fighting the Comanche for ’em!”
One by one, wary and watchful, the trappers stepped over to the table, laid their weapons down, then quickly resumed their place in the tiny ring. Now there were nine of them. Nine against many times their number. But as the last of the Americans, Jack Hatcher himself, stepped back to that circle of defenders, the lieutenant growled a command of his own and the soldiers started forward.
But this time there were only the seven in uniform, and no more than nine in civilian clothing. Realizing he no longer had the great numbers behind him, the lieutenant halted right in his tracks, whirling around on his heel to glare back at those who no longer joined him.
Hatcher turned to Kinkead as Ramirez began shouting.
Matthew said, “The rest of ’em he’s calling cowards.”
“I figger ’em for smart fellers,” Bass declared.
“How you figger on that?” Solomon asked beneath that sharp hatchet of a nose dotted with huge pores forever darkened with fire soot and ground-in dirt.
Titus explained, “They’re smart enough to know that they ain’t got near as good a chance taking us on when they don’t have all them guns and knives.”
“Give ’em the thrubbing they deserve!” Caleb bellowed as the lieutenant turned around to face Hatcher.
With a sudden screech of rage Ramirez lunged forward, his arms raised, both hands stiffened like claws over his head. Jack was the first to swing his chair leg as the others rushed in behind the lieutenant.
Scratch didn’t see when his friends got into the melee—he was already swinging the thick chair leg he clutched in his sweaty hands at the first of two soldiers rushing him. That burly Mexican reached up, seizing the chair leg in midarc as he leaped up toe to toe. Bass brought up his knee in that instant the soldier was setting himself to strike, savagely driving it into the Mexican’s groin. But he had little time to enjoy watching the man crumple before him, clutching his genitals, his dark face gone pasty in pain.
For the second soldier had grabbed the end of the chair leg and rocked back with a jerk, then made a second attempt to loosen it from Bass’s grip. Instead, Scratch drove his heel down onto the Mexican’s shin, stabbing the man’s instep with all his weight. As the soldier lunged back, releasing the chair leg, Bass was already swinging it behind his shoulder—
—just when he felt a huge fist slam into his lower back.
The pain was so immediate, so severe, that he sensed the breath rush out of his lungs, sensed his knees turning to water.
Then came a second blow to his back, harder than the first. His legs went out right under him as if they weren’t there.
As Scratch went down, he heard the women’s screams for the first time. They almost drowned out the grunts of men colliding, bone and muscle and sinew crashing together, might against might. So loud was the screaming and that thunder of bone striking bone that he almost didn’t hear the sharp gust of wind rush from his lips as he struck the hard clay of the earthen floor.
Gasping for breath, he twisted about to look up—finding that shadow looming over him become the first soldier he had kneed as the Mexicans rushed them. While Scratch drew himself into a ball, the soldier drove his cowhide boot into Bass’s ribs again and again. With each blow great bubbles of air exploded from Titus’s lungs, replaced by searing pain. Moccasins and boots scuffed around his head as he fought to curl himself tighter … struggling not only against the Mexican’s boot, but fighting down the frightening remembrance of that brutal beating at the hands of Silas Cooper.
Suddenly the Mexican’s foul breath was in his face as the soldier grabbed a handful of Bass’s shirt, raising the American slightly, then driving his fist into Titus’s face. A second time the man pulled Bass halfway up off the floor, only to slam his jaw back down with another blow.
He was going to kill him, just as Cooper tried!
But this time Scratch vowed he would not lie there and take a beating like a whipped dog.
From somewhere at the marrow of him Titus found the strength to seize the Mexican’s left wrist in both of his hands. He jerked it up at the same moment he opened his mouth, instantly clamping down with his teeth on that soft web of skin between the thumb and forefinger. Grinding, sawing, chewing on the hard thumb bone and musky tissue that tasted of days’-old dirt and spilled
The Mexican smashed his other fist into the side of his head again as the man cried out in pain.
Bass bit down harder.
Again the soldier hammered a fist into Scratch’s cheek. But not near as hard as before.
Through every blow Titus locked down harder on the skin, feeling that single bone grind beneath his teeth, feeling the flesh tearing away and the gushes of warm blood oozing over his tongue—thick and salty.
Of a sudden the fist opened and clawed at Scratch’s neck, a thumb pressed against his larynx so hard, Bass wasn’t sure he would breathe again. Freeing his right hand from the Mexican’s wrist, Bass lashed out clumsily, finding his enemy’s face. Seizing the fleshy jowl, his fingers crawled up the whiskered cheek until he found the eye socket. Remembering his struggle with the Comanche, Titus plunged his thumb past the edge of bone, stabbing into the soft, pliant tissue.
Above him the man flinched, yanking his head to the side—unable to free himself of Bass’s terrible thumb. Instead, all the Mexican could do was tighten on the gringo’s neck.
As Scratch watched the first sharp pricks of light shoot from the center of his head with that convulsive pain crushing his throat, he flexed his thumb spastically, digging deeper and deeper into the eye socket. Each time he did, he sensed the Mexican relax that iron vise on his throat just a little, before the man clamped down once more.
His decision was made—knowing he would either die without drawing another breath … or he would have to disable the Mexican and possibly kill the soldier outright.
With another sharp jab of his thumb, Scratch felt the bony rim of the socket, realizing he had reached the corner of the man’s eye. As he struggled to draw a breath into his tortured, quaking lungs, Bass scooped his thumb to the side with what little resolve he had left.
Beneath his thumb soft membranes tore away from the socket. A sudden gush of warmth spilled over his thumb and hand. The Mexican’s unearthly cry stung his ears as the soldier jerked backward, releasing that mortal grip on the American’s throat.
Scratch was unable to focus at first; all the movement around him was a watery blur, like that deafening cacophony of noise—unable to pick out any one sound, any single voice. He struggled to breathe: for him every gasp was filled with such exquisite pain. Air! How it hurt to suck it in … but it was air!
Then his vision cleared enough that he saw the Mexican stumbling backward against other soldiers, both hands held at his face, his mouth open, screaming in agony. That black hole within a black mustache and beard— with a sound so shrill, it reminded Bass of a wild animal.
Blood slicked down the Mexican’s cheek as two soldiers rushed to him—
Then someone grabbed Scratch, snatching hold of the back of his collar, dragging him backward.
On instinct Scratch whirled clumsily, still fighting for breath, locking his hands around the arm that yanked him across the trampled floor.
“Easy, goddammit!” Elbridge bellowed.
It was Gray’s face. And his arm pulling Titus back toward the others, who were again drawing into a tight circle. Their faces and heads and knuckles bloodied. Two of them still holding their heavy chair legs.
“Bass put his goddamned eye out!” Kinkead yelled with glee.
Jerking back around the moment Elbridge got him to the others, Titus looked for the soldier—found him. Someone had a white handkerchief out and was pressing it against the man’s cheek, where a wide ribbon of crimson shimmered in the candlelight. Above that bloody handkerchief the eyelid fluttered loosely over the socket. Empty was it, like a grave yet unfilled, black as night.
Several women burst out of the crowd to join the two soldiers helping their own stumble away toward the door. The sound the blinded man made was one of excruciating agony, a shrieking warble slowly dying in that suddenly hushed room. Mingled with the muted murmurs of the crowd were the gasps for air and grunts of newfound pain from nearly all the fighters taking stock of their own injuries.
Suddenly the ring of Mexicans around the gringos appeared to shrink.
“Ye done good, Scratch!” Hatcher cheered, slapping him on the shoulders.
