The attack was launched with typical Nemenuh speed, savagery and deadly intent. While there was not time for an accurate trail count, the Kid figured that at least two dozen assorted tehnaps and tuivitsis were boiling out from the places of concealment they had selected in a circle around the clearing. He noticed other things, his mind ticking them off automatically even as he prepared to defend himself.
Despite most of the Comanches’ clothing having been made from the hides of pronghorn antelopes, which labeled them as Kweharehnuh to the Kid’s eyes, only a few braves carried firearms. That fact gave the Kid less comfort or satisfaction than might have been expected. He knew that the people of Hell had presented every Kweharehnuh warrior with a repeating rifle or carbine and a regular supply of ammunition to go with it. If some of the attackers—the majority in fact—had elected to lay aside their Winchesters or Spencers, it was because they intended to count coup by personal contact. Doing so rated far higher in a Comanche’s estimation than when one was claimed after standing back to take an enemy’s life with a bullet or an arrow.
No matter what kind of weapons they were carrying, the braves displayed a mutually determined eagerness to come to grips with the hated white people around the campfire.
Screams of fright broke from the saloon girls. Instead of acting in a sensible manner, five of the six scattered wildly like chickens spooked by a diving Cooper’s hawk. Acting in blind panic, the Mexican girl who had been assigned to keep the Kid company in Hell ran straight to her death. A grizzled tehnap rammed his war lance into her body and gutted her with casual, deft ease.
Clenching her fists like a male pugilist, Emma Nene stood her ground. Letting out a screech, Giselle Lampart buckled at the knees and sank to crouch motionless. With his right hand fanning towards the butt of his holstered Colt, Hubert started to move in his employer’s direction. While scared, Red showed a better grasp of the situation than her fellow workers. Instead of fleeing blindly, she darted rapidly in search of Waco’s protection.
Lurching into a sitting position, the sergeant grabbed instinctively at his empty holster. An expression of horror creased his leathery face as he realized that he was unarmed. Deprived of his carbine by Belle’s bullet, the second of the Kid’s would-be captors tried to draw his revolver. Shooting on the run, one of the firearm-toting minority sent a Spencer bullet into the soldier’s head.
Disturbed by the sudden commotion, the horses bucked, reared, snorted and generally displayed their disapproval. The animals owned by Dusty’s party had been secured to a stout picket line and it held firm against their struggles. Having been eager to arrest the three ‘outlaws’, Kitson had ordered his men to leave their horses with the reins trailing. Normally that would have kept the well-trained remounts motionless. Fright overrode training and the cavalry horses went bounding into the darkness.
Not one of the braves gave the departing horses as much as a glance, although any of the animals would have been a valuable piece of booty.
Taking in the precarious nature of their situation with a swift glance, Dusty Fog responded with his usual speed. He held Lieutenant Kitson’s revolver and so had the means to protect himself—but the officer was unarmed and would rate high on the attackers’ list of victims.
‘Here, mister!’ Dusty snapped and tossed the long-barreled Cavalry Model Peacemaker to Kitson.
Although startled and puzzled by such an action from a man he believed to be a cold-blooded killer, the officer grabbed for and caught the weapon around its frame. He transferred his right hand to the walnut handle and prepared to sell his life dearly.
Having provided the officer with the means of self-preservation, Dusty gave thought to obtaining the same for himself. Turning, he hurtled through the air in a rolling dive towards his own weapons. Even as he went down, he saw a wild-eyed tuivitsi rushing in his direction and holding a razor-sharp, spear-pointed war-lance ready to strike.
Hitting the ground on his left side and with his back to the lance carrier, Dusty closed his fingers around the matched Colts’ bone grips. Rolling to face his assailant as the lance rose high to gain impetus for its thrust, Dusty flung aside the gunbelt and freed the four and three-quarter inch barrels from the holsters. Thumb-cocking the hammers while lying flat on his back, Dusty angled the guns upwards to where the brave was preparing to drive home the lance. Both revolvers spat at the same moment. Struck in the center of the chest, the tuivitsi was flung backwards and down.
Hearing Red’s scream as he bounded to his feet, Waco swung his gaze in search of her. What he saw brought an instant response. A pursuing warrior had caught up with the girl, gripped her by the hair and was dragging her backwards. Up swung the brave’s tomahawk as the girl toppled to the rear. Waco flung the acquired Springfield to the aim and squeezed its trigger. With the back of his skull shattered where the bullet had burst out, the Kweharehnuh released the girl’s hair and collapsed. Rolling on to her hands and knees with frantic haste, Red looked back at her attacker. Letting out a shriek, she flopped face forward in a faint.
There was no time for Waco to display concern over Red’s indisposition. He held an empty weapon, for which he possessed no ammunition. That was not a good way to be situated under the circumstances. Tossing the Springfield aside, he darted to where he had laid down his gunbelt.
Believing that he had caused the blond ride-plenty’s flight, a whooping young tuivitsi gave chase. Waco heard the rapidly approaching thud of feet and spun to face his pursuer. Around swung the tuivitsi’s tomahawk in a horizontal slash aimed at taking the blond’s head from his shoulders. In his inexperience, the brave was overconfident. So he was taken by surprise by his would-be victim’s rapid and unexpected response.
Instead of standing petrified until killed, Waco ducked under the blow. Still crouching, he lunged and butted his skull into the tuivitsi s belly. As breath belched from the Comanche’s lungs, the blond wrapped both arms about his bare thighs. Straightening up suddenly, Waco raised the tuivitsi and released his hold at the height of the other’s elevation. Expecting the Indian to crash helplessly, Waco once more turned and sprang towards his gunbelt.
Trained almost from birth to ride bucking horses, including numerous lessons in how to fall off without being injured, the tuivitsi contrived to light down on his feet. The impetus of the throw caused him to run forward several steps, but he retained his grip on the tomahawk’s handle. Twirling around, he charged once more at the Texan.
Snatching out his right hand Colt in passing, Waco pivoted to meet the attack. The tuivitsi was closing fast and with a fanatical determination that would not be halted by less than death. There was neither the time nor the need for Waco to take a careful aim. Assuming a crouching posture, with his right elbow locked tight against his side, Waco flashed across his left hand to draw back and release the hammer. Three times, so fast that the shots could hardly be detected as separate sounds, Waco made the fanning motion. Each .44 bullet ploughed into the tuivitsi's torso and turned his advance into a reeling, uncontrolled retreat.
Before Hubert could complete his draw, he was impaled by an arrow. Running past the front end of the wagon, a stocky war-bonnet chief nocked another arrow to the string of the bow he carried.
‘Get the white witch!’ he roared, starting to raise the arrow in Emma Nene’s direction.
Hearing and understanding the words, taken with the sight of the chief’s obvious interest in Emma, Belle lined her carbine. It barked and the flat-nosed bullet passed between the trailing ends of the head-dress to shatter the man’s spinal column. He went down with his bow still undrawn.
‘He’s sure got old Emma’s character off well,’ Belle mused as she threw the carbine’s lever through its reloading cycle.
A harsh ripping sound from behind caused Belle to spin around. Although the visibility inside the wagon was poor, she could make out that its closed, fastened rear flaps were shaking violently. Guessing that a Comanche was trying to gain access, she was faced with the problem of how to stop him. Then she saw a dull glitter as a knife’s blade pierced the canvas. Four times, as fast as she could work the lever and squeeze the trigger, muzzle blasts illuminated the interior. Holes appeared in a vertical line across the flaps above the knife. A scream of pain followed the third shot. The knife was withdrawn suddenly. Its departure was followed by a thud and violent thrashing sound. Belle decided that these had been caused by the intruder falling and making violent, convulsive motions in his agony.
Satisfied that she had nothing further to fear from that direction, Belle swiveled once more to the open end of the canopy. Partially dazzled by the flashes of burning powder erupting from the carbine’s muzzle, she saw a brave had caught Emma by the arm. Instead of striking the blonde down, he thrust her from him and sprang towards the crouching figure of Giselle Lampart.
Belle snapped off a shot which missed, due to the brave bending and taking hold of the brunette’s left arm. Jerking down the lever, the lady outlaw felt something snap inside the carbine. Instead of completing its various reloading functions, the mechanism stayed stubbornly open. Having experienced such a sensation on another—although less demanding—occasion, Belle knew that one of the toggle-links had broken. It was a defect which plagued the earlier models of Winchester. 14
Cursing furiously, Belle dropped the useless carbine. Down dipped her right hand and drew the Manhattan Navy revolver from its contoured holster. Then she prepared to spring from the wagon and move to a distance at which she might hope to hit something with the handgun.
Like Dusty, the Kid did not leave a soldier defenseless against the attackers. Dropping the revolver into the sergeant’s lap, he leapt to retrieve his own rifle. A brave, taller and slimmer than most Nemenuh, came leaping to intercept the Kid with a tomahawk lifting ready to hurl into flesh.
Gathering up the Winchester, with his right hand grasping the fore grip, the Kid slid his left forefinger into the trigger guard and the other three through the lever’s ring. Raising the rifle to waist level, he shot the brave with the muzzle not three feet from the other’s bare chest. Already the tomahawk had commenced its downwards swing. Sidestepping as soon as he had squeezed the trigger, the Kid heard the hiss as the blade passed his sleeve harmlessly. Then he saw something that demanded his immediate and undivided attention.
Grasping an arm each, two Kweharehnuh tehnap were dragging Giselle Lampart away from the campfire. Even as the Kid snapped the Winchester’s butt to his shoulder, knowing that shooting from the hip would not serve his needs, he felt puzzled. Not by the attempted abduction; a white woman made an acceptable piece of loot, almost as useful as a mule, but not so valuable as a horse or a gun. So he was not surprised to see the braves attempting to take the brunette with them.
What aroused the Kid’s curiosity was their reason for having run straight past a saloon girl and for shoving Emma Nene aside when both were larger, stronger, and therefore more desirable as work-producing captives than the diminutive Giselle would be.
There was no time for the Kid to debate the problem. If he hoped to save Giselle from a fate worse than death, he had to concentrate. Sighting the Winchester, he shot the brave to the brunette’s left in the head. Smoothly altering his point of aim as he flickered the lever up and down, he tumbled her second abductor in a lifeless heap. Shrieking hysterically, Giselle crumpled between the two dead tehnap.
Much to the Kid’s further puzzlement, a leathery-faced tehnap, who had been bending to take Hubert’s revolver from its holster, dropped the weapon. Yelling an order to the nearest tuivitsi, the old warrior discarded his trophy and ran to Giselle’s side. Jerking his lance from the body of the saloon girl he had impaled, the tuivitsi darted to join the tehnap. Neither of them offered to use his weapon on the small woman, but bent to grab her by the ankles. With their holds obtained, they headed towards the trees.
The Kid shot the tehnap in the head, figuring him to have posed the greater threat to the brunette. Even as the Winchester started to turn, Dusty’s, Waco’s and Kitson’s revolvers thundered and all three bullets found their mark in the tuivitsi’s vital areas. Spinning around, the dying brave crashed across Giselle’s flaccid body.
Then, with the same abruptness that had marked their arrival, the remainder of the Comanches fled. They darted swiftly into the darkness from which they had erupted not five minutes earlier and were gone from sight. Four of the saloon girls, Hubert, two soldiers and ten Comanches lay dead or dying.
Screaming hysterically, Giselle Lampart was trying to wriggle from beneath the tuivitsi’s body. Having come within inches of being shoved into the fire, Emma Nene staggered clear of the flames. Covering her face with her hands, she sank to her knees and sobs shook her. Belle dropped from the wagon and moved cautiously towards the blonde. Regardless of the Manhattan in the lady outlaw’s hand, the second living saloon girl dashed into her arms and clung on hysterically. On her hands and knees again, Red was shuddering and backing away from the body of her assailant.
At the first hint that the badly mauled Kweharehnuh were calling off their attack, the Kid had swiveled around and slanted his Winchester ready to cover the horses at the picket line. To his amazement, not one of the departing braves made any attempt to approach the restless animals. The omission merely added a further puzzling aspect to the various unusual actions of the attackers.
The Kid did not for a moment imagine that the Kweharehnuh braves were fleeing in panic. They had gone because they had seen that the attack was becoming a costly failure. Brave as they undoubtedly were, the Antelopes would not throw their lives away uselessly on a doomed project when they could escape. Nor would a Nemenuh brave-heart, forced to retreat, pass up an opportunity to regain something of his lost honor.
So why had the departing warriors ignored the line of horses?
Maybe the whole bunch could not be liberated simultaneously; but any tuivitsi old enough to follow his first war trail should have been able to cut loose, mount and ride away on one of the horses.
Yet none of them had offered to do so.
It was baffling behavior, completely unlike anything the Kid would have expected from Comanches in general and Kweharehnuh—who he admitted to be near on as good warriors as the Pehnane—in particular. By birth, training and natural inclination, the Kid had developed a dislike for unsolved mysteries.
There could be an explanation to the departure without acquiring the horses. The braves might be planning to regroup and launch another attack. Not a likely contingency, but possible in view of so many departures from normal Comanche behavior.
Usually night was a time for undetected travelling, raiding—called horse stealing by people who did not belong to the Nemenuh—but not for making war. Of course, presented with a suitable opportunity, the chance to count coups and gather loot would cause warriors to fight during the dark hours. After losing so many companions, that particular war party would be regretting its decision and were unlikely to return.
Or would be unlikely, if they were acting like typical members of the Comanche nation.
‘Watch out in case they come back, Dusty!’ called the Kid, lowering his rifle and bounding across the clearing. ‘I’ll see what they’re doing.’
‘Bueno,’ the small Texan replied. ‘Waco, tend to the horses before we lose some of them.’
‘It’s done,’ the youngster answered, thrusting the Colt into his waistband and running to obey.
Lowering his smoking Peacemaker, Kitson turned slowly and looked around. His eyes flickered from Brill to the second dead soldier, then moved on to where Waco’s ‘watcher’ was sitting up and shaking his head in a dazed manner. The sergeant was rising, also studying the situation.
‘Are you all right, Tebs?’ Kitson demanded.
‘Huh?’ grunted the soldier, gazing around with growing awareness of what he was seeing. ‘What— What’s happened?’
‘He was down all through the fight, sir,’ the sergeant commented, holstering his revolver. ‘Come out of it better’n Chiano and Brill, they’ve both cashed in.’
‘Did they get you, sergeant?’ the lieutenant inquired.
‘Nope,’ admitted the non-com and nodded to one of the dead Kweharehnuh. ‘He would’ve if that Blood feller hadn’t given me back my gun.’
Hearing the words reminded the young officer that he too had been saved by the return of his revolver. They also brought back to him a recollection of why he had been pointing it at his rescuer. If that damned troublemaker Brill had not acted in such a stupid manner, there would have been no need for Kitson to lose his Colt—or to be in debt to a man who he must now arrest, take in and most likely cause to be hanged.
Well, Brill was beyond any reproach for his actions. That left the small Texan. Kitson sucked in a breath, squared his shoulders and turned with the intention of doing his duty.
Two Civilian Model Peacemakers lined their .45 caliber muzzles directly at the lieutenant’s stomach, hammers back at full cock and forefingers resting lightly on the triggers. Unnoticed, the small Texan had got up and was ready to resist being arrested.
‘Just holster your gun, mister,’ Dusty requested. ‘Leave yours be, sergeant and have your trooper do the same.’
‘Keep your hand offen it, Tebs!’ growled the non-com as the soldier grabbed towards his holster. ‘He could drop Mr. Kitson before you clear leather.’
‘I can’t let you ride off, even though you saved my life,’ Kitson warned, showing no inclination to do as Dusty had suggested.
‘All I’m wanting is a chance to talk,’ the small Texan drawled. He twirled his Colts around, allowing the hammers to sink without setting off the waiting powder charges, and returned them to their holsters. ‘Maybe this’ll show you that I’m not asking for anything else.’
‘You’ve got nothing to lose by listening, Mr. Kitson,’ the sergeant remarked politely. ‘They could’ve let us get killed, but they didn’t.’
‘They maybe figured we’d be more use alive than dead right then,’ Kitson pointed out. ‘Well, my grandfather always use to say that nobody was ever a loser by listening. Talk ahead, Mr. Caxton.’
‘First off, mister,’ Dusty said. ‘I’d sooner you called me by my real name.’
‘What would that be?’ Kitson inquired.
‘Dusty Fog,’ the small Texan replied.