LITMIR.BIZ

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and traders who made their living from the beavers and other animals in the mountains. There had been other trading posts out here far beyond the normal reach of civilization—one in almost the same spot as the Hart cousins’ venture, in fact, some twenty years earlier, not long after Meriwether Lewis and William Clark returned from their epic journey to explore the Louisiana Purchase.

      None of those posts had lasted for more than a few years, though. Savage Indians, brutal weather, disease…something had always happened to either wipe out the businesses or send their owners fleeing back to civilization.

      Corliss and Jerome Hart swore that their trading post would be different. They would stick it out, they said, come hell or high water. The fact that Preacher had befriended them during their journey West gave their claims some credence. Everybody west of the Mississippi and north of the Rio Grande knew Preacher, knew the sort of man he was.

      So the trappers came to the post, and so did the traders. Some of them had Indian wives, and they built a handful of cabins near the post, sturdy log cabins that reminded them of the homes they had left behind back East.

      Of course, not all the men wanted to be reminded of such things. Some of them had come West to get away from unpleasantness back East. But the little no-name settlement grew anyway. A few of the trappers even went back to St. Louis and brought out their real wives, the ones they had married in a church or a judge’s chambers instead of the ones they just shared buffalo robes with in lodges made of hides.

      There had been a minister with that first wagon train, and as time went by more missionaries showed up. Not black-robed Jesuits like the ones who had been some of the first white men to penetrate the vast Canadian wilderness and on across the border into the northern reaches of the United States. No, these missionaries were Baptists, and they brought their wives and even their children with them. Within a year, nigh on to a hundred people lived within rifle shot of the Harts’ trading post.

      It made Preacher’s skin crawl to think about it. Having so many people around in St. Louis was bad enough, but he could handle it because he made the trip down the Missouri River only once or twice a year. But he visited the trading post more often than that, and whenever he did he felt cramped, like he didn’t have any elbow room, and it seemed like there were too many folks breathing the mountain air. They might use it up, he worried, although that seemed unlikely when he looked at the vast blue arch of the sky above the mountains.

      He could see the trading post and the settlement far below him as he rode through South Pass. The big, sure-footed horse he had named Horse—Preacher was nothing if not a practical man—picked its way down the trail with ease. The shaggy, wolflike cur Preacher had dubbed Dog bounded ahead.

      Preacher was leading three horses: his own packhorse, which carried his supplies and the load of pelts he had taken since his last visit to the trading post, and the two that belonged to the pair of dead bushwhackers. He had found the animals tied to a tree not far from the spot where the men had ambushed him, but there had been nothing in their belongings to tell him who they were or why they had tried to kill him.

      The would-be killers were lashed facedown over their saddles. Preacher had thought seriously about leaving their carcasses for the wolves. He had even considered burying them. But in the end, he had decided to bring them with him since he was less than a day’s ride from the trading post and the dry, cool, high country air helped keep dead varmints from rottin’ too fast.

      He wanted to see if anybody at the settlement recognized them.

      It took him almost an hour to make his way down from the pass to the broad, grassy park where the trading post was located. Folks had seen him coming. Dogs barked and kids ran out to meet him. Most of the youngsters were ’breeds, the children of trappers and their Indian mates, but some belonged to families that had come out here from St. Louis and other places in the East, looking for a place to call their own.

      A stocky, round-faced boy of eleven or twelve grinned at him and called, “Hey, Preacher! What you got there?”

      “Couple o’ skunks in human form, Jake,” Preacher answered the boy as he reined to a stop. “Ever seen either one of ’em before?”

      Some folks would’ve tried to keep the boy away and not expose him to the sight of the dead bodies, but Preacher figured anybody who was going to live in these mountains had to be tough enough to handle such things. Death was a fact of life, and it didn’t do any good to coddle young’uns and try to hide that fact from them.

      Jake wasn’t bothered by it. He’d been through hard times already despite his young age. He grasped the hair on one of the dangling heads and lifted it so he could see the man’s face. After a moment, Jake let go and the head flopped down again.

      “Nope,” Jake said. “He’s a plumb stranger to me, Preacher. Lemme look at the other one.”

      Jake studied the face of the second corpse with the same result. Other kids crowded around him while he was holding the man’s head up, and Preacher asked the same question of them, only to have all of them shake their heads in the negative. It was beginning to appear that the two bushwhackers hadn’t visited the settlement before coming after Preacher.

      He hadn’t asked any of the grown-ups yet, though, so he hitched Horse into motion again and rode toward the big log building that was the center of the community.

      Corliss and Jerome Hart’s trading post was solidly built, with thick walls that had been notched out here and there to create plenty of rifle slots. In addition, a stockade fence made of vertical logs with sharpened tops had been erected around the place, with watchtowers at the corners and a parapet that ran inside it where defenders could stand and fire. The cousins had run into enough Indian trouble on the way out here that they had built the post with fighting off attacks in mind.

      So far, the Indians in the area had left them alone. But a man who was prepared for trouble, whether it came or not, usually lived a lot longer on the frontier.

      The double gates in the stockade fence stood open right now. Preacher glanced up and saw that all of the watchtowers were manned. If the sentries saw any sign of hostiles approaching, they would sound the alarm and the gates would be closed and barred before the Indians could get there. Everyone in the settlement knew to listen, and if they heard the bell mounted on top of the trading post tolling, they knew it meant to get inside the wall as quickly as they could. All the settlers would gather there in case of trouble.

      Today, though, peace reigned in the valley, and folks strolled in and out through the gates, visiting the trading post for supplies or just some conversation, then heading back to the log cabins that dotted the grassy park. With a procession of youngsters trailing him, Preacher rode through the gates as well, and brought Horse to a stop before the trading post just as Corliss Hart stepped out onto the shaded porch.

      Corliss smiled and lifted a hand in greeting. He was a muscular man in his thirties with a friendly face and a shock of dark hair.

      “Howdy, Preacher,” he called. “Didn’t expect to see you back here quite this soon.”

      “I was lucky and already got a good load o’ plews,” Preacher drawled. He shifted Horse to the side so that Corliss could see the other two saddle mounts and their grisly burden. “Got a load o’ something else, too.”

      Corliss’s smile disappeared and his eyes widened. “Good Lord!” he said. “Who’s that?”

      “You tell me,” Preacher said. “They tried to kill me this mornin’.”

      “Well, that was a foolish mistake,” Corliss muttered as he came down the steps from the porch and moved forward to get a closer look at the bodies. Grimacing a little in distaste, he did what Jake had done: lifted the heads by the hair and studied the faces of the dead men.

      He was shaking his head when he turned away from the horses. “I’m sorry, Preacher, but I never saw them before. They look like pretty unsavory sorts, though.”

      “They ain’t any sort anymore ’cept dead.”

      Corliss looked at the youngsters

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