Chapter 2

We continued toward the tribal meeting site that second day, and that was when I found out just how inept I was at hunting with a lance from horseback. That afternoon was when I started work on the atlatl and darts. Fortunately, we were sheltering in a small copse of trees, so I had a source of wood for my weapons. I made a total of eight darts, four with metal points and four with points of hardened, sharpened wood.

That evening, Dove asked if we could put off sex until tomorrow night. She was embarrassed when she admitted that she was still a little sore from the previous night. Of course, if I wanted sex, she would accommodate me, but she did hope that I would let her off for tonight. I teased her a little bit by pretending to consider the alternatives, but I did give in and let her have a night off. Actually, two nights in a row like last night would be a bit more than I could handle, but Dove saved me from having to admit it.

We went for three more days of a repeat of this day, except for the sex situation. However, on the fourth day, the situation changed for the worse. Dove had told me that we were cutting across a section of territory that was claimed by both the Mescaleros and the Comanches, so there was no surprise when we saw four Comanches riding toward us that morning.

Dove said that they would surely try to kill me and take her back to their village as a sex slave. Well, I was not about to put up with that nonsense. Now that I had the atlatl and the club, I figured that I was a match for only four Comanches. That attitude was probably going to get me killed one day, but I wanted to buck up Dove's feelings.

The men were charging at us as if they expected for me to attack them on horseback, but I had a better idea. There was no way that I could fight effectively from horseback, but I believed that my chances were good if I was standing on the ground where the Comanches could not reach me from their horses. With that in mind, I quickly dismounted and moved our two horses to stand side by side with enough room for me to stand between them.

I put Dove on the ground under her pack horse. She was holding the lead rope from its halter and a similar rig from my horse. That way, the two horses were not likely to move far enough to leave me standing in the open. I got ready with my atlatl and darts and waited for the Comanches to get close enough.

At 50 yards, I flung my first dart. It was one without a metal point, but I hoped to hit a horse with it and make him dump his rider at high speed. Damned if it didn't work! I aimed at one of the horses in the middle of the four, figuring that I could increase my chances of doing mischief if I scored a hit. The atlatl dart hit him in the neck and caused him to swerve in front of the horse on his left. That horse ran over the first horse and the two went down in a mass of flailing horses and humans. Neither human got up from the fiasco, but both horses did. The horses just stood in place, waiting for orders from their incapacitated riders.

The other two men ignored their fallen companions and continued to charge toward us. I don't know what they had in mind; maybe they were trying to make us run in panic. Anyway, this time I launched another wooden-tipped dart, but it missed. The two riders were now so close that I couldn't use the atlatl the way it was intended.

Instead, I dropped the atlatl and darts and picked up my club. The two Indians rode as close as they could to our horses, but they could not reach either one of us from there. They really didn't want to hurt Dove, as that would reduce her value as a slave. Besides, everybody knew that women didn't fight, so they didn't want to return to the village with a slave that they had obviously wounded unnecessarily.

I was the target of their interest, and I was out of reach. What were they to do? Logic said that they needed to get off their horses and attack me on foot where they could get between the horses. I doubt that logic was the strong suit of either one of the Comanches, but they did fiddle around a bit before realizing that they had no other choice.

They stabbed their lances into the ground and unlimbered their clubs. This could get interesting if they worked it right, but this was not something they were used to or had trained for, so I figured I still had the advantage. Once they had committed themselves to fighting on their own two feet, I put the rest of my plan into motion.

I ran from between the horses and taunted them to come after me. "You are silly buffalo cows that have no idea of how to fight a real man! Come on, I will take you on one at a time or both together. You are both pitiful sissies who don't know how to wipe your own asses. Which one of you will be the one to attack me first?"

Neither man was used to being taunted, so they lost their heads and charged me together. Surprising as it may seem, that was to my advantage. I expected that they would get in each other's way, and that was what happened. They would have been much better off to have separated and charged me from opposite sides, but they reacted as expected and both charged practically close enough to hug each other.

These clubs were not made for overhand swings, but for swings from the side, as one might swing a baseball bat. Therefore, when the man on the left side of the pair swung his club back to take a swing at me, he hit his companion in the gut with the head of his club. That messed up whatever coordination either one might have had, and that was the opening I needed. They had no idea of the advances in fighting that had taken place in the 21^st Century, so they assumed that I would be swinging at them above the waist.

However, I had been trained by masters, so I went for the knee of the man on my right. The club landed on his left leg just beside his kneecap. That two-pound piece of stone crashed into the bone of his knee like a hammer crushing a fly. He fell immediately against his companion and messed up a clumsy swing that that man had been trying to take. The upshot was that I missed my backswing and did not connect with his thigh as I had aimed. Instead, I caught him in the crotch and crushed his balls.

I berated myself for my miss, but on second thought, it was probably a better hit than the one that I had planned. Either way, both Comanches were now down and out of the fight. I quickly smashed in their heads with my club to finish the fight. The only aggravating part of that was that I now had to clean brains and blood from my club.

When the last man was dead, Dove ran to me and gave me a hug and a kiss that I would long remember. "Oh, Douglas, you are a great warrior! I am so proud to be your woman!" That was fine, but she insisted that I take all four scalps. Again, I did it to shut her up, but I asked why I should do that. Dove explained that the men would not have full status in the after life if some of their body was missing. The taking of the scalp was kind of like adding insult to injury, and she hated Comanches so much that she wanted to do anything to discommode them. OK, I could go along with that, since it meant so much to her.

I now had seven scalps that Dove proudly displayed on a coup stick. This stick was fastened to the supply pack on the back of the pack horse so that it was standing upright and easy to see from a great distance. I thought that was just asking for trouble, but Dove was insistent that that was the way things were done, so I went along with her, as usual. I just hoped that it didn't come back to haunt us later on.

We had a week of bliss as we continued on our way. Dove insisted that we only had about two more weeks of traveling before we reached the meeting site. I was in a hurry to get there, mostly because my curiosity was killing me. I could hardly wait to find out how a Stone Age people celebrated, elected chiefs, and carried on trade. I was really looking forward to the experience.