Chapter 3

The Indians were in an uproar when the daylight finally came. They had spent the whole night after discovering that the guards were missing by staying awake and prepared to fight. By the time the morning came, they were exhausted, both physically and mentally. Maria was the only one in camp who had gotten a full night's sleep.

The Indians gulped down pemmican and water for breakfast, not giving any to Maria, but she did not expect any. Maria was hungry, of course, but she felt that she could withstand that. It was the thirst that really bothered her, and she was greatly relieved when Blind Horse brought her some water to drink.

Billy and Ann had continued their psychological game with the Sioux by not attacking them until just before they were ready to leave the camp. Suddenly, gunshots were heard to echo through the Black Hills as Billy and Ann started shooting their rifles.

Maria immediately hit the ground. She did not want to be hit by a stray bullet, but she also thought that she had better withdraw as much as possible from the notice of her captors. She lay face down on the ground and tried to become invisible. By this time, her skin was dirty enough that she did a pretty good job of blending in with the soil visible in the center of the camp site.

The Indians were again caught short by the flying bullets. Their bows were here and their arrows were there, so to speak. Even though they had tried to be prepared for attack by demons all during the night, they were just too groggy to react within their full capability. They had to fumble around to find their weapons and would have surely been easy meat if there had really been demons attacking them.

Most of the warriors were young and just not used to staying up all night with their nerves stretched to the degree that a war footing demanded. They needed someone they trusted to tell them what to do, and there was no such person available, since they had not yet elected a replacement war chief.

On the other hand, both Billy and Ann were reasonably well rested and had a great advantage with their experience fighting Bushwhackers. Furthermore, they had the tremendous advantage of having the better weapons and the greater incentive to kill their enemies. They had the life of a co-wife to consider, where as the Sioux had just another unimportant toy that they could easily live without to consider. The difference was enough to push Billy and Ann to fight harder, while the Indians fought simply to live, and they would have been happy just to escape these demons who would not leave them alone.

The Indians had a severe handicap because they had to expose most of their bodies to use the bow, while the Whites could stay mostly behind shielding trees or rocks while using the guns. Furthermore, the lack of experience of the Sioux boys led them to do foolish things—they kept forgetting how fast a bullet could travel!

The first few shots caught the targets in the chest, which was the best place to try for a hit. Usually, even if the hit was not immediately fatal, it would put the recipient out of action for some time. Five of the Indians were taken out of the fight before they fully realized that they were under attack. That left a nine-to-two ratio in favor of the Indians, but the Sioux were now totally unable of making full use of that advantage.

If the Indians had split up and run to the shelter of the surrounding dense woods, they would have stood a better chance. However, they were caught up in that macho idea of personal bravery that most of the plains Indians held—it was much better to die than to look like a coward to your fellow warriors. Thus, they stayed in camp and tried to fight from decidedly inadequate cover.

The air was so still that the powder smoke from the rifles quickly became a deterrent to accurate shooting; therefore, Billy and Ann had to move around to be able to see who they were shooting at and to make sure that they did not accidentally put a bullet into Maria.

Though some arrows did fly in their general direction, this was more of a massacre than a real battle. The Indians were still sure that they were fighting against many shooters, because no one gun could shoot so many times so quickly. They knew about revolving pistols, but did not know that repeating rifles existed; therefore, a few were shot because they rose to fire back when they thought that the rifleman's weapon must be empty.

Very soon, Blind Horse was one of only three remaining Sioux able to fight. He was faced with the thought of escaping with his life or salvaging his horse. Finally, good sense prevailed, and he headed for the trees. The two remaining boys saw him run and decided to join him. This happened at a very fortuitous moment for the Indians. Both Billy and Ann were in the process of swapping cylinders in their rifles, so they were not able to get off a shot when the three warriors ran to the forest.

It was only a few moments before they saw that all of the Indians were either dead or had run away. Both jumped up to run to Maria to be sure that she was alive and reasonably well. The joy at the reunion was more than could be measured, and the Indians would have had easy targets if they had only stopped running long enough. Luckily, that did not happen, and the rescue was accomplished.

The first thing done after the initial greeting was to make sure that Maria had something to eat. Ann fed her some pemmican in order to get something into her stomach that would cut the hunger cravings, but not cause her to vomit it right back out. Nearly an hour was spent in getting enough food and water down Maria's throat to satisfy her needs.

The next step was to find her some clothes so that her skin would not be chaffed by riding a horse. The inside of her thighs were already rubbed to a state of discomfort from the riding she had recently done, but that was better than the wear and tear on her feet if she had been forced to walk that same distance. There were plenty of horses available for Maria to ride, but there was no tack of the type that she was used to; therefore, she would have to ride Indian-style. She could do it, but she was not used to the task, so she would have to take it easy until they could get her a conventional saddle of the kind she was used to.

Fortunately, Maria was close enough to the same size as Ann, so that she could wear Ann's spare set of clothes; namely, pants and shirt. Unfortunately, there were no boots that she could wear, but she was able to use some moccasins they took from a dead Sioux. She had to do without a hat, but the shadows cast by the trees should keep that from being a problem for now.

Billy was somewhat pissed that they would have to abandon all of those horses. There was just no way that they could take the horses back through the forest on that narrow trail they had used to get this far. They just took what seemed to be the best of the available Indians' horses for Maria to ride. At least, they were able to make good time because of their lack of encumbrances.

Billy led the way, and Ann brought up the rear. Billy gave Maria one of his pistols, but they did not have a spare rifle for her. They were headed back the way they had come out of no real choice. They were not familiar with the territory, so they were afraid that there was too much chance of accident if they took off in some other direction. Besides, they hoped to pick up some useful items back at Singer's wagon, if the fire had not done too much damage. Maria's boots must still be in the wagon, since she'd had no opportunity to put them on before the original Indian attack. If they were lucky, her boots had survived the fire.

There was also the chance of picking up some food at the wagon. If not, they would be close to the trading post and could stop in there and, hopefully, purchase everything they needed, including a saddle. This was certainly the best choice currently facing them, so that was what Billy was aiming for.

Blind Horse was cursing the day that every White man had ever been born. He and his two companions had finally stopped running, and they had gathered to decide what to do. Primarily, all three of them resented being set afoot. If nothing else, Blind Horse wanted to return to the site of the fight in hopes of recovering his horse. The two boys had accepted that Blind Horse, by default, was now the war chief, and they were willing to follow his direction.