by Doug Thorne
Garland, about fifty yards away, was too engrossed in his work to hear him.
‘Garland!’
At last the skinner straightened up and turned at the waist, a tall, lean man with sunken cheeks and a large nose. ‘What’s that you say?’ he called.
Ketchum was about to reply when the Indians suddenly split into two groups, one headed west, the other east, and all at once he knew exactly what they had in mind. They were going to hit them on the flanks and make them divide their firepower between the two bands.
‘Indians!’ he yelled, and threw himself down the gentle slope in a clumsy run towards the cover of the wagon, the weight of the Sharps dragging at his arms.
A split second later both Garland and Hicks saw them too, and throwing down their knives, they also sprinted for the wagon. They were about halfway there when the first lot of Indians charged over the rim and down into the bowl itself, bunched up at first but then fanning out and screeching at the tops of their lungs as they sent their horses leaping over the dead buffaloes in their path.
Knowing he was never going to make it in time. Hicks turned, clawed a .36-calibre Navy Starr out of his belt and fired at the leading Indian. He didn’t hit the man but he hit the horse, and it went down, forelegs first, and did an ungainly kind of head-over-heels that threw its rider sideways out of his buffalo-pelt saddle. The Indian hit the ground hard and rolled a couple of times, then came back up, dazed but still screaming, and Hicks fired again, and managed to hit him smack in the face.
The Indian’s head exploded in a red mist and he fell backwards. Hicks yelled a triumphant, ‘Yes!’, but in the next moment another Indian was bearing down on him, coming in at a gallop, and his red-painted face was twisted into a mask of raw hatred.
The Indian skewered Hicks through the belly with a feather-decorated lance, and Hicks yelled like a banshee and crashed to the ground, heels drumming as his hands groped uselessly at the shaft of the lance. Something pink and wet started oozing from the wound, and a thick trail of blood trickled from his grotesquely-contorted mouth. He was dead within perhaps half a minute.
But by then Garland had made it to the wagon, thrown himself underneath it and was dragging an octagonal-barrelled Tranter from his belt, determined to give Ketchum some covering fire on his way in.
One of the charging braves had other ideas, though. Drawing rein, he brought up a heavy Walker Colt, drew a bead on Ketchum and fired, but missed. Ketchum didn’t wait for him to try his luck again, he just kept running for the wagon, moving faster than he’d ever thought possible. When he got there he threw himself flat, scurried under the vehicle beside Garland and then jammed the butt of the Sharps to his shoulder.
He snap-aimed at the Indian, whose excited horse was now turning in a tight circle. A second later the long gun boomed and the bullet smashed through the brave’s right leg, spiralled on through his horse and, as it exited on the far side, blew his left foot off at the ankle. The horse died instantly and dropped as if boneless. The Indian screamed and writhed beside it.
He’d take a little longer to die.
The remaining Indians were circling the wagon now, screaming fit to bust their eardrums and making the ground shake beneath them. Desperately Garland thrust his gun to arm’s length and fired. More by accident than design, a young Comanche was torn from horseback as though struck by a gigantic, invisible fist.
But two more Arapahos were already leaping from their horses and charging at them a-foot with weapons held high. With no time to reload the Sharps, Ketchum grabbed his holstered Smith and Wesson and fired twice.
He killed the first of the oncoming Indians right on the spot, but missed the second as the brave threw himself to his knees and loosed off an arrow. The shaft whistled through the air with a high, sharp, slicing sound and tore across Ketchum’s right shoulder, ripping buckskin and flesh but doing no irreparable damage.
Ketchum, firing reflexively, tore the top of the bowman’s skull off and sent him toppling. With a sudden rush of optimism he yelled. ‘We can do this. Dan! We can beat these bastards!’
In the very next second, however, Garland gave a scream and flipped over, hit in the right arm by a flung tomahawk. The blade had bitten deep, though not quite deep enough to sever the limb. Still, the pain of it was overpowering, blanketing every other sense, and it sent Garland scrambling out from beneath the wagon, hugging his loose arm tight to his side and screaming for someone please for the love of God to help him.
‘Dan! Get back under here!’
Garland didn’t hear him. Disorientated by shock, he was no longer able to think straight, and just stumbled a few more paces, still screaming for someone to help him. As he moved, the tomahawk in his arm wobbled a bit and then fell from the wound to land at his dragging feet.
He was still screaming when one of the mounted Comanches rode him down.
He collided hard with the galloping horse and slammed backwards under the impact, and the horse’s heavy, unshod hooves kicked him into a limp back-roll that just about finished the job. Then the Indian was gone and Garland was more of a broken doll than anything else, and the only thing Ketchum could think was, Oh my Christ they’re gone, they’re both gone, I’m all alone—
An instant later there was a thud that was all but drowned by the noise around him, and the wagon above him gave a shudder. One of the Indians had leapt into the wagon itself to see what treasures it contained, and that was almost more than he could bear. With a roar he rolled onto his back, pointed the Smith and Wesson at the boards and fired twice through the woodwork. He heard a scream, another thud, and felt a savage kind of joy to know that he’d greased another of the bastards.
Before he could savour the moment, however, rough hands damped around his ankles and hauled him out of cover and into the hammering afternoon sunlight. He wriggled like an eel, but they had him now and they had him good. A moment later he found himself staring up into three painted faces, felt the searing hatred from six hostile eyes and he screamed, because he knew now that this was how it was going to end for him: that there were going to be no more years or months, no more days, hours or minutes.
He had just seconds left to live.
*
At Hennessy’s sudden signal, his companions drew rein behind him. A moment later they heard it, too – a faraway mixture of war-cry and gunfire.
‘Sounds like we’re too late,’ muttered Carlisle, spitting to one side.
Hennessy raised an eyebrow. ‘You want to turn back?’
Carlisle caught the challenge in the question and resolutely shook his head. He was a little cannon-ball of a man about forty years old, squat and big-bellied, with short arms and long dark hair, and though there was fear in his grey eyes, there was determination, too. ‘Hell with that.’ he said stiffly.
‘Then let’s ride.’
Hesitating for just a moment longer, Carlisle and O’Neal exchanged a tight glance. They were still half-convinced that Hennessy was in league with the Indians, and weren’t sure just how far they could trust him. But then, following Hennessy’s lead, they kicked their horses back to speed, leaving a great yellow streamer of dust in their wake as they crossed the flats at a ground-eating lope.
After a while the land rose towards a gentle hill. From here the war cries sounded louder, but the gunfire seemed to have petered out entirely. Halfway to the top Hennessy pulled up, dismounted and passed his reins to O’Neal. ‘You wait here,’ he murmured, dragging his Winchester from its sheath. ‘I’ll take a look-see over yonder rise.’
Carlisle, not much liking the idea of letting Hennessy go off on his own, also cooled his saddle.
‘Reckon I’ll go with you,’ he said in a low voice.
Hennessy shrugged. ‘Your choice. Just be ready to move fast if you have to.’
He waited for Carlisle to unlimber his big buffalo gun, then headed for the rim above in a fast crouch-run.
They were almost there when the war cries died away completely and all at o
nce there was nothing save near-absolute quiet. Hennessy immediately went down behind some scrub. Carlisle quickly joined him. The buffalo hunter’s eyes asked a question, but not having any sure answer for him, Hennessy could only shrug. A long half-minute passed, and still all was silent but for the buzz of yellow-jackets and the whine of cicadas in the sun-browned grass.
Then, without warning, there came a long, drawn-out scream that sent a winter’s chill through both men, and suddenly it seemed to Hennessy that his skin was too small to accommodate his body.
‘Like I said,’ Carlisle muttered hoarsely, clenching one fist. ‘We’re too late.’
Hennessy peered through the brush. There was no one around that he could see and no one that he could sense, so he broke cover and continued up towards the far rim. Carlisle hesitated a moment, then went after him. Just before he topped out, Hennessy went down and snaked the rest of the way on his stomach. Once again Carlisle followed suit, breathing heavily now.
They stopped on the far side of some full-grown brittlebush and looked down through its confusion of yellow flowers into the bowl of land beyond. The ground was littered with the bodies of fifty or more buffalo, nearly all of them stripped to the red meat and left to rot. In among the carcasses was a scattering of human dead, too, both white man and red: even a horse.
Other men were still very much alive down there, though – a knot of about sixteen Indians, some still mounted, some afoot, two of them nursing what appeared to be gunshot wounds. And they were all gathered around the single survivor of their attack, a white man who lay some yards from an old covered wagon.
Hank Ketchum.
‘Aw, Christ …’ muttered Carlisle. ‘Them red sons-abitches….’
Hennessy was inclined to agree. The Indians had stripped Ketchum naked and then pegged him out on the hard, hot earth, so that his arms and legs were stretched wide. He was screaming while they worked on him, and it made Hennessy’s teeth ache to hear such a Godawful mixture of howl and sob, plea and shriek.
The Indians didn’t have any objections, though. To them it was the perfect accompaniment to the agonies they were inflicting upon their captive – the slicing off of a finger here, a toe there, an ear, a lip, his nose.
Carlisle suddenly clapped a hand over his mouth. Hennessy glanced at him. said, ‘You all right?’
Above the line of his hand, Carlisle’s eyes looked haunted, his skin pale and sweaty. Not trusting himself to speak, he just gave a single, sick-looking nod.
Hennessy turned his attention back to the Indians and their red plaything below. Sixteen of the bastards, he thought. Too many to take on and hope to beat, even with the element of surprise on their side.
Quickly he considered their options. They didn’t have all that many, so it didn’t take very long. And when he finally reached his inevitable decision, he felt pretty much like puking himself.
‘Go back to the horses,’ he whispered. ‘Tie mine tight to some brush and then you and O’Neal get the hell out of here.’
Carlisle swallowed hard. ‘What about you?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘They’s nothin’ we can do here. The Indians’ve already killed Garland an’ Hicks, an’ Hank’s as good as dead himself.’
But Carlisle couldn’t have been more wrong. ‘Hank’s probably more alive now than he’s ever been, though it’s for sure he wishes he wasn’t.’ Hennessy told him through set teeth. ‘And the Indians’ll keep him that way for as long as it pleasures ’em.’
Carlisle’s eyebrows met in a frown. ‘Then what—?’
He was going to ask what Hennessy thought he could do about it, but in the same moment he realized exactly what he could do.
‘Oh Lord,’ he breathed. ‘You’re gonna kill him, ain’t you?’
‘I’m going to put him out of his misery,’ Hennessy corrected him as, down below. Hank screamed again. ‘Lessen you’d prefer to do it?’
Carlisle looked as if he’d been scalded. ‘I got even less stomach for it than you have. But if you shoot him, you’ll bring the Indians down on us.’
‘That’s why I want you two to get out of here now. Head back for Adobe Walls and tell ’em what happened here, and to expect the worst. I’ll be right behind you – I hope.’
Carlisle ran his callused palm down his sweaty face again. ‘It’s gonna be hell,’ he whispered. ‘Pullin’ the trigger, I mean.’
Hennessy nodded. He’d already figured that out for himself.
They looked at each other for a moment longer, and then Carlisle said, ‘I guess maybe I judged you wrong, yest’day.’
‘You wouldn’t be the first.’
‘Well, good luck to you,’ said Carlisle soberly, offering his hand.
They shook. Hank screamed.
With one final nod, Carlisle scrambled back to O’Neal and the horses, leaving Hennessy to swear silently and shake his head. What he was figuring to do now was madness, not far short of suicide. But he knew he’d never again be able to look at himself in the mirror if he didn’t spare Ketchum at least some of the agony to come.
He surveyed the scene below again. One of the Indians was piling loose brush between Ketchum’s legs, figuring to scorch his genitals, while another was gesturing to his companions with a knife, asking if it was too soon to separate their captive from his scalp.
Clenching his teeth, Hennessy brought the stock of the Winchester up to his right shoulder and carefully took aim.
Down below, the Comanche with the knife dropped to his knees, pulled Ketchum’s snow-white hair back from his forehead and prepared to make his first cut.
Feeling sick to the stomach, Hennessy pulled the trigger, and a part-second later Ketchum’s face exploded, showering the surrounding Indians with blood, brains and bone.
For a moment then there was complete and utter shock. Before the Indians could recover, Hennessy sprang up and started half-falling, half-sliding back down the hill towards his waiting horse. He managed to get a little more than twenty yards before the Indians began to yell and screech in a combination of rage and indignation, and a wild scattering of shots chopped through the brush he’d recently vacated.
The Indians would be scattering for cover now, he thought, certain they were under attack. But it wouldn’t take them long to figure out what had really happened, and then they’d come after him, and if they caught him, then he would provide the pleasure he’d just denied them by killing Hank.
That being the case, he had just moments to get as much of a head-start as he could, and he didn’t figure to waste a second of it.
He yanked the reins free, threw himself into the saddle and thrust the Winchester back into the scabbard. Then he gave the skittish horse his heels and the animal plunged forward into a flat-out gallop.
A backward glance showed him the first of the mounted Indians already charging over the top of the rise, and he swore with colour as he urged his horse to greater efforts.
Facing forward again, he saw Carlisle and O’Neal about half a mile ahead of him on the great, sweltering plain, and he swore some more. The fools had gone so far, then reined down to wait for him! Damn! He’d given them a chance to get to hell and gone before the Indians came after them, and here they were, throwing it away!
As they started waving him on, he hauled his .45 from its holster, twisted at the waist and loosed off two shots to discourage pursuit, not that he really expected it to do him much good. The Indians knew that his chances of hitting anything from the back of a charging horse were slim at best, and if anything it only made them ride the faster.
The land ahead became a crazy kaleidoscope of yellows, browns and washed-out greens, all of them leaping and falling drunkenly to the lunge and thrust of the charging horse beneath him. But now Hennessy was close enough to bawl at his companions.
‘Ride, damn you!’
Carlisle and O’Neal, not understanding him, just stayed where they were and continued to wave him on.
He was beyond cursing by now. Seconds later he blurred past the
buffalo hunters without even breaking stride, but still yelling for them to move, dammit, and at last they got the message and fell in behind him.
Now the choice was so simple that even they could understand it.
They had to ride for their lives … or end up fighting for them.
Spooked and trying not to show it, blond-haired, thin-faced Shaun Millican was paying more attention to his surroundings than he was to the four-horse team leaning into the traces ahead of him.
He’d never trusted the Indians, of course, not since his father, a miner from Nevada, had been killed in a Paiute ambush in the Truckee River Valley fourteen years earlier. Shaun, only eight years old at the time, had learned to hate them with a passion after that, and though he would never admit it, he’d learned to fear them, too. After all, his father had been a strong, fit man who’d fought for survival every day of his short life. He was tough, rock-hard, shatterproof, and Shaun had idolized him for it. And yet, that day in early May, the Paiutes had killed him and upwards of fifty men just like him, with little if any loss to their own.
Now, if they could do that, what else were they capable of?
The question had plagued the boy, and thereafter he’d developed an almost morbid interest in Indian affairs. And not just the Paiutes. There was that business with the Sioux in Wyoming a few years later: Captain Jack’s Modocs in Oregon; the Apaches in Arizona; the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Caddo and, of course, the worst of the bunch, the Comanches, right here in Texas. Sometimes it seemed there was always Indian trouble some place, and always would be.
For that reason, Shaun had never felt at ease on the Staked Plains. He’d never quite been able to shake that itchy feeling of being watched: that some invisible foe was forever sizing you up and just waiting for the right moment to chop you down.
He’d never mentioned it to anyone else, of course. He wouldn’t dare. They’d have called him seven different kinds of coward to fret for what they considered to be no good reason. But what had befallen Sam Dudley and B. J. Williams the day before had brought back memories of his father’s fate and shaken him to the core, and he’d been relieved when Johnny Bourke had announced his decision to haul stakes and head back to Dodge before the price of skins went down.