Preacher's Slaughter by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2014-11-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 23

As Preacher reached the passenger deck, he saw a Pawnee warrior with a painted face leap from a canoe onto the cargo deck and brandish a tomahawk as he charged toward a crewman who had taken cover among the supplies. The crewman was trying to reload a pistol but would never make it in time.

Smoothly, Preacher brought the rifle to his shoulder and fired. The ball ripped through the Pawnee’s torso and spun him over the side. He went into the water with a big splash.

Unfortunately, several more warriors were already there to take his place.

Preacher dropped his rifle and pulled his pistols from behind his belt. Each pistol was double-shotted, with as heavy a charge of powder as it would bear. The way the Indians were pouring onto the boat, he didn’t really have to aim. He just cocked the pistols, pointed them in that general direction, and pulled the triggers.

The guns roared thunderously, and when the powder smoke cleared a couple of seconds later, Preacher saw the bodies of several Pawnee sprawled on the cargo deck. More were coming on board, though, and some of them fired arrows at the mountain man. Preacher ducked as the missiles whipped over his head.

He didn’t have time to reload, but he could use the empty pistols as clubs, which is what he did as he launched himself at a trio of warriors who charged up the stairs. He waded into the enemy, blocking a tomahawk as it descended toward his head, feeling bone crunch under a pistol as he smashed it against the skull of another Pawnee. He kicked one man in the belly and sent him tumbling back down.

It was a brutal fight, and Preacher’s speed, skill, and experience were the only things that kept him from dying several times over during the clash. He hammered the empty pistols into the heads of his enemies until the weapons were knocked out of his hands.

Bodies had piled up on the stairs below him, some dead, some knocked senseless, and they began to serve as a line of defense because they kept more of the Pawnee from getting at him as easily.

Unfortunately there were other ways onto the passenger deck, including stairs on the far side of the boat. Some of the Indians even leaped up, caught hold of the railing, and climbed onto the Sentinel ’s second level. Preacher heard shots and screams and angry shouts as the fight spread from down below, but he couldn’t turn his back on the attackers right in front of him to see what was going on.

One of the warriors took a swipe at his head with a tomahawk that Preacher barely avoided. He caught hold of the man’s wrist and twisted until he heard bones crack. As the Indian dropped the tomahawk, Preacher snatched it out of midair with his other hand and crashed it in the middle of the Pawnee’s face. The man fell backward, dead, as Preacher wrenched the tomahawk free.

He

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