a water wheel on it. He didn’t use it for anything at the moment, but he liked having it and insisted that if enough people ever moved into the area, he would build a sawmill to go with it, or possibly a grain mill. Or both.

Numerous lights burned around the trading post, casting inviting yellow glows in the gathering dusk. As the three men rode toward the place, Audie commented, “You know, this is almost starting to look like a settlement.”

“You hush up with talk like that,” Preacher chided him. “You remember, six or eight years ago I got mixed up with those folks who had the bright idea of startin’ theirselves a town out here, up north a ways.”

“I recall that it was fairly successful for a while.”

“Yeah, but it didn’t last. There was always one sort of ruckus or another breakin’ out, and the British kept stirrin’ up trouble. The settlers finally gave up, and that should’ve been the end of crazy notions like havin’ towns out here.” Preacher shook his head. “We just don’t need ’em.”

“You can’t stop things from changing with a wish and a hope, my friend.”

“I reckon not,” the mountain man admitted. “But that don’t have to mean I cotton to it.”

“A never-ending conundrum.”

Nighthawk nodded solemnly.

In the fading light, Preacher studied the corral. He didn’t see any horses, although some could be inside the barn. However, the weather was pleasant, and it seemed more likely any horses would be outside this evening.

“Looks like ol’ Charley don’t have much business goin’ on.”

“It’s early yet,” Audie said. “Some other travelers could arrive.”

Without saying anything, Nighthawk leveled an arm like the trunk of a young tree and pointed across the creek.

“You’re right!” Audie said. “Two riders approaching from the west.”

Preacher saw them emerging from some trees about a hundred yards on the other side of the stream. They were too far away to make out any details, but he could tell from the way the horses moved with plodding gaits that they were tired, as if they’d been on a hard trail for a long time. The animals picked their way deliberately across the meadow toward the creek, one of them out in front of the other instead of side by side.

Preacher noticed something else. The rider bringing up the rear turned his head several times to look behind them as if he were checking to make. . .