that was sheathed on his hip to cut off two pieces from his long underwear. It wasn’t easy to do, because his left arm was still partially numb and he couldn’t use it very well. He managed to wad one of the pieces of woolen fabric into a ball and shove it into the exit wound. He couldn’t reach the place where the ball had gone in with his right hand, though, because it was around on his back. He had to grit his teeth even harder and force his left arm to work. It took a few minutes that seemed more like an hour, but finally he pushed the wadded-up cloth into the bullet hole.
That would help slow down the bleeding. He knew if he lost too much blood, he would pass out, and if that happened, chances were he would never wake up again. His enemies would slip up on him and cut his throat.
He didn’t know how many there were. The shooting had stopped now, but from the sound of the volley a few minutes earlier, he figured five or six.
Nor did he know who they were. He had spent five decades on this earth, as testified to by the leathery skin of his face and the numerous silver strands in his dark hair and beard, and few men lived that long without making enemies. Preacher had probably made more than his share, although he had also left many of them dead behind him, either in shallow graves or out in the open for the scavengers and the elements to take care of. It depended on how put out with them he’d been when he killed them.
But there were still plenty of folks out there carrying grudges against him, and obviously he had crossed trails with some of them today.
Unless the bushwhackers were just no-good thieves who wanted to kill him and take his outfit. He had a good horse, a sizable batch of supplies on the pack-horse he’d been leading, and some fine weapons. No pelts yet; it was too early in the season for that. These days, not many people would bother stealing furs, either. The mountains weren’t trapped out yet, far from it, but the fur trade wasn’t what it used to be. The last great rendezvous had been eight years earlier, in ’42. A lot of the mountain men had gone back east to be with their long-neglected families. Others had headed west to look for gold in California.
But Preacher had no intention of leaving the mountains for good. When his time came, he intended to die here.
Maybe today.
He listened intently. The woods were quiet. The shooting had scared off all the animals. If the bushwhackers started skulking around, he would hear them.
He was disgusted with himself for letting somebody shoot him in the back like that. He didn’t know where they’d been hidden or how carefully they had concealed themselves, but he didn’t care. He should have known they were there, lying in wait for him.
Was a time when he would have known, because Dog would have smelled the sons of bitches, and Horse probably would have, too. But the big wolf-like cur was gone, and so was the gray stallion that looked a lot like Preacher’s current mount.
Over the years, Dog had tangled with outlaws, savages, grizzlies, panthers, and lobo wolves. He had gotten chewed up, shot, half-drowned, and mostly froze. None of that had killed him, but time had. The years always won in the end.
Horse, at least, was still alive as far as Preacher knew. He had left the stallion back in Missouri with an old friend who had promised to make Horse’s final years as comfortable and pleasant as possible. Preacher wasn’t sure he had done the right thing, though. Being put out to pasture was a hard destiny. Maybe he should have brought Horse back to the mountains with him one last time.
If he had, he woudn’t be sitting here with a couple of bullet holes in him, he told himself. Because Horse’s keen senses would have alerted him that there were enemies nearby.
Off to his left a ways, something rustled in the brush.
A grin that was half-grimace drew Preacher’s lips back from his teeth. He reached to his waist and drew out one of the Dragoons. It was a fine weapon, well balanced, with a seven-and-a-half-inch octagonal barrel and a cylinder that held six .44 caliber loads, although Preacher always left one chamber empty for the hammer to rest on. Engraved on that blued steel cylinder was a scene of Texas Rangers battling Comanches. Preacher figured it was based on the fight at Bandera Pass a few years back. Captain Jack Hays, who’d been in command of the troop of Rangers involved, had told Preacher all about that ruckus one time when he was down in San Antonio de Bexar.
Yes, sir, a mighty fine gun. It shot straight and true, and between the two revolvers and the flintlock rifle, he had eleven rounds ready to go. More than enough to kill every one of those damn bushwhackers.
Of course, they’d probably kill him, too, Preacher reflected, but they wouldn’t live to brag about it.
Another rustle, to his right this time. They had him surrounded. And they were so confident that they had him trapped, one of them was bold enough to call out, “We’re gonna kill you, old man, if you ain’t dead already. You got anything to say?”
Preacher didn’t respond, except to draw his other Dragoon. His left arm was still a little weak, but he was able to hold the revolver fairly steady.
“You should’ve minded your own business back at that trading post, old man. You must be soft in the head. Who in his right mind would kick up such a fuss over a damned Indian whore?”
So that was why they wanted him dead, Preacher thought. They had trailed him all the way out here, a week or more, over some fracas at a trading post? He supposed that the fella whose guts he’d spilled on the ground meant something to them. A friend or maybe even kinfolk. Even so, the man had been a sorry son of a bitch, hardly worth dying over. Seemed like they were bound and determined to do just that, though.
“Shut up, Riley,” another voice, older and harsher, said. “That’s enough. Let’s get this done. You boys ready?”
Preacher was ready. He braced his back against the tree trunk and raised both Dragoons in front of him.
That was when a cry rang out through the trees, half-laugh, half-scream, a jagged, nerve-scraping sound that was one of the craziest things Preacher had ever heard.
Chapter 2
