Preacher's Fury. William W. Johnstone

      “Have you ever been here before, Preacher?” Audie asked as the four men sat around the fire that first night.

      “Not that I recollect,” the mountain man answered. “I recall ridin’ through this valley before, but I must not’ve stopped and looked around any. How about you?”

      Audie shook his head and said, “No, it’s all new to me as well.”

      Nighthawk said, “Umm.”

      Audie turned to him.

      “What’s that you say? You’ve been here before? Eight winters ago?”

      “Umm.”

      Lorenzo frowned and asked Preacher, “How’s he do that? I never heard that Injun do nothin’ except make that sound like he’s tryin’ to pass somethin’ that hurts.”

      “They got their own way of communicatin’, I reckon,” Preacher said.

      “Yes, I agree that it’s a fine place,” Audie went on. “We should be able to wait here until the storm blows over.” He turned to Lorenzo. “Why don’t you tell us how you and Preacher came to meet, my friend?”

      “It’s a long story,” Lorenzo said, “and it ain’t a particularly pretty one.”

      Audie smiled and spread his hands.

      “Until the weather gods smile upon us again, we have nothing but time.”

      “Well, I reckon that’s true enough.” Lorenzo looked at Preacher. “You mind if I tell the story?”

      Preacher waved a hand.

      “Like Audie says, we got nothin’ but time.”

      “Well, it was back in St. Louis, you see,” Lorenzo began, “and I was workin’ for a fella who was nothin’ but a lowdown, dyed-in-the-wool varmint.”

      “You were his slave?” Audie asked.

      “No, sir. I’m a freed man. But Mr. Shad Beaumont, he was as bad or worse than any plantation owner who might’ve put me to work pickin’ cotton.”

      Lorenzo continued with the story of how Preacher had come to St. Louis to settle a score with Shad Beaumont, the criminal who was responsible for causing a lot of trouble for Preacher and some of his friends on the frontier. Because of Beaumont, people Preacher cared about had died, and the mountain man couldn’t let that pass. It just wasn’t in him.

      Preacher’s enmity for Beaumont hadn’t extended to all the folks who worked for the man, however, and he had found an unexpected ally in Lorenzo. They had been traveling together ever since, along with another former employee of Beaumont’s, a young woman called Casey, who had formed an attachment with Preacher, too. Along with the members of a wagon train, the three of them had made a perilous journey over the Santa Fe Trail.

      Casey had married one of the young men from the wagon train and remained behind in Santa Fe, and Preacher was glad of that. She’d had it in her head for a while that she ought to marry him, and that never would have worked out. He wasn’t the sort of hombre to get hitched permanent-like, although he enjoyed the company of women and had spent more than one winter in temporary marriages to women from various Indian tribes. None of them expected him to stay in one place for more than a few months.

      “It certainly sounds as if you’ve had some thrilling adventures,” Audie said when Lorenzo finished his tale. “As for Nighthawk and myself, we first met Preacher a while back down in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, while he was looking for an ancient Spanish treasure.”

      “You’re a treasure hunter, Preacher?” Lorenzo asked. “I didn’t know that.”

      “I was just helpin’ some other folks look for it,” Preacher said. “I can’t think of nothin’ much worse’n windin’ up a rich man. Too much money’ll weigh a man down ever’ bit as much as chains will.”

      “I wouldn’t know. Wouldn’t mind gettin’ the chance to find out one o’ these days, though.”

      “People like to cite Scripture and claim that money is the root of all evil,” Audie said. “Actually, that’s an incorrect quote. The verse actually says that the love of money is the root of all evil.”

      “I don’t love money,” Lorenzo insisted. “I’m just passin’ fond of it, that’s all.”

      They talked until the fire burned down, then Preacher, Lorenzo, and Nighthawk rolled up in their blankets to sleep. Audie stayed awake to take the first turn on guard duty, nursing a cup of coffee as he sat beside the glowing embers of the fire.

      With the storm howling outside, it was unlikely that anybody was out and about to bother them, but folks who had lived in these mountains for very long knew that it was never wise to take unnecessary chances. Later, each of the other men would take a turn standing watch.

      The clouds had blown on by morning, leaving behind air cold enough to make a man gasp when he took a deep breath, as well as a landscape that glittered so brightly in the sun that it might as well have been covered by diamonds. The ice storm had coated the ground as well as the trees and bushes.

      “Lordy, it’s beautiful,” Lorenzo said as he looked out from the mouth of the cave. “We used to get sleet back in St. Louis, but it never left the place lookin’ anything like this.”

      “Like an ice castle from a fairy tale,” Audie said.

      Lorenzo shook his head.

      “I wouldn’t know nothin’ about no fairy tales. But this here is right pretty.”

      “And slick as it can be,” Preacher put in. “A hoss might slip and bust a leg on that stuff. We’ll stay here until it melts off.”

      That happened the next day, when the wind turned back around to the south and blew strongly. By mid-morning the temperature had warmed above freezing and water was dripping everywhere as the ice melted, making its own peculiar and beautiful kind of music.

      The four men rode north again, climbing toward a saddle between two peaks. Preacher didn’t know how they were designated on maps, but he called the mountains the Sleeping Woman and Old Baldy, because that’s what they reminded him of. On the other side of the mountains lay a valley that stretched for twenty miles north and south and was about five miles wide.

      That valley was the domain of Chief Bent Leg’s band of Assiniboine. There was plenty of game, and another range of mountains at the northern end gave it some protection from the weather. It was a good place to spend the winter.

      They camped that night at the base of Old Baldy and climbed to the high pass the next day. Even though Lorenzo was riding, he began to breathe harder the higher they climbed.

      “Lord, there ain’t much air in the air up here, is there?” he asked when they stopped to rest the horses.

      “You get used to it when you spend much time in the high country,” Preacher told him. “Don’t try to gulp down so much of it at a time. Just breathe more shallow-like.”

      Lorenzo tried to follow the advice and soon felt a little better.

      “Just imagine what it must be like to try to breathe at the summit of some of the great mountain ranges of the world like the Alps,” Audie said. “And I’ve heard it said that there are some even taller, at the edge of the Orient.”

      Lorenzo shook his head.

      “Never heard o’ them places. This is plenty high for me. Remember, I’m a flatlander.” He pointed back to the south. “Land’s sake, you must be able to see for a hundred miles up here!”

      “Probably not that far,” Preacher told him. “You can see for a good ways, though. And it’s a right pretty view, too.”

      “That it is,” Audie agreed. “Never thought I’d see the likes o’ that in all my borned days.”

      They