William Johnstone - A Good Day to Die

In the middle ground, Thorn was finishing up the last of Eben, chopping him up alive with the ax. He’d set down his musket to do the job properly. The grisly task had splattered him with the red stuff from head to toe, but he didn’t seem to mind. Eben gurgled, choking out a death rattle.

In line with the shuttered west front window, Greasy Grass hunkered down beside the body of Fisher, working on him with a scalping knife. Fisher’s hair was thin on top, balding, but that didn’t spare him the indignity of mutilation.

Largely free of body hair themselves, the Comanche were amused and intrigued by its presence among whites. Sometimes along with the scalp they took the sideburns or a beard, or all three. Occasionally they took the full face, skinning it off the corpse’s skull, to make a mask of it, a cured and dried mask for their warrior society lodge. Such macabre curios made treasured heirlooms—keepsakes.

Frowning with intense concentration, Greasy Grass leaned into his handiwork, shifting and squirming to make a series of sharp, precise cuts to take Fisher’s beard, along with much of the face that went with it.

Ada thrust the shotgun muzzle through the loophole, pointing it at him. Greasy Grasss had time enough to look up and no more.

Ada squeezed a trigger, the blast pulping his head. She was careful to use only one barrel. Swinging the shotgun to the left, she tried for Thorn, wielding the ax on what was left of Eben.

Thorn was too fast for her. In one movement he flung the ax at her and threw himself to the side, diving headfirst to the ground. Ada pulled the second trigger a split second too late, hitting only empty air.

The ax came hurtling at her end over end. Thunk! It struck blade-first, burying itself deep in the wooden shutter a handbreadth above the loophole.

Thorn came out of his dive in a roll, grabbed his musket, and fired. A round tore through the shutter, missing Ada by inches.

The shotgun was empty. She cleared it and grabbed two fresh shells out of her apron pocket but dropped one. It rolled in a half circle on the hardpacked dirt floor. She fumbled a shell into place, took another from her pocket and loaded it into the second barrel, ready for another go-round.

Lydia had not gone far. Once inside the thicket, she paused at the edge. Crouching on hands and knees, sheltering beside a tree trunk, she peered through a gap in the underbrush. She could see the rear of the house and, to the left of it, part of the barn and corral.

She was afraid to move, afraid to go and afraid to stay. She couldn’t stop shivering. Her mouth was open, panting, but she couldn’t catch her breath.

A shotgun boomed. Lydia cried out involuntarily, clapping hands over her mouth.

A second boom blasted.

A Comanche rounded the rear corner of the west room, coming into view.

Little Bells. Knife in hand, he sneaked up on the back window.

Lydia thought it was shuttered, but she was wrong. Ada had closed it but in her haste had fastened it improperly. It hung slightly ajar.

Little Bells put the knife between his teeth, freeing his hands to reach up and open the shutter. Taking hold of the windowsill, he boosted himself up, wriggling snakelike through the window into the house.

Fear for herself and fear for her mother warred within Lydia. The Comanche is going to sneak up on Ma from behind and take her unawares.

Lydia rose, parting the brush and stepping into the open field. She started toward the house. The empty black square of the open rear window was a sinister portent of ill omen. “Ma, look out! The back window!”

Her voice sounded impossibly thin and faint in her ears, unable to carry its message of warning into the house so Ada could hear it.

Inside, Ada peered through the loophole of the west room’s front window. The handle of the ax stuck in the shutter panel, blocking some of her narrow field of vision.

Thorn and Firecloud had taken cover. She saw no sign of them. The shotgun was charged with a double load of shot but no targets presented themselves.

A faint, high-pitched shrilling came to Ada’s ears. She recognized it as Lydia’s voice, though she was unable to make out the words. Her heart sank. She mumbled, “That fool girl, didn’t she have enough sense to stay hidden in the brush and keep silent? Or has she been taken?”

Nearer, came a soft sound at the edges of her hearing. A sound innocent in itself, but infinitely dangerous in its current context, it was a faint jingling as of tiny chimes.

At the same instant, Ada became aware of a menacing presence hovering nearby, a sensation not unlike that which seizes a rabbit when the shadow of a hawk passes over it.

She sensed a rush of motion at her back and turned, swinging the shotgun around with her.

A heavy, solid mass crashed into her, all but knocking her off her feet. She was swept across the floor and slammed into a wall. Little Bells crept closer to her, strong and relentless.

Ada realized her mistakes. She’d seen four horses but only three braves and hadn’t fastened the rear window shutter properly. Two missteps in a contest where the slightest oversight could prove fatal

Little Bells’s clawlike hands fastened on the shotgun barrel, trying to rip the weapon from her grasp, nearly breaking her finger in the trigger guard.

He swung the barrel upward, causing Ada to jerk one of its double triggers. The gun fired, spewing deafening noise, flame, and smoke, and blowing a hole through the roof.

Their faces were only inches apart as they struggled. A frontier woman by birth, Ada had come up in a hard school. She tried to knee her attacker, but he blocked it with his thigh.

Little Bells rocked her with a vicious backhand, knocking the back of her head against the wall so hard she saw stars. The blow caught her in the mouth, splitting her lips and sending blood droplets flying.

Ada fought to keep hold of the shotgun, but she could feel it slipping from her grip. He struck again, with a closed fist to her jaw. Blackness thrust inward around the edges of her awareness. There was a roaring in her ears. Her legs folded and she collapsed, sliding with her back against the wall and sitting down hard.

Little Bells tore the shotgun from her nerveless fingers and glared at her. His white eyeballs gleamed out from the raccoon’s mask of black war paint banded around his eyes.

The shotgun was a prize. He would keep it. Holding it in one hand, he used his other hand to grab a fistful of her hair and dragged her across the room to the door. He shrieked his distinguishing war cry, alerting his fellows that he was in control of the situation.

Unbarring the door, he flung it open. He hauled Ada to her feet and threw her through the open doorway, out into the yard. She fell, sprawling in the dirt, dazed, semiconscious.

Happy and exultant, Thorn and Firecloud emerged from behind cover, showing themselves. Still clutching the scalping knife, the corpse of Greasy Grass lay stretched out beside Seton Fisher.

Little Bells had subdued the woman, and she was his by right of conquest. He shrugged. Interested not so much in womanflesh as horseflesh, he went to the corral to appraise the horses and take the best for himself, as was his right as leader. The others could do what they wanted with the woman. She was too old for him. He liked them young.

The killing had excited Firecloud. He stood over Ada as she tried to rise from her hands and knees. He kicked her in the belly, doubling her up. She fell on her side.

Thorn laughed, moving in to watch.

Firecloud shucked off his bow and quiver of arrows, laying them on the ground. He flung Ada on her back and straddled her on his knees. Slapping, punching and bloodying her further excited him.