“Oh?”
“Yes. You go kill a rattlesnake and bring it back here. And good luck finding one in this rain.”
“And watch out for them Pawnee,” Blackjack added with a smile. “Way I see it, most of them hightailed back to camp. But I figure they’s maybe fifty or so who stayed behind with revenge on their minds. And they’d just love to find you ridin’ out there alone.”
“What a bunch of friends I got,” Preacher muttered, making another walk-around of the circled wagons, slopping through the muddy and churned-up ground, the rain beating down on his hat. “Smart alecks, all of them.” Then he grinned, knowing that a man could not have better friends than those who accompanied him on this journey.
He stopped by a wagon when he heard a hard, wracking cough. Squatting down, he looked at the three women huddled on the ground under the wagon bed. “Get that woman inside the wagon and get her warm,” Preacher ordered. “If you got any ginger root, make some tea. She’s on the verge of pneumonia. Strip ’er down to the buff and rub her good; get that blood to the surface and keep her warm. Pneumonia’s a killer out here. Oncest you get her dry, warm, and full of ginger tea, add some clove to it and she’ll go right to sleep. She’s got to rest.”
When the men who were to be called mountain men had first arrived in the west, they had discovered that the “poor ignorant savages,” as whites called the Indians, knew a hell of a lot about medicine and healing of the body.
Perhaps one of the reasons the breed of men called mountain men were considered so tough is that they just simply would not succumb to illness. No matter how they felt, they just kept on going.
Rain continued to pound the pioneers during all that wet and gray day. The only bright spot was that the Pawnee had chosen not to launch another attack. Charlie and Steals Pony rode out about noon and completed a wide circle around the area. The Pawnee were indeed gone.
“They headed north,” Charlie said, huddled under a canvas, his hands clutching a tin cup full of hot coffee. “Then they cut west. I reckon they figured the rain would cover their tracks, and it would have in another hour or so. That bunch of revenge-seekers will be hittin’ us somewheres along the Platte.”
“I most certainly will not do that!” a woman’s voice declared across the muddy circle to the men.
“Suit yourself, lady,” Steals Pony said, and came walking over to the small group of men.
“What was all that about?” Preacher asked, as the Delaware poured a cup of coffee.
“The woman said her child had gotten into poison ivy and asked me what to do about it. I told her to strip the child and dunk her into a mud puddle. That would help relieve the irritation. She refused.”
“It works,” Snake said.
“Of course it does,” Steals Pony said. “But I will find some goldenseal when the rain ends and that works better. Even though I was raised by whites back east, I have always felt that whites are sadly lacking in basic knowledge. It’s amazing to me that the white people have progressed as far as they have. Present company not included, of course.”
“Folks got things too easy back east,” Snake opined. “I was told about something called a train. Runs on steel tracks. Carries people at fantastic speeds. Ain’t no horse in the world can keep up with it. Makes my mind boggle to think about goin’ that fast. What’s the point in it?”
“If it goes that fast, how do they stop the damn thing?” Charlie asked.
“I ain’t got no idea,” Snake replied. “Drag something behind it, I reckon. I don’t even know how they make it go no-place. I hope I don’t never see one of them things. I might decide to shoot it.” He was thoughtful for a moment. “If I could figure out where its vital organs was.”
“It runs on steam,” Eudora said, walking up with Faith beside her. “Burning wood heats the water and the water produces steam which turns the wheels. It’s quite the coming thing. Someday the trains will be out here, too.”
“You actual ride on one?” Ring asked her.
“Oh, yes,” Faith said. “It’s quite an exhilarating experience.”
“Faster than a horse?” Charlie asked.
“Oh, my, yes! Ten times faster.” It was a slight exaggeration on her part.
“Ten times!” Snake said. “Why, that’d suck the breath right out of you.”
“It is a thrilling ride,” Eudora said; then the ladies walked away.
“Do you believe all that?” Charlie asked.
“Yeah,” Preacher said. “Woman told me about it a couple years ago.” He didn’t bring up the story about a man over in France who flew through the air hanging in a basket under a balloon. That would have been just a bit too much for anybody to believe.
Preacher wasn’t even so sure he believed that one himself.
10
Preacher awakened long before the others and looked up into a brilliant star-filled sky. He lay in his blankets and smiled. The storms were past and they could move on. Under the hot sun, the plains would dry faster than a man unfamiliar with it would believe. In two days they’d be choking with dust and bitching about the heat.
Preacher had no way of knowing it, but in the spring of 1839, back in Peoria, Illinois, Thomas Farnham and thirteen other men were just leaving with a pack train, heading for the Willamette Valley in Oregon Territory. Both Preacher and Farnham were riding into destiny. That spring, the population of the United States was sixteen million people. Ninety-nine percent of it was east of the Mississippi River.
The people had to move west. The east was getting too crowded. And the Indians would be caught up in the middle. Later in the year of 1839, the horrible Trail of Tears would take place, when the U.S. government would force many thousands of Indians from their homes in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee, to the Indian country in what would someday be called Oklahoma. Several thousand men, women, and children, of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole—the Five Civilized tribes—would die on the forced march.
“The women are up to something.” Steals Pony whispered the caution to Preacher at the cookfire.
Preacher got a plate of food and a cup of coffee and he and the Delaware sat down on a log to eat. “What?”
“Don’t know. But I think it has something to do with the dead women.”
Charlie Burke and Snake came up, both carrying plates piled high with food. One thing could be said with absolute certainty about the mountain men: they could all eat enough for two or three men.
“The women is puttin’ together a choir,” Snake said, then filled his mouth with food.
“A choir?” Preacher looked up. “What the hell for?”
Ring, Blackjack, and Ned, strolled up, their plates filled to overflowing. “At first light,” Blackjack said, “the women is gonna have a tribute to them three dead ladies. Singin’ and readin’ from the Bible.”
“Damnit, I already read from the Good Book!” Preacher said. “Me and Steals Pony both done it.”
“You tell them they can’t do it.” Blackjack settled that point quick.
Preacher grunted, ignoring the smile on the big mountain man’s face. “Oh, hell. I ain’t gonna interfere with no Bible thumpin’ and praisin’ the Lord in song. I ain’t no heathen. But whilst that’s goin’ on, I’ll saddle up and scout ahead for a few miles. You wanna come along, Steals Pony?”
“Actually, I find the sound of feminine voices blending together in song quite moving. I shall stay and perhaps join in song with them.”
Snake looked at him. “I know you got you a hellacious good education. Seventh grade, I think I heard. But I wish just once you’d talk like a damn dumb Injun.”
Steals Pony nodded his head and grunted, “Grub heap good.” He smiled. “Are you satisfied now, Snake?”
Snake took his plate of food and his coffee and walked off, muttering about smart-aleck Injuns. Fifteen minutes later, he had his horse and Preacher’s horse saddled and was ready to go, ’fore them females started singin’ and preachin’ and got all emotional and started blubberin’ all over the place. Snake didn’t think he could stand that.