Preacher's Assault

help the injuries. He intended to rub a healthy dollop of the stuff on his left shoulder and arm where the bear had clawed him. That arm was already getting a little stiff.

Lorenzo pulled Dog in, got the rope off him, and tossed it back down to Preacher. “There you go,” he called. “Now get outta that hole in the ground. I don’t like this place. That bear might come back.”

Preacher thought that was unlikely, but he didn’t waste any time getting the rope fastened around him, tucking his rifle under his arm. Horse backed up, taking most of Preacher’s weight as he climbed out of the wash.

“Looks like that varmint got you pretty good,” Lorenzo said as he gestured toward Preacher’s wounded shoulder. “Get that shirt off and we’ll clean it up.”

Using water from their canteens, Lorenzo got the blood washed away. Preacher saw that the scratches were deep enough to be gory and painful. He took the medicinal ointment from his saddlebags and rubbed a handful of the black, foul-smelling stuff on the wounds, then gave Dog the same treatment.

“That’ll help heal up them scratches?” Lorenzo asked.

Preacher nodded. “Injuns been usin’ things like this for hundreds of years. They generally know what they’re doin’.”

“Didn’t you tell me that some of ’em will chant songs and dance around and then claim it gave ’em some sort of magic that’ll stop a rifle ball?”

“Well . . . I never said they got ever’thing right,” Preacher drawled.

He pulled his ripped and bloodstained shirt back on and they mounted up. After taking a good look at the sky and judging how much daylight was left, Preacher said, “Let’s ride along this wash a little farther. I want to see if that bear collapsed and died.”

“You sure we got time?”

“I’m gonna take the time. I made a promise to Roland, and I intend to keep it if I can. I’d like to be able to tell him I saw that beast’s carcass with my own eyes.”

A short distance farther on, the arroyo branched out into a maze of gullies and little canyons. The tracks had petered out as the floor of the wash became rockier, so they couldn’t be sure which way the bear had gone.

Preacher reined in and sighed. “Might as well head back to the springs,” he told Lorenzo. “We don’t have the time to waste lookin’ for that ornery critter. It’d take a couple hours to search all them gullies and canyons.”

“You figure he’s dead or soon will be, anyway, don’t you?” the old-timer asked.

Preacher nodded. “As many times as he’s been shot, as much damage as we’ve done to him, I don’t see how he could survive for much longer. He smelled like he was rottin’ away from the inside out.”

“Maybe that’s why he’s so damn ornery.”

“Could be,” Preacher agreed. He swung Horse’s head around. “Let’s go.”

He wished he was as confident as he had sounded when he answered Lorenzo’s question. The grizzly had to be dying. It simply had to be.

But Preacher sure wished he could have seen the thing’s carcass.

The sun had set but the western sky was still awash with gold and orange light as the two riders approached the springs near the bend of the Cimarron. Preacher had been expecting to spot the wagons up ahead, but so far he hadn’t seen them.

A vague uneasiness began to stir inside him. It was possible Roland had ordered the men to move the wagons to another location, but Preacher had told the young man to stay put at the springs. He couldn’t think of any reason why Roland would have gone against that suggestion . . . unless they were trying to get away from trouble of some sort.

As they drew closer to the springs, Preacher could tell the wagons definitely weren’t there. Lorenzo saw that as well and asked, “Where the hell did they go?”

“I don’t know,” Preacher said, “but I don’t like it. Come on!”

He heeled Horse into a run. The big gray stallion responded instantly, pulling ahead of the mount carrying Lorenzo. Preacher pulled his rifle from its sheath as he galloped toward the springs.

A shot rang out from the scrubby trees along the river. The ball kicked up dust a considerable distance in front of Horse. Preacher was about to veer the stallion in that direction and return the fire when he heard a man’s voice shouting, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! It’s Preacher!”

That was Roland Bartlett, Preacher realized. He headed for the trees, convinced something had gone wrong while he was gone.

By the time he reached the trees with Lorenzo trailing about fifty yards behind him, several men had emerged from their cover and were waiting for him. Preacher recognized them as some of the bullwhackers. They were grim-faced and carried their rifles. One of them had a bloody bandage tied around his arm, and another man sported a similar binding on his thigh. They had been in a fight, no doubt about that.

Roland limped out to meet Preacher as the mountain man swung down from Horse’s back. He had a bandage tied around his right calf. His face was pale with pain.

“What happened here?” Preacher asked. “Where are the wagons?”

“Gone,” Roland replied in a choked voice.

“I can see that, damn it. Who took ’em?” Preacher knew it probably hadn’t been the Comanches. Indians didn’t have any use for wagons or slow-moving oxen.

“It was that man Garity and the other thieves with him. They must have been following us, just waiting for a good chance to jump us again.”

“Garity,” Preacher said. The name left a bad taste in his mouth. “I knew him and his bunch might still be around here, but I figured it was more likely they’d gone on to Santa Fe or wherever the hell else it was they were headed.”