Chapter 4

I found that I could play poker for recreation only just so long, then I got tired of it. Sure, I had made money at it, but I didn't need the money, so there was no use for it except to count as points in some game I was playing against myself. As a result, I found that Laredo no longer had any attraction for me, and it was time for me to move on.

One morning, I discovered that I just had to get out of town, so I ate breakfast, payed my hotel bill, and took my horse from the livery stable. I felt that I needed some excitement, so I headed north into what had once been known as very dangerous territory: Comancheria. By now, the Comanches were pretty well under control, except for the ones who were involved in the latest spell of the recurring Indian wars. Granted, that was most of the younger Comanches, for the older ones were beginning to see that they had finally run up against a force that they could not beat: the high birth rate of the White race.

There were close to as many Whites in Comancheria as Comanches, and the Army was doing a good job of killing those young Indian men stupid enough to go up against them. The war was actually petering out already, with mostly raids by very young men led by a few older die-hards left to break the peace. Nevertheless, it was chancy for a man, alone, to ride into Comancheria.

I was looking for excitement, and I was damned sure to get it under these circumstances. I crossed the "border" a couple of days out of Laredo, and I started expecting to be attacked at any time. Yeah, I know it was stupid to act the way I did, but my previous experiences had shown me that I could not be permanently killed. If I was killed, only moments later I would wake up in another life. That led me to do some strange things that were very dangerous for anyone else, but I had developed a fatalistic attitude about my life. Thus, I was hoping for some Indians to jump me before I had to wait too long.

I was riding along and watching out for an attack when I finally got what I had been waiting for. Five Comanches topped a ridge about 500 yards away and were already riding full out toward me by the time I saw them. I grabbed my rifle and my water canteen and dove for a growth of brush near the trail. The brush was thick enough to keep the Indians from riding over me because the horses would refuse to run through bushes that they could easily go around.

They were only about 150 yards away when I was finally ready to shoot. By lying down on the ground, I could shoot under the brush, but still gain considerable concealment from it. At that range, I could have tried for the men, but the horses were so much bigger targets that choosing anything else for a target was ridiculous. Besides, the Indians were riding so fast that a falling horse was going to take his rider with him. The first one went down and fell in front of another horse, but it was able to avoid falling, though it did nearly shake the rider off in the process. It's a damned good thing that the Comanches never discovered stirrups!

My next shot stopped the horse, but it didn't fall, so that only counted as a so-so shot. I didn't have the time to take another shot at that same horse because of the proximity of the other three. These Indians had rifles, but they were shooting while holding the rifle in one hand, a sure way to miss your target. I never understood why they did that; it was bad enough to shoot from a running horse with two hands on the rifle.

By this time, the Indians were too close to follow them well with the rifle, so I switched to my pistols. Now I was very happy to have four of them! The Indians were now only 20-30 yards away and moving as fast as their horses could run. I was still better off shooting at the horses, so that's what I did. The pistol was really not as powerful as the rifle, even though they fired the same bullet. The longer barrel of the rifle gave more speed to the bullet which increased its stopping power at a distance. However, at this range, there was not a significant difference in stopping power.

I had no trouble in shooting all three horses with my pistol, but two of the Indians managed to survive their tumble onto the grass as the horse fell. Now they were shooting at me from the much more stable firing position of the ground, so the bullets were coming much closer.

I had to move because of the accumulation of powder smoke was making it very difficult to see my target. The smoke was helping to hide me, too, but that was not enough of an advantage for me to stay where I was. I rolled a few few feet to one side so that I could see better and resumed firing. I hit one of the Indians in the chest and put him out of the fight, but the other one ran out of bullets and decided to charge me with his knife. Thank God, the brush was too thick to make a war club a viable weapon.

The Indian charged and I fired. He was a tough bird: my first bullet caught him in the side and knocked him down, but he struggled to his feet and came at me again. This time, I took careful aim and shot him in the upper chest. That shot didn't kill him, either, but he did fall to the ground and could not get up. Now that he was stationary, I tried for a head shot, and that finally did him in.

Five Indians, with their horses, had taken 16 of my 20 available shots. Man, was I glad that I had the four pistols! I might well not have survived with anything less. My adrenalin was flowing freely, so I was ready to continue fighting if I'd had to, but, intellectually, I was damned happy that the fight was over.

The first thing I did was to reload my weapons. After that, I walked out to check on the enemy. By this time, they were all dead, including that horse that I had only wounded earlier. I didn't take any loot from this fight except for some .44-40 cartridges one of the Indians had in a pouch. The rifles were all in such sad shape from never having been cleaned after shooting, that they were not worth taking. I did break them by pounding them on rocks to keep them from being used by other Indians. I left everything as it was and resumed my riding.

I was not headed to any specific destination—I was just riding for the adventure that I might encounter. That meant that I was in no hurry to get anywhere, but I did hope to find a hotel and restaurant before too late in the day.

Late that afternoon, I topped a low hill and heard gunfire in the distance. Naturally, I urged my horse ahead to investigate. If it was what I expected, I hoped to arrive in time to make a positive contribution. Yes, as I expected, it was a small cabin under attack by a band of Indians. Because of the distance and the dust kicked up by the running horses, I really could not tell how many Indians were involved, but it certainly looked like too many for the people in the house to withstand indefinitely.

The land around the cabin was pretty clear, so I was going to have some trouble finding cover close enough to do any real good. There were enough Comanches down there to give anybody pause, and I wasn't sure how much good I could do against that many Indians. However, I had mentally committed myself to doing whatever I could, so I started riding toward the cabin. As I got closer, I saw a small gully that could be useful cover, so I headed for that. I was able to get my horse down into it, and that kept him from being a marker for my location.

I drew my rifle and water and got into position. Dammit, there were more Indians than I had realized. There had to be around 30, and that was going to press me if I had to stop shooting to reload. Hell, there was no alternative, so I started shooting.

I knocked down four horses before they realized that somebody else was shooting at them. However, when they did, a small group broke off from the main gang and charged at me. It looked like six were headed for me, and, naturally, I had to concentrate on them before going back to the main body.

I still shot at horses, not men, so I seldom missed when a horse was running toward me. I spent nine shots knocking down those six horses, and three more shots were necessary to make sure that none of the fallen men could shoot me when I looked somewhere else. None of the remaining Indians took note of me so I used the respite to reload my rifle.