My body was flattened against the maple, a big old tree at least three feet through, so my back was well covered. I gripped the staff in my left hand, but the knife I carried low, cutting edge up.
Whoever was coming was a woodsman. I knew that by the way he moved. Something stirred in the leaves not three feet away. A sudden lunge and I could have the blade into him, but I was never one to start shooting or cutting on something I didn’t see. There are would-be hunters who will blaze away at anything that moves, but I must see and identify.
He was rising from the ground, and I knew he sensed my presence. He knew something or someone was close by; it is a feeling one gets.
I took a careful step forward with my left foot, putting the end of the staff firmly on the ground, ready to cut upward with the knife.
A hand, then the rough outline of a head. Starting forward, I suddenly froze in place. I knew that—!
“Yance?” I breathed the word.
He came through the leaves as though materializing from them. He was grinning widely. I could not see his eyes, but his white teeth showed his smile.
“Worried about you, lad. Where’ve you been?”
“Waiting for you,” I replied softly. “What’s happened?”
“Jeremy’s holding the fort. We’re hoping to get them out in the open. Get them to thinkin’ maybe we’ve slipped away. No fires, no lights, everything quiet and ready.
“Me an’ the Catawbas, we didn’t take to bein’ cooped up, so we slipped out. We’re all here, holdin’ fast. If they rush the fort, we’ll take them from behind, and I think they’re fixin’ to.”
He moved closer. “You all right?”
“I took a fall.”
We waited together, listening. It was good to have Yance there beside me, for we had been a team since we’d been old enough to travel together.
“How’s Diana?”
“Worried about you. She’s got herself a couple of pistols hard by, an’ she’s ready.” He turned to look at me. “You picked a good one, Kin. She’ll do.”
It was dark now, but the clouds were broken, and here and there we could see a scattering of stars. The air had grown suddenly cool. I sheathed my knife for the moment, drying my hands on the front of my buckskin shirt. The night was very still, and we waited, listening, our ears seeking out the unnatural, unexpected sounds, but there were none. It reassured me that the Catawbas were out and around, for they were good men and great warriors.
We could but dimly see the stark black line of the fort against the sky and the huge old trees that lay just beyond it. From where we now lay the fort was only slightly more than a hundred yards away, the ground open. Only on the north side had we allowed the trees to grow close to the fort, as the half-dozen trees left standing there provided shade during the hotter months.
It was quiet. Yance put his lips close to my ear. “Kin? I’m scared. Something’s wrong!”
My eyes were on the line of the wall against the sky. A breeze stirred the branches in the chestnut trees beyond the wall. I could see the branches move slightly against the sky.
Suddenly I swore bitterly. The branches moved! But there was no breeze!
“Yance! They’re coming over the wall!”
And then I was running. My injured leg forgotten, I lunged from the ground and ran for the fort, Yance only a step behind me.
As we ran, we saw several men round the corner of the fort just as the gate swung wide. “In here!”
There was a shot from inside the fort, then a scream and another shot. Men were crowding at the gate, and Yance and I reached it on the run.
A burly bearded man, pistol in hand, turned to shout. At that moment there was a flash of light from inside, a pistol that missed fire, and I caught a fleeting glimpse of his shocked expression as he recognized me, and at that same instant I ripped him, low and upward. He let out a gasping cry, and I shoved him back, grabbing for his pistol with my left hand. He let go of it, falling back, and then I was past him and in the gate.
Yance was at my shoulder. “Sackett here!” I yelled not wanting them to shoot into us, and I heard Jeremy’s answering shout.
How many there were of them I never knew. It was cut and shoot. I fired my pistol, then threw it at a head that loomed before me and had the satisfaction of seeing it bounce off a skull.
Yance was down, then up. A wicked blow, a glancing one, opened a gash in my skull. My head rang with the blow, but I kept my feet.
Pulling back, I looked wildly around, seeking Bauer, but he was nowhere in sight. The door to my house stood open, and I sprang past the fighting and ran to it.
“I wish he was here,” Bauer was saying, “to see you die.”
He held a pistol in his hand, and he was facing Diana. “I am here, Max,” I said, and he turned sharply.
He was not one to dally but was ready for instant action. His eyes caught me as his ears registered my voice, and as he turned, he fired.
Yet his shot was too quick; anticipating it, I had lunged to his right. I felt the heat of the blast and the fiery sting of powder grains on my cheek.
He turned sharply as I lunged at him and struck down with the pistol barrel. Missing my skull, the blow came down across the top of my shoulder, and only the thick muscles there kept me from a broken bone. As it was, my right arm was stricken numb for the moment, and the knife dropped from my hand.
He came at me then, a small smile on his lips, for he was sure he had me. The look in his eyes was almost amused. He had his knife low and ready, the pistol in the other hand now. Warily I backed away, watching my chance.
The room was large for the time and place, but the fireplace, where lay fire tongs and poker, was across the big table from me and hopelessly out of reach.
There was no nonsense about him now. He was coming in for the kill, and I had only my bare hands with which to face him. He worked me into a corner, and there was no chance to elude him, although I had brought him away from Diana.
One thing I knew. Somehow I had to kill him, for if he killed me, Diana would did in the next moment. From outside there was a confused sound of fighting, shouts, and the clash of arms. There were several shots. They needed me out there, too.
Bauer took a wicked slash at my stomach, which I evaded by a leap backward that brought me up hard against the wall. He lunged with the knife, but I sidestepped away along the wall and got into the open again. I feinted a rush, but he merely smiled. He moved quickly, cutting left and right. He ripped a gash in my hunting jacket and scratched my arm. The numbness was almost gone now. I backed away again, and he came on and thrust hard.
Slapping his knife hand aside with my left hand, I grasped his wrist with my right and threw my left leg across in front of him and spilled him over that leg to the floor. Desperately I tried to wrench the knife from him, but his grip was strong. We rolled over on the floor, and I was up first. He was too strong and too heavy on the floor. To fight him, I had to be on my feet.
He came up fast, and my kick missed his head. My heel hit solidly against his shoulder, but he only missed a step and came on.
He slashed at me, and I hit him across the mouth, throwing a kick at his kneecap that missed, and then he was on me. I went down before his attack, and then he was atop me and holding my throat with one hand and coming down with the knife. Somewhere he had lost his grip upon his pistol.
The knife came down hard, and I twisted my head only in time. The knife hit the floor, and I hit him with my fist with a blow that turned his head and momentarily stunned him.
Throwing him off, I leaped to my feet, and he came up, knife in hand. Diana suddenly called “Kin!” and tossed me the poker from the fireplace.
I caught it deftly. It was two and a half feet long with a point and a hook, also sharply pointed. Holding it ready, I moved in. He leaped at me with the knife, and I thrust hard with the point of the poker. It caught him coming in, and the point went in all of two inches low on his right side.
He jerked back, but twisting the poker, I caught the hook in his clothing and jerked hard. His shirt ripped, and the hook tore a bloody gash—not deep—across his belly.
From outside the noise of fighting had ceased. His smile was cool. “It is too late now,” he said. “My men have won. Give her to me and that letter and you shall go free and we’ll not burn your fort. After all, there are other women.”
My poker held ready, I made no reply. His knife was not a small one but a fifteen-inch blade, thick and heavy. Blood was staining his shirt from the wound on his right side, and there was an angry streak of blood along the thin cut on his belly.
The poker, for all its usefulness, was unwieldy, and if his wounds bothered him, there was no evidence of it. He was an unusually strong, agile man and obviously was no stranger to hand-to-hand fighting.
Suddenly Diana screamed, “Kin!”
Lashan was in the doorway, pistol in hand. As my eyes caught him, his pistol was lifting to take dead aim at me. I could not hesitate nor even take the time to think, I simply tossed up the poker, caught it by the middle, and threw it as a spear.
The poker struck him even as he fired, deflecting his shot by only a hair. The ball struck behind me, and I saw Lashan fall, and the next instant Bauer was on me, thrusting and stabbing. Whether he had hit me, I did not know, but his blade was bloody. Back hard against the wall, I grabbed his head by both ears and jerked his face down as I butted up with my skull. I felt his nose crunch, and then I shoved him off and swung a right fist at the point of his jaw. It caught him off balance, and he fell backward to the floor.
He had lost his grip on the knife, but he lunged up from the floor and came at me. I struck straight and hard to his already broken nose. Both of us were bloody, but neither had time to realize whether we were hurt or not. I struck him again, and he grabbed at my throat with both hands.
Stepping aside, I hit him again. He closed with me and got a hand up, clawing for my eyes. Twisting my head, I got my shoulder under his chin and jerked up hard. Again I shook him off. He was weaving now, exhausted as I was, but I gave him no chance. I struck hard with my right, and as he staggered, I knocked him back against the doorjamb.
Lashan was up, his face bloody from where the thrown poker had struck him, but before he could join Bauer against me, Yance loomed in the door. Lashan turned, and Yance, gripping a pistol, shot him.
He fell backward, turning as he fell, and Bauer broke off the fight and plunged past Yance through the open door. The gate yawned opposite.
Some of his men lay dead; others were fleeing across the open ground toward the forest. He was running toward the gate, blood flying from his wounds, when Diana tossed my knife. I grasped it by the point and threw—
The knife struck him in the middle of the back, and he took one last leap forward, then sprawled on the ground just outside the gate.
For a long moment I simply stood there, staring at his fallen body, hands hanging empty at my sides. There was no more fighting. Our Catawbas had scattered into the woods, and I knew there would be no stragglers reaching the coast, not even to report what had happened. I could only stand, exhausted and empty, staring at the man who had brought so much trouble to so many. That he was dead I had no doubt, for my knife must have severed his spine, and it had been thrown hard.
A bad man but a damned good fighting man. Almost too good.
“Kin?” It was Diana. “Come, you’re hurt. Let me see to you.”
Dumbly I let her lead me inside and to a seat. Now, of a sudden, I began to hurt. My bruised leg, oddly enough, hurt the most.
Outside I could hear the mumble of talk as our people cleared up, carried away the bodies of the dead, and once more closed our gates against the world.
Yance came in. He looked at me, worried. “You all right there, big Injun?”
“All right. How about the others?”
“Wounds—mostly scratches. We were lucky. And waiting for them.”
Lila came in and watched Diana’s skillful fingers.
“You’re like your pa,” she said. “You fight well.”
“And Jeremy,” I said.
One of the candles had been knocked over during the fighting but had luckily gone out. Lila lighted it again, adding more light to the room. Outside, the lighted bundles of brush that had given light in the yard were slowly burning down.
Leaning my head against the back of the chair, I closed my eyes. Diana was putting something cooling on the places where I had been cut and stabbed. She was using some concoction made from herbs that she kept ready for such things, and Lila was beside her.
Apparently I had been stabbed at least twice and had several bad scratches, yet at the moment I wanted only to rest.
Yance and Jeremy came in. Then, as they talked, Kane O’Hara joined them. Three men, they said, had been killed from Bauer’s party. There might have been more who got away into the shelter of the forest. If so, I did not envy them, for the Catawbas were great hunters, and we had long been their friends. The most hospitable of people to friends, against enemies they were ruthless.
“We will go for your father,” I said, “or send someone.”
“I know,” Diana replied. “Don’t think of it now. Just get some rest.”
My eyes closed again. Something was cooking at the fireplace, and it smelled good. Warm, friendly smells were all about me.
Tired as I was, I did not want to sleep. I wanted simply to enjoy.
I was home again.