Today, of course, Uncle Dan had proved to be even handier than usual by blowing that Pawnee’s head off before he could ventilate Preacher’s hide with an arrow.
The two men rode roughly parallel with the river, through the rolling hills about a mile south of it. The Pawnee and the Cheyenne liked to lurk in these parts, waiting for unwary travelers to come along, and they were worse along the river. Of course, you could run into hostiles just about anywhere out here, as Preacher and Uncle Dan had seen with their own eyes today.
They didn’t encounter any more trouble before nightfall, but they made a cold camp anyway and had a skimpy supper of jerky and hardtack. The two men took turns standing guard during the night.
Other than the sounds of small animals, the prairie was quiet and peaceful, and there had to be about a million stars up there in the deep black heavens, Preacher thought as he lay in his blankets and gazed upward briefly before dozing off. The stars were like jewels, shining with a brilliant intensity, and Preacher felt as if he could just reach up and pluck them out of the sky. He would be a rich man if he could do that.
But he wouldn’t be a free man anymore, not with the sort of freedom that he had craved all his life, and he wouldn’t trade that for all the diamonds and emeralds and rubies in the world.
The next day, they pushed on south and east toward St. Louis. Around mid-morning, Preacher reined in suddenly and leveled an arm to point at the ground ahead of them.
“Look at those tracks,” he told Uncle Dan.
The old-timer had brought his mount to a stop, too. Now he edged the horse forward and leaned over in the saddle to study the faint markings on the ground.
“Unshod ponies,” he said after a moment. “Looks like about twenty of ’em, too. That’d be Standin’ Elk and his glory boys, just like ol’ Bent Stick said.”
Preacher’s eyes narrowed. “Headin’ north toward the river, I’d say. Maybe figure on ambushin’ a flatboat or some pilgrims who come along on horseback, headin’ for the mountains.”
Uncle Dan spat on the ground. “None of our business. Anybody venturin’ into this here country had damned well better know there’s Injuns about. It’s ever’ man’s duty to keep his own eyes open and his powder dry.”
“You’re right,” Preacher said. “Looks like Standin’ Elk and his war party passed through here early this mornin’. I’m glad we missed ’em.”
“You and me both, Preacher.”
Preacher lifted the reins and heeled Horse into motion. With Dog bounding out ahead, as usual, and the pack animals trailing them, the two men rode across the trail left behind by the Pawnee war party.
They didn’t see any other signs of human beings until later in the day. The solitude was magnificent, with just the two men and their horses—insignificant specks, really—moving leisurely across the vast, open prairie. Eagles cruised through the arching bowl of blue sky. Antelope raced by, bounding over the landscape with infinite grace and beauty. Herds of buffalo as seemingly endless as a brown sea drifted slowly this way and that, following the grass and their instincts. Preacher always felt more at home in the mountains than anywhere else, but the prairie held its own appeal, too.
Came a time, though, late that afternoon, when Uncle Dan pointed to the northeast, toward the river, and said, “Look at that dust up yonder.”
Preacher nodded. “Saw it ten minutes ago.”
“Well, why in blazes didn’t you say somethin’ about it then?”
“Wanted to see how long it’d take you to notice it,” Preacher replied with a grin.
“Uh-huh. And if you hadn’t spotted it first, you wouldn’t admit it, would you? Let a feeble old man beat you to it.”
“You’re about as feeble as a grizzly bear. You are old, though.”
“You will be, too, one o’ these days, if you live long enough. Which means you better stop mouthin’ off to your elders. Now, what’re we gonna do about that dust?”
“Why do we have to do anything about it?” Preacher asked as he shrugged his shoulders. “Probably just some buffs driftin’ along the river.”
“You know better’n that,” Uncle Dan said. “Buffler move too slow to raise a cloud o’ dust except when they’re stampedin’, and if that was the case, there’d be even more of it in the air. No, I seen dust like that before. It comes from ox hooves and wagon wheels.”
“A wagon train, in other words.”
“Damn right.”
Preacher sighed. The same thought had occurred to him, but he had pushed it out of his head. He didn’t want anything else interfering with the mission that was taking him back east to St. Louis.
Now that Uncle Dan had put the problem into words, though, Preacher knew he couldn’t very well ignore it.
“And you know what them pilgrims may be headed right into,” Uncle Dan went on. “They keep movin’ upriver, they’re liable to run smack-dab into Standin’ Elk and that Pawnee war party.”
“They’re bound to know they might encounter hostiles. You said it your own self this mornin’, Uncle Dan. Anybody who’s gonna come out here on the frontier needs to keep his eyes open and his powder dry.”
The old-timer ran his fingers through his beard and scratched at his jaw. “Yeah, I did say that, didn’t I? But I was thinkin’ more o’ fur trappers and river men. Fellas who can take care o’ themselves. There’s liable to be women n’ kids with that wagon train.”
Preacher figured it was a safe bet there would be women and children with the wagon train. He had seen it happening all too often in recent years. With the population growing back east, folks were starting to get crowded out. They wanted to come west to find new land and new opportunities. He supposed he couldn’t blame them all that much. He had done pretty much the same thing himself, after all.
But he hadn’t dragged a wife and a passel of young’uns with him when he lit out for the tall and uncut. In fact, he’d been nothing but a youngster himself, with no one else to be responsible for. He couldn’t imagine a man packing up his family and bringing them out here.
These days, a lot of men did just that, though. Preacher didn’t figure the trend would stop any time soon, either. Once it had started, trying to stop it was like standing in front of an avalanche and hollering, “Whoa!”
“You think we ought to go warn ’em,” he said now to Uncle Dan. “Tell ’em to be on the lookout for Standin’ Elk.”
“Seems like the neighborly thing to do.”
“I don’t recollect askin’ a bunch of immigrants to be my neighbors,” Preacher pointed out. “Fact of the matter is, I wish they’d all stayed back east where they belong.”
“Wishin’ that’s like tryin’ to push water back up a waterfall,” Uncle Dan said, which worked just as well as thinking of the tide of immigration as an avalanche, Preacher decided. “We won’t have to go all that far out of our way, and it won’t take that long. We can just tell ’em about them Pawnee and then go on our way.” Uncle Dan paused. “Or they might invite us to stay the night with ’em. Might be nice to eat a woman-cooked meal for a change, or unlimber that fiddle o’ mine and play a few tunes with some other fellas.”