Chapter 13

That shot was enough to give Andy's position away, and he started drawing fire from all three men. It seems that the man who had lost his horse had a conventional Spencer saddle carbine as well as his long rifle, and he had pulled that from his dead horse. Andy kept his head down and waited until the three fools had run out of ammunition in their rifle magazines. While they were reloading, Andy moved back to Sue Ann and warned her to keep her head down while all the lead was flying.

They both had Henrys and were ready to fight when the situation called for it, but, right now, the only ones profiting from all the shooting were the ammunition manufacturers. The three fools eventually calmed down and realized that they were not accomplishing anything, so they moved in a bit closer. This was what Andy and Sue Ann had been waiting for. When the men closed to within 40 yards, they opened fire. Sue Ann had practiced before, her father had thought that everyone needed to be familiar with a rifle, so he had taught her to use his Henry.

The fire aimed at the three men was effective enough to kill the other two horses and wound one of the men. By now, the smoke had built up enough that Andy thought that they should move, so they crawled about 20 feet to their left. There they found a pair of trees which would give them good shelter from the men who were shooting at them. Andy suggested to Sue Ann that they moderate their rate of fire and shoot only when they thought they had a good clean shot. She agreed, and their rate of fire dropped off markedly.

The three fools were still trying to use their rifles as power saws and cut down all of the trees in the grove by sheer weight of lead fired in their direction. Andy wondered what the fools thought they were accomplishing, but he really didn't care since he had not paid for their ammunition, and their fire was so inaccurate that he and Sue Ann were in no immediate danger. The fools continued to shoot for a few more minutes, but finally realized that they were not accomplishing anything and stopped shooting.

There was a delay of a few minutes, as if the three men were discussing their options. It appeared that a decision had been reached, because two of the men began to move, one to the right and one to the left. The third man who had not moved resumed shooting, but at a more measured pace. Andy said, "It looks ta me like they're gonna try ta flank us. I think we better counter that by movin', ourselves. Let's move to our right an' try ta ambush that galoot afore he gits us. I'll bet they're too stupid ta realize that we have moved 'til we start shootin' from someplace else, so the first one, at least, should be easy ta git."

They crawled off to their right while the man in their front kept shooting at the place where they had been. They had moved about 75 feet when Andy halted them at a shallow ditch running at right angle to their line of travel and making the perfect site for an ambush. Andy said, "Ya keep an eye on our backside, cuz I'd feel awful stupid ifen that other galoot sneaked up and killed me when I wasn't lookin'. Meanwhile, I'll keep lookin' thisaway. He ought to show up pretty soon."

Actually, it wasn't pretty soon. Andy wondered if the idiot had stopped off for coffee and a cigar before continuing on his mission. Finally, the man showed up, and was doing a lousy job of sneaking. In fact, he was doing so poorly that Andy holstered his gun and took out his bowie knife. He didn't want to shoot if it wasn't necessary, since that would give their position away. Andy signaled to Sue Ann what he had in mind and slipped out of the ditch toward the enemy. Andy's Indian fighting experience was invaluable in this situation because he had learned from experts how to crawl, nay, slither, silently through a field of broken twigs without making a single sound. Compared to Andy, the other man was a noisy as a stampede.

Andy was able to come up behind the man and cut his throat: his wind pipe, his carotid arteries, his juggler veins. This is not easy to do, but an expert can manage it quite readily, and Andy was an expert. The result is that the person dies quickly and soundlessly, with no opportunity to warn his companions. Thus, they had eliminated one of their enemies, and the other 2 were none the wiser. Andy cleaned his knife and sheathed it before returning to Sue Ann. She had seen the whole thing and was absolutely amazed at Andy's skill; she had been somewhat concerned for Andy's continued good health when he had left her, but she resolved not to worry for him in the future. He was obviously a dangerous man to cross—she had now seen him kill twice with his knife with complete ease.

They headed back toward their original position to look for the other man who hoped to flank them. It had been too awkward to take their rifles with them as they had originally crawled away, so they had left their rifles lying in their hiding places while they were gone. When they got back, they found a man pawing through their belongings; they had no idea why. Sue Ann was the first to see the man, since she was in the lead. She signaled for Andy to hold in place while she calmly drew her pistol and fired one shot. She had not been seen by the interloper, so she had plenty of time to line up her shot.

Sue Ann held her gun in both hands as she assumed a sitting position and propped her arms on her knees. She carefully lined up her shot and squeezed the trigger; the bullet entered the man's side and passed through his lung and heart into the other lung, tumbling most of the way (she had used a conical bullet instead of a ball). Very pleased with herself, she turned and grinned at Andy, who smiled back.

Now, there was only one enemy they had to dispose of, but he was too far away to reach over the open plain. He was the one who had been wounded in an earlier exchange of shots, so they were not worried about him escaping without a horse, but they did have the problem of how to reach him with some likelihood of not being shot themselves. Sue Ann agreed to keep his attention by shooting at him while Andy tried to sneak around behind him, essentially the reversal of the plan they had used earlier, but with a hoped for better result.

Sue Ann began to put out a steady, but slow, stream of fire at the last of the three brothers while Andy scurried off to his left to begin his flanking maneuver. He went far enough to be completely out of sight of their antagonist before leaving the clump of trees. He had found a slight depression in the ground which turned into a shallow ditch running in the desired direction, so he used that for concealment as he worked his way out toward the enemy.

Sue Ann's shooting was doing a good job of making the man keep his head down, so he had no chance of seeing Andy sneak toward him at the different angle. The man was lying with his head turned the other way, so Andy was effectively slipping up behind the fool. He was a fool because he never looked around, possibly he was an arrogant fool!

Whatever the reason, Andy was able to get close enough to use his pistol—he had left his rifle with Sue Ann. Andy had considered using his knife, but decided that would just be too flamboyant, so, when he was close enough, he put a bullet into the galoot's head and ended the matter. Andy shouted to Sue Ann to hold her fire, the last man was accounted for. He stood up and waved her out of the woods to join him at the body of their last enemy.