Tworivers
Copyright© 2025 by Harry Carton
Chapter 22: French – Spanish alliance
The peyote visions clung to Wind Rider like river mist as dawn broke. He rubbed his temples, watching Winona drill freed slaves – now clad in Comanche buckskin – on reloading techniques behind the barracks. Her injured arm didn’t slow her; if anything, the wound made her movements more precise. Each time she demonstrated the Girardoni’s breech mechanism, the former slaves mimicked her motions with the intensity of men who’d seen French whips.
Time passed quickly as the Crow-manche worked around Prairie Peace. First the trees across the east river were felled, the lumber going for construction around the town. The bridges were reinforced and training went on among the tri-party alliance. Two weeks passed without anyone stopping to count the days.
Broken Wing approached silently, holding a freshly forged tomahawk. Its edge gleamed blue-black in the morning light. “Spanish steel,” he murmured, flipping it to Wind Rider. “From the cannon’s carriage fittings.”
Wind Rider caught it mid-spin, testing its weight. The balance was perfect – slightly forward-weighted for deeper chops. He glanced toward the makeshift forge where Helmut and Strong Bear sweated over glowing coals, hammering French breastplates into arrowheads. “We’re recycling their arrogance,” Wind Rider noted drily.
A scout burst through the eastern gate, his breathing ragged. “French column – three miles out. Double our numbers.” He held up two fingers smeared with dust. “Two cannons this time.”
Wind Rider tossed the tomahawk to Broken Wing and strode toward the stockade wall. The morning sun revealed distant plumes of dust rising above the prairie grass—too disciplined for bison. Through his binoculars he saw uniformed infantry flanked by Dragoons in formation. Their new cannon crews marched with the practiced precision of veterans.
Winona materialized beside him, chewing a strip of jerked venison. “They learned reload drills.” She pointed at the ammunition wagons keeping perfect intervals behind the infantry.
Wind Rider tracked her finger, noting how the French powder carriers now wore leather aprons—crude protection against Apache bullets. The enemy had adapted. So would they. He whistled sharply, the sound cutting through morning birdsong. Warriors materialized from the longhouses, Girardonis slung across their backs.
Yellow Hair scrambled up the ladder, his face tight. “They’re not stopping at the tree line this time. Cavalry scouts just circled north toward the Tahlequah ford.”
Wind Rider’s jaw clenched. The French had found their weak spot – the shallow crossing three miles upstream. He grabbed Winona’s shoulder, feeling the ridge of her freshly healed scar through the buckskin. “Take twenty riflewomen north. Hit their flank when they’re mid-river.”
She was already moving, snapping fingers to summon her sharpshooters.
Wind Rider turned to Broken Wing. “Signal Tall Pine – have his men fall back through the eastern woods. Let the French think they’re retreating.” He snatched a fresh powder horn from Yellow Hair, gauging its weight before slinging it across his chest. “Then hit their rear when Winona engages from the river.”
The Crow warriors melted into the tree line as drumbeats echoed across the prairie — steady as a heartbeat. Wind Rider climbed onto the stockade’s firing platform, watching dust clouds swirl closer. Their eastern wall shuddered as Helmut’s crew rolled the captured cannon into position, its bronze barrel still streaked with soot from the last battle a week ago.
Winona’s riflewomen moved like shadows along the riverbank, their Girardonis wrapped in deer hide to mute reflections. She signaled the lead scout — a wiry Comanche woman with scalplock braids — who sank into the tall grass near the ford, her breath stilling.
The French Dragoons splashed into the shallows, their horses’ nostrils flaring at the scent of gun oil and sweat. Winona waited until the lead rider’s mount was midstream before whistling through her teeth — thwip — and the first volley cracked out. Six Dragoons toppled into the current before their comrades could unsling carbines. A bay charger screamed, rearing as its rider slumped sideways, his powdered wig floating downstream like a dead fish.
Wind Rider watched from the stockade as Winona’s riflewomen pivoted, unleashing a second synchronized volley into the disorganized cavalry. Their Girardonis barely smoked in the humid air, the compressed air mechanisms allowing near-silent death. Behind the French lines, Tall Pine’s guerrillas waited, the silent Girardonis working their death magic without alerting anyone. But one of the Dragoons fired his fusil at the direction of Winona’s riflewomen – the shot doing nothing except alerting Tall Pine’s guerrillas – they erupted from the tree line with guttural cries, tomahawks flashing into exposed backs. The French formation collapsed inward like a gutted deer.
The French infantry reacted too slowly – their officers barking orders as Winona’s sharpshooters melted back reluctantly into the riverbank reeds. Wind Rider saw their hesitation; they wanted to pursue. He thumped the stockade wall with his fist. Discipline. The French cannon crews had unlimbered their pieces now, aiming toward the ford. That’s three miles away. Their cannons can’t reach that far. Good instincts from the men though; turning toward the gunshot. Bad leadership didn’t correct them.
Downriver, Tall Pine’s guerrillas vanished into the smoke of burning grass – a tactic stolen from Comanche raiders. The Dragoons’ surviving horses stampeded through their own infantry, trampling a powder wagon. Yellow Hair marked the spot for later retrieval.
Near the log barricade outside the walls, Helmut loaded his one cannon with their limited supply of powder, and then with a batch of heavy rocks. Wind Rider spoke to Helmut, “Not too many rocks. We want them to go over the bridge and into the French soldiers.” Helmut nodded. He was a gunsmith, not an artilleryman – he didn’t know how many to load or even WHAT to load.
The French column reformed with brutal efficiency – their surviving Dragoons dismounting to reinforce the infantry squares. Two cannons rumbled forward, their crews wearing the mismatched uniforms of press-ganged militias. The rifle-men and -women tracked them from the log barricades — their numbers now swelled by Cromanche warriors — waiting for Wind Rider’s signal. He’d invented ‘Cromanche’, to describe the intermixed Comanche and Crow men, and women, of ‘his army.’
The French would curse that word for generations.
Wind Rider watched through his binocs as the Cromanche warriors positioned themselves along the log barricades—some gripping salvaged bayonets lashed to poles, others cradling Girardonis with their new leather cheek-pads. He focused on the enemy artillery crews wrestling their bronze monsters into position. Their cannons were well-maintained—not the rusted relics they’d faced before—but their crews moved with the stiff hesitation of men who’d heard stories about Prairie Peace’s rifles.
Winona’s voice crackled from the riverbank below. Their powder’s damp, she hissed, pointing at the French infantry struggling with flintlocks in the humid air. A misfired musket flashed in the morning sun – then another – as panicked troops fumbled reloads. Wind Rider grinned. Their stolen French officer’s ledgers had mentioned bad powder shipments from Marseille. He whistled twice—high and sharp – the signal for Tall Pine’s guerrillas to ignite the eastern grass.
Smoke billowed across the battlefield as Helmut’s cannon roared, sending a hail of jagged rock shrapnel into the French lines. Screams erupted where stones tore through wool uniforms. Wind Rider watched a young French officer clutch his shattered knee – his powdered wig askew – before a Cromanche arrow found his throat.
“Hold fire!” Wind Rider barked as Winona’s riflewomen repositioned along the barricade, their Girardonis tracking the panicking infantry. The French cannons belched fire – but their shots flew wild, one ball embedding harmlessly in the stockade’s thick logs, the other kicking up dirt fifty yards short. Their shots weren’t that wild Wind Rider knew. They’d get the range if they had time.
Tall Pine’s guerrillas emerged from the smoke like vengeful spirits, tomahawks flashing. The French artillerymen barely had time to scream before Crow warriors dragged them from their guns. Wind Rider saw Broken Wing flip a bayonet-equipped rifle in the air before catching it reverse-grip and plunging it downward – silencing a sobbing militiaman.
Winona’s Girardonis chuffed in unison, targeting officers’ gorgets. The French line wavered as gold braid after gold braid tumbled into the dirt. Yellow Hair’s Cromanche archers added their arrows to the carnage, their iron-tipped shafts punching through damp wool uniforms with sickening thumps.
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