The Family Jensen by William W. Johnstone, J. A. Johnstone Page A

knees.
    The sudden sound of voices nearby made them sink to their bellies in the grass and lie motionless. A man said, “Jord, leave that gal alone. I think she’s had enough.”
    “Damn it, Clint,” another man responded. “You and Walt had your turns with her. Now I oughta get a chance.”
    “Take one of the others,” Clint Mayhew responded. Preacher recognized his voice as the one that had given the orders the day they had ambushed him three weeks earlier.
    “All right,” Jord Mayhew said. “I’ll see if I can find one nobody’s got at yet.”
    His brother Clint grunted. “You do that.”
    Anger burned brightly in Preacher as he listened to the conversation. The idea that those skunks talked so casually about assaulting women made him wish he could just stand up and empty his Dragoon Colts into the varmints. But there were too many outlaws for him to do that. He couldn’t hope to kill them all before they killed him and Crazy Bear. If that happened those prisoners would be as bad off as they were.
    He took his hat off and lifted his head so that he could look over the grass. His keen eyes spotted three wagons parked at the edge of some trees that grew down the slope of a foothill to the plains. A dark mass off to one side was the oxen and saddle horses belonging to the outlaws. He looked for guards posted around the camp. Those men would have to be taken care of first, and quietly.
    Preacher watched as a man grasped the arm of a woman who’d been lying on the ground and jerked her to her feet. He marched her over to one of the wagons and told her, “Climb inside for now.” From the way she was weeping, Preacher knew she was in pain or terrified. Probably both.
    Another man followed, a swagger in his step. He leaned into another wagon and said, “You there. Get out here.” When the prisoner didn’t respond quickly enough to suit him, he reached into the wagon. A scream came from the woman as Jord Mayhew pulled her out of the wagon by her long, dark hair.
    The scream cut off abruptly as he threw her on the ground. When she fell silent Preacher thought for a second she had been knocked out by the fall. But she bounded to her feet and a torrent of angry words spewed from her mouth in a language he didn’t recognize. It wasn’t any Indian tongue he had ever heard, although there were certain similarities.
    Whether he understood the words or not, he could tell from the tone of the woman’s voice that she was giving Jord a good cussin’ out. When a few English obscenities slipped into the flow, he was sure of it. Jord laughed and reached for her, but she slipped away, darting out of his reach with a graceful agility.
    “Damn you, gal, come back here,” Jord said and lunged after her. Laughter came from some of the other men gathered around the camp as she eluded his rush with apparent ease and he stumbled as he grabbed for her and missed.
    Being laughed at made Jord angrier. “You’re gonna be sorry you gave me trouble,” he warned the woman. “You’re just makin’ it worse for yourself.”
    She spat more curses at him in that unknown tongue.
    Jord charged her again, and Preacher had a feeling she would have continued to avoid him if one of the men sitting nearby hadn’t stuck a leg out without warning and tripped her. With a cry of dismay, the woman went down hard, tumbling to the ground and rolling over. Jord pounced on her.
    A second later, he let out a yell and leaped back up. “Look out! The bitch has got my knife!”
    Preacher heard a soft grunt from beside him, then another, and realized that Crazy Bear was laughing. “The white woman has much spirit,” the Crow chief whispered. “She will make them pay for whatever they do to her.”
    Preacher heard admiration in Crazy Bear’s voice and understood why he felt that way. Preacher couldn’t help but admire the woman himself. As the outlaws jumped to their feet and began to shout in alarm over the fact that one of their prisoners was