Badlands Bloodsport

“The way you say. Cheyennes expect to lose horses in battle—they don’t take it personally, and they keep up to twenty mustangs on their string. But they already have a grievance against us for killing that herd spy. By their view of it, we’re only digging our own graves deeper every time we kill another brave.”

“Skye,” Jessica spoke up, her voice tight with nervousness, “what about us women? Will these savages . . . I mean, will they . . . ?”

“They might,” Fargo said bluntly. “You’re all damn fine-looking women.”

“Then I wish we were ugly,” Rebecca chimed in.

“Don’t matter much, ma’am,” Slappy said. “Either way, they will kill you. On a vengeance raid, the only whites a Cheyenne will spare is the little kids. They take them into the tribe and raise ’em up as Injins.”

“Slappy’s right,” Fargo said, “but you ladies needn’t act like it’s bound to happen. If we all play this thing right, we’ll wangle out of it. Slappy!”

“Yo!”

“Help these ladies wiggle under the big coach. I want you down there with them.”

Slappy’s moon face broke into a lecherous grin. “It’s hard duty, but I’ll bear it somehow.”

“Skeets, climb on top of the coach, but make sure you stay flat as you can in the luggage well. Derek, I want you on top of the mud wagon. The rest of us men are going to shelter as best we can behind the wagons or coach.”

The Ovaro suddenly whickered, and Fargo knelt to feel the ground. “Snap into it, everybody! Here they come with blood in their eyes!”

 * * * 

The Cheyenne braves appeared over the grassy ridge to the north, riding in a line at wide intervals. Fargo estimated slightly over twenty warriors, about half armed with single-shot trade rifles of poor quality.

However, each man also had a powerful bow made of osage wood and strung with sinew. Their fox-skin quivers were stuffed with flint-tipped arrows; these were fletched with crow feathers, and Fargo knew a Cheyenne warrior could string and launch ten arrows in the time it took a white adversary to charge his rifle. Most braves also carried a red-streamered lance—red being the color of bravery—and steel-bladed war hatchets probably acquired at frontier trading posts.

Slappy called out from under the japanned coach: “That buck out front is wearing the medicine horns, Fargo. That must be the he-bear, huh?”

“That’s Touch the Clouds,” Fargo replied above the yipping din of the attackers, recognizing his buckskin mustang. “He’s got the heavy coup stick, so he’ll be expected to stand out in the battle. We’ve got to avoid killing him or the rest will row us up Salt River. But keep a close eye on him.”

“Damn shootin’ I will,” Slappy replied.

“Fargo, their line is starting to break,” a nervous Skeets called out from the top of the coach. “Are they going to squeeze us in a pincers?”

“That’s a paleface tactic. What they’re doing is forming into a big circle, their favorite battle formation. They’ll start far out, whirling faster and faster and closing in the circle tighter. But we’re going to discourage that by popping over their horses.”

“Por Dios, they are moving quickly,” Montoya complained from his position behind the fodder wagon.

“Just make sure to lead ’em by a half bubble or so,” Fargo told him.

By now the Cheyenne warriors had formed their wide circle and begun whirling around the beleaguered camp. A few braves fired their trade rifles, to poor effect, but the first deadly arrows were fwipping in with astonishing accuracy. One caught Skeet’s horse in the rump, and the injured animal raised a cry that iced Fargo’s blood.

“Skeets!” he shouted. “Think you can give them turnabout for that horse?”

“I jolly well can!”

Only a few seconds later the Big Fifty spoke its piece, and a grullo or blue-tinted mustang of Spanish descent collapsed into the grass, tossing its rider ass-over-applecart. The brave rose unsteadily to his feet, shook his head, then extended his hand until another rider took him up tandem.

The women cheered and Fargo scowled. “Slappy, make those ladies put their faces down and cover their heads with their arms! This ain’t no nine-pins match. Those braves will be aiming under that coach.”

Just then, as if timed to underscore Fargo’s warning, a flurry of arrows rattled into the coach—one could have struck the women if a wheel hadn’t deflected it. One of the women uttered a squeal of alarm, and Fargo couldn’t help a cynical grin—by God, they’d cover down now.

Skeets’s powerful hunting gun cracked again and another mustang folded to the ground, sliding hard. Fargo, too, had his Henry at the ready, but good shots did not present themselves. The distance—perhaps two hundred yards—was no problem, but leading the fast-moving ponies was. Every time Fargo dragged his muzzle left, the notch sight fell on yet another horse in the confused melee.

Finally he squeezed off a round and a third mustang was down. The Cheyennes, not expecting such marksmanship, doubled the number of arrows streaking in. Another horse was hit, and only the tight hobbles kept them from bolting.