Lustily screaming in victory, the horseman was pulling an ax from the back of his belt as Rowland spun to his knees over his wife, shrieking in horror.
Kicking his pony and yanking savagely on the horsehair rein—struggling to get his animal slowed and turned around—the Comanche came about and started to dash toward the grieving white man at the instant Scratch jammed the rifle into his shoulder. At the very moment he realized he’d forgotten to remove the ramrod from the barrel, Bass raked back on the trigger.
Both ball and hickory wiping stick exploded from the rifle as the muzzle spat a bright torch of yellow flame. While the lead sphere smashed through the warrior’s breastbone, the long ramrod embedded itself deeply at the base of his throat. There it quivered for a moment before the warrior released his big-headed ax, seizing the wiping stick with both hands as his legs lost their grip on the pony. He slid over onto the snow.
Rowland hunched over the naked, bloody body—sobbing—as Scratch skidded to a stop beside him.
“Gimme your pistol!”
Rowland looked up dumbly, his eyes at once filled with rage, wild and feral, at the very moment they pooled with tears of unfathomable grief.
“M-maria—”
“Gimme your pistol!” Bass shouted again, then crouched and grabbed for the weapon stuffed in Rowland’s belt like a goat’s hoof.
Dropping his rifle at his feet as he started to rise, Scratch dragged back the huge hammer on the pistol and whirled at the shrill war cry ringing in his ears. Nearly upon them was a warrior whose skin was more mahogany than oak brown, racing toward the trappers on foot.
His finger twitched on the trigger … but he held—spotting a second warrior sprinting right on the heels of the first headed their way.
Scratch waited, waited—his whole body tensing as he struggled against the instinct to shoot … then fired the big horse pistol—its huge ball cutting a swath through the first Indian and smacking into the second, dropping them both within spitting distance of Rowland.
As the two Comanche tumbled out of the way onto the icy snow, behind them a mounted warrior charged up to skewer a Mexican horseman with his buffalo lance. With so much power behind the impact, the warrior was able to pick the Mexican out of his saddle, dangling the helpless soldier aloft momentarily on the end of that terrible spear, then fling the dead man off into an icy patch of pine needles before the trembling carcass could break the lance.
Realizing that now he was without a loaded firearm, Scratch dropped the pistol beside Rowland at the same time he snagged hold of John’s collar and pulled his head back so he could stare into the trapper’s eyes.
“Get your goddamned pistol loaded—or you’re gonna end up like her!”
Wagging his head slightly, Rowland let the tears pour out.
It was plain to see the man didn’t care if he ended up like his Maria then and there. Bass let go of John’s shirt, leaving the man to collapse over the bare, bloody body, his own chest racked with silent sobs.
From the back of Rowland’s belt he pulled free the throwing tomahawk and leaped to his feet, exploding into a sprint. The Comanche lancer who had speared the soldier was turning his horse, bringing that huge blood-slickened weapon around to find another target. The closest was another of the naked women stumbling away, tripping and pitching into the snow to crawl on her knees and hands across the frozen ground. Her feet must be as leaden as adobe bricks, Bass thought as he lowered his head, his eyes locked on the horseman, flying across the crusty snow.
At the instant the Comanche loped past, Scratch flung himself onto the pony’s rear flanks, his left arm locking around the warrior’s chest as he swung out sideways with the tomahawk—hurling it back in savagely as the warrior twisted and jerked, trying to free himself from the white man he suddenly found clinging to him like a buffalo tick.
The tomahawk sank into soft tissue.
Only his gut!
Bass swung out again, this time bringing it against some bone.
Ribs!
Again, and again—hacking the blade higher and higher as the man coughed and gurgled and thrashed … until the Comanche went completely limp. Scratch yanked the warrior and his lance off the horse. He hopped forward just as the pony leaped aside, snatching hold of the reins in his left hand, spinning the animal around in a tight circle.
Some of the Comanche were already spurring their horses into the trees out of the depression where Hatcher’s men had sprung their attack. Nearly half of the horsemen bolted right past the trappers. Those warriors who were left to fight were either the very brave, or the very dead.
In his own most private duel Ensign Guerrero slashed and jabbed and parried with his sword against two Comanche who swung at him with their clubs and tomahawks, all three of them still on horseback, spinning about and bumping, throwing the weight of their animal against the others, kicking out with their legs at the enemy.
Suddenly the officer froze, his face gone pasty as day-old bread dough the instant a third Indian behind the Mexican pierced him with a long lance. The Mexican gazed down at the bloody lance protruding from his chest, vainly pulling at the slick wood with his empty left hand as he began to slip to the side from the saddle, spilling to the ground. Sprawling there, kicking his legs futilely, Don Francisco Guerrero finally dropped his engraved sword so he could clutch the thick, bloody wood with both hands as his eyes glazed over, staring sightless at the lowering sky.
Bass drew back the tomahawk and hurled it at the closest of the three horsemen, watching it crack into the warrior’s back. The other two wheeled around immediately as Bass pulled his own tomahawk from his belt, ready for the charge they were sure to make.
One of them yelled at the other; then both put heels to their horses and raced toward the white man. He set himself, ready to spring to either side, ready even to pitch onto the ground when they reached him. But to his surprise neither one leaned off to swing at him with their club or tomahawk. Rather, they burst on past, kicking their ponies furiously.
Right on the heels of the rest of those already fleeing the battle with wild shouts.
“Hatcher!”
It was Kinkead’s voice he heard as he turned.
Matthew was pointing back into the timber where the Comanche had disappeared. They could still hear the hoofbeats. But instead of that hammering growing fainter, it was becoming louder.
“They’re coming back!” Hatcher exploded out of the dawn shadows, hollering and waving.
All the rest were looking back over their shoulders as the war cries and captives’ shrieks grew louder.
“Get the women!”
Bass spun to glance back toward the middle of the meadow, where he found three of the captives miraculously still on their feet—naked and shivering, trembling from fear and the cold, huddling and clutching one another.
“Where’s the children?” Bass screamed at Solomon Fish as the trapper sprinted up beside him.
The stocky man’s face went blank as he swallowed hard and replied, “Ain’t none of the li’l ones left.”
In disbelief Titus groaned, “They kill ’em all?”
Lumbering up, Graham shouted, “What ones they didn’t awready get off with!”
“Watch out!” Hatcher warned.
The three of them whirled around with Jack as a dozen horsemen exploded from the shadows at tree line, horses snorting frosty jets of steam from their nostrils, bearing their riders toward the men on foot, who set themselves for that charge. Behind the trappers arose the shrieks of the three naked captives as they saw the Comanche returning.