Chapter 2

I took the three Indian horses back to town and sold them for $4 each. The livery stable owner was still being kind to me! When he asked me where I was finding so many Indian horses, I told him. He whistled and wished me continued good luck. I thanked him and headed to the saloon for supper. After my usual chilli and half a beer, I went back to the livery stable to sleep on the hay stack.

The next day, I had had so much luck with my scheme with the small Comanche war party that I figured to repeat the exercise. This time, I found six men headed out on what looked like a hunting expedition. At this point, to me Comanches were Comanches, and I fully intended to kill every one that I could find. A 14-year-old who is full of hate could be a force of nature.

I followed the hunting party to a fairly large grove of trees. I figured that they must be after deer or elk, so they would split up shortly to hunt individually. That would make things easier for me, so I did not press to start killing. This time, I planned to attack the individual hunters with my knife. To my knowledge, this was the one time that a Comanche would willingly get off his horse, not counting a call of nature.

I arbitrarily picked one hunter and followed him into the woods. He dismounted very soon and left his horse ground hitched. I did the same with my horse and stuck to the hunter as closely as I could. He was not worrying about being stalked himself, so he was easy to follow. I could not see what he was following, but I did see him halt and draw a shaft from his quiver. As he concentrated on his quarry, I came up behind him. He never noticed me until I drove my knife into his back, angled up from just below his ribcage. He only had time to grunt rather softly as the knife eventually penetrated his heart. That probably went better than I deserved, and I started looking for my next victim.

The next man was not so easy. Actually, he saw me first. The first I knew of him was when an arrow just missed my chest by less than an inch. I actually felt the arrow touch my shirt as it flew past me. Not being a complete fool, I dove for the ground and sheathed my knife. Now was the time for my revolver, no matter if I scared the rest of the Comanches away. At this point, I did not care how much noise I made as I rolled under a low bush between me and the man who almost killed me. I figured that my best bet would be for him to come after me, so I tried to be as quiet as possible as I hid under that bush.

The Comanche had dropped his bow and pulled his knife. The brush was simply too thick to permit him to make a quick shot. His knife was his best bet, and he was smart enough to realize that. I wanted him to get a little closer before I fired because I was afraid that the bullet would be deflected by a stray limb that I had not noticed.

The man did now know exactly where I was, but he was headed in my general direction, so I tried to stay still and quiet. I was sure that he was expecting to face a full grown man and not someone any shorter, so he was not looking under bushes growing as close to the ground as the one I was hiding under. After a couple of minutes of moving in my direction, I figured that he was close enough. I held my Army .44 in both hands to steady my aim and fired a bullet at an upward angle into his gut.

All I can assume is that bullet roared through the flesh of his belly and hit a bone around his backbone. This caused the bullet to bounce back toward his front and bounce off a rib before tearing more internal flesh. Anyway, his insides must have been pretty badly torn up by that bullet because I never had to fire another one at him!

On the other hand, every Comanche left from that hunting party knew that a White man was in the neighborhood and most likely shooting at them. At the time, no Comanche carried a gun, so the shooter had to be White. Oh, Man, now the hunting band suddenly became a war party. I knew that they thought to have a lot of fun chasing me, and all thoughts of hunting for food were forgotten when there was so much more fun to be had hunting a hated White man.

I had four shots left in my revolver, so I was not ready to switch to another gun or to change the cylinder in this one. I was not here for fun, but I fully expected to enjoy the next few minutes as I tried to get at least one more Comanche before I had to leave.

I had a choice: I could wait where I was for the Indians to come to me, or I could go after them. I cogitated for only a moment before I decided to go after them. I decided to stay on the ground because that was my best choice for concealment. These bushes were unusually thick low to the ground, and I planned to turn that to my advantage. I rolled from under that bush and saw the man I had shot. He had nothing I wanted, but I did want to mutilate him to give him a hard time in the after-life. However, that would have to wait: there were four men who were now hunting me, and I had to be careful if I were going to survive.

I began to slither along the ground in my best imitation of a snake. I thought I knew where to find another of the Comanches, so I headed in that direction. There was another advantage of staying low to the ground: I could see feet and legs even when that man could not see me. My clothes did a good job of blending in with my surroundings, so nothing stood out and was easy to see.

I had gone about 12 yards when I saw those feet I was talking about. There was an Indian hunched down behind a bush, and I might well have blundered into him if I had been walking upright. As it was, I saw him, and I was sure that he had not seen me. The man's body was hidden by the bush, but his feet and the lower part of his legs were easy for me to see. If I could approach him from the rear, I might be able to take him with my knife, and that was an attractive possibility because I would not be giving myself away with the sound of another gunshot.

I slewed around a little bit and tried to crawl to the man's back. I kept my gun out just in case I had to shoot before I was ready to use my knife, but I was still hoping for a chance with my knife. I had almost reached the man when he shifted position, probably to keep his legs from cramping with the unusual strain on his leg muscles. Dammit, there went my chance to use my knife. I cursed my luck and decided to act.

I still could not see the man's torso as well as I would have liked, but I could see well enough to risk a shot. Again, I used the two-hand grip to steady my aim with that heavy pistol and thumbed back the hammer. I worried that the man might react at the sound of the metal parts rubbing on each other, but I had to take the chance. Before he could move if he did hear the sound, I fired a bullet at his chest about where I thought his heart should be. I guessed that I was right, because there was little bleeding.

I did not hang around for a detailed examination because there were still three other Comanches hunting for me. I wondered if I were pushing my luck a little too hard, and I decided to get away while I could. I headed toward where I had left my horse, but I stayed on my belly. That was the only way I could hope to escape being seen. Even that was not a certainty, but it was better than the alternatives.

I was almost to my horse when I detected someone creeping up behind me. How did I know that? I have no idea, but the feeling saved my life. I rolled sharply to my left just as a man landed where I had been lying. His knife was driven into the ground where my left kidney would have been had I not rolled. He was so close that I almost panicked, but I held myself in check. I was able to get my gun around and to fire a bullet into his side. The shot was not immediately fatal, but it would eventually kill anyone, White or Indian, because there were no surgeons out here in Texas who could have removed the bullet and repaired the damage. My immediate thought that I would have died much more painfully if that knife had landed where it had been aimed!