Sierra said, “We’ll figure it out. But if we’re going to wait for gunshots on your end, you will have a long wait before we join up with you. What if we hit first, collect the horses, and you wait for our shots? We will keep things quiet as long as we can, but with that many men, we’re not going to get the horses without gunfire. And when that happens, it seems like the excitement is going to start up your way. You will have to start blazing a trail for us to get out.”
Jack was silent for several minutes. “Yep. I think you are on to something, Sierra.” He looked at Tige and Jordy, who were holding the reins of their mounts less than ten feet distant. “Tige, what does the soldier think? Say we pull in the wagons for the night as soon as we find a decent spot. That would give the west end bunch a good six hours of daylight to get to their entry place. They will have to spend the night somewhere outside the canyon. We pull out at sunrise. That should put us at the east entry by nine o’clock. To allow a little leeway, the others make their move about ten o’clock. When we hear gunfire, we start taking control of the compound.”
Tige said, “Sounds simple. I don’t have a better idea. You think this is going to be as easy as you’re laying it out to be?”
“Nope. Not a chance.” His eyes fixed on Eagle Eyes. “Mitch, what kind of a count did you get on folks at the compound?”
Eagle Eyes said, “Hard to get a count with folks going in and out of buildings and all. Me and Throws Lance figured there was more than thirty able-bodied men, maybe as many as forty. Had to be some that never showed their faces for us. Saw maybe a dozen women and a couple of kids. Women were Mexicans or Indians as near as I could tell. Likely slaves and whores, we figured.”
Jack said, “Hopefully, they’ll go into hiding when the shooting starts. I wasn’t figuring on that many gun hands. Must be a Comanchero convention. Houses are mostly adobe, such as they are, as I recall, although there were a few stacked limestone outbuildings.”
“That would be a fair statement, Boss.”
“Best thing would be to drive them back to the buildings and open the way for the horses to come through. Probably hoping for too much. Okay, let’s head up the trail and find a place to camp. Ladies, get your men together and see Rudy about provisions. From there, you are on your own. Mitch will be with you, so he should be able to find the west entrance of the canyon.”
When the group broke up, Jack mounted the bay gelding and rode a short distance from the wagons to wait for the party to move out again. He looked off to the west, nearly blinded by the sun. The last time he had been this edgy was almost twenty years ago during his last visit to Lookout Canyon. He had a plan then, too.
There had been at least a dozen captive children held in the canyon, traded or sold by Comanches to the Comancheros for resale in Mexico at bordellos or as slaves to wealthy patrons. A spy, whose veracity Jack still doubted, had provided the location of the captives within the residential compound and assured his superiors that there was never more than a dozen or fifteen armed occupants at the compound, most Comancheros headquartering there being on trading or raiding missions at any given time. That made a certain sense.
He had intended to take twenty “armed to the teeth” Rangers into the canyon, leading extra horses for the children and heading directly to where the captives were being held, pick them up and fight their way out. That should have been easy enough. They were Texas Rangers, weren’t they?
But they never reached the children. A force of twenty or more Comancheros faced them at the entrance, ready to battle, still not that difficult to dispose of, Jack had figured. But he had not counted on the attack that hit them like a lightning bolt from behind. A large Comanche war party from an obscure band known as the Bug Eaters had appeared like apparitions from an empty prairie.
The Rangers were pinched between two forces. The Comancheros stood fast, doing their shooting from long range, while the Bug Eaters rained arrows on the Ranger force before charging into the melee for hand-to hand combat. Chaos reigned that day. Jack took the lead slug he still carried in his back but remained mounted. An arrow lodged in Rudy’s shoulder and another drove into his ribs. Jack had thought his friend dead when he saw Rudy stretched face-down on the ground, a warrior slicing at his scalp, ripping away the flesh that was covered by thick brown hair. The Comanche died when Jack’s rifle slug dug into his temple, and the trophy disappeared beneath the hooves of the combatting horses.
Jack had finally rallied his remaining Rangers, including the walking wounded, and they dismounted and formed a circle back-to-back. With superior firing power, the Rangers began backing off the Comanches, who during those years rarely had rifles at their disposal or lacked the skills to use them effectively. The Comancheros had stayed at the canyon’s entrance, wanting no part of the fight.
The Bug Eaters, their own ranks now thinned, had held back out of rifle range while the Rangers gathered up the horses that had not been killed or run off. The latter would be claimed by the warriors later. The Rangers slung the six dead, two by two, over horses’ backs. Jack had been certain there was a seventh until he knelt by an unconscious Rudy and found him breathing.
By this time, Jack’s
