Shortgrass Song (70 page)

When Caleb raised his hatless head above the weeds, he saw the dilapidated cabin some three hundred yards away across an open prairie. Red Hawk had brought them around for a western approach, so the sinking sun would be at their backs. Smoke trailed from the stone chimney of the roofless log structure. Powder River and three other mounts, including the trick paint, stood in a corral made of rotten logs, about forty paces from the cabin. The door to the cabin opened to the east, so Caleb could see nothing inside. A few small trees grew around the cabin, but they would not provide much cover for a rescue.

He studied the lay of the land until he realized that the Indians were looking at him. They were waiting. It was his fight. They expected him to come up with a plan. He slid a few feet down the bank.

“What are we gonna do?” Seagrass said.

Caleb looked into Cole's anxious eyes. Hell, I don't know what to do, he thought. He wished suddenly for Washita Jack Shea to step out of the bushes and make a battle plan. This wasn't unlike Shea's Pease River fight, come to think of it, where Caleb had led the charge of the hide skinners, forcing the enemy out under the buffalo guns. There was just one big difference. This was a rescue; the Pease was a revenge fight.

“We've got to get them away from the woman,” he whispered, surprised to hear himself speak. “They'll kill her if we just charge in there.”

Long Fingers nodded.

“How are we gonna do that?” Cole asked.

Caleb tugged at the end of his mustache and stared blankly at the ground. “Their horses. Chief, can one of your boys sneak up there and take a rail down to let their horses out?”

“I can,” said Tommy White Fox. He was about seventeen years old and stealthy as a cat.

The chief nodded again.

“Make sure they hear 'em runnin',” Caleb said, “so they'll come out of the cabin to catch 'em. But don't let 'em see you, or you're one dead Indian.” He looked at the chief. “Who's the best shot?”

Long Fingers put his hand on Red Hawk's shoulder.

“All right, you sneak around to the northeast, Red Hawk, so you can see the cabin door. Once they're all out of the cabin, don't let 'em back in where they can get at Tess. The rest of us will charge out of the sun and get 'em. Seagrass, you hold off shootin' till we get in close.”

“How come?” Gibson demanded.

“We'll stagger our fire that way, and won't get caught with all our guns empty at the same time.”

They looked at him.

“We better do it now,” he said, “while we've still got the sun in their eyes.”

Long Fingers motioned to the young brave, who padded quickly back down the riverbank, disappearing in the brush. Red Hawk took his rifle and a cartridge belt and swung around the other way, to get northeast of the cabin. The rest of the men mounted to wait and watch over the rim of the riverbank from horseback.

After a few minutes, Long Fingers pointed, and Caleb saw Tommy White Fox slipping through the bunchgrass like a coyote. Shorty's bay mustang saw the boy and began darting around nervously inside the corral. The other horses merely perked their ears and watched the brave approach on all fours.

Caleb searched beyond the cabin and caught a glimpse of Red Hawk as he crawled through a narrow shaft of orange sunlight and disappeared under the low limbs of a scrubby post oak, in perfect position.

You should have left her in the whorehouse, he thought. What business do you have trying to fix other people's lives? Fix your own. You're life's a joke. But, hell, if you had left her there, you'd be regretting that now, too. You never should have gone into that whorehouse in the first place. What do you know about anything?

Tommy White Fox crawled up to the corral and reached to take a rail down. The skittish mustang shied to the other end of the corral, reared, and came down with his belly on the top rail, breaking through the rotten barrier as if he knew he was supposed to escape. Tommy ran like a deer back toward the river, dropping to the ground after about fifty strides, and crawling furiously for cover.

As Powder River, the trained paint, and Mackland's sorrel stepped out of the corral, the mustang circled the cabin and swung to the south of the corral in a head-high lope, looking for the Indian who had crawled up to the pen. The other horses milled calmly and ate grass between the corral and the cabin.

Kicking Dog appeared. Caleb still recognized him, though he had grown grizzled before his time due to years of war and privation. He carried a bridle in one hand and had a carbine slung across his back with a rawhide thong. The rifle sling crossed a cartridge belt slung over the other shoulder.

Angus came around the corner with his bridle and stood beside the old renegade. He pointed, and Kicking Dog moved swiftly around the cabin to get on the west side of the horses. He and Angus moved in on the animals, waving their arms, pressing the three horses back into the pen. The mustang continued to prance through the grass to the south.

“It ain't gonna work,” Seagrass said, leaning toward Caleb. “The other son of a bitch won't come out of the cabin.”

“Just wait. They still have to catch that mustang. It might take all three of 'em.”

Kicking Dog put his bridle on the trick paint that Long Fingers had sold to him, mounted bareback, and circled wide to herd the nervous mustang back toward the corral. Angus stood near the pen to make sure the other horses didn't try to get back out. The mustang showed no signs of going willingly back into the pen but didn't seem to want to leave the other horses either. He made galloping passes at the corral but doubled back every time, eluding Kicking Dog.

The sun was sinking fast behind the treetops.

Angus put his bridle on Powder River. “Shorty!” he shouted. “Get your ass out here and help us catch your mustang!”

From the riverbed, the rescuers heard the order.

“Get ready,” Caleb said. “As soon as the last one gets to the corral, we'll go.”

Shorty emerged from the cabin, scratching himself, and walked to the corral.

*   *   *

“Get on my horse,” Angus ordered as he pulled himself onto the stolen Appaloosa gelding. “Let's go help Kicking Dog run that damn wild mustang of yours back over here.”

“That damn wild mustang's got better bottom than any horse you ever…” Shorty choked the words with his throat and looked west, shading his eyes. Hooves had come rumbling out of the red setting sun. Long shadows almost touched him, three riders in a blinding ball of fire.

“Get the girl,” Angus said, kicking Powder River. As he rode bareback past his saddle on the corral fence, he pulled his Marlin repeater from the scabbard. He galloped past Shorty, who was sprinting as fast as he could on foot, until the first bullet from Red Hawk's rifle hissed between them and cracked a corral timber behind them.

“Shit, how many of 'em are they?” Shorty said.

“No tellin'.”

They took cover on the south side of the cabin and faced the charge from the west.

*   *   *

Long Fingers had come out of the riverbed first, and now shook his old vocal cords with a horrifying war cry. He smiled as he saw the trick paint horse sit on his haunches, Kicking Dog sliding off gracefully, confused for a moment at the antics of the paint. Holding on to the reins, the renegade slung the rifle down from his shoulder to face the chief.

Long Fingers had gotten a good look at that rifle the other day at his village—a Springfield trapdoor carbine that Kicking Dog had picked up on the Little Bighorn battlefield after he had helped massacre Custer's troops. It was a single-shot arm, but the chief knew Kicking Dog could reload and fire it at the rate of fifteen times a minute, without even looking at the weapon. The stock had been broken off at one time, to make it easier to hide under squaws' skirts on the reservations. Wet rawhide, wrapped around the break, held the two pieces of the stock together.

Now, as he charged, Long Fingers noticed a new addition to the rifle: an eagle feather dangling from the barrel by a string. He brandished his Winchester and angled to his right, away from the cabin and the corral, toward the renegade who had forgotten his tribe.

*   *   *

The charge rattled Shorty so much that he tried once more to get around the southeast corner of the cabin, into the door. Red Hawk's rifle drove him back. “We're pinned down!” he yelled. “We ain't got no cover.”

Angus dropped from Powder River and led the gelding to the cabin wall. He pulled his pistol, put the barrel against the horse's head. He fired, and the great hulk of horseflesh dropped between him and the attackers. “There's your cover,” he said, falling behind the dead horse.

Caleb felt his fear turn to anger. He drew his Colt and fired at the men using Powder River's carcass as their bulwark. Long Fingers had angled away to do battle with Kicking Dog. Seagrass was still to his left, two strides back. He saw the blasts from Mackland's rifle, heard the reports. Cole's horse fell under him. He charged on alone.

When he had used all six rounds in his revolver, the drifter swung to the left and got behind the corner of the cabin. He jumped to the ground holding his rifle and let his horse go. His hands shook with great surges of excitement as he squatted with the Winchester across his knees and tried to reload his pistol.

Looking south for his friends, he saw Seagrass limping for the corral, bullets flying all around him. Caleb forgot about reloading the pistol and ran to the southwest corner of the cabin. Holding his rifle around the corner, he began shooting.

The overlapping log ends splintered in his face, driving him back. A piece of wood had hit him in one eye, but through the other he saw Seagrass collapse behind the cover of the old corral. Cole was hit bad. He didn't rise to fight.

*   *   *

Kicking Dog tried to aim at Long Fingers, but he was holding his reins along with the Springfield, and the paint pony was lunging behind him, throwing his bead off the chief. He let a wild shot go, reloaded. The chief thundered down on him, holding a Winchester high in one hand: an easy target, but the paint continued to tug at his reins.

Long Fingers was feeling the old glory. They would remember him for this. And though his eyes were young no longer, there was wonder in what they saw. The young paint stud was working good magic against Kicking Dog. He drew strength from the sounds of battle, and the guardian spirits filled him with abandon. It was one thing to kill one's enemy, to feel the glory of the charge. It was another thing—a thing of far greater courage—to count coup on a living foe.

Kicking Dog saw his irons between the chief's suspenders. He pulled the trigger as the paint made another unexpected lunge behind him. The bullet hit Long Fingers's arm, but the old chief came on, the rifle waving high in the air. The renegade dropped the reins and reloaded, but it was too late. Long Fingers was there.

The barrel of the Winchester clubbed him on the ear, sprawling him on his back. His head rang, and he felt the familiar warmth of blood. He took a desperate shot at close range, saw Long Fingers land limp on the ground near him.

As the chief fell, Kicking Dog rocked dizzily back, his shoulder blades hitting the ground. And now he saw the bleary image of the paint pony towering over him. The front hooves pawed against a colorless sky. The last ray of sun found a gap in the trees to the west, struck the rearing pony on the white of the belly, and glinted in his black eyes.

The orange death horse brought his front hooves down on Kicking Dog's chest, then rose to paw the air again. Kicking Dog tried to scramble away, stricken with utter terror to think of Long Fingers's soul leaping into the horse. He heard the lever rattle on the Winchester and saw Tommy White Fox holding the chief's weapon. He heard the crack of the rifle as the hard hooves of the spirit horse came down on him again.

*   *   *

Caleb saw the paint pony doing the tent-show tricks over the body of Kicking Dog. Tommy White Fox was coming up behind the corrals. Long Fingers? Gone.

He braced himself as Tommy began a deliberate fire. He figured the outlaws would either come around the corner in front of him or risk Red Hawk's aim to get at Tess in the cabin. If they came his way, he was determined to stand his ground.

*   *   *

Angus Mackland felt a bullet tear his thigh open. He jumped up and hobbled for the southeast corner of the cabin, trying to get around to the door, to the woman. A bullet caught him in the chest when he made the turn. The Marlin carbine flew from his slack grip and landed six feet away.

Shorty bolted like a rabbit. He screamed some Pawnee words as he dashed for Mackland's body. A shot creased him, but the little man stayed to pick up the Marlin carbine and shove Angus's Colt revolver under his belt. A bullet tore through his ribs, and he ran along the south wall of the cabin, bits of wood flying all around him from the fire of Tommy White Fox.

Then the ugly little man jumped up on the ribs of the dead Nez Perce horse and faced the corral. The slack skin of the dead animal shifted under his boots, making his stance unnatural. He ignored the bullets that came at him, railed in the tongues of a dozen tribes. He found Tommy White Fox in the sights of the Marlin and drove the young Indian down behind the rotten logs.

The rifle clicked. He dropped it, sprang from the carcass, and turned the southwest corner, carrying Angus's revolver in one hand and his own in the other.

Caleb was ready. His Colt blew Shorty's hat away and took a hunk out of one shoulder, but the bloody little man only staggered back a step.

Tommy White Fox mounted his barrage again, and Shorty trained a pistol on each point of attack, a Cheyenne death song wavering from his punctured lungs. He fired in turn—right, then left, then right—looking from one target to the other. Even in the core of the fusillade he made his bullets fly true enough to force the Indian down behind his barrier and drive the musician around the northwest corner of the old cabin.