Not about to waste another shot on the thief, Scratch stuffed the pistol into his belt, raised the rifle above his head in both hands, then savagely drove the metal butt plate straight down into the warrior’s face. And a second time as the Indian twisted and thrashed, his last ragged breaths spewing from the crushed hole in his head like frosty streamers. After a third and harder blow, he no longer moved.
Stepping over his victim, Bass pulled the pistol free, crouched slightly, and slipped forward again into the darkness. To this side and that he shoved the frightened, chivvied animals, forcing a path through their midst. A hobbled horse clumsily lunged out of his way, and into that gap suddenly leaped another warrior, a long dagger clutched in one hand, a tomahawk held in the other. From side to side he rocked, gazing wickedly at the white man with a crooked smile.
Bass squeezed the trigger as he brought the pistol up. When the ball struck the warrior high in the chest, it drove him backward off his feet to land among the legs and hooves of the hobbled animals.
“Simms!”
It was Hatcher’s voice somewhere behind his right shoulder.
“Here, goddammit!”
“Ye see Bass?”
“He ain’t with me,” explained the voice coming from a different side of camp.
How he wished he had picked up his powder horn and shooting pouch before he’d left his bedding. Unable to reload, Titus instead leaned down and pulled the knife and tomahawk free from the warrior’s hands, then straightened and yelled, “Jack! I’m over here!”
“Bass?” Hatcher cried. “Was that Scratch’s voice?”
“Sounded like him—”
The voice had to be Kinkead’s, nearly muffled with the gunshot.
“Goddammit!” that booming voice screamed.
“Matt!”
A new voice asked, “You see Bass over by you, Rufus?”
While the trappers called to one another back in camp, no more than fifteen feet in front of him, Titus watched a warrior appear out of the night and those shadows clinging among the trees. The Indian crouched, stopping long enough to study the small clearing where the trappers had made their camp. From there it was plain to see that the horse thief had John Rowland’s narrow back all to himself. Raising his short horn bow, the warrior drew back on the string.
On instinct Bass flung his arm back, hurling the knife at the target. Too quickly. Off its mark, the weapon clattered against a nearby tree. The enemy jerked to the side, wheeling to find the white man behind him. Drawing back on his bow string once more, he now aimed the arrow at Scratch.
Startled at the noise, Rowland turned. “Shit!”
As he leaped to the side, Titus grumbled, “Never was any good with stickers—”
And with that he flung the tomahawk at the raider, striking the horse thief low in the chest.
“Scratch is over here!” Rowland sang out as the warrior crumpled forward onto his face.
Behind them on the far side of their camp, four of the trappers squatted behind some baggage. Among them Hatcher rose. He intently watched the night shadows as Bass emerged from the trees, his eyes raking the meadow for more of the enemy.
“That the last of ’em?” Hatcher asked.
“Dunno,” Elbridge Gray admitted below him, squatting there as he shoved the ramrod down the muzzle of his rifle.
“Keep yer goddamned eyes peeled on that line of trees,” Hatcher commanded, slapping Solomon Fish on the shoulder as he turned. “Kinkead? Where the hell’re you?”
“I don’t see him nowhere,” Caleb Wood cried with fear in his voice.
From across camp Rufus Graham shouted, “He go out with them horses?”
“Horses,” Bass muttered angrily at himself, whirling around. Then he turned back suddenly to yell at Rowland. “Your gun loaded, Johnny?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Come with me,” Bass growled, growing more angry with himself as he dashed away. “The goddamned horses.”
As the two white men drew close, the animals neighed and whinnied—some recognizing their smell, others still frightened. They milled nervously in what was left of their rope corral strung in a wide circle, looped tree to tree to tree. That one section cut by the raiders was not enough for the horses to dare snatch at their freedom: with a hand still clutching the end of the rope he had cut, one of the warriors lay dead. The foreign smell of the Indian, perhaps that faint hint of his blood on the wind, kept the rest of their nervous animals from bolting past the body sprawled on the forest floor.
“How many you figger the niggers got?” Rowland asked as he moved among the horses, quieting them—patting necks, stroking withers and flanks.
“Likely a handful,” Bass replied, worried. For he still hadn’t seen her among the others.
Simms was suddenly at the far side of the corral, ducking under the rope. “Mule’s over here, Scratch!”
“Damn,” he croaked thickly, shoving his way through the rangy Indian cayuses, fighting his way to the mule. He stopped, finding he could breathe again just at the sight of her.
Reaching Hannah’s side, Titus laid an arm affectionately over her neck, hugging the animal.
“Kinkead’s hurt,” the stocky Simms said as he came to a halt beside Bass. “Hurt bad.”
“He gonna make it?”
“Hatcher don’t know yet,” Simms admitted, his pale, whitish-blond hair aglow in the night.
“Damn.” Scratch turned toward the far side of the corral. His eyes found Rowland. “Me and Johnny stay here while you get some more rope.”
“They cut through more’n one place?”
“No,” he answered Simms. “We’re lucky. Who was they anyway?”
Isaac shrugged. “From the quick look-see I got of the two of ’em we dropped … likely they was Blackfoots.”
He swallowed hard. Blackfoot again. “G’won—get the rope, Isaac.”
Simms turned and moved away without a word.
Blackfoot.
What were the chances this had been a different raiding party from the one that had struck Hatcher’s outfit weeks ago as they were trapping their way northwest from Shoshone country? Slim chance, if any. When Goat Horn had brought his warriors across those days and nights of hard riding to pull the trappers’ fat out of the fire, reaching the white men as the Blackfoot raiders were circling in tighter and tighter to make the kill … what were the chances that those angry, defeated Blackfoot had been driven on north, back to their own country?
And what were the chances they had doubled back to try again?
“They was Bug’s Boys awright,” the rail-thin Rowland said behind him.
Turning, Bass saw John standing over one of the bodies.
“You get this’un, Scratch?”
Titus stepped over to the Indian lying sprawled on the ground. “The first’un,” Bass admitted. “Didn’t kill him right off with a ball. Not much more’n a boy.”
“Ain’t much left of the young’un’s face.”
Swallowing, Titus declared, “He come on a man’s errand.”
“Damn if he didn’t. Looks of it—this here boy was ready to chop you into boudin meat.”
Shaking his head, Bass turned away, watching Simms approaching. “It don’t make the killing any easier, Johnny.”
“By jam—these niggers’re wuss’n animals,” Isaac declared as he came to a halt. “Blackfeets is like painters and wolves, Scratch. No better. A little smarter mayhaps. But they ain’t wuth no more’n a critter.”
“Isaac’s right,” Rowland said, bobbing his head of unkempt hair. “And your hand put two of ’em outta their misery this night.”
“Two?” Simms echoed with interest, stroking at his long, pale beard.
Jabbing a bony thumb over his shoulder, Rowland explained, “’Nother’un’s back there—nigger was fixin’ to lay me out when Bass finished him.”