The Family Jensen Read Online Free Page B

best to make them afraid, in hopes that they would flee.”
    “You were right about that. You got hold of at least one of them, didn’t you?”
    “Two had broken arms when they fled.”
    “You should’ve broken their necks,” Preacher muttered.
    “We will kill them another day, eh, Ghost-Killer?” Crazy Bear extended his hand, white man fashion, as if to seal the agreement.
    Preacher didn’t hesitate. He reached up, grasped the man’s hand, and said, “You got a deal, Crazy Bear. We’ll kill them another day.”

Chapter 3

    As it turned out, Bright Leaf was Crazy Bear’s cousin. She was a widow, her husband of less than a year having been killed in a rockslide several months earlier. Preacher understood a little better why Crazy Bear had taken him back to the Crow village. If Bright Leaf’s late husband had had a brother, he would have taken Bright Leaf as one of his wives. Since that wasn’t the case, Crazy Bear felt like it was his job to find his cousin a new man.
    If she nursed the wounded white man back to health, then out of gratitude to her, and to her cousin Crazy Bear, surely the man called Preacher would take her as his wife. Nature would run its inevitable course.
    Preacher had something to say about that. He wasn’t anywhere near ready to settle down.
    Although, that verdant valley in the Big Horn Mountains would have been a nice spot to do so. Its green meadows and towering pines were watered by several creeks that ran clear, fast, and cold. Rugged gray peaks mantled with snow formed its borders, and over all of it arched the achingly blue and beautiful vault of the sky. Wildlife was abundant. A man would never lack for good hunting there.
    When Preacher had gained some of his strength back, he sat outside most of the day and enjoyed his surroundings. The women and children avoided him, casting nervous glances at him from a distance. Despite the fact that he seemed harmless, he had a reputation as a bloody-handed murderer of men.
    Some of the warriors stopped by to talk, and soon Preacher had a number of friends among the band. Elk Runner, Tall Tree, Paints His Face, and the others were all older men, bearing the scars of their years, much like Preacher himself. They told many stories, their powerful voices rolling out while their hands glided and swooped through the air, describing visually what had happened. With such friendships to occupy his time, the days drifted by pleasantly for Preacher.
    Bright Leaf was a good cook, and the savory stew she prepared for him did much to help him regain his strength. She changed the dressings on his wounds twice a day, applying the poultice she made each time. The fever left the bullet holes and they healed, becoming puckered scars to go along with other such marks scattered around Preacher’s body, including knife scars, and the claw marks from the time he’d fought with a grizzly.
    Sometimes when she changed the dressings, Bright Leaf let her fingers stray over the map of pain and trouble etched into his pale-skinned torso and murmured, “How is it you are still alive? You should be dead a dozen times over, Preacher!”
    “I’m just too ornery to die, I reckon,” he told her with a grin.
    Eventually, after he had been in the village about two weeks and the wounds in his side were almost completely healed, the moment arrived that he’d been expecting. Bright Leaf came into the tepee one evening wrapped in a buffalo robe instead of wearing her usual buckskin dress. She stood before him and let the robe slide off her shoulders so that it fell around her feet. Underneath it she was all smooth coppery skin and firm flesh. She lowered her eyes, shy but proud, as Preacher’s gaze played over her body.
    “I would not be a good husband to you, Bright Leaf,” he told her, his voice hoarse. “You will wake up one morning, and I will be gone. I will not be here to hunt meat for you.”
    “I know,” she whispered. “Crazy Bear has told me I should keep