Chapter 10

I was received at home with hugs, kisses, and a thorough examination to determine if I might be hiding a wound somewhere that my wives could take care of. The only such "wound" was in my balls, and my wives were soon draining them to make sure that they were going to recycle properly. Luckily for all of us, there was no problem there, and we had an extended session to demonstrate that.

The next morning was one of those where I was full of piss and ginger. My wives knew that there was only one cure for that, and it involved guns. They reluctantly bid me adieu as I went to look for more Comanches. Neither of my wives was actually enthusiastic about me hunting Comanches, but they both realized that I was a bear to live with if they kept me bottled up and under their watchful eyes.

I headed for the Comanche village I knew about and found it easily enough. This appeared to be a day set aside for a big powwow or celebration. I did not know enough Comanche lore to be able to identify what was going on, but I really did not need that if all I were going to do was to try to kill as many as I could. There were several sentries out riding a great loop around the camp, so I had to be careful to avoid being noticed.

Somewhere along the line, I have forgotten where or when, I picked up a Sharps buffalo gun, and I had added it to my armament that my poor horse was forced to carry. It was .52 caliber and had an effective range of 600 yards. As could be easily told from its name, that buffalo rifle packed quite a punch. The biggest problem with it was that it was single-shot, but it was a breech-loader with metallic cartridges.

I had concocted a plan, subject to change at a moment's notice, whereby I would use the Sharps to pick off the highest ranking Indian at the celebration and switch to my Henry when the Comanches charged at me. When necessary, I would jump on my horse and get the hell out of there as quickly as I could. That was when my shotgun and pistols would come into play.

I hid my horse and me in the little grove of woods that I had previously used. The range seemed to be about 550 yards, and that was pushing things a little bit, but I should be able to get off at least two shots from there before I had to switch to the Henry. The Henry could be loaded with up to 17 rounds, but I did not expect to be able to use that many on this occasion. My greatest problem was that I did not dare to let the Comanches surround me before I could escape from the trees.

My next fort was to be a wide and deep arroyo about 1,000 yards away from the trees. Once I made it there, I figured to be able to fight off anything the Comanches could throw at me.

The Indian celebration started at noon, so I was grateful for the sandwiches that my wives had packed for me. I nibbled on those while I waited for the Indians to start their get-together. Some elderly Comanche in the biggest war bonnet I had ever seen was escorted to the place of honor and seated with much ceremony. I swear that there had to be at least 100 coup-feathers on that war bonnet, and that meant that he was either a very successful killer or a very successful war chief, or maybe even both. Anyway, I knew that my first bullet was reserved for him!

Some other men were seated near that first man, and they were all wearing coup-feathers, but none with nearly as many as the first man. Okay, I was going to shoot as many of them as I could with the Sharps—I hoped for three. I got ready as some sort of ceremonial dancing was started by a shaman, and he was tossing dust and other stuff around as he danced. Again, I had no idea the significance of what was going on, but I was going to shoot as soon as I could get ready.

I assumed the prone position and steadied the Sharps barrel against a tree trunk as I lined up my shot. I was not in a great hurry because I wanted the Indians to have time to become engrossed in the ceremonies. I waited about 10 minutes, but I was afraid that the calm air might change before I was ready to shoot. I took careful aim and adjusted my breathing to hold my shot as steady as possible. Not being a complete fool, I aimed for my target's chest instead of his head. That way, a slight miss was still likely to result in a kill.

I fired that shot and did not wait to view the results, but reloaded my rifle as quickly as I could—about six seconds. When I looked back to aim at another target, they were all gathered around the old man, and I could not tell exactly what my first shot had done. Nevertheless, I lined up on another man with a lot of coup-feathers and shot at him. A nice red splotch formed in the middle of his back, and I will bet that the man just in front of him also felt the effect of my bullet. That Sharps bullet had enough force behind it to go all the way through the first man and hit the second man hard enough to be fatal. Two men fell, so that must have been what happened.

I decided that I had time for one more shot, even though people were already pointing at my plume of powder smoke. Anyway, I spent another six seconds reloading my Sharps, and it was time well spent. My next target was the shaman who was dancing when I shot the first man. Killing the shaman was going to be a tremendous psychological blow to the Comanches, so I could not resist the opportunity.

The shaman kept moving around, so it was hard to get a good line on him. However, he finally wedged his way into the crowd so that he was locked in place for a few seconds. All I had for a target was his head, but I was overcome with admiring my own skill, so I decided to take a chance on a head-shot. I managed to line up on the shaman's head and fired.

The result was that I killed three men with that one shot, maybe even more. I definitely saw three heads explode, and there may have been more. So many men were crowded together that I could have seriously wounded at least one more man. Anyway, I congratulated myself on my skill, but it was now time to change to the Henry.

Two of the sentries were charging at me on their horses and brandishing bows, so I had to attend to my own defense from this moment on. The sentries were riding toward me at different angles so that I was going to have to swing my rifle in order to get a shot at both of them. This was no time to fool around, so I shot at the horses and not at the men. One horse went down, and the fall must have killed the rider, but the other horse was only wounded, and it slowed down, giving the rider time to save himself.

However, the rider did have to stand up to see me through the tall grass, and that gave me a chance to shoot at him directly. I calmed myself and took the time to get a good aim before I fired. Aha! The Comanche was hit in the chest and fell over just as he released his arrow. I did not notice where it went, but the important point was that it came nowhere near to me.

By this time, several other warriors had picked up weapons and were running at me. Well, I was now forced to rise from my prone position, but I was still able to maintain a kneeling position and rest my rifle against the tree trunk for added stability. The result was that I was able to kill five Indians with seven shots. Now that was good shooting, no matter what battle one was fighting.

The trouble was that more Indians were charging at me with weapons in hand, so it was time for me to abandon my current position and retreat to the arroyo. The Indians who were near to me were all on foot, an unusual place for a Comanche warrior to stage a fight. Nevertheless, they were all so determined to kill me that that detail had slipped their minds.

I was able to reach my horse and escape with only near misses from the multitude of arrows fired at me. Most of the time I was protected by trees until I reached my horse, and I was able to escape the arrows at that time by swerving back and forth so that I never made a stable target. The relatively low velocity of an arrow versus a bullet made that possible.

I made it to the arroyo well ahead of the Indians and had plenty of time to get set up. I reloaded all of my weapons, including the Sharps, though I did not expect to get much use from it. The only conveniently close ramp to the bottom of the arroyo was only 20 yards away from where I decided to make my stand. Several bushes were growing near the lip of the arroyo, and they made a good screen for my head. Also, the limbs of the bushes could deflect an arrow, and that made shooting them at me even more chancy for the Indians.