Chapter 9

Otto asked Brown Horse if he would be willing to be a decoy. Otto wanted him to crawl up the hill toward the Indians while Martha and Otto covered him from the wagon. The hill was shaped so that the Indians would have to expose themselves from the waist up in order to shoot anything crawling up the hill as long as the crawler hugged the ground while he was doing it. He had first thought of sending the dogs, but they could not climb while staying close enough to the ground. Brown Horse readily agreed; this was a task worthy of a seasoned warrior!

Meanwhile, Otto planned to send the dogs around the two sides of the hill to attack the Indians from the rear. The combination of an attack from an unexpected direction and by an unknown type of enemy should confuse them to the point that they would be easy to conquer. Brown Horse thought that this was a marvelous plan, and he could hardly wait to get started.

The attack on the Indians started by Brown Horse slipping to the horses and retrieving the rifles for Otto and Martha; he already had his rifle. He then slithered under the wagon and started up the hill, and Otto sent King and Amy to the left side of the hill and Queen and Arthur to the right side with orders to attack on sight. Meanwhile, Otto and Martha were ready to shoot any Indian who showed himself over the crest of the hill.

The Indians must have been getting bored, because one stuck his head over the crest and both Martha and Otto snapped off shots at him. One of them, it was impossible to pinpoint the lucky shooter, took a section out of the man's ear while the other one missed. Oh, well, you can't score a kill every time, but it did get his attention and, hopefully, draw attention away from the rear where the dogs should appear very shortly.

At this point, Brown Horse was about one-third of the way up the hill, and the Indian at the crest must had caught a glimpse of him. This was verified a moment later when two Indians, neither one the same as the first Indian, appeared at the crest and tried to get a shot at Brown Horse. All three defenders fired their weapons, and Brown Horse was embarrassed when his action caused him to slide almost all of the way to the bottom of the hill. He looked at Otto and grinned sheepishly, but immediately resumed his climb up the hill.

Both of the Indians at the crest of the hill, recognizable now as Chiricahuas, were hit by the bullets fired at them, but it was impossible to determine if either had been killed. Suddenly, there was sound of chaos on the hill, so Otto left his rifle and jumped to the ground. He and Brown Horse threw caution to the winds and climbed the hill as fast as they could manage. The two men reached the crest at the same time; Brown Horse had a head start, but his rifle slowed him down, so Otto was able to catch up.

They were greeted by the sight of a mad brawl! It looked like there had been 11 Apaches in the war party, but two had been killed by bullets fired from below the crest of the hill. The other 9 were trying to fight 4 enraged dogs, two of which outweighed the Apaches. Arthur and Amy now had the technique of fighting humans understood, and they were doing an exemplary job on the Indians. The Apaches had given up trying to bring their rifles to bear and were fighting with knives and tomahawks.

As Otto and Brown Horse crossed the crest of the hill, the score already was dogs: 3, Apaches: 0. Brown Horse was about to join the battle with his rifle, but Otto stopped him with a warning that it would be too easy to hit a dog by mistake, they were moving so fast. Otto offered one of his pistols, instead, but Brown Horse turned him down for lack of familiarity with the weapon. Brown Horse drew his knife, instead, and waded in on the side of the dogs. Otto also moved in closer and drew his pistol. He managed to kill one of the Indians who was trying to bash in Brown Horse's head with a tomahawk, and, shortly thereafter, Brown Horse returned the favor with his knife.

Meanwhile, the dogs were on a roll. There was only one Indian left, and he was trying to defend himself with a tomahawk against Amy. She just couldn't get past the expert swings by the Apache, so King got bored and jumped the Indian from behind, killing him with a crushing bite to the neck. Amy wagged her tail in thanks for the help, and King graciously nodded his head.

Otto shouted to Martha that the fight was over, and they would be back to the wagon in a short time. Otto and Brown Horse profusely congratulated the dogs for their expert job, and the dogs were suitably pleased at the praise. Brown Horse scalped the Apaches as a matter of principle, and Otto checked them for any valuables. Besides weapons and horses, they took some rather nice jewelry—Otto planned to give his share to Martha, except for an amulet that he was especially taken with. Otto draped the amulet around his neck and, calling the dogs, went back to the wagon.

While they were gone, Martha had cleaned up the shit and piss from the baby and had verified that, indeed, it was a girl. The little boy was in nearly as bad shape, and Martha was working on him when everybody arrived back at the wagon. Queen jumped into the wagon to check on the children; she sniffed around for about half a minute and wagged her tail, signifying her approval. The humans laughed at the way Queen had felt that her approval was necessary before they could consider keeping the children.

From the way that Martha looked at the children, there was no doubt that they had been adopted—sort of an instant family! Otto probably could have gotten away with refusing to take the children in, but, in the long run, he would never have lived it down. The idea was moot, anyway, since he, too, was taken with the children and wanted to keep them. They buried the mother, father, and brother in shallow graves and moved on to the nearest water.

They had no real choice but to take the wagon now that they had two children to take care of. Fortunately, the wagon was well stocked, as they found out that evening. They went through it to see what they might find, but there was nothing to tell them who the parents were, not even a family Bible. There were some farm implements, a spinning wheel, a small loom, and a Mississippi Rifle. Beyond a few clothes and plenty of food, there was nothing else of significance.

Martha assumed the full time job of tending the two small children, Otto drove the wagon, and Brown Horse managed their small herd of horses, with help from the dogs. They decided to name the children Max and Susan and began immediately to treat them as their own. They had resumed their trip to visit Striking Snake, Running Bear, and Fawn; now the trip had become a major expedition.

Those horses were a real temptation for any Indians who were the least bit aggressive. This was where the dogs proved themselves to Brown Horse. On one occasion, a group of 5 Comanches came charging at the horses, expecting to have an easy time of liberating them from Brown Horse. After all, only a wimp would ride a horse with one of those effete White saddles with stirrups. Brown Horse saw that the dogs were alert, so he pretended to be ready to run away when the Comanches got close.

The "puppies" had grown a lot during the trip, so they both weighed over 100 pounds. The Comanches completely ignored the dogs; they were only good for barking a warning, anyway, and these weren't even doing that. More White stupidity to support such useless dogs—they were only fit for the stew pot!

The charging Comanches were so contemptuous that they didn't even have their Spencers at the ready as they charged; they expected their war cries to be sufficient to cower these fools. The Whites and their tame Hopi looked like prime torture victims; this was going to be fun!

The dogs had separated to give the Comanches a clear path to the horses, but their attitude changed when the Comanches came within range. The Comanches had slowed down their charge a bit to keep from overrunning the herd of horses guarded by Brown Horse, so they were moving at only about half-speed as they passed the dogs. This was the ideal speed from the dogs' point of view. Each dog leaped at a passing Comanche and caught him in the neck or head with it powerful jaws. This was adequate to knock the Indian from his horse and break his neck if he still had one at this point.