Free Forty Guns West by William W. Johnstone

“You’re makin’ me nervous.”
    â€œWe are alone,” Dark Hand said.
    â€œWhat do you mean, alone?”
    â€œNo Ute. No Cheyenne. No Arapaho. We are alone.”
    â€œWhy ... you ninny! That’s good.”
    â€œThat’s bad,” Dark Hand contradicted. “That means the chiefs have met and agreed to stay out of the fight. That means that Preacher is on the hunt. For us. He is probably out there now, looking at us. Waiting. Watching.”
    â€œNow, just how did you come to that?”
    â€œIt is the only thing that makes any sense.”
    â€œWell, it don’t make no sense to me,” Van Eaton said sourly.
    â€œYes. That makes sense to me, too,” Dark Hand said haughtily.
    Van Eaton watched the Pawnee walk off. He figured he’d been insulted but he didn’t quite know how. He looked all around him. Birds were singing and feeding, squirrels were hopping around, all having grown used to the presence of the large body of men. Van Eaton snorted. “Preacher out there,” he muttered. “Hell, he ain’t within fifteen minutes of his camp.”
    Preacher was about two hundred yards away, lying on his belly in some brush. Part of him was clearly visible to the naked eye, if anyone would just make a very careful visual inspection of their surroundings. But he knew none of the men would. What Preacher was doing was one of the oldest of Indian tricks—hide where your enemy would least suspect.
    Preacher was puzzled by what he saw and the few words that he could hear. He couldn’t figure out who those fancy-dressed men were, and what they were doing with the likes of Bones Gibson. Nothing about this made any sense to Preacher. Those duded up men had servants and cooks waitin’ on them hand and foot. So why were a bunch of rich folks like them tied in with Bones, and why were they hunting him?
    Preacher saw Dark Hand looking carefully all around him. He immediately averted his eyes so he would not be staring directly at the Pawnee. Dark Hand spoke with Van Eaton for a moment, and then walked away.
    Preacher watched the Pawnee until he disappeared and then backed away from the scant cover and into the thicker brush and timber. He didn’t think Dark Hand had spotted him, but he wasn’t going to take any chances. He made a slow half circle of the camp until he found a good spot to lay under cover until dark and he could make his move, or until one of them in the camp came out alone to answer a call of nature.
    A half a dozen came out to the area together and Preacher could do nothing except listen to them swear, grunt, and make other disgusting sounds. Then his ears perked up when he heard one say, “Them royal folks has upped the ante on Ol’ Preacher and the kid.”
    â€œYeah, I heared,” another said. “But what they want is foolish to me. They want us to take Preacher alive, and then turn him a-loose unarmed and on foot so’s they can hunt him down for sport.”
    Preacher blinked at that. Sport? What the hell kind of people were these fancy-pants men? Royal folks? What in the world did that mean?
    â€œBut Van Eaton wants the kid,” a third voice was added. “What did the kid do to get on Van Eaton’s bad side?”
    â€œI don’t know,” yet another voice said. “But Van Eaton ain’t got but one side, and it’s all bad. He’s even worser than Bones, and that’s sayin’ a lot. He says he’s gonna skin him alive slow-like just to listen to him holler.”
    Preacher felt a coldness wash over him with those words. A dark and deadly hand touched his heart. Any man that would torture a kid, of any color, was too low to let live. And if Preacher had his way, Van Eaton would not be counted among the living for very much longer.
    Skin Eddie? What matter of men were these people? How low-life could man be? Preacher figured he was right close to just about the lowest