crawled up to the crest, looking down at the horror below.
Tied by his ankles from a limb, head down over a small fire, a naked man trembled in the last moments of life. His head and face and shoulders were blackened cooked meat. The mutilated bodies of other men lay dead. One was tied to the wheel of the burned wagon. He had been tortured. All had died hard.
“You said you heared gunfire ’bout two hours ago,” Preacher whispered. “You was right. Gawdamned ‘Pache trick, that yonder is. They come up this far ever’ now and then, raidin’ the Utes.”
“How did they get a wagon this far?” Smoke asked.
“Sheer stubbornness. But I hope they weren’t no wimmin with ’em. If so. Gawd help ’em.”
The men waited for more than an hour, moving only when necessary, talking in low tones.
Finally, Preacher stirred. “They gone. Let’s go down and prowl some, give the people a Christian burial. Say a word or two.” He spat on the ground. “Gawddamned heathens.”
Smoke found a shovel, handle intact, on the ground beside the charred wagon. He dug a long, shallow grave, burying the remains of the men in one common grave, covering the mound with rocks to keep wolves and coyotes from digging up the bodies and eating them.
Preacher walked the area, cutting sign, trying to determine if anyone got away. Smoke rummaged through what was left of the wagon. He found what he didn’t want to find.
“Preacher!”
The mountain man turned. Smoke held up a dress he’d found in a trunk, then another dress, smaller than the first.
Preacher shook his shaggy head as he walked. “Gawd have mercy on they souls,” he said, fingering the gingham. “Man’s a damned fool bringin’ wimmin-folk out here.”
“Maybe one of them got away?” Smoke said hopefully.
“Tain’t likely. But we got to look.”
Almost on the verge of giving up after an hour’s searching, Smoke made one more sweep of the area. Then he saw the faint shoeprints, mixed in with moccasin tracks. The prints were small; a child, or a woman.
“Good Lord!” Preacher said. “Mayhaps she got clear and run away.” He circled the tracks until he got them separated. “Don’t see none followin’ her. Get the horses, son. We got to find her ’fore dark.”
It did not take them long to track her. She was hiding behind some brush, at the mouth of a canyon. Movement of the brush gave her away.
“Girl,” Preacher said, “you come on out, now. You ’mong friends.”
Weeping was the only reply from behind the brush. Smoke could see one high-top button shoe. A dainty shoe.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” he said.
More weeping.
“They’s a snake crawlin’ in there with you,” Preacher lied.
A young woman bolted from behind the brush as if propelled from a cannon barrel, straight into the arms of Smoke. With all her softness pressing against him, she lifted her head and looked at him through eyes of light blue, a heart-shaped face framed with hair the color of wheat. They stood for several long heartbeats, gazing at each other, neither of them speaking.
Preacher snorted. “This ain’t no place for romance. Come on. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Preacher griped and groused, but the young woman insisted upon returning to where the members of her family were buried. She stood for a few moments, looking down at the long, narrow grave.
“My aunt?” she questioned.
“Looks like the savages took her,” Preacher said.
“What will they do to her?”
“Depends a lot on her. Was she a looker?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Was she a handsome woman?”
“She was beautiful.”
Preacher shrugged. “Then they’ll probably keep her.” He did not tell the young woman her aunt might have been — by now — raped repeatedly and then tortured to death. “They’ll work her hard, beat her some, but she’ll most probably be all right. Some buck with no squaw will bed her down. Then agin, they might trade her off for a horse or rifle.”
“Or they might kill her?” she said.
“Yep.”
“You don’t believe I’ll ever see her again, do you?”
“No, Missy, I don’t. It just ain’t likely. Down in Arizony Territory, back ’bout ’51 or ’52, I think it was, the Oatman family tried to cross the desert alone. The Yavapais kilt the parents and took the kids. A boy and two gals. The boy run off, one of the gals died. But Olive Oatman lived as a slave with the Injuns for years. They tattooed her chin ’fore she was finally traded off for goods. It’s bes’ to put your aunty out of your mind. I seen lots of white wimmin lived with Injuns for years; too ashamed to come back to they own kind even ifn they could.”
The young woman was silent.
