Winter Rain

What a perfect day for a man to go hunting or fishing, to work his fields, to repair harness or fix that ill-hung door on the barn. Or a perfect day for a man to do nothing at all but lie on his back among the bounty of his fields and stare up at the great endless immensity of all God’s handiworks. Wondering where he fit, in all that had been wrought of the seasons and sculpted by the wind around him.

A damned cold day as well, one fit for spilling blood. Then at last he could start back home with his boys.

This was turning out to be one of those late winter days when the sun hung high, dull as a pewter button, when the air would never really grow warm—when John Corn, who was riding point, suddenly wheeled his mount around in a tight, haunch-sliding circle and skedaddled back for the column. Reaching those in the lead, the Ranger pointed ahead, talking in hushed tones to the captain, then led Lockhart, Johns, and Coffee ahead a ways where all three stopped in view of the rest. Lockhart reached about and took his field glasses from a saddlebag, then sat staring, likely adjusting on something Jonah could not sec with the naked eye, something lost in all that immensity of snowy brilliance.

“You think they’ve spotted the village?” Hook quietly asked Two Sleep beside him in the column.

The old Shoshone nodded. “Yellow jackets.”

“Comanche? That what you figure?”

“That what I see.”

Hook glared again, squinting into the shimmering distance of the icy plain, trying to make out anything that Two Sleep could claim would be Comanche.

Lockhart reined about, hurriedly stuffing the field glasses away. He slowed his horse to a walk as he reached the company and began by giving them what sounded like his first real order in many days as he rode down their line.

“Dismount.”

They obeyed him instantly without question, without muttering a word. The only sounds among those thirty were those of the restive horses, the squeak of soaped leather, the rattle of buckle and chain, the squeak of holster and rifle boot. Their captain had news for them fit to singe the hair even in a Ranger’s ears.

“If your cinches need tightening, now’s the time,” Lockhart instructed. “We’ve spotted the enemy ahead.”

“The Comanch’?” Clyde Yoakam asked.

“No doubt, Sergeant,” Lockhart said, wheeling his horse and walking it back up the line of men, who stood flipping stirrups over their saddles, tugging and tightening on cinches and cruppers, drawing up their own britches, taking belts up a notch or so. That done, some men pulled rifles from their boots with a noise like tired buggy springs, chambering a cartridge into the breech. Others broke open the action of their pistols, exposing cylinders, slipping a sixth round beneath the finely honed hammers.

“You see how many, Captain?” asked June Callicott.

“Not certain how many. Not really sure that they’ve seen us just yet either. If it weren’t for the glasses I used, that camp’d still be just a black dot on the edge of the horizon. So it’s not likely they know we’re here just yet.”

“You saw ’em still in camp?” Jonah asked, his eyes going to fix a cold, milk-pale sun against midsky.

“We’ve caught them sitting.”

Hook wagged his head. “We didn’t catch ’em, Cap’n. They ought to be up and on the move long before now. Only reason we got ’em sitting is those Comanche are waiting for us.”

Lockhart’s face went dark as scorched wood behind his bushy black mustache and that week’s growth of shadow over his cheeks. He jutted his chin at Hook’s severe appraisal of their situation. “So be it, men. Remount—and form into line for inspection.”

Jonah had to admire the captain for that. Lockhart wasn’t about to be bullied into fearing this bunch of warriors. He could be a cool one when it came down to cutting the deck with the whole night’s game resting on this one last hand they were about to play.

The entire company came into the saddle and settled almost noiselessly, jostling their mounts left-about into one long line stretching right and left, facing their stiff-jawed captain. Clearly holding his horse in check, Lockhart eased down that formation, appraising each one of them from their sun-faded hat to the toes of their high-heeled boots stuffed clear to the insteps in the stirrups. Nearly every last one of them wore two belts, one looped over the other around their outer coats in a lazy X, all brass and lead that looked damned near as impressive as a crown of feathers would atop a proven Kwahadi warrior.

The captain slowed before Two Sleep and Hook, and stopped. “I’m a little concerned about your Snake here, Jonah. Going into battle now, things are likely to get a bit confusing for the rest of the men. Perhaps he should stay behind.”

“I go fight with you,” Two Sleep said evenly, his eyes held straight ahead, as unwavering and military as any soldier’s.

Jonah felt more proud of him at that moment than he had since that morning in the red desert when they jumped Usher’s Mormons. He stared straight ahead too as he said, “He’ll do fine, Cap’n.”