Tworivers
Copyright© 2025 by Harry Carton
Chapter 26: Marks-woman-ship
While Yellow Hair was down south meandering through lands that would be called — in the 21st century and on a different world — Arkansas and Louisiana, Thomas Wind Rider and his wife Winona took six pack-horses loaded with French pistols, some black powder, and twenty-five women armed with Girardoni rifles up the north branch from Prairie Peace.
They rode until they found a river that flowed northeast, and followed it until they saw a large encampment of Caddo and Quapaw who were delighted to see Wind Rider again, whom they had met at Prairie Peace. They were surprised to see Winona with him, but shocked to see her armed with a French pistol and her own Girardoni rifle.
The Quapaw chief, Bright Feather, greeted Wind Rider warmly and asked him why he was traveling with armed women. Wind Rider replied, “Because they shoot better than the men.” Bright Feather laughed, but Winona didn’t. She merely checked the priming on her rifle and adjusted the sights.
Bright Feather gestured for them to sit and share food. As they ate, Wind Rider explained how the Apache-Comanche alliance had been defeating the French and Spanish forces. Bright Feather listened carefully, his eyes narrowing when Wind Rider described the Girardoni rifles’ capabilities.
One of the Quapaw warriors scoffed. “No woman can shoot better than a man.”
Winona said, “I can out shoot anyone at two hundred paces. If we set up targets at ONE hundred paces, I’ll still out shoot him with any rifle, using my Girardoni at two hundred.”
The warrior laughed and pointed to a rotting log across the river. “Hit that.”
She laughed. “That can’t be even seventy paces. See that dead leaf hanging on a branch on the other side of the river? That’s about one twenty. You can even go first.” She dismounted and flushed a new lead ball into her Girardoni.
The warrior dismounted and brought his rifle to his shoulder. He fired. And missed. Judging by the location of the leaves that moved, the shot was about a foot high.
Winona brought up her Girardoni, exhaled fully, and fired. The targeted leaf fell off its branch three seconds later. She slid her air rifle into its saddle-mounted sheath. And then she shook hands with the Quapaw warrior. “I’m sure it was the wind at the last minute.”
Bright Feather was impressed and gestured toward the women who had accompanied Wind Rider and Winona. “They can all shoot like that?”
“Better,” Wind Rider replied, accepting a pipe from one of the elders. “They trained for eight moons with rifles that never misfire.” He exhaled smoke toward the warrior who’d challenged Winona. “Apache women don’t miss.”
Winona, was listening on the fringe of the meeting, threw a moccasin at Wind Rider, hitting him squarely on the chest.
“I mean,” he gathered up the moccasin and tossed it back to Winona, “that all the women can shoot NEARLY AS GOOD as my wife can ... That’s what I meant to say.” He laughed and took a sip from a bowl of fruit juice. The other men sharing the pipe at the circle around the campfire laughed as well.
Bright Feather gestured toward the rifles the women carried. “And you have enough powder and shot to teach our warriors?”
“Bright Feather, did you hear any evidence of powder when she shot?” Wind Rider said. “I’ll answer for you. You did not. These are powderLESS rifles. We only brought twenty-seven of these guns. But we brought many French weapons and some powder that we can give your warriors. We want to follow the great river up stream. I have heard of a great meeting of two rivers, farther. That is where I want to go. I have heard tales of the Kickapoo and the Missouria tribes who live along the river.”
Bright Feather leaned forward, intrigued. “You seek allies beyond the Quapaw and Caddo?”
“Yes, we are Apache,” Wind Rider said, “and have already made alliances with the Kiowa, the Chiricahua, the Comanche, and the Crow. We have made great cities, Geronimo, and Prairie Peace. And defeated the Spanish Santa Fe, and the French at La Fource. We march on the French fort at New Orleans. We seek an alliance of all the native people to repel the foreign invaders of far away lands who come here to enslave and steal.”
Bright Feather nodded slowly, his gaze shifting to the packhorses laden with French weaponry. “And you would arm us with these ... thunder sticks?”
Wind Rider leaned forward, tapping the bowl of his pipe against his palm. “Better. We teach your warriors to make their own.” He gestured to Winona, who lifted a leather pouch from her saddlebag and tossed it to the Quapaw chief. Inside gleamed silver-cast bullet molds, their cavities shaped like elongated acorns.
Bright Feather traced a finger along the mold’s seam. “These are not French.”
Winona snorted. “Their guns jam after three shots. Ours?” She jerked her chin toward the river where the shattered leaf drifted downstream. “Forty shots between refills. Silent as owl wings. But it will take many moons to teach your people to make these rifles. Until then, we can give you other guns and teach you how to use them.”
Bright Feather handed the mold to an elder, whose eyes widened at its precision. “You would share this power?”
“We have nothing to fear from our new allies the Quapaw and the Caddo,” she said.
Bright Feather chuckled, shaking his head. “A woman who speaks for warriors?”
“I brought only women warriors on my journey. But they are Apache women.” Wind Rider spoke again. “I am proud to be their leader, as they are proud to be warriors.”
Bright Feather studied Winona’s face—the scar along her jawline from a Spanish bayonet, the calloused fingers that reloaded her rifle without glancing down. He turned to his own war chief, a grizzled man missing two fingers. “Test her.”
The war chief grunted, hefting a French musket. “Three shots. Moving target.” He whistled sharply. Downriver, a Quapaw youth launched a canoe into the current, a pumpkin balanced on his head.
Winona didn’t blink. She reloaded her Girardoni with a metallic clink and reloaded before the canoe had traveled ten paces. The warriors murmured—no powder horn, no ramrod. Just a lead ball dropped into the breach and the subtle hiss of compressed air.
The canoe was midway across when she fired. The pumpkin exploded in a burst of orange pulp. The youth flinched but kept paddling. Before the debris hit water, Winona’s second shot took the stem clean off the replacement gourd now balanced on the canoe’s bow. The third shot punched through the floating stem like a needle threading air.
Silence. Then the war chief threw his musket into the dirt. “Teach us.”
Wind Rider smiled. “Come with us to meet the Missouria and Kickapoo. We will share what we have and you can learn.”
Bright Feather nodded. “We will bring twenty warriors.” He gestured to the women. “And ten of our best female hunters. And our Medicine Man, Crowfoot. He was born with a misshapen foot, but he is an elder and is the wisest in our village.”
Wind Rider nodded and turned to Winona. She whispered, “I like this man. He honors his elders and hunters.”
Bright Feather gestured to Crowfoot, who limped forward with a staff carved with raven symbols. His left foot twisted inward – a birth defect – but his sharp eyes missed nothing. He sniffed the Girardoni rifle Winona offered, then licked the barrel. “No saltpeter,” he muttered. “Power without smoke.” He tapped the air reservoir with a bony finger. “Spirit wind.”
Winona blinked. “You understand its working?”
Crowfoot’s cracked lips split into a grin. “The white man’s thunder steals breath from the sky.” He tapped the rifle’s buttstock where the air valve hissed faintly. “This one sings with the wind’s own voice.” The elders murmured as he limped to the riverbank, plucking a cattail stalk. With practiced twists, he fashioned a crude dart, then inserted it into the Girardoni’s barrel. The assembled warriors gasped when he fired – the dart embedded itself in a cottonwood trunk thirty paces away without sound.
Bright Feather exhaled sharply. “No flame. No smoke.” He turned to Wind Rider. “Your women hunt like ghosts?”
Winona ejected the cattail dart with a sharp flick of her wrist. “Better. Ghosts leave whispers. We leave nothing.” She nodded toward Crowfoot, who was examining the rifle’s trigger mechanism with fingers that trembled not from age but excitement. “Your medicine man sees the truth. These are not white men’s weapons – they’re wind spirits given form.”
The Quapaw war chief picked up the discarded French musket, hefting its weight with a grimace. “And these?”
Wind Rider took the weapon, flipping it upside down to show the crude ironwork. “These kill at half the distance, jam in rain, and deafen the shooter.” He tossed it to one of the Apache women, who caught it midair, spun, and fired – shattering a clay pot on a stump fifty paces away. “But they teach discipline. And they, too, can kill.”
Bright Feather studied the shattered fragments. “You would trade these for furs?”
“No,” said Wind Rider. “We give them to our new allies, as a sign of friendship.”
Bright Feather’s war chief hesitated. “And in return?”
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