It didn’t work out quite the way Jason had planned.
The fires began to peter out at about four in the morning, and the men still up on the stockade were forced to start shooting at around four forty-five, with the very first feeble rays of morning light.
It started on the north side, and within ten minutes of firing the first round, the townsmen had killed or wounded sixteen braves. The Apache, however, had wounded seven settlers and killed one.
The south side wasn’t faring much better.
Jason took no comfort in that, though. He was busy running from house to house, rousting out possible shooters who were still asleep and making certain that the wounded made it to the livery.
Doc Morelli was already busy tending the wounded. Even his wife was going from cot to cot, passing out coffee or water and slabs of toasted bread with melted cheese to the maimed and injured who felt well enough to eat.
Jenny and Megan were already up on the wall, and had been responsible for putting three braves out of commission between them. When Jason climbed up to see how they were doing, Jenny told him that they were just fine, thank you very much, and to go help somebody who needed it.
As he was climbing back down the ladder, he heard Jenny’s whoop of “Four!”
They were holding their own, he guessed, but for how much longer? There were hundreds of determined and bloodthirsty savages out there who would just as soon slice them from stem to stern as, well, slice them from stern to stem. As it were.
He shook his head to try to rattle the sense back into it.
And then he jumped to the right, narrowly avoiding an arrow.
Suddenly, he had an idea. “Colorado!” he shouted to the left and then the right. “Colorado!”
“In here,” called Olympia Morelli. She was sticking her head out through one of the windows whose empty frames still remained in the livery.
Dang it, he thought. Colorado’s stove up. One by one, they were losing their best fighters, their most experienced men.
Olympia waved at him again. “He’s in here, Jason!”
He started toward her at a trot.
Matt MacDonald was up, awake, and driving Ward crazy. He was beginning to wish the Apache would break in, if only so he could take Jason’s advice. At least he wouldn’t have to listen to Matt’s whining anymore.
And also so he’d finally have a good excuse to shoot himself and get away from his aching shoulder. It had begun to throb and pound with a vengeance during the night.
But Matt was bound and determined to rant and rave about his lousy wife and his lousy brother-in-law and the lousy Indians. And a lot of other lousy things that Ward had managed not to listen to. Basically, he was determined to do anything but drink the secretly doctored coffee that Ward had handed him.
Again, Ward walked to the window and stared out over the town. As far as he could tell, just about everybody from town was up on the wall, including some of the women. The smoke had gone away, so he figured that the fires in the trench had finally gone out. Which left them completely open, except for the stockade.
Building the stockade hadn’t been his idea. Jason was the one who’d pushed for it. And Ward remembered complaining long and loud about every log they cut up and down the creek, and hauled back and set into the ground.
Right now, though, that stockade was the best idea anybody had ever had in the whole history of everything. Ever.
The Apache must have set fire to the east end of the stockade, because men were transporting water up to the boards where other men stood, who emptied the buckets over and down the outside of the wall, then passed them back.
Ward hoped the Apache would give up on that idea fairly soon. All they had for water was the town well—well, there were some private wells, too, but the water all came from the same place. It had come back up some after the first day, but its level was going down fast once more.
But he didn’t have the time to think about that at the moment. He saw Jason running across the square toward the office, and threw open the door.
“What is it?” he shouted.
“Nothin’,” Jason shouted back. “Just tryin’ not to get shot!”
And the second he jumped up on the boardwalk, when he was halfway through the door, an arrow caught him in the back.
Ward shouted, “Jason!” and dragged him through the door, slamming it behind him.
Oh, Jesus! Ward thought frantically as he rolled Jason’s limp body on its side. He can’t die now! He can’t die ever! The arrow was high in his back, over toward the left shoulder, and it didn’t seem to Ward that Jason should be dead.
But he was surely out like the proverbial light.
“Great, just great…” Ward grumbled.
And Matthew, whom he’d almost forgotten, said, “Splash him with water. That’ll wake the bastard up.”
“Shut up, Matt,” Ward grumbled as he dragged Jason, dragged him with his one good arm, toward the second cell and its still unmade cot. The arrow didn’t look like it was in too deep. He figured he could get it out with a yank and without having to call for the doc.
He hoped.
But first, he had to get Jason’s jacket and shirt off. Which wouldn’t be easy, considering. With a shake of his head, he rifled his pocket for a knife, pulled one out, and opened it. It wasn’t the best, but it would do, he figured. It’d have to.
Carefully, he cut the shaft of the arrow away until only about two inches protruded from Jason’s back. Then he began cutting the material of Jason’s vest and shirt away in a big circle around what remained of the arrow’s shaft.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said.
“Most probably,” muttered Matt.
“You shut your piehole, MacDonald,” snarled Ward, without wasting the time it would have taken to look up. Instead, he carefully eased the edge of his fingernail alongside the arrowhead, through the blood and tissue it had displaced. And before he had gone a quarter of an inch, slipped its edge under the side of the arrowhead.
He eased his finger—and the arrowhead—out. It re leased with a soft, sucking sound and rolled off Jason’s back, clattering to the floor.
Ward sat frozen in disbelief, staring alternately at his hand and at the arrowhead on the floor, and at Jason’s back. Now, that was a bloody miracle!
Ward rounded up what he could for bandages and after washing Jason’s back, he tied cloth after cloth around the wound, circling Jason’s shoulder and rounding his chest with the strips he’d made from tearing the thin wool blanket and the pillowcase in the cell.
Finally, he rolled Jason into what he trusted was a comfortable position, and left him alone, returning to the outer office and the desk. He didn’t know how long Jason would be out, but he also didn’t want to try and rush his return to consciousness.
He sat there for perhaps five minutes, then stood up with a disgusted “Damnit!”
Somebody was going to have to oversee things, and with Jason temporarily out of the picture, that somebody was him.
“Don’t wake him up!” he hissed at MacDonald—whose coffee cup, he noticed, was now half-empty—and let himself out of the office and onto the street.
The noise was what hit him first, and the stench of gun smoke.
He slowly turned, looking around the town and the wall that encircled it. The inner walls were thick with the forms of both townspeople and freighters, alternately firing and reloading.
Occasionally, he saw a body drop from the scaffolding and land out of sight with a dull thud. Some of their womenfolk were still up there, too. He could see Jason’s sister—Matt MacDonald’s wife—and MacDonald’s sister, too, as well as Mrs. Morelli and Carrie Kendall, among others.
He also spied Mayor Kendall across the way. Randall Nordstrom was on the roof of his store lying on his belly, firing his rifle out toward the south. Saul Cohen lay stretched out flat on the roof of his house and store, peppering the Apache with rifle fire.
Nordstrom and Saul gave him an idea. One he thought he might implement later, if worse came to worst.
He hoped it wouldn’t.
He made his way through the town, his shoulder plaguing him more with each step he took, each rung of every ladder he climbed. While he was up with Jenny, telling her about her brother’s misfortune, she suddenly shoved him aside. And arrow, headed straight for his temple, passed him ineffectually and buried itself in her left wrist.
Fortunately, it had passed straight through, and he was able to break off the arrowhead and ease the shaft out the other side. It didn’t bleed much, having been high enough up the wrist that it just passed through the fat on the outside, so he wrapped it up on the spot, using her handkerchief for a bandage.
Jenny, the brave little thing, waved off his worries and further ministrations—and his many thanks for saving him—and went right back to shooting at the Apache.
“I’ve got eleven so far,” she said. “Don’t stop a lady on a winning streak.”
Truth be told, he admired Jenny, admired her a lot more than he ought to, considering that she was the wife of the man he currently held locked in the jail. Several times, it had taken all the self-control he could muster not to just haul off and shoot him.
How could somebody as nice and sweet and pretty as Jenny stay with a worthless cow flop like Matthew MacDonald? He owned the bank and everything, and Ward supposed that he was pretty darned good-looking, if you were a lady, but still, Jenny didn’t seem the type to be impressed by money or looks.
He shook his head. It beat everything, as far as he could figure. But then, who could figure women?
Not him.
He took up a stance beside her for a while, getting himself three Apache while he watched her for any signs that she was about to faint or throw up or some thing, but when she gave no indication of that, he finally moved on. Not only was she beautiful, she was as stoic as any man.
What a girl. No. What a woman…
He found Ezra Evans and his brother, Joel, down at the southeast corner—Ezra firing east, and Joel firing south. The brothers had come with the wagon train before last, and decided to stay on. Right now, Ward was mightily glad they had, despite his off-and-on quarrels with Ezra.
Now, as he watched Ezra pick off first one mounted brave, then another, Ward decided that politics was a small thing for men to argue over.
He vowed never to do it again, at least with Ezra.
Ezra didn’t see him as he climbed up, but Joel did. He held out a hand and helped him up the last step of the ladder.
“Boys need some help?” Ward asked. “Though you look to be doin’ pretty good on your own….”
“Help’s always appreciated,” replied Joel, and stepped over to make room for him.
“It’s most appreciated where it’s needed most,” Ezra said without turning to look at him. “A man’d think these Injuns could take the hint and back the hell off,” he continued, firing again. Another Indian down. “Why don’t they just go home?”
“You got me,” Ward said. “Seems to me we could hold off the whole of the Apache Nation with these walls. And Lord knows we got enough ammunition to last till next year.”
He was lying, of course. They might have enough ammunition to last them a month or so, but they were fast running out of the men capable of using it to their advantage.
And besides that, this last ladder he’d climbed had opened up his wound again. He felt the hot blood trickling down his back and side, and a fresh, heated ache where the arrow had taken him.
He tried not to think about it, but Joel said, “Man, you’re bleeding! Fresh blood!”
Ezra ducked down, pulling Ward with him, and snarled, “Idiot. You got it opened up again. I thought Jason grounded you or somethin’.”
“Till he got shot,” Ward answered. It was hard to talk now, although he couldn’t figure why. “He’s over to the office, out cold.”
“You get him seen to?” Joel asked.
Weakly, Ward nodded. Suddenly he couldn’t seem to find the power to move his lips, let alone speak.
“C’mon, Joel,” Ward heard Ezra say. “Let’s get him down to the doc. He’s losin’ a lot of blood.”
There might have been further conversation, but Ward didn’t hear it.
He passed out.
The wagon train
Blake called a halt early, and the men began to gather wood while the women got together the ingredients for the supper they would make. Becky Mankiller had her heart set on a rich rabbit stew, and Olin’s wife agreed with her.
But the men brought back three grouse and a black snake—not hearty fare for a party of their size—so Laura Blake broke out the last of their bacon. That, along with the wild game, made a passable meal when combined with the copious cornbread that Becky baked up and served with the wild honey they’d found a few days back.
In fact, the Whaler boys ate an entire pan by themselves, and started on a second.
Later, after the dishes were done, the last coffee drunk, and everyone was in bed, Laura curled against Blake’s side and whispered, “It was gone today, wasn’t it? There wasn’t any more.”
“Wasn’t any more of what?”
“The smoke on the horizon.”
He turned his head, lifting his eyebrows at her.
“We may be women, but that doesn’t make us stupid, you know.”
He blinked rapidly, but she didn’t give him time to reply.
“I saw the smoke, and so did Becky. And I woke early. There was more this morning, before the dawn.”
“And how could you see it if it was before the dawn?”
“The smoke was very dark and much thicker than before. Opaque. The moonlight was enough to see by.”
Blake was silent for a moment. Then he said, “It could be several things, Laura. It could be a wildfire.”
“It could be Fury. Fury burning.”
“It’s better not to worry your head, my dear,” he said soothingly, although he knew her concerns were well founded. It had been preying on his mind since yesterday.
He added, “We’ll find out soon enough. And I’m sure it’s nothing, nothing at all. Now, go to sleep. Dawn comes quickly.”
He whispered a quiet prayer, and was not surprised when she echoed his “Amen.”