The First Mountain Man (21 page)

Preacher suddenly screamed like a panther and leaped at the bigger man. One foot shot out and slammed against Wade's face, knocking the man down to the dirt.

Preacher looked down at Wade, looking up at him, a startled expression on his face. “Now tell me again, where it is I re-tire to?” the mountain man asked.

6

Wade slowly got to his feet, an angry red splotch on the side of his face where Preacher had kicked him. He was trembling with rage. “You, sir, are no gentleman,” he ground out. He lifted his fists and began dancing around.

“Oh, my!” Preacher said. “Now I know what you want to do.” He jumped over and before the mover could throw a punch, Preacher grabbed Wade's wrists in an iron vise. Wade, red-faced in embarrassment, tried to break fee. He could not break loose from Preacher's powerful grip.

Dupre, Nighthawk, Trapper Jim, and Beartooth began clapping their hands in unison as Preacher danced the man all around the trail. “You dance good, Wade. This is fun. Somebody get a fiddle and a squeeze box. Let's have us a party.”

“Circle round and dipsy-doo, up on your toes and turn real slow,” Beartooth chanted. “Twirl your partner around there twice, back again and ain't that nice.”

“You goddamn heathen, unhand me!” Wade bellered. He struggled in vain to break fee of Preacher's grip.

Dupre grabbed the first women he spied and began dancing around the trail. Others soon joined in. Someone found a fiddle and another man took out a squeeze box. Still others began clapping their hands. Up the trail, the grizzy sow lifted her huge head and grunted at the strange sounds. She moved her cubs off the trail and into the timber and stashed them safely in thick brush. Then Usrus horribilis went lumbering down the trail to investigate the strange noises in her woods. All nine hundred pounds of her.

Nighthawk was doing a little jig on the trail with several little boys and girls dancing with him.

Richard and Edmond, while taught to mightily forbid dancing as the devil's own work, were getting into the action, patting their boots to the rhythm. Melody and Penelope were shaking various parts of their anatomy to the beat.

“Turn me loose and fight, you bastard?” Wade shrieked.

“I'd rather dance,” Preacher hollered. “Ain't this fun?”

“No!” Wade screamed.

“Kick him, Pa!” Avery yelled. “Trip him down on the ground!”

A mover just couldn't resist the opportunity. He leaned out from his wagon seat and conked Avery on top of the had with the handle of his bullwhip. Addled to his toes, the rash young sank to the ground, both his eyes crossed from the blow.

“Yee-haw!” Preacher yelled, dancing around and around with his very reluctant partner.

The grizzly sow reached the top of the hill and looked down at the goings-on below her. She had never seen anything like it. She wasn't afraid of it—it is not known whether grizzlies are afraid of anything—yet something in her brain told her that this should be avoided at all costs. But not before she told the strange animals below here that this was her territory and to get the hell gone.

She reared up, standing about nine feet tall, and roared.

Horses, mules, cows, dogs, sheep, oxen, goats, and about forty cats panicked. The horses and mules reared up and fought their harnesses. The cow bellered and squalled. The goats and sheep bleated. The dogs barked. The cats howled. The oxen did their best to turn the wagons around, right there in that narrow trail, and everything got all jumbled up.

The grizzly sow took one more horrified look and ran at full speed back to her cubs. She gathered them up and headed for another, more peaceful part of the timber.

Preacher had danced Wade to just the right spot. He released the man and give him a little shove. Wade went tumbling down the embankment and did a belly-whopper in the Snake River. Preacher looked around him, found Avery, and jerked him up and tossed him over the side. Avery rolled down the hill and slammed into his father, just beginning his climb back up the embankment. Father and son went together into the Snake.

“You son of a bitch!” Wade squalled at Preacher, standing on the trail, laughing at them.

It took the better part of an hour to get the livestock settled down and untangled. When Wade once more appeared, in dry clothing, and wanting to fight, Wagonmaster Swift told him that if he threw down one more challenge, he'd tie him to a wagon wheel and deal out twenty lashes from his whip. He had the power to do just that, and Wade knew it. Wade gave Preacher a dark look, which Preacher ignored, and returned to his wagon. Swift tooted on his bugle and the wagon train moved out, with everybody except Wade and Avery feeling better.

Wade's long-suffering wife had to struggle to hide her smile.

* * *

Preacher halted the wagon train about five miles from Rocky Creek. He ordered the sentries doubled and the wagons pulled in tight. Then he walked the circle of trains, visually inspecting each wagon. “Get dead leaves and twigs and the like and scatter them in front of your wagons. Make it several feet wide and put them three or four yards out. You wake up with something cracklin', shoot it. 'Cause it ain't gonna be nobody friendly.”

“I got me a feelin',” Dupre said.

“Yeah, me, too,” Preacher agreed. “I think we gonna have troubles this night.”

Injuns is all turned ever' whichaway,” Beartooth said.” Snakes down in Ute country. Paiute moved up north. Blackfoot and Arapaho wandering around down here. Cayuse on the prowl. It don't make no sense to me. We seen some Hidatsa over west of here. Whole bunch of them, wasn't there, Nighthawk?”

“Too damn many,” the Crow said. “And they weren't huntin' food, neither. I think they flee the fever back East.”

“I keep hearin' talk of an uprisin',” Preacher said. “'Bout tribes buryin' the hatchet and bandin' together. I reckon it's true.” He leaned forward, cutting off a chunk of meat fairly oozing with fat. “Any Dog Soldiers with them?”

“Couldn't tell for certain,” Beartooth said. “I hope not. I hate them damn contraries.”

The Hidatsa Dog Soldiers did everything backward, hence they were called contraries. But they were fierce fighters and much feared.

A mover walked up and squatted down. “I thought the wild red savages always beat on drums before they attacked?”

Dupre and Beartooth grinned, Nighthawk looked disgusted but said nothing. “Some do back at the village,” Preacher said. “Before a fight—gets 'em all worked up into a lather. But I ain't never seen no Injun totin' no drum in battle a-whuppin' on it. Although if you was to tell a contrary he couldn't, he would.” Preacher laughed. “Wouldn't that be a sight to see?”

Thoroughly confused, and really wanting to ask what in the world a contrary might be, the mover sighed and stood up, returning to his family.

Very soon after supper was eaten wanting to ask what in the world a contrary might be, the mover sighed and stood up, returning to his family.

Very soon after supper was eaten and the dishes washed, the movers began settling down for sleep. Trapper Jim brought over a fresh pot of coffee and the mountain men relaxed, drinking the hot, strong brew.

“When you think they'll hit us?” Jim asked.

“You feel it too, huh?” Dupre asked.

“Yeah. My guess is just as soon as the people get good asleep. I don't think they're gonna wait too long.”

“That's a good thought,” Preacher said. “We'll just drink this here coffee and then take up positions. Our backs is in pretty good shape, backed up to the bluffs. East is clear enough. West and south'll be the way they'll hit us.” He drained his cup. “I reckon it's time to go to work.”

Preacher found Swift. “Get the folks out of their blankets,” he told him. “We're a-fixin' to get hit by Injuns.”

The wagonmaster cocked his head and listened for a moment. “But I don't hear a thing, Preacher.”

“That's right, Swift. You don't hear nothin'. Now think about that.”

The two men stared at one another for a moment. Swift nodded his head. “I'm learning,” he told Preacher. “Takes me awhile, but I'll get there.”

Preacher clasped him on the shoulder. “Good man. Now get them movers up and ready.”

“I see something out there,” a woman told Preacher as he walked by her wagon. “Several somethings. They're not trying to hide.”

Preached angled over to her and stood gazing out into the night. He called out in Snake.

“One third of your horses and mules,” the harsh voice came back to him, speaking in English, “And one third of all your supplies. Then you may pass through.”

“Forget it,” Preacher returned the shout. “And don't tell me you're hungry. They's game aplenty out there this summer. We ain't botherin' you, so there ain't gonna be no tribute paid.”

“You will die then. All of you.”

“Sing your death songs.”

The Indians shouted out some very uncomplimentary and very uncomfortable suggestions to Preacher.

Preacher heard Beartooth's laugh. “Your horse wouldn't like that either, Preacher.”

“You have that stinking cowardly Crow puke Nighthawk with you?” the Indian shouted.

That prompted a long stream of invectives from Nighthawk. He told the Snake where to put his bow and arrows, his horse, his wife, his kids, his mother, his father, and all his friends.

“Wagh!” Dupre said. “Talk about a tight fit.”

A bow string twanged and the arrow thudded into the bed of a wagon near Preacher.

The shapes that the woman had seen had long disappeared as the Snakes prepared to attack.

“Only cowards attack women and children!” Beartooth shouted. “None of you are fit to be called braves. I say you is all stinking coyote vomit.”

“Bear-Killer will not die well, I am thinking,” the Snake's words came out of the darkness.

Preacher had hunkered down. His eyes had found a shape on the ground that was unnatural to the terrain. He lifted his Hawken and sighted it in, squeezing the trigger. The powerful rifle boomed and the shape lifted itself off the ground for a few seconds, then collapsed, shot through and through.

Preacher quickly reloaded as arrows filled the night air. One mover screamed as an arrow embedded in his thigh. A child began crying and its mother tried to soothe the child into silence with calming words.

Nighthawk's rifle crashed and another Snake went down, shot through the stomach. The brave began screaming in pain as he rolled on the ground, his innards ruined.

“If we can get three or four more,” Preacher told the man who crouched beside a wagon wheel, “them bucks will break it off. I don't think they's many of them out there.”

Preacher was thoughtful for a moment. “Pass the word: everyone with two rifles get ready to stand and deliver. We'll all fire at once. Injuns is notional. That much firepower all at once might change their minds. Keep your second rifle at hand in case it just makes 'em mad and they charge.”

The mover looked at Preacher.

Preacher shrugged his shoulders. “Life's full of chances.”

Within two minutes time, all the men were ready. “Now!” Preacher shouted, and the night roared and flashed with fire and smoke and lead balls.

The movers were lucky this night. Their blind fire had hit several warriors. The Indians, never with enough ball or powder, figured that any group with so much shot and powder that they could waste it made their medicine very bad. Shouting threats and insults, they pulled back into the night.

Nighthawk laid on the ground, his ear to the earth and listened. “They're riding away,” he finally said, standing up. “Heading south. That bunch is through for this night.”

Preacher walked over to the man with an arrowhead sunk more than halfway through his thigh. “You got any drinkin' whiskey?” he asked.

“In the wagon,” the mover said through gritted teeth.

“Get it,” Preacher told the man's wife.

The woman returned quickly with a jug of rye and handed it to Preacher. “Thankee kindly, ma'am,” he said. Preacher took him a long pull and then handed the jug to the wounded man. “I could say that this is gonna hurt me worser than it does you, but I'd be lyin'. You take you three or four good swallers and tell me when you're ready.”

The mover's adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed the raw brew. “I'm ready.”

Preacher nodded at Dupre and Beartooth and the mountain men grabbed the mover's arms. Preacher got him a good grip on the shaft of the arrow and pushed hard. The man screamed as the arrow tore out the back of his leg. Preacher quickly broke off the shaft and pulled it out, then reached behind the man's leg and jerked out what remained.

The mover had passed out.

Preacher poured some whiskey on the wound, front and back, and told the woman, “Nighthawk'll take over now. Let him fix his potions and poultices and don't interfere. Injuns been usin' things like marigold and goldenseal and dandelion and nipbone and others for centuries. And they work.”

“What do you suggest for a bruise?” Edmond asked, pulling up his sleeve and showing a badly bruised arm.

“I won't ask how you got it. You pick you some bruisewort in the mornin'. That'll fix you right up.”

“Some what?”

Preacher smiled. “Daisy flowers. Crush 'em up and lay 'em on the bruise. Works, ol' son.”

“Pickin' handfuls of daisies on the banks of the Snake,” Beartooth sang and did a little dance. “This'un I don't like, that'un I'll take.”

Dupre looked at him. “I swear you too young to be getting senile. But you shore been actin' goofly here of late. Did you fall off your horse and bang your head?”

“Nope. I just feel good, that's all. And you best feel good too. 'Cause when we cross the Snake in a week or so, and start headin' north, feel-good time is gonna be over.”