William Johnstone - A Good Day to Die

Lydia nodded, wide-eyed and deathly pale.

“But I’ll make it.” Sam smiled.

She eyed him, unblinking.

Sam loosed the mule’s-leg, holding it at his side. He went to the edge of the bend, peering around it. He couldn’t see anyone on the cliff top looking in his direction.

He started along the cliff trail, moving in a half crouch, hugging the brush alongside the dirt path. He padded down the saddle ridge, chest tight and a heavy weight in his stomach. Walking softly, he darted from one side of the trail to the other from time to time, taking advantage of the cover provided by a tree trunk or rock.

The dirt path dipped, then rose to the cliff top, running between a line of trees, eight to ten feet tall, with snaky trunks and busy boughs massed at the near side of the summit. Through spaces in the brush, Sam saw horses milling about.

He sneaked up to the trees.

Five horses, saddled and ready to ride, were tied to a hitching line in a shallow natural basin. No watchman guarded them.

On the far side of the bowl rose a man-high arc of massive boulders, tilted slabs, and jagged spurs. A gap between them opened on the rest of the cliff top, framing an oblong of blue sky. From behind came the sound of voices rising and falling, an alien tongue harsh and guttural, thick with consonants.

The absence of a guard on the horses was a break. The Comanches must be almighty sure of their mastery of the plateau, Sam thought. He wondered how long it would be before the two dead lookouts at Stickerbush Knob were discovered, sending another scouting party or two down the glen—if they weren’t already on their way. Time was running out.

He edged along the tree line, staying downwind of the horses. Comanche horses tended to shy away from strangers. About half the horses in the string were unshod mounts with the distinctive wooden saddles of the tribe. They were all hitched to a lead rope, but had been left unhobbled for a fast getaway.

Easing out from behind the trees, Sam drew his knife and cut the lead rope. The horses sidled, dancing and restless. He slashed the nearest horse on its haunch, a quick shallow cut. It was a cruel trick he’d learned from Apaches, but effective. The animal shrieked, rearing, then bolting.

The other horses panicked. Sam went among them, slapping their rumps with his hat to get them moving. They needed little encouragement, following the horse already in flight.

Sam dodged, flattening his back against a rock slab on the east side of the gap between the boulders. The stampeding horses ran along the summit up the cliff trail. He breathed a silent prayer of thanks that he’d left the girl holding their horses in a glade safely off the trail. Pounding hoofbeats counterpointed his own hammering heartbeat. He couldn’t tell where one left off and the other began.

The wait for the the Comanches was not a long one. Loss of horses meant disaster for them, combining the threat of imminent danger with a potential loss of prestige on possibly the most important raid of their lives. With it came the sting of the biter bit. Horse thieves supreme, they did not look kindly on the theft of their own mounts. No one is more outraged than a thief who gets robbed.

The braves came running, charging out of the narrow gap one by one. Legs flashing, arms pumping, moccasined feet thudding softly, they climbed between the boulders and into the open.

They fanned out, racing to intercept the fleeing horses. One brave turned to shout something to another and caught sight of Sam. He was the first to die, as Sam cut loose with the mule’s-leg.

Holding the trigger down, working the lever, Sam milled out bullets, cutting down two more braves. The mule’s-leg spat chopped the first three before they could do more than realize his presence and the inevitability of their own deaths. Sizzling rounds lanced living flesh, copper-hued bodies spinning and wheeling in sudden violent death.

A fourth brave was off to one side from the others. Sam leveled the mule’s-leg at him as the brave raised a tomahawk, arm bent for throwing. The brave lurched as three rounds tore into him, then toppled, weapon unthrown.

A fifth Comanche came rushing out from between the boulders, blindly firing a rifle. Perhaps he’d been a bit slower to react than the others, or perhaps he’d been farthest from the gap when the stampede started.

Drawing abreast of Sam, he glimpsed him out of the corner of his eye. He stopped short, whirling, bringing his rifle around as he lunged toward the foe.

Sam fired first. The mule’s-leg was shorter, its cut-down barrel having less distance to traverse. The blast caught the charging brave in the belly at point-blank range, blowing a hole out the back of his spine. The muzzle flare from the mule’s-leg scorched his shirt, setting it on fire.

Dying, the brave bowled into Sam, knocking him off balance. Sam slipped on a loose stone, losing his footing. He fell backward, fetching the back of his head against a half-buried rock with a sharp crack that made him see stars. The brave fell on top of him, pinning his lower body. Fighting a wave of blackness that threatened to engulf his senses, Sam held onto his weapon like a drowning man clutching a lifeline.

Bullets tore through the empty air above him, ripping a line of holes into the face of the boulder. Stinging stone chips sprayed him with streaks of pain that cut through the darkness crashing down on him.

He rolled onto his side, trying to kick away the corpse weighing down on his legs. The blackness retreated. Through a streaming curtain of colored lights, Sam saw that one of the first three braves he’d cut down was not killed but only wounded. The Comanche was on his feet, staggering forward, shooting. He’d been hit in the left side, which glistened wetly with dark red blood.

Raising himself on an elbow, Sam returned fire, cutting the brave’s legs out from under him. Still game, the brave dropped to his knees, shooting. A round buzzed past Sam’s head, flattening into a lead smear on a boulder behind him.

Sam kept firing. The brave lurched, swaying on his knees before pitching forward to sprawl face-first in the dirt. Sam put another slug into him to make sure, planting it dead center in the crown of his head and blowing it apart.

Breathing gustily, Sam dragged his legs clear of the dead weight of the body pinning them down. The back of his head was an aching soreness, each pulsing heartbeat felt as if it would split his skull.

He sat up, back braced against the boulder for support. He looked around for his hat, but didn’t see it.

That dark slouch hat meant a lot to him. A treasured gift, it had been given to him back in the war by General Ulysses S. Grant, after Sam had earlier expressed his admiration for the hard-fighting commander’s battered but virtually indestructible campaign hat. Grant had gotten him one like it. It was new then; hard campaigning in wars national and local had made it comfortable as an old shoe, familiar as a second skin.

Abruptly, Sam realized he was still wearing the headgear, scrunched down around his ears on top of his head. He must’ve hit his head harder than he thought. Taking the hat off, he reached around to the back of his skull, fingertips gingerly probing.

His head felt oversized, enlarged. He expected his hand to come away bloody but when he held it out in front of himself he was surprised to see that it was dry. Not only the bone but the skin covering it was unbroken. He murmured to himself, “Lucky!”

The hat had cushioned his skull, blunting the impact when he banged it against the rock. Sam put a fist inside the lopsided crown, pushing out most of the worst of the dents. He fitted the hat back on his head, breath hissing through clenched teeth at the pain.

Getting his legs under him, he rose shakily to his feet. Dizziness made him sick to his stomach. He kept the gorge down and the sickness passed.