Chapter 9

For the next few years, life settled into a comfortable rut. Spring Flower had delivered a baby boy whom we all loved dearly. She named him Big Roar because of the way he could scream when he was unhappy. Fortunately, that was not very often.

Honey Bee became my second wife and eventually delivered a daughter whom we also loved dearly. She was named Butterfly, and I thought that she was beautiful enough to deserve the name. Our hut was enlarged to take care of the growing family, still ruled over by the women who were now grandmothers. Grandpa White Buck was a greater trial to Spring Flower and Honey Bee because he spoiled his grandchildren even worse than their father did.

Sometimes, White Buck and I were forced to abandon the hut for a few hours to escape the nagging by the new mothers over the way he and I were spoiling the children. Of course, as soon as we returned to the hut, the nagging started all over again. White Buck told me not to worry about it, that was just the way mothers acted. His spoiling had done no harm with his children. I was glad to hear that and took his advice.

This was now 1861, and the Comanches were becoming a problem again. Mostly, they were still concentrating on the Whites, but they would not avoid taking a shot at one of us if the opportunity arose. We men discussed whether or not we should raid another Comanche village to remind them what could happen if they did not leave us alone. So far, we had not yet decided that we had to act so strongly. After all, it was amusing to have someone to shoot at every once in a while.

The Chiricahuas and the Navajos were leaving us pretty much alone, but that could change at any time. Honey Bee and Spring Flower were still visiting the blackberry patch, but White Buck and I did not worry much about that because they both had two Colt Navy revolvers and were quite experienced with them. Honey Bee did have to shoot a Chiricahua who tried to grab her, but that was the only incident in the past year.

I did invest in a Henry repeating rifle when one showed up in Bradyville. My experience with the metallic cartridges was so good that I had all of my cap and ball pistols reworked to use metallic cartridges of the type used in the Henry. I had stopped carrying the shotgun on my saddle once I had switched to the Henry and the metallic cartridges.

Another change I made was to switch from the very heavy Dragoon to the Starr DA in 0.44 caliber. The Starr DA weighed about half what the Dragoon weighed and was double-action; ie, it did not require that the hammer be cocked as a separate action. All one had to do to shoot was to pull the trigger. From the time I switched revolvers, I gloried in the loss of dead weight as I carried four of the pistols around my waist in the crossdraw mode. I asked the women if they wanted to switch to the Starr, but they were quite happy with what they already had.

Likewise, White Buck did not want to bother with changing to a different pistol. He was happy because he so rarely used his pistol. He really preferred the bow, and he no longer went on scouting missions, but sent me instead; therefore, he stuck to his bow for his hunting expeditions. White Buck was so accurate with his bow that he really needed nothing else.

I usually accompanied White Buck when he went hunting, not because we felt that he needed backup, but strictly for the company. I had come to love White Buck as my father, and I was like a son to him, so we thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company.

One morning we were hunting in a wooded area north of the village. Since he was the senior hunter, White Buck was leading and I was following about 10 feet behind him. Suddenly, White Buck raised his hand to stop me, and I froze in place. From his actions, I could tell that he had spotted something, and it was not the elk that we were hunting.

He motioned me forward and whispered, “I just saw a gang of six Navajos headed our way, and they were dressed for war. I will continue to use my bow, but I suggest that you switch to your pistols.”

Okay, I considered one of White Buck’s “suggestions” to be a formal command, so I slung my bow across my back and drew a Starr DA with my right hand. If necessary, I would draw a second Starr DA with my left hand, but I did not think that would be necessary for only six Navajos.

Uh-oh, we had been seen by the Navajos. There was no doubt of that because an arrow came flying in from their direction. I would have been spitted for good if the arrow had not brushed against a tree limb at the last moment. White Buck was already covered by a tree trunk, but I had to make a quick jump for my own covering tree.

While I was moving, White Buck let off the arrow he had been planning to send into an elk and skewered a Navajo with it. We did not know how badly the man was wounded, but we definitely heard a grunt of pain an appropriate amount of time later.

Another arrow came headed my way and grazed my left upper arm. The wound was not deep, but surely Spring Flower could sew it up into an impressive scar. I did not care that much, but she would be pleased for me to be able to show a wound taken in battle with an enemy.

I snapped off a shot at the Navajo who had launched the arrow at me. The noise of the pistol firing covered any sound that the Navajo might have made, but I did see a splash of blood on his chest. He fell to the ground, so I knew that he was out of the fight, even if he were not dead yet. If not, I would cut his throat when I went to collect his scalp.

That left four Navajos to face us, but we were confident of winning this skirmish even though Navajo warriors had a fearsome reputation. Now there were none of them to be seen, so we had to assume that they had separated and melted into the woods to attack us individually.

We both moved to different trees so that hopefully the Navajos would have more trouble finding us. I was dripping blood from my wound, so I was going to have to squelch that so that I did not leave a trail that an enemy could follow. I squatted below the level of the underbrush and tied a piece of cloth around my arm. With only one hand to work on it, I could not make it tight enough to act as a compression bandage, but I did provide a blotter for the blood so that I did not leave such an obvious trail.

I did not know where White Buck had disappeared to, but I was confident that he could take care of himself. On the other hand, I was not so sure about myself. It was not long before I heard another grunt of pain, and I was sure that was a Navajo doing the grunting.

I slowly stood back up and looked out over the undergrowth. By this time, I had had another growth spurt, and I was now about 5’-6” tall—tall enough to see over the top of most of the undergrowth. Oh-ho, I could see some of the undergrowth move in a direction contrary to way the rest was moving in the breeze.

I watched that segment of underbrush closely and was able to tell that its movement was not the result of White Buck disturbing it. Had there been more Mescaleros in our party, I would have had to allow for the disturbance being caused by one of my friends, but I was certain that it was a Navajo, considering the circumstances. I fired a shot into the disturbance at chest level and saw a massive change in the way the brush moved. There was no further movement in that section of the bushes, so I was sure that it was another dead Navajo.

I moved away from that location where I had fired my pistol in order to escape the plume of powder smoke. The breeze was blowing hard enough to disperse the smoke fairly rapidly, but not before it might have been spotted. None of the Navajos had a gun, so they would know who it was who had fired that shot.

I tried to be extra clever and keep an eye on where I had just been. My idea was that I might trap a Navajo who had seen the smoke puff and was trying to use it to find me. Using myself as bait for an enemy was not exactly a new thing for me, but I did try to keep it to a minimum. One of these days, I might not be so lucky.

Again, I had squatted down so that I could look for feet moving along the ground. No matter how skilled a person was in moving through brush without leaving a marker, he could do nothing about having to stand on the ground. Ah, I had been correct about somebody using my powder smoke to track me—in fact, there were two sets of feet moving in my direction, and they were not very far away.

One was close enough to warrant taking a shot at him. I could not see his body through the brush, but I had no trouble seeing his feet and ankles. The moccasins were definitely not of Mescalero style, so I had definite proof that these were the feet of an enemy. At this point, the person of interest was less than 20 feet away, so I was confident of hitting my target if I shot at his ankles.

I lined up a shot and fired. Of course, I hit where I had aimed, as I was confident of doing. At this range and where the bullet hit, the foot was blasted completely off the leg. The bullet hit with such force that there were no remnants of skin strong enough to resist the complete tearing away of the foot. Blood was pouring out of the stump at the end of the leg, so I was pretty sure that the person would bleed out in a very short time.

By this time, my victim was lying on his back and I had a clear shot at him. No matter who it might be, I was not happy to see anybody suffer, so I put a bullet in his head to stop the pain. My Mescalero friends could not understand that attitude, but that was just the way I was.

This was my favorite of my four pistols—do not ask me why, it just was. Therefore, I had already fired four of the six shots it held, so I decided to pause to reload. Since the Starr DA was a break-action design, it took only about 15 seconds to replace all four empty shells, and I was ready to shoot again.

The other man who had been sneaking up on me had paused when I took my last shot, but now he was approaching me again. I figured that if it worked once, it could work again, so I planned to use the same tactic on this new guy who was coming toward me.

I was just getting ready to shoot when I heard a grunt of pain coming from him. He fell forward onto his face, and I could see one of White Buck’s arrows sticking up from his back. A moment later, I heard his voice, “Okay, Stalwart Defender, that is the last of them.”