CHAPTER 15
Preacher knew the rest of the Comanches
would be startled by what had happened to Lame Buffalo, and it
would be a second before they reacted. He used that second to cut
down the odds a little more by yanking his rifle from its sheath
and snapping it to his shoulder. He fired without aiming, letting
instinct guide his shot, and one of the warriors in the trail let
out a cry and pitched off his pony to fall in a limp
heap.
“Everybody in the wagons!” Preacher
bellowed. “In the wagons now!”
The sideboards of the vehicles would
stop an arrow and would probably stop a bullet. The thick canvas
covers over the wagon beds might stop one of the feathered
missiles. They would be better off fighting from inside, rather
than underneath.
Preacher slapped Horse on the rump. The
stallion took off at a dead run, with Dog following him. Preacher
knew he didn’t have to worry about the Comanches catching his trail
partners. They were faster than the Indian ponies and wouldn’t let
them get close enough to shoot them with arrows. They wouldn’t
return to the wagons until Preacher summoned them.
Preacher reloaded the flintlock as the
Comanches ki-yipped and charged the caravan.
All around him was chaos as frightened men scrambled into the
wagons looking for cover. From the corner of his eye he saw Roland
Bartlett grab Casey and practically throw her into the lead wagon.
Preacher wanted to kick the addle-brained boy six ways from Sunday
for what he’d done, but it was too late for that. Survival came
first.
One of the warriors charged, his lance
leveled to pin Preacher to the wagon behind him. He finished
priming the rifle, lifted it to his shoulder, centered the sight on
the Indian’s chest, and pulled the trigger. The Comanche was only a
few yards away, and he went flying backward off the pony as the
ball from Preacher’s rifle smashed into his chest like a giant
sledgehammer. The lance slipped from the fingers of an outflung
hand and skittered across the ground at Preacher’s
feet.
He snatched it up and thrust it into
the side of another warrior who had gotten too close. The man
screeched in pain as the lance’s sharp tip pierced his vitals. Even
as he was dying, he swung his bow toward Preacher and tried to
loose an arrow, but the mountain man knocked the bow aside with the
barrel of his rifle.
Preacher slid under the wagon as arrows
thudded into the sideboards and bounced off the wheels. He rolled
all the way to the other side and came out with pistols in both
hands. The weapons roared and spat flame and smoke, and two more of
the Comanches went down.
“Preacher!” Lorenzo yelled from the
rear of the wagon. “Preacher, get in here, you crazy
fool!”
Lorenzo had a point. With his guns
empty, Preacher was in a bad spot. But he wasn’t defenseless. As
long as he drew breath, the man called Preacher wouldn’t be
defenseless.
He jammed the guns behind his belt,
ripped his knife from its sheath, and dodged the thrust of a lance.
Grabbing the shaft of the Comanche weapon, he dragged its owner off
his pony. As the man fell, Preacher thrust up with the knife to
meet him. The blade went deep in the warrior’s body. Preacher
pulled the knife loose and shoved the dying man away.
An arrow whipped past his ear. He
turned and leaped for the wagon’s tailgate. Lorenzo waited there to
grab him and pull him in. The old-timer caught Preacher’s wrist and
hauled him through the opening.
Preacher sprawled on top of some
crates. Lorenzo asked, “Are you all right?”
“Yeah!”
“We’re in one hell of a mess, ain’t
we?”
“Reckon we’ll just have to fight our
way out of it,” Preacher said.
Guns boomed all along the line of
wagons. The defenders were outnumbered, but their firepower helped
offset that disadvantage. Preacher reloaded his pistols, and winced
as an arrowhead ripped through the canvas near his head. He saw
several arrows sticking through the canvas whose shafts had not
penetrated into the wagon.
Lorenzo took his rifle and clambered
over the freight to the front of the wagon. His rifle blasted. “Got
one of ’em,” he shouted.
Preacher leaned out through the opening
at the rear and blew away two more Comanches. One of them had an
old blunderbuss in his hands. The ancient weapon discharged as he
fell, blowing a hole through the wagon’s canvas cover.
Preacher ducked back inside to reload
again. “Did you see Roland throw Casey into the lead wagon?” he
called over the roar of gunfire and the shrill cries of the
Comanches.
“I ain’t sure, but I think so,” the
old-timer replied. “That boy sure played hob, didn’t
he?”
“We’ll talk about that later,” Preacher
said. If we live through this, he added
silently.
Screeching unnervingly, the face of one
of the Indians suddenly appeared in the gap at the back of the
wagon. The warrior thrust the lance in his hand at Preacher, who
twisted aside, reversed one of the pistols, and smashed the butt
into the center of the warrior’s face. Blood spurted and bone
crunched under the impact. The Indian fell backward, either dead or
out cold.
Coolly, Preacher went back to
reloading. Just as he had the pistols ready to go again, Lorenzo
let out an excited whoop.
“They’re leavin’!” he shouted
triumphantly. “They’re givin’ up, Preacher.”
Preacher crowded up beside him to look
out. The Comanches were galloping off, twisting around on their
ponies to throw a few last arrows and derisive cries toward the
wagons.
“Leavin’, maybe,” Preacher said with a
grim note in his voice. “But givin’ up . . . I don’t think
so.”
The caravan’s defenders had done quite
a bit of damage to the Indians. A number of bodies were sprawled on
the ground around the wagons. But even so, the Comanches still
outnumbered their enemies. And they wouldn’t likely abandon their
efforts to avenge Lame Buffalo’s death.
Preacher went to the back of the wagon,
climbed over the tailgate, and dropped to the ground. He kept a
close eye on the bodies as he hurried to the lead wagon. It was
possible some of those warriors weren’t dead. They might regain
consciousness and try to carry on the fight. It was even possible
some of them were shamming, in hopes of luring the white men into
the open. If any of the varmints tried to rear up and shoot an
arrow into him, Preacher was going to be ready.
When he reached the lead wagon, he
called, “Casey! You all right in there?”
She stuck her head out through the rear
opening in the canvas cover. “Preacher, thank God! Are you
hurt?”
He shook his head. “Nary a scratch so
far.”
“I’m all right, too, and so is
Roland.”
Preacher hadn’t asked about the
youngster, but he supposed he was glad Roland wasn’t hurt. If not
for his impulsive action, though, they might have gotten through
the confrontation without any violence.
Lorenzo came up beside Preacher. “What
do you need me to do?”
“Go up and down the wagons and find out
how everybody’s doin’,” Preacher told him. “See if we’ve got any
dead or injured. Wounded men will need to be patched up while the
Comanch’ are off lickin’ their own wounds and figurin’ out what to
do next.”
Leeman Bartlett had emerged from the
wagon where he had taken cover. He joined the small group beside
the lead wagon and suggested, “Perhaps we should make a run for
it.”
“That might work if we were all on
horseback,” Preacher said. “With a bunch of oxen pullin’ heavy
wagons, there ain’t no way in hell we’re outrunnin’ anybody, let
alone those Injun ponies.” Preacher looked around. “Let’s see if we
can get the wagons pulled over to the side of the trail and form
’em into a circle.”
Roland jumped down from the lead wagon.
“I’ll spread the word,” he volunteered.
Preacher nodded curtly. Roland had
gotten them into that mess, so it was fitting he try to help get
them out of it.
For a fleeting second, Preacher debated
the wisdom of trying to call a parley with the Indians. If he
offered to turn Roland over to them, they might agree to let the
rest of the party go. He was the one who had killed Lame Buffalo
and started the fight, after all.
But as quickly as the idea came into
Preacher’s head, he discarded it. He couldn’t do that, and he knew
it. For one thing, Casey would likely never forgive him for it, and
for another, Lame Buffalo was partially responsible for what had
happened, too. If he hadn’t been such an arrogant horse’s rear end
and grabbed Casey like he did, Roland wouldn’t have had any reason
to shoot him.
Still carrying his pistols, Preacher
walked from body to body, checking to make sure they were dead.
Eight of the Comanches were lying on the ground, including Lame
Buffalo, and all of them had crossed the divide.
Whips popped and bullwhackers shouted
curses as they got their teams moving again. The wagons lurched
forward. Preacher kept an eye on the area where the Indians had
disappeared, and tried to look in every direction at once. He
didn’t think the respite would last very long.
Bartlett came up to Preacher. “Our
horses are gone!”
“I ain’t surprised,” the mountain man
said with a nod. “The Comanch’ grabbed ’em.”
“How do we get them back?”
“More than likely, you don’t. You’ll
have to walk or ride the wagons. Maybe a few of ’em followed my
stallion. I ran him off when the attack started. He’ll be back, and
with some luck, he might have a couple of your saddle mounts with
him.”
“This is terrible,” Bartlett
complained. “Just terrible.”
“Talk to your son,” Preacher said.
“He’s the one who got trigger-happy.”
Bartlett frowned. “But that savage
grabbed Casey. He was going to drag her off with him.”
“No, he wasn’t,” Preacher said. “He
just wanted to show what a big man he was. We would have offered
him something else in trade instead of Casey, and that would have
been the end of it.”
“You sound awfully certain of
that.”
“I am. Seen it happen before. I
would’ve handled it without anybody gettin’ hurt, but Roland didn’t
give me a chance.”
“We don’t all know as much about life
on the frontier as you do, Preacher.”
“That’s why you asked me to come
along,” Preacher snapped. “Let’s get those wagons pulled in a
circle.”
He retrieved his rifle and reloaded it
while keeping watch all around them. He didn’t expect the Comanches
to allow them to circle the wagons in a defensive arrangement
without attacking again, but to his surprise, that was what
happened. The Indians were probably doing some considerable
wrangling among themselves about what to do next. Either that, or
one of their medicine men was trying to whip up some powerful
medicine to protect them when they attacked.
As soon as the wagons were in position,
the men began unhitching the teams and leading them into the center
of the circle. While that was going on, Lorenzo came up to Preacher
and reported, “Ain’t nobody on our side dead, but we got half a
dozen wounded men.”
“Any of ’em hurt too bad to fight?”
Preacher asked.
“Only one. Some of his friends loaded
him in one of the wagons.”
Preacher nodded. “We’ll see if Casey
can look after him. Tell Roland to stay with her.”
“That boy ain’t going very far away
from her,” Lorenzo said with a snort.
“That’s good. I’m countin’ on him to
keep her safe when those Comanch’ hit us again.”
“When’s that gonna be, you
think?”
“Soon,” Preacher said grimly. “Any time
now.”
As the minutes dragged past he came to
the conclusion the Comanches were deliberately stringing it out.
They wanted the men with the wagons to get nervous. When Preacher
looked at the bullwhackers and listened to their worried,
low-voiced conversations, he knew the tactic was working. Their
nerves were quickly stretching to the breaking point.
Since the lull in the fighting
continued, Preacher walked out several yards from the wagons and
gave a piercing whistle. He repeated it a couple times before he
saw Horse and Dog trotting toward him over the prairie. Two more of
the saddle mounts trailed the stallion and the big cur. Preacher
held his rifle ready for instant use as he watched the animals come
in.
When he got them safely inside the
circle of wagons, he found Leeman Bartlett and told him about the
extra horses that had avoided capture.
“That’s one bit of good luck, anyway,”
the man said. “Lord knows we can use all of it we can
get.”
“I want half the men to rest while the
other half stand guard,” Preacher said. “Those Injuns could come
from any direction, so we got to look ever’ which way we
can.”
Bartlett nodded. “I understand. I’ll
give the orders.” He hesitated. “Preacher, I know you’re right
about what Roland did. I’m sorry.”
“We’ll worry about that later. Right
now let’s just try to get through this alive.”
He went to the wagon where the
seriously wounded man had been placed and found Casey wrapping
strips of cloth around the man’s midsection to serve as makeshift
bandages. He appeared to be unconscious.
“An arrow went all the way through his
side,” Casey said. “He lost a lot of blood, but I cleaned the
wounds. I’ll bind them up and maybe he’ll have a
chance.”
Preacher nodded. “The fella’s better
off that the arrow came out the other side. Gettin’ one of the
blamed things out usually tears a fella up worse’n it did goin’
in.”
Roland was hovering over Casey as she
worked. He clutched a rifle in his hands and had a pistol behind
his belt. He glared at Preacher and said, “My father tells me you
think I’m to blame for this
attack.”
“I won’t lie to you, boy,” Preacher
said. “You caused it, all right. You lost your head and shot Lame
Buffalo when there wasn’t any need.”
“No need? My God, man, that savage was
trying to kidnap Casey!”
Preacher was getting tired of
explaining what had really been going on. He said, “It was just
part of the game. We would’ve bartered for her, and she wouldn’t
have gone anywhere.”
“How in blazes was I supposed to know
that?”
“Maybe if you’d waited a minute instead
of pullin’ that trigger—”
The wounded man let out a
groan.
“That’s enough,” Casey said sharply.
“Arguing about it now isn’t going to change things. Roland, you
don’t have to stay here with me.”
“Yes, he does,” Preacher said. “I want
him to watch out for you when the Comanch’ jump us
again.”
“I thought they ran away,” Roland
said.
Preacher made a disgusted sound. “We’re
damn lucky they ain’t back already.”
Casey said, “No one has to watch out
for me. Give me a pistol and some powder and shot, and I’ll handle
my share of the fighting.”
As Preacher looked at her determined
face, he knew she meant it. He said, “That ain’t a bad idea.
Roland, you’ve got extra pistols in the freight these wagons are
carryin’. Go rustle up one for her. I’ll stay here for the time
bein’.”
Roland looked like he wanted to argue,
but after a second he nodded. “I’ll be right back,” he told Casey.
He climbed out of the wagon.
“Don’t you think you were too hard on
him?” Casey asked when Roland was gone.
“I didn’t say anything that wasn’t the
truth.”
“Maybe not, but he’s just learning his
way around out here, like I am.”
“He won’t live long enough to learn
much of anything if he don’t start payin’ more attention to the
folks who know better.”
“Maybe you’re right. But I was scared
that Indian was really going to take me with him, and I was glad
when Roland stopped him.”
Preacher shook his head. “I never
would’ve let that happen. I’d have shot the varmint myself before I
let him carry you off.”
Casey’s voice softened a little as she
said, “I know that. I just didn’t stop to think about it at the
time.”
Preacher didn’t have anything to say to
that. He hunkered on his heels in silence as Casey sat beside the
wounded man.
He didn’t stay that way for very long.
A shout went up somewhere outside, and a second later Preacher
heard running footsteps approaching the wagon. He straightened as
much as he could in the cramped confines of the wagon and shoved
the canvas flaps aside to see Lorenzo hurrying toward the
wagon.
“Preacher!” the old-timer called. “It’s
them Injuns. They’re attackin’ again!”