CHAPTER 23

  Preacher got off a single shot with each Colt before one of the attackers crashed into him and knocked him off his feet. He landed hard on his back with the man’s weight on top of him. That knocked the air out of his lungs, but he managed to hang on to the guns in his hands.

  The sky had grayed enough for him to see the man’s silhouette looming above him. The attacker screeched wordlessly as he raised his right arm. He was holding something, and Preacher felt pretty sure it was a tomahawk.

  He rammed the muzzle of the right-hand Colt under the man’s chin and thumbed off a shot.

  The blast blew off most of the Indian’s face and pitched him backward. Without the weight pinning him to the ground, Preacher rolled over and came up on one knee.

  The confusion of battle surrounded him. Audie, Nighthawk, and Dog were fighting with the marauders. Preacher couldn’t risk a shot with his friends in the line of fire. He pouched the irons as he surged onto his feet and threw himself into the ruckus.

  He had a tomahawk, too, tucked behind his belt on the right side, around toward the small of his back. He pulled it free and swung it at the head of a man struggling with Annie as she screamed for help.

  The roach of hair sticking up from the man’s head, as well as the feather rising above it, told Preacher the attacker was an Indian.

  The tomahawk struck the back of the man’s head with devastating force, splintering bone and cleaving into the brain. Preacher jerked the weapon loose, grabbed the man’s shoulder, and flung him aside. Already dead from the terrific blow, the corpse landed in a limp sprawl.

  Preacher got his free arm around Annie and pulled her to him. She continued screaming and fought frantically against his grip for a few seconds. Her struggles subsided as she seemed to realize it was the mountain man who held her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked her.

  “I’m fine,” she answered with hysteria edging into her voice. “The babies! Where are my babies?”

  “I’ll find ’em,” Preacher promised. He pushed Annie against the trunk of a pine tree and told her, “Stay here.”

  A few yards away, Nighthawk had his hands full as four men attacked him, swinging knives and tomahawks at him. The massive Crow was armed with a knife and a tomahawk himself, along with incredible speed for a man of his size and bulk. He twisted and darted and whirled, parrying and blocking the attacks aimed at him. Metal clashed against metal and sparks flew.

  Nighthawk wasn’t simply defending himself, either. He seized every opening to carry the attack to his foes. His knife flashed out and buried cold steel in warm flesh. The tomahawk in his hand slashed throats and stove in skulls. The air around him and his opponents was filled with a dark mist as blood sprayed from severed arteries.

  It was an awe-inspiring display of speed, skill, and savagery.

  Audie was dealing with more than one attacker, too, putting his small size and quickness to good use as he dodged back and forth between them, causing the men to get tangled up with each other.

  As one of the Indians lost his balance and started to fall even though he was windmilling his arms in a vain attempt to stay upright, Audie was ready with his knife. The man’s throat was cut from side to side by the time he hit the ground.

  Audie had to turn his back on the other attacker to accomplish that, however, and that gave the man a chance to grab him from behind. The warrior got both arms around Audie and lifted him into the air as he yipped shrilly in triumph.

  Unfortunately, that positioned Audie so that he could kick backward and slam the heel of his boot into his captor’s groin. The man’s victory cry turned into a howl of agony. He lost his grip on Audie, who twisted as he fell and drove his knife into the man’s belly.

  Audie’s weight dragged the blade down and opened up a gaping vertical wound through which the dying man’s guts spilled. Shrieking, he fell to the ground and then pitched forward to spasm a couple of times before lying still in death.

  Preacher took in all of that carnage in little more than the blink of an eye. He saw that Little Bear was putting up a fight, too, but the young man was no match for the warrior who had attacked him. Little Bear was on the ground as the enemy knelt on him and raised a knife high to strike.

  Almost invisible in the gray light, Dog was just a streak of movement as he came out of nowhere and launched himself at the man about to kill Little Bear.

  The big cur crashed into the warrior and knocked him off. Dog’s teeth sank into the man’s flesh and the powerful jaws clamped down. The warrior died with a hideous gurgle as Dog ripped his throat out.

  Little Bear rolled over and tried to get up. Preacher moved in and grasped the young man’s arm to lift him to his feet.

  “You all right?” the mountain man asked.

  “Y-Yes, thanks to Dog.”

  “Do you know where the babies are?”

  “I haven’t—No, wait! I think I saw one of the men grab them.” Little Bear pointed. “He was going that way the last I saw of him. Then that other man grabbed me and knocked me down—”

  Preacher didn’t wait to hear anymore. He ran in the direction Little Bear had pointed, calling over his shoulder, “Dog, hunt! Find the babies!”

  Dog flashed past him a second later, running flat out.

  Preacher followed, his long legs stretching and his wiry muscles carrying him quickly over the ground. He lost sight of Dog in the shadows that clung to the earth and coiled around the trees. Full daylight was still an hour or more away.

  Dog wouldn’t be relying solely on his sight, however. His keen sense of smell would be just as important in leading him to his quarry.

  Preacher weaved between trees and around clumps of brush. He heard a horse whinny somewhere ahead of him. The attackers must have left their ponies nearby in order to sneak up on the camp on foot. The man who had grabbed the twins was trying to get back to those mounts and escape.

  A yell sounded, followed by growls and snarls. Dog had caught up to the man he was after. Preacher ran even faster as a rifle boomed. If that varmint had shot Dog—

  Hooves pounded the earth as several ponies burst out from some boulders that formed a rough ring at the base of a slope, having rolled down there in ages past. That would make a good place for early morning skulkers to leave their horses.

  Growling still filled the air. Preacher was glad to hear it; the sound meant Dog was still alive.

  He ran through a gap between two boulders but hadn’t gotten a good look at what was going on before something whistled out of the gloom and struck him across the chest. His feet went out from under him as the impact knocked him backward. His head bounced off the hard ground with enough force to stun him.

  Even though his muscles refused to obey his commands for a moment, his ears still worked. He heard a pair of wailing cries rise and intertwine. The babies!

  Edward and Elizabeth were here, and that knowledge was enough to energize Preacher’s nerves and muscles. He groaned and rolled onto his side, then pushed himself up to his knees.

  No sooner had he done that than he had to fling himself desperately to the side as a huge, speeding shape raced at him, threatening to trample him.

  Preacher landed on his shoulder and rolled. The galloping pony barely missed him, passing by so close that Preacher felt it disturb the air around him.

  The rider didn’t try to wheel the pony around and make another attempt at trampling Preacher. Instead, he kept the animal moving fast, even banging his feet against its flanks to urge more speed out of it.

  As Preacher got to his feet, he peered after the racing pony and saw a tall, broad-shouldered man on its back. Something about the warrior was familiar. A name leaped into Preacher’s mind.

  Standing Cloud!

  Preacher had known when he and his companions left the Salish village that Standing Cloud bore a grudge against him. The warrior’s eyes had been filled with hatred the last time Preacher saw him.

  It came as no real surprise that Standing Cloud might follow them and try to take his revenge.

  The yowl of an unhappy baby’s cry drifted back to Preacher for a second before the early morning breeze snatched it away. Standing Cloud was getting away with at least one of the infants.

  More hoofbeats sounded behind Preacher. He whirled around to meet this potential new threat, but his tension eased slightly when he recognized Little Bear sitting astride one of the horses from their camp.

  “Preacher!” the young man called as he reined in and looked around. “Preacher, where are you?”

  “Over here!” Preacher responded.

  Little Bear kicked his mount into motion and rode swiftly toward the mountain man.

  “Did you find the twins?” he asked as he hauled the horse to a stop.

  “Standing Cloud got away with at least one of ’em.”

  “Standing Cloud! He came after us?”

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was him I saw gallopin’ off. Let me have that horse.”

  Preacher would have preferred having his own stallion under him, but right now, he would take whatever mount he could get if it meant being able to give chase to Standing Cloud.

  Little Bear swung down from the saddle and handed the reins to Preacher. Just as the mountain man took them, more crying came from inside the circle of boulders.

  “He only got away with one of the little varmints,” Preacher said. “Take care o’ the one he left behind.”

  “Of course!”

  Little Bear turned and ran through the gap between the boulders while Preacher practically leaped into the saddle and kicked the horse into a run.

  He knew in which direction Standing Cloud had fled, but he could no longer hear the hoofbeats from the man’s horse. His only option was to keep going and hope he caught up before anything bad happened to whichever of the twins Standing Cloud had ridden off with.

  Eventually it would be light enough for Preacher to pick up the trail, but by that time, Standing Cloud might have too much of a lead.

  Preacher’s keen eyes searched the gloom ahead of him in the faint hope that he might catch a glimpse of his quarry. When fortune smiled on him, he almost missed it. He saw something from the corner of his right eye and swiveled his head to get a better look.

  For a mere split-second, he saw the unmistakable figure of a man on horseback topping a ridge. The man dropped out of sight an instant later, but what Preacher had seen was imprinted on his brain.

  He knew it had to be Standing Cloud. Nobody else was likely to be roaming around up here. The renegade warrior was no longer following the level bench but had turned to climb higher in the rugged terrain.

  Preacher turned his mount and started up, too.

  This ridge rose maybe a hundred feet before dropping off on the other side. Beyond it towered a sheer bluff.

  Even in the dim light, Preacher could see well enough to realize that the landscape was vaguely familiar to him. He had been here before, as he had been most places west of the Mississippi, but it had been quite a few years since his last visit.

  A memory nagged at the back of his mind. He recalled something about that bluff …

  Abruptly, he remembered that a trail zigzagged back and forth up the sheer granite and sandstone cliff. It was just a narrow ledge, but it was wide enough for a man on horseback, especially if he dismounted and led the horse.

  If Standing Cloud knew about that trail, he might plan on using it to give the slip to any possible pursuit. At this point, Preacher wasn’t sure where else he could go.

  Armed with that hunch, Preacher stopped trying to watch for any sign of Standing Cloud and just headed for that trail he’d recalled as fast as he could push the horse he was riding. The mount was a good one, strong and determined. He wasn’t Horse, but then, Preacher knew better than to expect that.

  They topped the ridge, dropped down through a rugged gulch choked with brush. That slowed them down, and the delay gnawed at Preacher’s guts. However, all he could do was keep going, and a short time later, they worked their way through the obstacles and reached the bluff.

  From there, Preacher followed the base of it until he found the spot where the trail started up. He had relied on his instincts to let him know he was going in the right direction, and they hadn’t let him down.

  Back to the east, the sky was considerably lighter now. A few streaks of reddish-gold were beginning to be visible in the gray. When Preacher paused at the foot of the trail and looked up, he was able to follow the ledge as it climbed, back and forth, toward the top.

  Something moved up there. Preacher looked closer and a moment later, he discerned the figure of a buckskin-clad man leading a dappled Indian pony up the trail.

  Standing Cloud hadn’t gotten away from him. The warrior was a couple of hundred feet above him—and the thin cries of an unhappy baby told Preacher that Standing Cloud still had the stolen twin with him.

  Preacher dismounted, wrapped the horse’s reins around his left hand, and started up the ledge after them.

  From time to time, Standing Cloud’s pony dislodged pebbles that came bouncing down from one level of the trail to the next. A few of them hit Preacher, but none of them were large enough to cause any damage.

  He hoped none of them would strike the horse because that might cause the animal to spook, and the ledge wasn’t wide enough for that to be safe.

  When those rocks stopped falling, Preacher figured that meant Standing Cloud had reached the top. There was no telling where he would go from there.

  If he knew Preacher was following him, he might even lie in wait and try to get the drop on the mountain man. Preacher knew he was running a risk by continuing, but there was nothing else he could do.

  He heard a scraping sound somewhere above him and paused to lean back and look up.

  That was all the warning he had before a rock more than twice as big as a man’s head rolled over the brink fifty feet above and plummeted straight at him.

  CHAPTER 24

  Preacher had only a second to react to the danger hurtling at him. Luckily, his reflexes had been finely honed by decades of surviving a perilous existence.

  He flattened himself against the bluff and tightened his grip on the horse’s reins. He would let them go and lose the animal if he had to, but he hoped he could keep the horse under control.

  The rock shot past them, missing Preacher by no more than a couple of feet. It clipped the edge of the trail and bounded out farther away from the bluff as it continued falling to the ground far below.

  “Come on,” Preacher grated as he lunged up the trail and dragged the horse after him.

  Instinct warned him, made him glance up just in time to see another rock falling toward him. He drove hard along the ledge as he tried to get himself and the horse clear.

  They almost made it. The rock, which was only slightly smaller than the first one, struck the horse on the rump. The animal let out a shrill scream of pain and fear and reared up to paw at the air with its front hooves.

  “No!” Preacher yelled, but of course it didn’t do any good. The horse was badly spooked and its rear legs skittered around on the ledge.

  The result was inevitable. Preacher knew that and let go of the reins so that he wouldn’t be dragged off the trail when the horse fell. The horse maintained its balance for a moment, but when it tried to drop its front hooves back onto the ledge, the rear ones slid and went out from under it.

  Preacher’s lips drew back from his teeth in a grimace as the horse fell heavily and landed at the very edge of the trail. Its weight and the flailing legs tipped it over the brink. The horse screamed again as it fell to its death, a disturbingly human sound that came to an abrupt, grim ending.

  Preacher was already moving again before the horse hit the ground at the base of the bluff. He charged up the trail, reached the next spot where it turned back on itself, and swung himself around the turn at dangerously high speed. He was sure-footed, though, and kept his balance without any trouble.

  Another rock crashed onto the trail ahead of him. Instead of bouncing farther out, this one went up into the air, landed on the ledge again, and began rolling toward him.

  Preacher jerked a glance over his shoulder, thinking that maybe he could get back around the turn and let the rock tumble on past him harmlessly. But it was too far away, he saw. He wasn’t going to have time for that.

  Nor could he hug the cliff face and avoid the rock that way. The trail just wasn’t wide enough.

  There was only one thing he could do, Preacher realized, and it had to be timed perfectly.

  Just before the rock slammed into him, he leaped into the air and pulled up his feet as high as he could.

  He cleared the rock by inches, but his feet hit the back of it lightly as he came down, throwing him off-balance just enough to make him sprawl forward on his belly. He scrambled to his feet and continued running up the trail.

  Part of him wanted to pull his Colts and blast some shots at the rim to force Standing Cloud away from the edge, but since he didn’t know where the baby was, he couldn’t risk it.

  Standing Cloud had to run out of rocks to toss down at him sooner or later, blast it!

  That time might have arrived, because no more rocks plummeted down from the top of the bluff. Preacher kept going until he reached the top of the trail and stepped out onto the bluff, which was relatively level and stretched back a good quarter of a mile before the next slope.

  He came to an abrupt halt because Standing Cloud was waiting for him about twenty feet away. The Salish warrior stood there glaring as he held one of the infants against his chest. His left arm was looped around the baby, who fretted and squirmed.

  Standing Cloud raised his other hand and held it out toward Preacher.

  “Stay where you are,” the warrior ordered. “Come closer and I throw child over edge.”

  “You speak better English than I figured you did,” Preacher said.

  “Good enough to tell you I kill you.”

  “You ain’t managed to do that so far, old son.”