knew it must be Josh’s blood because the shit on the ground was white?his own had mostly been white, since crossing the Pecos.
“Look,” he said to Gus, who was just behind him.
At the sight of all the fresh blood, the strength suddenly drained out of Gus. He dropped to his knees and began to vomit, letting go of his horse’s reins in the process. The horse had an arrow sticking out of its haunch and was jumpy; Call just managed to catch a rein and keep the horse from bolting. Long Bill and Rip Green were shooting at the Comanches on the hill, although they couldn’t see their targets.
“Hold off shooting, you idiots,” Bigfoot yelled. “You ain’t going to hit an Indian a thousand feet up a mountain!”
Bigfoot felt very chagrined. He knew he ought to have been able to tell a goatskin with a Comanche boy under it from a living goat, and he could have if he had just had the patience to ride a little closer and observe the goats as they grazed. His lack of patience had led the Rangers into a trap. Of course, he hadn’t expected the pell- mell rush to shoot goats, but he should have expected it: most Rangers would ride half a day to shoot any game, much less unusual game such as mountain goats.
Now one man was dead, several horses were hurt, a Ranger had an arrow in his leg, Zeke Moody had just foolishly ridden off, and no one had any idea how many Indians they faced. There were several on the mountain and at least two on the plain, one of them Buffalo Hump, no mean opponent. But there could be forty, or even more than forty. In his hurry to get to the mountain he had paid no attention to signs. At least Matilda and Sam had not been cut off. The fact that they had survived probably meant they weren’t dealing with a large party. The loss of the ammunition that was on the other pack mule was a grievous loss, though.
The next worry was Ezekiel Moody, who was still loping off to locate the body of his friend. Bigfoot knew that Zeke would soon be dead or captured, unless he was very lucky.
“Damn that boy, they’ll take him for sure,” the Major said. All the Rangers, plus Matilda and Sam, were huddled in the little patch of sage. Shadrach saw the gully where Buffalo Hump had tethered his horse and found the bloody trail he had made when he dragged Josh Corn’s body. Gus McCrae had the dry heaves. He could not stop retching. The sight of the Indian with the great hump reminded him of his own terrified flight; the smell of Josh Corn’s blood caused his stomach to turn over and over, like a churn. Gus knew that Buffalo Hump had almost caught him?the sight of Josh’s blood-streaked body showed him clearly what his fate would have been had the lance that struck his hip been thrown a little more accurately. A yard or so difference in the footrace, and he would have been as dead as Josh.
Gus finally got to his feet and stumbled a little distance from the blood; he needed to steady himself so he could shoot if the Comanches launched an attack.
Major Chevallie felt that he had decided foolishly?he should have followed his first instinct and headed east. More and more he regretted not taking his chances with the Baltimore judge.
Now he was caught in an exposed place, with only a shallow gully for cover and an unknown number of savages in opposition. Their best hope lay in the skills of the two scouts. Shadrach was calm, if annoyed, and Bigfoot was flustered, no doubt because he knew he was responsible for getting them into such a fix. His superior eyesight had not been superior enough to detect the trick and prevent the race.
The chaos involved in fighting such Indians bothered Randall Chevallie more than anything. In Virginia or even Pennsylvania, if quarrels arose, a man usually knew who he was fighting and how to proceed. But in the West, with a few puny men caught between vast horizons, it was different. The Indians always knew the country better than the white men; they knew how to use it, to hide in it, to survive in it in places where a white man would have no chance. No man in Virginia would ride around with a naked, bloody corpse bouncing around on the rump of his horse. No one in Virginia or Pennsylvania would yell as Buffalo Hump had yelled.
There was another shot from the hidden rifleman on the plain, and Zeke Moody’s horse went down.
“I feared it, they’ll get him now, the young fool,” Bigfoot said.
Zeke was not hurt?he had heard no shot, and supposed his horse had merely stumbled. But the horse didn’t get up?in a moment Zeke realized that the horse was dead. At once he turned, and began to run toward the mountain and the Rangers. But Zeke had scarcely run ten yards before Buffalo Hump loomed behind him, riding a horse whose sides were bloody with Josh Corn’s blood.
“We better go help him,” Call said, but old Shadrach grabbed his arm before he could move.
“All this damn helping’s got to stop,” Shadrach said. “We don’t know how many of them are out there. If we don’t stay together there won’t be a man of us left.”
“There’s no chance for that boy anyway,” the Major said grimly. “I should have shot his horse myself, before he got out of range. That way we could have saved the boy.”
All the Rangers watched the desperate race helplessly. They saw that what the Major said was true. Ezekiel Moody had no chance. Old Shadrach raised his long rifle in case Buffalo Hump strayed in range, but he didn’t expect it, and he didn’t fire.
“I hope he remembers what I told him about killing himself,” Bigfoot said. “He’d be better off to stop running and kill himself. It’d be the easiest thing.”
Ezekiel Moody had the same thought. He was running as fast as his legs could carry him, but when he looked back, he saw that the Indian with the great hump was closing fast. Ezekiel’s heart was beating so hard with fear that he was afraid it might burst. He had just come upon Josh Corn’s body when his horse went down. He had seen the great red cap of blood where Josh’s scalp had been. He had also seen the bloody arrow protruding from Josh’s throat.
Yet he was afraid to stop running and try to kill himself. He was afraid the Comanche would be on him before he could even get his pistol out. Also, he was getting close enough to the Rangers that one of them might make a lucky shot and hit Buffalo Hump, or turn him. Old Shadrach had been known to make some remarkable shots?maybe if he just kept running one of the Rangers would get off a good long shot.
Then abruptly Zeke changed his mind and gave up. He stopped and tried to yank out his pistol and shove it against his eyeball, as Bigfoot had instructed. He knew the Indian on the bloody horse was almost on him?he knew he had to be quick.
But when he got his pistol out, he turned to glance at the charging Indian, and the pistol dropped out of his sweaty hand. Before he could stoop for it the horse and the Indian were there: he had failed; he was caught.
Buffalo Hump reached down and grabbed the terrified boy by his long black hair. He yanked his horse to a stop, lifted Zeke Moody off his feet, and slashed at his head with a knife, just above the boy’s ears. Then he whirled and raced across the front of the huddled Rangers, dragging Zeke by the hair. As the horse increased its speed, the scalp tore loose and Zeke fell free. Buffalo Hump had whirled again, and held aloft the bloody scalp. Then he turned and rode away slowly, at a walk, to show his contempt for the marksmanship of the Rangers. The bloody scalp he still held high.
Ezekiel Moody stumbled through the sage and cactus, screaming from the pain of his ripped scalp. So much blood streamed over his eyes that he couldn’t see. He wanted to go back and find his pistol, so he could finish killing himself, but Buffalo Hump had dragged him far from where he had dropped the pistol. He could scarcely see, for blood. Zeke was in too much pain to retrace his steps. All he could do was stumble along, screaming in pain at almost every step.
Shadrach sighted on the Comanche with the big hump, as Buffalo Hump rode away. Then he raised his barrel a bit before he fired. It was an old buffalo hunter’s trick, but it didn’t work. Buffalo Hump was out of range, and Zeke Moody was scalped and screaming from pain.
“Ain’t nobody going to go get Zeke?” Matilda asked. The boy’s screams affected her?she had begun to cry. In peaceful times, back in San Antonio, Zeke had sometimes sat and played the harmonica to her.
“Somebody needs to help that boy, he’s bad hurt,” she said.
“Matilda, he’ll find his way here?once he gets a little closer we’ll go carry him in,” the Major said. “He oughtn’t to have left the troop ?if young Corn hadn’t, he might be alive.”
The Major was a good deal annoyed by the predicament he found himself in. The scalp hunters had defected, the two captives were lost, one young Ranger was dead, and another disabled; Johnny Carthage had an arrow in his leg that so far nobody had been able to pull out; besides that they had lost two horses, one pack mule, and most of their ammunition. It seemed to him a dismal turn ofevents. He still had no idea how large a force he faced?the only Indian to show himself was the chief, Buffalo Hump, who had spent the morning having bloody sport at their expense.
