Hank reached out and pulled the big hinged barn door closed as arrows rattled into it and lead slugs split lumber. Jay Blue was at his side, pulling the other barn door closed as the fastest of the warriors galloped between the house and the barn.
Hank began barking orders almost faster than he could think them. “Skeeter, you and Jay Blue get all our horses in those stalls. Tom! Americo! Cover these double doors! Build a barricade out of whatever you can find!” He turned to the opposite side of the barn. “George, you and Beto take the southwest corner. Tonk, you and Matt cover the southeast. Guard every approach. Whatever you do, don’t let the Indians set the barn on fire!”
The men took their posts, using rifle butts and boot heels to knock planks from the exterior wall, creating slots through which to aim and shoot.
“What now?” Jay Blue said, having crammed nine mounts into two broken-down stalls with Skeeter’s help.
“Gather whatever you can find to build breastworks. And, look out, here comes the second charge!”
Slugs sang weird harmonies to the war whoops that swept by outside.
“Hot damn!” Matt Kenyon yelled.
“You hit?”
“Just a flesh wound,” Kenyon growled. “I think it missed the bone.”
“Get some cover for these men!” Hank ordered, glaring at Jay Blue and Skeeter.
The two younger cowhands picked up everything they could lift and started constructing crude barricades at the three points of defense Hank had established inside the walls. They stacked up old saddles and barrels, and even tore a trough from the wall with pure adrenaline.
“What’s goin’ on out there?” Hank demanded.
“They’re keeping their distance right now,” Kenyon yelled through the pain of his wound. “Looks like their mounts are winded.”
“That’ll give us a minute or two. Make sure you’re reloaded.”
“They caught a bunch of hobbled ranch horses that were out grazin’,” Tom said, peering out between the big double doors. “They’ll be mounted on fresh stock pronto.”
“Aw, shit!” said Beto Canales from the southeast corner. “Look!”
George Powers had been reloading his Winchester rifle next to Beto. “Christ Almighty,” he said, total exasperation lacing his words.
“What the hell is it now?” Hank blurted.
“Those women. They followed us!”
“¡Chinga’o!” Hank cursed. He ran to the corner, looked over Beto’s shoulder, and saw the top of Flora’s buggy lurching around where the road crossed the rocky creek bed. For the first time, he felt a wave of panic rise up that he had to fight back, but when he turned around to the interior of the barn to grab a horse, he saw Jay Blue already mounted, with the reins of a second horse in his hand.
“No, Jay Blue!” he yelled.
But Jay Blue was already kicking the barn door open beside Long Tom and Americo. “Cover me!”
“Shit!” Hank yelled. “Everybody hold your fire. Maybe they won’t see him.”
“They already see him,” Tonk said. “There they go.”
Hank darted to the southwest corner and stepped in a puddle of Matt Kenyon’s blood. “Shoot their horses out from under ’em. Don’t let them anywhere near Jay Blue or those hardheaded women!”
He heard a scurrying in the rafters and looked up to see Skeeter crawling into what had once been a loft, but could now more correctly be termed a death trap. Skeeter tested rotten lumber underfoot until he reached the slope of the roof. He kicked out a few shingles and peered through the hole he had made.
“You got a good angle?” Hank said.
“Yes, sir! I can see everything up here.”
“Catch!” Hank yelled, and tossed a Winchester up to Skeeter. “Make it hot for ’em, son!”
“There they go for the creek!” Kenyon yelled. “Six of ’em!”
Hank scrambled back to the corner and added several rounds to a barrage of lead that flew from the barn. Though beyond effective range, one of the Indian ponies fell dead, the rider limping into the brush. But the other five warriors swarmed through the timber toward the buggy mired at the creek crossing.
“It’s up to you now, Skeeter!”
Smoking brass cartridges began to drop from the loft. Hank counted shots as he loaded another Winchester. When he heard Skeeter’s hammer click, he hollered, “Catch!” He tossed the new rifle up and caught the one Skeeter dropped. “Give ’em hell!”
“Jay Blue’s got the one gal mounted behind him, and Flora on the other horse!” George said. “Here they come!” He punctuated his own words with a rapid succession of pistol rounds.
“The Indians!” Long Tom cried from the barn door, still open from Jay Blue’s departure. “They’re all comin’!”
Hank looked west and saw the main body of the war party gathering speed for an all-out attack on the ranch buildings. He shoved two last rounds into one of his Colts as he strode out of the barn door and waited to cover his son’s return when he came around the corner. The Comanches had split into three prongs in order to swarm around and between the adobe house and the rickety old barn. Hank stood his ground as arrows whispered Comanche curses past his ears. He loosed rounds from both fists with such effect that the middle prong of warriors scattered.
The two outer waves of attackers continued, taking fire from the outlaws in the adobe and Skeeter through the barn roof. Finally, Jay Blue appeared, with Jane holding on wide-eyed behind him and Flora riding a step behind, firing a derringer beyond the adobe with one hand and holding both her reins and a leather satchel with her other hand.
“Run for the barn!” Jay Blue said to Jane as he virtually pulled her from the horse. He jumped down beside her and handed her the reins.
“What about you?” she said.
Hank turned to stand guard beside his son.
“Just go!” Jay Blue yelled.
Just as she turned, a warrior appeared around the corner of the adobe, carrying only a lance into battle, leading the left prong of the swarming attack. Hank lifted one revolver, but felt Jay Blue’s hand on his wrist.
“That’s the Wolf!”
The Original Wolf slid to a halt on his pony, signaling to the riders behind him to stop. He shifted his eyes to the rider of the right-hand prong of the attack, now coming around the barn in spite of the barrage Skeeter had flung. The Wolf shouted something in Comanche and made a whirling motion of his wrist, and the whole wave of warriors that would have swarmed around the barn and in between the two buildings turned instead back to the creek.
Hank backed into the barn behind Jane. Jay Blue came in next, closed the barn door behind him, and turned his back to the door to shout at the loft. “Hold your fire, Skeeter! That’s the Wolf with the lance, and he just saved my ass!”
At that moment, an arrow slammed through the planking on the closed barn door, the shaft protruding into the barn just far enough to sink an inch deep into Jay Blue’s left hip pocket. He bellowed like a branded calf and sprang forward so hastily that he jumped into Jane’s arms, tripping her to the dirt and falling right on top of her. She fell awkwardly on her back, with her legs jutting two different directions. The arrow stayed stuck in the barn door, the point not having sunk quite deep enough into flesh for the barbs to take hold.
Skeeter was almost falling down the loft ladder in a fit of laughter. “Looks like you been shot in the heart by Cupid’s arrow!” he cried in guffaws.
“They’re regrouping,” Matt Kenyon said, watching the movements of the Indians.
Hank turned to Flora. “You promised to stay put at the ranch!”
“No, you ordered us to stay put. Don’t start, Hank. This was as much our arrest as it was yours. Anyway, we brought medical supplies in case the shooting started. Didn’t count on quite this much of it.”
Hank bit his lip. “Well, look at Jay Blue’s wound, then check on Matt. He’s bleedin’ pretty bad over there in the corner.”
Jane was crawling out from under Jay B
lue, who was also trying to regain his footing and his dignity. Flora knelt behind him and ripped open the seat of his britches where the arrow point had poked through.
“This one’s gushing, too,” she said. She yanked the leather satchel open, pulled out one of the bandages she and Jane had made by tearing up a sheet, and folded it over a couple of times. “Here,” she said, placing the folded bandage in Jane’s hand. She pressed Jane’s hand hard against Jay Blue’s wound.
“Grab hard, honey! He won’t complain!”
Skeeter started laughing almost too hard to reload as Jay Blue hobbled into position behind the breastworks at the double doors facing the adobe.
“Stay low, Jane,” Jay Blue said, his store of dignity almost exhausted.
“I’ve been reduced to grabbing your butt in front of your father,” she replied. “Is that low enough for you?”
Now even Hank had to chuckle a little. “That girl is coming around,” he said to Flora as he led her toward her second patient.
“How are we doing on ammunition?” Hank asked as he watched Flora stuff a wad of cotton into a bloody bullet hole in Matt Kenyon’s thigh.
“Low,” Tonk replied.
“Me, too.”
“Yep.”
“How bad is it, Hank?” Flora asked.
“Well, we’re almost out of ammunition and we’ve got ninety-some-odd Comanches out there who all want us dead. Or worse.”
She made a knot in the bandage tied tight around Kenyon’s leg. “So, what’s the good news?” she said.
“I’m not through with the bad news. There are nine outlaws in that adobe house who won’t give up without a fight, and you can bet they’ve been saving their rounds behind those thick mud walls.”
“Okay,” Flora said. “And the good news is . . .”
“I’m still lookin’ for the good news.”
“They seem to be poised for another charge,” Kenyon observed.
“Hank!” said Long Tom. “The door to the adobe is openin’.”
“What the hell?” Hank rushed across the barn to look out through a knothole.
From the darkness of the interior of the ranch house, the form of a man came running, illuminated by an orange flame that came with him. It was Eddie Milliken, Rafferty’s top man.
“Stop him!” Hank shouted, but Milliken had already taken two steps outside and flung the torch across the way to the barn. It landed in a pile of old hay and scrap lumber at the dilapidated northwest corner of the barn. Before the arsonist could turn back to the door, Jay Blue sent three bullets into his chest, causing him to shuffle backward and fall. He landed dead in the doorway, blocking it open.
Hank kicked the barn door open in an attempt to rush out and stomp the fire, but a barrage from the ranch house cut his flesh in several places and drove him back.
“Here comes the next charge!” Kenyon warned from the far corner of the barn.
“The bastards have sacrificed us!” Hank fumed. He stepped out again and fired four more rounds into the ranch house doorway before the outlaws could drag Milliken’s body inside and shut the door.
“Captain Tomlinson,” Skeeter said hopefully. “If that’s the Wolf out there . . .”
Hank shook his head. “Don’t think you can go out there, son. He can’t stop what he’s started. He’s promised those braves a chance at glory, and he can’t yank it out from under them now. He didn’t know you and Jay Blue would be here.”
“He’s already saved us once,” Jay Blue argued.
“He got away with it once. He can’t give you another chance.”
Flames began to crackle, and smoke streamed through the barn.
“What are we gonna do, Captain?” Long Tom Merrick was waiting.
“They’re circling four hundred yards out now!” Kenyon called. “Looks like they’re going to close in. My God, they’re using their horses for shields, riding at a full gallop.”
“Hank?” Flora said nervously.
“Take the horses out of those stalls and put them in that big corral upwind,” Hank ordered, buying some time to think. “Hold your fire, boys, unless they’re right in our laps.”
A gust caused the flames to roar louder and sent a whole cloud of smoke barreling through the interior of the barn. Skeeter, Tom, and Beto were taking horses from the smoky stalls and turning them into the corral, in clear view of the Indians.
“Alright,” Hank said. “This is bad. But we got one chance.”
“We gotta get the girls inside that adobe,” Jay Blue said.
“Right, son.”
“They’re inside two hundred yards and closing the circle!” Kenyon coughed. “I can’t see! The smoke, Captain!”
“Come here, Matt! Everybody! Here! Now!” He waited precious seconds as the smoke thickened, the heat rose, and the men gathered at the barn doors facing the adobe. Jay Blue was on his feet now, his arm around Jane, whose jaw was set in fear.
“We’ve got to storm that house now! I’ll kick the door down and go in first.”
“Right behind you, Captain,” said Kenyon, picking up the double-barrel he had yet to use.
“Everybody better be right behind me.”
Kenyon cocked both barrels. “We’ve got to go! The Indians are bound to be in range now.”
Flames were crackling up through the rafters and the cedar shakes.
Hank winced at the smoke. He knew he had to go out there. He saw Jay Blue hand a revolver to Jane. Her hand trembled when she took it. He snorted at Skeeter, and Skeeter snorted back, pumping the lever of his freshly loaded Winchester. He winked at Flora. She tried to smile, but a hideous war cry suddenly knifed into the barn, sounding closer than even Matt Kenyon had figured, and more eerily bloodthirsty than even Hank could have imagined.
From a swirl of smoke, Tonk stepped past everyone and walked outside, taking the smoke with him. Hank pursued, and felt the rest of the men surround the ladies, ushering them away from the heat of the burning barn.
The smoke seemed to cover them all halfway to the house, but then it twisted away on a windflaw and lifted like a stage curtain. Hank waved two Colts, anxious for a target. What he saw was too strange to shoot at. Lumbering between him and the adobe stronghold, came a . . . by God, it was a camel!
That hideous war cry screeched against his eardrums again and he glanced up to see what for all the world looked to him, at least for a split second, like a wraith on a ghostly steed. It turned out to be bare-chested Jubal Hayes on the Steel Dust Gray, which was even more of a sight than a soul-reaping spirit. To the west, two companies of blue-coated buffalo soldiers came to the rescue, led by First Sergeant July Polk on a familiar claybank gelding. In every other direction, Comanches left the field, scattering far and wide in fear of the evil ghost.
“The horses!” Hank yelled.
The men scrambled for the corrals to calm their mounts before they pushed through the broken-down fencing in an attempt to flee the burning barn.
Jubal’s green-broke mustang dodged the smoke, so he swung wide around the barn, laughing at the fleeing Indians as he galloped. Polk and the troopers quickly caught up to him, chasing the Indians all the way into the distant timber to make sure they were gone for good.
Feeling the sun on his skin, Jubal yanked at the leather ties on his saddle skirt where he had secured his shirt. He also reached into his saddlebag where he had stuffed his hat. He could feel Steel Dust’s heart beating double time to his heaving lungs. He could not have imagined a more challenging training run for the killer stud, but he was still ahorseback after many a mile.
“That wasn’t much of a skirmish,” First Sergeant Polk admitted. “But that’s alright with me.”
“I told you they’d run,” Jubal said, and he would have carried on in that vein had not the gunfire stopped him.
Polk wheeled as his troopers milled around him, letting their horses blow.
Jubal, too, made his mustang turn. “What in the name of . . .” They had left the ranch house som
e four or five hundred yards behind. He was sure they had chased off all the Comanches. So, what now? Why the shooting?
“I’ll be damned,” Polk said. “The fools are killin’ each other!”
The outlaws had come out of the adobe ranch house like a swarm of hornets, running at the corral. Skeeter figured quickly what it meant. The outlaws had seen the soldiers. They had seen the Indians leave. They knew they were all going to jail or going to hang, so they had to run for the brush or run for the horses.
They didn’t do well at capturing the horses. All the Broken Arrow men were there, guarding the stock, and the outlaws came out of one door in the adobe, making easy targets. Skeeter himself saw one of his bullets knock half of Bill Waterford’s head off. Then his blood-kin father stepped out and somehow knew right where to fire. Skeeter saw the big man’s eye aiming at him, and felt the slug tick his ear as he jumped into the open door of a rundown little smokehouse and ducked low as bullets splintered above him.
He looked out through the door and saw Rafferty running around the far side of the smoking barn, shooting as he retreated. Then he looked up and saw two hairy things hanging inside the smokehouse. He felt his face wrinkle and felt his stomach turn as he realized what they were. One was made of long, curly strands of light brown hair. The other was black hair, thick, but cropped short.
He reached forward and touched Poli’s scalp. The gunfire outside suddenly seemed to wake him. He jumped out of the smokehouse and circled the barn in the opposite direction his so-called daddy had run. Before he rounded the corner, he looked back and saw his friends disarming a couple of outlaws who had given up. But there was still shooting going on, and Skeeter knew Jack Brennan would be the last to end it.
A Tale Out of Luck Page 24