Charles West - Day of the Wolf

“Why don’t we just turn around and run the other way?” Rose asked fearfully.

Billie Jean answered for Wolf. “’Cause they’d run us down on the open prairie before we got a mile.”

“I’m afraid that’s a fact,” Wolf said. He shook his head and grimaced apologetically. “If there’s as many of ’em as I think, I ain’t sure how long I can hold ’em off, but I’ll sure as hell make ’em pay a price for it. When we get to the gully, get the horses unhitched as fast as you can and lead ’em back of the wagon.” Again he tried to apologize. “I’ll do what I can, at least as long as my cartridges hold out.” He looked at Lorena then. “Maybe you can break out that little pistol you tote in your pocket.”

“Hell, I can do better’n that,” Lorena replied. “Rose, get back there and pull those carbines outta the box under the floorboards, and pull all that ammunition out. Those Injuns will play hell takin’ this wagon.”

Astonished, Wolf was speechless for a moment before asking, “How many do you have?”

“Three,” Lorena replied, “one for each of us, three Sharps carbines, converted to fire metal cartridges. And we know how to use ’em, don’t we, girls?” She was answered with two nods of determination. “We didn’t come out here to be guests of honor at no damn Injun scalpin’ party.”

“Well, I’ll be damned…,” Wolf responded, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. In those brief moments the outlook had gone from hopeless to promising. “Let ’em come, then,” he said. Billie Jean slapped the horses on their rumps with the reins, and they drove on toward the clump of sagebrush Wolf had specified.

Moving at a leisurely pace, they continued on toward the hills until almost even with the large clump of sagebrush. “Go!” Wolf commanded, and Billie Jean was quick to respond. She drew the horses sharply to the left and laid into them with the reins across their backsides. The horses responded as best they could under Billie Jean’s flailing and Lorena and Rose held on as the wagon bounced over the rough terrain, all three praying that the warped wheel held together. Wolf drew his rifle from the saddle sling and reined his horse back, watching for any reaction from the hills on either side of the draw. No more than a few moments elapsed before his suspicions were proven to be accurate and the ridges on both sides of the passage erupted.

Their ambush obviously discovered, the Lakota warriors rose from their cover below the crest of the hills and immediately started firing at the departing wagon. The range was too great to afford any real chance of hitting the target, a fact that was soon apparent to them, so they scrambled to get to their ponies to give chase. Wolf continued to hold the bay back until the first of the Indian riders streamed down the sides of the hills. He hesitated a moment longer, just enough to throw a few shots at the leading riders in the hope of slowing them down and buying as much time as he could for the women to reach the gully. When their return fire began to kick up dirt around the bay’s hooves, he wheeled the horse and fled after the women.

Knowing he had no more than a minute or two before the war party would be upon them, he reached the gully only seconds behind the wagon. As he had directed, Billie Jean had stopped the wagon in the mouth of the narrow gully and was in the process of unhitching the horses when he came sliding to a stop beside her. With a quick look at Lorena and Rose, he saw that they needed no instruction on what to do. They were loading the magazines of their carbines and picking positions to fire from. When they were set, they rolled the canvas wagon sheets up enough to give them room to fire. “I didn’t have time to count, but it looks like twelve or fourteen of ’em,” he called to Lorena. She nodded as he jumped down from his horse and led it into the gully. Then he ran back to help Billie Jean secure the team. That done, they hurried to take defensive positions with the other two women. Rose handed a Sharps carbine to Billie Jean, telling her it was already fully loaded.

Billie Jean had barely gotten in place behind the large sack of oats when the line of charging warriors opened fire again at a distance of about one hundred and fifty yards. “Let ’em get a little closer,” Wolf called out. “Then we’ll let ’em know how much it’s gonna cost ’em.” It was difficult to do, once the bullets started knocking holes in the wagon sheet and chipping chunks of wood from the sides. “Now!” he yelled when the range had closed to less than one hundred yards. He had no idea whether or not the women really knew how to shoot, but he figured the odds were a lot better at a shorter range. Their initial volley resulted in the reduction of the attacking force by three; one by Wolf, one by Lorena, and one by the other two women. It might have been four had not Rose and Billie Jean both aimed at the same Indian. More importantly, the volley stopped the headlong charge, causing the warriors to scatter, having been surprised by the responding firepower. Two more warriors were knocked from their horses by Wolf’s Henry rifle before riding out of range.

“By God!” Lorena exclaimed as the Indians drew back. “That’ll teach you to attack respectable ladies, you red-skinned sons of bitches!” She turned to exchange victorious grins with Rose and Billie Jean.

“We showed ’em,” Billie Jean crowed.

“Yeah, I reckon we did,” Wolf allowed, considerably less excited. “Now they know it ain’t one rifle they’re workin’ against, and that sure as hell didn’t tickle ’em none. It just comes down to how bad they wanna come after us now that we’ve killed five of their war party.”

“Won’t that be enough to keep them from wanting to charge us again?” Rose asked. “They’d be fools to keep doing that.”

“I expect so,” Wolf said. “We most likely did break ’em from tryin’ to overrun us again, but I doubt they’ve had enough yet. Like I said, it depends on how bad they want our scalps now. We can make it cost too much to charge us again, but they’ve got us pretty much bottled up here in this gully. They can lie back and plunk away at us from a distance. Probably figure they can wait us out, since there ain’t no water in this hole we’re in.” He glanced up at the sky. “Couple of hours it’ll be dark. Then they might try to slip up on us.”

His reasoning was sufficient to deflate the air of exhilaration the three women had been enjoying after their apparent victory against the savage warriors. “I don’t like the sound of that,” Lorena said, speaking for all three, and an atmosphere of concern returned. The thought of Lakota warriors sneaking into their stronghold under cover of darkness brought images of a more sinister nature than the broad daylight charge.

“Whaddaya think we oughta do?” Lorena asked. “You got any ideas?”

“Well, for one thing,” he answered while never turning his gaze away from the prairie, “I don’t reckon we’d better plan on sleepin’ tonight. We’re gonna all have to keep a sharp lookout in case they try to slip in on us.” He turned then to look behind them, beyond the three horses, to the top of the gully. “That looks like the way I’d try to sneak in here, if it was me. So I think I’ll be climbin’ up there to see if I can cut anybody off that’s trying to come in from above us.” Returning his gaze to the prairie again, he pointed to a small rise about a hundred yards off to one side, and then another a little closer on the other side. “I expect they’ll leave their ponies back safe somewhere and crawl up to those two humps. That’ll give ’em some cover to shoot from. Then we’ll just have to wait till dark to see what they’ll do.”