Preacher's Kill by William W. Johnstone

Author:William W. Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2017-11-06T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 21

Preacher clawed his way out of the gravel that had slithered around him and covered nearly half his body. When he was free, he staggered to his feet. He had flung his rifle out in front of him when he tried to dive out of the way of the rockslide. It took him only a moment to locate the weapon, lying apparently undamaged on the ground a few yards away. He picked it up and quickly checked it to make sure he could use it if he needed to. As soon as he got a chance he would give the rifle a good cleaning, but that would have to wait.

Right now he had to figure out a way to get free from this impromptu prison.

“Hawk!” he called. “Oliver! Can you hear me?”

No answer came back from either young man. Preacher frowned. From where he had left them, they ought to be able to hear him. The rockslide barred his path, but it shouldn’t stop sound from getting out of the canyon.

Which meant Hawk and Oliver couldn’t answer his shout, and he couldn’t think of any reasons for that other than bad ones.

Preacher didn’t waste any more time or energy yelling. He spotted the brim of his hat sticking out from under a rock and tugged it free, then slapped it against his leg to get some of the dust and dirt off it. He wasn’t sure he accomplished that task, but he clapped the hat back on his head anyway and looked up to study the rock wall confronting him.

It rose a good twenty feet, but even though it was steep, Preacher thought he could climb it. The tricky part would be doing so without causing the rocks to start sliding again. He could break an arm or leg if he was part of the way up and got caught in such a collapse.

He turned his head to look the other direction along the narrow gash in the earth. If he had been alone, he would have explored the rest of the defile to see if there was another way out. Right now, though, he was worried about Hawk and Oliver and Dog and wanted to find out what had happened to them. He slung the rifle on his back, approached the wall of rocks, and searched for a route that looked like he could climb it safely.

There wasn’t going to be anything safe about this, the mountain man reasoned. He decided on a likely-looking spot and started to climb.

Preacher tested each rock before he trusted his weight to it. They had packed down pretty solidly when they fell. Slowly, he made his way up. Now and then one of the stones shifted slightly, causing gravel and dirt to trickle down, and each time that happened Preacher froze until he was sure it was safe to go on. Sweat ran down his lean cheeks and made gullies in the thick layer of grayish-brown dust that covered his face.

At last he was close enough to the top that he was able to pull himself up and peer over it.

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