Shakespeare nodded. “Some Indian names might sound funny to you, but there’s always a good reason for every name given.”
At that moment the warrior in question joined them, accompanied by the other Shoshone men. “We ready fight,” he announced boldly.
“Good,” Shakespeare responded, facing eastward. “Because here come your enemies.”
Chapter Sixteen
Mad Dog and the war party were only a quarter of a mile from the hill.
“Do you think they know we’re here?” Nate asked.
“Not yet,” Shakespeare said, and motioned for everyone to take cover behind the boulders.
Nate ducked down and peered at the valley below. The Blackfeet were coming up the center, following the tracks of the Shoshones. Bordering the valley on both sides was forest. “Where are your decoys?” he queried.
“Right there!” Shakespeare exclaimed, jabbing his right hand at a stretch of woods two hundred yards from the base of the hill.
Nate saw them. The pair of warriors broke from the trees and raced toward the hill, seemingly fleeing for their lives, their bodies hunched low over the backs of their mounts.
Instantly the Blackfeet voiced a collective whoop and took off in pursuit, waving their weapons in the air as they goaded their animals to top speed.
“Now we’ll see how bright Mad Dog is,” Shakespeare stated. “If he takes the bait, he’ll pay.”
Nate took hold of the Hawken in both hands and nervously stroked the hammer. “Do we wait to fire until we can see the whites of their eyes?” he joked.
“Yep.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope. I want those bastards so close that we can see the-sweat on their skin,” Shakespeare said.
“But they outnumber us. How can we prevent them from overrunning our position if they’re that close?”
“We shoot staight.”
Nate didn’t like the idea of permitting the Blackfeet to get very near to the fortification. He preferred to pick them off from long range. If the Blackfeet were ever able to breach the defenses and run amok within the circle of boulders, the poor Shoshones wouldn’t stand a prayer.
Below the hill the race continued. With a six-hundred-foot lead on the Blackfeet, the two Shoshone warriors were easily holding their own. Mad Dog and his band screeched and vainly endeavored to narrow the range.
Nate glanced at the Shoshones crouched to his right and left. One held a rifle, five had bows, and one was armed with a lance. He remembered the information the mountain man had imparted about the accuracy of Indian archers, and he hoped it applied equally to the Shoshones.
A gunshot cracked in the valley.
Instinctively elevating the Hawken to his right shoulder, Nate looked down and deduced that one of the Blackfeet had foolishly fired and missed.
The pair of Shoshones were almost to the bottom of the hill.
“Remember, don’t squeeze the trigger until I do,” Shakespeare advised Nate, then repeated the order in the Shoshone language.
An air of tense expectancy gripped the defenders.
Although simmering with excitement inside, Nate casually glanced at the women and children huddled to his rear. Winona had her eyes on him and he smiled to express his reassurance that all would go well. Morning Dew was leaning over Black Kettle, apparently tending to his wound again. The children, horses, and dogs were all quiet, and he marveled at how disciplined the youngsters were, even the infants. Not one of them cried. Evidently the lessons the mothers imparted to instill obedience worked wonders.
The men acting as decoys were galloping up the slope.
“If you spot a Blackfoot wearing a dark beaver hat, that’ll be Mad Dog,” Shakespeare disclosed. “Don’t hesitate to put a ball through him.”
“I haven’t seen many Indians wearing hats,” Nate mentioned while watching the Blackfeet advance.
“A few are right partial to the hats white men wear,” Shakespeare said conversationally, as if they didn’t have a care in the world and weren’t about to battle a band of bloodthirsty warriors. “I knew a Sioux once who took to wearing a top hat and a fancy coat. By the same token, there are white men who have gone over totally to the Indian way of living. They go around buck naked or wear only a breechcloth.” He paused. “Never could see the sense in that. Had a spooked horse take me through a brier patch once. Just think what would have happened if I wasn’t wearing clothes! ”
Nate glanced at the frontiersman, amazed at his friend’s easygoing attitude when they were literally staring death in the face. “I want you to know I’ve enjoyed our time together. ”
Shakespeare studied the younger man for a moment. “Don’t be talking like that. We’re not dead yet. And just between you and me, I have no intention of dying for another twenty or thirty years. When the Grim Reaper comes for Old Shakespeare McNair, he’s going to have a tussle on his hands.”
A pounding of hoofs heralded the arrival of the two decoys, who swept through the opening in the eastern line of boulders and abruptly reined up. They slid to the ground as two women came forward to take their perspiring animals. Doubling in half, the two men united with their fellows and crouched in the shelter of separate rocks.
Nate peeked over the top edge of the boulder and nervously licked his dry lips when he spied the Blackfeet starting up the hill. Quickly he conducted a count and pegged the tally at 31. Thirty one! Three times as many as the combined defending force!
“Hold your fire,” Shakespeare directed, then repeated the command to the Shoshones.
Easy for him to say! Nate thought, nervously fingering the trigger. It took all of his self-control to refrain from leaping up and snapping off a hasty shot as the war party thundered ever closer to the crown. So intent were the Blackfeet on catching the decoys that they were uncharacteristically careless, goading their horses up the grade without pausing to survey the top.
Shakespeare chuckled. “I’ve always maintained that the Blackfeet sit on their brains,” he quipped, and became serious. “Get ready.”
“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” Nate muttered, and the act of speaking alleviated his tension somewhat.
The onrushing Blackfeet were now one hundred feet from the fortification, and the boulders, combined with the angle of the slope, prevented them from seeing the concealed Shoshones and animals.
“Where the dickens is Mad Dog?” Shakespeare asked, scanning the attackers intently.
Nate noticed a lot of bows and fusees in evidence.
Still whooping and hollering madly, the band raced higher. Only 80 feet remained to be covered.
Nate cocked the Hawken and heard a click as Shakespeare did likewise.
The distance narrowed to 70 feet.
“Say, Nate,” Shakespeare said.
“Yeah?” Nate responded without taking his eyes off the charging Blackfeet.
“It’s too bad your Uncle Zeke went under. He’d be right proud of you if he could see how you’ve taken to life out here. He told me once that you were the only one of his relatives who was worth a damn.”
Surprise almost caused Nate to glance at the mountain man, but he steeled his will and concentrated on their enemies. Why did Shakespeare mention such a fact at a time like this? he asked himself. And then there was no time left for idle reflection.
Forty feet of ground separated the two forces.
Thirty feet.
A mere 25.
“Give them hell!” Shakespeare bellowed, and rose from hiding with his rifle pressed to his right shoulder.
Nate stood and snapped the Hawken up. For a moment he had the impression a horde of Indians filled the slope. Astonishment rippled from visage to visage. He sighted on a warrior directly in front of him and squeezed the trigger. The blasting of the rifle and the Blackfoot toppling from his horse were nearly simultaneous.
Shakespeare’s rifle boomed and another warrior went down.
The Shoshones were firing arrows as swiftly as they could n
otch their shafts and pull back their bow strings.
Taken completely unawares by the ambush, the Blackfeet lost eight of their men in the opening seconds of the conflict to well-placed balls or arrows. Two others were gravely wounded. Panic seized the majority, and they brought their animals to a sudden halt and attempted to turn their mounts and flee. Packed close together, their frantic efforts resulted in general confusion. Horses collided, men shouted and cursed, and dust swirled into the air.
Not all of the Blackfeet tried to retreat.
A pair of Warriors came straight for the boulders, each firing a bow.
Nate recoiled in alarm as a shaft buzzed past his head. He set down the Hawken and drew both pistols, but before he could fire someone else disposed of the duo.
Drags the Rope stepped into the wide opening, blocking the path of the pair, an arrow already fitted to his bow string. He aimed at one of the Blackfeet, who was drawing back a shaft, and let fly. His slim missile leaped to meet his foe, and the point ripped into the Blackfoot’s throat.
Flinging his arms outward, the enemy fell.
Drags the Rope stayed rooted to the spot, his right hand flying as he swept a shaft from his quiver and placed the notch to the string.
The second Blackfoot loosed an arrow.
Unperturbed and unflinching, Drags the Rope was sighting along his shaft when the Blackfoot’s arrow creased his left shoulder blade, gouging a shallow furrow in his skin but not imbedding itself in his flesh. His features shifted and hardened and he fired.
In the act of whipping another arrow from his quiver, the Blackfoot flew backwards when the tip penetrated his left eye and bored out the top of his cranium.
Nate glimpsed the exchange as he leveled both pistols at an adversary endeavoring to gain control of a recalcitrant animal. He squeezed off a shot from his right flintlock.
The ball hit the Blackfoot high on the left shoulder, passed through the fleshy part of his arm, and tore into his chest, drilling through his lungs before it came to a stop when it lodged against a lower rib bone. Twisting and clutching at his side, the warrior pitched forward.
One of the Shoshones darted from cover, a lance held in his right hand. He ran straight toward a Blackfoot and pumped his arm back for the toss.
Reacting instantaneously, the Blackfoot fired a fusee.
Nate saw the Shoshone’s head snap around as the ball took him squarely in the forehead. He extended his left flintlock and sent a return shot into the Blackfoot’s torso.
Having finally succeeded in disentangling themselves, the Blackfeet were beating a hurried retreat down the east slope. They cut to the right at the bottom and made for the nearest trees. A few shook their fists at the crest and uttered inaudible oaths.
The Shoshone warriors stepped into the open and voiced yips of delight at their victory, shaking their weapons overhead in triumph.
“Damn! We did it!” Shakespeare declared.
Nodding grimly, Nate surveyed the carnage. He counted 15 Blackfeet littering the ground, which meant there were 16 still alive. An improvement over the previous odds, but the defenders were still outnumberd. He glanced at the Shoshone who had been shot through the head, then glanced to his left and spotted another one lying flat on the earth with an arrow jutting skyward, its point apparently sunk in the warrior’s heart. So there were nine left, including Shakespeare and himself.
“You don’t look very happy,” the mountain man observed.
“We’re still outnumbered.”
“True, but we gave those bastards a taste of their own medicine. They may change their minds about taking our scalps and head for home.”
Nate looked at him. “Do you really believe that?”
A wry smile creased the frontiersman’s lips. “No, but a man can always hope, can’t he?”
“I didn’t see Mad Dog,” Nate commented as he began reloading his guns.
“I spied the son of a bitch in the pack, but I couldn’t get a bead on him,” Shakespeare lamented.
“Do you think he got away?”
“Let’s go check,” Shakespeare proposed. “But first
...“He clasped his powder-horn and proceeded to reload his rifle.
At least half of the downed Blackfeet were groaning in pain. Several were attempting to stand or crawl off. One stocky warrior, an arrow transfixing his neck from side to side, had risen to his knees and was bent over, coughing up blood.
“Let’s finish those buggers off,” Shakespeare suggested.
Four Shoshones had the same idea. They moved among the fallen, plunging their knives repeatedly into prone bodies until satisfied their foes were definitely dead.
Nate wedged his pistols under his belt and picked up his rifle. He gazed to the south at the forest but saw no sign of the Blackfeet. A commotion erupted on the slope and he spun.
A Shoshone had leaned down to plunge his knife into a Blackfoot, who had been lying face down, and when he gripped the Blackfoot’s shoulder the man suddenly flipped over and buried a knife of his own in the Shoshone’s groin. In a twinkling the Blackfoot stabbed the Shoshone twice more.
Shakespeare’s rifle spoke.
The Blackfoot grunted as the ball punctured the base of his throat and he collapsed again, blood spurting from the cavity. He breathed in great, ragged gasps.
A trio of Shoshones pounced on the culprit and dispatched him with a series of blows, rendering his chest a pincushion for their blades. The Blackfoot’s legs convulsed for a bit, then he was still.
Shakespeare ran to the Shoshone who had been stabbed and knelt down to examine him.
Warily watching the trees, Nate followed.
“He’s done for,” the frontiersman stated in disgust.
That leaves eight, Nate thought, and glanced at the Blackfoot transfixed by the arrow just as the warrior surged erect and bounded forward, a war club held in his upraised right hand.
Chapter Seventeen
Nate would have snapped off a shot while holding the Hawken at waist level, and he probably would have scored a hit at such close range, but Shakespeare suddenly stood, blocking his view of the Blackfoot and preventing him from firing.
The mountain man was straightening to his full height, his rifle coming up, when the unforeseen transpired. His left moccasin slipped on a slick spot of blood and his left foot buckled, sending him stumbling rearward.
Nate tried to sidestep, but Shakespeare slammed into him and knocked him to the right.
Before either man could recover his balance, the Blackfoot reached them and swung. Descending in a short, vicious arc, the war club connected, sriking the frontiersman on the left side of his chest as he tried to maintain his footing.
Shakespeare went down.
And at last Nate had a clear field of fire. He stopped stumbling, pointed the barrel at the Blackfoot, and got off a hurried shot that nailed the warrior full in the mouth and burst out the back of the Indian’s cranium. The impact lifted the Blackfoot from his feet and propelled him a yard to crash onto a corpse. Nate whirled toward the mountain man. “Shakespeare!” he cried.
The grizzled frontiersman lay on his right side, blood seeping from the ragged tear in his buckskin shirt where the sharp stone head of the war club had connected. His rifle was beside him. Wincing, he looked up and shook his head. “Pitiful. I must be slowing down. Ten years ago he never would have touched me.”
“Don’t talk,” Nate instructed him, kneeling. “Let me have a look at it.”
“Just a scratch,” Shakespeare mumbled.
“I’ll be the judge of how severe it is,” Nate admonished.
Drags the Rope and four of the warriors clustered around the mountain man. “Carcajou die?” asked the tall Shoshone.
“No, I’m not dying, you busybody,” Shakespeare snapped. “It’s just a damn scratch, is all.”
“I told you not to talk,” Nate said, and glanced at Drags the Rope. “Check the rest of the Blackfeet. Finish them off. But be careful! We can’t afford t
o lose another man.”
“We careful,” Drags the Rope promised. He turned to go.
“Have someone keep an eye on those trees,” Nate added. “The Blackfeet might try to spring a surprise attack on us.”
“Watch with eyes of hawk,” Drags the Rope said, and walked away while motioning for the other warriors to gather around him.
“That man has a way with words,” Shakespeare remarked, then coughed violently.
“What does it take to shut you up?” Nate demanded. He went to loosen the shirt.
Shakespeare swatted his friend’s hand aside. “I can undress myself, thank you very much. And I don’t understand why you’re making such a fuss over such a tiny bruise.” He grimaced and sat up.
“Undo your shirt,” Nate directed.
“Who appointed you chief?”
“If you don’t, I will.”
“You’re becoming too nasty for your own good,” Shakespeare groused, but he pulled the bottom hem of the shirt from under his belt and lifted. “Do you know anything about doctoring?”
Nate bent closer to inspect the wound. “Once, when I was in my teens, I found a hurt sparrow and tried to nurse the bird back to health.”
“Tried?”
“It died.”
Shakespeare regarded his grinning companion for a moment, and laughed heartily. “You’re learning, son. You’re learning.”
“Keep quiet,” Nate stated. The pointed tip had ripped the material and penetrated over an inch into the soft tissue underneath. No doubt the weakened state of the Blackfoot had rendered the blow largely ineffectual. Had the warrior been in prime form, the outcome would have been drastically different. While blood continued to seep out and the surrounding flesh was becoming discolored, the wound did not appear to be life-threatening. “You’ll live,” he mentioned.
“I could have told you that.”
“I’ll have one of the women dress it for you.”
In the act of lowering his shirt, Shakespeare paused and snorted. “Like hell you will.”
“Either one of them does it or I do,” Nate informed him.
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