Chapter 6

I turned to follow the trail of the "three" Indians as they got closer to my wagon train. I planned to take no chances. If this war party got close to the wagons where Alice was, I was going to start shooting, and to hell with giving them any warning!

I followed the trail for about 30 minutes until I came to the camp where they must have spent last night. As was common with Indians, they left the place in a mess, but I was able to find traces which proved to me that they were Navajo. The information was only that: information. It certainly did not make any difference in the way I planned to treat them if they showed themselves to be a threat.

They had left the camp leaving the same kind of trail as they had left getting to it. I was sure that they were headed for the wagons because the trail veered that way as they got closer. Suddenly, I heard gunfire. God ... Damn ... It!!! They had beaten me to the punch. Well, I would show them what a Marine sniper could do.

I hurried toward the sound of the shooting until I was close enough to dismount and proceed the rest of the way on foot. My horse was trained to stand in one place, "ground hitched," if I just dropped the reins. I dismounted and pulled out my Remington and the ammunition pouch for it. I tied the pouch to my belt and carried my canteen around my neck. I held a rifle in each hand, so I was as prepared for any sort of trouble as I could be.

I had taught myself to be a good judge of distance just from the sound a gun made, so I didn't have to see the Indians to know where they were. As soon as I was within 500 yards of the hostiles, I stopped running and dropped to my knees. It was tough to do, but I walked on my knees to the top of a ridge of sand. Once there, I lay down and surveyed the situation. I had some binoculars, but they were only about 3x, so the were of marginal value to my trained eye.

I could see four Indians lying prone at the top of a hill and shooting at the wagon box that Mr. Jackson had arranged. OK, I knew what my first targets would be. The Indians were mostly using worn out Spencers, so they were not likely to hit a target except by accident. Nevertheless, it behooved me to put them out of action as soon as possible.

I set up for my first shot on the nearest Indian. I figured to shoot them in that order so that it would be less likely for an Indian to see his companion killed. That was more likely to keep them in place and give me more shots before I had to move. I wasn't worried about the sound giving me away, but the cloud of gunsmoke surely would, eventually.

I went into my breathing routine and pulled the trigger when I was ready. A dead hit in all respects. The bullet entered between his shoulder blades and he never moved. Obviously, he had died the same moment that he was hit.

As expected, I was not noticed by the rest of the war party, so I set up on the next man. This shot was as successful as the first one, so I moved my aim to the third man on my list. The rolling block made this the fastest single-shot rifle to reload that I had ever used, so I was ready to shoot before the slight breeze had cleared the smoke enough to enable my next shot. Again, this was an easy shot. I was having the kind of luck that I would have had on a beginner's target range. My fourth target was hit as solidly as the first three, so I was soon ready to move.

I listened to the pattern of firing and decided to move to my left. Just as I rolled over to sit up, I spied an Indian trying to sneak up on me with a knife in hand. He was so close that he would have reached me before I would have had a chance to make another shot. I had spotted him just in time to save my own life. I dropped the Remington I was holding in my right hand and drew a revolver. By this time, he was gathering himself to jump at me, so my bullet hit him in the chest and killed him, but I still had to dodge the knife as his contracting muscles still propelled him in my direction. Damn! That was close! I had to stop taking the Indians for granted. He could have killed me with a gun, but, for some reason, he chose to use a knife. His foolishness was what had saved my life.

Apparently, I had not been as well concealed as I had thought. Three more Indians were headed my way, but, thank God, only one of them was carrying a rifle. I was still holding my revolver in hand, and I had four rounds left in the cylinder. I believed that the man with the rifle was the greatest danger, so I went after him first.

Shit, I was in too big a hurry and fired too soon, so I missed. There was no time for misses, so I took aim this time and hit the Indian with the gun in the gut. That would stop him long enough for me to take care of the other three Indians, but I had only two rounds left. Fortunately, I did have three more revolvers available, so I dropped the Winchester I was holding in my left hand and drew a revolver with that hand.

Now, I am not so foolish as to think that I can shoot as well with my left hand as I can with my right, but I can still hold my own when the target is less than 20 feet away. I fired at the closest attacker with my left gun and hit him in the right hip. The bullet must have shattered his hip joint, for he fell and screamed as he went down. Him I could ignore while I concentrated on the last two attackers.

The next nearest man was stumbling in the loose sand, so I had time to shoot him in the chest with the gun in my right hand. That left one man to be concerned with. I shot at him with my left gun, but only nicked him in the side, but that did slow him down a little bit. I used my last bullet from the gun in my right hand to shoot him in the head. He was so close that I did not dare aim for any other part of his body. I had to have a stopper with that last shot, or I was going to be fighting hand-to-hand with a man who probably had more experience at it than I did.

I had to pause while I caught my breath, but I did reload both guns as soon as possible. OK, that was eight of the attackers accounted for, but what about the rest. Uh-oh, I think that I am in trouble. The general shooting had stopped, and that left me in a quandary. Was that all of the Indians? Maybe the rest had run off? Somehow, I didn't think so.

I had to be prepared to defend myself from foes that I couldn't see. I figured that my best bet was to move to my right as I had originally intended. There was no way to know for sure, but my gut told me that was the better direction. I picked up both rifles and made sure that they were clear of sand. Before moving, I drank a little water and slung my canteen around my neck and over my shoulder where I would not drop it, no matter how I happened to fall.

As I moved along the ridge of sand, I tried to keep a watch in all directions. This was something I was not really used to, since, even in Iraq, I usually knew the direction of my enemies. Of course, they were not as skilled as the local Indians in moving over territory with stealth. For some reason, they seemed to favor using a knife or tomahawk to a gun, but I was not going to depend too heavily on that quirk.

Just as I thought that, a shot rang out and I felt a sharp tug on my sleeve. That's when basic instinct added to my Marine training, and I dove to the dirt. The sound of the shot and the tug were so close together that I knew that the shooter could not be far away. I decided that the time for long distance sniping was over for this battle, so I laid my Remington aside and gave my Winchester some thought. Based on my experience of a few minutes ago, even the Winchester was no longer an appropriate weapon. I was going to have to finish this fight with my revolvers.