Blood on the Divide Read Online Free

trail left by Pardee and his kin and trash. Preacher’s tracks had blended in with the others and he’d been careful when he left the trail for the spring.
    They were all gathering for some reason, and Preacher could guess what that reason might be: more settlers coming in. More damn fools heading this way, bound for the glory land in the Northwest.
    Preacher said a very ugly word as he saddled up and pulled out. If there were more wagons coming, they’d more than likely stop at the post for supplies and for talk about the trail ahead of them.
    Preacher had had his gutful of pilgrims and decided he’d head the other way and get himself back into the mountains. Then he stopped and, with a sigh, turned Hammer’s head toward the post. The folks had a right to know what dangers lay ahead of them, he reckoned.
    â€œHere we go again, Hammer,” he said. “But this time, only part of the way.”
    * * *
    When Preacher arrived at the post, he was startled by the size of the wagon train and relieved to see an old friend of his was going to be the man to guide the wagons westward. Jack Larrabee was a man to ride the river with. He was about fifteen years older than Preacher, and had been out in the wilderness for nigh on to forty years.
    The two men hoo-hawed each other and whacked each other on the back a time or two and then went to the sutler’s for a round of drinks.
    Preacher nearly swallowed his cup when Jack said, “The movers ain’t goin’ on to Fort Vancouver, Preacher. They’re going to settle just west of the Rockies.”
    â€œWagh!” Preacher spat the word. He knocked back his whiskey and, when his vision cleared from the hooch, said, “Then they’re fools, Jack.”
    â€œMaybe not. Long Hair’s done told me personal that he wouldn’t bother them.”
    â€œThat’s Long Hair. He’s a Crow. Crows will steal their horses and possessions, but Crows don’t kill whites except in self-defense. Usually.” Long Hair got his name because, when measured, his hair – and it was all his own – was almost twelve feet in length. Crows were known to take horse hair and attach it to their own to make it appear longer.
    â€œFor a fact,” Jack agreed.
    â€œHow about the Cheyenne and the Arapaho and the Shoshoni and the Dakotas? To mention just a few who might lift some hair along the way?”
    Jack shrugged his shoulders. “I warned the movers, Preacher. What else can I do?”
    Preacher knew the fix the man was in; he’d been there personal. Jack was just trying to make a living and Preacher couldn’t fault him for that. “And how about the Pardee boys and that gang of no-counts with them?”
    Jack’s eyes narrowed. “You seen them, Preacher?”
    â€œI seen them.” He told Jack what had happened at the little settlement and what he had seen while resting at the spring.
    â€œOh, they know about the wagons,” Jack admitted. “But we’re too many for them. This is the largest train to ever try to cross the Rockies.”
    Preacher looked out the open window at the fifteen-foot-high adobe wall that surrounded the trading post. Beyond it, a wilderness that seemed to stretch endlessly for hundreds and hundreds of miles. Preacher shook his head at the thought. And he had a right to be a doubter: he’d taken a train all the way to the Pacific the year past.
    â€œThey’ll make it, Preacher.”
    â€œOh, the hell they will!” Preacher said, pouring another cup from the jug. “They might make it ’crost the Rockies, but they ain’t gonna survive alone where you’re takin’ them, and you know it, Jack. Who the hell do you think you’re talkin’ to? I know about them folks same as you. Maybe more. They’s fleein’ the bankrupt eastern part of the country, that’s who they is. Hell, I can read. I found me a paper last year. They done