Chapter 1

Dammit, I cannot lose them! Those six Navajos are still on my trail. I knew that I was in trouble when their war-party first jumped me this morning. I had just crossed Cripple Creek when my horse dropped from under me. Yeah, a bullet in the head will usually do that to a man or beast.

Fortunately, I managed to slip my feet from the stirrups and get my legs up before the horse hit the ground. I rolled between the horse’s legs just as a mad fusillade was fired at me by nine Indians. Thank God that few Indians had enough cartridges to get in any practice. Even that shot that killed my horse had to have been aimed at me, but poorly enough to hit my horse instead of me.

I managed to pull my Winchester .44-40 rifle from its sheath and to grab my water canteen before I abandoned my horse’s body. I had a pouch of 50 cartridges for my rifle and revolver fastened to my belt, so I didn’t have that to worry about. On top of that, I had 14 rounds in my rifle and six in my Remington revolver, so I figured to have enough ammunition on me to kill some Navajos, even if it turned out to be not enough to save my life.

I was right by the water’s edge, so I rolled over the little ridge that formed the stream’s bank and used that as a bulwark to follow to get me a little closer to the clump of cottonwood trees near the bank. The Navajos must of seen me roll away from my horse, but they stopped shooting when I dropped out of sight below that little ridge. I crawled toward them trees, trying to keep my head and my butt low enough not to show over the ridge.

I must of been successful because no more shots came my way. Even an Indian would not shoot at what he could not see. Anyway, for whatever reason, I managed to get within a few yards of the first tree. I gathered myself and lunged to my feet toward that tree. I was pumping my legs as fast as I could before I was fully upright. That must of surprised them Navajos enough so that they did not shoot at me until I was behind that first tree.

Them Navajos were behind some trees about 100 feet away, and they were showing damned little flesh for me to shoot at. Back about 100 yards among the trees I could see an Indian with a rifle, but he was not making any effort to shoot at me. That made me figure that he was the war chief and leader of this war-party. I might have a chance if I could eliminate him.

That was a reasonable shot for a Winchester, and I was pretty good with my rifle. Everything considered, I figured that I owed it to myself to try to shoot him. I lay down on the ground in the prone position and carefully lined up my shot. I figured that I had only one easy shot at that war chief, so I had better not blow it. I used every thing I knew about accurate shooting and gently squeezed the trigger.

My target dropped almost immediately. I was aiming for his chest, and I saw some blood spurt from there as he fell. Well, I am not an experienced Indian fighter, but I did not linger on watching the man I had just shot. It was a good thing, too.

A couple of the Navajos jumped from behind their trees and started shooting in my direction. Thank God they were using Spencer rifles. With the Spencer, you have to lever the cartridge into the chamber and cock the hammer as separate operations. Let me tell you, that takes time, and it seems like forever when you are in a gunfight.

With a Winchester, the same action that levers in a cartridge also cocks the hammer, so you can get off almost twice the number of shots with a Winchester as you can with a Spencer. Anyway, I moved as fast as I could, and I managed to put a bullet into one Indian’s gut and another into the other Indian’s chest. Well, them .44 caliber bullets sure pack a punch, especially from a rifle, so both Navajos went down. That was how I got my three Navajos early in the game.

I rolled back behind my sheltering tree and climbed carefully to my feet. I sure as hell did not want to give them Navajos a decent target. They might not be good shots, but they could get lucky, and I was trying not to do anything stupid. I looked at the clump of trees that I had to work with and made my decision. I knew that I was going to die if I stayed where I was, but I might get away if I left now.

I hoped that the Navajos would follow the usual pattern: when the war chief was put out of action, there was a pause while a new war chief was elected. I did not know enough about Navajo practices to be sure that they would do that, but I was going to take a chance on it. If I were lucky enough, I might get away while they were busy politicking.

I carried my revolver on my left side at my waist in a crossdraw position. That meant that I could draw it even as I ran. My Winchester had an unusual accessory: I had a gun smith put a sling on it so that I could carry it on my back. I reloaded the Winchester and slung it on my back. Now I was ready to run.

I had chosen my path so that I could weave back and forth to provide as little target as possible to the Navajos, yet the path was straight enough to get me to the next clump of trees in the minimum possible time. Three shots were fired at me as I ran. Did that mean that the other three were busy politicking for the job as war chief? I really did not care—I just ran as hard as I could. Fortunately, I was wearing cavalry boots and not cowboy boots, because the lower heels let me run faster through the loose sand.

I did make it to the next trees without being hit, and that made me very happy, but I was not finished, yet. The Navajos knew exactly where I was, so I had to keep going. I did have to slow down at this point because the trees were closer together. By being closer together, the trees kept me from seeing very far, and I had to be sure that I could see any obstruction that might be in my way. I was concerned about stepping in a hole and spraining my ankle, or even breaking it. That would be fatal.

I would not be able to run much farther without a rest. I always rode my horse whenever possible and never ran if I could avoid it. That oversight was liable to get me killed in the next hour, but it was too late to do anything about it at the moment.

I did have a plan. I hoped to loop back and ambush the Navajos at the first appropriate spot. The problem was that I did not know when or where that would be. One thing that I had to keep in mind was that the Navajos almost never rode horses, so they could easily outrun me, and they could beat me all hollow on stamina.

I made a right-angle turn to my left. I was hoping that any Navajos that got this far would not notice and keep running the way I had been going. I ran about 50 feet and made another left turn. I hoped that this would eventually put me behind the Indians.

Dammit, I had run as far as I could and had to stop to rest for at least a minute or two. I was now about 175 feet from where I had made that first left turn, and I could see if the Navajos kept running along the original line. Uh-oh, here they came. Shit! I should have known that was going to happen. One of them was sharp-eyed enough to see that I had made that first turn. It looked like they never slowed down, but made the turn to follow me.

I lost them among the trees at that point, but I knew that they were still following me. This was the point where I had started the story. Okay, they were going to catch up to me before I was in any condition to run any more, so I was going to have a serious fight on my hands. I looked around for some sort of strong point and spotted a fallen tree that might be of some help. There was nothing better immediately available, so I picked that spot to make my stand.