by Lauran Paine
“Lige!”
The older man trotted up, took a long look, and smothered an oath. “Three sides at once.”
“Yeah. Go over on the south side and settle the men there. I’ll make the north side, then come back here.”
They hurried, each with his heart beating fast. Kit found the defenders hunkering like statues, only their eyes watching. He explained what was going to happen, then ran back where his own shock troops were lying.
Just as he got close, the Dakotas raised the yell. The sound was blood-chilling. Kit dropped low and shot a quick look around the front of a wagon. The Indians were breaking out in a wild race. The north and south wings of their force were veering off. He riveted his glance on the core of bunched-up, head-on warriors. They were swinging closer and closer.
He ducked under the wagon and saw the strained, oily, sweating faces of his men. “Steady!” he shouted over the scream of the Indians. “Hold on!”
The attackers were well within range now, coming faster, more compactly, as though to bowl over the wagons themselves. Kit drew his pistol, cocked it with a slippery thumb, and raised it. His breath was hot and dry in his throat. Closer …
“Fire!”
The roll of gun thunder, the wreathing of unclean gray-white smoke, and the wild screams of men and horses made a din so terrible even Kit was appalled by it.
“Reload!”
The spattering gunfire north and south of them ate into the ringing echo of their own fire. Indian yells broke over the bedlam, and emigrants’ screams answered back.
In front of them was a sickening welter of men and horses. The painted war symbols, the metal accoutrements, the vivid splashes of scarlet flung wildly over the entire scene made the carnage an unnerving thing to look upon.
Behind the shattered front rank, the other warriors had to break and fight their way around both ends of the jumble. Kit swore a grateful prayer, and bitter exultation raced through him like wine. “Shoot, dammit! Make every shot good … and shoot!”
The emigrant men, like veterans—until you saw the seared, blanched illness in their faces—moved with fumbling fingers. They picked out individual Indians and fired at will. The staccato blasting of their gunfire made a ragged tapestry of noise against the red wall of Dakotas and their horses. The first assault had been broken but the fight went on as viciously as before, except that now the Indians, with their ranks shattered and seeing they couldn’t get into the circle, either rode, streaking low, to join the north or south flanks of their army, or threw themselves flat behind the mound of men and horses and waged individual, dueling warfare.
Kit had time to see that the siege had only begun. Someone was standing outside the wagon, calling his name. He looked down the row of defenders with a bleak feeling of bitter kinship. “Don’t waste a shot, boys,” he said loudly. “Make damn sure.” Then he squirmed out and peered up into the countenance of the fiery-faced man named Reaves.
“Kit … there. They’re coming through!”
Reaves was pointing. His face was like clay and his pointing arm shook. Inside the circle was a screaming band of warriors. Only one was still on his horse, and even as Kit looked, the man fell sideways with a startled look. Through the dust he saw there was no danger. The Indians were hemmed in by emigrants. He heard Lige’s war cry rise like a wolf wail, then die off into little coughing barks. The Indians were fighting almost back-to-back. The muffled crash of handguns pressed against bronze bodies was eloquent. If the men of war had gotten support from their companions, it might have been different. They didn’t, and their numbers dwindled even as Kit watched. He let out an uneven, withheld breath and turned to Reaves with a harsh stare.
“When you see something like that … fight! Don’t come running to me!”
He turned and trotted toward Lige, leaving Reaves, shaken and badly frightened, to stare after him. He passed two women lugging a heavily bearded man who groaned through lips that worked and contorted in the dark shrubbery of his face. One of the women was Allie. Their eyes met as he went past, calling to Lige.
The mountain man stood up and began reloading his pistol without glancing up. Kit threw a quick look where the Indians had been. They were no longer upright. He turned his back, ignoring the triumphant shouts of the emigrants who were as thick as flies by their carcasses.
“Just one breakthrough, Lige?”
“Yeah. If they’d come together, it would have been enough, too.” Lige holstered his gun. “Damn! That was close. Must’ve been a few glory hunters who had an idea of their own.”
“Can you spare about five men to watch the east side?”
“I reckon. I’ll get five more from the north side. That’s enough, I guess. If they watch their shots, it’ll be more’n enough.” Lige looked up with a sudden grin and big wag of his head. “They can fight, Kit. By granny, they can fight after all.”
“No choice now,” Kit said somberly. “Pass the word they’ll besiege us now … or something.”
But the Dakotas didn’t. They used the fire-arrow strategy. They sent a swirl of hard-riding, hard-shooting warriors in close to the circle. These were between the defenders and Indians who came next, on the far side of the howling red men. The latter warriors were armed with three fire arrows apiece. Kit and Lige both saw what was coming at the same time and hollered out as loud as they could for the women to man the water buckets.
The warning came none too soon. Fire arrows—regular war arrows, but with tufts of dry grass or moss bound loosely to their arrowheads—came looping high, aimed at the vulnerable canvas of the wagon tops.
Some of the men ran, cursing, to help put out the fires. The dust was bad enough. The smoke made it stifling, although no serious damage was sustained by the emigrants.
After that the Indians drew off and Kit went more objectively among the people he captained. There were—miraculously—no dead and only six wounded. He took heart. Lige was talking to Reaves when he found him.
“Reaves, get the women to make some gruel or something. We’ll eat where we lie and in relays. Organize it like that.” He turned his back on the emigrant. Reaves hurried off. “Lige, I’ve got a notion. Tonight I’m going to take thirty men or so, get you to scout up where the devils are hiding, and hit ’em hard.”
Lige, thinking in terms of defense only, was astonished. His eyes bulged but, typically, he said nothing until he rolled it over a few times in his mind, then he nodded grudgingly. “It might worry ’em a little.”
“It’ll do more’n that, if what I’ve got in mind works.”
“What’s that?”
“Hunt me up around sundown. I’ll show you.”
The women responded quickly. The smell of food grew strong in the air. And the Indians came back in a thundering blur of horsemen, so no one got to eat for a long time. The rattle of gunfire punctuated every ebb and flow of enemy riders. Kit watched them, trying to surmise what they would do next. The frontal charge had been broken. Fire arrows hadn’t worked. But the Dakotas were a long way from giving up, and he knew it.
Another split charge past the wagons, another deafening din of musketry, and the plains fighters whipped westward again, reined up just out of rifle range, dismounted, and began to cool out their excited, lathered horses. They walked them up and down, back and forth. Kit watched the war leaders assemble a little apart from the bucks, squat, and hold a council. One man in particular held his attention. It was the muscular Dakota with the bare torso. He was angry. It showed in the tense way he leaned and in the furious ways he gestured.
Kit turned away and looked around the bedraggled circle.
Several emigrant animals had been killed. Men were dragging the dead Indians to a gap between wagons and throwing them outside. Lige was talking to a rusty-headed, tall, gaunt youth. Someone was walking toward Kit, head high, smoke-gray eyes and black hair shining. Allie.
; “Here. It isn’t much but it’s hot.”
It was a crockery bowl with barley soup in it. He looked from the spoon to her face, carefully removed the implement, tipped up the bowl, and drained it. Then he smiled. It beat a warm path all the way down to his stomach. Made him feel better almost instantly.
“That’s another white man habit I think the Indians have a better substitute for. Anything you don’t chew, you drink.”
She smiled. “It doesn’t really matter, I suppose, out here.”
“Back in Independence it wouldn’t look very good, would it?”
The smile lingered but turned rueful at the mental image of this tall, lean man with the ruffled, blond hair standing, wide-legged, in a hotel dining room, drinking soup with his head thrown far back. “No, I don’t suppose it would,” she said. “How did the pioneers do, this time?”
“Much better,” he said drawlingly. “You know, I think if they live through this, they just might be able to scratch a way in this country. Did your paw make it all right?”
She nodded. “Yes, Dad’s all right. Mother lost some dishes and things.”
He was on the verge of clucking sarcastically, but stopped the impulse in time.
“What are they doing now?” She was gazing out over the plain.
“Trying to figure out what to do next.” He twisted and gazed at the far line of warriors and the squatting leaders. He shrugged. “Hard to say what’s next. They’ve still got a bag of tricks.”
“Those fire arrows were frightening. It’s fiendish … the way they fight, I mean.”
He looked back at her and made a slight motion with one hand. “We won’t argue about that right now. Are you getting used to the sight of blood and bodies?”
She nodded gravely. “I won’t ever get used to them, but as long as they’re Indian bodies, I don’t mind very much.” She saw the drag and seamed look of his face. “You’re tired, aren’t you?”
“Well, I got to thinking last night and plumb forgot to sleep.” He said it with a smile, his glance going over her face slowly, softly. “Lots to think about.”
She shied away from the look in his eyes. “It’ll be sundown in another hour or so. I hope they wait until tomorrow to fight us any more.”
“Me, too,” he said, looking back out to where the Dakotas were. “And they just might. See those bucks mounting up? Well, they’ll either head down here or back where they came from, up there on the south slope.” He smiled grimly. “It’s a cussed good thing the grass is green and wet. They’d burn the prairie otherwise.” He looked around at her again. “Maybe we’ve got a chance, after all, ma’am.”
The Indians had had enough. Kit and Lige both knew it when they saw them streaming slowly back the way they had come. Lige spat grimly over a wagon tongue. “Be as dark as it’s going to get in another hour or so, boy. You still got your scheme?”
“Yeah. Let’s go round us up some horses and riders. This has got to work out just right, Lige, or these folks’re goners.”
“I know,” Lige said softly. “You take about half the effective fighting force out of the circle, Kit, and you’re taking an awful gamble with these people’s lives.”
They were walking up where men were lying flat, resting. Their footsteps were soft on the dusty ground, but the sounds they made carried. After the hideous racket of the long day, the smaller sounds were like strangers to those who heard them.
“Lige,” Kit said very soberly, “if we don’t do something to discourage those men of war, they’ll keep us bottled up here forever. What I’m afraid of … but don’t tell these people … is that they’ll send for more reinforcements. It’s a bad gamble, but we’ve got to get the train moving. If we don’t, we’re doomed sure as the devil.”
“Hadn’t figured that,” Lige said slowly. “I believe you’re right, Kit.” He flagged with a thick arm. “There’s four of the best ’uns I had under the wagons today.”
“Go get them. I’ll hunt up the rest. Meet me down where the horses are as soon as you can. Don’t tell anyone what we’re up to.”
Kit picked his men carefully. The first ones chosen were the emigrants he had noticed as being the coolest under fire. He sent them down to the north end of the circle and detailed the rest of the men to guard duty.
Lige had eleven men when Kit got down there. They were saddling horses and hardly speaking. Gray-faced, sunken-eyed, and weary, there was still fight in them. Lige watched Kit come up with a questioning look. He said nothing.
Kit motioned the men close to where he stood. Looking into their dirty faces, he found a lot of weariness but no defeat. That was what he was looking for. “All right boys. Get on your horses and follow me. When we’re beyond the wagons, I’ll tell you the rest.”
They worked fast. Mounted, they were a hard-looking crew. Guns bristled like icicles under the weakest of moonlight. Kit led them through a ready-made opening Lige had thoughtfully provided, and once outside, he turned his horse and stopped, facing them.
“Lige, pick a couple of the best and scout ahead for sentries. There’ll be a couple, at least, down in the valley. After you’ve taken care of them, give the coyote call. We’ll wait, out a ways.”
Lige peered into the faces until he found two iron-eyed men that he’d noticed during the day. Then he smiled wolfishly and beckoned them forward. His words were crisp and curt. Kit only heard part of what he said before the men were beyond hearing. “Muffle the sounds of your spurs, boys. Slide the guns down so’s the barrels are in your stirrups. No reflection that way. No, dammit … behind your leg … that’s it. Now, not a sound and we’ll …”
Kit turned back to the others. “I didn’t tell you what I want to do before because I didn’t want the women to know we’d be gone for a while and maybe get scairt to death. Dakotas don’t fight at night. I know it, and now you do, too, but I reckon convincing the women’d be pretty hard. Now, we’re going to find their camp and put ’em afoot.”
Someone made a muffled gasp. Kit squinted for the man but couldn’t find him. It was misty dark with a filter of weak light. A good night, in many ways.
“The main thing is not to make any noise. Those of you who have spurs, throw them away or wrap rags around them … something, anyway, so’s there’ll be no spur music. Keep your pistols holstered and put your rifles behind your legs. If you’ve got metal hatbands, take ’em off. Everything that’ll make a noise or reflect light, shuck it or cover it. Do it now, while I’m watching.”
The men went to work. Kit watched with a cold smile. They were learning fast. When the coyote call came, eerie and soft, he beckoned with his hand. “Let’s go. Don’t talk, and do what you’re told. No questions … plenty of time for talking afterward.”
They rode slowly, seeking the deepest shadows, until a man on a horse loomed up so suddenly out of the night that Kit’s heart lurched. It was one of Lige’s scouts. He looked grim when Kit rode in beside him. “We got three of ’em, but Lige says we’d best go south and hug the forest, for there’s sure to be more on the peaks around us.”
Kit nodded and reined away. They found Lige waiting for them with a rueful expression. He was bent low in his saddle, massaging a knee.
“One get you, Lige?”
“No, damn it. When he fell, I got tangled up in his legs some darned way and fell on a rock.”
Kit grinned. They rode south and picked up the other scout. After that, they kept steadily across the valley until the deep, inky darkness of the forest’s fringe engulfed them. There, Kit reined up. “Go ahead, Lige. We’ll leave the horses here and follow.”
Lige took his two men and went ahead on foot. They were lost to sight almost instantly. Kit motioned two older men forward. His voice was low. “Stay here and guard the horses. Keep your eyes open, too, or you might never see another daylight.” Without waiting, he led the rest of the men along the fringe of trees
in Lige’s path.
They went a good long quarter of a mile before they found one of Lige’s men. He was standing so close beside a tall fir tree, they didn’t see him until he moved. Instantly two score guns had him lined up and icy fingers were hooked tensely around triggers. “Christ,” the man said hoarsely, “it’s darker’n the inside of my hat.” He saw Kit looking at him and bobbed his head. “On up the way. He left me here …”
“I know. Stay here. Let’s go.”
The men strung out around him in a weaving shadow of darkness. They went as softly as they could, and the trees aided in muffling sounds so well that by the time they found the second man, he was more startled by them than they were by his rising silhouette as he came off his haunches.
“Whoo! Scary out here. He went on an’ told me to stay here.” The glistening eyes looked straight at Kit. “That right?”
“Right as rain,” Kit said. “Come on, boys.”
He kept walking until an owl hooted up in the trees, then he spun quickly and, motioning without a sound, threw himself face down. The emigrants needed no further urging; they went down like poleaxed steers. Kit could feel the sweat break out under his shirt. He lay perfectly still, waiting, his heart thumping tightly.
The owl hoot came again, closer. Kit raised his head, listened, then drew in a breath and hooted back. The wait wasn’t long after that. Lige materialized out of the firs like a wraith. He sidled down to Kit and dropped on his haunches. His face was shiny and his eyes burned with a strange light.
“I found ’em, all right. They’ve got guards out, but, hell … they’re sleeping better’n the rest. They sure figure those emigrants’re bottled up and harmless.”
“Where’s the camp?”