MATTHEW GUNN SAW the rider coming and hauled the Winchester clear of the boot as he turned his horse off the trail He halted in the cover of some big saguaros and watched the man with interest. He was a Mexican, to judge from the big sombrero and tight, concho-studded pants. And he was hurt.
It looked as though he was having trouble staying on the horse.
When he came level with Gunn’s position, the half-breed could see why: the man’s hands were bandaged and his legs badly gashed. From the way his feet dangled limp in the stirrups, Gunn guessed that the tendons were severed. Holding the Winchester pointed forwards, he rode out of cover.
‘Hola!’ His greeting was casual. ‘You’re hurt.’
Paco looked up, blinking through the pain that clouded his vision. He saw a man in American-style clothes and smiled gratefully. The rider was obviously friendly: he wasn’t a Comanche and that fact alone meant he was either a hand off some local ranch or a scout for the Army or the Texas Rangers. No-one else would risk crossing the Staked Plains alone—except Comancheros, and Graves’ outfit, Paco knew, was the only one out right now.
‘Sí,’ he whispered, ‘I am hurt pretty bad.’
‘What happened?’ The man sounded friendly enough, but for some reason he made no move to help.
‘Comanches,’ Paco announced dramatically, ‘they tortured me.’
He had no intention of letting the stranger know that he was a Comanchero. Selling guns to the Indians was a hanging offence in Texas, worse even than horse stealing. He had already concocted a story of innocent vaqueros seeking work in America, only to be jumped by murderous savages.
‘And let you go?’ The man sounded doubtful.
‘I escaped,’ added Paco in a hurry. ‘We were looking for work, my friends and me. The Comanches jumped us. They tortured two of us last night. I managed to get free, but there are two more still held captive. I am seeking help.’
He shuddered dramatically.
‘Where are you from?’
Gunn smiled, not believing any of it. The man who broke free of a Comanche camp was gifted with more luck than anyone had a right to own. The man who could climb onto a horse with his hamstrings cut and useless hands was possessed of more strength than this oldster.
‘I don’t believe you,’ he said evenly.
‘¿Que es?’ Paco was suddenly worried. ‘I swear it’s the truth. I must fetch help for my friends. It’s lucky I met you.’
Gunn shook his head. ‘I’ll tell you what you are: a Comanchero.’
Paco spluttered, shaking his own head in violent negation.
‘You were bringing guns to the big camp,’ continued the man, who did, Paco now saw, bear a curious resemblance to an Indian. ‘You buried some of them. At the foot of a mesa.’
‘You!’ Paco’s eyes grew wide with shock and angry realization. ‘It was you! You found them and shifted them. You bastard! You know what you did? ’
‘Sure,’ said Gunn, amused by the Comanchero’s wrath. ‘I spoiled a deal for you. I guess it upset your Comanche friends.’
‘They slaughtered us,’ snarled Paco. ‘Raul, Luis … Hernando, Enrico, over the fires… Me. Do you know what they did to me?’
His voice rose to a hysterical shriek and he raised one hand, tearing at the bandages with his teeth. He spat the dirty rags away and held the arm out in front of him. The thumb was severed at the lower joint, where it attaches to the hand. The blood had begun to congeal, but the violent removal of the cloth had re-opened the wound and dark blood welled in pulsing globules, dripping onto the sand.
‘They cut off my thumbs!’ Paco screamed. ‘They finished me! I can’t hold a gun anymore. I can’t control a horse. I’m finished.’
‘It’s not your lucky day, is it?’ Gunn said quietly. And triggered the Winchester.
The bullet solved Paco’s problems. It hit his chest directly above the heart, shattered a rib that turned it slightly so that it tore out only half the ventricle, and emerged beneath his left shoulder blade. Its force lifted him from the saddle, blowing him bodily through the air, over the horse’s rear. He fell heavily onto the ground, his mutilated hands spread wide.
Almost immediately, flies began to gather around the wounds.
Gunn slid the Winchester back into the scabbard and glanced round at Paco’s horse. The animal, spooked by the shot, was running wild towards the south. Gunn let it go. He didn’t need a spare horse, and it would be more trouble than it was worth trying to catch it. He couldn’t be certain why the Comanches had let the old man go, but he suspected it had something to do with the hidden weapons. If he was right, the remaining Comancheros had a nasty shock coming.
He grinned and rode on.
Iron Knife was less concerned about the missing shipment of guns than he showed. He had already succeeded in gathering the largest force of Nemmenna his people had ever seen. Usually, the tribes followed their own ways, living independently of one another, coming together only to trade or to arrange marriages. The magic dream he had been gifted with nearly one of the white man’s years ago was now taking shape. The Nemmenna came together under his leadership, their purpose to clear the buffalo grounds of central Texas of the troublesome whites. Iron Knife had worked hard for that.
The guns he had bought with looted gold, taken from stage coaches and miners, burned-out ranches and solitary travelers, were sufficient to equip most of his warriors. More would come when they took the war trail.
The vision he had seen in the medicine tent had told him the time was come. For seven days, he had fasted, breathing the dream smoke as the shaman chanted the ritual words around his sweating body. He had sacrificed his best horse, and the gods of his people had been pleased.
In the dream he had seen many of the fast-firing guns, heard the sound of a great battle. He had seen bloody scalps hanging from the war lances, and felt the heat of burning ranches. Then the dream had shown him the plains thick with buffalo and the tents of his people and he had known that the gods smiled upon him and that the Nemmenna would be mighty upon the land.
He had emerged from the medicine lodge gaunt and hungry, his face hollowed and his ribs prominent beneath his skin. But his eyes still held the memory of the vision and he had known the time was upon him.
Now his riders carried word to the scattered groups not come to the gathering place of the dream, and he knew that soon the Nemmenna would drive the whites from the hunting grounds.
The news that Lone Dog, Pony Runner and Tall Eagle, three of his finest warriors, were dead had angered him. That the tracks of their killer went towards the ranch of the man called Dalton persuaded him to make that his first target. That Graves had failed to bring all the promised guns irritated him, but did not alter his plans. The hidden guns might be replaced if the old one lived long enough to deliver the message; if not, then Graves and the half-breed would provide sport for the women.
Strong in his dream-power, Iron Knife summoned his chiefs and outlined the gods-given order of battle.
Simultaneously, the Comanches attacked the targets chosen by the war chief.
The Wells, Fargo stage heading west to El Paso was ambushed that afternoon. The driver, guard, and all five passengers were killed, scalped and looted. The way-stations built between the Red River and the Pecos were reduced to rubble, and nine lonely homesteads burned to the ground. A patrol of four Texas Rangers put up a running fight before the Texicans died, and the Flying D got the worse Indian attack Nathaniel Dalton had ever seen.
The Comanches came out of a clear afternoon. It was the hottest day the Staked Plains had suffered in all that long, hot summer, and Dalton was congratulating himself on busting a gut digging reliable wells when the look-out posted atop the windmill started to holler. At first Dalton thought the cowboy must have sighted a mirage. Then he saw the dust cloud and ran for the smithy. He grabbed the hammer strung beside the warning bell and sounded the alarm.
He had seven men around the main building, with Nolan, Christie and the Mexican cook inside the ranch house. Counting Eleanor as one gun, that gave him twelve people in all. The look-out, who was up there because his eye-sight was better than most, calculated around one hundred Comanches coming their way.
Dalton got his men inside the ranch building and set to forting up. The hands still out on the range would have to look after themselves. If they were still alive.
Inside the fortress-like building the window shutters were going down. They were made of two-inch thick imported oak, dense enough to stop a bullet and hung on steel hinges. The main door was oak, reinforced with metal bands, and held in place with a massive cross-bar. The walls of the ranch house were foot-thick stone that would take a cannon to breach. The defenders had a supply of fresh water from the spring, and the cook’s storehouse held enough meat and canned goods to feed them for a month. It was a pity to lose the horses and the pigs that were penned behind the bam, but that couldn’t be helped.
What counted now was staying alive.
He opened the bureau drawer in the main living-room and grabbed the key to the armory. Since building the place, he had always kept a supply of carbines and handguns, together with plenty of ammunition, in a locked room. Eleanor had sometimes laughed at his precautions, telling him he was overly cautious. She wasn’t laughing now.
Dalton saw that the two new men were already set up by the windows to either side of the main door, their Winchesters poked through the firing ports and opened cartons of shells in easy reach by their feet. He left them, detailing his cowhands to the remaining three walls. He assigned two men, and the cook, to filling buckets against the chance of fire and set Eleanor to preparing bandages.
Then the Flying D settled down to the hardest part: the waiting.
The dust cloud came closer and shapes began to emerge. Dalton sucked in his breath when he saw the war band. Even with the stockpiled supplies it was going to be a long, hard fight.
The Indians halted just out of range, watching the ranch like buzzards waiting for a sick cow to go down. Inside, the rooms were cool and dim, and very quiet. No-one was talking as the defenders waited for the Comanches to make their move. For what seemed like a long time, they sat their ponies in silence, painted faces studying the building.
Then the front ranks of horsemen opened and two men came forwards. There was something strange about them. They sat heavy in their saddles and they looked like white men. A Comanche struck the two horses with a quirt, and they broke into a startled gallop. As they approached the ranch house they slowed, snickering nervously, and turned towards the corral.
‘Oh my God!’ Dalton gasped, recognition adding furrows to his brow. ‘That’s Charlie and Bob.’
‘Was,’ corrected Nolan.
The two cowhands were dead. Crude frames held them upright on their horses, rawhide held hands and legs in position. Their chests were bare, crisscrossed with a tracery of cuts, blackened by the fires built on their stomachs. Their jaws gaped open, holding the organs stuffed into their mouths, and their eyes stared sightlessly: the upper lids had been cut away.
Nolan turned to Christie, nodding. They fired together and the horses dropped, spilling their macabre burdens.
Dalton choked on his own bile.
‘Least they’ll slow the charge,’ murmured Nolan, staring out at the Indians.
Then hell broke loose and visited itself on the Flying D.
There was a great yammering scream that seemed to go on and on as the Comanches hurled themselves into a wild gallop. With the precision of well-drilled cavalry, they charged forwards in two columns, thundering head on at the ranch house. As they came within firing range the columns peeled to right and left, the Indians turning in two wide circles. It was the Comanche Wheel, the warriors galloping close enough to shoot, then swinging away out of range. It meant that individual horsemen presented only fleeting targets before they were gone into the dust, circling round for a fresh attack.
Dalton yelled for extra men to man the rifle ports of the main room: for the moment, the attack was concentrated on the front of the building. The place grew acrid with the stink of cordite, and despite the cool, men began to sweat as they levered Winchesters and Spencers with an energy that became automatic.
The Comanches raised a great cloud of billowing dust that drifted over the ranch, prickling at eyes already smarting from the gun smoke, clogging throats and blocking nostrils.
Then, abruptly, they pulled back.
Slowly, the dust settled and Nolan began a head count. No-one inside was hurt, but seven Indians stretched on the sand. The remainder grouped out of range, then broke up into five bands. Four circled the building, commencing an attack on all four sides. The fifth converged on the corrals, driving the horses clear. Dalton cursed as smoke began to flood from the bam and bunkhouse. Scoured dry by wind and sun, the wooden buildings blazed fast, and before long they were reduced to piles of smoldering ash. Then the Indians stampeded the horse herd straight at the ranch.
The fear-crazed animals galloped headlong for the building, splitting at the last moment to thunder around the walls.
On all four sides, the Indians used the diversion to get close.
Nolan bellowed a warning as a rifle barrel poked inwards. He pulled aside as the gun went off, then stuck his own Winchester into the face that suddenly appeared at the opening. The skull disintegrated and the Comanche sprawled back. Christie saw one of the wounded braves crawling closer and shot him, then—methodically—put bullets through the other ‘corpses.’ Three of them screamed and twitched as his shots hit, and he giggled, pulling back to reload.
Dalton sent a man to check for casualties and began to curse again when he heard that two cowboys were dead, shot at point-blank range through the gun ports, and one more badly hurt.
The four groups continued to ride the wheels, maintaining a constant rain of bullets and arrows that kept the defenders dodging to avoid the stray shots ricocheting around the interior of the ranch.
The fifth group pulled back and began to light fires.
Suddenly the riders drew away and the flaming arrows started to fall. Nolan and Christie dropped four of the archers, but the others hauled back the strings of their powerful buffalo bows, angling shafts wrapped around with inflammable material upwards at the sky. The arrows rose high, their, passage goading the flames to incandescence, and they arced above the walls, falling on the roof and courtyard.
The Mexican cook groaned and fell, dropping his water bucket as a shaft pierced his back. He screamed when he felt the flames and rolled over in a desperate attempt to douse the fire. He put out the flames, but his gyrations rammed the arrow deep into a lung and he coughed blood and died.
The arrows that struck the roof glanced off the tiles, but inside the courtyard the wood-roofed veranda began to burn, drawing more men away from the gun ports to fight the spreading blaze.
‘How long do you think they’ll keep it up?’ Dalton rejoined Nolan and Christie in the main room.
‘Can’t say,’ shrugged Nolan. ‘An injun’ll fight until he Aggers he’s fought enough, then he’ll quit. But there ain’t no way of tellin’ when he’ll decide he’s had his fill. They could keep this up until we run outta ammunition. They could quit tonight.’
‘Jesus,’ muttered Dalton. It was a prayer, rather than blasphemy.
‘Thing is to keep whittlin’ them down,’ grunted Christie. ‘Ain’t that right Nolan?’
The dark man growled an affirmative reply and shot a Comanche off his pony. He crossed the room, helping himself to Dalton’s whisky.
‘They’ll kill us,’ he said cynically, ‘or we’ll kill them. It’s that simple.’
The attack went on until dark, then the Comanches fell back and the defenders got a breathing space. Around midnight, Dalton came to Nolan with a plan. The rancher appeared to regard the dark man as an authority on Indian fighting, and seemed grateful to share his responsibilities with Nolan. To the scalp hunter it sounded desperate, but as it involved someone else’s life, he went along with it.
One of Dalton’s hands was a Texicano, the son of an American woman. He claimed to know the territory better than most, and reckoned he could make his way through the surrounding Indians without being spotted. Nolan didn’t give much for his chances, but when the boy—he was no more than eighteen—insisted he could get through to fetch help, Nolan shrugged and agreed to the idea.
The boy was called Johnny Riley and he slipped out through an opened window in the early hours of the morning.
Fifty minutes later he began to scream.
He kept screaming all through the night, his voice rising higher and higher, reaching peaks of frenzy that kept the people inside the ranch awake as they listened, wondering what the Comanches were doing to the kid.
In the morning they found out.
Johnny Riley was still alive, though he would have been better off dead. The Comanches had worked on him throughout the dark hours, and as the sun rose they lashed his mutilated body to a framework of poles and left him hanging in the clear sight of the ranch. He was naked, hurting and bleeding, and every so often he opened what was left of his mouth and howled like a wounded coyote.
The defenders listened to him for an hour, then the strain got too much and Christie grabbed one of Dalton’s spare guns. It was a big Sharps .50 buffalo rifle with twice the range of the Winchesters. Christie needed it: Johnny Riley was over one thousand yards away.
The Southerner opened the breech and shoved a cartridge in. Resting the heavy barrel on a window ledge, he pulled the hammer back and sighted on Johnny’s chest. He took a deep breath and let it out slow and easy as his finger tightened on the trigger. The Sharps went off with a sound like a close-range cannon. Johnny seemed to jump back against the poles, and the entire framework collapsed, raising an angry shout from the Comanches.
‘Nice shot, Jude,’ grinned Nolan.
‘Yeah,’ Christie answered, ‘maybe now we’ll get some peace.’
‘My God.’ Eleanor Dalton looked troubled by their indifference. ‘How can you be so casual?’
‘Ma’am,’ Nolan said softly, his voice cutting through the stillness in the room, ‘Jude done that fool boy a favor. He ain’t hurtin’ no more now.’
‘Fool boy?’ Eleanor queried. ‘He was trying to save our lives. Is that foolish?’
‘He didn’t stand a hope in hell,’ grunted Nolan. ‘There ain’t anyone gonna get through them injuns.’
‘But you let him go.’ The woman studied her lover’s cold face with startled eyes. ‘If you thought that, why did you let him go?’
Nolan shrugged. ‘Guess there mighta been a faint chance. Leastways now we know where we stand.’
Eleanor turned away, shaking her head in bewildered despair. She began to wonder about Nolan.
Then she forgot her doubts and concentrated on loading the rifles as the Indians attacked again.
The man called Gunn watched the Comanches from the cover of a buffalo wallow a few thousand yards off to the side. He had been there since just after dawn, and had seen Johnny Riley’s suffering and Christie’s mercy shot. He was mildly interested in the Comanche tactics, comparing them with the war skills of his own people. The Chiricahuas would have avoided a frontal assault, deeming it too hazardously careless against a position so easily defended. No, they would have moved close in the night, using the darkness and the fatigue of the whites to get up against the walls, onto the roof. After that it would have been easy.
The Comanches, though, were horse warriors. They lived and died on their ponies, and they had little taste for fighting on foot.
That, and the fort-like construction of the Flying D, gave the men inside a powerful advantage. For the time being. But time, Gunn knew, would be the telling factor. There were close on a hundred Indians surrounding the ranch; the defenders couldn’t hope to hold out indefinitely. And when the Comanches closed in, Nolan and Christie would die along with the others.
It presented Gunn with a difficult problem.
If he tried to help the whites, the Indians would fall on him, overwhelming him by sheer weight of numbers. If he stood by, playing it safe, the men he hunted would be taken from him. He weighed alternatives in his mind, and an idea came. It was a long shot, and dangerous as it was long; but it was all he could think of. Carefully, he began to make his preparations, working methodically through the day, waiting for nightfall when he planned to act.
Inside the ranch house, Eleanor Dalton wiped tears from her smarting eyes and fetched another bucket to the cowhands fighting the fires that threatened to take a hold on the interior.
Nathaniel dragged a fresh keg of shells from the armory, wondering how much longer his supplies would last.
Nolan used his Winchester with automatic precision. His face was calm, the mouth set in a thin, tight line. Only the cold blaze of his green eyes betrayed the anger he felt.
Christie worked his own carbine with equally lethal skill. His blond hair was filthy with dust and smoke, his face a grimy mask. But his blue eyes were alive with pure enjoyment, and every time he dropped a Comanche, he giggled.