“Did you hear what he said?” asked Treat Paris. Beneath his shaggy brown hair, his boyish face was scrunched up like a perplexed monkey’s.
“What? What who said?” Jesse Fig, the freight wagon’s other driver, looked up from the piece of leather he was mending.
“That kid sheriff they got,” Treat went on, exasperated with Jesse. Nothing was worse than a one-eyed mule skinner, unless it was a one-eyed mule skinner from Tennessee. Which Jesse was.
“Sheriff was just here,” Treat went on, keeping his voice loud and clear, as if Jesse’s missing eye somehow affected his ears, too. “Did you hear what he said? Any of it?”
“Huh?” Jesse drawled, finally looking up from the leather. “Who was here?”
“Cripes, Jesse, you beat everything, you know that?” Treat shouted, and stalked off to the stable.
Behind him, he heard Jesse say, “Treat? Treat, what you talkin’’bout? Treat?”
But Treat just kept on walking. His Winchester was snug in his hand as he climbed one of the ladders behind the stable and came to rest on the wide plank affixed to the stockade wall. A series of them circled the wall as far as he could see, and every ten feet or so was a man with a rifle or a handgun, with more men on the way.
“Morning,” said a lanky fellow crouched down the way, to his right. The mayor, if Treat remembered correctly.
“Morning, Mayor,” he replied as he moved closer. The man sure looked like a mayor anyway. He wore a light gray suit, all matched up, unlike the rest of them. They were a ratty-looking bunch, all right, and he was the first to admit it.
“It’s just Salmon,” said the mayor. “You’re Treat, right? From the wagon train?”
“That’s me,” Treat answered. Salmon? What were his folks thinking, naming him after a fish?
Slowly, Treat shook the mayor named after a fish out of his mind and raised his head, taking a long look out over the land to the south. There was nothing. Nothing at all. No dust trails, no signs of movement, no little patches of color out of place. Nothing even slightly unusual.
Or so he assumed.
“What did we pay you for the oil and kerosene, Treat?” Salmon asked.
Treat shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t know. Ask our wagon master.”
“I will.”
“Anybody check the fording place lately, Salmon?” he asked as, out of nothing but habit, he checked his gun.
“No, everybody’s been a little busy, in case you weren’t paying attention,” the mayor said curtly.
“Sorry. Just wondering when we might be able to pull out.”
“You’ll have to ask Jason about that,” Kendall said, annoyance seeping into his voice. “The sheriff, that is. I imagine he’ll want you fellows to stick close for a while. For your own good naturally.”
“Naturally,” Treat repeated. It would just figure, wouldn’t it? They’d have this backwoods boy sheriff holding them here forever. Didn’t he realize they had a schedule to meet?
Probably not. Treat doubted anybody who lived this far out in the middle of nowhere realized much of anything besides dinnertime. And he had his doubts about that.
“Hey, Treat.” With some surprise, he realized it was Jesse.
“Decide to join us?” he asked, somewhat sarcastically.
It was lost on Jesse. He said, “You fellers see anythin’ out there, Injun-wise?”
Treat opened his mouth to say, “Nothing,” but the word didn’t have time to come out. Before he could speak, a cacophony of war cries split the morning stillness, shocking at least two men further down the line clean off the planks they’d been standing on.
Out of reflex, Treat stood, nestled the barrel of his rifle between the spiky tops of the stockade posts, and got off a shot. Which hit absolutely nothing.
Angry with himself, he cocked the rifle again and this time took more careful aim. He’d have to wait. They were too far out, but they were charging like there was no tomorrow. And it seemed there were twice as many of them as before.
Couldn’t be, he thought, perplexed. You’re letting this thing get to you. Buck up.
“Light your wicks!” Salmon yelled down the line, then turned the other way and yelled it again.
For a minute, Treat thought the mayor had gone peach-orchard crazy until Salmon looked right at Treat and said, “Wake up, man! Light that wick!”
Then Treat remembered the wicks they’d run from the kegs yesterday, and he reached toward his pocket for a lucifer while he searched the tops of the posts. The wicks were spaced out about every twenty feet or so, he recalled.
Amazingly, Jesse found it before he did, and pointed it out. Treat moved about five feet to the east, grabbed the wick before Jesse had a chance to, and flicked his lucifer into life.
Once he was certain the wick was burning, he let it drop to the ground outside, twenty feet below. If he’d been a genuflecting sort of man, he would have crossed himself.
As it was, he just said a silent prayer that it wouldn’t go out until it ignited that keg of kerosene—and all that whale oil they’d poured out into the ditch.
On the north wall, Jason heard Kendall’s order to light the kegs, and repeated it as Salmon had, to his right and to his left. He figured that the Apache would likely come around to the north side pretty quickly once they saw the fire and smoke coming from the ditch on the south.
That is, if the ditch caught.
If the kerosene worked.
If there was still enough oil in the ditch—oil close enough to the surface anyhow—to burn for a while.
If he hadn’t gone stark raving loony.
If, if, if.
The first keg that caught was on the southeast corner, and only because one of the boys tired of the fuse burning for so long and just shot it. It went up in a whoosh and spread quickly down the ditch, feeding on the whale oil, which had remained very present over the past twenty-four hours, and imploding keg after keg of kerosene.
The explosions surprised not only the men on the wall, but three or four braves who had made it down into the ditch—and were abruptly blown high in the air and out of sight.
Soon, every man jack of them was shooting at the barrels as it if were a carnival game, and just as quickly, the perimeter was encircled by a moat of smoke and flame.
The men in the town couldn’t see the Indians anymore, but they hadn’t gone away. As Jason had suspected, the war chief sent half his men around the town to the north, and they quickly had Fury basically surrounded.
As instructed, the Apache backed off far enough to stay clear of shots from the walls, and settled in to wait.
Even the Apache knew that a fire could not burn forever.
Not even one so big as the white men had made for their town.
Inside, the inhabitants were starting a premature celebration. That is, until Jason put a stop to it.
But the damage had been done. Women were already starting to venture timidly out into the streets, more than half the men who had been on the south wall were down on the ground, and a bandaged and heavily medicated Rollie Biggston had declared free drinks for the next hour.
Jason moved through the crowds, trying to get men back up on the wall, trying to get the women inside, but he enjoyed little success.
“They’re gone, Jason!” said one of the citizens, who had already taken obvious advantage of Biggston’s largesse. “Quit bein’ such a worrywart!”
Jason shoved him rudely to the ground and stalked off.
What did these people have, a death wish? He knew those Apache were still out there, waiting for the fire to die down, waiting for a break in the line, waiting for the chance to get just a few men inside and murder them all.
If there was one thing an Apache could do, it was wait.
He didn’t want his sister killed by the Apache. He didn’t much like the idea for Megan either. And when he’d told Ward to shoot himself, he hadn’t been kidding. The Indians must be plenty ticked off by now, and if they got hold of any of his people, they were liable to work out their frustration on them in the worst possible way anybody could imagine.
He saw a few lonely figures still on the south wall, and picked out Saul’s form up on the planks, his back against the stockade wall. Jason broke into a trot and hurried over.
“Now what?” was the first thing that Saul said to him when he climbed up the ladder.
Jason shrugged. “I seem to have lost control of the situation. So don’t ask me.”
“You didn’t think they would just see our fires and go home?”
“No way.”
Saul nodded. “Then I was right to stay here when the others left. Even our Mayor Kendall has made a trip to Biggston’s.” He shook his head disapprovingly.
Jason wasn’t surprised. It seemed like half the town—and all of the wagon drivers—were inside Biggston’s or outside, drinking in the street.
He just hoped that they could shoot when they were drunk. And that they could actually hit their bobbing and weaving targets.
Hell, half of them couldn’t hit a bull’s-eye target when they were ten feet away and sober as judges. And that was on a good day.
Jason sank to his heels and rested his brow on his knees.
“If you are praying, I hope your God is listening to you today,” he heard Saul say.
Jason slowly looked up. “I hope so, too. Hope somebody’s God is. But we’re going to need more than divine intervention.”
Saul looked shocked, and Jason chuckled.
“What?” said Saul, incredulous at this heresy. “More than God you think you’re needing?”
“Just afraid I’m gonna have to get Him a little help, Saul.”
“Help?”
“Trust me,” Jason said, and climbed back down the ladder.
“Don’t take offense, Jason, but I’d rather put my faith in the Lord,” Saul shouted after him.
Thinking that he’d rather do that, too, if only the situation permitted it, Jason hurried across the street. But he didn’t stop at the jail. He headed west until he came to the first house off the square—which was his house.
“Jenny?” he called, walking in the front door. “Jen? Megan? You here?”
Jenny stuck her blond head out of the kitchen, followed by Megan’s russet mop. “What is it?” they said as one.
“I want to talk to both of you,” he said as he plucked his hat from his head. He strode into the kitchen and sat down at the table. “Sit,” he commanded.
Like puppies, they plopped down into two facing chairs.
“What is it?” Jenny asked again.
At least they hadn’t gone outside to check on the sounds of celebration and been swept up in the town’s foolishness. But he was going to ask them to do something far less dim-witted and far more daring.
And far more dangerous.
Forearms propped on the table, he leaned toward them. “Girls,” he began, “do you remember when we were comin’ out here?”
Jenny and Megan looked at each other as if silently confirming that he was crazy.
And maybe he was.
But he went on anyway, went on in a rush, barely stopping for air. And the girls listened, openmouthed.
But they listened.