Blood on the Divide Read Online Free PDF

spoken for. He’s back East. He is to join me later.”
    Preacher muttered darkly and profanely, not quite under his breath, about the caliber of men who sent their women alone into the wilderness. The girl behind him giggled at his words.
    Preacher stopped the group in the timber and brush a few hundred yards from the still-stinking wreckage of the wagon train and told them to stay put. From the edge of the timber, he checked out the ruins and then waved the group forward.
    â€œBetina, you take the girls and see what you can salvage from this mess. Clothing and food and money that might be hid in secret compartments in the wagons. Movers do that. Red Hand and Pardee might have missed some of it. Most Injuns ain’t got no use for money. Don’t know what it is. These children got to have something to get them back East. I’ll take the boys and do the same. Now, there might be some bodies I missed under some tangle, so be careful.”
    He stood for a moment, watching her walk away, and admired the sight for a few seconds. Then he remembered the boys and got them busy digging and pawing through the rubble.
    They found food aplenty and articles of clothing and underthings and the like. Several knew where their parents had hidden money and they brought it to Preacher. He shook his head.
    â€œWe’ll put it in the saddlebags and let Miss Drum see to it. That’s a lot of money and I don’t want no part of it. Come on, let’s get saddled up and get gone from this place.”
    â€œWe want to conduct a memorial service first, Mr. Preacher,” Betina said. “Over the mass grave. It’s the Christian thing to do.”
    â€œAll right. You have at it, lady. I’ll just see to the horses.”
    The horses were all riding stock, and that had surprised Preacher, but obviously the outlaws and renegade Injuns had been too busy raping and torturing and looting to gather up all the livestock. They had driven off the cattle to eat later. Preacher had found saddles among the rubble, and had repaired those that had been slightly damaged. The attackers had made only a half-hearted attempt to torch the wreckage.
    Preacher waited with the horses while the little band of survivors had them a prayer service over the grave site. But he did take off his battered hat. Preacher did some thinking while the others was prayin’ and singin’. Sounded right nice, too. The girls had good voices.
    Preacher figured he was closer to that little settlement he’d come up on than he was to the post. So he’d head there and see if those good folks would take in the kids for a time until they could see their way to get back to the post. Betina had told him she was a trained schoolmarm, so maybe she could stay there with them until her man come out from the East.
    Preacher was amazed at how well the kids were holding up in the face of all this. But then, he knew that kids really had no grasp of death. When you’re young, you think you’re gonna live forever. One girl had cried when she found the body of her little dog. She had carefully and lovingly buried the arrow-shot pup. Those had been the only tears shed so far. That Preacher had seen. Maybe nothing had really set in yet, he figured.
    That got Preacher to thinking about when he was a little boy and the dog he had. Got him to feelin’ plumb emotional there for a few minutes.
    â€œCome on, people,” Preacher muttered, looking at the little group. “We’re losin’ daylight.”
    The group was silent as they rode away, the females riding astride just like the boys. Preacher figured the settlement was about two days’ ride away from the ambush site. They’d have to spend at least one night on the trail. And he had no way of knowing how near or far away the renegade Injuns and Pardee’s bunch might be. But he had been watching and had spotted no signs of smoke.
    â€œI sure can get myself into some