Badlands Bloodsport

“The sun can be moved around like a herd of cattle,” Fargo assured her. “Trade mirrors with me.”

Fargo placed Rebecca facing east while he stood in front of her facing west. “Let me know when you’re reflecting off this mirror.”

It took her a minute to get the hang of it, but soon she exclaimed, “There! I’ve got you!”

For the next ten minutes Fargo flashed mirror signals to the fort before time urgency forced him to give up. “If there’s a sober soldier in the sentry box, he couldn’t’ve missed that. Nothing reflects on the plains, not in steady flashes.”

Fargo knelt down and placed his ear just above the ground.

“I say,” Blackford piped up, “in the shilling shockers the frontier chaps press their ears against the ground.”

“That’s ink-slinger ignorance,” Slappy retorted. “All you’ll hear then is your own heart beating in your ear.”

“Ah. Yes, that makes perfect sense.”

Fargo frowned and waved both of them silent. After listening for a minute, he placed three fingertips in the grass.

“We made damn little progress during the night,” he fretted. “They’re closer than I thought.”

He broke out his field glass and soon made out the attacking line, dark, distorted shapes against the background of the dull yellow sun. They galloped with an inexorable sense of purpose that made Fargo’s scalp tighten.

“Fourteen of them,” he finally said. “Some have one mustang on their string, others none. So both of you remember—aim for horses. I hate like hell to do it, but they make a bigger target, and that means we can keep the warriors farther out. And expect them to go into a circle—this terrain is perfect for it.”

He turned toward the women. They were making a brave show of it, but fear was starched into their features. “All right, ladies, under the mud wagon. We’re going to wall you in on both sides, but it’s for your own safety.”

By the time the women were walled in, Fargo could make out the attacking braves with his naked eye. He fretted about the exposed horses—the Ovaro was hobbled in the middle of the tight cluster, but they would all be easy targets once the braves circled around to the north.

“All right, gents,” he said in a tone of grim determination. “You both know we’re wanting for ammunition, so no nervous trigger fingers. Every shot has to score. If we can knock enough horses out from under them, they’ll be forced to double up and pull back. They might have remounts kept in reserve, and they might not. We’ll just have to play the cards we’re dealt. And, Earl, it’s brass, right?”

“Right you are, Fargo. My wife is under that wagon.”

“I ain’t got no woman,” Slappy said, “and I double-damn guarantee you I want to live as much as any married feller.”

“Perhaps you have more to live for, at that,” Blackford said in a rare quip for him. All three men laughed.

“One last thing,” Fargo said. “Target clumping. That’s a serious problem when men are low on ammo and more than one of them shoot at the same target without meaning to, wasting bullets. So I’m going to call the shots. Wait until you hear your name before you bust a cap.”

They wriggled under the fodder wagon and Fargo distributed the weapons. He kept his Henry and one of the Big Fifties, handing the other to Slappy. The German bolt-action rifle and its few rounds went to Lord Blackford.

“What about that crowd leveler?” Slappy asked, nodding toward his twelve-gauge scattergun.

“I hope we don’t have to use it,” Fargo replied. “That and our six-shooters are the last line of defense if they close in on us tight.”

After a few moments of tense silence, Slappy said to Fargo in a subdued voice, “The primitive brain, huh?”

“What the devil is that?” Blackford asked sharply.

“It’s just more of Slappy’s foolishness,” Fargo interceded, gouging an elbow into Slappy’s side. “Just stay frosty and shoot plumb.”

 * * * 

Fargo had faced many skirmishes with Plains warriors and learned they fought very differently from the highly regimented U.S. Army. Even on the open plains, where attack plans were limited, they showed remarkable variation in their tactics. And what he saw shaping up now worried him.

“They’re scattering at wide intervals,” he reported to his companions, studying the attackers through his field glass. “It’s every brave for himself. They’re coming at us staggered, and from all directions. Earl, scoot to the other side so you’re firing to the north. Slappy, get next to the tongue and cover the east flank. I’ll cover the south.”

But Fargo worried about the unprotected west flank. The mud wagon blocked that direction.

A few minutes later the attackers were clearly visible with the naked eye.

“There’s the heap big chief on his buckskin,” Slappy said. “God’s garters! His coup feathers are trailin’ on the ground.”

“Yeah, that’s Touch the Clouds. Let him and his horse alone. With a lot of luck, I’ll need to make medicine with him before this day is out.”