Blade suddenly straightened and motioned for silence. “Do you hear something?” he asked, listening to a faint rumble emanating from the north.
“I hear it,” Geronimo replied. “Whatever it is.”
They all turned in the direction of the sound, which grew rapidly louder and louder, a continual heavy drumming, arising on the far side of a low knoll less than 70 yards from their position. A billowing dust cloud swirled into the air behind the knoll.
“What the blazes?” Hickok exclaimed, perplexed.
“It sounds like a herd of stampeding horses,” Iron Wolf mentioned.
A tingle of recognition rippled through Blade and he took a stride toward the water, wondering if they could escape across the river. “No, not horses!” he cried.
And an instant later a tremendous horde of buffalo pounded over the crest of the knoll and made straight for them.
CHAPTER SIX
For several seconds the three Warriors, Achilles, and the Flathead were riveted to the spot by the appalling sight of hundreds of huge bison bearing down on them.
The onrushing mass of thundering brutes consisted of bulls, cows, and a few calves. The males were six feet high at the shoulders, the females somewhat smaller. They had shaggy manes and long, scraggily beards.
Dark brown, with even darker manes of hair on their heads and shoulders, they could weigh up to 2000 pounds. Wicked ebony horns protruded from either side of their massive heads, with the spread of a yard from tapered point to tapered point.
“Across the river!” Blade ordered, and plunged into the water, ignoring the frigid sensation that engulfed his lower legs. He surged toward the opposite bank, moving sideways, watching the approaching buffalo.
Hickok, Geronimo, Achilles, and Iron Wolf followed the giant’s example.
The herd of racing buffalo was keeping to the east side of the Lamar River, running in a line extending from near the water eastward for at least 100 yards. They crashed through the undergrowth in their path, crumpling the bushes and uprooting small trees with their violent passage. Some snorted and bellowed. Those nearest the river occasionally were forced almost to the edge of the bank by the press of speeding bodies.
“Move it!” Blade barked. They were still within eight feet of the east bank and the water had risen to their waists. He wanted to get farther before the bison came abreast of their position. If some of those buffalo should slip into the water-Some did.
The herd was 20 feet away when three of the bison nearest the river were pushed into the water, unable to resist the inadvertent shoving of their comrades, overpowered by the crush of the horned legion. Two of the three were bulls. The cow immediately attempted to scramble onto the bank again, but the wall of bison repeatedly battered her back down. The pair of enormous bulls didn’t bother to try and regain the bank. They simply lowered their heads and surged forward, directly at the five humans blocking their route.
“Lookout!” Blade yelled, darting to the left. He was the farthest from the east bank and stood the best change of avoiding the buffaloes, but he halted the moment he perceived that the others would not be so lucky. He raised the Commando, intending to stop the bulls before the beasts could reach them, but he was already too late and couldn’t fire for fear of hitting his friends.
Geronimo found himself the closest to the bulls. He snapped the FNC to his shoulder and sent a half-dozen rounds into the buffalo on the right, but the animal wasn’t fazed in the least. And then they were almost upon him and he did the only thing he could think of under the circumstances. The bulls were running side by side, with a foot of space between their horns.
He managed to take a step to the left, aligning his body so the buffaloes would pass on either side, and elevated his arms over his head, sucking in his gut to make himself as slim as he could, praying all the while that neither bull would hook him on those deadly points. He saw the twin beads sweep past him, and the buffalo on the left side brushed against his buttocks. A heartbeat later they were past and he was in the clear.
But not his companions.
Hickok and Iron Wolf were both in the path of the bulls, the gunman on the left, the Flathead on the right. They had mere moments to react.
“No!” Iron Wolf cried, and frantically beaded for the bank.
“Try this!” Hickok shouted, and fired the Henry twice.
Neither buffalo slowed. The bull on the right tilted its broad head and slashed in a vicious arc, its right horn catching the Flathead War Chief squarely in the chest. Iron Wolf screamed as he was impaled, his arms thrashing wildly. The buffalo flipped its head and sent the human sailing into the river.
Hickok was trying to get off a third shot when the second bull struck him. The buffalo whipped its bony forehead upward, striking the gunfighter with the force of a battering ram. Hickok catapulted head over heels through the air and came down within two feet of Blade.
Leaving only Achilles. He was in the path of the bull that had struck Hickok, and he brazenly stood his ground, disregarding the other buffalo entirely. His acute mind worked lightning fast. He knew he couldn’t hope to avoid the beast, not if the bull stayed on its current course. But what if the brute deviated by even a couple of feet? So thinking, he gripped the left border of his red cloak and extended his left arm to the side, flapping the cloak as he did.
The bull took the bait. It swerved at the red object and butted with its forehead in the same manner as it would during the rutting season when contending with rival males for the right to mount a female.
Achilles felt the cloak sway as the buffalo charged by within inches of his body. Water splashed onto his face on his eyes, and for a few seconds the world blurred. He stood stock still, though, until he was satisfied the bull had continued to the south, then wiped his right forearm across his eyes, restoring his vision, and rotated to the left with the intention of aiding Hickok.
Others were already there.
Blade and Geronimo were assisting the sputtering gunman in rising, each supporting Hickok under an arm. Amazingly, the gunfighter had retained his grip on the Henry.
“Is he okay?” Achilles inquired.
“I’m fine!” Hickok responded, then coughed and spat water.
Achilles glanced at the bank, where the herd was beginning to thin out, then hurried to the Flathead.
Floating on his stomach, his arms outspread, Iron Wolf wasn’t moving.
’The water around him had been stained crimson. His M-16 was nowhere in evidence.
“Iron Wolf?” Achilles said, and reached out with his left hand. He gently rolled the War Chief over, and one look served to confirm the worst. A gaping cavity in the center of the Flathead’s chest revealed the ruptured flesh and the punctured heart underneath. Blood still seeped from the hole.
“How is he?” Blade asked.
Achilles looked at the giant and shook his head.
Frowning, Blade watched the last few dozen buffaloes run to the south, and when the final straggler had gone by he nodded at Geronimo and together they conveyed Hickok toward the bank.
“I can do it myself,” the gunman stated.
“Don’t exert yourself until we’ve checked for broken bones,” Blade said.
“You were lucky that bull didn’t snag you on its horns,” Geronimo mentioned.
Hickok glanced at Iron Wolf, his eyes on the crimson-rimmed cavity. “I reckon I was,” he agreed softly.
“Should we bury him?” Geronimo queried.
“We’ll dig a shallow grave,” Blade replied. “Achilles, haul the body out of the water.”
“Right away,” the aspiring Warrior responded, and bent to grab the Flathead by the back of the War Chiefs buckskin shirt.
“Another mission gets off to a flying start,” Blade muttered. “I wish we could have saved him.”
“I thought you took him for a power monger,” Hickok remarked. “If he was, then good riddance.”
“We don’t know for sure that he was,” Blade said. “He mig
ht have just been bigoted. By bringing him with us on this run, I’d hoped to uncover his true character, to learn whether he was a threat to Star. Now we’ll never know.”
They came to the bank and stepped from the river, dripping water.
“You know,” Hickok stated as his friends lowered him to the ground, “I’ve probably read every Western in the Family Library, including all the history books on the Old West. I’ve read about buffaloes, all about how the Plains Indians used the buffalo for everything from food to clothing. And I read about how the buffalo hunters killed almost all of the bison off. I always wondered what it would be like to meet one of the contrary critters face to face.” He paused. “Now I know.”
Blade knelt. “How do you feel?”
The gunfighter stretched his back, then probed his right side, feeling his ribs. “I’m a mite banged up and sore as the dickens, but I don’t think any bones are broken.”
“Take it easy for a while.”
“I’m fine, I tell you.”
“That was an order,” Blade said, and stood, gazing to the south at the vanishing herd. A cloud of dust hung in the air over the buffaloes, marking their location.
Achilles deposited the Flathead a few feet away. “How will his death affect the mission?”
“It won’t,” Blade answered. “We’ll still search for the Bear People, or whatever they are, and make certain they never attack another settlement or town.”
“All we have to do is live long enough to find them,” Geronimo commented.
“Stay frosty,” Blade continued. “Those bison were just the beginning.
Yellowstone abounded in wildlife before the war, and I’d guess that the animal populations have increased since then. There undoubtedly are a lot of wolves, mountain lions, and grizzly bears in this region.”
“Grizzlies?” Hickok repeated. “I’ve heard they can be nasty when they want to.”
“Compared to the black bears we’re accustomed to seeing around the Home, grizzlies are gargantuan,” Blade said. “So everyone stay alert at all times.”
Hickok rubbed his chest. “You don’t have to tell me twice. I took enough of a beating to last me a year.”
“I’ll start digging a grave,” Achilles offered, and surveyed the nearby brush for a suitable limb he could use. He spotted a broken limb 40 feet away and went to retrieve it.
“Did you notice how Achilles avoided that bull?” Geronimo asked.
“I saw him,” Blade replied. “That took a lot of courage.”
“He may be the most conceited person I’ve ever known, but he has nerves of steel,” Geronimo conceded.
“What did he do?” Hickok queried. “I didn’t see it.”
“You were busy doing your imitation of a fish,” Geronimo said, and grinned. “A pitiful imitation, I might add.”
“You wouldn’t think my little dip in the river was so ninny if that buffalo had walloped you.”
“Those of us with half a brain know how to avoid a rampaging buffalo.”
“You’ve got that right,” Hickok declared.
“What? That I know how to avoid a buffalo?”
“No. That you’ve got half a brain.”
Blade squinted up at the sun. “We still have six hours of daylight left. After we bury Iron Wolf we’ll head north.”
“When do you expect the Civilized Zone troopers to reach us?”
Geronimo inquired.
“Not for three or four days, at least. Even longer if they have to come all the way from Cheyenne. I doubt they’ll reach us in time to be of any help against the creatures we’re after.”
“We can get the job done by ourselves. We don’t need them,” Hickok said.
“Speak for yourself,” Geronimo replied. “I’d like to have all the help I can get.”
Achilles returned bearing the limb. “This should do nicely,” he said, and set to work, using the thick, jagged end of the branch to scoop out the topsoil.
“Hey, Homer,” Hickok said. “What did you do in the river when those buffaloes charged us?”
The man in black paused and straightened. “Homer wrote The Iliad. He wasn’t a character in the book.”
“Who cares? I want to know what you did in the river.”
“Might I ask why?”
“I’m curious.”
Achilles shrugged. “Very well. I used my red cloak to divert the bull away from me.”
“Your cloak?”
“Yes. Perhaps you’re familiar with the bullfighting once done in Spain, Mexico, and several Latin American countries. A special breed of fighting bull would be pitted against a matador armed only with a red cape and a sword. The matadors would use the cape to control the actions of the bull. I simply applied the same principle to the buffalo,” Achilles detailed, and grinned. “Quite elementary, actually. You would have been better advised to dodge that bull instead of trying to shoot it. Buffaloes are notoriously hard to kill.”
“Gee, thanks for the tip. I’ll keep it in mind in case I’m ever caught in a bison stampede again,” Hickok said wryly.
Achilles leaned down and resumed digging. “Any time, my friend.”
“Why do I bother?” Hickok mumbled.
Blade walked over to the corpse and squatted. He unbuckled Iron Wolfs leather belt, intricately adorned with blue beads, and removed the belt and the holster. “Who wants this?” he inquired, and slid the pistol out.
The War Chief had carried a Taurus Model PT 92, an auto-loading 9-mm Parabellum with a magazine capacity of 15 rounds. Iron Wolf had kept additional rounds in a pouch attached to the side of his belt.
“I don’t,” Hickok said. “Auto-loaders are for sissies.”
“I have no need for it,” Geronimo responded.
Slade looked at Achilles, “What about you?”
“You don’t want it?”
“I prefer my Bowies for close-in work.”
“I’ll take it, then,” Achilles said. He dropped the limb and look the belt, “An excellent weapon should never go to waste.”
“Can we quote you?” Hickok quipped.
Achilles strapped the belt around his waist, lining up the hoister on his left hip, the gun jutting forward. He practiced a reverse draw, his hand turned palm out, then replaced theTaurus and performed a cross draw, getting the feel of the handgun. Satisfied, he adjusted the shoulder sling on his Bullpup and renewed his grave excavation.
“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” Hickok mentioned.
“Just one?” Geronimo said.
“Yeah, smarty. About those buffalo.”
“What about them?” Blade asked, “Well, those big bruisers were going flat out.”
Geronimo snickered. “What was your first clue?”
“You didn’t let me finish, turkey. Buffalo usually don’t just up and stampede for the heck of it. They’ve got to have a reason.”
“So?”
“So what spooked those critters?” the gunman wondered.
“I believe I know,” Achilles announced. He had stopped digging and was gazing to the north.
The three Warriors glanced at him.
“You do?” Blade said.
“They did,” Achilles stated, and pointed.
Blade stood and turned, his jaw muscles tightening, hefting the Commando, Over a dozen riders were silhouetted on the knoll’s crest, most of them men, all well armed, each regarding the Family members with open hostility.
Hickok pushed to his feet. “Where the blazes did those cow chips come from?”
“More to the point,” Geronimo mentioned, “are they friendly?”
As if in answer to the Warrior’s query, the riders suddenly galloped toward the river, yelling and whooping and waving their weapons.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Hickok, warn them to keep their distance,” Blade ordered.
“With pleasure, pard,” the gunfighter replied, pressing the Henry to his right shoulder. He sighted on the large man riding in the middle of the
group, a man wearing a brown fur hat, and squeezed the trigger slowly.
The riders were 60 yards away when the Henry boomed and the large man’s hat went flying from his head. He held up his right arm and bellowed a command. The entire group hastily reined up.
“Nice shot,” Blade said.
“Piece of cake.”
Blade studied the riders, counting 14 in all. Most of them wore buckskins, although a few flannel and black leather garments were visible.
Most of the clothing appeared to be in shabby, even tattered, condition.
Their weapons were a mixture of rifles, shotguns, and revolvers. He spied one assault rifle.
“Would you like for me to interrogate them?” Achilles asked.
Hickok chuckled. “What are you aimin’ to do? March right up to them and tell them to spill the beans or else?”
“A sound suggestion,” Achilles stated.
“And what’ll you do if they don’t cooperate?”
“Kill them.”
The gunfighter’s eyes widened and an appreciative grin creased his countenance. “Really? There’s hope for you after all.”
“Thank you,” Achilles said. “I think.”
The large man, evidently the leader, gave his rifle to another man, then rode forward, keeping his hands where they could be seen.
“Cover me,” Blade directed, and walked out to meet the rider. He covered 20 yards and halted, letting the larger man come to him.
Casting nervous glances at the threesome on the bank, the leader approached to within ten feet of the giant and stopped. He was a big man in his own right, over six and a half feet in height and weighing in the neighborhood of 250 pounds. Unkempt, oily black hair hung to his shoulders, and he had a grease-stained beard. Grime caked his face. His apparel consisted of filthy buckskins that must have been in their prime a decade ago. When he smiled down at the Warrior he revealed four of his front teeth were missing. “Howdy, mister,” he said gruffly, his gaze straying to the Commando. “I’m not packing, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Blade grinned. “I’m not worried. If you tried anything, I’d never have to bother with shooting you.”
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