When he had last scouted the whites and their town called Fury, things had been much different.
The walls had not looked that high from a distance.
They had not been so heavily armed.
He had imagined they would give in more easily.
He had been wrong.
But he could not admit as much. The war chief could never be wrong.
5
When the sun rose the next morning, Jason was outside on the wall along with Saul Cohen. Saul was in a much better mood this morning, all things considered.
The Apache were already not only awake, but attacking the fortress Fury’s citizens had made of the town. They hadn’t succeeded in setting anything ablaze yet, unless you counted Gil Collins. On his way from the outhouse back to his post of yesterday, he’d caught a flaming arrow in the side.
Fortunately, somebody got him put out right away and called for the doc. Morelli started his day off by pulling the arrowhead out of Gil and treating his burns.
But the arrow hadn’t sunk in deeply, and Gil was back at his post, picking off the few Apache that dared to chance climbing the gate today.
“Jason?” Saul said as he climbed up beside him. “Jason, I want to apologize for yester—” he began sheepishly.
But Jason cut him off, saying, “You were having one hell of a rotten day, Saul. Forget it. I’m awful sorry that Rachael lost the baby.”
“Thank you, Jason. But—”
“Never mind, I said,” Jason replied. He turned and fired again, but failed to hit anything. Cursing softly under his breath, he crouched down and began to reload the rifle.
“Where do you want me?” Saul asked.
“Here would be good,” Jason said, without looking up from his rifle’s breech. “How’s she feeling? Rachael, I mean.”
“She will survive.”
“Good. Glad to hear it.”
They were outstandingly fortunate, because the wagons from which his townspeople had purchased doilies and fish forks and china dolls and the occasional guitar also contained a number of other things, including a load of ammunition.
And they were making good use of it now.
Jason brought his rifle up again just as Saul swung his rifle between the tops of the sharpened stockade logs, and an Apache fell from his pony. Dust puffed up around the body, momentarily obscuring it.
“You’d think they’d learn,” Jason said flatly, and took aim.
“Learn what?” Saul asked.
Jason fired, and this time the brave he’d aimed at fell.
“That bullets hurt,” he replied as he took aim again.
The Apache vaulted from his pony just as Jason pulled the trigger, and he missed. How many of them were there anyway? It seemed that no matter how many they killed, they just kept coming.
As if reading his thoughts, Saul said, “How many are there?”
“Don’t know,” Jason replied, scowling. “I think it’s a swarm, like locusts.”
“It’s a plague of locusts,” Saul corrected him. “A swarm of flies, a plague of locusts.”
“Oh.”
Saul fired, and another brave fell.
“Nice shot.”
“He wasn’t the one I was aiming at.”
Down at Jason’s house, the Reverend Milcher, along with his wife, Lavinia, and their brood of children, were huddled in the kitchen. The two smallest were beneath the table, hands over their ears as if they could block out the sound of gunshots from outside.
“Samuel, can’t you do something?” Lavinia asked, for not the first time.
He gave her a decidedly parental look, glowering from beneath bushy eyebrows. “I am doing something. I am protecting my family.” His fist clenched more tightly around the stock of his rifle, which had been across his lap, unfired, since they rose.
“But they—”
“Hush, wife,” he barked, and Lavinia—along with several of the children—gave a frightened little jump. “They’ll need me more later. At present, I can do them little good, except in my prayers.”
“Yes, dear,” she said. She hoped she’d said it calmly. She hoped it for the children’s sake. They were all a-jitter, and they’d been that way since yesterday. The only one of them who was unaffected was little Oliver—only because he was just eight months old.
“We could all use some food,” her husband said.
But even Oliver knew something evil was in the air, that someone was out there doing Satan’s work. He’d been fussing constantly over the last twenty-four hours, which she supposed had frayed her nerves. As if they weren’t frayed enough already. Perhaps Samuel was right.
“Some lunch, Lavinia?” he repeated.
She said, “Sheriff Fury doesn’t have much on hand. I think I can make soup, though.”
“Fine. Soup.”
From beneath the table, one of the girls said in a tiny voice, “Mama? I want to go home now, please.”
Still looking straight ahead, Samuel said, “We have no home to go to.”
Four of the children began to cry again.
Three were close enough for Lavinia to gather them into her arms. “Don’t worry,” she whispered, her lips gently pressed first to one small brow, then the other. “Hush, my darlings, don’t fret. The Good Lord will provide.”
By three that afternoon, Jason had finished his third tour of the perimeter. The Apache still hadn’t come at them from the north, and the occasional weak assaults from the west side—the side of the stockade that ran parallel to the creek—remained just that: occasional and weak.
Jason wasn’t concerned about attacks from the west. The banks of the stream were steep and still slick with the retreating water’s mud. Additionally, there was no gate on that side, and therefore no specific weak point for the Apaches to attack.
But he was worried about the north. Although their losses were small compared to those they were inflicting upon the heathen horde, there seemed to be an inexhaustible supply of them, as if God had given the Apache a man-sized rubber stamp with which to create new warriors as they needed them.
Jason was just a little miffed at God for the time being.
But he’d had an idea, one he’d conjured in a moment of brilliance, and as he made his way back around to the south, he talked with the men on the wall. They were all tired, so tired, as was he, but still up for the fight. He was proud of them. He’d gathered plenty of volunteers as he made the circuit, and already a crowd—men and horses alike—was beginning to form up at the northern gate.
His townsmen might be exhausted, but they were out for blood. And they were too weakened by gun smoke and the steadily beating sun, and the sounds and smells of battle and blood, to give much of a damn for life or death anymore.
He knew just what they were feeling. He was feeling it, too.
So he gathered together those men who were willing, there at the north gate. They had their orders, and each man was mounted on his or a buddy’s fastest horse. All were heavily armed and steely-nerved.
At the head of the mob, Jason looked at the kid standing at the gate’s latch. He’d already freed the crossbeam. He nodded and said, “Now,