Free The Family Jensen by William W. Johnstone, J. A. Johnstone

certainly seemed to have a fiery nature when she was going after Jord and the other men with that knife.
    “She wants to help us rescue the other women, so I’d say she’s very brave.”
    “But she was fleeing and abandoning them.”
    “She was scared and didn’t know what else to do.”
    Crazy Bear thought about it and then shrugged. “How is she called?”
    “Her name is Mala.”
    “Mala,” Crazy Bear repeated. “It is a good name.”
    “What did he just say about me?” Mala asked in English.
    “He said you were very brave,” Preacher told her, which was only stretching the truth a mite.
    “Give me a weapon, and I will show you how brave I am.”
    Preacher chuckled. “Yeah, I remember. Here.” He drew a narrow-bladed dirk from a sheath he’d slipped into the top of his left boot and pressed the grip into her hand. “I reckon you know how to use it.”
    “Let me at that damned Jord Mayhew. I will carve off his man parts.”
    “Yeah, that sounds mighty entertainin’,” Preacher said. “I reckon his squallin’ while you did it would wake up the whole camp, though, so if you do have to use that blade on one of the varmints, try to cut his throat instead. That way he can’t make any noise.”
    Mala nodded. “Yes. What you say makes sense. I will remember. When will we go to the camp?”
    “Not for a while yet. We need to let them Sioux warriors get good and drunk first.”
    “So we wait, while God knows what happens to Nadia and the other women?”
    “I don’t like it any better than you do,” Preacher replied to her angry question, “but we don’t have any choice if we want to save their lives.”
    Mala waited in silence, but Preacher could sense her fuming. Crazy Bear leaned toward him and said, “She is full of spirit, as I told you.”
    “Yeah, she’s full of somethin’, all right. I just hope she can keep it under control until it comes time for us to make our move.”
    Hours dragged by. Preacher was used to waiting, motionless and silent. So was Crazy Bear. A man learned to do that when he was hunting wild game, or else he went hungry a lot.
    Mala didn’t have that ability. She shifted around in the grass. She muttered to herself, sometimes in English and sometimes in the strange language she’d called Romany. Preacher wanted to tell her to hush up and be still, but he figured it wouldn’t do any good. As long as she didn’t cause enough commotion to alert the men in the camp that somebody was hidden in the tall grass, he supposed her fidgeting and muttering wasn’t hurting anything.
    It was damn annoying, though.
    From time to time, a woman’s cry floated over the prairie. The sounds made Mala more upset. Preacher understood and told her in a whisper, “Hold on. We’ll get ’em out of there as soon as we can.”
    The stars wheeled through the sky overhead. Preacher lifted his head occasionally to check the camp, and each time he saw fewer men moving around. Many of the Sioux had passed out from the whiskey, and some of the outlaws were drunk and either asleep or only semi-conscious. Preacher had a strong hunch Lupton posted sentries and those men would still be awake and alert.
    Finally, when the faintest tinge of gray appeared in the eastern sky, Preacher told Mala, “All right. It’s time.” He said the same thing to Crazy Bear in the Crow tongue. Switching back and forth between the languages so that both of his companions understood, he went on, “We’ll split up. Mala and I will circle to the left and head for the wagons to get the women out. Crazy Bear, you go around to the right and close in on the horses. Any sentries you come across, kill ’em as quiet as you can.”
    Crazy Bear nodded. “Signal me when you are ready for me to stampede the horses.”
    “I’ll howl like a panther,” Preacher said. He grinned in the darkness. “I can make it sound real, and that’ll spook them horses even more. We’ll head up into the foothills with the women just as fast