body, or the broad black and yellow bands that identified Seth. Immediately Andy’s .69 let go with its heavy blast.
A buffalo horn vanished from the side of Seth’s headdress; he was nine-tenths knocked off his horse, and almost went under its belly, but pulled himself up. She saw him pull off the remains of the war bonnet, and slam it down, before she turned away.
Andy was pouring a second full measure of gun-powder down the buffalo gun. “Oh,
He had missed a chance to take half the hell-fire out of the hostiles, and maybe lift the siege altogether, with a single shot. She judged he would have to be straightened out, if they were to be here long. “Had to shoot at his head, didn’t you? And yanked on the trigger, too—fit to bust it off! Why do you—”
“She kicked high on me,” Andy stuttered, almost in tears. “Honest, I centered square on his bellybutton! What-all powder did Ben have in this thing—a gallon? I should have drug down with my whole weight—” He banged home the rammer, and fitted a cap.
“Put that thing down! That’s her last charge, you’ve got in her now!”
“That’s Seth sitting out there—will you hear me? And Wolf Saddle with him—”
“Well, they’re not sitting out there any more.” Lowtoned, unhurried, she went on to take him apart; then put him back together again. “What was all that scrabbling around? You looked something like a man trying to wash a cat. You know better than that. Now get your dang head up, by God! Because we’ve wasted the last shot we’re going to. There’s not a man in Texas shoots any better than you do. Or handles anything else any better, either. So take your time. There’s a power of Kiowas out there, now. But come morning, they’re going to be mighty few. And you’ll be sitting with pancakes and honey to your fry-meat. Because that’s what I’m going to fix.”
He lowered the hammer of the big .69 to halfcock, set the weapon aside, and stood rubbing his shoulder. When he finally managed the shadow of a grin, she knew he was all right.
And now the Kiowas came, without gunfire, without war cries, without any sound heard within at all, until fifty-pound boulders crashed against both shutters at once, splitting the timbers, and loosening the deep-anchored frames. Others followed, and the same again, over and over, shattering the heavy wood….
Chapter Forty-one
After the fourth attack, not much was left of the battle shutters. Andy had split up the table to brace what busted pieces the first and second assaults had left hanging; and after the third they had tied up the splits and splinters into sort of a net with strings of rawhide they had saved to make a reata. But now only some long splinters remained, stuck picketwise along the sills.
For a while they had very easily defended the opened window holes from the opposite wall. The moon was up, and Seth was running out of warriors interested in silhouetting themselves for closerange guns within. Three had been hit there, but the only Kiowa surely killed was one who was shot in the throat, and fell inside. He bled in streams, and though they heaved him out as soon as they could, he left such a great, slippery puddle that Rachel had to fetch ashes by the bucket, to restore the footing.
In the fourth assault the Kiowas had used more gunfire, and used it better, than in any previous attempt. They had found out that those inside were covering the windows from positions at the back wall. Their riflemen fanned out, using the creek bed as an entrenchment; and a heavy blanketing fire poured in. If Andy and Rachel had not gone forward at the first shot, they might very easily have been killed in the next three seconds. They stayed against the front wall after that, reduced to taking in enfilade whoever might choose to climb in.
As the fire lifted, one quick rush was made, in files from both ends of the house. War hatchets struck the splinters away, and a leg came over the east sill. Andy all but severed it with a swing of the ax; and then stepped out from the wall to fire three times into a muddle of shadows at the other embrasure. The Kiowas broke off.
Now there was a letup, during which they had time to deal with a buck who was fooling around with an idea of his own. This one had lodged himself outside an end port with a single-shot. He couldn’t see anything inside, apparently; maybe didn’t want to put his face to the loop. He kept poking his rifle into the room to fire blind, at random angles. Except for the near corners, no part of the room was safe from him. Andy squirmed and dodged to the end wall, and stood waiting with raised ax.
Moonlight slanted through a shutterless window to shine cleanly on the bright-metal muzzle as it next appeared. Andy’s ax struck hard, and perhaps buckled the weapon’s barrel, for they knew by the odd sound of its explosion that the breech blew up. The barrel was driven deeper into the room, and stayed there, pointing at the floor.
“Never, never in all my life,” Rachel said, “did I hear of ’em hanging on like this. Not even for revenge— they’re satisfied to take any old scalp, anywhere, for that. Oh, Andy, what’s happening here?”
Andy wouldn’t admit he saw anything special about it. “Just one night? It’s common.”
“When they’re hurt like we’ve hurt ’em?”
“We don’t hit ’em as square as we hope,” Andy thought now. “I’m only sure we killed about one. Maybe two. I don’t know.”
“I could have stopped this, once,” Rachel said, and Andy had never heard a like bitterness in her tone. “I know what I’m called. I’m a red nigger. Cash should have let me go.”
“That’s nothing but Abe Kelsey’s damn lie! You’re Rachel Zachary, and don’t you forget it!”
“They’d never believe Kelsey. Not in a thousand years! He only drummed on it, till he put it in their heads.”
“All right.” If there was any difference, she didn’t see it.
“Most likely one of ’em had a medicine dream. That’s how they get to believe any old damn thing they want to, that ain’t so. Like, some of ’em think they’re bullet-proof. A critter that can believe that can believe anything. And that’s what happened. One of ’em wanted to own you, so he had a medicine dream. Or said he did.”
“They don’t even know what I look like,” she rejected it.
“Don’t they? They’ve watched you dozens of times. From the creek bed. From the ridge. From the brush.”
“You’d have found their tracks!”
“Yes,” Andy said oddly. “Time and again. Only Ben told us to shut up. One of them wants you for his squaw —or one of his squaws. We should have allowed for that. My guess is Wolf Saddle. I’m willing to bet…”
“Sure,” she said, and now the bitter edge could have whispered just as softly if it were slicing through a bull hide shield. “I’d make a good squaw. A dingin’ squaw. Once they fattened me up.”
Suddenly he turned angry. With her? Maybe with the world. “Don’t you play ignorant with me! Because I don’t give a hoot in hell where at you were born, or who to, or who by. I’m your brother. Raised that way, and I aim to stay that. Right up to the last breath I draw—and one long spit beyond!”
He got up, his bare feet silent, and went to set his ear against the back wall.
“And another thing,” he said, through the moon-tempered dark. “You’re not an Indian—not a red-nigger kind, nor a Civilized Nation kind, nor any other kind. So quit fooling around with the notion you might be, you hear?”
Andy made his round of the lookouts and came back to her. He spoke softly, from close by. “I didn’t go to sound so mean, and cross. It isn’t you I’m mad at, Rachel. Ever.”
The gentleness of his tone betrayed her, and she let herself slump, where she sat at the foot of the wall. He sat down close beside her. Awkwardly, but without self-consciousness, he took her in his arms, her head in the
