“You think they’ve spotted the village?” Hook quietly asked Two Sleep beside him in the column.
The old Shoshone nodded. “Yellow jackets.”
“Comanche? That what you figure?”
“That what I see.”
Hook glared again, squinting into the shimmering distance of the icy plain, trying to make out anything that Two Sleep could claim would be Comanche.
Lockhart reined about, hurriedly stuffing the field glasses away. He slowed his horse to a walk as he reached the company and began by giving them what sounded like his first real order in many days as he rode down their line.
“Dismount.”
They obeyed him instantly without question, without muttering a word. The only sounds among those thirty were those of the restive horses, the squeak of soaped leather, the rattle of buckle and chain, the squeak of holster and rifle boot. Their captain had news for them fit to singe the hair even in a Ranger’s ears.
“If your cinches need tightening, now’s the time,” Lockhart instructed. “We’ve spotted the enemy ahead.”
“The Comanch’?” Clyde Yoakam asked.
“No doubt, Sergeant,” Lockhart said, wheeling his horse and walking it back up the line of men, who stood flipping stirrups over their saddles, tugging and tightening on cinches and cruppers, drawing up their own britches, taking belts up a notch or so. That done, some men pulled rifles from their boots with a noise like tired buggy springs, chambering a cartridge into the breech. Others broke open the action of their pistols, exposing cylinders, slipping a sixth round beneath the finely honed hammers.
“You see how many, Captain?” asked June Callicott.
“Not certain how many. Not really sure that they’ve seen us just yet either. If it weren’t for the glasses I used, that camp’d still be just a black dot on the edge of the horizon. So it’s not likely they know we’re here just yet.”
“You saw ’em still in camp?” Jonah asked, his eyes going to fix a cold, milk-pale sun against midsky.
“We’ve caught them sitting.”
Hook wagged his head. “We didn’t catch ’em, Cap’n. They ought to be up and on the move long before now. Only reason we got ’em sitting is those Comanche are waiting for us.”
Lockhart’s face went dark as scorched wood behind his bushy black mustache and that week’s growth of shadow over his cheeks. He jutted his chin at Hook’s severe appraisal of their situation. “So be it, men. Remount—and form into line for inspection.”
Jonah had to admire the captain for that. Lockhart wasn’t about to be bullied into fearing this bunch of warriors. He could be a cool one when it came down to cutting the deck with the whole night’s game resting on this one last hand they were about to play.
The entire company came into the saddle and settled almost noiselessly, jostling their mounts left-about into one long line stretching right and left, facing their stiff-jawed captain. Clearly holding his horse in check, Lockhart eased down that formation, appraising each one of them from their sun-faded hat to the toes of their high-heeled boots stuffed clear to the insteps in the stirrups. Nearly every last one of them wore two belts, one looped over the other around their outer coats in a lazy X, all brass and lead that looked damned near as impressive as a crown of feathers would atop a proven Kwahadi warrior.
The captain slowed before Two Sleep and Hook, and stopped. “I’m a little concerned about your Snake here, Jonah. Going into battle now, things are likely to get a bit confusing for the rest of the men. Perhaps he should stay behind.”
“I go fight with you,” Two Sleep said evenly, his eyes held straight ahead, as unwavering and military as any soldier’s.
Jonah felt more proud of him at that moment than he had since that morning in the red desert when they jumped Usher’s Mormons. He stared straight ahead too as he said, “He’ll do fine, Cap’n.”
“If the Indian doesn’t mind, I do need someone to see to the pack mules. Benton!”
“Sir?”
“Bring up those mules.”
“What you have in mind doing with them two mules?” Hook asked as Billy Benton brought their pair of pack animals up and halted beside Lockhart.
“These mules carry what extra ammunition Company C has along,” the captain explained. “I’m putting it in charge of the Snake here.”
He turned to Two Sleep, whose black-cherry eyes finally veered to touch the captain’s face. Lockhart asked, “You understand what’s expected of you?”
The Shoshone nodded. “I guard the mules with my life.”
Lockhart flashed a grin, motioning Benton forward with the picket ropes strung back to the mules. “I can see I’ve made a good choice in this matter. Thank you … Two Sleep.”
It was the first time Jonah could recall any of the Rangers, much less the captain himself, calling the warrior by name. As if until this moment he had been just an Injun. A faceless, nameless red-belly. But in these minutes before the bloodletting, Two Sleep had somehow become one of them. Worthy of no less an honor than standing watch over their supply of cartridges.
No matter that there were biscuits and beans and bacon in those packs. The Shoshone had just been asked to protect what was even more precious, perhaps life sustaining. The bullets.
“For some of you this charge will be the first time you ever rode into something like this,” Lockhart continued, reining his horse to the side and easing on down the line of Rangers. “Hell, I gotta admit I never rode into a bunch of Comanche that’s been ready for us. No matter is it—your green will be worn off by the time the second shot is fired and you’ve got a whiff of gunpowder in your nostrils, men.”
When the captain reached the end of the line, he sawed his mount about and brought his horse back to the middle, where he stopped to face his thirty. “You’ll ride out at my order. I will take the point, and no man will allow his mount to pass mine. Make yourselves clear on that. When we begin, spread out ten feet apart, and keep the same pace as those on either side of you. Our success or failure will depend on us staying together.”
Lockhart drew the back of his glove across his lips, chewed the lower lip a moment, then continued. “If one of you becomes separated from the company, do all that is in your power to make it back to us. In the end we may be pressed to dismount and fort up behind the bodies of our horses. If I give that order, we will circle Two Sleep and the mules. Re-form around the pack mules before we start dropping the horses.”
“Dropping the horses, Captain?” asked Wig Danville. “Shoot ’em?”
“Yes.”
“But, sir—I say ride. And ride hard. We fort up, them Comanche gonna swallow us up for sure.”
“Danville, there’s a lot of old frontiersmen who can tell you chapter and verse of their own history where the few held out against the many—and held the day.”
“You run, Wig,” Coffee added, “the Comanche got us separated. Chase us down one at a time.”
“What the sergeant says is the gospel according to Lamar Lockhart,” the captain added. “We stay together.”
“We all live,” Deacon Johns bellowed in that brimstone-laced voice of his, “or we all go to the bosom of the Lord our God together.”
“Together,” Lockhart reminded them. “Likely, it will be fighting these red-bellies to the last ditch and victory to the strongest.”
“That ol’ sulfur-belly of Satan’s son is about to get his due from a jealous God!” Deacon Johns bellowed.
Then they all fell silent again as Lockhart’s eyes went up and down the long line. Only when he had done so did the captain gently nudge his horse about. “Let’s move out, Sergeant Coffee.”
“You heard the captain!” Coffee bawled. “Move out!”