Chapter 2

The first couple of hours of my ride were as close as a woman could get while riding a horse to being totally boring, then things livened up. A stagecoach came roaring past me, and I barely was able to get out of the way. I was pissed off, I will admit, but I did start paying more attention to what was going on around me.

It was well I did because about half an hour later I came upon a holdup. Two road agents were forcing a man to surrender his money, and I had the distinct impression that they were going to shoot the victim as soon as they had extracted all of his money. Certainly, he was riding a beautiful horse, and the saddle was a work of art. I was about ready to classify the victim as an idiot to ride alone on such a dandified outfit. He was just inviting robbery, if not worse.

As I watched and prepared to come to the aid of the victim, suddenly a huge dog appeared and jumped for one of the robbers. The moment that happened, the victim drew a revolver and shot the other robber. All of a sudden, there were two dead road agents and a very satisfied looking dog. The dog had torn out the throat of the robber he had jumped, and I must say that I had no idea that such a large dog could jump that high.

Obviously, the dandified man had the situation under control, but he had aroused my curiosity. I rode closer and made sure that he could see that I was no threat. “Good day, Sir. I must say that I was impressed to see how well you took care of those two road agents. If you don’t mind, I must ask if that was a common thing for you to do, or was this an isolated incident?”

The dandy tipped his hat and said, “Good day to you, Ma’am. I am a bounty hunter, and this is how I usually accomplish my mission. I found that this outfit is like honey to ants, and I usually attract a good share of road agents this way. My friend Ajax is a great help when I find myself outnumbered.” He indicated the dog when he mentioned its name, so I had no doubt who he was talking about.

“Well, by being a woman, I have had that kind of luck, too. However, I think that I could greatly improve my survival chances by having a canine companion. By the way, my name is Helen Hunt. Are we heading in the same direction?”

“Yes, Miss Hunt, it appears that we are. My name is Josh McIntyre, and I am very pleased to make your acquaintance. If you are so inclined, I would be pleased to accompany you. Of course, I will have to ask your indulgence if either of these galoots are on one of my wanted posters.”

“Of course, Mr. McIntyre. I understand the necessity for taking the galoots to a marshal for a receipt. I would be happy to ride along with you at least to the next town. But I must ask if Ajax will tolerate my presence?”

“That is no problem, Miss Hunt. Ajax will not attack unless I signal him to do so. He is exceedingly well trained and will accept anyone I accept.”

“Great, then let’s get your latest prizes taken care of and be on our way. I hope that I am not too forward when I offer to help you with these two.”

“Oh, no, I am always happy to receive assistance. How would you like to proceed?”

“You check for their valuables that you would like to claim, and I will help you get them returned to their horses and tied on. It’s your party, so I expect you to lead.”

“Ha, ha. An excellent turn of phrase. I will have to remember that. Oh, please call me ‘Josh’ while we are working together. ‘Mr. McIntyre’ seems much too formal for the kind of work we are doing.”

“Well, in that case, I suppose that you must call me ‘Helen.’ I’m not one to insist on a lot of formality.”

“Very well, Helen. I will take pleasure in doing so.”

We worked for about 20 minutes getting the bodies searched for valuables and tied to their horses. Josh already had a lead rope prepared so that did not take more than a minute or two to set up. We mounted and rode side by side to the next town.

On the way, Josh asked me, “Helen, I hope that I do not offend you by asking, but I am curious as to where you come from. You have a different way of speaking from anyone else whom I have ever heard.”

“Oh, I’ll bet you are talking about the contractions that I use. Where I came from, we had fallen into the habit of combining words into shorter words, and I am having a very hard time breaking that habit. I suppose that you can tell what I mean from the context, but I can see how my speech would sound odd. Believe it or not, I have spent the last four years in Afghanistan, and only recently have I returned to Texas.”

Oops, now I had to explain where Afghanistan was, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to bring up the part about time traveling. I also wasn’t going to mention the part about being in combat unless Josh asked a specific question, though I might tell him about it later.

“I see that you carry a variety of weapons. Was it in Afghanistan that you learned to use them?”

Uh-oh, already hoisted on my own petard, dammit. “Well, my father taught me how to shoot, and I learned the knife-work later. Actually, I am quite good with practically any weapon you could name.”

It was almost at that moment when we were spotted by a small band of Comanches, probably about 11 of them. They looked to be rather young, and that meant that they were sure to attack us. After all, what better way to show their companions their bravery in battle. That is, assuming that they don’t see that I’m a woman.

The Indians charged toward us, and there was no way for us to outrun them. Their weapons were Spencer rifles; therefore, very old, but still able to shoot a lethal bullet. As one, we turned toward a small growth of trees in hope of forcing them to fight us on foot. We rode among the trees and dismounted quickly. I grabbed my shotgun and water canteen; Josh grabbed his Henry and water. We did not worry about the horses—horses were too valuable to the Comanches for them to take a chance on injuring one.

Josh and I left our horses loosely tied to bushes and hunkered down to fight. He had the range on me with his rifle, so he fired off several shots while I waited for the Indians to get closer. He was shooting at the Indians and not the horses, so I suggested that he shoot at the horses, since an Indian falling with a running horse was sure to be killed or at least hurt enough so that he could not continue to fight. He did change his target at my suggestion.

It really did not take long for the Indians to come into range of my sawed-off shotgun, and I fired. Hell, the spread of the shot was going to mean that I hit both the horse and the rider, no matter which one I aimed at. Josh and I each managed to down one horse and rider, but the Indians were dodging around and moving too fast to make very good targets.

Josh said, “Those Injuns look young enough not to be married to fighting from their horses. I expect them to attack us on foot as soon as they realize that we have the advantage while we are in these trees and they are mounted. Ah, look—a couple of them have already dismounted. Ajax, sic them!”

I was amazed at how quickly the dog disappeared. He seemed to vanish as he moved through the brush toward the Indians. Dammit, I was disgusted with myself for paying attention to the dog when I should be paying attention to the enemy. I’d had to bark at the grunts in my squad in Afghanistan about that sort of thing, and here I was guilty of the same kind of thing. Well, I was luckier than most because I was still alive.

The rest of the Indians dismounted and spread out, so Josh and I switched to our pistols. They were now holding knives and war clubs, though I did see a few with what I thought must be tomahawks. I wondered where those had come from because the steel heads shown brightly with the sheen of newness. Maybe we would be lucky and the Indians would not be sure of how to use their tomahawks. Ha, yeah, I’ll bet!

Anyway, they almost disappeared in the tall grass and brush, and I could see that we were in trouble. We could only be sure where they were by the motion of the grass, so that was all that we had to shoot at. As a result, we rarely heard a cry of pain following a shot. We were too often firing without a clear view of our target, but that was better for our nerves than not shooting at all. Every once in a while, Josh or I would wing one of the Indians, so that kept us from going crazy. At least, we had some hope of surviving this battle.

Suddenly, there was a cry of pain and neither Josh nor I had fired, so that must be Ajax to the rescue. I didn’t expect him to eliminate all of the attackers, but the more he could hurt, the better were our chances. Also, the Comanches considered war dogs to be the personification of demons, and they always ran from demons if they had the chance. I sure hoped that they would take that option.

Dammit, there was now the problem of shooting at rustling grass because that might be Ajax moving around. Now we couldn’t shoot unless we were certain of what we were shooting at. Well, there was a little pause in the action, so I figured that this would be a good time to reload my guns. I had emptied one and switched to the other one, so I needed to reload as soon as possible.

I had returned my empty gun to my holster and had opened my currently held gun to reload the cylinder. Just as I was dropping a cartridge into an empty place in the cylinder, I happened to see an Indian very close to me rise from the grass and try to smash me with his war club. How the hell had he managed to sneak so close without me spotting him?!

My holstered gun was empty and the gun in my hand could not be fired the way it was broken open, so there was only one thing that I could do. I dropped the gun I was currently reloading and drew my Bowie knife. The way I was lying prone on the ground, the only way the Indian could strike at me was with an overhand swing—not the preferred way to swing a war club because it left his torso completely open to attack.

All I could do was to roll close to him so that his swing down put the war club head just past my body, but the haft landed across my belly and hurt like hell. Luckily, the pain was not so bad as to make me miss my stroke. I swung the Bowie knife across his belly and managed to make quite a slice through the skin just below his bellybutton. Dammit, blood, shit, and internal organs plastered me as he fell onto me, but he seemed to be dead, for which I was grateful.

While I was in the Marines, I had learned all I could about fighting with a knife, so I was a bit surprised that he was dead. Usually it takes a while for a man to die from the kind of cut I had administered, so I didn’t want to take a chance. I took the opportunity to slice the Indian’s throat just in case he wasn’t dead. Better safe than sorry!