“You . . . old coot,” Preacher whispered. “Where . . .”
“You’re in one of the wagons,” Lorenzo answered, telling Preacher what he had already figured out. “We’re on our way to Santa Fe.”
“How . . . long . . .”
“Were you out? More’n two days. It was three nights ago you killed that ol’ bear. Of course, you ain’t been out cold the whole time. You’d come to ever’ now and then and start to ravin’ about this and that, but this is the first time you’ve made any sense. You was just so beat up and lost so much blood, it took you a while to rest up and start to recuperate. You’re still a long way from bein’ able to get up and dance a jig,” Lorenzo added.
“How did you . . . find us?”
“Well, we sat around them springs for a couple o’ days. The fellas decided you wasn’t comin’ back for us, so we set off on foot along the trail. The gent who was wounded the worst had passed away by then, so we buried him and the rest didn’t want to stay there no more. The hurt ones claimed they was healed up enough to walk, so they did.”
“And you found . . . the wagons?”
“Hard to miss ’em, there was so many damn buzzards circlin’ overhead. Dead bodies ever’where, and folks tied to wagon wheels about to die o’ thirst and hunger and exposure. We got ever’body loose, doctored up them what needed it, and started tryin’ to figure out what to do next. We didn’t have enough bullwhackers to handle all the teams, so we doubled up on some of ’em. Hitched two wagons together and used two teams to pull ’em, so it’d only take one man. That was Roland’s idea, and so far it’s been working.”
“Roland . . . he’s all right?”
“I’ll go fetch him,” Lorenzo said. “He’ll want to know you’re awake.”
Preacher started to tell the old-timer to wait. He wanted to find out about Casey, and Horse and Dog, too. But Lorenzo had already swung a leg over the tailgate. He dropped out of the wagon and disappeared.
Preacher lay there and waited. There was nothing else he could do. He felt as weak as a day-old kitten. His head was fairly clear, though, and he was grateful for that. With all the punishment he had absorbed, he could have wound up a drooling idiot.
Of course, some might say he wasn’t far from that at his best, he thought wryly.
A few minutes later, Roland climbed into the wagon, followed by Lorenzo. The young man had his left arm in a sling, and Preacher could tell by the bulkiness under his shirt that bandages were wrapped around Roland’s wounded shoulder. He knelt beside Preacher and smiled.
“I’m glad to see you’ve come back to us, Preacher. I was worried that bear had done too much damage to you, on top of everything else.”
“I’ll be . . . fine,” Preacher told him. “Just need to . . . rest up a mite more.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” Roland said with a nod. “You’ll be glad to know, too, that your horse and your dog are fine. They came into Garity’s camp looking for you, and we’ve been taking care of them.”
“I’m . . . obliged for that,” Preacher said. Between what Lorenzo and then Roland had told him, he was pretty well up to date on what had happened since he blacked out . . . except for one thing.
“Where’s . . . Casey?” he asked.
The smile vanished from Roland’s face and was replaced with a bleak expression. “We don’t know,” he said grimly. “We never found Garity, either. I think he got away, Preacher . . . and he took Casey with him.”
CHAPTER 24
Two days later, Preacher sat on a crate inside the front of the lead wagon in the caravan. The canvas flaps had been tied back so he could get some air and see where they were going. He felt much stronger. Rest and food had done wonders for him, along with his own sturdy constitution. He had always been fast to recover from injury. He would have thought everything was going to be all right . . . if he hadn’t been consumed with worry about Casey.
He and Roland had spent a lot of time talking about that bloody night when the grizzly bear had come rampaging into the outlaw camp. The last Preacher had seen anything of Garity, he had kicked the man underneath the wagon where Casey was tied to one of the wheels. Garity’s right arm had been broken, but other than that he was all right.
It was possible, they had decided, that while all eyes were on Preacher’s epic battle with the bear, Garity had gotten hold of a knife with his left hand and cut the ropes holding Casey to the wheel. If he had acted quickly enough, he could have then clamped his good hand over her mouth to keep her from crying out and dragged her under the wagon with him. If that was what happened, he had probably knocked her out to keep her from struggling and crawled away from the wagons into the darkness, dragging Casey with him.
Where Garity had gone from there, no one knew. After Lorenzo and the other men arrived to set the prisoners free, Roland had searched frantically all around the site of the outlaw camp. He had found some horse tracks and surmised that Garity had left Casey hidden somewhere while he snuck back and stole one of the outlaws’ mounts. From there, they could have gone anywhere.
But the only destination that really made sense, Roland thought—and Preacher agreed with him—was Santa Fe.
Garity could have forced Casey to splint and bind up his broken arm, but he would need real medical attention sooner or later, and Santa Fe was the closest place he could get it. He obviously had friends there—he’d mentioned knowing a man who ran a whorehouse and probably planned to hole up there while he recovered, as well as going ahead with his plan to sell Casey to the proprietor of the place. If Garity could do that, he would salvage what had otherwise been a disaster.
Since Santa Fe was the closest outpost of civilization, the wagons had to proceed there as planned, anyway, but now there was another goal.
