Chapter 2

Author’s note:[ and ] delineate mind-to-mind dialog.

I came to another little town that had a marshal and was able to get rid of everything in a short time. If I hurried, I might still be able to make that skirmish that I was looking for. Once I was safely out of town, I had the robot mule speed up to 15 MPH. I wasn’t going to make the beginning of the fight, but I should be there in time to be of some help.

Luckily, I did not see anybody and was able to maintain the 15 MPH speed up until I was close enough to hear the sound of gunfire. I stopped beside the road and had the impenetrable screen put around the RV and mule. I had my shotgun in my left hand as the replicator teleported me to the site of the fight.

The difference between this fight and the previous one was that this fight took place on a field with no hills to speak of and was generally flat. There was a patrol of Dragoons surrounded by Comanches who were riding around them looking for a weak spot to attack. There seemed to be 15 soldiers with an officer. I couldn’t get a good count of the Comanches, but there were a hell of a lot of them.

As usual, the Comanche weapons appeared to be a mixture of Spencers and bows. Either one could fire a fatal shot, so it really did not make much difference which missile hit you, you were up shit creek if you didn’t get medical help pretty soon.

The soldiers were using those damned single-shot rifles with the copper shell casings that so often jammed in the chamber. If the soldiers didn’t get some help soon, they were going to be massacred. Hopefully, my help would make a difference. As soon as I spotted a suitable place close enough to the action, I had the replicator teleport me into position, and I started shooting.

The Comanches appeared to be gathering themselves for a headlong charge at the soldiers using their favorite weapon, the lance. Okay, I had no time to fool around. I opened fire with the shotgun against my belly and held the trigger back. I moved the pump action as fast as I could and sprayed buck and ball into the mass of the Comanches. They had not seen me behind them until I began shooting, and I shot 11 shells as fast as I could register the gun after each shot.

I dropped that magazine and loaded in another one in practically one motion. The Indians simply did not know what to make of so much death-dealing lead flying at them from only one man. I broke up their idea of a charge at the soldiers, and the war chief correctly deduced that they had to get rid of me to save their horses.

They turned and charged at me with what looked to me like reckless abandon. They actually got in each other’s way as each man jockeyed to be the first one to reach me. I emptied my shotgun into the face of the charge. The fallen horses forced the unhurt horses to swerve around their dead and dying animals, and that broke that phase of the charge.

The Comanches rode past me as they tried to get their horses back under control. It was obvious to me that the shotgun just did not have enough shells in a magazine to handle a charge like that last one. Yeah, I broke that first charge, but that was because the Comanches did not realize what a repeating shotgun could do to them. Now they knew, and I was sure that their tactics would adjust to the situation.

[Replicator, I need a 30-round magazine if I am to survive.] There was a soft pop of displaced air, and four magazines suddenly were on the ground beside me. My God, but those magazines were heavy. I was going to have to rethink the situation when all of this was over.

I switched to one of the new magazines just in time to fight the second charge. This time I put the shotgun to my shoulder and aimed at a specific horse. This cut only slightly into my rate of fire, but it resulted in much more accurate shooting. I knocked down the first horse at 75 yards or so, and just kept firing as soon as I could register on a target. Suddenly I was jarred by a lance that hit my abdomen at about where the gall bladder should be. There was no penetration, of course, but I was knocked down by the force of the blow from an angle I was not expecting.

It was a damned good thing that there were fewer Indians in this charge, but I was lying on my back on the ground, so there was not much that I could do with the shotgun. I dropped the shotgun and pulled both of my pistols. There were four Comanches charging at me with their horses running at full speed. I had only a few seconds to act, so I started shooting my .45s.

As I said, I was a champion shot with the pistol, and the horses were now close enough to look the size of elephants to my flaming nerves. I fired at the four horses, one shot apiece, and hit every one of them in the chest. In every case, the horse took a tumble, and the Indian came flying over its head to strike the ground head first at around 25 MPH. Scratch four Indians.

The Indians now turned for one more charge. There were only five of them left, plus the war chief. I had the time, so I carefully aimed at the war chief and fired three shots at him. I was shooting at the war chief and not his horse, so I was supremely lucky to hit him with at least one bullet. He was about 50 yards away, and he went in a flip over the tail of his horse. I have not idea how many bullets actually hit him, but there was no question that his was dead from the way he hit the ground.

I didn’t take the time to admire my work, but continued to shoot at the remaining Indians. They all turned to run, but I did manage to knock two off their horses. I don’t know how many, if any, of the others I hit, but they kept going, so the battle was over.

The soldiers seemed to be stunned by my victory, so I figured that I should not hang around for a congratulatory session. [Replicator, teleport me back to the RV. I think it is time for me to leave in a hurry before I have to explain things which have no explanation.] He agreed with me and conveyed me to the driver’s seat of the RV without discussion.

He did say, [I will clean up the empty brass right away. There is no point in letting the soldiers find things that will only confuse them.]

The replicator teleported the RV to a good camping place off the main road so that I could come down for my combat high. Oh, God, I hoped that I never had to go through something like that again!

I poured myself a stiff drink and sat down in my recliner. My recliner!? Where did that come from? I guess that this was just another example of the replicator taking good care of me. Anyway, I relaxed with my drink and fell asleep just as I finished it. I didn’t wake up until supper time as supplied by the replicator.

You may wonder why I seem to be picking on the Comanches. Well, the explanation is simple: the Comanches were the worst neighbors that you could imagine. They figured that they were the Great Spirit’s chosen people, and the whole world belonged to them. For centuries, the Comanches had fought with their neighbors with the primary intention of wiping them out.

When the Whites showed up, they were just added to the list of enemies who had to be eradicated. There were some other tribes who were almost as bad as the Comanches, but the Comanches had been at the job of cleansing the Earth much longer. I don’t know that this was the first case of “ethnic cleansing,” but it sure was vigorous and long lasting. It was only by brute force that the Comanches were finally driven to take up reservation life.

Well, I discovered that I was not as hardhearted as I had thought. I couldn’t take that much killing without a break. I spent five days camping in my current location before venturing out. I didn’t toss my map of the battles aside, but I did put it in a safe place where I could find it if I needed to reference it again. I was going to kill as many Comanches as I could if they attacked me, but I was going to stop hunting them for now. For one thing, I was afraid of messing up the time stream.