William MacDonald - The Battle At Three-Cross

Lance flushed and stood tongue-tied. Katherine smiled. “His woman”—pointing to herself and then Lance.

“My woman,” Lance answered Huareztjio. The Indians commenced to talk louder. They were fast making themselves at home.

“If I’m your woman,” Katherine told Lance, “you can prove it by coming with me to the kitchen. There’s food and coffee to fix.”

By the time they returned, bearing steaming pots and dishes, the big room in the ranch house was in an uproar of excitement. Oscar had brought out his stock of lemon drops and passed them around. Lanky laughed. “Those Yaquentes sure go for leming drops.”

“Never made so many converts so fast in my life.” Oscar chuckled. “Maybe this is the way to wean ’em from that peyote habit.”

“One thing’s certain,” Lanky said. “We’re solid with these Yaquentes now. They’ll fight for us until they drop.”

About two o’clock in the morning Lance ordered all the lamps extinguished, saying, “Fletcher may not wait until dawn to attack.” A number of the Yaquentes spoke some Spanish and a smattering of En glish. These Lance delegated to key positions subordinate to white men. At the back of the house Lockwood and Cal Braun commanded five Yaquentes; on the east end of the building five more Yaquentes waited, with Trunk-Strap and Tom Piper near slightly opened windows; at the west end Hub Owen and Luke Homer performed a similar job. Ranged along the front gallery, shielded behind the sandbag barricade, were Lance, Jones, Lanky, Oscar and Huareztjio with the remainder of the Yaquentes. It was at the front of the building Lance expected the attack to strike, as the brush and trees grew much closer in that direction. Lance had asked Katherine to stay within, out of gun range, and act as a messenger working between the gallery and other sections of the house.

The minutes dragged slowly for the men awaiting the attack. They talked in hushed voices, smoked cigarettes or pipes, always shielding the glow of the burning tobacco from any enemy who might be concealed in the brush beyond the house. Three o’clock came, and then three-thirty. Huareztjio had three spies out in the brush. Now these three returned with word that the thickets were alive with men. Lance and his companions drew deep breaths and waited, their fingers itching to pull triggers.

Time passed. It wasn’t more than an hour to dawn now. False dawn had already come and faded in the east, but along the distant horizon a faint streak of silvery gray, almost like a mist, was commencing to rise. Now, Lance noticed, the usual calling of night birds was missing from the vicinity of the house. He spoke, low voiced, to the professor crouched at his side behind the sandbags. “It can’t be much longer now.”

“Quite so, quite,” Jones replied calmly. “Terrific wear on nerves, though, what? Strong desire—for action, y’understand.”

“You’ll get your fill of action,” Lance stated grimly.

A few feet away Oscar crunched lemon drops. He wasn’t talking. Lanky spoke to Huareztjio. Certain guttural words of Yaquente passed swiftly along the gallery. Lance wondered if Fletcher would send somebody to learn if the Three-Cross had decided to surrender or fight. Fifteen minutes more brought the dawn nearer.

XXV The Battle at Three-Cross

The attack came with savage suddenness! The brush on four sides of the house erupted violently with orange fire. Shattering explosions rent the early-morning air. As Lance had expected, the bulk of the attack was concentrated at the front. Bullets thudded into the adobe house walls and ripped into sandbags. Lance caught one low, suppressed moan; that was the only sound uttered. True to Lance’s instructions, the men were holding their fire, awaiting the attackers’ closer approach. A second furious volley came from points nearer the front of the house.

Lance yelled as loud as he could, “Let ’em have it!”

Four sides of the building suddenly roared with gunfire. Cries of pain rose from the neighboring brush. Lance yelled exultantly: “We scored that time, fellers!” Rifles and six-shooters cracked madly. The battle was on. Lance sent another shot crashing from his gun. On both sides men were firing and reloading as fast as possible. From time to time Lance caught the booming of six-shooters from the rear of the house, though the attack from that direction was more or less desultory. Lance emptied his gun, loaded and reemptied it he didn’t know how many times. He only realized the weapon was growing hot in his hand. He felt a touch on his arm. Turning, he saw Katherine offering him a loaded Winchester in exchange for the depleted six-gun in his hand. “Good girl,” he grunted. “Better get back in the house though.”

Even while he jerked the Winchester to his shoulder and levered shot after shot from the barrel in the direction of flashes of fire from the brush he felt her fingers tugging at the cartridges in his belt as she reloaded the hand gun. He heard her cool voice saying something about “angry, droning hornets.” He remembered taking his six-shooter from her, and that was all at the time. She had passed on to her uncle.

Again and again Lance fired. Every time he glanced along the rim of the sandbags they seemed to be fringed with living flame. It was hot, sweaty work. Powder smoke hung low along the length of the gallery, stinging eyes and throats and nostrils with its acrid fumes. Sharp lances of flame stabbed viciously from the brush and trees. Now and then a man screamed in agony or yelped with sudden pain. By now the attackers were concentrating on the front of the house. Those within emerged to squeeze down among the men lined behind the barrier of sandbags.

Lance didn’t know how long they’d been fighting, but suddenly he saw that the flashes of gunfire had changed from vivid orange to white and he realized it was daylight. He glanced along the gallery and saw several wounded and dead Yaquentes. Oscar had a bloody gash across the back of one hand; his left cheek bulged with lemon drops. Lanky’s shirt sleeve had been slashed with flying slugs at two places. The building wall behind the fighters was pockmarked as though it had withstood a storm of hailstones. Katherine was moving along the gallery, crouched low, lending such aid as she could to the wounded. Lance yelled at her to get back into the house. He didn’t know what she said in reply. He didn’t have time to listen just then.

A group of about thirty white-clothed forms under big straw sombreros, with bandoleers around their shoulders, came charging out of the brush, their gun muzzles spurting flame and smoke. Lance yelled, “Don’t give an inch, hombres! Pour it on ’em!”

His men responded with a crashing torrent of lead that all but cut the attackers in two. For a brief instant all motion seemed to stand transfixed in the hideous din, and in that instant Lance caught a picture he never forgot. The attackers appeared to hesitate momentarily, then more than two thirds of them bent suddenly at the middle and pitched forward. Others turned and ran back for the brush. Several were limping frantically from the scene. The Yaquentes along the gallery gave a high-pitched yell and renewed their fire. Only a few of the attackers regained the shelter they had left less than a minute before.

Powder smoke hung like a gray blanket between the house and the brush. For a minute the firing of the attackers ceased, then burst forth with a renewed fury that caused the men behind the sandbags to crouch low. A steady, unceasing tattoo of flying lead drummed against the house wall. It seemed it would never stop.

Lance heard the professor’s voice. “Like rain on a tin roof, what?”

“Some storm,” Lance grunted. He lifted his head a trifle to peer above the sandbags. Three bullets instantly drilled holes into his sombrero crown. Lance dropped down with the maximum of haste but he had seen enough to puzzle him.