Chapter 15

The news that Leavenworth was in the hands of Black's men had a chilling effect on everyone. The rest of the squad that had been sent with the letter had managed to get Colonel Mayes, his wife and two daughters out and while he was unhappy at the loss of his command he was thankful to the squad for getting his family out.

Our options were pretty limited. We were less than twenty miles from the fort and after a quick meeting it was decided that we would leave immediately and make a battle plan once we were on site.

We dipped into our limited supply of oats and fed all of the horses and mules. Some of the mules that had been pulling some of the heavier loads had to be replaced, but we had more than enough spare mules and a few draft horses. In two hours all of the livestock and most of the people had been fed. While the stragglers were being fed Elizabeth Hand had her cooks making extra flat bread and johnny cake so the squads would have something to eat in the morning. Cold flat bread or johnny cake and pemmican are not the greatest breakfast in the world but it beats having your stomach think your throat has been cut. The mess workers stacked the cloth wrapped meals on seven tables and got word to the company commanders.

Squads were formed an hour before sun set and we moved out with each trooper leading a spare mount. The wagons followed the troopers with a small escort. The horses and cattle would follow at daylight with an extra squad helping them. We had grown to the point that we mounted seven full companies. Seven hundred men and women, Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow, With the last wagon train our Band had become complete. Fifty men and sixty women from China had joined us rather than finish out the life of slavery that Mr. Black had planed for them. Now the five hands on our flag represented the Bands diverse racial backgrounds.

We travelled the twenty miles to Leavenworth as quickly as we could with out killing our horses. At ten o'clock we found our squad that was waiting with Col. Mayes. Even though Matthew Johnson's letter described us the Colonel was flabbergasted to see seven hundred armed men and women. Josh Jones informed us that Black's people were very upset that the Colonel was not there.

They had spent all day looking for the Colonel and his family which had them behind some sort of schedule. When one of the search parties came too close to Josh's squad they had taken them down. According to what Josh had learned from one of the surviving members of the search party was that the women of Leavenworth would be raped starting tonight whether they found the Colonel or not. Apparently there was going to be a big party tonight but Black was giving the search teams till midnight before starting.

Black's men had confiscated every gun and grabbed every female between ten and forty. The guns were locked in the armoury and the women had been herded into a large barn at the end of town. We knew that the women needed to be protected, but we also felt that they might be used to bait a trap hoping to catch us. I remembered seeing something in the last load of medical supplies. In addition to the vaccines for smallpox and the other diseases that Black was planning on releasing on the Native Americans there were other interesting drugs. The one that came to mind now was Sodium thiopental also known as truth serum.

We tried it on the man that Josh got to talk. What he told us under the drug's effect made me shudder. It was indeed a trap, a deadly trap. According to the man Black had filled a small root cellar inside the barn with boxes that were filled with bricks of this gray clay like substance. When the man was asked what it was called he replied, "See four." He also told us that Black himself had "wired it up" using something Black had called a "remote". The man also told of other buildings where Black had put some "funny looking green things." When we showed him one of the Claymores we had seized he confirmed our fears. The heavily doped man then explained that Black had men in each building ready to set off the mines.

Colonel Mayes stepped out of the crowd and picked up the Claymore turning it over and reading the 'This side towards enemy, ' "What would happen if we turned these around with out them knowing it? The reason I ask is that some of your smaller troopers could get under the board walk and reverse them very easily."

I looked at Red Hawk and he was grinning, "I guess that leaves me the remote activated device in the root cellar."

I had been thinking about the remote ever since the man had mentioned it, "The remote won't work without a battery, if we pull the battery and then make sure that the detonators are not in the C4 we should be safe."

It wasn't much of a surprise that Fanny was the first to volunteer to move the Claymores. She was followed by every kid in the band. In the end Red Hawk selected five of the smallest troopers and put Tommy Davidson in charge. Tommy was the logical choice since he had read the Army manual on the Claymores and had been one of the ones that had set some of them the one time we had used them. He took the five volunteers and started schooling them on how to handle the antipersonnel mines.

Since I was the only one to even know what a remote might would look like, I volunteered to disarm the bomb where the women were being held. Tommy and his group would use night vision glasses and leave after it got dark. I picked Zoë Polk to go with me. We would use Ghillie suits and leave in time to be at the barn just as it got dark.

Red Hand's hand picked commandos would surround the town and try and spot any of the people Black set as lookouts. As soon as Tommy and I sent the all clear signal Robert would start everything off by firing illumination rounds followed by smoke rounds. We knew where Black's men were bunking and Robert's company would move the GMG and the two fifty cals to cover that building.

Zoë and I worked our way around to a creek that ran around towards the back of the barn where the women were being held. We hadn't gone twenty yards down the creek before we ran into two of Black's men. Zoë was carrying her new PSG-1 for long distance pin point work and we were both carrying MP5's with suppressors for bulk work. Zoë counted down from three and we dropped the two guards. The two guards didn't have the remote but they did have a detonator hard wired in. I cut the wires off of the detonator and put it in my pocket and we moved quickly towards the barn. When we got directly behind the barn we found where the wire from the two men we had killed came up and headed to the barn. The thing that made my heart stop was the other four wires with it. I was half afraid to cut them because if one of them was an alarm circuit we would be tipping our hand or worse. We decided to wait and see what was wired to what.

It seemed like it took forever for the sun to set and darkness to take over, but it finally did. Zoë and I worked our way into the barn and found the women tied with plastic tie wraps, yet another item from my time. Zoë freed one of the women that seemed the calmest and she told me where the root cellar was. I opened the door and there on the very top was a remote operated toy car and the wires leading to the blasting caps were wired to it. There was no relay anywhere to be seen so I cut the leads to the battery. The other five wires were tied to a second set of blasting caps I quickly cut all the wires. Then using a pick that Zoë found I went around the stack of C4 and boy was I glad since I found two more wires which I cut.

While I was sweating bullets in the root cellar Zoë had untied all of the women. I had just cut the last wire when Zoë stuck her head in the doorway, "Tommy just gave the all clear on the Claymores."

"Good I'm done here go give our signal," I climbed out of the cellar and went to the back door of the barn. I cracked the door and whistled the signal for the commandos. They replied right back and two of them approached the door.

Zoë was watching out the front and just as we were getting ready to start moving the women out she called out softly, "We're fixing to have company."

"Damn it," I cursed, "How many?"

"Ten ... no wait there's five more coming out of the saloon," Zoë explained.

I turned to the two commandos, "Get these women out of here and send the rest of your squad." One of the commandos whistled and eight members of their squad came running into the barn. We quickly set up an ambush in the barn.

Jacob Freeman told me that the two squads on either side of the barn were in position as well. Zoë had been using her night vision glasses and had spotted five snipers. When she made her second pass by their locations she saw the three had been taken out by the commandos that were rapidly infiltrating the town.

The door to the barn swung open and fifteen men some carrying lanterns started into the barn. The first ten dropped as the MP5's coughed quietly. The other five hit the ground right behind them as the squads on the creek side of the barn took them out. Two of the lanterns fell into the thick hay on the barn floor and ignited like gasoline. "What about the explosives?" Zoë asked. Thinking that the C4 could come in handy I jumped down in the cellar and started throwing out the crates. I had got ten of them out when Zoë stuck her head in the doorway, "That's good Tom! Come on, your wives will skin me alive if I let you get hurt."

I climbed out and the barn was fully involved. We sprinted out the back door and heard several bullets wiz past us. Shots and shouts were coming fast and furious now from all over town. We heard the crump sound of the mortars and a few seconds later the star shells coated everything with an eerie light. Troopers started pouring into the town from every direction.

Suddenly all along the main street claymores started going off. Tommy and his crew had done a proper job as the fronts of building were shredded by seven hundred steel balls when each mine did it's deadly job. The bunk house was fast turning into a fire fight as Black's men made their stand. Robert nixed that with four HE, high explosive, mortar rounds dropped right through the roof.

Colonel Mayes had gone with the company that hit the fort. There were only ten men left guarding the rest of the Colonel's command. As soon as they were freed and armed with the Henry's they advanced on the town. The Colonel's men had been abused by Black's men and they were mad. But on that account they weren't alone, the few that had survived the Claymores wrath fell to the town's people. It didn't take Black's men long to figure out that it was in their best interest to surrender to men and women wearing the buckskins. Within two hours of the first shot being fired the town was ours. The only disappointment, Black had escaped hours earlier, long before we arrived.

With the fighting over the work began. Our wagons moved up to the fort and started setting up camp. The bodies were gathered so Jase could dig ditches to bury the men in. I had bodies to patch up. We had been extremely lucky, five wounded and no dead and none of the wounded were serious. The same could not be said for Black's men. Black had taken the town with one hundred men and left fifty to hold it. He had told them that the claymores would even out the odds. The ten that were still alive could prove him wrong and five of those weren't likely to see the morning. The town's people wanted to lynch them on the spot. It took a lot of talk and the threat of having to fight the Band to convince them not to. Some of the wounded might have been saved but considering that as soon as we got the information that we wanted we were going to turn them over to the Colonel and let him deal with them we decided not to spend too much time with them.