William Johnstone - A Good Day to Die

Shooters were atop the raised firing platform along the east wall of the barricade running between the jail and the stable. More were on top of and in the carpenter’s shop and the lumberyard. A squad of riflemen was on the jailhouse roof.

The Big Corral thronged with scores of horses. They were penned in the center of the enclosure, secured by hitching lines and hobbles.

Badger’s wing of braves swept south of town, curved west, then swung north to charge the rear of the livery barn and south wall of the Big Corral. The braves massed in a column six mounted warriors wide, ten ranks deep.

With Badger at their head, they came hard and fast, their horses straining at the bit. They were a storm force meant to crash through the barrier at its weakest points, the barricades between buildings.

The charge whipped into open ground south of the pen. It was ground marked with red-banded wooden stakes laid out at regular intervals.

If Badger or any of the charging braves noticed the layout, it was only to reflect for an instant that the White Eyes were always up to some such ritualistic nonsense marking out the lands they’d stolen from others.

The vanguard of the column churned north into the red-staked field. Squint McCray fired first, aiming his rifle through a gun port in the rear wall of the loft and placing a shot into a dynamite pit.

The world blew up and Badger along with it, taking many others at the tip of the Comanche spear.

In the loft, Hobson and other sharpshooters pumped lead into red-staked patches, a sudden succession of shattering blasts scourging the Comanche column and shaking Four Corners.

Having been at the center of the front when it broke in half, Red Hand found himself at the rear of the right wing column as Sun Dog raced north.

His column’s left flank raked by gunfire from the courthouse front, he rounded the structure’s north end, and bulled west onto Commerce Street. Sun Dog’s group swarmed the area when suddenly the street itself exploded, detonated by the snipers in the clock tower shooting into red-staked patches of earth positioned throughout the thoroughfare.

Solid ground turned into a torrent of hellfire, blasting Sun Dog and his band. Shockwaves pulped the braves, pulverizing them into white-hot jelly. Men and mounts went up like dead leaves tossed onto a bonfire, heat waves searing flesh off the bone, turning bodies into charred wreckage.

Red Hand and those at the tail end of the column were stunned by the sudden fury. They were dazzled by flashes of white light bursting on every side. The light turned red-yellow-orange, throwing up clouds of debris and inverted pyramids of black smoke.

Between the blasts, high-pitched cackling—laughter—rung out from the clock tower. Pete Zorn was having fun. “Lookit them feathers fly! Better’n a turkey shoot!”

Ever alert, Red Hand swiftly reined in his silver horse, curbing it violently. For most of the column ahead of him it was too late to turn back.

By the time the last dynamite pit had been detonated, the main attack was blunted and broken. The explosive hellfire was the equalizer, the secret weapon that evened up the odds.

A number of braves filtered into Trail Street. Seeking the quickest way out of town, they looked west, finding not open space and empty sky, but rather a curtain of gray-brown clouds rising to the heavens—mute testimony to the killing field beyond the knoll. The church and the Hanging Tree on Boot Hill showed as vague, indistinct outlines wavering in the smoke.

With much of Hangtown a chaos of fire, smoke, and carnage, the citizens unleashed their counterattack. Rifle squads fired fusillades through swirling smoke, dealing mass death to the stunned Comanche survivors of the dynamiting. Pistols were pressed into service for close-in work.

With Red Hand’s horde decimated, discouraged and disoriented, the townfolk were able to complete the rout, cleaning up isolated pockets of resistance.

Even the most fanatic Bison Eye stalwarts—those few who remained—lost heart. The truth was plain to see: the raid was a failure.

Red Hand was unlucky. No more devastating indictment could be leveled against a war chief than to be unlucky. To have bad luck was to be in disfavor with the gods. That was all it took ... it was more than enough.

The coalition of mighty warriors had agreed by mutual consent to enlist under Red Hand’s sway when he looked like a winner. That was done ... and so was his leadership. The Great Raid was over.

The Great Flight began. Braves pointed their horses’ heads at open spaces and raced toward them, eager to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the avenging guns of Hangtown.

TWENTY-FOUR

Red Hand’s luck had not totally deserted him. He’d managed to stay in the saddle through to the last blast.

This was no battle. It was a massacre. And not the one he’d planned. Those of his warriors who’d survived the explosions were being cut down by gunfire. No fool, Red Hand knew that Death ruled in Hangtown, death for his war party and his dreams of conquest.

The Great Raid was dead. What remained of his war party had become a mob of fugitives. And he, Red Hand, was one of them.

His silver horse was near out of its head. Its bulging eyes rolled, its mouth foamed. Red Hand could not restrain it. All he could do was hang on tight and fight to keep from being thrown as the animal galloped blindly into Hangtown. He felt he was riding into the whirlwind.

Yet his gods were still with him. Miraculously the horse somehow avoided falling into bombed-out craters, where it would have risked throwing its rider and breaking a leg.

The silver horse broke through the gap between the jail and the courthouse, plunging west. The Four Corners was a blazing buzz saw of violence as vengeful defenders shot bomb-dazed braves.

Red Hand’s senses were numb. He was seeing double. He shook his head to clear it and his eyes focused as a gap in the drifting smoke revealed the length of Trail Street stretching ahead. Other braves streaked west along it, fleeing town.

The silver horse ran that way. Red Hand leaned forward, letting the animal have its head. The sooner he was quits with Hangtown, the better!

A long, hard ride lay before him if he hoped to reach Comancheria. The defeated must slink home with their tails tucked between their legs.

But a man must live to fight another day. Other chances would present themselves, opportunities for advancement and redemption. New great deeds would wipe away stinging defeat, winning fresh acclaim.

First one must live. Then all else would follow, sure as the turning of the earth.

So Red Hand told himself, taking heart.

The front doors of the church crashed open and Johnny Cross came riding out.

Like the others manning the church, he’d kept his horse inside to avoid betraying their presence to Comanches. Johnny had done all he could to help wipe out Ten Scalps’ attack force on the killing field. Those whom the dynamite had spared had fallen to the deadly accuracy of the riflemen in the church. Straggling survivors fled toward the far horizons, away from Hangtown.

That was not enough scrap for Johnny. He was just getting warmed up. Killing at a distance was all very well and good, but he preferred to work up close and personal, where he could look in the faces of those he slew. There was still plenty of mopping up to be done in town, where the Comanches’ main force was being routed.

Johnny Cross was loaded for bear and his fighting blood was hot.

If there was one thing he hated above all else, it was being crowded. Since coming to town with Luke on Saturday— was it only yesterday? —he’d been crowded by gunmen, lawmen, and Indians. He’d had a bellyful of Red Hand and his war party and of being pinned in the Golden Spur, unable to come and go as he pleased.