They started forward. I stepped back into the rocks where their horses could not easily follow and threw my spear. Gomez leapt his horse after me and the spear missed, striking a soldier behind him, glancing from his helm, and stunning him. Two soldiers fell, arrows in their throats, and suddenly the Pawnees raised up around them. One warrior leapt to a horse behind a soldier and wrapped an arm around his throat, wrenching him from the horse. As the soldier fell another Pawnee killed him.
As suddenly as it had begun, the attack was over. The soldiers broke and fled. Brave men they were, but their hearts were not in this fight and I suspected none of them liked Gomez, who was a petty tyrant.
Diego was the last to turn away. 'This was not my doing,' he said, 'but he is in favor and not I. Protect your woman.'
He rode away after them, and I noticed that several of the retreating soldiers gathered about him. Three soldiers and an Indian lay on the ground, and one soldier was limping away.
All but three of us had been hidden, so our attack had been a surprise. I suspect Gomez had expected resistance and welcomed it. He could have seen the lodges of the Pawnees, but they were some distance off. Their fires were smoking and they looked to be occupied. He had not expected them to be hidden in the trees and rocks.
The Pawnees stripped the coats of mail and the helmets from the soldiers. I recovered a musket and a fallen sword.
Clouds gathered over the Sangre de Cristos, and there was a feeling of rain in the air. Gomez and his men had fled down the valley, but I did not for a moment believe we had seen the last of them. They would come again, for he dared not return without the woman he had undoubtedly promised. Diego would not have been so careless or overconfident, nor would Gomez when he returned.
We had revealed our strength, and he had more men. He also had muskets, and our Pawnee friends were soon to leave. I had wished for the iron shirts for my men, but the Pawnees had taken them, although I still had my own, found so long ago upon the banks of the Arkansas, and it was a better, tighter coat of mail than these.
Keokotah came from the trees, where he had used his bow. 'I go,' he said. 'I follow.'
It was an idea that had occurred to me, also. To follow and strike them in their own camp, strike them before they could gather to come against us.
Gomez was no fool. Overconfident, yes, but he would be so no longer. He was a tough, seasoned soldier and he had good men with him. The men we had killed would have mates who would resent their death. From now on there would be no surprises, no quick victories.
On one of the dead soldiers I found a powder horn of gunpowder for the firing of his musket. It was a treasure, more to be valued than gold.
Night came and I checked the loads in my pistols. There was food in the cave and water. The women would be safe there. If I went now to see them, my going might betray their presence, so I stayed away.
The Pawnees were in their camp, and I was alone in the fort. Keokotah had gone out, scouting Gomez and his men. There was no thought of sleep, for I must be ready for an attack at any moment.
Seated by a high port that allowed me to survey the approaches, I ate some nuts and waited. My bow was beside me with a quiver of arrows. Nor did I like the waiting. I would rather be out there in the darkness with Keokotah, but if our fort was taken then all our carefully hoarded food would be lost.
Where was Paisano? He had been turned loose but would stay close.
The hours dragged. I paced the floor, went from port to port, looking into the night. Inside there were no lights, and I needed none.
There was no moon, but the stars were out. From the high ports I could see beyond the stockade. Nothing moved. Nothing--
My eyes held on an edge of brush. Had there been movement there? Or was my vision tricking me? Or perhaps a leaf moving?
Taking up my bow, I waited.
There!
Another movement! Something or somebody was creeping closer.
A quick scurry of feet in the grass, and then another. Two, at least, and right under the stockade. Taking up an arrow I bent my bow.
A head, ever so slowly, appeared over the wall. I waited.
Then suddenly the shoulders and chest appeared, and a leg was thrown over. I loosed my arrow.
It was no more than twenty paces, and the target for. an instant was sharp against the night. In the stillness I heard the arrow's impact, a man's grunt, and a fall. He fell on the inside, and I could see his body lying still. But was he dead? Was he even badly wounded? Might he not be waiting to suddenly rise and rush to the gate to open it for the others?
He moved, and I let go a second arrow.
And then I heard them coming, not one, but many. And I was alone.
Chapter Thirty-Four.
My eyes were accustomed to the darkness. Each shadow near or within the fort was known to me. I went down into the yard. I could not win this fight while seated in safety. I had my spear, my guns, and my blade.
They were coming over the wall when I reached the yard, not one but at least three. I met the first with a sharp, upward thrust of the spear. His hands were grasping the wall, and he saw the spear too late. He let go with one hand to ward it off and fell, right onto the point. The force of his fall tore the weapon from my hands just as I heard a sharp scuffing of moccasins behind me.
Swiftly I turned, striking wildly with the blade. It sliced something, and then I was facing two men, one with a spear. I had fenced long hours with my father and the others back at Shooting Creek and my blade was quick to deflect the spear's point, and thrust. He staggered back, for the thrust had gone deep, but the other man was at the gate, removing the bar.
Running toward him, I was too late. The gate burst open--a rider! I drew a pistol and fired, and then dropped the muzzle to reload.
Yet I believe it was the shock of the gunfire more than its effect that stopped them.
My first shot killed a man. It could scarcely have been otherwise, for he was within ten feet of me and my pistol had a long barrel. He fell from his horse and it clattered over the stone-flagged yard. Then it wheeled and dashed out again.
The sudden shot ended the attack. Waiting, my heart pounding, I shoved the gate back into position and dropped the bar.
They were brave men out there but they had not expected gunfire, and they had lost two men--
Two?
Three had been coming over the wall. One I had impaled on my spear, the second with the knife. Yet the third, he who had run to open the gate?
Where was he?
My pistol went back into its scabbard. I had had to let go my knife when I had drawn the pistol. Now I squatted, groping for it.
Ah, I had it! Now?
There was a man inside, I was sure. A man who waited to kill me. An Indian, I thought, one of the Indians serving with the soldiers of Gomez.
He was here, somewhere in the darkness.
Yet three men were down, including the rider of the horse whom I had shot. He lay without moving. Had my shot been good, then? But where was the other? Somewhere in the shadows there was an enemy. If they attacked again he would attack when I faced them, attack from behind me.
What were they thinking outside? They could not know that they had a man alive inside the fort, yet they must know by now they had lost three or four men. It was expensive, but Gomez was ruthless. He had a contempt for all human life but his own.
Fire?
That would be in his mind, yet he could not know that Itchakomi was not inside the fort. He dared not risk burning his prize.
