broke loose.
One thing, at least, was strange, and wrong. The uphorses were still in their corral. Inconceivable that the Kiowas should have left them unmolested, unless they were coming back. Before he came back to the house Cash turned out all the horses but two, which he fed and watered.
“Nice big dust,” Cash reported, “strung out to the west. The near end of it is settling down; the head end of it looks about twelve miles away, and getting farther. Like as if they’re all heading back into the cap rock breaks. Only thing…That dust looks just a little bit too big and plain, to me. They don’t need to raise that much dust. It’s more like the dust you might make dragging brush behind you, in the right places.”
“And I better light out, dragging some brush behind me in the right places,” Georgia said. “Your maw’s all right now, far’s I can see. I got to get home—before my old lady runs
Cassius had to think about that a while, and he was in a quandary. If he had been up against Comanches, he would have had a chance to figure out what they would do. Comanches often fought bitterly, and with suicidal courage. If a Comanche figured his medicine was right, you could expect him to strike one more blow at you after he was dead. But they were not imaginative, nor resourceful, by comparison to their Kiowa allies. They were as liable as not to quit a fight when they had you licked, for no better reason than that they thought they had fought enough.
But Kiowas were another matter; their tactics included every form of trickery known to war or crime. Two Kiowas in a party of Comanches could double its menace—and here they had nothing but Kiowas. Best thing to assume was, whatever they seemed to be doing, they weren’t doing that. That big fat trail they were laying, out there to the west, had all the look of a full scale drawoff. So it wasn’t. They would be back again in the first dusk, and tonight would see the hard attack, beside which last night’s attempted surprise was only a feelout.
The safe and sure pattern of defense was perfectly plain. Cassius knew he ought to keep Georgia right here where she was, and let old Hagar fume as she might. Now that Georgia was past her first moments of battle- impact hysteria, she was every bit as valuable as a man. They ought to fetch a few buckets of fresh water from the well by the creek, then spend the rest of the day strengthening the shutters and the door. They could brace these with heavy props, using the floor planking, if need be, and pegging fast to the joists, until no ram the Kiowas could devise would take effect. And the root cellar should be ruggedly sealed off. It had an air hole to the surface, much like a whistle-pig burrow, plainly visible and easily enlarged—a tempting entrance for the first buck who set eyes on it. Now that they were all battle-tested, and had the hang of it, the four of them could probably hold out forever, with only these simple improvements. A serious and organized job of digging might be another matter, but this was so unlikely it hardly need be considered.
Some Indians were getting hurt. At least one, and maybe three, not counting Lost Bird, had been killed in action. Tonight they would hurt a few more. The Kiowas wouldn’t stay with a losing deal like that for more than one more night; they weren’t accomplishing a thing. Cash believed they would round up as many Dancing Bird horses as they could find by the light of the moon, and be gone before tomorrow morning. Except for about one chance in a thousand of a lucky shot finding you through a porthole, they could just about assume that a good cool, wideawake defense would bring them through without harm.
And none of this suited Cassius the least bit. He had been at his best when they were beating off those first attacks, but he had solved that, now, and knew how he could get fixed to do it more easily next time. But he was no more comfortable waiting down a hole like a badger, patiently and forever, than the Kiowas themselves would have been. To him, as to the Horse Indians, the initiative was everything. A situation in which the enemy had all the choices as to when, how, and whether they should fight was intolerable to him. Every instinct Cash had was for attack—a clever attack if practical, or head-on if that were the only way.
So now he had a different idea, and he judged he had better keep it to himself. He had developed a certain amount of reticence, even secretiveness, through having too many of his schemes sat upon as chancy, and even ridiculous. Better not upset everybody, and get a lot of arguments on his hands. Just do it.
He began by agreeing with Georgia that she must get home. The house would be safe enough while he rode with her a good part of the way—far enough to be sure she would make it safely, no matter what. He would be back in the latter part of the afternoon, at the latest. Meanwhile, Andy and Rachel were to stay forted up. He showed them how he wanted them to traverse the ridges and the cutbanks of the creek with the telescope sight of the buffalo gun, maybe two-three times an hour, until he got back.
Matthilda had gone back to sleep. Cash went and took a last look at her, assuring himself that she was indeed out of trouble. His fingers gently touched her hair, careful not to disturb her. Then he saddled for Georgia and himself, and took out.
Chapter Thirty-seven
By midmorning the sun outside the portholes had a violence that took all the color out of the prairie; everything showed in shades of white, and the distances shimmered. The heat would be slow to leak in behind the soddy’s thick walls, but Rachel and Andy went barefoot, to fit the weather outdoors. Rachel wore nothing but a starchless cotton dress, and Andy shucked off shirt and undershirt, keeping on only his pants. This would not generally have been thought decent, among grownups, even in the same family. Rachel found it faintly consoling that Andy still felt they were only a couple of kids from the same litter, as though neither time nor anything that had happened had changed that for him.
They blocked up all the portholes except one in the end, one in Mama’s room, and the two low ones in front. These, and the cracks in the split battle shutters let in only a cool and shadowless twilight. Something was missing in here; after she had thought about it a while, Rachel decided it was flies. During the hot months the air was always full of their buzzing, because of the corrals. But since they had not been cooking the house had gone back to the cellar-like feel that never entirely bakes out of places dug into the ground. The cooled fumes of burnt black powder hung acridly in the still air, giving a strange edge to the smell of the wood smoke that had steeped everything for a long time. The flies had found their way out into the sun, and there was nothing here to bring them back.
Matthilda called, faintly, and after a false start by both of them, Andy stayed on watch, and let Rachel go. But his mother wanted him, too. They stood beside her, and both held her nearest hand. She had a frail, bloodless look, as if she had been sick for a long time. Her words came to them in hardly more than a whisper, but her mind was now clear.
“Where is Cassius?” she asked them; and when they told her—“Then the fighting is over, for now.”
They had not known until then whether she had been conscious during any of the firing, or had known that they were under attack.
“Be very watchful,” Matthilda cautioned them. “They right often come back.”
They assured her they were well forted-up, and on watch. Cash was sure to be back, before night.
“The root cellar—be careful about the root cellar. So easy to dig into, from outside. Of course you pegged the slide? But it never was strong enough. A bullet could come right through those thin boards….”
Andy said stoutly that bullets could go two ways.
“You must rest now,” Rachel said; but Matthilda held on to their hands. They didn’t want to pull away from her fingers, so weak in their clinging.
“I may not be with you,” Matthilda said, “when they come again. Something’s wrong with me—just awfully wrong—inside. If I pass away—”
Rachel cried, “It isn’t going to happen!”
“I’m not afraid,” Matthilda said. “It’s only—I don’t want to leave you.” Her lip trembled, but only for a moment. She went on quietly and lucidly. “But maybe I must. Soon. If I do—you mustn’t be afriad of my body. It will turn all hard, and cold—but that won’t be me. Just something discarded, like an old coat. You must think of me as
