"You die." The Indian grinned as the flame crept along the sparking, smoking fuse. "You all die." He scowled for a moment as if trying to think of something else to say. Then he shrugged. "You die!"
"Not if I can help it." MacQuaid grabbed for his derringer, but the Indian tossed the dynamite at him, and he yelped as he caught the stick before it hit the floor. Extinguishing the flame between his fingers, he gasped, "There now."
Then he looked up.
The Indian had lit another stick, grinning broadly. "You all die!"
MacQuaid stared, frozen in place. Clarence and Kate stood beside each other as if in a daze, their eyes fixed on the flaming stick. Silas crowed and laughed wildly in the back of the room while Buck sniffed and wiped the blood off his face from his recent brawl. He glanced up at the native and cursed him foully.
"You die! You die!"
The Indian was delighted, his interior monologue going something like this: Yes, I will kill these palefaces. They will explode in a giant ball of fire that will light up the night. Father and the others will see it, and I will be honored. Oh, such glory I will receive.
"You DIE!" Excited now, he lit all four of the remaining sticks and gripped them in both hands. "You die! You die!"
Then his face froze as he realized something. He was the one holding the fire sticks. They were burning in his hands. When they exploded—
"Me die?" His one eye grew round like a saucer. "AAAIIEEE!!" With that sudden shriek, he threw the dynamite at the palefaces and whirled around. "Me go!"
He dashed away.
Like a circus act, the palefaces lunged to catch each flaming stick.
"Quick—stamp 'em out! I'll get him." MacQuaid charged after the Indian.
As fast as they could, Clarence, Kate, and Buck stomped the burning fuses into the floor, leaving black burn marks on the floorboards.
"There," Clarence sighed with relief once each fuse had been put out. Feeling a bit faint, he grabbed for a chair. "Well, I do believe..."
The room spun wildly for a moment before he collapsed to the floor, instantly unconscious.
Broken Eye's frenzied flight was as silent as an owl's as he dropped into the cellar where Buck had been hog-tied and tore through the dark underground tunnel. From there, it was only a matter of running stooped-over until he reached the steps into the barn. His pursuer, however, made more noise than a raging bull. The Zuni prince did not glance over his shoulder to see the paleface close in on him; he could feel him, only an arm's length away. It would not be long until the white man overtook him.
"Damn you!" MacQuaid growled, his strong fingers locking onto the fleeing Indian's ankle.
Broken Eye felt his leg tugged out from under him, and he fell hard. But he was down for no more than a split-second. With a powerful kick, he drove his heel into the white man's face and wrenched his ankle free. MacQuaid howled, stunned and blinded for a moment as blood flowed freely from his broken nose.
The Indian jumped to his feet and dashed straight for the barn's open doors. But the gunslinger was not one to give up. With another yell, he lunged forward and grabbed the Indian's ankle, downing him again. The Indian hit the ground, writhing and kicking.
MacQuaid dodged the heel that struck out at his face. In a sudden, cat-like move, he let the ankle go and dove onto the Indian's back. Fists flew as they rolled over and over, grappling against one another across the straw-covered ground. MacQuaid struggled with all his might against the unbelievable strength of the hard-muscled native.
Broken Eye pummeled him mercilessly, confident this paleface would never see the light of morning. Even so, neither one gained any ground on his opponent, and both knew this would be a desperate fight to the finish.
Clarence moaned as he groggily came to. Everything in the room was just as he'd left it. Buck remained at the window, looking out, Winchester in hand. Silas slouched in a corner, dozing on and off with a sling cradling his dislocated arm. Kate sat at the old man's side. Only the gunslinger was missing.
"Wh-where's that MacQuaid fellow?" Clarence stood, rubbing his head.
Kate smiled up at him. "Decided to join us, eh?"
He groaned. "What happened?"
"I think you fainted."
He winced. "I seem to be doing a lot of that lately."
"MacQuaid lit out after the Indian," Kate explained. "Ain't back yet."
Clarence frowned. Where had they gone? He remembered the native charging into the washroom where Kate had found Buckeye Daniels in the cellar. Was there some sort of secret underground passage down there as well? Where did it lead? Could they use it to escape to freedom? Or should they seal it shut to keep other natives from entering that way?
"Hope that Injun tears his eyes out," Buck muttered with a curse.
"Eh, whose eyes?" Silas chirped, waking for a moment.
Buck cursed again.
"Hey now, boy. Watch your language—we've got ourselves a lady present!" Silas scolded.
Kate looked at him with concern. "How's your arm, Silas?"
He chuckled. "Loose!"
"He needs a doctor," she told Clarence quietly. "I fixed 'im up best I could, but it's bad."
Clarence nodded. He could tell that she cared for the old fellow. "I don't believe you can do any more than your best, Kate. For now, it must suffice—until these natives leave us alone."
She met his gaze and nodded. Then, with a heaviness to her shoulders, she joined him at the window.
"How long have they been dancing?" Clarence asked her.
"Maybe an hour or so."
"Damned fools don't never get tired!" Buck added.
"How soon until daylight?"
Buck squinted his eyes as he stared outside. "A few hours now. No tellin' what they'll try before daybreak."
Clarence sighed and shook his head. "This has been the longest night of my life."
Chapter 47
No one noticed Broken Eye dragging a limp body by its hair as he trudged up the hillside toward the ongoing Zuni war dance. Approaching within a few feet of the spectacle, he let go of the paleface's sweaty locks and watched for a few moments with contempt festering in his eye.
The braves pranced in a frenzy, chanting and shrieking around their chief with unstoppable energy and enthusiasm. But it appeared that Big Chief Thunderclap had long-since collapsed from exhaustion. He lay in a heap in the center of the circling braves and snored loudly into the ground.
Broken Eye smirked at the giant mound his father had become. "What an idiot," he muttered. "Such a fool does not deserve to be our chief."
He shook his head as if to clear his mind and shouted sharply in the Zuni tongue: "Stop dancing, you imbeciles!"
Startled by the sudden command, the braves halted and turned, sweating and panting, to face their prince. Broken Eye raised his chin, flexed his chest muscles, and eyed the braves down his nose with disdain. Thinking the silence to be dramatic, he let it run on for a while.
Then he barked at them, "You morons! You have been wasting your strength and your energy dancing when you should have been fighting! The Great Spirit has blessed us with a dark night to avenge our fallen brothers and torture Buckeye Daniels—in addition to the paleface who broke my eye—but you have squandered it! How dare you misuse a gift from the Great Spirit? You should be consumed by fire for your negligence!"
The braves cowered and shot fearful glances skyward. Broken Eye was quite pleased by their response.
"There is only one way to make amends to the Great Spirit," he said slowly, watching them as they hung on his every word. He paused dramatically. "And that is to KILL THE PALEFACES!"
The braves roared with approval—anything to appease the Great Spirit. But Broken Eye knew it was really him that they were pleasing. His eye gleamed with pride as they surrounded him, begging for his next command.
Yes. Finally, I am their brave leader, he mused. To battle and victory we go. His narrowed gaze fell on the monstrous form of his sleeping father. I will be honored. I will be
chief.
"What is it?" Clarence hissed in the death-like silence that had suddenly seized the night.
"They've stopped dancin'," Buckeye said hoarsely. "They're gonna attack any second now." He seemed frozen, his knuckles white as he gripped the rifle.
"It's so quiet," Kate whispered. She stared out the window, her eyes darting. "Why can't we hear 'em comin'?"
Buck swallowed hard. "They're like shadows. They move without a sound. And then before you know it...they're on top of you."
Clarence could feel himself trembling all over. He'd never been so frightened in all his life. He imagined the savages swarming down upon them like ghosts, silently sweeping in from all sides to attack. Fiercely. Vengefully. They would leave no one alive.
He clutched the carbine tight, feeling his heart thump crazily, skipping a beat now and then only to pound again twice as hard. Beads of perspiration covered his brow. At this moment, he knew what it was like for a man to face imminent death.
One thought rose to the surface above all others, and he blurted it out: "I never sent that letter to Mother."
No one said anything. They seemed to somehow understand.
"I never told my folks goodbye," Kate whispered.
"I never buried Buckeye Daniels," Silas lamented.
Buck scowled at the old man and cursed him foully. Then he muttered, "I never saw the Pacific."
Then everything was quiet. They held their breath. They could sense the natives' presence. Close. Very close.
"Ready now..." Buck's finger twitched on the trigger.
Clarence crouched beside Kate and tried to muster what little remained of his courage. She looked up at him.
"I won't let you die, Kate," he promised her.
Tears welled up in her eyes. "Clarence," she gasped, kissing him quickly before turning away and holding the carbine ready.
He stared at her. She was so brave…and so beautiful.
She screamed.
Clarence looked outside and felt his insides turn over. The body of a man had been thrown into the lantern light. Stripped naked, he lay still, his flesh mutilated. He hardly resembled a human being after what had been done to him. But Clarence knew who it was. There were scars on the man's face.
Kate ducked her head and shut her eyes. Clarence turned away, stunned by the gruesome sight, unable to clear it from his mind. Only Buck stared transfixed at the mangled body of Bert MacQuaid and cursed without end.
"No man deserves that," he grated out through clenched teeth.
A soft thud of footsteps came from the cellar, and Clarence turned in time to see a native enter from the back room. Paint on his face. Fire in his eyes. Rifle at the ready.
"Look out!" The carbine exploded as Clarence pulled the trigger, and the bullet hit the shrieking Indian between the eyes, sending him over backward.
A fierce volley of gunfire erupted outside, blasting through the thin walls of the shack.
"Get down!" Buck yelled, lunging to the floor.
Clarence and Kate lay flat, cringing as bullets flew and splinters exploded overhead.
"AAWW!" One of the rounds hit Silas in his bad arm, waking him up and sending him to the floor with a wide-eyed grimace.
"Should we return fire?" Clarence shouted.
"Shut up and stay down!" Buck hollered.
Then came a respite as the natives reloaded their weapons.
"Quick—let 'em have it!" Buck fired between the floorboards covering his window.
Kate screamed, and Clarence whirled to find two more natives had leapt out of the cellar. Glaring with menace, they charged with rifles held low. Clarence fired his carbine, and one of them when down with a shriek. Kate took out the other one with a well-aimed shot to the chest, but not before he'd gotten off a shot of his own.
She groaned, staggering backward as the bullet tore into her side, straight through her flesh. It punctured the wall behind her with a thud. Her carbine clattered to the floor, and she clutched her wound in surprise.
"Kate!" Clarence cried as blood spurted out through her fingers.
"Behind you, Englishter!" Buck shouted.
Clarence hit the floor as Buck fired. The third native toppled over, back into the cellar from whence he'd come.
"Shut the cellar door!" Buck saw Clarence at Kate's side and abandoned his post. "Stay with 'er. I'll take care of it."
Kate lay gasping against the wall. Clarence knelt down beside her, supporting her with one arm while he applied pressure to the wound. The blood flowed warm and thick, covering his hand. He knew he had to wrap her tightly to slow the bleeding, but as he searched the room for a clean cloth, another volley of gunfire erupted outside.
"Stay with me, Kate!" he cried as she lapsed into unconsciousness.
He rolled onto his back and tore off his cotton shirt. Ripping it into strips, he prepared to bind her wound amidst the bullets flying in all directions.
"HA! Try gettin' in now!" Buck yelled from the back room. Fierce thumping came from below the cellar door he'd bolted shut. "You boys scared o' the dark?" he taunted them.
Working fast, his hands a blur, Clarence ripped Kate's dress away from the wound and bound her with the strips he'd torn. A bullet whizzed by his head, close enough that he felt the hot lead brush his ear, and he ducked. He tied the strips in a knot where they overlapped and waited, watching the wound. Slowly, it bled into the binding, much slower than before. He continued to apply pressure with his hand, glad he'd taken that introductory medical course last term.
She will be fine, he told himself. Hesitantly, he kissed her cheek as she lay still with only the slow rise and fall of her chest to reassure him.
"You will be fine, Kate," he whispered.
Chapter 48
Guthrie narrowed his gaze as he looked down from the ridge at the ranch below. The lanterns in front of the shack glowed like match flames in the distance, and shadowy figures lurked around its perimeter. Bursts of rifle fire sparked in the night, followed by their reports, echoing in the darkness. He could not count the natives as they darted to and fro, but he estimated their numbers to be more than two dozen.
He waited for Percy to appear on the opposite ridge, but there was no sign of him as of yet. The natives below had advanced upon the shack. It would be only a matter of seconds before they overran it and slaughtered those few who still fought bravely inside.
Guthrie frowned. His hand closed on the rifle holstered in his saddle boot. His pulse raced as he waited, as the natives shrieked down below. In victory? Premature, he hoped.
He could not wait for Percy any longer. Drawing the rifle, he dismounted, knowing he would have to descend the ridge on foot to make an accurate shot. He spotted a rock formation ahead of him on the hillside and hurried toward it. Kneeling beside the boulder, he waited for the next burst of rifle fire to come from one of the natives in the distance. He took aim and pulled the trigger without a moment's hesitation.
The rifle kicked back into his shoulder as the shot exploded in his ear, met with a scream from below:
"AAIEE!"
Guthrie's hands trembled. He shut his eyes. It had been so long since he'd fired a weapon. Memories resurfaced instantly, surging against his will…
The cold steel of the pistol, held limply in his sweat-slick hand. The body before him, eyes staring, mouth open, head twisted back with a splatter of crimson on his chest.
A small hand tugs at his arm.
"Walter! You must get away!" The urgent voice of a young woman. "The police will come!"
"Let them." His own voice, hopeless. "I have killed a man—"
She takes his face in her hands. Her dark eyes, beautiful, full of love, implore him. "Go now—please!"
"I have murdered—"
"No!" She forces him to look her in the eye, pressing herself against him. "He would have killed you—and me! Don't you see?" She says in earnest, "You are not a murderer!"
He pulls himself away and stares at the body.
"Let
them come. I will not hide from what I have done."
Guthrie gritted his teeth as he remembered that night in the hotel. He and his young bride had been on their honeymoon in Boston when an armed burglar broke into their room. Guthrie had wrestled away his revolver, but the man had drawn a knife and taken it to Margaret's throat. Without hesitating, Guthrie had fired the weapon, his precise aim sending a bullet through the man's forehead. Then the door behind him had opened, and Guthrie, believing it to be the burglar's accomplice, turned and fired a second shot.
But it had been the hotel clerk. A brave man, he'd heard the disturbance, and he had come to check on things. He died with a bullet to the chest.
Guthrie hadn't been an American citizen. Deported for his crime, he was imprisoned for five years in England, where a plea of self-defense and a charge of involuntary manslaughter kept him from the gallows. But in that filthy prison cell, he'd vowed never to fire a gun again for the rest of his life.
And he hadn't. Until now.
He gasped. I cannot kill another man! He stared at the shack below, and while he knew the lives of those inside depended on him, he could not bring himself to pull the trigger on his rifle again. He could not bear to hear another scream as he took a man's life.
But what about Kate? If she was inside, and if he could have saved her but didn't, how would he ever live with himself?
In anguish, he covered his face and prayed desperately for guidance.
The volley of gunfire had ceased yet again. Even the pounding against the cellar door had stopped. Silence held the night.
"They're gettin' ready," Buck hissed, his Winchester reloaded and his Bowie knife in hand as he crouched beside the window. "They'll be comin' through the walls now."
Clarence paled. "Can they do that?" Perhaps his visions of ghosts hadn't been that far off the mark.
"Believe it, Englishter." Buck gestured at the front wall, where the lantern light from outside seeped in through every bullet hole. "Not much holdin' this place together."
Westward, Tally Ho! Page 18
