Suddenly a movement caught his eye in the willows along the creek. He watched closely and saw a late brave, loaded with a tablecloth stuffed with loot, creep down to the creek, drink deeply, clamber awkwardly back onto his horse, and start out after his fellows. Doom’s gun came up slowly, carefully, and he tracked the jouncing marauder. The pistol’s report was a belated, lonely sound in the dawn. The man’s horse gave a tremendous leap, bucked insanely for a second or two, sending the startled warrior sprawling on the ground, surrounded by his scattered loot. Then the animal tore off, head high and nostrils distended, after the other Indian horses.
Doom watched in surprise, concluding that his shot had missed the rider and had creased the horse. He shook out his own reins and splashed deliberately across the water, riding toward the brave, who was scrambling to his feet and jerking a battered six-gun out of the ragged folds of his breechclout. Doom rode methodically at a walk until he saw the other’s gun coming up, then he rammed his heels into the horse’s sides and roared, careening forward.
The warrior fired and missed. He stood, spraddle-legged, and cocked his gun again. Caleb was within good shooting range, and his gun sounded loudly in his own ears as he shot at the squatty, indomitable figure before him. The brave refused to budge an inch and fired again. Caleb felt the quick, shocking, half numbness that goes with being shot. He was flying into the face of his enemy now, and his gun thundered three times in rapid succession. The hostile sagged, went down to his knees, and brought the gun up again. Caleb’s horse hit him with stunning force before the shaking fingers could tighten on the trigger, and the warrior went over backward, blood gushing from his smashed face where the horse’s knee had struck him solidly.
The brave’s one true shot had struck Caleb in the leg below the knee, had glanced off the shin bone, and torn a jagged, gory hole in his right leg. He made up a tourniquet out of the dead man’s headband, re-mounted, and rode back to Clearwater Springs.
Amid the acrid-smelling ruins of their settlement, a crowd of gaunt, red-eyed men and women were standing together with another group of grimfaced civilians. Caleb rode up somberly and they all turned to face him. He was surprised when Leclerc, the barman from Dentón, stepped out of the mob and nodded at him. “It didn’t work, did it?”
Caleb was tired and sore, but he understood that Leclerc was referring to Doom’s hope that he might be able to talk the hostiles into lifting their siege of Dentón. He shook his head slowly. “No. Not only didn’t work, but they brought me here to leave among the dead. Got away an’ tried to give the alarm but”—he shrugged and looked at the carnage around him—“I’m afraid I didn’t do much good.” He looked at the motley, dry-eyed mob and frowned. “Where’re the troops?”
Jock Leclerc shook his head harshly. “Ain’t none. Your horse come into the livery barn at Dentón last night, an’ we figured what was up, got together all the freighters and drovers that’ve been bottled up in town fer the last month, an’ backtracked him.”
“But the bugle?”
“Trick. We wasn’t strong enough to give’em battle. They was a helluva lot of’em, so we used the bugle to try a bluff, an’ damned if it didn’t work. They run like rabbits.” His swarthy face was puzzled. “Where in hell’d they all come from?”
An older man went up beside Caleb’s rapidly swelling leg and probed it. “Sit perfectly still,” he said. Caleb nodded indifferently and the doctor went to work. “Leclerc, you recall a man named Sam Ginn?”
The saloon owner snorted. “Sure, he’s one of the lowest Comancheros on the frontier. Troublemaker an’ renegade o’ the first water.”
“He’s talked Red Sleeves into forming a confederacy. He gets the loot and they get the revenge.”
Jock Leclerc’s features darkened under the rush of hot blood into his head. He bit down hard on the profanity that swelled in his throat. Suddenly his eyes came up hard and killing mad. “Can you ride?”
Doom nodded without answering, frowning into the protesting eyes of the little doctor.
Jock Leclerc swung to the assembled, white-faced settlers. “Git your horses. If the soldiers won’t do it, by Gawd we’ll have to!” There were some murmurs among the people and a woman started hysterical, high moaning. Another woman led her away as the settlers fanned out, looking for something to ride. Caleb listened gravely to the little doctor, nodded, and frowned at the throbbing leg like he resented its interference in the job to be done.
Leclerc was on his horse and beside him. “We gotta do it now. They’ll break their camp an’ slope an’ we’ll never find’em.”
“I reckon.”
“You can lead us to’em?”
Caleb nodded. “How many men you got?”
“Not enough. Eighty or so come from Dentón, and there must be about one or two hundred here.”
Caleb’s somber glance swept over the dulled, apathetic settlers who moved mechanically among the wreckage of their village. “There’s about five hundred fightin’ bucks in the ranchería, an’ maybe two, three hundred more oldsters and youngsters handy.”
Leclerc nodded thoughtfully. “I sent two men to Lauder fer the soljers last night. We’ll leave scouts here at the springs an’ at intervals out on the prairie to guide’em in when they get here. They oughta make it no later than midday, if they travel fast.”
Caleb’s dour glance was matched with his words. “I reckon…if they’ve got fightin’ officers instead of Eastern puppets.”
Jock Leclerc looked over at him quickly, under-stood the brooding look and said nothing.
V
There weren’t horses enough. What the attack-ers hadn’t stolen had been shot. When the party left Clearwater Springs, there were no more than 250, all told. They left guides for the soldiers at regular intervals as they rode. This, too, cut down their effective striking force. The sun was get-ting a good start across the firmament in the new day when they encountered their first Apache vedette. They were fortunate in outriding and killing the warrior. However, two more braves fled at their approach and made it to the foothills before the hard-riding settlers could catch them.
Leclerc turned to Doom and yelled against the whipping air that streamed past them: “They’ll be ready now!”
Doom nodded, white-faced and sunken-eyed.
Leclerc reined over closer. “Ride’em down?”
Doom looked around and shook his head vehemently: “Don’t dare! Not enough of us. Have their route scouted an’ try to ride far enough ahead of’em to lay an ambush.”
Leclerc wagged his head as they swept up the mountain pass into the fragrance of the pine and fir foothills below the Apache encampment. “Not a chance, they’ll be watchin’ us like hawks, now that they know we’re comin’.”
Doom batted his eyes against the fuzziness that seemed to be eating at the edges of his mind. “Reckon you’re right at that.” He shrugged. “What-ever we do, tell the boys not to let the hostiles split’em up. Stay together…everyone. If we get divided, we’re goners.”
Leclerc shouted the orders to stay together and they were relayed back down the charging host of riders. Somewhere, up ahead, a rifle cracked and a ragged volley answered. A moment later, Doom looked down indifferently as he rode by, at the still, grotesquely sprawled body of a brave who had been shot out of a fir tree.
The excited, frenzied Apaches were breaking up their camp. They were in a broiling turmoil when scouts brought word to Red Sleeves that the settlers were coming. The hostiles were surprised that the pursuit was not made by soldiers, and Red Sleeves sent out a large body of warriors to try and find the soldiers he was certain were with the settlers. He feared a trick of some kind. Squaws were screaming at dogs and children and trying to load nervous, shying horses. There was a disorderly pandemonium throughout the camp that was only added to as the faint, unmistakable sound of a volley of firing stirred the feverish activity, each family trying to get away from the ranchería as quickly as the others. Much equipment was left behind as, inspired by Red Sleeves’s worried face, all grabbed what was handy and fled. Scouts came and went and still no sign of the soldiers could be found.