Too bad he might not live long enough to actually make her understand how he felt about her.
The frontiersmen’s weapons had been returned to them after they became guests of the Indians, rather than prisoners. Preacher and Rip distributed extra pistols and powder and shot to Carling, Hodge, and Sinclair. Carling and Hodge looked uncertain what to do with the weapons, and Preacher wished they’d had time to practice with them. That luxury wasn’t going to be afforded them, however.
“Ma’am, you and Sparrow get inside the lodge and stay there, no matter what you hear goin’ on out here,” Preacher told Faith.
“All right. But I still don’t understand why we don’t just try to get away.”
As the two women went into the lodge, Sparrow looked around and caught Preacher’s eye. She touched the knife she wore at her waist. Preacher knew what she meant—she would kill Faith and then herself before letting them fall into the hands of the Crows. Preacher nodded.
Then, as he turned to the other men, a shout went up from the edge of the village. “Here they come,” Preacher said.
With the other men following him, he ran toward the sound of the alarm. Sinclair was almost eager to get in on the fighting, and Rip and the other frontiersmen didn’t hang back, either. Carling and Hodge brought up the rear, and both of them looked like they would have preferred to retreat into the lodge with Faith and Sparrow. They trotted along after Preacher and the others, though.
Knowing that one of the scouts had gotten away, the Crow war party hadn’t wasted any time getting here, and they hit the village hard and fast before the defenders had much time to prepare for an attack. Crow warriors, their faces painted, ran out of the trees at the edge of the village and were among the lodges almost instantly, screaming out their hatred for the Tetons. Instead of an orchestrated battle such as white men might have fought, this was a chaotic, hand-to-hand melee from the first moment of the attack.
Preacher had his rifle in his hands, so he used it first, picking out a Crow who was just now emerging from the trees and drawing a bead on him. The rifle roared and bucked against Preacher’s shoulder as he pressed the trigger. The Crow warrior ran right into the heavy lead ball and died with a surprised look on his face as it smashed into his heart and flipped him backward.
Preacher dropped the empty rifle at his feet and yanked his pistols from behind his belt. He cocked them and lined them up on a knot of howling Crow raiders surging toward him. Smoke and flame belched from the muzzles of the pistols as they blasted their deadly, double-shotted loads into the attackers. Every ball found a different target. Four of the Indians went down, knocked off their feet by Preacher’s lead.
With his guns empty, Preacher took the time to jam the pistols behind his belt again, then drew his knife and the tomahawk with which he had also armed himself. There was no shortage of enemies, so he plunged right in, hacking and slashing all around him.
Elsewhere in the fight, Chester Sinclair emptied his pistol as well, feeling an unexpected surge of savage exhilaration as he saw the ball rip into the throat of one of the raiders. Blood fountained from the Crow’s neck as he clutched at the wound, fell to his knees, and then pitched forward on his face. Sinclair leaped over the still-twitching body and crashed the empty gun against the skull of another warrior. He was surprised to find that he could distinguish the Crows from the Tetons, even in this bloody chaos. He had been around Panther and the others in the village enough so that he could recognize the markings on their buckskins.
It helped that the Crows were painted for war, too.
Nothing was going to help Willard Carling and Jasper Hodge. Both men were terrified to the point of being panic-stricken. Given their druthers, they would have found a hole somewhere and crawled into it. But the Crow raiders didn’t give them a chance to do that. One of the marauders ran straight at Carling, screaming at the top of his lungs and brandishing a tomahawk. Carling screamed back at him, jerked up the pistol in his hand, turned his head, closed his eyes, and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened. He had forgotten to ear back the gun’s hammer and cock it.
Carling kept screaming as a pistol roared close beside him. He didn’t open his eyes until Hodge grabbed his shoulder and shook it.
“I shot him!” Hodge cried exultantly. “I actually shot that Indian!”
Carling looked around and saw the Crow writhing on the ground as blood welled from the wound in his chest. Hodge stood next to the artist, a grin on his face.
“You forgot to cock your gun,” Hodge said.
“Like this?” Carling asked as he used both thumbs to pull back the hammer on the heavy flintlock pistol.
Then he glanced up and saw one of the raiders holding a bow with an arrow nocked and drawn back, ready to fire. The arrow was aimed right at the unsuspecting Hodge’s back.
Carling shoved the journalist aside, thrust the pistol toward the Indian with the bow and arrow, and fired, yelling in pain as the recoil knocked the weapon from his hand. But luck guided the shot and the hastily fired ball struck the Crow in the forehead, shattering his skull and pulping his brain before it blew out the back of his head. He let go of the arrow, anyway. It cut through the air between Carling and Hodge and fell harmlessly to the ground.
Both men had managed to kill one of the enemy and saved each other’s lives in the process, but now their guns were empty and it would take them several minutes to reload, since they’d had very little practice at that. Carling grabbed Hodge’s arm and said, “Let’s get out of here!”
They turned and ran deeper into the village, hoping that none of the raiders would follow them.
Preacher’s tomahawk had laid out several of the Crows, splitting their skulls. Others had fallen to the cold, slashing steel of his knife. The bodies were piled up around his feet, and both of his hands were coated with the enemy’s blood. His arms were splattered with gore up to the elbow. He struck in a steady rhythm, right and left, right and left, as the Crows tried to close in around him only to be hewn down like wheat. Arrows sliced through the air near Preacher’s head. Some came close enough to rip at his buckskins and leave crimson streaks on his weathered hide. He ignored them and concentrated only on striking out at the howling, rage-twisted faces that seemed to swim toward him out of a bloody mist.
The other frontiersmen were fighting in much the same way, emptying their guns and then plunging into the fray with knives and tomahawks. Big Rip Giddens was giving almost as good an account of himself as Preacher, roaring lustily as he struck at the Crows and laid them out on the ground.
Not far from him, Tom Ballinger fought well, too, until one of the raiders ran a lance through his right thigh from behind. Tom yelled in pain as the leg crumpled underneath him. The Crow paused to try to yank the lance free, and that was his undoing. Tom twisted as he fell and swiped his knife across the Indian’s throat. Blood gushed hotly on Tom’s hand as the Crow gurgled and died. Tom sprawled on the ground with the lance still lodged in his flesh and began trying to crawl back into the battle.
Switchfoot and Hammerhead Jones fought back-to-back, each protecting the other, until an arrow skewered Switchfoot in the chest. He grunted in pain and stumbled forward. Realizing that Switchfoot had been hit, Hammerhead swung around and grabbed his friend before Switchfoot could fall.
“Lemme go,” Switchfoot gasped. “I’m done for, Hammerhead.”
“The hell with that,” Hammerhead said. “We’ll get you somewhere so you can sit down and we’ll get that arrow out—”
Before he could do anything else to help Switchfoot, a Crow war ax crashed down on Hammerhead’s skull. The legendary hardness of his head didn’t protect him from the vicious blow, but even as the world was going black around him, he retained the strength to swing around and smash his tomahawk into the face of the raider who had struck him. The Indian fell back dead, his head cleaved practically in two by the blow.
Then with blood and gray matter oozing from his shattered skull, Hammerhead
toppled to the ground next to the body of Switchfoot, who had already collapsed. The two friends died side by side.
The Tetons had been trying to stop the Crow raiders at the edge of the village, but there were too many of the invaders. They attacked on too broad a front for the defenders to stop them. From the corner of his eye, Preacher saw Crow warriors with painted faces rampaging into the village and penetrating to its interior. He thought about Faith and Sparrow cowering inside that lodge as he buried his tomahawk in the skull of an enemy and then jerked it free.
“Rip!” he shouted. “Fall back! Fall back!”
Rip Giddens did as Preacher said, continuing to fight as he retreated slowly toward the center of the village. Preacher did likewise. He glanced around for the others, saw the motionless forms of Switchfoot and Hammerhead lying on the ground. There was nothing he could do for them. Tom Ballinger had somehow gotten back to his feet, but he was severely hampered by the now-broken lance that impaled his thigh.
“Sinclair!” Preacher called. “Help Ballinger!”
Sinclair had just banged the heads of two of the Indians together, knocking them out. For a second, it seemed that Preacher’s shouted command failed to penetrate his battle-fogged brain, but then he gave a little shake of his head and turned to grasp Tom Ballinger’s arm. He half-dragged, half-carried the wounded man as they followed Preacher and Rip.
Preacher didn’t see Willard Carling or Jasper Hodge anywhere. He hoped that the two Easterners hadn’t been killed. Wherever they were, though, there was nothing Preacher could do to help them right now. They were on their own.
As a matter of fact, Carling and Hodge had made it almost all the way back to the lodge where Faith and Sparrow were hiding. Carling had failed to pick up his pistol when he dropped it, so the only weapon they had was the empty gun Hodge still carried. Carling said frantically, “Why don’t you reload?”
Hodge pushed the pistol into Carling’s hands. “Why don’t you reload? You know as much about it as I do!”
As Carling trotted along, he fumbled with the powder horn and the shot pouch Preacher had given him. “Oh, I’m not cut out for this!” he moaned as he poured powder into the barrel of the pistol but then managed to spill some of it onto the ground. “I’m an artist, not a . . . a woodsman!”
“Well, I’m a writer!” Hodge shot back. “Do you think I know how to do anything useful?”
“Here, hold the gun while I pour some more powder in it.”
Working together as they hurried along, they managed to get the pistol reloaded. Unfortunately, neither of them realized that Carling had dumped at least twice as much powder down the barrel as was needed. They rammed home two balls, double-shotting the gun as they had seen Preacher do with his pistols.
“There!” Carling exclaimed. “Isn’t that our lodge?”
Hodge said, “I think so, but I’m not sure. All these tepees look alike to me!”
“I’m sure it is,” Carling said. “I recognize the drawings on it. Let’s see if Faith and Sparrow are still all right.”
He jerked the entrance flap aside and started into the lodge, only to be confronted by a screaming-mad Sparrow, who lunged at him with her knife drawn back, ready to plunge the blade into Carling’s body because she had mistaken him for one of the Crow raiders. Carling yelped and threw himself backward to avoid the attack, but he stumbled and tripped and fell to the ground, striking his head hard enough that he was knocked out.
Hodge cried, “Sparrow, wait! It’s us!”
The Indian woman stopped, realized what she had done, and whirled around to retreat back into the lodge. Hodge thought for a second that she was running away from him, but then he glanced over his shoulder and saw half a dozen of the painted savages charging at him. He still had the pistol in his hands, so he jerked it up and fired.
The too-heavy charge of powder exploded with a huge roar and cracked the pistol’s breech, even as the blast wrenched the gun out of Hodge’s hands and threw him backward, singeing his eyebrows and blistering his face. The two balls loaded in the gun were propelled out with such force that they smashed completely through the body of one Crow warrior and buried themselves in the belly of another. Both raiders died almost instantly.
Hodge lay stunned on the ground, not far from the unconscious form of Willard Carling.
Even though two of the Crows were down, the other four were still on their feet. They headed for the lodge, thinking that the two white men must have been trying to protect someone inside it.
Faith had thrown herself facedown on one of the buffalo robes and burrowed into it as if she could somehow hide there. A tense-faced Sparrow knelt beside her, the knife raised to strike. Sparrow’s gaze was fixed on the entrance to the lodge, and as the hide flap was suddenly wrenched aside and savage painted faces leered in at her, she cried out in horror and started to bring the knife down toward Faith’s back. Sparrow intended to drive the blade into Faith’s heart and then use it to cut her own throat before the Crows could reach her.
She didn’t get the chance. One of the raiders had already spotted the white woman on the ground, and his arm flashed back and then forward as he threw his tomahawk. The perfectly balanced weapon revolved once as it flew through the air; then its head smacked into Sparrow’s ample bosom and buried itself there. She cried out in pain and bent forward, dropping the knife before she could strike the mercy blow. Slowly, she toppled to the side, blood leaking from the wound.
The raiders charged into the lodge. A couple of them bent and grabbed Faith, jerking her to her feet. She screamed raggedly as she saw who had hold of her. One of the Indians slapped her hard, his hand cracking across her face. She sagged in their cruel grip, momentarily knocked senseless by the blow.
They dragged her out of the lodge.
Elsewhere, Chester Sinclair had realized that the Crow invaders were pouring into the village, and he was struck by an almost paralyzing fear for Faith’s safety. He shook it off, knowing that he had to reach her side as quickly as he could. Still practically carrying Tom Ballinger, Sinclair hurried to catch up to Rip Giddens and thrust the wounded man into Rip’s arms. “Here!” Sinclair said. “I’ve got to get to Faith!”
He sprinted off, leaving Rip and Preacher to help Ballinger.
Preacher might have gone after Sinclair, but at that moment, several Crow warriors came at them from the side. Since Rip was burdened with Ballinger, Preacher had to deal with the threat by himself. He stepped between Rip and the attackers, sunlight flickering on the head of his tomahawk and the blade of his knife as he waded into the Crows. A minute later, the three men were stretched out on the ground, quivering and jerking as their lifeblood gushed from the wounds Preacher’s deadly weapons had given them.
Some of the lodges were on fire now, the blazes started by the raiders. Sinclair dashed through the coiling smoke and got confused for a moment, unsure of where he was. But then he oriented himself and hurried on toward the lodge where he would find Faith and defend her to his dying breath, if need be.
The problem was, when he got there she was being dragged out of the lodge by several Crows. She was already their prisoner.
“No!” Sinclair bellowed as he threw himself at them. “Let go of her, you bastards!”
He swung his tomahawk so hard at one of the savages who got in his way that the head sheared through muscle and bone, almost decapitating the savage. But then it got stuck when Sinclair tried to wrench it free, and he lost precious seconds. In that time, several more Indians closed in around him. One of them swung a war ax against his head, luck making the flat of it strike Sinclair’s skull instead of the edge. The blow knocked him to his knees, where someone kicked him in the back and sent him sprawling on the ground. The world spun dizzily around him, and he wasn’t even aware of someone tapping him and shouting, “I claim him!” in the Crow tongue. He was pounded and kicked and pummeled into submission, but he wasn’t killed.
It remained to be seen whether that was fortunate or not.
Preacher, Rip, and Ballinger continued battling their way toward the lodge. Preacher did the bulk of the fighting, but once Rip got his right arm around Ballinger, that freed up his left to swing a tomahawk. Ballinger used his right arm for the same purpose. Between them, they accounted for several of the savages.
The hellish racket that had filled the air ever since the attack started was beginning to subside some now. Hoarse screams of pain could still be heard coming from all over the village, mixed with the crackling of flames as lodges burned. But it was clear that the intensity of the attack was waning. The Crows had struck the blow that they intended and were now starting to retreat, taking prisoners and loot with them.
Carrying the blood-smeared knife and tomahawk, Preacher trotted up to the lodge where he had left Faith and Sparrow. He spotted Willard Carling and Jasper Hodge lying on the ground and thought at first that the two Easterners were dead, but then he saw that they were beginning to stir as consciousness returned to them. He stopped and knelt beside them momentarily, searching for wounds. Hodge’s face looked almost sunburned. Preacher couldn’t figure that one out, but it seemed to be the only real injury the two men had suffered.
He left them lying there and stepped over to the tepee, thrusting the entrance flap aside. His rugged features hardened even more when he saw Sparrow lying there in a pool of blood, an ugly wound in her chest. She had been struck probably by a tomahawk, from the looks of the injury, but the weapon had been wrenched free and taken by the savage who had wielded it.
There was no sign of Faith Carling.
As Preacher let the flap fall closed and stepped back, Rip and Ballinger came up, moving awkwardly because Rip still had to support most of the other man’s weight. “Where’s Miss Carling?” Rip asked grimly. “Inside the lodge?” It was clear from his tone of voice that he expected her to be dead, and probably scalped.
Preacher shook his head. “She ain’t here, but Sparrow’s in there. Dead.”
Preacher's Quest Page 17
