Chapter 17

Javelina showed his inexperience by wanting to rush to the wall so that he could get a better look at the attackers. Black Crow wisely held him back so that he would not be shot unnecessarily. For a moment, Javelina acted as if he was going to run to his death, anyway, but Black Crow's wisdom finally got through to the boy. I was glad, too—Javelina was a good kid, and I didn't want to see him hurt.

Only a few seconds later, Javelina got all of the action he needed as four more of the Chiricahuas tried to cross the wall. The people on the towers were fully engaged with other attackers, so it was up to us to take care of these invaders. Javelina got off two shots with his Spencer carbine and scored two hits. Neither one was a fatal wound, but both served to slow down the enemy.

The rest of us were shooting by this time, and the shotguns were showing their value. The only problem with the shotguns was the fact that they were relatively slow to be reloaded. Damn, I wish we had some way to put cartridges in the shotguns! I think I will visit that Amarillo gunsmith and ask what he could do to alleviate the problem.

Janet's .38 was doing quite well for itself. At this close range, she and I had set aside our rifles and were sticking to our pistols. Maybe that's what we should do for everybody so that they would have some close-range weapons. Janet and I would have to discuss this after this fight was over. The pistols had adequate stopping power against men at this short range, so, maybe, they were better weapons than the shotguns for close-in use. They would be cheaper to buy, though the ammunition would be more expensive.

Finally, it was the shotguns that decided this little portion of the conflict. That many .36 caliber balls hitting a man was bound to kill him eventually, so I began to think in terms of cartridge equipped, short-barreled shotguns for us to use inside the fort.

The Chiricahuas made no more effort to storm the walls of the fort, and gave up the attack after about two hours of fruitless shooting at the defenders in the towers. Other than a few scratches by near misses, our people were unhurt, but the Chiricahuas had not done as well. We knew of five dead Indians at the wall, and a claimed four more from shots from the towers, though we never saw the corpses. Presumably, the Indians had taken those with them when they left.

We buried the five from inside the fort, but the bodies disappeared the next night. It looked that they had been taken by the other Chiricahuas; we hoped so.

Now that the battle was over, I talked to Janet about my idea for new shotguns. Black Crow was impressed by what the shotguns had been able to do and wanted shotguns for Javelina and himself. As soon as spring came with its warmer weather, I resolved to travel to Amarillo to talk to that gunsmith I had so much faith in.

The winter was mild and we were able to construct the 10 adobe apartments that we wanted inside the fort, along with the other structures. We also had time to do some more work on improving the wall. It was obvious that the four-foot-high wall was not just not an adequate defense.

Janet and I left for Amarillo as soon as it looked warm enough. We left the Negroes to resume the farming and construction of the remainder of the fort, but everybody agreed that Black Crow would be in charge if there was another attack. He was the one with enough experience to have the confidence of all of the people left at Ft. Hartwick.

When we got to Amarillo, we learned that there was already a manufacturer of shotguns who was making one that used metallic cartridges. These had actually been used in the recent Rebellion and were now available as military surplus. I ordered 20 of them, plenty of cartridges, and the necessary tools for reloading the empty cartridges. When they arrived, the gunsmith was going to shorten the barrels of eight of them to 14 inches. If these worked out as well as I hoped, I would order even more of the guns.

While in Amarillo, I had gone to a bank and had all of our funds transferred to the Amarillo bank. We took the $14,780 that we had and paid the fee to have this all converted into gold bars and double-eagles. This was enough to pay for our new shotguns with plenty left over. We bought an iron chest and loaded it, containing our gold, into a buckboard which we drove back to Ft. Hartwick. The guns had been promised to us by August, so we would be back to claim them.

Back home at Ft. Hartwick, we moved the treasure chest to the southwest tower and buried it in a special chamber dug under the floor. Now, the money could be used by the community even if something fatal happened to Janet and me.

Fortunately, we got through the summer without any more Indian attacks, and we had a good yield from the farms, so Janet and I left to return to Amarillo to pick up our guns, etc. with a happy heart. We didn't take a wagon, figuring to buy one in Amarillo for the return trip. We carried the gold to pay for the guns and stuff in a saddlebag. This saddlebag was also used for holding our lunch so that we had a good cover for the money in case we ran into bandits.

We got to the gunsmith without meeting up with any bandits, which suited us just fine! We went to see the guns we had bought and were absolutely delighted. The only "problem" was that these were 10 gauge shotguns, which had a powerful kick. Some of the women were going to be unhappy. At least, the guns were easy to reload and fire. The action was something like a top-break pistol. You opened the gun and the spent shell or shells were ejected. New shells were dropped into the chambers and the breech was closed. All you had to do, now, was to use your thumb to cock the hammers and the gun was ready to shoot.

We bought 12 with the normal barrel length and eight with the sawed-off 14-inch barrels. We bought 1,000 rounds of cartridges loaded with #4 buckshot. That was .24 caliber shot, 31 slugs per cartridge. This was a load a strong man could handle with only one hand if he got in a rush. One of the women had sewn bandoleers for us, and I had a sling rigged so that my shotgun with its sawed off barrel could be carried from my shoulder or slung around my neck to hang in front as I sat on my horse. Either way, the gun was ready to hand when I needed it. I kept my pistols in their usual places, so I was a well armed as it was possible to be.

Janet compromised with her shotgun. She hung it from her saddle horn, and that was almost as convenient as where I carried mine.

We loaded the wagon with our guns, ammunition, reloading tools, and some other stuff, including .38 caliber modified Navy Colts so that everybody in the group could have a pistol for emergencies. Janet and I swapped off driving the wagon; it was just too uncomfortable on a long trip to sit on that hard seat the whole time. We got smart after a couple of hours and made a seat pad from a couple of folded blankets. That was better, but it was a long way from good!

We had traveled about 65 miles from Amarillo before we ran into any trouble. We were riding over some rolling prairie covered only in what the locals called buffalo grass. It was early in the day and there had been a rare light rain, so the grass was a beautiful green carpet as far as the eye could see. Suddenly, out of a slight dip in the ground, we saw about 15-20 Comanches riding at us, coming hell-for-leather and yelling war cries.

They accomplished exactly what they had in mind. We were surprised and had almost no time to prepare for their onslaught. Janet was driving the wagon and I was riding beside her so that we could talk. The wagon had fairly high wooden sides, so it would make a reasonable makeshift fort. She grabbed her shotgun and ducked under the driver's seat, while I bailed off my horse into the wagon bed at the rear.

The Indians were armed with Spencer carbines that were pretty much worn out, but they would still shoot a fatal bullet. Their problem was accuracy, but that was almost always a problem for Comanches, no matter what they were shooting.

Janet had dropped the reins and set the wagon brake before she dove under the seat, so the wagon was not going anywhere, even if the mules panicked. We weren't worried about the Indians killing the mules or my horse; they were valued too highly by the Indians to take a chance doing that. This limited the angle at which the Indians could attack, so we were aided by that. Of course, we had no compunction about killing the Comanches' horses, though this really did piss the Indians off.