Stampede

by Len Levinson

  Stone charged first, and Ephraim timed him coming in. Stone was off balance, too eager, and wide open. Ephraim launched a terrific right jab to Stone’s head, and it was like the collision of two freight trains.

  Stone was dazed, but swung viciously at Ephraim, who slipped the punch easily and nailed Stone with a hook to the kidney. Stone grunted, and shot a left jab to Ephraim’s eye, opening a cut on the lid. Ephraim replied with a right cross to Stone’s cheek, a left hook to his nose, and an uppercut to the tip of his chin, but Stone leaned back and countered with a jab that pulped Ephraim’s mouth, and a right cross that spun his head around. Ephraim felt like he was dragging a bale of cotton behind him, and it was his own body.

  They stood toe to toe and battered each other, and neither stepped backward an inch. All strategy and tactics were gone as they tried to beat each other into submission. Each landed crushing blows on the other, but nobody went down. Jesus Christ, I’m in it again, Stone thought. What’s wrong with me?

  If he fell, he’d knew he’d never get up again. Somehow he had to stay on his feet and destroy Ephraim, but so far Ephraim had taken his best shots and didn’t go down. Stone dug in his heels and threw devastating punches at Ephraim’s face, a mask of blood in front of him, while absorbing terrific punches to his own body and face. The winner would be the man who could stay on his feet and keep punching no matter what.

  On cliffs in distant mountains, lobos watched with keen eyes. It looked like another easy meal. They do our work for us.

  Stone’s arms were leaden, his breath came in gasps, and he swallowed blood from his shattered lips. His left eye was half-closed and his right ear was nearly torn off, but he could see Ephraim was bloody from head to toe, and Ephraim’s nose had been flattened.

  It occurred to Stone that they were killing each other, but it was satisfying to beat the man you hated most in the world, a man who’d insulted you beyond redemption. Stone didn’t care if he died, as long as he killed Ephraim. Stone threw a weary arm punch at Ephraim, and Ephraim flung one back. Their strength had been sapped, and they couldn’t hurt each other anymore, but still they staggered from side to side and threw fists at each other. Stone knew he had to pull a good one up from someplace, and Ephraim reached the same conclusion. Both of them sucked up their remaining reserves of strength, took aim, and launched their fists at each other’s heads. They connected simultaneously, and both fell on their asses. Stone spat blood as he struggled to get up, when he became aware of a faint yipping sound in the air, like dogs barking.

  He turned in the direction of the sound and saw an immense Indian war party charging toward him out of the distant hills. This is what happens when you’re not vigilant, goddammit. . . Ephraim dived on him, and Stone wasn’t sure he’d really seen what his eyeballs just showed him, but he heard the war whoops again, and Ephraim stiffened.

  Ephraim spun his head around, and both looked at Indians galloping toward them, shaking their war lances and bows, making a ululating sound with their mouths. They jumped to their feet, and Stone saw his knife lying on the ground. He picked it up and ran toward Tomahawk, who was gazing at the Indians with alarm. Ephraim meanwhile untied his horse from the back of the chuck wagon, leapt into the saddle and was off.

  Stone spurred Tomahawk, and the animal threw himself into a gallop, as an arrow whistled over Stone’s head. Stone looked over his shoulder and saw Indians swarming over the prairie, screaming and shaking their weapons. He pulled out his gun and fired two warning shots, then looked at Ephraim twenty yards away and thought of blowing him out of the saddle, but that wasn’t a good idea strategically, because they’d need every rifle they had to hold off the Indians.

  Stone had never been taken unawares during the war. He’d posted sentries and always kept his senses alert for Yankees, but now he’d been fighting with the goddamn cook, of all people, in what was essentially enemy territory. I was a sharp young cavalry officer, and Wade Hampton himself asked for my opinions at staff meetings, but now I’m just another brawling cowboy. West Point officers don’t get into fistfights with the cook, especially when the enemy can strike at any moment.

  Tomahawk galloped over the top of a rise, and Stone saw the herd in the distance. He turned in his saddle, took aim, and fired into the mass of Indians. One of them let go of his reins, slid down the side of his horse, and fell beneath the horse’s hooves. Stone fired again, but the bullet kicked up dirt next to the front entrance of a prairie dog den.

  In the den, falling clods of earth fell on the head of the hapless prairie dog. There they go again, he thought, hearing hoofbeats pass over him, as more dirt dropped to the tunnel floor.

  The Indians rushed over the rise, pursuing Stone and Ephraim, and Ephraim drew his pistol, aimed at the Indians, and pulled the trigger. His gun fired, one Indian fell off his horse, but the others kept charging relentlessly, screaming and yelling battle cries. Stone looked ahead and saw cowboys riding toward the drag, while the herd already was in full stampede, fleeing from the gunfire and Indians. Nearly three thousand cattle spread out like a massive blot, covering an enormous acreage, while cowboys set up a defense where the drag had been.

  Stone and Ephraim raced over the grass, with the Indians hot on their heels. Stone was in the lead, and now Truscott and the others were only a few hundred yards away. Turning in his saddle, Stone fired a shot at the Indians as a hail of arrows flew around him. The Indians’ legs flopped up and down as they shook their weapons, their faces mad with fury. Tomahawk’s hoofbeats thundered on the ground as he charged toward the cowboys. Stone could make out Truscott, Don Emilio, and Cassandra with a face white as snow, but her rifle was ready for war. Truscott and the cowboys had shot their horses, to make a barricade of their dead flesh.

  Tomahawk leapt over them, landing among the cowboys. Stone jumped down from the saddle, and Tomahawk kept running, because he didn’t want to become anybody’s barricade. A few moments later Ephraim’s horse jumped behind the barricades, but Ephraim shot him through the head before he could get away. The animal fell in a clump to the ground, and Ephraim dropped on his belly behind him, opening fire on the charging Indians.

  Arrows slammed into the ground all around the cowboys as they sighted down their barrels at the onrushing Indians. Stone leapt behind Cassandra’s horse and looked at her, but she was steady, squeezing the trigger of her rifle. It fired, kicked into her shoulder, and in the distance an Indian warrior dropped off his saddle.

  Stone raised his rifle and took aim at the lead Indian, who was hollering at the top of his lungs and swinging his war club in the air. Stone squeezed off the round, the rifle fired, and the Indian fell backward over the rump of his war pony.

  The other Indians charged onward, firing arrows at the cowboys who send forth a barrage of gunfire. Indians fell from their horses, but the rest continued their attack, yelling and urging each other on. They were fifty yards away now, and the cowboys were greatly outnumbered, but the cowboys had modern rifles, while most of the Indians carried stone-age weapons. Cassandra drew a bead on the leader, an old man wearing a warbonnet made of white feathers, and shot him out of his saddle.

  The Indians were almost on top of them now, and Stone grabbed Cassandra’s wrist. “Save a bullet for yourself!” he told her, and then turned to meet the shrieking band of Indians.

  A horse leapt up in front of Stone, and Stone shot the animal in the belly. The horse whinnied as it flew over Stone’s head, hit the ground, and didn’t get up, but its rider was thrown clear. Stone turned around in time to see a war hatchet zooming toward his head, and he ducked at the last moment. The war hatchet passed over his head, and Stone arose, firing his rifle from the hip at the Indian; a red dot appeared on the Indian’s chest.

  Stone didn’t have time to see the Indian fall, because he heard an Indian running toward him, a war lance in his hand. Stone raised the rifle and fired.

  Click!

  In all the world, from heaven to hell, from the dust of the prairie to the f
ire of the sun, there was no more mournful sound. The rifle was empty, and the Indian thrust the spear toward Stone’s chest. Stone parried the lance with his rifle, and slammed the rifle butt into the Indian’s skull. There was a sickening thunk, and the Indian’s eyes rolled into his head. He fell to the ground, but behind him were two more Indians, one carrying a lance, the other a war hatchet, and both screamed horribly as they rushed toward Stone.

  He held his rifle like a club and swung with both hands at the Indian carrying the hatchet as the Indian slammed his hatchet’s blade into Stone’s rifle. Steel struck steel, sparks flew into the air, and the Indian lost his grip on the hatchet. Stone plucked it out of the air as the other Indian pushed his war lance toward Stone’s ribs. Stone batted it out of the way with his forearm, and buried the hatchet in the Indian’s head. Blood and brains flew in all directions, and Stone swung around, slamming the hatchet into the jaw of the next Indian, severing it from his face. Stone jumped over the Indian, and landed in front of another Indian with a rusty old gun in his hand.

  Stone ducked, and the bullet rocketed through the air over his head. One of Stone’s hands wrapped around the hot barrel of the gun, and his other hand gripped the Indian’s throat. Stone squeezed, trying to throttle the Indian, while the Indian struggled and tried to kick Stone in the groin.

  Stone dodged the Indian’s kicks, but the Indian broke out of his grasp. Stone dived for the Indian’s gun again, and the Indian raised it for a shot. Stone grabbed the gun, it fired, and a bullet zipped into the sky. The Indian fell backward, and Stone landed on top of him.

  They rolled around on the grass, fighting for possession of the gun. The Indian reached to his belt and yanked out a knife with a six-inch blade, and Stone grasped his wrist. The Indian kicked and bucked, they tossed about, and Stone rode him like a wild mustang. It was like fighting a strange foreign creature whose musculature had a different tension, wild and slippery, utterly lethal. The Indian spit in Stone’s face, and Stone let go of the Indian’s knife hand, pounding him in the face with all his strength.

  The Indian was stunned, and Stone took the gun from his hand, turned it around, and shot the Indian in a main artery of his chest. Blood spurted out, and Stone jumped up in time to confuse the aim of another Indian who’d been aiming an arrow at him.

  The arrow hissed through the air past Stone’s ear, and Stone raised the gun, took quick aim, and fired. The gun kicked in his hand, and the Indian showed an astonished expression. A white man who’s one with his weapon has killed me. Then the Indian’s knees crumpled and he collapsed onto the ground.

  Stone flashed on Cassandra, and turned toward where she’d been, but an Indian was there, thrusting his war lance at Stone’s chest. Stone darted to the side and fired the gun, and the Indian was knocked to the ground, blood dripping from a hole in his stomach.

  Fighting raged around Stone as he glanced at the gun, an old Whitneyville-Hartford Dragoon, stolen from some bullwhacker, long dead. Then he remembered Cassandra again, and turned in her direction. She crouched on the ground, Colt in hand, and in front of her lay four dead Indians, while two live ones rushed her, brandishing hatchets. Stone shouted and ran toward them, firing the Whitneyville-Hartford, while Cassandra shot from her position. The Indians were caught in a murderous crossfire, and spun through the air, blood spiraling from their wounds.

  Stone moved toward Cassandra, and she swung the gun at him, then realized who he was. He landed beside her, looked her over, and turned around, expecting to see a horde of Indians charging, but instead the Indians were retreating! The defensive perimeter was covered with smoke and dust as the Indians ran back to their horses.

  “Hold yer fire!” Truscott shouted.

  There was silence, and then Roberto said weakly, “I theenk I am going to die.” He lay on the ground, a war lance sticking out of his chest, pinning him to the dirt. “The son om a beetch got me,” he said as blood burbled out of his mouth. “Is Don Emilio there?”

  “Estoy aqui, amigo.”

  Roberto looked up at Don Emilio and said, “Shoot me.”

  Don Emilio aimed his gun at Roberto’s head, and Cassandra turned away. The gun fired.

  “Anybody else hurt?” asked Truscott.

  “They got Joe Little Bear,” Duvall replied.

  At Duvall’s feet lay Joe Little Bear, stripped naked, blood on his chest, a strip of hair gone from the top of his head, and his genitals stuffed into his throat, the punishment for a traitor.

  “Anybody else!” Truscott hollered.

  Nobody said anything.

  “Load yer guns! They’ll be back!”

  Stone’s cartridges couldn’t be used in the Whitneyville-Hartford Dragoon. He stuffed it into his belt and searched for the Colt he’d dropped early in the fight.

  “Comanches,” Slipchuck said, thumbing bullets into the magazine of his Henry. “Worst goddamn savages you could hope for, except maybe the Apache.”

  Stone found his Colt next to the bodies of dead Comanches. It felt better in his hand than the Whitney ville-Hartford, and he had enough ammunition to put up a respectable fight. Then he found his rifle, but Tomahawk had run off with the saddlebags containing his extra ammunition.

  Stone returned to Cassandra, who was plundering her own saddlebags. Her cowboy hat was perched on her head, a crazed gleam was in her eye, and he knew she’d never be the same, if she survived today. She looked at him, and became aware for the first time of his bloody, banged-up face, but assumed the Indians had done it. “What happened?”

  “Injuns attacked while we were breaking camp.”

  Stone looked for Ephraim, and saw him on the other side of the barricade, his face mangled, a rifle in his hand. Ephraim glanced at Stone, and they turned away from each other. Stone looked in the direction the Indians had gone, and thought he and the others probably would be wiped out within the hour.

  “Unnh!” said the segundo, walking toward Truscott and holding out his gun. “Unnh!”

  Truscott handed him a box of cartridges, and the segundo walked off stiffly, his face a lump of clay. The other men lay behind their dead horses, and faced the direction the Indians had gone. A breeze whistled among the blades of grass, and a few wispy clouds floated past the bright blue sky.

  “When they come,” Truscott said, “give ’em lead! It’s the only thing they respect!”

  Stone thought they didn’t have a chance, because there were too many Comanches, and not enough cowboys and vaqueros with rifles. They’d simply be overwhelmed, but they’d take Comanches with them.

  Cassandra looked at John Stone. “I guess this is it,” she said, a lump in her throat.

  “Afraid so,” he replied.

  Her face was streaked with sweat, but her beautiful eyes shone through. “You know,” she said, “if things’d been different, we might’ve ...”

  Her voice trailed off. They looked at each other, and realized they’d die side by side.

  “Yes, it’s too bad,” he muttered.

  “If there’s one thing I regret,” Slipchuck said ruefully, “it’s I never been to Frisco. Drove stagecoaches all over, but never made it to the one place I always wanted to go. They say they got the best whorehouses in the world.”

  Truscott spit tobacco juice at the ground as he sat on his dead horse’s rump. “They have, but you got to pay for it, and it don’t come cheap. Then when you’re finished, on yer way home, you got to watch out somebody don’t come up behind you and hit you over the head with a billy.”

  “Prob’ly,” agreed Slipchuck philosophically, “but jest once in me life I’d like ter have a fancy whore. What do they do that costs so much, Ramrod? You ever take one on?”

  “A few times,” said Truscott, old whoremaster from way back. “They’re usually prettier than yer average saloon whore, and they got ladylike manners like Cassandra here, but when you take off their clothes, it’s all pretty much the same. I remember once in Frisco I …”

  Cassandra listened raptly, while tr
ying to appear nonchalant. Indians were going to massacre them, and they were spending their final moments discussing their favorite infamous subject. It was amazing, their dedication to that subject.

  “We went up to her room,” Truscott continued, the old raconteur, “and she says, ‘What do you want?’ I says, ‘Everything you got.’ She says, ‘You ain’t got that much money.’ I says, ‘Oh, yes I have,’ and throw fifty dollars on the bed. She counts it, and her eyes look like goose eggs. ‘You got it,’ she said to me. ‘Take off yer clothes.’”

  “Where’d you get the fifty dollars?” Slipchuck asked.

  Duvall smacked Slipchuck hard on the shoulder. “Who cares where he got the fifty dollars? I wanna hear about the whore. Shut yer fuckin’ mouth.”

  “I did like she told me,” Truscott said, without breaking his rhythm, “and got onto the bed, a big brass four-poster with a mirror on the ceiling.”

  “A mirror on the ceiling?” Moose Roykins asked, an awed smile on his face, imagining the possibilities.

  “Mirrors on the walls too. Mirrors everywhere, and a crystal chandelier. It was the top floor of the Versailles Hotel. All the big politicians and lawyers used to stop there. The governor might’ve been right down the hall while I was there, for all I know.”

  “To hell with the governor!” Duvall expostulated. “Who cares about the fuckin’ governor? Tell me about the whore!”

  “I didn’t even say what she looked like,” Truscott said, whetting their appetites. “She had black hair, and was built like a brick shithouse, with every brick in place. She’d make Cassandra here look like a little boy, if you know what I mean. Then she took off her clothes, and got onto the bed with me. Now at the time I thought I’d seen and done it all, and I been in every whoop and holler from the Mississippi to the Pacific, but this whore had a trick that even I’d never seen, and I. . .”

  One moment the prairie was still, and then suddenly Comanches appeared over the nearby hills, shrieking wildly, charging toward the cowboys! Cassandra and her men stared at them, switching gears from Truscott’s narrative, the whore completely forgotten as they dived to the ground.