He reined in and called, “Come on back, Dog!”
The big cur stopped and looked back at Preacher. He whined a little.
“I know, you got the scent and you don’t want to give up the trail,” Preacher said. “But I don’t think we’re gonna find that varmint any time soon and I don’t want to be away from the wagons all day. That bastard Garity and his bunch could still be out here somewhere. Maybe the bear’ll just keep goin’ and not bother us no more.”
Dog barked.
“Yeah, I ain’t convinced of that, neither, but we can’t rule it out. Now come on, you fleabitten old coot.”
Dog rejoined him reluctantly, glaring so fiercely that Preacher had to chuckle.
“Yeah, I know, you could call me a fleabitten old coot, too, if you wanted to. I’m damn sure gettin’ there.”
They angled southwest, since the caravan would have put a few more miles behind it. Preacher hoped to intercept the wagons, but when he and his companions reached the Santa Fe Trail, the canvas-covered vehicles were nowhere in sight.
Preacher swung down from the saddle and knelt to study the ruts. The dust in them had been disturbed recently. He glanced at Dog and said, “Looks like they beat us here. They’re makin’ good time. Probably be at Mullberry Creek crossin’ before the day’s over.”
Confident that the wagons were in front of him, Preacher let Horse rest for a little while, then mounted up again and rode after the caravan. He could see the silvery ribbon of the Arkansas River off to his left as he followed the trail.
By early afternoon he spotted the wagons in front of him. Urging Horse to a slightly faster pace, he soon caught up. The bullwhackers paused in their incessant yelling and cursing to wave greetings to him as he rode past the wagons.
Lorenzo, Casey, Bartlett, and Roland were riding together in front of the wagons. They heard Preacher coming and reined in to wait for him to catch up. As the mountain man brought Horse to a stop, Bartlett asked, “Well, did you find the carcass of that bear?”
Preacher shook his head. “Nope. He was wounded, sure enough. I found blood to prove that. But he was still movin’ just fine, headin’ north. I followed the trail for several miles before I turned around and came back.”
“You think he’s going off to die?” Roland said.
“Don’t know that,” Preacher replied. “Fact is, I’ve got a hunch he wasn’t hurt that bad. But I’m hopin’ he’s been stung enough by our guns to teach him he ought to leave us alone.”
Bartlett frowned. “I wish he was dead. That way we’d know he couldn’t threaten us anymore.”
“Even if he was, there’d still be plenty of other things you got to look out for.” Preacher nodded toward the edge of the trail. “Like that rattler over yonder.”
The others looked where he indicated. Lorenzo said, “Lord have mercy. That there is the biggest snake I ever seen.”
Coiled in the short grass at the edge of the trail was a thick-bodied rattlesnake. It was watching them intently with its inhuman eyes. Preacher moved Horse a little closer, and the rattles on the end of the snake’s tail started making their eerie buzzing sound as they vibrated.
Horse shied a little. “Take it easy,” Preacher told the stallion as he pulled his rifle from its sheath. “I know you don’t want to get any closer to that varmint. I don’t blame you.”
He cocked the flintlock, drew a bead with it, and squeezed the trigger. As the rifle boomed, the snake’s head, which had raised in a threatening posture, exploded in a spray of gore as the lead ball struck it. The thick, ropy body immediately uncoiled and began whipping about in death convulsions. Casey made a noise of disgust and looked away.
“See, that’s just what I mean,” Preacher said as he lowered the flintlock. “Out here, if it ain’t one thing that’ll kill you, it’s somethin’ else.”
The wagons reached the Mullberry Creek crossing of the Arkansas River late that afternoon, late enough so that Preacher decided it would be better to wait until the next morning to ford the river.
Nobody had forgotten how close the grizzly had come to the camp, so even though Preacher didn’t believe the bear was anywhere nearby, the guard was doubled again and those who slept did so lightly.
After a quiet night, the bullwhackers hitched the teams to the wagons and drove them into the broad, slow-moving river. The surface of the water sparkled in the early morning sun. The wagons crossed without incident and headed southwest with full water barrels, following the ruts of the Cimarron Cutoff that Preacher pointed out.
The landscape soon proved Preacher right again. It wasn’t long before the terrain grew flatter, the air hotter and drier than it had been on the other side of the river. The grass was sparse, and there were long stretches of rocky, sandy ground that didn’t look like it would ever be good for much of anything.
As Casey rode next to Preacher, she asked, “Nobody lives here in this wasteland, do they?”
“You’d be surprised,” he told her. “There are a lot of Comanch’ in these parts.”
“Comanche Indians, you mean?”
“That’s right.”
“Like those Pawnees we saw not long after we left Independence?” Leeman Bartlett said.
Preacher had to smile at that. “The Pawnee are good fighters, and I wouldn’t want ’em mad at me if I could avoid it, but to say that they’re like the Comanch’ . . .” He shook his head. “There ain’t no other Injuns like the Comanch’. The Sioux are probably better when it comes to ridin’, and the Blackfeet got ever’body beat when it comes to bein’ plumb mean, and the Apaches can sneak around better’n any of the other tribes . . . but the Comanch’ can do all of that, almost as well as them other tribes. Pound for pound, I reckon they’re the most dangerous critters I ever seen, including that grizzly bear.”
“Are we going to run into any of them?” Roland asked. He had started scanning the horizon nervously as Preacher spoke.
“It wouldn’t surprise me a bit.”
“Will they attack us?”
The mountain man shrugged. “That depends on how many of them there are . . . and what sort of mood they’re in. All Injuns like to barter, and that includes the Comanches. There’s a good chance they’ll let us trade some bright-colored geegaws for safe passage through their land. Or they might decide to attack us and try to take the wagons and everything in ’em. We just won’t know until the time comes.”
From the worried looks on the faces of his companions, Preacher knew it would be all right with them if they didn’t encounter any Comanches on the journey. He felt the same way . . . but he didn’t expect it to happen.
When they made camp, Leeman Bartlett asked, “Should we forego having a fire tonight? It might be wise not to announce our presence to those savages.”
Preacher shook his head. “Go ahead and build a fire. Build a big one. It won’t make any difference. You can’t take this many wagons through the desert without the Comanch’ knowin’ you’re here. Two or three people might be able to dodge ’em by layin’ low and makin’ cold camps, but not a party this big. They’ll know.”
“Then we might as well make them think there are a great many of us,” Bartlett said. “I’ll tell the men to walk around a lot and make it look like there are more of them than there really are.”
“Now that’s not a bad idea,” Preacher said.
That evening, Lorenzo asked Preacher, “What you said about two or three folks bein’ able to slip through here by layin’ low and not buildin’ no fires . . . is that what you intended for us to do if it was just you and me and Casey?”
Preacher shook his head. Keeping his voice low, he said, “Hell, no. If it was just the three of us, I never would’ve brought us this way. We’d have taken the northern route, gone over to Bent’s Fort, and then cut down to Santa Fe through Raton Pass. Wouldn’t have been any trouble on horseback.”