Preacher had no immediate comment on that, but his thoughts were grim. If this fool really believed himself a Christian person, then Preacher could pass for a duck. “Fine.” He looked at Bones. “How about your boys?”

  “They’ll stay clear.”

  “Them missionaries, over my objections, has volunteered to set up a make-shift hospital and take care of the wounded. That all right with you?”

  “Fine with me.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Sir Elmore said. “That’s very gracious of them. But you destroyed all our medical supplies,” he added with a pout. “That wasn’t very sporting of you.”

  “Well, shame on me,” Preacher said sarcastically. “My goodness! You just can’t depend on nobody nowadays to be a good sport, can you?”

  “Oh, quite true. Quite true.”

  Preacher shook his head at the Englishman’s words. He couldn’t figure out if the man was serious or just a teetotal damned fool. He backed Thunder up some twenty feet or so. “Now you boys do the same,” he told the men. When they were about fifty feet apart, Preacher said, “Next time we see each other, you best start shootin’. ‘Cause this is the last time I aim to be cordial with you.”

  “We’ll do that, Preacher.”

  “Head on out,” Preacher ordered.

  “Don’t you trust us?” Sir Elmore asked.

  “Hell, no.” He leveled his rifle. Bones and Elmore turned their horses, rejoined their group, and they all got gone.

  “Do you trust these bounty hunters to keep their word, Preacher?” Otto asked.

  Dark in the missionary’s camp. The women had cooked up a fine meal and Preacher was laying back against his saddle, drinking coffee and smoking his pipe. “’Bout as far as I can pick up a grizzly bear and throw it.”

  “You said one of the nobility was called Zaunbelcher, is that correct?” -

  “Yeah. He’s a baron. Whatever the hel . . . heck that means.”

  “It’s a fine old family,” Otto said. “But starting about a century back, they began marrying very closely. I’m afraid insanity is running in their blood now.”

  “I don’t doubt that a bit. But you don’t have to worry about that no more.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  “’Cause I’m a-fixin’ to stop his clock, that’s why.” Paul Marks stared at Preacher across the fire. “You are going to fight seventy-odd men all by yourself?”

  “They was close to a hundred or better when I started. And they’ll be about ten less this time tomorrow.”

  “You say those deadly words so . . . casually.” Patience said. “Doesn’t human life mean anything to you?”

  “Them folks huntin’ me ain’t human, Missy. You think about that.”

  A coyote pack started up, lifting their voices to the sky. The women shivered at the sound.

  Preacher smiled. “The Injuns call them Song Dogs, ladies. They’re sacred to some tribes. Coyote won’t hurt you. Neither will a wolf if you leave the poor beast alone.”

  “Song Dogs?” Prudence questioned.

  “Shore. Just listen to ‘em. They’s makin’ pretty music. Just listen and enjoy it.”

  “You ever been married, Preacher?” Frank asked.

  “The Injun way, yeah. I got kids. Y’all prob’ly frown on that, but that’s the way it’s done out here. And don’t think Injuns take marriage lightly, ‘cause they don’t. Injuns is human people. Their ways is just different from ours, that’s all. I don’t agree with a lot of what they do, but then, I do agree with a lot they believe in and practice. When this little trouble of mine is all cleared up, I’ll sit you down and try to convince you to head on back east. The Injuns don’t want your religion, and they don’t need it.”

  “Whatever in the world do you mean by that?” Patience cried. “They’re poor unsaved heathens.”

  “They ain’t no such of a damn thing, Missy. They worship the same God you do . . . in a way, that is. Their God has many names, but they all amount to the same thing. Man Above, Wakan Tanka, Grandfather Spirit, Great Mystery Power, Heammawihio — The Wise One Above. The God of the Pawnees is Tirawa, and they sacrifice a human to that God. And it’s a terrible sacrifice, too. Now, I don’t hold with that a-tall.” Preacher picked up a handful of dirt and let it slowly dribble to the ground. “This is Grandmother Earth. The earth is life. The Injun respects the land and the critters on it.

  “No, folks, the Injun has their own religion. When an Injun dies, his soul, tasoom, in Cheyenne, travels up the Hanging Road.” Preacher smiled again. “That’s the Milky Way to us. The Injun believes that after death everything is good; there is no reason to fear death. And that only those who take their own lives won’t never rest in a peaceful village in the Land Beyond. Now as far as I’m concerned, that pretty much goes along with what’s in the Good Book.”

  “But they must be baptized in the blood to be saved!” Patience said.

  “I don’t believe that, Missy. And I don’t believe a person’s got to congregate, neither. I think if a body accepts that there is a higher power over us all, and tries to live right, that person ain’t gonna be denied entrance to the Land Beyond. You think there ain’t gonna be no horses and dogs and cats and coyotes and wolves in Land Beyond? If that’s the case, I don’t want to go.”

  “You don’t mean that, sir!” Hanna almost shouted the words.

  “That’s blasphemy!” Sally said.

  “I just figure it’s the truth,” Preacher replied. “Be a mighty sorry damn place without critters to make friends with.” He stood up and stretched. “Y’all sleep sound. I’ll be around. But I’ll be pullin’ out ‘fore dawn. Y’all might not see me for a few days.” He walked off, quickly lost in the darkness.

  “The man is either a simpleton and a fool, or a highly complex person,” Frank Collins remarked.

  “He’s no fool,” his wife said softly.

  “He certainly is a very confident man,” Paul Marks said.

  “I . . . don’t believe I have ever met a man quite like him,” Patience admitted. “He is . . . delightful.”

  He was also gone when the pilgrims awakened the next morning. While they slept soundly, Preacher had built up the fire, made coffee for them, and left them a rather ominous note.

  YOU FOLKS BEST TAKE TO SLEPIN LIGHT. OR YOU GOIN TO WAKE UP SOME MORNIN AND BE

  DAID.

  While Hanna, the self-appointed cook for the group, was slicing bacon, the sound of a single shot came faintly to the gathering of young men and women.

  “Oh, dear,” Patience said. “I hope nothing has happened to Mister Preacher.”

  Hanna looked at her and smiled.

  Prudence looked at her and frowned.

  The men glanced at one another and winked.

  Their wives said to their husbands, “Now, you stop that!”

  About three miles away, Bones squatted down in the brush and looked at the dead man. He was one of Lige’s group who had gone into the woods to take care of his morning’s business and instead got him a bullet in the head.

  Bones was extra cautious this day as he crouched behind a tree, presenting no target at all. There had been something in Preacher’s voice yesterday that told him game time was all over. The mountain man was through playing; from now on, it was going to be a deadly business.

  “Is the wretch dead?” Duke Burton Sullivan yelled.

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, drat!”

  Bones inched his way back to the edge of the camp he would have sworn was as secure as a fort. He knew damn well that Preacher, as soon as he fired, had changed position. He was probably on the other side of the camp now. Waiting as silently and as menacingly as a big puma. Watching through those cold hard eyes. It was not a real comfortable feeling.

  “Everyone turn around,” Bones said. “Until we’re in a circle. Preacher’ll have no choice but to stand and fight and die, or leave. Now move out.”

  But Preacher had already left the area. He had slipped in a ravine a few hundred yards from the enemy camp and snaked over the lip a few hundred yards later. He’d had him a hunch that sooner or later Bones would wise up and do something smart for a change. It was about time for him to start using his noggin.

  “Preacher!” a man shouted from the camp. “I know you ain’t gonna answer me, but just listen. Me and two others want out. We’re through. We quit.”

  “You yeller skunks!” Lige yelled.

  “Call us whut you will, Lige. We’re quitting this here hunt. Preacher! We’re ridin’ out. We’re done. Don’t shoot for God’s sake.”

  God, Preacher thought. How come when the goin’ gits tough, sorry low-lifes like them yonder start to callin’ on God when they never give Him a thought ‘fore now? Preacher remained still and silent and waited.

  The men took a chance that Preacher wouldn’t shoot and quickly packed up, saddled up, and rode out.

  Cuts it down some, Preacher thought, watching the three men until they were out of sight.

  The men in the camp began their fanning out in an ever broadening circle and Preacher pulled out. He figured they’d be looking for him all morning, and he had some things he wanted to do. He began leaving a very faint trail, knowing that some of those in Bones and Lige’s camp were real woodsmen and wouldn’t fall for too obvious a trail. He laid the trail winding out of the valley and up into the mountains. He left a broken branch here, a scar on bare ground there, as he left the valley and headed for the high up. He’d already done all the work for the surprise he had in mind. Now if Bones and them would just come to the party.

  Three

  “He’s gettin’ tired,” Van Eaton said. “I tole you we’d wear him down after a time.”

  “I do believe you’re right, old boy,” Burton Sullivan said. “Come, come. Let’s press on.”

  Not using his spy-glass for fear the sun would reflect off the lenses, Preacher squatted up near the tree line and watched the tiny, ant-like figures pause for a time, and then move on, following his faint trail. “That’s right, boys. Just like the spider, I’m a-waitin’. So come on.”

  Preacher moved over to his already picked out and readied position and waited. Those below had sense enough to know they’d kill a horse trying to ride up, so they dismounted and were spread out, coming up in a single stretched out line, about a thousand feet wide.

  Preacher made himself comfortable and settled down for a time. He knew it would take the men below him thirty minutes or so to get where he wanted them.

  “He slipped and cut himself here!” Tige shouted. “He’s hurt and headin’ for the high up, jist like a damn animal.” Bones and Van Eaton inspected the blood. And it was blood. Preacher had found where a big puma had killed a deer and hid the carcass after eating. He carefully looked around him, for the deer was still warm, and then put the heart and liver in a piece of the animal’s hide and got the hell away from that place. He didn’t want to have to fight no mountain lion . . . not just yet anyways.

  “You mighty right about that,” Bones admitted. “He’s hurt bad, too. Look at all that blood. Come on, boys. We got him.”

  “Superb!” Jon Louviere said.

  “The blood trail goes right up this grade,” Falcon said. “I don’t know how bad he’s hurt, but he’s leakin’ some.”

  High above them, Preacher put his back against the rock wall behind him and both feet against a huge boulder. Once he got that rock rollin’, it would pick up hundreds of other rocks and give Bones and them some grief ... a lot of grief, Preacher hoped. While all the dust was fillin’ the air, Preacher would shift over to another spot he’d inspected and rigged up, and supplied with a few goodies.

  The men grew closer and Preacher smiled. “Bye, bye, boys,” he whispered, and laid into the boulder.

  There was no place to run. This high up, only a few scrub trees grew in their weird twisted shapes. They offered no protection against the tons of rocks coming down the grade at avalanche speeds.

  One thing could be said about the nobility. They were all excellent mountain climbers and all had a healthy respect for the mountains. All were uneasy about this high-up, long, and ragged, rocky grade. They’d seen terrible accidents in the Alps, and this smelled like a tragedy about to happen. They lagged back and to one side.

  Willy Steinwinder heard it first, and experienced the ground begin to tremble under his expensive hand-made boots. “Slide!” he yelled, and started running for safety, the others in his party right along with him.

  The other men looked up, horror and fear in their eyes, their dirty and unshaven faces paling at the furious sight tumbling toward them.

  A man from Tennessee glanced over at his friend, Webber, just as a melon sized rock, traveling at great speed, slammed into Webber’s face and took his head off. The blood spurted a good three feet into the air. The Tennessee man had about two seconds to scream before the rock slide buried him.

  Bones ran soundlessly to one side, Van Eaton right beside him. They got clear of the major slide, but both were pelted with fist-sized rocks and both were bloodied and bruised.

  Lige Watson lost his footing as a rock slammed into his head and sent him sprawling . . . but knocked him safely out of the major portion of the slide.

  Jimmie Cook was flattened by a huge boulder and bloody bits and pieces of him were scattered all the way down to the valley floor.

  Four men from Lige’s group were pinned down and could do nothing except scream in fright and stare in horror and wait for death to clamp its cold hand around them, which it did, leaving no trace of the men behind.

  The men were running for their lives, knowing it was hopeless; for many this was to be their last race. Behind them, shattered and bloody arms and legs were sticking grotesquely out of the dirt and rocks.

  Preacher had shifted positions as soon as the dust began to rise from the tons of rocks tumbling down the grade, and was belly down, watching the massive slide snuff the life from the bounty-hunters.

  It was over in a less than a minute. But the dust was so thick it restricted visibility for several minutes. A man from Maryland known only as Teddy staggered out onto the now barren slope and stood dumbly for a moment. Preacher’s rifle barked and Teddy began rolling down the grade, a big hole right in the center of his back.

  “The dirty son!” George Winters cussed Preacher. “He ain’t even givin’ us time to tend to the dead and wounded.”

  Bones gave the man a disgusted look and said nothing.

  Van Eaton looked at George. But like Bones, he kept his mouth shut.

  Lige’s bunch were the ones who had taken the real beating as far as loss of men. They had been so eager to trap and kill Preacher, they had forged ahead of the others and taken the brunt of the rock slide. Counting himself, Lige had about twenty men left. At least that’s what he figured. Lige wasn’t a very good counter.

  High above them, Preacher’s rifle cracked and Lige had about nineteen men left. A Delaware man dropped like a stone and began rolling down the grade. Several dozen horrified eyes watched the body slowly gain speed and finally land with a thud on the valley floor.

  Bones, Van Eaton and his men, and the dusty and the now grime-faced nobility, knew better than to try to move. They all had witnessed Preacher’s precision with a gun and knew that as long as it remained daylight, to move was to die.

  “Stay down!” Rudi Kuhlmann yelled.

  “I cain’t take no more of this!” a man from Illinois screamed. “Spencer was kin of mine. I seen them rocks knock his brains out. Damn you, Preacher!” he shouted, standing up. “I’ll kill you, Preacher. I’ll . . .”

  Die. Preacher’s rifle sang its deadly song and the Illinois man slumped to the rocky grade, on his knees, a large stain appearing on the front of his shirt. The man had a very puzzled expression on his face. “No,” he spoke for the last time. He finally fell over on his back, head pointed downward. He slid for a few yards, stopped, and was still.

  “This is the way it’s gonna be, boys,” Preacher’s faint shout reached the men. “You better face facts, you bird-brains. I know these mountains, you don’t. I know ever’ stream, ever’ crick, ever’ valley, ever’ box canyon, and ever’ cave. I could have kilt all of you a hundred times over, but I was hopin’ you’d come to your senses and clear on out and leave me be. Now what’s it gonna be?”

  “I’m through, Preacher!” a man yelled. “You let me go and I’ll never come back.”

  “Go on, then.”

  “Nelson,” Van Eaton said.

  “Let him go,” Bones said. “More for us when the end comes.”

  “If we’re alive when the end comes,” Van Eaton replied. “You and me got no choice in the matter. This is personal with Preacher, now.”

  “This ain’t worth no five dollars a day,” another man yelled. “I’m headin’ out with Nelson.”

  “Fine,” Preacher said.

  “Sal,” Van Eaton said.

  “I’ve had it!” one of Lige’s men shouted. “You hear me, Preacher? I’m haulin’ my ashes back to New York State.”

  “Git gone, then.”

  “I’ll see you in hell, Preacher!” another of Lige’s men shouted. “But I don’t want no more of this.”

  “Tell your mommy hello and stay close by her side,” Preacher yelled. “I ‘spect she’ll be glad to see her wanderin’ boy come home.”

  “You mighty right ‘bout that.”

  “Anyone else?” Preacher questioned.

  No one else chose to leave. Preacher knew that these staying behind were the hardcases. There would be no give in them and no quittin’. They were in this until the end.

  Lige slowly counted his men. Near as he could figure it, counting himself, out of the original bunch, sixteen were all that was left. He shook his head. “I wouldn’t have believed it possible,” he muttered.

  “Did you say something?” Wiley Steinwinder questioned the man.

  “It just ain’t reasonable that one man could do this much damage,” Lige whispered.