William Johnstone - A Good Day to Die

“I ain’t hungry,” she said.

“It’ll help you keep up your strength. You might need it,” Sam said.

“Can’t eat. Ain’t got the stomach for it.”

“You want some later, just sing out.”

She shook her head.

Sam shrugged. “Looks clear. Might as well head out.”

They rode out from under the trees, into the open. Sam bit off a chunk of jerky, wedging it in the back corner of his teeth. Sipping some water from his canteen, he held it in his mouth to soften up the jerky, tough as a boot sole.

The sun was high and hot. The flat stretched out toward the horizon, a vast, sprawling tableland under the Big Sky, almost dizzying in its size and scope. Rolling plains were broken by rises, hollows, and stands of timber. The grass was a rich bright green, slightly yellowing at the tips and edges.

Good grazing land for cattle and, not so very long ago, for buffalo. But the buffalo herds were thinning out, their numbers shrinking every season.

The prime source of sustenance for the Comanches, buffalo supplied them with meat, hides, sinews for bowstrings, bones for tools and implements, and hooves for glue. They followed the herds, hunting them when they weren’t busy hunting two-legged prey.

A rock wall running north-south far in the western distance were the Broken Hills, that jumble of peaks, cliffs, and promontories known as The Breaks. A scant handful of bold and/or solitude-minded settlers lived along its eastern edge, dangerous country to roost in. Sam wondered how many would be left alive once the Comanche raid had run its course.

He steered a course to the southeast. The hollow feeling in the pit of his belly deepened as the covering thicket of the woods fell behind. From time to time he turned in the saddle, looking back to scan the scene for hostiles.

The horses moved along at a brisk gait. Sam set a not too fast pace, leaving the horses plenty of reserve in case they had to run. He also didn’t want to raise a telltale cloud of dust that would finger them to enemy eyes.

The girl wasn’t much for talking, which suited him fine. Not that he blamed her. On the other hand, he didn’t want her thinking overmuch on what she’d experienced. Still, how could she not?

Sam’s eyes were active in a stony face as he surveyed the landscape. Several miles passed. The land rose and fell like long rolling swells on the open sea—but it was a sea of grass. The duo crossed two streams, or maybe the same stream twice, winding and doubling back on itself. It was hard to judge such things, in the lonesome Titan immensity. Sam devoutly wished it would stay lonesome.

He and Lydia rode side by side. Breaking the silence at last, she said, “What you doing in these parts, anyhow? Ain’t Yankeeland good enough for you?”

“I like to roam,” Sam said.

“Reckon you wish you’d kept on moving instead of lighting in Hangtree,” she said, something like a smirk showing on her mouth for an instant.

“You might have something there,” Sam said evenly.

“What for you come up on the hills?”

“A day’s hunting.”

“Now you’re being hunted,” Lydia said with a flash of bright, innocent malice. “How do you like that?”

“How do you like it?” he countered.

The girl fell silent, her face set in a sullen cast.

Presently they struck a trail, not even a dirt road but a trail, running east-west. “We’re getting close. This trail runs parallel to Old Mission Road, which lies six, seven miles farther south,” Sam said.

They crossed the trail at a tangent, continuing on their southeasterly course. A long shallow incline topped out on a grassy table dotted with stands of timber and patches of brush. Bunches of longhorned cattle wandered in the distance.

A patch of dust, no bigger than a man’s thumb held at arm’s length, smudged the blue sky of the southwest quadrant. Sam squinted at it. Its source, whatever it was, was as yet unseen. An involuntary grunt escaped him.

Lydia saw what he was looking at. “Them?” she asked, her tone dull, fatalistic.

“Don’t know. Could be a herd of longhorns, or some ranch hands out riding.”

“There ain’t no ranches here,” the girl pointed out.

“There’s that,” Sam admitted.

“So?”

“Let’s see what they do. To run now would kick up more dust and mebbe tip ’em off if they ain’t already seen us.”

“They say them Comanches don’t miss much.”

“They do say that.”

Keeping on their course, Sam fought the urge to put his boot heels into Dusty’s flanks and break into a run. The patch of dust changed direction, moving parallel to their course.

“They’re following us,” Lydia said.

“Looks like,” said Sam.

They continued across a long stretch of open ground, their progress seeming agonizingly slow. There was no cover to be had in the near or middle ground, just open flatland.

The source of the nearing dust cloud revealed itself as a blur of moving black dots, marching antlike across a green table. That seeming slowness was only an illusion caused by vastness, for the space between the duo and the unknowns was steadily narrowing.

“Riders,” Sam said, “about a dozen.”

“Run for it?” Lydia asked.

“You a good rider?”

“I ain’t gonna fall off Brownie, if that’s what you’re asking, Mister Yank.”

“Put some speed on but don’t go all out just yet, save something for later. Ride!”

The chase was on. That it was a chase, there could be no doubt. The duo’s horses broke into a run. Dusty was faster than Brownie but Sam held him back, letting the girl ride several lengths ahead of him. He wanted to know where she was at all times.

As for the pursuers, he only had to look back over his shoulder to see where they were. The pack moved up fast, kicking up dust. The not-so-distant brown plume grew into a pillar rising into the sky.

Whoops and shrieks sounded, thin and far-off, but no less ominous for that.

Comanches! Too near to be outdistanced in the long run, and no sheltering ravines or thickets of wood in which to lose them. Hunters not easily shaken once they had the scent of blood in their nostrils. They were still a fair piece off, but the gap was steadily decreasing.

Sam had a plan, desperate though it might be, but he was looking for more advantageous terrain to set it in motion.

Up ahead, he saw a slight break in the unreeling emptiness of the flat—a rock outcropping, a handful of boulders, and a couple of scraggly trees.

Sam pointed it out to Lydia, shouting, “Make for the rocks!”

“What’ll we do there?”

“Fight!”

That seemed to satisfy the girl. She rode all out for the rocks, leaning far forward on the coursing horse, almost doubled over Brownie’s muscular, dark-maned neck. A good little rider at that, Sam noted approvingly.

The landscape was a breathless blur as they closed on the rocks. Hoofbeats pounded, digging dirt. Some man-sized boulders stood heaped around a gnarly mesquite tree and a scruff of brush.

Sam and Lydia pulled up to a halt in the lee of the boulders. Their bases were planted deep in the turf. Behind the rocks was a bowl-shaped depression, little more than a foot deep and about ten feet wide.

They dismounted. Lydia said, “What good’s this? Injins’ll just ride around it.”

“It’s a place to make a stand, better than you might think.” Pulling his blade, Sam cut the rawhide thongs securing the long, flat wooden box to the metal rings in the side of the saddle. Gripping the case by its suitcase handle, he carefully set it down against a rock.

Taking hold of the bridle, he pulled his horse’s head down and to the side, urging, “Down boy, down! You know the drill!”