Chapter 3

I dropped back a little more to try to protect Joey, who was driving the next wagon in the line. The Indians would probably shoot Joey on principle, but my wagon was the one they really wanted. I got Joey’s attention and yelled, “DROP DOWN IN THE BOX UNTIL THE INDIANS ARE GONE!” He waved at me and disappeared. Joey was not the smartest man you ever met, but he was not stupid!

I waited a little longer until the Indians got a bit closer. They were waving their guns in the air and shouting war cries more than they were shooting. I was not sure what they had in mind, but their overconfidence was going to get them killed!

Once they were about 50 yards away, I fired my first barrel from the shotgun. It may have been surprise as much as anything, but the Indian tumbled off over the horse’s tail. He fell on his head, so there was no doubt that he had to be dead.

The other three Indians were so excited by their charge at me that they may not even have heard the shotgun fire. The next Indian was only 40 yards away, so I could not afford to waste any time. I aimed and fired the other barrel, and he also tumbled off his horse. I reloaded as fast as I could, but the Indians were getting too damned close for me to get in any more shots after this pair. I just hoped that I was as lucky as I felt.

The last two Indians were now no more than 20 yards away and riding so close together that I took a chance and fired both barrels at them. I could see blood spots on one man’s chest, so I knew that I could write him off because he was going to die of infection if the buckshot did not kill him. He sagged on his horse and turned away from the line of the charge.

The fourth man was still on his horse, but he had no head that I could see. The powder smoke had blurred out my vision for a moment, so I did not see what had happened to him. Apparently, a clump of buckshot had hit him in the face and simply destroyed his head. His horse swerved and dumped the Indian on the ground when he got too close to my wagon.

At this point I was shaking. Not from having killed a man, but from coming so close to having been killed myself. Shit, I was getting a second shotgun! There was not time to load a shotgun, even a breachloader, in that short a time. I would have had to use my pistol on that last Indian if the shotgun had not killed him, and that would have been a chancy thing.

Nina had halted the column and grabbed a ride from one of the messengers. She showed up only seconds after the last Indian had hit the ground. “Al, are you okay?” was the first thing I heard from anybody.

I managed to answer something that satisfied her question, but all of the bystanders were amazed when she climbed into my driver’s box and hugged me. I think that she was about to kiss me when she realized what she was about to do. It would have been food for gossip for weeks if she had done so. The hug was bad enough. Her reputation was on shaky ground, even if we were among friends.

Cookie seemed to be the first one to recover from the shock of what Nina had done, and he got her down with the flimsy excuse that he wanted to make sure that I was not wounded. Of course I was not wounded, but he spent enough time going over me that there was no question of the truth. “Dammit, Al, you scared the hell out of us by fighting them Indians all by yourself. Get some help next time, you damned fool.”

Well, upon reflection, I had to agree that he was correct. But, next time, I was going to have two shotguns! Also, I was going to make some changes in the way the column was organized. Nina could lead if she wanted to, but I was going to get those light wagons moved up in the column so that we could concentrate forces at the front and rear.

Furthermore, I had to stop driving if I was going to be in charge of us fighting off Indians. That was just too much to think about at one time. The Indians were just too good as cavalry to make the same mistake twice. I wanted to ride one of the spare mules so that I could move around to help where it was needed and to direct actions where that was needed. Nina and I needed to talk about this as soon as possible—probably tonight after supper.

The Indians’ horses were worth keeping, but nothing else they had was of any value to us. Their bodies were thrown to one side for the scavengers to dine on tonight. One of the men who knew identified these as Kiowa, so we knew who we had to look out for. We really knew that anyway because we were in their territory, but it somehow made us feel better to put a positive name on our enemy.

Nina stepped up the pace a little so that we had no trouble making up the time lost by the little skirmish, and there was no hesitation about making our box fort with the wagons. I guess my reputation was made by that brush with the Indians, and the hug from Nina made my position official.

Nina agreed with my plan for changing my position on the trek from driver to roving security chief. The change would be made as soon as we could find a driver for Joey’s wagon. He would take over my wagon and the new man would take on Joey’s job. Nina knew that Joey could handle a team of six mules, and the new man would only have to drive a single mule.

Luck was with us again because we found a driver at the next town we passed through. A man was beating a mule because it would not pull a load that was so obviously too much for it. I had just noticed the situation when a second man rushed up to demand that the first man stop beating the poor mule. A fight ensued, and the second man laid out the mule beater in no uncertain terms.

The problem was that the mule beater was also the mayor of the little town, and that meant that the second man was going to have to leave the town or be constantly harassed. Of course, this did nothing for the mule, but there was nothing that we could do about that.

I talked to the second man, Jake Tatum, and found that he was currently unemployed. He had been a farmer, but had lost his farm in the latest financial panic and was looking for a job. Obviously, he could take over Joey’s job, so I hired him on the spot.

While in town, I did follow through on my original reason for visiting the town. I stopped by the gunsmith and bought a shotgun that was virtually identical to the one I already owned. I also picked up some more buckshot shells while I was about it. Back at the camp, I had our handyman, Hank Odam, rig me a sling for each of my two shotguns so that I could hang them on my saddle horn. That way, I was going to be able to put them into action in only seconds.

We were lucky for the next six days and managed to make up nearly all of our lost time, so we were feeling kind of cocky. I had rearranged the column so that we had seven freight wagons, four light wagons, and seven freight wagons. Normally, a spare mule had been hitched to the rear of each of the wagons, and I considered keeping saddles, etc. on all of them so that the drivers would have a quick and convenient mode of transportation if they were needed in a fight too far from their wagon.

Nina was not sure if she favored that idea or not, so we let it ride for a little while. The problem was that there would be no time to saddle the mules if the men were needed elsewhere, so I decided to saddle the mules after three days of mulling it over. Now I could call on more men if the problem came up. At the next town we came to, I picked up a whistle that I could use to call for help.

The plan was good, but we really did not have enough time to practice it. The only available time was after supper, and the men were usually too tired by then to do much but the essential chores and to rest. The few available men were the three who were driving the light wagons. Cookie was always too busy to take part, so I only had three helpers instead of the four that I really wanted. Oh, well, I would just have to make do with what I had to work with.