Death Rattle

it from his side, bracing the cheekpiece against the bottom of his rib cage.

The ball caught the tomahawk holder low in the face, shattering his lower jaw and driving on out the back of the warrior’s head as he cartwheeled backward a step, propelled off his feet to land flat on his back where he slid across the icy, trammeled snow.

Two more of them remained. At least one more out in the darkness, somewhere. He wasn’t sure of the voices he heard—not certain of just what he had heard or the tally now as he pitched aside the empty .50 and started for the dogs on those creaky knees of his.

Back and forth the warrior on his back swung his weapon, growling at the dogs that had sunk their teeth into his leg and his forearm.

Dragging the second pistol from his belt, Titus swept in past Ghost, kneeling at the Blackfoot’s shoulder to press the pistol’s muzzle against the warrior’s forehead. That brought an immediate reaction: the Indian ceased his struggles, going cross-eyed as he stared at the muzzle for a moment, his face contorted in pain, before the eyes shifted again, glaring up at Bass’s face.

“Git, boys!” he ordered. The dogs did not instantly obey. He could tell they loosened their grips, yet did not fully release the warrior. “I said git! Back off! Back, goddammit!”

His eyes flicked up quickly, peered around, looking for one or both of the other thieves. Then the warrior moved beneath him—prompting Bass to press so hard with that muzzle he was certain he’d either cave in the bastard’s head or shove that head right on into the snow beneath the warrior.

Seizing the man’s trade gun in his left hand, Bass grumbled, “Gimme that, you red son of a black-hearted whore.”

He heard its twung and whisper, pitching himself to the side without thinking. More a feral reaction than anything approaching a thought process. Damn, if the arrow still didn’t rake along the side of his neck as he dove out of the shaft’s trajectory. It had been aimed at his chest. The explosion of the bowstring had warned him.

But he had reacted in the wrong direction, diving low as the iron arrowpoint opened up a raw, oozy, throbbing wound along the great muscles where his neck met the shoulder.

Landing on the snow, Titus twisted to look for the arrow, surprised it wasn’t embedded in him. A few feet away the warrior on the ground was fighting anew with the dogs. Scratch felt his trade gun pinned beneath his hip as the bowman stepped into the light, holding his weapon at the ready in his left hand, a half dozen arrows clutched in that same hand, arrayed around the center of the bow where they were ready for instant use.

With a twung he watched a second iron-tipped shaft hurtle away from the bow. Scratch rolled off the rifle, rocking onto the hip—swinging the smoothbore up and dragging his palm back on the big hammer in a fluid motion. It was already at full cock. Praying there was powder in the pan, he squeezed back on the trigger. The huge frizzen spat a shower of sparks, and the pan spewed a flare of both fire and smoke an instant before the old fusil belched loudly.

As that second arrow flitted past Scratch’s shoulder, the bowman was already stumbling backward, his weapon slowly tumbling from his grasp as he stared down at the red blossom in his belly with a blank look crossing his fire-lit copper face—

A fourth warrior shrieked out of the darkness, a club held high overhead, a knife in his left hand. Rushing in under that head of steam, the Blackfoot didn’t have time to leap aside when Titus pitched onto his shoulder and held out the empty fusil, tripping the Indian as he stumbled past.

Old as he was, the fear of death nonetheless gave the trapper a little prod at that flickering edge of winter’s darkness.

Landing atop that stunned fourth warrior he had just tripped, Titus jammed one knee down on the forearm that held the club while he seized the left wrist and wrenched the Indian’s knife from his fingers.

Rocking back on his knees, Scratch brought the long beaver-tail dagger into the air overhead, preparing to hurtle it downward into the man’s throat—when he stopped, staring dumbfounded at the Blackfoot’s face. And jerked in surprise.

This wasn’t a man at all. He was a boy. No more than a youth. A goddamned pony holder! Come to fight like a man with all the life-and-death consequences of manhood. When he was no more than a goddamned pony holder of a boy!

The eyes below him held a fire of such unmitigated hatred, for an instant Bass wondered why he didn’t plunge the knife right down into the youth’s sneering face itself. Instead Titus brought his right knee up to pin down the boy’s left arm as he shifted the knife in his hand so he could grip its blade.

“Digger! Ghost!” he. cried sharply. “Off! Off now! Back, goddammit!”

The pups eventually complied, releasing the badly mauled Blackfoot from their jowls.

“Back, I said! Back!”

Both of the dogs began to slink away, their teeth still bared, a low warning that rumbled in their throats as the wounded warrior began to shove himself backward, sliding away from the snarling animals. With one hand the Blackfoot reached out to claw himself along, while his wounded left arm snagged hold of that tomahawk stuffed in the sash wrapped around his blanket capote.

Wrenching his right arm to the left as if cocking it, Scratch flung the arm sideways. The pony holder’s dagger caught the warrior in the side of his chest. Instantly dropping the tomahawk, he brought both hands up to grip the dagger’s handle, struggling to pull it from his body as he collapsed backward into the snow. His thrashing legs slowly came to a stop and he lay still.

Beneath Titus, the youngster’s eyes slowly rolled from the warrior just killed to glare with hatred at the white man no more than a heartbeat before he struggled anew.

With his free right hand, Scratch reached down and tore the stone club from the Blackfoot’s grip. He swung it to the side and smacked it along the side of the youngster’s head.

All the fight sank out of the Blackfoot.

Waiting a moment to be certain, Scratch finally got to his feet and stared down at the youngster while the two dogs loped up to stand at his side.

“Good, fellas—that’s right,” he whispered harshly, his eyes scanning the treed circle around them. Listening.

With his own heart pounding loudly in his ears, Scratch finally figured out that if there had been any more of the enemy, the dogs likely wouldn’t have been hanging back. They would have been charging into the dark for the enemy. That must have meant he had brought them all down. Including this boy.

“Stay here with this’un,” he told the pups as if they would know what he was saying. “Stay.”

Both of the pups surprised him when they did stay as he moved off. The dogs stood guard over the unconscious youth as Scratch hurried into the dark, finding the tree where he had tied Ghost, and cut the entire length of rope free. With it, Bass quickly knotted the Blackfoot’s hands together, then brought a loop down to wrap more rope around the ankles.

Finally he stood and gazed down at the youngster. The boy would awaken to find himself all trussed up, with a good-sized goose egg on the side of his skull.

“Well, boys,” Titus whispered to the pups. “You both was li’l hellions in that scrap—”

The youngster’s eyes fluttered, opening half-lidded as the groggy Blackfoot attempted to gaze up at the white man.

Bass dropped to one knee and stared into the youth’s face. He began to lower a hand, but the boy jerked his head aside. With his left hand pressed down on the youngster’s forehead to hold it in place, Titus brushed snow and ice from the side of the Blackfoot’s face.

Then Scratch rocked back on his haunches and dusted off his hand. Staring at the youth, he sighed, “So what in the billy blue hell am I gonna do with you?”

It began snowing just before first light.

There was something significant to this particular quiet that awoke Scratch where he sat propped with his back against a cottonwood. The last thing he could remember was he had been looking at that youngster’s face. And now that was the first sight he had when his eyes snapped open with alarm.

Of a sudden every muscle was keenly aware of the overwhelming silence as the snow soughed through the bare branches of the trees. Maybe there were more of them. Titus listened for a long time, weighing what he didn’t