Chapter 8

Black Wolf led his men to the last reported location of the Army troops. As expected, by then, the patrol had moved on, but they were easy to follow. The trail was so plain that the Apaches speculated that the patrol actually wanted them to find the Army as soon as possible. One of the older warriors said that he was sure that the soldiers just didn't know any better; it wasn't the White man's way to conceal his movements.

The scout appeared to be leading the patrol into the foothills in preparation for a search of the mountains. He had the right idea, he was just in the wrong place to find anybody. Black Wolf could see that this scout was dangerous, and so was the officer, since he was listening to the voice of experience.

They were far enough away from the village that Black Wolf saw no problem with attacking the patrol at any time. The Apaches with Black Wolf had been agitating for a traditional attack, instead of an ambush using the guns. Black Wolf agreed that it was certainly more fun to fight that way, so he gave in without too much reluctance. In keeping with their penchant for gambling, the Apaches agreed to form a betting pool from which Black Wolf would award a prize depending on the artistry and skill exhibited by each warrior as he made his kill.

Black Wolf did extract the promise that they would unite behind a gun attack if the soldiers looked like they might escape; otherwise, the warriors were limited to non-gunpowder weapons. This meant that they could use the bow and arrow, the lance, the knife, the rope, or even clubs and stones to score their kill. They did decide to wait until the next day to begin their attack; it was more sporting to give the soldiers a night's rest.

That night, they used a rather complicated game of chance to select the order of attack, since the first, and possibly the second, warrior would have the advantage of surprise. The first warrior to attack was particularly cursing his luck, since the soldiers would not be expecting him and would not put up much of a fight. Each man was allowed to choose his own target, so there could be no accusations of bias or cheating when time came to dole out the prizes. The one exception to all this was the scout. In order to raise the level of difficulty, the scout was to be saved for last, and he would be taken by Black Wolf, himself.

Each Apache warrior amused himself that night by planning his attack, and there were many happy dreams of triumph nestled in the blankets. They awoke the next morning full of good cheer and anticipation of the fun to be encountered over the next couple of days. They ate breakfast and were on their way with the rising sun; it was thought to be more sporting if all of the kills were made during daylight. Oh, since there were more soldiers than Apaches, extra credit would be awarded for multiple kills.

The first warrior didn't have much time for preparation, so he decided on a simple form of attack. By this time, the patrol had reached the point where the foothills changed into the true mountains. This meant that the soldiers, who would never abandon their horses, were going to be forced to take the few available trails. Therefore, it was easy to predict where they would be traveling. Eagle, the warrior who was first in line, chose to use a rope as his weapon, so he climbed into a tree with branches overhanging the trail the patrol would be forced to take.

Eagle threw his rope over a tree limb and slipped a piece of leather between the rope and the bark on the limb so that he could be sure that the rope would slide easily and not bind on the bark. He climbed to a position over the trail and stood on a limb below the one holding his rope. Eagle waited until the entire patrol had passed under him, except for the rear guard. This man was half-heartedly looking around, but not really seeing anything. Eagle dropped the looped end of the rope over the soldier's head and grabbed the other end of the rope. Eagle jumped off the tree, jerking the rope loop tight around the soldier's neck and dragging him off his horse, breaking his neck in the process.

The soldier was heavier than Eagle, so it was only the momentum of Eagle's jump that made it possible to lift the man out of the saddle. As soon as Eagle's feet supported his weight, the dead weight of the soldier threatened to pull Eagle back into the tree, so Eagle had to release the rope to avoid an embarrassing accident. Eagle retrieved his rope and quickly dragged the soldier off the trail and out of sight.

The soldier's horse had stopped after only a few steps beyond where he had felt his rider snatched from the saddle, so Eagle earned extra credit by also capturing the soldier's horse. All of this had been done so quietly that the rest of the patrol never noticed until later that one of their number had disappeared. There was considerable speculation, but they never did figure out what had happened to the man. Eagle took the man's scalp and was congratulated on a clever kill.

The next contestant planned to use a club for his kill. He had made up a suitable war club the night before, so he was ready to try his luck. Angry Bull planned to use a tree as a prop in his attack, too. He considered himself something of a gymnast, so he wanted to make use of that skill. He found a tree with a limb overhanging a very narrow length of the trail, and he climbed that to wait for his victim.

There were enough leaves on the tree that Angry Bull was able to sit on a very low limb and still remain concealed from the trail. He, too, let the patrol pass him and aimed for the last man in line. He held the club in both hands as he fell backward off the limb. On his way down, he looped his legs around the limb so that his legs kept his from falling out of the tree. He caught himself just to the left of the soldier, who only had time to notice that there was an Indian warrior hanging upside down beside him. Before the soldier could react, Angry Bull swung the club and hit the soldier with its stone head between the shoulder blades, breaking his back with the one blow and knocking the wind out of his lungs.

He could have hit the soldier in the head with the club, but he thought that the blow to the back would earn him more points in the contest. The soldier was killed with that one blow, but his horse was frightened and bolted into the rest of the column of soldiers. Angry Bull dropped to the ground and disappeared into the underbrush before he was seen, thereby maintaining the mystery of what had happened. Angry Bull was chagrined that he had not been able to collect the scalp of the soldier that he had killed.

This was when the patrol realized that they had lost two of their number, and would never have noticed it then, were it not for the actions of a frightened horse. The scout saw how the soldier had been killed by a war club, but he had no idea how the blow had been delivered. Somewhat unnecessarily, he warned the lieutenant that they were under attack, but he couldn't be more helpful than that.

The scout said, "We have to get out of this cut and away from so much brush and trees. We are sitting ducks! Follow me!"

The scout ran his horse along the trail until he came to a semblance of a clearing. It was really only a wide place in the cut, but it was an improvement over where they had been, as far as the scout was concerned. The soldiers raced to catch up, and they all arrived at the clearing at about the same time. The sergeant and the lieutenant ordered the men to form a defensive circle with foxholes. There were now only 10 soldiers, so they didn't have enough men to keep 3 men together as doctrine called for and still have enough men to form a full defensive perimeter. The sergeant divided them so that there were 2 men in each foxhole, with the scout and the lieutenant in a foxhole in the center of the defensive circle.

These men all had Spencer carbines, so they were a formidable fighting force if they didn't panic. It was up to the sergeant to try to keep them calm and up to Black Wolf to frighten them into doing something stupid.

Black Wolf called his band together and canceled the contest. They had reached the point that there was no longer an opportunity for individual glory, but time for group action to eliminate the enemy. He ordered the boy to go for more ammunition; he was instructed to bring as much as he could manage on his horse. He had to hurry, time was of the essence!