Chapter 2

At the moment, Black Wolf was intent on keeping his head down. That accursed White Eyes was too good with his repeating rifle to take a chance. When was he going to have to reload? It seemed as if the man had been shooting forever. There it was! The click of an empty gun! Now it was his chance.

Black Wolf dropped his bow and drew his knife even as he was running at maximum speed toward the White man. Black Wolf knew that he only had moments before the rifle would be reloaded and shooting at him, again. He had to reach his foe before that happened or he would be waking up in the after life with little to show for his short life.

He dearly wanted to make a hand-to-hand kill to show that he was a worthy warrior before he died, but he had no time for the war path. The Whites were putting so much pressure on his people that he was having to struggle to feed his family since his father was killed in that raid on the Army camp. Black Wolf was the only hunter left in his family, and very nearly the only hunter left in the band. He had been out hunting on this day when the troop of White cavalry had stumbled over him as he was field dressing an antelope. They had started shooting at him, and he had been forced to run, leaving the first good kill he had made in 5 days.

There were 6 black-skinned White soldiers and a White scout. Only the scout had a repeating rifle, so it had been easy to escape from his pursuers. The soldiers spent much more time reloading than they did shooting, showing the major advantage he had with his bow and arrows. His first ambush had been rather hastily set, so he was not surprised that he'd had only a minimum of success with it. Black Wolf had hidden behind a tree and let the column rush past him. Once they were all past him, he stepped out of hiding and sent an arrow into the back of the last trooper in line. The man had not fallen off his horse until he had traveled another 50 yards, so the remaining soldiers had no idea where Black Wolf was hiding.

The soldiers were making a lot of noise as they checked out the fallen man. Black Wolf did not speak English, only Spanish, so he didn't understand the exact words the soldiers used, but he could recognize cursing when he heard it. The soldiers milled around a while, and then came back the way they had ridden, looking to the right and left for Black Wolf, but not seeing him.

Black Wolf had another arrow knocked and ready when the soldiers came close enough and let it fly into the belly of the second soldier in line. This man screamed like a child, and Black Wolf grimaced in disgust; he would not be welcomed by warriors in his after life, though he might find a place with the women. The wound was not immediately fatal, but eventually the soldier would die of the belly rot sometime in the next few days. The big advantage to Black Wolf was that the Whites would not put the wounded man out of his misery, but keep the suffering man with them until he died in great pain on his own. The Whites were such fools and so immeasurably cruel to their own people.

The Whites stopped, again, and, amid a lot of cursing, caused even more pain and damage to the wounded man by pulling the arrow out instead of breaking the shaft as close as they could to the man's belly and leaving the rest in the wound. The soldier who had pulled the arrow out threw it aside in disgust, so Black Wolf had hopes of recovering it and using the lucky arrow on another soldier.

It was not yet midmorning, so Black Wolf planned to eliminate the rest of the troop before dark, unless they ran away too fast on their horses for him to keep up. He needed to get back to his people before dark with the antelope; they had not eaten for 3 days because of the pressure of the White Army. There were 4 soldiers and the scout left, and Black Wolf only had 4 unused arrows. He really needed to recover at least one arrow in order to complete his task with a reasonable chance of surviving, and survival was essential if his family was not to starve.

Whatever happened in the next few hours, the present was too good an opportunity to miss. Only the scout was watching his surroundings, while the soldiers were clustered around their wounded friend. Black Wolf knocked another arrow and crept closer to the soldiers, but on the side opposite to the scout. The Apache carefully selected his target, only 10 yards away, and loosed his arrow into the man's chest just to the right of the breast bone. With a death scream, the soldier fell dead at the feet of his friends. All of the soldiers dove to the ground in hopes of becoming a lesser target, but only the scout fired off a shot. The bullet was not aimed, but it was enough to force Black Wolf to duck. Black Wolf dropped to the ground and wormed his way back away from his enemy. In passing, he picked up the arrow that had been thrown away by the soldier.

Black Wolf had now killed 3 of the soldiers and had only 3 soldiers and the scout left to kill. His luck was holding, and he was amazed. He had all of the skills of the Apache warrior that he had practiced since he had been a child, but now he was 15 summers old and considered a man. He should be able to complete his task if his skills did not desert him, since these soldiers had none of the fighting skills needed for this kind of battle. Black Wolf now had 4 arrows, and he was confident that these would be enough to complete his self-appointed task.

The soldiers were very frightened, and, if Black Wolf had understood English, he would have laughed to hear that the soldiers were convinced that they were surrounded and menaced by at least 20 Indians. The scout tried to tell them that it was only one man they were fighting, but they refused to listen. There was no way that one man, even Geronimo, could have done so much damage to them in such a short time. The soldiers wanted to mount their horses and run away as fast as they could go, but they were afraid to expose themselves as much as would be necessary to climb on their horses.

The scout advised them to hunker down in slit trenches and wait for dark. He was sure that they could escape then, but, for now, they had to control their panic; otherwise, they would all be dead very soon. The soldiers pulled out their entrenching tool, a small shovel, and tried to dig through the hard dirt and rocks they were lying on. They worked for an hour and hardly scratched more than a few inches into the concrete-like ground. Finally, they just gave it up as an impossible job. All of them had left their canteens hanging from their saddles, despite warnings from old hands to keep their water always within reach. All that digging had aroused their thirst, but the only way to get water was to stand up.

The soldiers were so afraid to stand up that they suffered for another hour before one of them was brave, or was it foolish, enough to try to get his canteen from his saddle. Black Wolf had seen the situation with the canteens, so he was waiting for the opportunity to strike at the first man to try to get water. He had an arrow ready, so when the soldier stood to get his water, he was hit in the kidney by the bloody arrow that had been used before.

The scout had also been waiting for his opportunity to shoot, and he snapped off a shot when Black Wolf rose to shoot his bow. The bullet was a little off target, so it only nicked Black Wolf in the right forearm as he shot the arrow. Black Wolf had been so intent on his shot that he did not even realize that he had been hit by the bullet until he was back in hiding and then felt the sting of the scratch. The wound was so insignificant that Black Wolf did not even deign to wipe up the small amount of blood.

By this time, the soldiers were so frightened that they made no effort to help their wounded comrade, though, in truth, there was nothing that could be done for him. The soldier with the arrow in his kidney groaned and writhed on the ground for a while, but finally lay still as he died from internal bleeding. About this time, the other wounded soldier also died from the massive internal bleeding from his belly wound.