The scout, known only as Wells, nodded his head and picked up the reins. “I ain’t gar-enteein’ nothin’. But we’ll give it a shot.”

  “What do you mean, sir?” Patience demanded. “We were told back in Missouri that you knew this country.”

  “Wal, they lied. I ain’t never been this far a-fore. And to tell you the truth, I ain’t real thrilled about goin’ no further, neither. So I don’t think I will.”

  “What does that mean?” Otto asked.

  “Means I quit.” Without another word, he rode away, heading east. He did not look back.

  The four wagons and eight people suddenly looked awfully tiny with the majestic mountains looming in front of them.

  “Well now,” Frank Collins said, walking up with his wife of only a few months with him. “This sort of leaves us in a pickle, doesn’t it?”

  “The Lord will see us through,” Jane Collins said, smiling up at her husband.

  Hanna Steiner joined the group, as did Paul and Sally Marks. “I didn’t like that Wells person anyway,” Hanna said bluntly. “He was a very untidy man who did not bathe enough and he cussed. I cannot abide a man who swears.”

  “Ja, Hanna,” Otto said. “You are right about that, you surely are.”

  “Well!” Patience said, flouncing on the wagon seat. “We must press on.” She picked up the reins. “The Lord is with us and surely He will hear our prayers this evening and send His man of faith in the wilderness, Preacher, to guide us through. I am certain of that. Onward, people. We’ll lift our voices in Christian song as we travel through the wilderness.” She popped the big rear mules on the butt with the reins and off they went, creaking and lurching and singing across the plains, only a few miles from the Rockies. The faint sounds of song could be heard as the young pioneers headed bravely into the unknown.

  The fare in the camp of Bones had decidedly gone downhill with their cooks leaving and much of their supplies destroyed. It was now mostly venison and beans. And not one sign of Preacher had been found by the daily patrols. It had been two weeks since the cooks and servants left and Preacher had burned their camp.

  “I think the man has fled,” Robert Tassin said.

  “I concur,” his countryman, Jon Louviere agreed.

  Bones and Van Eaton, sitting on the ground a few yards away, listened but said nothing. It really made no difference to either man. The longer they stayed out, the more money they made. The rules and rates of this ‘game’ had changed. With the exception of Bones and Van Eaton, each man was being paid five dollars a day, a very princely sum for the time. Bones and Van Eaton were receiving substantially more. In addition, when, or if, Preacher was found, and the aristocracy killed him, each man in the group would receive a cash bonus. The entire group could have the reward money posted on Preacher’s head. Literally. For the reward money could only be claimed by bringing Preacher’s head back as proof. A carefully packed glass jug and pickling solution had been brought by the second group.

  Up near the timber line, Preacher was getting bored. His hopes that the hunting party would go away and leave him alone had been dashed. On this clear and crisp midsummer morning, just as dawn was lighting the horizon, Preacher reckoned it was time to open this ball and he was going to lead the band. He picked up two rifles and headed out.

  Patience and Prudence and party had broken camp and were on the move. They were about eight miles away at dawn.

  The camp of the man-hunters had shifted, the unwashed multitudes crawling out of their blankets, shaking out the fleas and various other bugs and headed for the creek for coffee water.

  Bones was squatting by the fire, warming his hands and waiting for the water to boil. He was always surly in the mornings and this morning he was surlier than usual. Even Van Eaton did not dare to speak to him. The gentry were gathered together, as usual. They preferred their own company to that of the unwashed.

  Bones reached for the coffee pot just as a rifle ball banged against the big iron kettle and ripped off, the flattened and ragged ricochet striking a man-hunter in the center of the forehead and dropping him dead on the ground. Bones kissed the earth, flattening out on his belly.

  One of Bones’s original group, Joey York, was a tad slow in reacting and Preacher’s second shot ended his man-hunting days forever. The ball from the fancy hunting rifle punched a hole in Joey’s chest and knocked him into a cookfire, setting his clothing and greasy hair ablaze. The ensuing smell was not exactly conducive to a good appetite.

  “Did anybody spot the smoke?” Van Eaton yelled, from his position behind a tree near the creek.

  “Do we ever?” Tom Evans called.

  “Somebody pull Joey out the fire,” Bones said. “The smell is makin’ me ill.”

  One of the second party, a man called Stanley, jumped up and made it halfway to the smoldering body of Joey before Preacher nailed him, dusting the man from side to side. Stanley stumbled and fell dead without making a sound.

  “He’s got to be in that little stand of trees over yonder,” Cal Johnson yelled, sticking his head up and peering over the log he was hiding behind. “But that’s a good three hundred yards off. Man, he can shoot!”

  Preacher’s rifle boomed and Cal lost part of an ear. He fell back behind the log, squalling in pain as the blood poured. “Oh, God, he’s kilt me!” Cal screamed.

  Falcon glanced at him. “Naw. You’ll live. But you gonna be wearin’ yore hat funny from now on.”

  “Jesus!” Stan Law yelled. “Joey’s stinkin’ something fierce. Cain’t nobody haul him outta there?”

  “You want him out, you haul him out,” Horace Haywood called. “I ain’t movin’.”

  A man called Hoppy, because of the way he walked — one leg was shorter than the other — jumped up and hip-hopped toward the fire. Preacher fired again and now Hoppy’s left leg was equal to his right. The ball took off about half of his left foot. Hoppy flopped on the ground, screaming to high heaven.

  “Charge, men!” Sir Elmore ordered. “Into the fray!”

  “Charge yoresalf!” Derby Peel told him.

  “By God I will!” Sir Elmore said. “Where’s my saber?” Baron Zaunbelcher quickly scurried away from Elmore. “Stay down!” Bones yelled. “Don’t be a fool. Preacher’s got us cold.”

  “He’s movin’ !” Jimmie Cook yelled. “Headin’ off to the south. If he makes the crick, he’s gone for sure.”

  Sir Elmore jumped up, waving his saber. Baron

  Zaunbelcher was keeping a good eye on the Englishman. “Now’s our chance. Charge, men!” Elmore ran toward the creek, waving his saber. Burton Sullivan and Willy Steinwinder right behind him.

  “Oh, Lord!” Bones said, crawling to his boots. “Come on, boys. We can’t let nothing happen to them silly people.”

  En masse, the entire camp — those who were able — came to their feet, all running after Preacher, waving rifles and pistols and yelling and cussing. But Preacher had left the creek and was hiding among the trees that lined the bank. He caught sight of the sun flashing off of Elmore’s blade and sighted in. The ball clanged against the polished steel and Elmore’s entire body experienced the sensation of a railroad spike being hit with a sledge hammer. For a moment, before Burton hauled him down, Elmore looked like a man with a bad case of the twitches.

  Using his second rifle, Preacher took aim and put a ball into a man’s belly and the man tumbled to his knees and then slowly fell into the creek, face first. Two minutes later he had drowned. Preacher watched the entire running human wave hit the ground and he took off running, zigging and zagging through the grass and brush, heading for the ridges. Very quickly Preacher was out of rifle range and gone. He reached his horse and headed south.

  Back at the camp of the man-hunters, they were busy patching up the wounded and seeing to the disposal of the dead. Elmore’s right hand had stopped its twitching. He was looking sorrowfully at his slightly bent saber.

  “Throw it away,” Zaunbelcher urged.

  “Indeed not! It’s only bent a little. My father carried this sword during the War of 1812.”

  Baron Zaunbelcher almost said he now knew the reason the British lost, but thought better of it at the last second.

  Preacher had put several miles behind him and the now scared, shook-up, and bloody band of man-hunters. He wasn’t worried about them following him; not this soon anyway. He threaded his way through the timber, topped a ridge, and looked down into one of the prettiest valleys in this part of the country. He stared hard at the scene before him. He blinked. But the scene remained unchanged.

  Four wagons, a half a dozen cows, one of which was probably a bull, and riding horses.

  Four wagons? Here? Now?

  Preacher rode down the grade and across the meadow just as the pilgrims were climbing down to the lush grass and flowers of the valley floor. Preacher had not had a bath in several days and it had been a couple of weeks since he’d shaved. His buckskins were stained and his hat had damn sure seen better days. He knew he looked rougher than a cob and meaner than a bear, but at the moment, he didn’t much care. He rode right up to the wagons and got himself a jolt. Two of the finest-lookin’ women he’d put eyes on in a-while stood side by side. Twins, with no difference he could spot in them at all.

  “Howdy, folks!” Preacher called. “Y’all ain’t got no drinkin’ whiskey with you, now has you? I feel the need for a little Who Hit John.”

  “Sir!” one of the twins piped right up. “I’ll have you know we are on a mission for God. We do not sanction with the partaking of strong drink.”

  “Do tell. Well, I’ll be damned.”

  “And we do not hold with swearing, either!” Hanna said, standing with hands on hips. She was a trifle ample across the beam for Preacher’s liking, but still a handsome woman.

  “You don’t say? Well . . . dip me in buffalo crap and call me stinky.”

  One of the twins stepped closer and stared at him. “Sir? Are you a mountain man?”

  “I reckon. I been in these mountains ever since I was knee-high to a frog. What are you folks doin’ out here all by your lonesome?”

  Everybody started talking at once in a babble of voices. Preacher dismounted and stood silently before them until they settled down. When quiet prevailed, Preacher said, “I was just kiddin’ y’all ‘bout that whiskey. I got me a couple of jugs stashed up in the brush that I stole from some guys.”

  “You . . . stole some whiskey?” Prudence asked. “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “So’s I could drink it.”

  “There are other people close-by?” Otto asked.

  “Oh, yeah. I’d guess near’bouts seventy or so about five miles yonder way.” He pointed.

  “Seventy?” Patience blurted.

  “Yeah.”

  “What are they doing?”

  “Doin’ their best to kill me, ma’am.”

  “Kill you!” Sally shrieked. “Why?”

  “’Cause I been killin’ as many of them as I could, that’s why.”

  The men and women all wore stunned looks on their faces. “You have been . . . killing them?” Frank Collins asked.

  “Oh, yeah. I reckon up to the moment I’ve kilt . . . well, oh, fifteen or twenty, I reckon. But it’s all right, ‘cause they started it.”

  “You have personally killed fifteen or twenty men in your life?” Prudence asked, her face pale.

  “Oh, no, ma’am. That’s just in the last few weeks. I lost count on how many men I’ve kilt over the years. White men, that is.”

  “What . . . what is your name?” Patience asked. “Preacher.”

  Patience paled.

  “How many other men out here are called Preacher?” she asked in a tiny voice.

  “Just me.”

  Patience fainted.

  Two

  Otto caught the woman before she hit the ground and gently placed her in the shade of a wagon.

  “What’s the matter with her?” Preacher asked. “She comin’ down with the vapors?”

  Prudence glared up at him. “You . . . you . . . brute!”

  “What did I do?” Preacher questioned, looking at the men and women.

  Frank Collins said, “Really, nothing, sir. We all were under the impression that you were a man of God, that’s why Patience fainted.”

  Preacher was clearly puzzled. Something was all out of whack here and he couldn’t figure out what it was. “A man of God? I been called a lot of things over the years, but damned if I’ve ever been called that.”

  “Sir,” Hanna said, looming menacingly before him. “I must insist that you refrain from swearing.”

  Preacher sighed. Before he could tell Hanna what was foremost on his mind, and after doing that would probably have to shoot her husband, Patience moaned and sat up.

  “I had the most terrible dream,” she said, her face flushed. ‘I dreamt that we were confronted by a horrible man who drank whiskey and ran around killing people.” Her eyes began to focus and they focused on Preacher. “Oh, my word! It wasn’t a nightmare.”

  “Now, I have been called that a time or two,” Preacher admitted. “Y’all splash some water on that female’s face and get her up. I got to talk to y’all. This just ain’t no place for pilgrims to be at any time, most especially right now.” He looked at Hanna. “You make some coffee and put on some grub. I got a case of the hongries flung on me. I’m goin’ over yonder to that crick and take me a wash and a shave. I’ll be back.”

  “Well!” Hanna flounced about as Preacher turned his back to her and swung into the saddle.

  “Do it,” Otto told her. “I think that, if I understand correctly his quaint way of speaking, we are in trouble here. I want to hear what he has to say.”

  Prudence helped Patience to her feet and got her unflustered. Fifteen minutes later, Preacher reappeared. His buckskins were still stained, but he had taken a short bath and shaved the heavy growth of beard from his face.

  “He really is a very handsome man,” the woman all silently concurred.

  “He really is a very dangerous man,” the men all silently concurred.

  Preacher poured a cup of coffee and squatted down. The coffee was weak for his tastes, but he made no mention of that. “Now listen up, pilgrims. I got to tell you what’s goin’ on. Then you make up your own minds ‘bout what kind of man I am. Not that your opinion means a damn to me. But I don’t like to be judged wrongly.”

  While the bacon and fried potatoes were cooking, Preacher took it from the top, beginning with him and Eddie leaving civilization back east and the reasons why. When he finished telling about burying Eddie and his little paint pony, the only dry eye in the bunch was his. A couple of minutes later, he said, “Well, that’s it, folks.”

  “I wonder why we heard nothing about the bounty on you?” Frank Collins asked.

  “Prob’ly ‘cause y’all don’t frequent taverns and saloons and the like,” Preacher told him. “Nor do you associate with them that does.” He smiled. “Them mountain men back at the fort who told you I was a preacher of the gospel . . . you ‘member any names?”

  “Well,” Hanna said. “There was this huge fellow called Horsehide Jack.”

  Preacher started grinning.

  “Yes,” Patience said. “And there was another gentlemen with the unsightly name of Pistol Pete.”

  Preacher’s grin spread.

  “And one great bear of a man they called Papa Griz.” Preacher laughed. “Them ol’ boys was havin’ a high ol’ time puttin’ you folks on, was what they was doin.” Don’t feel hard toward ‘em. They didn’t mean no harm. They was just funnin’. Humor gets sorta dark out here in the wilderness. ‘Cause a lot of the time, they ain’t a whole hel . . . heck of a lot to laugh about.”

  “I fear that because of my insistence that we press on,” Patience said, “I have placed us all in great danger.” Preacher thought about that. “Maybe,” he finally said. “But not if y’all will play along with a lie I’m dreamin’ up right now.”

  “Whatever in the world do you mean, sir?” Prudence asked.

  Preacher grinned and told her.

  Preacher had carefully stashed the pilgrims and their livestock and wagons in a little canyon on the east side of the valley and told them not to light fires nor venture past the tree and brush lined entrance of the canyon. Then Preacher set out to find some man-hunters. Only this time he didn’t have killing on his mind. Well, not much anyway.

  “Look!” Van Eaton cried out, pointing.

  The small group of men looked at the man with a white handkerchief tied to the barrel of his rifle.

  “By the Lord!” breathed Sir Elmore. “That’s our quarry.”

  “He wants to talk,” Bones said. “He’s comin’ under a white flag. We’ll honor it.”

  The gentry with him looked at Bones as if he had gone mad. “You can’t be serious, sir!” Robert Tassin said.

  “I’m serious. A white flag is a white flag. We’ll honor it.”

  Preacher rode slowly toward the six man team, stopping about ten yards from them. Bones and Elmore rode out to meet him. “You boys got another problem facin’ you,” Preacher said. “Not near ‘bouts as dangerous as me, but a problem nonetheless.”

  “And what might that be, sir?” Elmore asked.

  “The Methodist church sent out a flock of missionaries to bring the gospel to the heathens. They’re holed up over yonder in a valley. I run into them some time back and told them what was goin’ on here, ‘tween us. The scouts that brung them in has gone back with a message to the church board and the President of the United States. They tooken all your names back on paper to give to important folks back east. Anything happens to them missionaries, and you’ll all have federal warrants out on you. The war ‘tween us is still on, but them Bible-shoutin’ folks had best be left alone.”

  Sir Elmore Jerrold-Taylor’s back straightened. “Sir, no harm shall come to those missionaries. I am a Christian myself and believe strongly in the Lord.”