Lone Wolf carved another thick slice off the roasting carcass of the cow his scouts had brought in. He had already assigned the three horses to braves whose mounts had been shot from beneath them, and they had finished eating the ducks hours ago.
It was now past sunset, and all he could see of the town was a flicker of light through the stockade.
He had called his men back early. They were taking far too many casualties compared to the whites he saw dropping from the walls. At first he thought that perhaps he and his warriors were beaten, and that they should just go home.
But that would be a bad thing—to go home empty-handed, and with so many wounded, so many dead. He remembered a farm—a large one—he had seen while scouting up north of the town last season. It was a farm with many cattle and goats that they could drive off, and what men he had seen were old. Very old.
He was thinking that perhaps they would ride north in the morning, all of them. They would kill these settlers and take their livestock. It would be simple, for there were only the two old men and a few women, two of them young enough for his braves to take some pleasure with.
Plus, riding to the north might bring the townspeople out of their fortress and into the open. More than anything, he wanted them in the open, where his men could see to shoot and where they might take trophies: jewelry, watches, shirts, hands, private parts, and many horses and cattle.
“Tell the men to sleep well,” he said to the brave next to him. “Tomorrow we ride north. There will be a battle, of this I am certain, and it will be fairly matched. Tell them.”
While the brave nodded and ran to tell the next knot of warriors the news, Lone Wolf grunted.
Tomorrow would be better.
Tomorrow they would ride on the wings of the eagle, and make war with an enemy who did not hide behind walls made of pointed logs.
Tomorrow they would be victorious.
Saul sat at home, at his wife’s bedside, while his boys played checkers on the floor. He had talked about his day, although he had left out the more grisly parts—not only because he didn’t want the boys to hear, but because he didn’t wish to put more worry on his Rachael than necessary. He felt that she was very fragile now, and was hardly up to hearing the details.
He had made their dinner, and now he gathered up the plates and silverware and carried them upstairs to wash later. Under the circumstances, he felt no need to rush things.
But halfway up the stairs, he stopped stock still. They hadn’t heard a word from the Mortons for days! Someone should ride up there. Someone should ride up and bring them into town.
But who?
Most of the town’s good men were down for the moment. Some of their good men were dead, if the truth be told. He thought of Gil Collins, who they thought had died once before, not long after they settled in Fury, but who’d rallied and come back, only to be injured again by this most recent batch of Apache cutthroats.
Batch? It was a whole army!
And cutthroats was too kind a word.
He forced himself to move again, and told himself he mustn’t think about the Morton clan.
He made it clear to the top of the stairs before he stopped again, and then he went to the sink. He stood there a long time, his hands balancing his weight on the edge of the sink, his head down.
He detested moral dilemmas. They made his head hurt, and his stomach, too. But then he realized that he didn’t have to go through all this inner struggle. Why should the business of the town be the problem of a mere shop owner?
Jason! This should be something for the sheriff to decide, shouldn’t it?
Of course it should! A great burden was suddenly lifted from his shoulders, and he practically jogged down the steps, stuck his head in the back room long enough to say, “I’ll be back in a few minutes, Rachael,” and scooted out the front door.
It took him several stops to locate Jason, but he finally found him at the livery, arguing with Doc Morelli. Over the stew, of all things.
“We keep this up, we’re gonna run out of beef to slaughter,” Jason was saying as Saul came up. He said it with a faint slur, as if the doctor had given him medication he was fighting off the last dregs of. He was bandaged across his chest and shoulder.
“Saul!” Jason said, and smiled. Saul thought it remarkable that he didn’t even wince, even though he wasn’t on a cot. He was sitting next to one, as if he’d been in conversation with the occupant. He continued. “What can I do for you?”
Saul told him about his fears for the Mortons. And when he was finished, he shrugged and added, “Well, you asked. I just told it.”
“And you were right,” Jason said. He leaned down over the cot, whispered something that Saul couldn’t hear, then lifted the hand of the woman—he could tell she was a woman at least—and kissed it.
“Is it his sister?” Saul asked the doctor in a whisper.
“No, it’s Megan MacDonald,” said Morelli. “Caught an arrow in the neck,” he added, softer still.
Saul thought he must have made a face, because Morelli added quickly, “It’s not so bad as you might think. Jason knows this.”
As if that would help, Saul thought. He had been reassured again and again that Rachael would be all right, but that didn’t stop him from thinking about her, worrying about her constantly.
Jason stood up, and it was then that Saul saw Jenny was there, too, standing behind him in the shadows. “Don’t worry, Jason,” said Morelli, “I’ll stay with her.”
Jason nodded, and asked for his shirt.
But Jenny waved Morelli off. “Don’t put that filthy thing on again, Jason. Stop by the house and pick up something fresh.”
“All right, Boss,” Jason said, and pulled her close enough to kiss her forehead. “Won’t be long. Thanks, Doc.”
Morelli nodded in acknowledgment, and before he knew it, Saul was on the street with Jason, walking up toward Jason’s house.
It took only a minute before Jason came out of his bedroom, wearing a fresh shirt and vest, and pinned on his badge again, then started down toward the center of town again. Saul tagged at his heels like a puppy.
Jason stopped in mid-step, startling him, and said, “Go home, Saul. This is my job.”
As much as Saul wanted to do just that, he said, “But Jason—”
“No. I’m going to need to take some good men with me, but I’m also going to need to leave some good men here in town. Got me?”
A moment passed before Saul said, “Yes, Jason. I understand.”
“Get going then, buddy.”
Saul trotted happily back down the street, toward his hardware store and his family.
Jason rounded up ten men, including himself and Ward Wanamaker and a number of the wagon drivers. They spoke with the other settlers and learned that the northern attack force had withdrawn around the wall to camp with those on the south.
Jason was relieved to hear this. The last thing he needed, to his mind, was to have to fight his way out of the town, and then back into it. He was counting on the Apache being asleep for this little foray.
They eased open the gate and exited the town single file, with Jason on his best mare, Cleo. She stood out in the moonlight, her golden palomino coloring glistening with reflected moonbeams, so Jason kept to the inside of the pack.
Once they left the fortress town behind them and were a mile in the clear, they goosed their horses into a canter. It was light enough to see, and they reached the Morton farm in good time.
Jason beat on the door until it was opened by old Zachary Morton. Or rather, the barrel of his gun. “What the hell you doin’ out here, Jason, wakin’ honest folks in the middle of the night?” The door opened a little wider to reveal his wife Susannah at his side.
“Mrs. Morton,” Jason said, tipping his hat. “We came to get you folks and take you into town. We’ve been beset by Apache, and I got a feeling they’ll be headed this way next since they can’t get past our walls.”
“We been seein’ the smoke rise,” Zachary said, his features hardening. “Susannah, go wake the gals an’tell ’em to gather what precious things they got. None of this may be here when we come back. And wake Ezekial and Eliza, too. I’ll get the horses.”
“Don’t you think you better get dressed first?” Jason asked, pointing at Zachary’s nightdress and the scarf wrapped round his chin to protect his long gray beard.
This forced a quick grin from Zachary at last. “Aye, thank you, Jason. Be with you in a minute.”
The door slammed between them.
Ward, standing near Jason, sniffed.
And Jason said, “Right. Ward, take some of these men and hitch up the Mortons’ two wagons. Let out their cattle and goats while you’re at it, and chase ’em off to the hills up northeast.”
“Zachary ain’t gonna be happy,” Jason heard Ward mutter as he walked off.
Well, Zach’ll be happier rounding them up again than finding them butchered, Jason thought with justification. Zachary could be a tough old bird, but he had a sound mind and a good heart.
By the time Ward drove up the first wagon, Ezekial and Eliza was coming out the front door, and hustling Electa and Europa between them. Both Electa and her sister Europa—the widow of Milton Griggs, who was to be the town’s blacksmith—carried armloads of schoolbooks, for both Morton girls taught school in town. Their mother, Eliza, carried a large paper globe in addition to a box of what Jason assumed were her treasures.
The second wagon came up straightaway, and Jason saw Zachary and Susannah up into it. Zachary had brought a rifle and a case full of gunsmithing tools, Jason supposed, and Susannah carried the fry pans and roaster and knives and loaf pans temporarily wrapped in dresses and bed linens and layers of raw yard goods. Behind him in the dark, Jason heard their livestock being herded away from the ranch, heard them picking up speed as they headed north.
Farm, he corrected himself, not ranch. The Mortons always called it their farm.
Well, they did grow their own hay and grain in the irrigated fields west of the house and barn, along the riverbank. He’d give them that.
Mostly, though, what they were interested in was livestock. His men were presently herding off some nice Angora goats, along with the last of the Morgans that Matt MacDonald’s father had brought out, and which Matt didn’t seem to want. Zachary had confided in Jason that he’d bought them cheap.
Most of the Morton’s draft mares were pulling their wagons, and two had foals frisking at their sides. There were about a dozen head of cattle, and the men were driving off the hogs, too. He thought they had about fifteen, plus whatever litters they’d dropped this spring. There were the mules and the saddle horses, too, followed by their big old dog, his tail wagging at the chance to do some unscheduled work.
Jason hoped they could run them out far enough that the Apache didn’t catch them. Mostly because he hated the smell of roasting mule, and he knew that was what the Apache would do right away.
To celebrate their victory, that is.
“Move out!” he called, and the wagons slowly began to move south. He knew the men moving the livestock would catch up in no time, once the livestock was safely hidden.
And they did, after the main group had made five miles.
“You get ’em far away?” Jason asked.
The men nodded that they had.
“Found a little box canyon about seven or eight miles from the ranch,” said Dusty Carmichael, another who had come to Fury with the freighter wagons. “Got ’em all settled in there right and proper, and left the dog to watch over ’em.”
“Good,” Jason said.
The Mortons’dog, called Old Chunk, was a very large and mostly white conglomeration of herding breeds. And he didn’t just herd anything you told him to. No sir, he protected those critters like they were his own puppies. No wolves or coyotes or cougars—not even a grizzly bear—would dare to bother them with Old Chunk around.
The wagons and riders picked up some speed. They had only two miles to go before they made town.