Chapter 3

A few days later, I was making my morning scouting excursion when I heard a moan coming from a few yards off the road. I drew my pistol just in case it was a trap as I rode over there. I was surprised to find a naked White woman lying beside a burned-out wagon. There was a skeleton of an adult lying against a burned wheel as if it had been tied to the wheel at one time.

The woman was tied to stakes facing down, but her ass was in the air. I could see dried blood all around her ass and pussy, so I assume that she had been raped by Indians after her husband had been tortured to death. Indians habitually mate in this position, so I guessed that was why she was tied the way she was. The question was why was she still alive? Under normal circumstances, she would be dead, but the Indians had left her alive. Was she bait in a trap?

That thought made me even more alert, if that was possible. The woman was moaning and crying, so much so that she had not seen or heard me ride up. I asked, "Ma'am, are the Indians still around?" I had to ask three times before I could get her attention.

As it was, she ignored my question. Instead, she asked in a very pitiful voice, "Please help me, Mister? Please help me?"

Hell, what could I do? I holstered my pistol long enough to dismount and tie my horse to the shell of the wagon. I drew my pistol again and held it in my right hand while I took my knife in my left to cut the woman loose. I had cut her hands and one foot loose when I heard a blood-curdling scream. It must have been a war cry as three Indians ran toward me brandishing clubs. Fortunately for me, I am not one of those people who asks for a formal introduction before shooting. Nevertheless, it did take all five cartridges from my pistol to stop those three charging Apaches.

As quickly as I could, I reloaded my pistol. Thank God, it was an S&W top-break style that could be reloaded in a few seconds, instead of a Colt that might well have taken over a minute to reload. I tossed the knife to the woman and shouted, "HERE, CUT YOURSELF LOOSE AND CRAWL UNDER THE WAGON!" At least, she was now aware of herself and me enough to follow directions, because that was when it hit the fan!

She had just finished cutting her leg loose from the stake when seven more Apaches attacked. I got lucky this time and was back in my one shot, one kill mode. My pistol was empty again, but there were still two Apaches attempting to capture or kill me. I holstered my pistol and pulled my tomahawk from my belt in one smooth motion. I had my bowie knife in my left hand and my tomahawk in my right, and my mind and muscles concentrating on turning the two attackers into mincemeat.

While in the Marines, I had taken advantage of every moment of training that I could get in hand-to-hand combat, the dirtier the better. At least in training, I was usually the victor. I had not had much of an opportunity to use my training in Iraq, but I did put a mugger in the hospital on my one visit to New York City. In any case, armed as I was, I was sure that I was the better off of the two sides in the upcoming battle with the two Indians.

Each man had a bowie knife, and he was brandishing it like he knew what he was doing. I was surprised to see that each man was tending to overact, showing off for his fellow. Ah, the macho effect was showing through. Well, that was something else to my advantage. One man extended his hand holding the knife a bit too far, and, as quickly as a snake striking, I chopped down on his wrist with the blade of the tomahawk.

No, the tomahawk blade was not razor sharp. I wanted the cutting edge to last longer than it would have if it had been that sharp, but it was plenty sharp enough to cut half-way through the bones in his wrist and to sever an artery. The man screamed in pain, dropped his knife, and tried to staunch the flow of blood as I jerked the blade from his arm. For practical purposes, he was out of the fight, but I still had an able bodied Indian to fight.

This Indian backed out of reach of the tomahawk and stared me in the eye. I was waiting for him to make an offensive move when he, too, screamed in pain and collapsed. The woman had reached out from under the wagon and used the knife I had given her to stab the man in the knee. As he fell, I hit him in the head as hard as I could with the spike on the back side of the tomahawk blade. That was probably enough to kill him, but I used my knife to cut his throat anyway. I also cut the throat of the other man with the partially severed wrist.

I kneeled to the woman and said, "I'm much obliged, Ma'am. That bastard might have killed me if you had not had your wits about you."

Our heads were now about the same relative height, so we meshed perfectly when she embraced me and pressed her head onto my shoulder. She started to cry and try to talk at the same time. "That last Indian was the one who led the torture of my husband, and who was the first one to rape me. He hurt my husband and he hurt me. I wish I could have hurt him some to get him back for the pain he caused."

I said, "I don't know how much good it will do, but we can fix him so that he will have a lousy life in the Happy Hunting Grounds. Maybe that will make you feel better." She agreed, so I cut off his balls and cock, cut off all of his fingers, and cut off his ears and nose. I cut out his eyes and slit his belly. He was now ruined for the afterlife as he saw it, and the woman actually did seem to feel better.

The woman's name was Alice Homier, and she and her husband were heading for California. They had lived in Arkansas, but had decided to move to California because of his "consumption." They had not waited for a wagon train because they had been told that they would be safe if they took the southern route. Obviously, that was wrong, but it was too late to worry about it, now.

Alice was in no condition to ride a horse. She would not be able to sit astride a horse until her crotch healed. In fact, sitting on a horse in any manner would be very painful for up to a week, so there was a problem moving her. Fortunately, the wagon train would be along in about 90 minutes, so all we had to do was to wait for the wagons to come to us.

Alice was still naked, but both of us had forgotten about that in the stress of taking care of the Indians and that sort of thing. She realized her condition and kind of squealed her embarrassment as she suddenly moved to cover herself with her hands and arms. This was when the situation dawned on me, so I told her to wait while I pulled my rain slicker out of my pack for her to wear until better clothes could be found for her.

She put on the slicker and buttoned it from the bottom to her neck, but she was soon too hot to stay that way, so she unbuttoned the top two buttons to allow for a little air circulation.

I moved the bodies of the dead Indians into the brush, and, in the process, I found her shoes where the Indians had tossed them when they were preparing her for rape. I cut sections of cloth from the Indians' loin cloths to wrap her feet in lieu of stockings.

After all of that was done, I said to Alice that I had received some simple medical training, and I would examine her injuries if she would permit it. She might be injured worse than she realized, and she needed immediate treatment if that were true.

Alice blushed at my statement, then decided that prudence demanded an examination. The wagon was charred, but not destroyed, so she crawled up onto the bed of the wagon with my help and got on her hands and knees so that I could examine her for major injuries. Their water cask had survived unharmed, so I was able to wet a cloth and wash off the dried blood. She had been raped in both orifices, so there was considerable blood. However, she was not injured beyond some surface abrasion because of inadequate lubrication. That problem was fixed by the blood that showed up shortly after Alice was first penetrated.