goin’ through,” he said.
The wagon started forward.
The two lead soldiers went into the water first, followed by the wagon, then the two trailing soldiers.
“Hey, what’s the name of that town?” one of the soldiers asked.
“What town?” another replied.
“You know what town. The one that is just real close to Ft. Junction. What’s the name of it?”
“La Porte.”
“They got ’ny women there?”
“Yeah, they got women there. Of course they do. They got women in any town. That is, if you’ve got any money.”
The other soldiers laughed.
“You men, quit your blabberin’ about women and the like, an’ keep your eyes open,” O’Leary called out to them.
“We’re lookin’, Sergeant Major, we’re—uhn!” The solder’s remark was cut off in mid-sentence by the sound of rifle fire. The bullet caught him in the chest, and he went down.
“Somebody’s shootin’ at us!” one of the others shouted, but his warning was unnecessary because by then several guns were firing.
Within a few seconds, all four soldiers were in the water.
O’Leary recognized at once what had happened, and he slapped the reins against the back of the team, urging them to break into a gallop.
Harris and the men with him had not expected the driver to react so quickly and, before they realized it, O’Leary was out of the water and on the road, moving as fast has his team could pull him.
Richland fired at the wagon, but missed. Cocking the lever, he raised the rifle for a second shot.
“No!” Harris cried out, knocking the end of the rifle down. “Don’t shoot!”
“What do you mean, don’t shoot? What did you do that for?” Richland asked.
“Yeah, he’s getting away!” Garon shouted.
“We can’t take a chance on killin’ one of the mules! We’re goin’ to need them to pull the wagon,” Harris said. “He ain’t goin’ nowhere. Get mounted. Let’s get after him.”
By the time the four men were mounted, the wagon was at least two hundred yards ahead of them.
“Hyah! Get up here!” Harris shouted, slapping his reins to both sides of the neck of his horse. He was well mounted, and his horse broke ahead of the other three, closing quickly on the wagon.
Harris rode right up alongside the wagon, then, raising his pistol, he shot the driver from less than ten yards away. The driver fell forward, but he didn’t fall from the wagon. The mules pulling the wagon continued at a gallop.
Harris rode up to the lead mule of the team, then reached down and grabbed the harness. Pulling back, he yelled for the team to whoa and, after another twenty or thirty yards, the team did come to a stop. They stood there in their harness, breathing hard and blowing, as Harris’s three partners rode up.
“You got him,” Bryans said. “I thought for sure there he was goin’ to get away.”
Harris stared at him, but said nothing. Instead, he rode around to the back of the wagon. Lifting the canvas flap, he looked inside and smiled.
“Come get a gander at this, boys,” he said. “Two guns, and two cases of ammunition.”
“Hey, Harris, what about the ammunition?” Garon asked.
“What about it?”
“I know you agreed to sell the guns to the Injuns for two thousand dollars apiece. Did you say anything about the ammunition?”
Harris smiled. “Damn, Garon, maybe you ain’t as dumb as I thought you was. That’s a pretty good idea. We’ll charge an additional five hundred dollars for a case of bullets.”
“That’s goin’ to be a total of five thousand dollars,” Richland said. “Where are Indians going to get five thousand dollars?”
“From the Black Hills,” Harris said.
“What do you mean from the Black Hills?”
“Haven’t you heard? There’s gold in the Black Hills.”
“Indians don’t use money.”
“They don’t use money in their own culture,” Harris said. “But they ain’t dumb. They know that the white folks value gold above everything else, and they know that they can use it to get whatever they want from us.”
“I just hope they want Gatling guns,” Bryans said.
Harris smiled. “Oh, they do,” he said. “Trust me, they do.”
