Preacher and the Mountain Caesar (2 page)

Preacher stopped in his task of digging holes for the hard cases he had fought. Why couldn't they do like the Injuns, and gather to lend support to one another? And in the process, leave a feller in peace? Let him take his most prized belongings with him to
Nah'ah Tishna
—the Happy Hunting Ground? Preacher sighed, wiped a trickle of sweat from his brow and returned to the chore he had given himself.

* * *

They came upon him shortly before twilight. An old man, his gray hair hanging to his shoulders, unkempt and stiff from being a long time unwashed. He was brewing coffee at his small camp in a mountain valley when the skinny pair of urchins drifted silently out of the woods and stood staring gauntly at the cooking fire. It took a moment for the old man to notice their presence. When he did, he gave a start and grasped at the left side of his chest.

“Land o' Goshen, youngins. You gave me a real start. Don't you know better than to slip up on a camp like that?” His eyes narrowed with suspicion and unacknowledged alarm. There could be others out there, lurking, to attack when he became distracted.

“We—we got lost,” stammered the skinny, yellow-haired boy with the biggest, cornflower blue eyes old Hatch had ever seen.

“Where you from?”

“We—uh—we don't know, 'cause we don't know where we are now,” the boy answered evasively.

“Now that ain't any sort of answer. Whereabouts is your home?”

Together they looked at the ground. “Other side of the high mountains. We got took off by some bad folks.”

Hatch doubted that. Even so, he pressed for something by which to identify them. “You got names put on you?”

“Yes—yes, we do. I'm Terry, an' this is my sister, Vickie.”

Hatch canted his head to one side and made a smile. “Vickie—Victoria, eh? Like the English Queen, huh?”

“I—I suppose so, sir,” her sweet, young voice responded.

“What's your end handle?” Hatch demanded.

“We—uh—do you mean our last name?” Terry asked.

Hatch studied them closer then. Both were barefoot and in threadbare clothes that were hardly more than rags. They had missed a good many meals; bones stuck out everywhere. Their eyes were a bit too bright, feverish mayhap. The boy had a ferret quality to him, his face narrow, hollow-cheeked, eyes close together; and he was somewhat buck-toothed. He wouldn't look a person directly in the eye, either.

The girl, Victoria, if that was her name, had a precious quality about her. For all her grime and stringy yellow hair, she could smile enough to charm the demons outta perdition. Her figure, although still undeveloped and boyish, held a certain promise. She stood before him now, toes turned in and touching, the hem of her skirt swaying around her knees as she twisted and turned, hands behind her back. Her attitude convinced Hatch.

“There's some extra grub. Welcome to it. But first, you gotta go to the crick and clean up a mite.”

“Oh, thank you, sir,” Vickie chirped. They started off to the creek hand-in-hand.

“Hold on there,” Hatch called after them. “You can't go in there nekid together. One at a time.”

“At home we never have ... ,” Terry blurted, then paused, an expression of nervous wariness flickering across his face. “I mean—er—we never had to do it that way when we had a home.”

“Well, you're gettin' too old to jump in bare together. Just do as I say.”

They took their turns, looking unhappy about it, then returned to the warmth beside the fire. Hatch handed them plates piled high with stew and fresh, flakey biscuits.

“Go on. Eat hearty. You could use a little meat on those bones.”

* * *

Eloy Hatch glowed with an unusual contentment when he rolled up in his blankets that night. It made him feel good to do something kind for others. Especially youngsters cut off from hearth and home. Tomorrow he'd see about trimming the lad's hair. Maybe scare up a button or two so's to cover more of their bodies. He might even take them along with him to the trading post, where Ol' Rube would know, if anyone did, where to find them a home.

He drifted off to sleep with these good thoughts. They held him in such deep slumber, until near midnight, that Eloy Hatch never felt a thing when Terry slid the slender knife blade between Eloy's ribs and pierced his heart. When Hatch's death throes ceased, Terry and Vickie quickly stripped the corpse and campsite of all valuables, took the prospector's horses and stole off into the night. Half a mile from the scene of their latest murder and robbery, they paused to embrace. Vickie shivered with the excitement of their bloody handiwork, and her skin was cold to the touch.

Terry quickly warmed her in the shelter of his strong arms. Their eyes got lost in one another's, and they sighed heavily. “But he was
nice
, Terry.”

“If we hadn't done it, we'd get a powerful beatin' when we got home, Vic, you know that.”

A sigh. “Yes, you're right, Terry.” She raised on tiptoe and kissed him on one cheek. It would be all right now, she knew; it would be like always.

2

Face hidden entirely behind the slouch brim of a disreputable, soft, old felt hat, the man moved with exaggerated caution between the lodgepole pines on the northern slope. To his left, another buckskin-clad figure paused, brown eyes searching the terrain from under a skunk-skin cap, a long-barreled Hawkin rifle at the ready, until his partner halted behind a large fir tree. Then he went into motion, downhill, for a short distance. He pulled up sharply behind the protruding bulb of a gigantic granite boulder.

The first man advanced again. The loose coat he wore opened in the slight breeze to reveal a barrel chest and a narrow waist, which put a lie to the salt-and-pepper hair that protruded from under the dirty old hat. With practiced ease, they continued to leapfrog to the valley floor. They glanced back up the steep slope. Each tried to figure out how to get the other to offer to make the long climb back to get their horses and pack animals. A voice spoke to them from the cover of the treeline.

“One-Eye, Bart, you boys coulda saved yourselves a passel of extra walking if you'd just rid straight in.”

One-Eye Avery Tookes cocked his head to one side. “Preacher? B'God's bones, it is you, ain't it?”

“Alive an' in one piece,” Preacher allowed. “An' I saved you the trouble of bringin' those mangy critters down here.”

That set well with both visitors. They let out satisfied bellows when Preacher came into the open, leading their livestock. Then the one Preacher called Bart pursed his thick lips and appraised his old friend with soft, brown eyes.

“We been lookin' for you,” Bart Weller advised. He cut his eyes to the fresh mounds of earth and stones close by. The turning of his head caused the tail of his disreputable cap to sway as though alive. “Looks sorta like trouble found you first.”

Preacher sighed heavily and rubbed his hands together. “That it did, an' puzzlesome at that. But the tellin' will go better over a pot of coffee an' a bit o' rye.” He led the way to his partially constructed cabin and added fuel to the fire in an Indian-style beehive oven-stove combination. He told his old friends about the five men and their actions in the valley. While he talked, the water in the pot came to a boil. Preacher added coffee and an egg shell. One-Eye noted that the shell had considerable size to it and was of a bluish tint. Preacher spotted his curiosity.

“Duck eggs. When I first come into this hole, I found some ducks that liked it rightly enough that they made it a year-round home. Every couple of days, I'd nick an egg from each of the six nests. Et the eggs, saved the shells for coffee. Nothin' settles grounds quite so good. Now, as I was tellin' ya,” Preacher said launching back into his account of the scruffy intruders.

While he talked, he paid close attention to his visitors. He had known Bart Weller longer. Why, from way back at the Rendezvous in '27, he thought. Didn't seem that his hair had a strand more of gray in it than the day they'd met. A quiet fellow, he had already partnered up with One-Eye Avery Tookes before the Rendezvous. Been together ever since. One-Eye Avery was a legend all to himself.

Of an age with Preacher and, like that venerable mountain man, one of the last of the breed, he had not sacrificed an eye to obtain his High Lonesome moniker. Indeed, he still had the clear, light blue orbs with which he had been born. The first white man who, in a drunken rage, had attacked a then much younger Avery Tookes had been bent on snuffing out the life of the adventurous, youthful trapper. Avery had defended himself admirably, until the huge brute got him in a bear hug. Not eager to kill the man, Avery had resorted to his only other line of offense. He had gouged out the man's eye with a long, thick thumbnail. Howling, the lout had given up, and Avery answered the questions as to why he had not finished the job with the remark that he reckoned one eye was enough. His newfound friend, Preacher, had promptly dubbed him Ol' One-Eye.

That had been years ago, yet both men had maintained their health and strength. If you saw them from behind, it would be difficult to distinguish one man from the other. From the front, One-Eye's big, bulbous red nose was a sure giveaway. Tookes had invited Preacher to spend the season trapping with him and his partner. Preacher knew Bart Weller to be a man with plenty of sand, and more knowledge about beaver than any human should possess. He had readily agreed, and they had spent the next three seasons together. Like it so often happened, they'd drifted apart at one Rendezvous, only to make infrequent contact over the years. Now, here they were in his valley. He decided to ask them why.

Bart studied that for a while, then made a reply. “Well, we come across several collections of similar trash. Most been headin' northwest, into Wyoming country.”

“Wonder what this batch meant by being sent?” One-Eye asked.

“That sort of has me in a hassle, too,” Preacher admitted. “Just who an' why would someone send such unclean riffraff into the High Lonesome?”

Bart swept the skunk-skin cap off his head and ran fingers through his thick mane of hair. “Lord knows the place is too crowded as it is.” He paused, thought a moment. “You did say these unsavory lads had been sent to get you, right?”

“Right as rain, Bart. I'm flattered someone thought it necessary to send five fellers, but I'm damned if I can put a name to who it might be. Why don't you two light a spell, get rested. Maybe in a day or two we can figger out what this is all about.”

One-Eye patted his belly. “Suits. You bein' such a good cook an' all. An' we got some other tall tales to tell. Just for an instance, Bart an' me done heard of some place in the far off; supposed to have a bunch of shiny white buildings. A right colorful sight, I'd say.”

Preacher shot him a frown. “You got it all wrong, One-Eye. White is the absence of all color.” That set them all to guffawing, and Preacher set out the Monongahela.

* * *

Three mangy, woolly-eared drifters crested a rise in the Ferris Mountains of Wyoming. They had barely raised their heads to the horizon when they halted abruptly, thunderstruck by what they saw. The one in the center mopped his thick, gaping lips and smacked his mouth closed noisily. He shook his head in an attempt to clear his vision. He saw the seven hills, with their buildings in various stages of construction.

“All them purty buildin's,” the sallow-faced lout on his left said in an awed tone.

“What you reckon they's here for, Hank?”

Henry Claypool, the one in the middle, wiped his mouth again and stared across the wide, deep basin. “Don't rightly know, Jase. There's one thing I do know. They don't rightly belong here.”

“But we was
told
. . . ,” the shallow-faced Jason Grantling bleated.

“I know what we was told, idjit. I didn't expect nothin' like this, though. But, yep, this is the place all right, the one we was told to find.”

“Who ever saw a place like this?” the flatland trash on Hank's right asked.

“Ain't got a clue, have you, Turnip Head? I'd say we done took a step back in time.”

Turnip Head, whose real name was Alvin Wooks, and Jason Grantling stared at Hank Claypool as though he had lost his mind.

“H-how you come to mean that?” the slightly dumber Alvin Wooks asked.

Impatient, Hank gigged his horse forward. “I say we ride down and find out for ourselves.”

Negotiating the inner slope of the basin proved easier than had the ascent. The smell of rich, fresh grass made their mounts frisky, their tails up and flying in the stout breeze that blew from the far-off structures. It brought with it the tangy scent of raw pine boards. At the foot of the incline, Hank and his companions were forced to rein in abruptly once more.

This time, a group of burly, hard-faced men confronted them. They all carried long poles that looked like spears and had funny round, knobby leather hats fastened on their heads by thick straps with cheek pieces that had been shaped like large leaves.

“Oh-oh, what kind of clothes is them?” Jason asked in a worried whisper.

* * *

Silas Tucker peered nearsightedly at the trembling pair before him. Tobacco juice stained his full, pouting lips and discolored the scraggly beard that surrounded the ugly hole of his mouth. He cut his shoe-button black eyes from one child to the other, despising their pale complexions, fair hair and cornflower blue eyes. Didn't look like any kids of his at all—at all. His gaze went over their shoulders to where Faith stood in the doorway of the tumble-down cabin he and his women had labored to erect three summers past.

He'd managed sure enough to stamp every one of the brats he'd given her. How had that peaked Purity managed to override his dark, hill people's blood? Course what with Faith bein' his younger sister, the blood held true, didn't it? Then there were these two. Cotton tops, with their mother's coloring and eyes. But, she sure was a good romp in bed. Li'l Faith hadn't had that much energy since she had given birth to their oldest at thirteen. That was when Pop had run him and Faith off, clean out of the Appalchian country.

“Cousins is fine and good, but yer sisters are jist for practicin' yer plowin', not plantin' a crop,” the old man had bellowed when he shooed the shame-faced pair off the rocky hillside that constituted their farm. Well, hell, this place wasn't any better. Biggest crop each year was rocks. Now he had to make sure these ghost-pale kids of his an' Purity didn' leave anything behind at the old man's campsite that could be traced to him. His expression grew stony, and he pinned the boy with those obsidian orbs.

“Tell it again, Terry. You sure this pilgrim ain't gonna go to Trout Crick Pass an' yap to the law?”

“Ye—yes, sir. I done slid that pig-sticker in betwixt his ribs like you showed me.”

“D'ya thrash it around like I said?” Silas asked from the depths of his shrewdness.

Silas knew himself to be a dimwit, due to the inbreeding in his family, or at least that was what that circuit-ridin' doctor had said about the whole passel of Tuckers in the hills back home. But he also knew he was as shrewd as the next feller. More so than a lot. Now he watched with a growing dread as the boy blanched even whiter with guilty knowledge.

“I—ah—I—er ... forgot.”

Rough and horny from hard work, the right hand of Silas Tucker popped loudly off the downy cheek of the frightened cherub in front of him. Tears sprang to Terry's eyes.

“Dangit, boy! How's we's supposed to stay safe if you keep forgetting the most important part?”

Long hours, days, even weeks alone in the wilderness had given Terry a new sense of self-worth, of independence. It prompted him to an unwise decision at this point. “Maybe . . . maybe if you'd come along and do some of the dirty work for a change, we'd be a whole lot safer.”

Silas Tucker had the boy's trousers down and the child bent over his knee in one swift move. His belt hissed out of its loops, and he used it expertly to flail at Terry's exposed bottom. Bravely, the lad resisted the impulse to scream out his pain and humiliation. Not so, his sister. Vickie shrieked, stamped her small feet on the hard ground, and pounded ineffectual little fists on the back of Silas Tucker.

“Stop it! Stop it! You're hurting him,” she wailed.

“That's what I damn well intend to do, Missy. An' if you don't shut up, you'll git yours next.” He did stop, after seven strokes that left angry red welts on the pale flesh of Terry's posterior. “All right. Here's how it's gonna be. You'll both go to bed without any supper for the next week. Bread and water twicest a day is all you see otherwise. The next time you go out, you make sure you stick those fellers good an' proper. Wouldn't do for word to go around that Silas Tucker's brood is doin' sloppy robberies. Now, go. Get out of my sight. An' you best yank up them britches before you give your sister bad ideas,” Silas added with a lewd wink.

Hurt and shamed, Terry did as he had been bade. He and Vickie knew all about what Silas had so nastily hinted at. They knew it went on among their half brothers and sisters. For them it had never held an appeal. Each loved the other and had had to look out for one another for as long as they remembered. They didn't have time for that sort of foolishness. Besides, the Good Book said it was evil. Oh, they had read the Bible all right, only in secret.

None of the rest of the Tuckers could string three letters together to make a word, let alone read. And Silas—Poppa—hotly cursed the Bible and preachers in general all the time. He claimed that man had been put on the earth to take his pleasures where he wished, and that book-learnin' an' religion got in the way of that something fierce. Only went to show, Silas didn't know everything about anything. Terry had wiped away the last of his tears by the time they got to the cabin. Their momma, Purity, stopped them and asked what had happened and what Silas had decided.

“We got punished for not makin' sure of that last pilgrim we robbed. Sila—Poppa says we get no supper for a week, an' we have bread and water only for our other meals,” Terry reluctantly revealed.

Inwardly, he was thinking:
If only there were some way we could leave here and not come back. If we could just he free forever.
Terry had no way to know that his sister shared her version of the same desire, or that the opportunity to escape lay just beyond the next couple of ranges.

* * *

One-Eye Tookes and Bart Weller bent over the large cast-iron skillet, biscuit halves in hand, to mop up the last of the pan drippings left from the fresh venison steaks Preacher had fried for their breakfast. The tender meat had gone well with cornmeal mush and fried potatoes and onions. Avery Tookes glanced up from his efforts and eyed the surroundings.