Chapter 8

I continued to shoot at the gathered Indians and did hit three more before they got smart enough to move to another location that also required me to move. Well, let me tell you that I did not mind moving as long as I still had such a bodacious target! I managed to drop four more until they got smart enough to move to a place where they were not exposed to another loophole. I pointed out this blunder in fort construction to my host, and he vowed to correct that if he survived this fight.

The rest of the Indians, now a severely reduced fighting force, moved with their leaders, so there was nothing to shoot at. I figured that this was the last time I would have the option of shooting my Sharps, so I set it aside in favor of the Henry repeater. I checked to make sure that its magazine was full, and then suggested that we fix a pot of coffee, since the Indians had not yet got around to plugging the chimney. We had already looked after the animals before breakfast, so there was nothing else to do until the Indians decided on how to attack us.

That was taking such a long time, and there were no Indians guarding the front door, that I decided to go out to take a look around. My host promised to watch out for me and to let me back in if I needed it. I guess that I was letting my boredom get to me, but I had to do something. I took my Henry and went outside. I waited until my host had closed and barred the door before I went looking for trouble.

My whole trip was anticlimactic! I could not find an Indian anywhere around the house! They had left, probably having decided that we were just too much bad luck waiting to happen. They had also taken their dead with them, so we did not have any evidence that they had even been here! I went back to the front door and asked to be admitted. Once I got back inside, I explained what had happened, and the two of us were relieved that we had gotten off so easily.

I stayed until the next morning just to make sure that the Arapahoes were not trying to trick us, but we never saw another sign of that war party. We concluded that they had given their expedition up as a doomed enterprise plagued by bad luck, and they had gone back to their main camp to reorganize. There was a very good chance that they would not be back this way again, but there were too many other groups of hostile Indians to get too complacent!

This time, I got away after my last cup of coffee, and headed farther west. I was not sure what I might encounter next, but you can be sure that I tried never to let my guard down. However, Spot had prompted an idea: I was going to be on the lookout for war dogs that I could add to my entourage. What I wanted were large dogs like mastiffs or Great Danes, since they could be trained to be man-killers. Almost all Western Indians were afraid of war dogs, deeming them to be demons, and that was an asset in and of itself. With that in mind, I stopped at every cabin and town I came to. I asked if there were such dogs for sale and, if not, where I might find some.

I was not immediately successful in finding the dogs I wanted, but I was never discouraged. Meanwhile, I did encounter more hostile Indians, but in small groups of three to five. My weapons were so much better than theirs, that I was always able to win an encounter in short order.

The weather was getting toward the winter cold and wind that the Northern Plains were famous for, so I decided to head south. I thought to winter over in Southern NMT (New Mexico Territory). Their winds were as brutal as those farther north, but the temperature did not get so cold. I was lucky and able to stay ahead of the weather.

I was also lucky because, in Santa Fe, I was able to locate a breeder of the kind of dogs that I wanted. Originally, I was only going to take two, but the breeder was a very good salesman, and I bought three, all males. I figured that all of the wandering I planned to do did not allow for the care of puppies. I took two Great Danes and a mastiff. It did not take long to find out that the mastiff was the leader of the new pack. However, I was able to convince him that I was the ultimate boss, and we settled down nicely.

I spent a week learning how to manage my new army, and we seemed to develop a real respect for each other. The one thing that I had to remember was that all three of the dogs were trained man-killers, and not household pets. I swear, on occasion, the mastiff, Hugo, seemed to turn to Ada for advice on how to best protect her and my horse. Whatever the situation, they did get along well. Olaf and Swen, the two Great Danes, also got along well with Ada, and that was a great relief to me!

I headed south toward Las Cruces before the weather got too bad. I generally followed the west bank of the Rio Grande. In the process, I ran into some really rough country. There were not many settlements or homesteads along here, so I spent a lot of nights camping out. That was when I was especially happy to have the dogs. Ada was excellent at warning of trouble, but she was not a good enough fighter to fend off a serious attack by multiple foes, whether two legged or four.

On the other hand, the three dogs were capable of frightening off almost anything that they could not kill! I was never careless in my camps, but I was never very nervous either. The Navajoes were my biggest worry, but they were the most wary of demons that took the form of dogs. I never saw a Navajo during my whole trip to Las Cruces, and I think that they all ran away when they saw the large dogs I had with me.

Other Indians were cautious at the prospect of fighting dogs, but the Chiricahua Apaches were not so impressed by the dogs. I say it that way because I never had a Chiricahua run away at the sight of the dogs the way the Navajos did.

As a case in point, I was riding through some very broken country, bad lands if there ever were any, when I encountered some of the aforementioned Apaches. We were in a deep cut between two steep and virtually shear walls of rock. The cut was so narrow that there was no room for a horse or mule to turn around. I cannot imagine how I was so foolish as to wind up in such a place, but the Apaches found me there.

Of course, they were not as foolish as I, so they were about 50 feet above me on the edge of the western wall. They started out by rolling rocks down onto us, but we were fortunate enough to be missed by the larger rocks. We did get hit by some of the smaller rocks, but that was damned unpleasant!

There was nothing we could do at that point, except to try to escape. That we did by putting on a burst of speed. Dammit, I was not going to let a bunch of Indians make me feel so dumb without striking back at them. When we reached the end of the cut, the ground leveled out, and there was a sort of ramp leading up onto the western side of the cut.

Well, the temptation was just too much! My horse, my mule, and my dogs raced up the hill at my urging. I am sure that Ada thought I was crazy, but I did not ask her opinion. The slope was pretty steep, so the dogs beat the rest of us to the top. That was probably just as well, because they caught sight of the Indians and vice versa. Both sides stopped to consider the alternatives, and that gave me time to reach the top of the hill.

The dogs were eager to attack the Indians, but they would not do it until I gave them clearance to do so. When I reached the crest of the slope, I saw that there were seven Apaches facing us. Since they did not have any guns and I did, I figured that it was safe enough for us to attack. They had bows, war clubs, and lances, but nothing to match the killing power at a distance that was available in my Henry rifle.