than half a mile from the village. He watched for a few seconds, long enough to see that the target was located on flat terrain at the confluence of two streams. Then he galloped back to the main group, certain that he had not been detected.
The gaunt leader, addressed always as 'Captain,' though he had never served in a formal military body, quickly brought his men to the elm grove and, sighting through a field glass, ascertained that the village was totally unaware of their presence. Ponies were scattered in front of the Indian town but there was no massed herd. In the minutes the captain scanned his objective he saw no more than half a dozen human forms outside the tents, and it was obvious that none of them suspected the wrath about to befall them.
Twelve men were selected to circle wide of the village and position themselves behind it, there to kill as many of the escaping enemy as possible. They were given thirty minutes to get in place, before the main force of rangers would assault the village head-on.
'You rangers who wish to fortify yourselves do so now,' the captain intoned solemnly, and a score of men hastily brought their bottles to their lips.
“Don't waste rounds on them animals out yonder,' the captain cautioned. 'We'll take 'em home afterward. Let's get the people first. Now,' he grunted, digging through one of his saddlebags, 'I've got a shiny new Colt I'm offering.' He held the pistol up with both hands, waving it back and forth in front of the eyes of his followers as though it were solid gold. “This goes to the first man who kills and scalps one of them heathen scum.' Then he added with a wink, 'Babies without hair don't count.”
The roar of laughter such high wit would normally have elicited was stifled by the rangers, hands, many of which flew coquettishly to their mouths lest the guffaws carry in the pleasant breeze blowing toward the treasured target.
'You men go ahead now,' the captain ordered and the twelve selected to cut off escape filed out of the grove. When the squeak of saddle leather and the footfalls of the horses had faded to nothing the gaunt leader straightened in the saddle and cleared his throat.
'Boys, I'm a man for prayer. I could quote scripture to you right now for I'm tempted. What we're about to do's got it bubblin' up in me. But I think all I got to say is let's check our weapons over one more time. One more time won't hurt us now and I'd hate to see anybody miss out on the fun 'cause his weapon wasn't right.'
The rangers jumped down from their horses. They tested their cinches, unloaded and reloaded their firearms, and filled the silence of the grove they stood in with the sound of knife blades passing rhythmically to and fro on their whetstones, all the while inwardly damning the slowness of time.
Chapter XVI
The first person to see them was a twelve-year-old girl named Red Dress, the younger sister of Hunting For Something. She was sitting outside her parents' dwelling, playing house with a miniature lodge and dolls when a random glance at the country in front of camp told her something was wrong. A long line of dust was rolling toward the village.
As she stood up Red Dress realized that the rolling cloud was being made by a band of riders hurtling toward her. She began screaming but her cries were as futile as the squeak of a mouse in the split second before talons lift it into space. The rush of pounding hooves and the hair-raising yells of the riders were already resounding through the helpless village.
Frozen with fear, Red Dress sank to the ground, drove her face into the earth, and covered both ears. Moments later, in an explosion of gunfire, a bullet slammed into the back of her head, ending the girl's life.
At the time Red Dress was shot, the camp was already swarming with terrified residents, fleeing in,all directions at once. People fell everywhere as the invaders emptied their pistols and rifles at anything that moved, and the whole village might have died in the first horrendous volley were it not for the voracity of the rangers, many of whom succumbed to temptation, scalping their kills and plundering Indian homes on the spot.
Some jumped off their horses and shot those still huddled in their lodges while others became embroiled in disputes over who had fired a fatal round. At the height of the attack the gaunt leader found himself besieged by several rangers, each clamoring to claim the shiny new Colt by virtue of the blood-drenched hanks of hair they were waving in his face.
Horned Antelope had managed to survive the first wave of firing. As he raced for the rear of the village he spotted two warriors, Shield and Milky Way, cutting the throats of horses in a desperate attempt to make a barrier from which they could drive up the price on their lives, allowing the women and children and old men a few extra seconds to escape.
A bullet tore through Horned Antelope's shoulder as he dove behind the downed horses, and on recovering his senses he discovered that both his friends were dead. The last thing he experienced in earthly existence was a queer thudding all over his body as the fusillade of bullets tore through his flesh.
At the first sound of guns, Stands With A Fist had snatched up Stays Quiet and bolted outside, lunging for the picket line that anchored the pony Dances With Wolves had left for her. She threw Stays Quiet onto the horse's withers, jumped up behind, and kicked for the prairie opening in front of her.
But she hadn't covered a hundred yards when the twelve rangers charged with blunting the escape suddenly loomed into view and opened fire. The pony shifted direction at full speed, leaping away from the white puffs of smoke, and Stands With A Fist, somehow managing to keep herself and her daughter on his back, let him go, trusting the panicked animal to carry them clear.
Unhit, they might yet have reached safety had they not been spotted by a trio of rangers who had reluctantly paused in their labors to perform the necessary but bothersome act of reloading their weapons. Seeing the game afoot, they spontaneously laid whips to their horses' haunches and gave chase.
When Stands With A Fist saw her pursuers, she asked for all the speed her pony could give and flattened herself over Stays Quiet. She didn't want to look back but the fiendish hollering of the men coming behind at last caused her to turn her head.
At the same moment the ground in front of her fell away in the form of a natural ditch, no more than a few feet wide, cutting across the prairie. Startled by its appearance, the pony hesitated a split second before taking flight and, landing slightly off balance on the other side, catapulted his riders awkwardly into space.
She held on to Stays Quiet as they hit the ground, and, clutching her to her breast, Stands With A Fist began to run, expecting at any moment to be shot down. Instead, she found herself suddenly encircled by grinning, hair- mouthed white men jabbering at each other in the language she had long forgotten. This flurry of talk between the rangers, a good-natured joust concerning who most deserved to take her scalp, saved the lives of Stands With A Fist and her daughter.
The gaunt leader, having first given the coup de grace to another fleeing Indian nearby, suddenly noticed three of his men circling a standing enemy and rode over to investigate. Everyone turned their heads as he came up and the sun swept across Stands With A Fist's head. The cherry hue of her hair flashed in the captain's eyes.
“Hold up, men,' he commanded.
The gaunt leader stepped off his horse and stared quizzically at Stands With A Fist. As he stepped warily up, his revolver poised to fire, Stands With A Fist closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on images of her husband and children at the moment of death.
The next thing she felt, however, was the lifting of a lock of her hair, and when she opened her eyes she was staring into the sunken gray orbs of the captain. He was rubbing her hair between his fingers as if testing the quality of fabric.
He holstered his gun, took one of her arms in both hands, and slowly pushed up the sleeve of her dress. Gazing into her eyes as if to hold them quiet, he spat onto his fingers. He rubbed the spittle on her arm and, like a detective following a quick succession of clues, pulled her bodice down and stared at the flesh above her breast.
'This here's a white woman.'
Awestruck, he stepped back and looked her up and down, his mind swelling with heroic scenarios featuring
