"Janis!" I called in English. "I think we've got them all. Let's be careful not to shoot each other now. But keep an eye open, in case one of them is still running around."
Actually there were four still alive, all of them wounded and out of action. We dragged them into the bunkhouse to leave them there.
We had thirty-six horses and about eighty cattle. Yaks. I was only a fair horseman, but four of the five Navajos, all but one who grew up in Flagstaff, were pretty good, and had herded livestock before. Four Latvians said they wanted to come with us. Another had been killed, and the pregnant girl had been shot in the chest. She'd gone into premature labor from the shock, and her breath came in and out of the bullet hole, making bloody bubbles that smelled bad. I was pretty sure she'd die soon, and so was she. The older woman said she'd stay with her. I think she probably killed the wounded Kazakhs with her butcher knife, after we left. She really hated them.
None of the other four Latvians-one a pregnant woman-had ever ridden a horse. The Kazakh ponies were well trained, but they thought that whoever was on their backs should know now to ride. Also, the Latvians didn't know how to control them, so the ponies took advantage of them, giving them trouble. Finally Cody made them double up, two to a horse. The added weight sobered the ponies up, and also made less for us to keep track of. It would be up to the Latvians to stay with us or follow us.
We all had guns now, a rifle and two pistols each. We also put a saddle or pack saddle on all the spare horses. Three of the Navajos knew how to load a pack saddle; they loaded the spare rifles and pistols, and all the ammunition boxes and swords, on pack horses. Also we filled the waterbags and canteens we found there. Then, with Navajos running the show, we headed east, driving the cattle ahead of us. The spare horses trailed behind, tied in a string.
We went slowly. We didn't know how these cattle would act if we hurried them, and with Cody injured, and two of us not as skilled on horseback as we needed to be, there were only three men qualified to handle the herd. We'd traveled as fast earlier, on foot.
There was time to think about the fight. How had we won at so little cost? The Kazakh's had outnumbered us and had many more weapons. But they had suspected nothing. Even after we began attacking them, they didn't know what was happening; probably they thought they faced only their slaves. It wasn't warrior skills mat won for us, or virtue, although their own evil treatment of their slaves had allowed us to attack them and win.
If we had fought them in other circumstances, it would have been different. The Kazakhs had a reputation as a tough people, and those who went with the nerds almost lived on horseback. I remembered reading about the Kazakhs who wanted to be colonists: they were traditional herdsmen from the dry steppes around Lake Balqash. Probably they'd grown up in the saddle. I also remembered my reading on biogeography: wolf packs still ranged there; the herdsmen had probably grown up with guns, too.
Reading about them, I'd felt affinity with them. They had wanted to continue their way of life in freedom. Now I knew them and didn't like them anymore.
When we came to the big water hole where we'd separated from Frank Begay and his five men, Cat's Eye was swollen, gibbous, and dimday seemed about as light as a stormy day in Minnesota. I had not ridden for almost two Earth-years before, and my buttocks were sore from the saddle.
We'd had water to drink, from canteens, but we stopped to let the animals drink. One of my men rode eastward on the trail, the direction that Frank and the others had taken, to see if he could find sign that they'd returned before us. Then he came back, shouting that at the edge of vision, in that direction, he'd seen dust raised by animals. Either a herd was being hurried, or some Kazakhs were coming fast on horseback.
I took charge again at once, and told the men to get the herd moving toward the canyon. "Get them started," I said, "and drive them at a run! Get the pack horses there too! Nelson may need the guns!"
The three skilled Navajos began at once; the rest of us helped as well as we could. Even the Latvians tried. They'd been keeping their seats better than at the beginning, but now, as we began to hurry, and to harry the cattle into a gallop, one of the Latvians fell off his horse, and the others seemed likely to. One of them, the bald-headed man, shouted in their own language, and they stopped their horses. All but one, the pregnant woman, got off with their weapons. Looking back over my shoulder, I saw the other three lie down behind bushes. Their ponies stood by till one of the Latvians got up and charged at them, shouting. Then the ponies wheeled and started after the rest of us.
It seemed that the Latvians were going to sell their lives to kill some of their ex-masters. It wasn't easy to ride away from them, but we had to get the herds, the cattle and horses, to Nelson Tsinajini, so he could drive them down the canyon to the people. We'd sell our lives afterward, if we had to.
As the herd began to gallop, they raised a cloud of dust. The Kazakhs would notice, and come after us. Probably they'd seen Frank and his men scouting their camp, and killed or caught them. None of Frank's people had more than a knife. Maybe the Kazakhs had even made one of them tell.
I dropped back a little and to the east, out of our dust cloud to see. I could make out the dust cloud the Navajo had seen, maybe a kilometer away now, or a little more. The horses would run faster than cattle; the Kazakhs would gain on us if they wanted to. And as they saw our direction, they could cut the angle, and save distance.
I hurried and caught up with the others. Cody, riding with his one good arm, was leading the horse string past the cattle, with one of the other men harrying them from behind, to get the extra guns to Nelson. Behind me I heard gunfire, and for a minute I didn't know what it meant. They hadn't come to the Latvians yet. Then I realized: the Kazakhs had had prisoners with them, some of Frank's men, probably tied onto horses. And the prisoners were slowing them up, so they were dumping them off and shooting them.
How far had it been from the canyon break to the big pool? More than an hour and a half on foot through bunch grass and dwarf shrubs; seven or eight kilometers. Could we get there before we were caught? Surely the horses would, and the rifles, but would the cattle, and those who were driving them? I heard another flurry of shooting that quickly increased. The Latvians! How many Kazakhs would they kill, the three of them? Would the Kazakhs stay long enough to kill them all, or were they exchanging shots in passing, hardly slowing? Did they know how important a few minutes were for us?
The other Latvian, the one who had tried to stay with us, fell off her horse. I saw her trying to get up as I passed; it looked as if she was injured. For a minute I thought of circling back and picking her up, but my horse would slow too much, carrying two, and I was needed. I felt guilty anyway. I slowed a little and looked back. She had turned, lying on her belly looking back down the trail. Her rifle was unslung; she was ready for the Kazakhs. I speeded up again.
Soon the cattle began to slow. They were tiring. I told myself I should have tried to rescue the Latvian woman after all, but by then she was a kilometer back. So I rode out to the side again, away from our dust, to see how close our pursuers had gotten. It wasn't as bad as I'd feared; their horses had been running longer than ours. But even so, they were more than a dust cloud now; they were objects. Soon, even by dimday, they would appear as men on horseback. I decided to stay to the side. If it seemed they would catch the herd, I would drop back and begin shooting at them from the flank. Perhaps I could lead some of them away.
But not yet. We still might reach Nelson Tsinajini before we were caught, and some of his men would have guns by then, and be on horseback.