They had plenty of powder and ammunition. What they wouldn’t have was a lot of time to reload. If they didn’t break the back of the charge with their first volley, some of the warriors were going to make it into the circle.
Preacher took up a position at the back of the wagon where Casey and the wounded man were. Lorenzo stood at the front of the next wagon in line. Leeman Bartlett was a couple wagons away. Preacher didn’t see Roland.
“Where’s Roland?” he called to Lorenzo. “Have you seen him? He was gonna fetch a pistol for Casey.”
The old-timer shook his head. “Don’t know. Ain’t seen hide nor hair of him this last little while.”
Preacher didn’t have time to worry about Roland. He brought his long-barreled flintlock to his shoulder and aimed toward the charging riders.
“Roland!” Leeman Bartlett suddenly screamed. “My God! Roland, come back!”
Preacher lowered his rifle and looked around to see Bartlett clambering over a wagon tongue, leaving the circle. Preacher ran after him. He hurdled the wagon tongue and grabbed Bartlett’s arm. The Comanches were only about five hundred yards away.
“What the hell’s wrong with you, Bartlett?” he demanded. “You gone loco?”
Bartlett pointed a shaking finger. “Look!”
Preacher’s face grew grim as he spotted the mounted figure riding toward the onrushing warriors. Roland had gotten hold of one of the extra horses and was meeting the Comanche charge by himself. It was the most foolhardy thing Preacher had ever seen.
Despite that, he felt a surge of admiration for the youngster. It was a crazy, futile gesture on Roland’s part . . . but there was no doubt it took courage to do what he was doing.
Preacher shoved Bartlett toward the wagons. “Get back in the circle!” he ordered.
“But my son—”
“There’s nothin’ you can do for him.”
Nothing any of them could do, Preacher thought.
Except maybe him.
“Go on,” he told Bartlett. “I’ll see if I can get him.”
Bartlett stumbled over the wagon tongue as he climbed back into the circle. Preacher whistled for Horse and Dog. The stallion and the big cur responded instantly. As Preacher swung up into the saddle, he called, “Lorenzo!”
The old-timer stuck his head around the back of a wagon. “Preacher, what in hell’s name are you doin’?”
“Goin’ after that fool kid. Count ten and then have everybody fire.”
“Preacher—”
“Just do it!”
Preacher leaned forward in the saddle as he urged Horse into a run. The stallion galloped at a breakneck pace after Roland, eating up the ground.
Preacher counted off the seconds in his head as he rode. When he reached seven, he hauled back hard on the reins. The Comanches were less than two hundred yards away, and Roland was about halfway between him and them. At the count of eight, Preacher dropped out of the saddle. His feet hit the ground and dug in, and as he counted nine in his head, he pulled Horse’s head down hard. The stallion knew what he wanted and fell to the ground beside Preacher.
“Dog! Down!” the mountain man yelled.
Dog hit the dirt, too, and as he did, the ten-count ended in Preacher’s head. From the wagons, shots roared in a concentrated volley. Like the humming of a flight of giant insects, the heavy lead balls buzzed through the air above Preacher, Horse, and Dog and smashed into the Indians and their ponies.
Roland’s horse was hit, too. It went down hard, sending Roland flying through the air. Preacher didn’t know if any of the shots had struck the youngster. That had been a calculated risk in his hastily-formed plan.
One thing was certain: if Preacher hadn’t done something, Roland would have been slaughtered by those Comanch’ in a matter of seconds. The desperate gambit had nothing to lose.
Clouds of dust rolled through the air as a dozen or more of the Indian ponies spilled, going down in a welter of thrashing limbs. Preacher was up again instantly, vaulting into Horse’s saddle. He raced toward the spot where Roland’s motionless body sprawled on the ground.
The fierce volley from the wagons blunted the Comanche charge as Preacher hoped. The warriors who were still mounted reorganized a short distance away. Recognizing Preacher and Roland as targets too tempting to pass up, arrows began to fly through the air as Preacher galloped toward Roland, who was apparently unconscious and defenseless.
Preacher reached his side in a matter of heartbeats and was out of the saddle, lifting him and throwing him over Horse’s back. The stallion jumped as an arrow grazed his rump.
Preacher leaped into the saddle and grabbed the reins. He wheeled Horse and sent the stallion racing toward the wagons again. With his other hand, he held Roland’s limp form in place in front of the saddle. Dog ran ahead of them. Arrows whipped through the air around them.
Preacher soon outdistanced the Comanche bows, and the few warriors who had flintlocks weren’t good shots with them. Even so, he didn’t slow down until he had leaped Horse over a wagon tongue and was back in the circle.
Bartlett and some of the other men rushed to gather around him. “My God!” Bartlett cried. “Is he dead?”
“I don’t think so,” Preacher said as hands reached up to take hold of Roland and lift him down from the stallion’s back.
“Whoo-eee!” Lorenzo said. “I never seen nothin’ like that before, Preacher! You coulda got yourself blowed all to hell tryin’ somethin’ like that.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t.” Preacher dismounted and waved a hand at some of the men. “Get back to the wagons and watch out for those Comanch’! Reload those rifles, if you ain’t already done it.”
The men had placed Roland on the ground. Bartlett knelt beside his son and felt for a heartbeat. “He’s alive!” Bartlett announced a second later. “I don’t see any blood on him.”
“I think it just knocked him out when he got throwed off his horse,” Preacher said.
Casey came pushing through the crowd. “Roland! Is he all right?”
Bartlett looked up at her. “He’s alive, my dear. I think he’s going to be fine.”
“What in the world was he trying to do?” Casey demanded of Preacher.
The mountain man shrugged. “Looked to me like he was tryin’ to fight off those Injuns all by his lonesome.”
“Because you told him it was his fault they attacked us!”
“I told him the truth,” Preacher said bluntly. “What he did with it was his own lookout.”
Casey glared at him for a second, then dropped to her knees beside Roland. She took hold of his shoulder, lifted him, and pulled his head into her lap. His eyelids began to flutter. After a moment, his eyes opened and he looked up into Casey’s worried face.
“I . . . I’m alive?” he asked hoarsely.
“You are,” she told him. “But that was a foolish thing to do, Roland.”
“I thought . . . it might help,” he said. He looked over at Preacher. “I thought it might . . . make amends.”
“Throwin’ your life away hardly ever does anybody any good,” Preacher said.
Roland wasn’t listening to him. He was looking at Casey again.
Preacher left them there like that and went back to one of the wagons, peering past it at the Comanches. They had withdrawn again but hadn’t gone out of sight. They sat out there, about two dozen of them, watching the wagons. The odds were no longer overwhelmingly on their side.
“What do you think they’re gonna do?” Lorenzo asked as he stood beside Preacher.
“They’ve hit us twice, and we’ve hurt ’em bad twice,” Preacher said. “Some of ’em will be thinkin’ by now that it’s time to cut their losses and go home.”