Chapter 11

I looked up and saw that the others had nearly caught up to us and quickly understood why it took them close to two hours to reach us. They deliberately slowed down to allow the main group to gain ground. The riders were less than 300 yards away. And their Sharps rifles had that range easily as the round passing through my hat reminded me. Dropping to the ground and crawling back into the ravine I met up with the others.

We spread out along the ravine hoping to hold off the bandits long enough for the others to get away. None of us expected to survive this fight. The bandits continued to fire as they got closer and we just waited until they were well within range of our repeating rifles since we were not going to be able to take well aimed shots the sharps were of no use to us right now.

When we nodded to each other and stood aiming over the top of the ravine and fired we all were shocked as several additional shots joined ours. I just kept levering and firing until my rifle was empty and noticed several men joining me in the ravine. They were dropping their repeating rifles as they drew two colts and began to fire them. I drew mine and fired all six shots before kneeling down to reload. The guy next to me turned holstered his left pistol and began to reload his right. I saw it shine in the setting sun a silver circle around a star a Texas Ranger. He holstered the pistol on his right and drew the left to reload it next. The surviving bandits were now caught in the flat and the fight did not last long as the last bandit fell to the ground dead with all the others.