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Short Stories & Tall Tales
Comanche Reckoning
By Ben Bridges
Link Dayton was out back, chopping wood, when he heard the young boy shout, “Rider comin’, Pa!”
He was a bulky man forty summers old, with a mess of black hair spilling from beneath his loose-brimmed hat and a shaggy black beard that covered a square and stubborn jaw. He sunk the axe into the stump nearby, straightened to his full six feet two, wiped his over-large hands on the bib of his stained coveralls and headed for the house.
Mary - a tired, prematurely-aged woman with auburn hair pulled back in a bun - was waiting for him when he entered the parlour. Dayton ignored her as he took the old Burnside carbine down from the brackets over the hearth.
“Link - ”
“Hush, woman.”
“But - ”
He turned to face her then, and there was so much animation in his usually flat eyes that she fell silent.
“You know I can’t be too careful,” he said quietly.
Back on the porch, with the long gun held ready across his barrel chest, he watched the rider come ever closer. Behind him, his home - a small, poorly-maintained three-room dwelling built from rough-hewn logs - sat baking in the sun.
A moment later Timmy and the dogs came to join him. Timmy was ten years old and favoured his mother. He had a fine, delicate face that lacked Link’s heavy brow and bitter twist of lip. His eyes were big and blue, his nose small and freckled.
“Go inside, son,” Dayton said softly.
Dragging his heels, the boy reluctantly did as he was told. He didn’t understand, Dayton told himself miserably. And who could blame him? Out here in the hardscrabble land of the Panhandle, visitors were few and far between, and should have been welcome at any time. But they were never welcome on Dayton land. Never.
The only sounds now were the bleating of his sheep up on the north pasture, the clucking of the chickens pecking at the ground around the well, the closer buzz and whip of restless flies.
After a while, the rider trotted his dapple grey gelding into the yard. Studying him closely, Dayton saw a man on the sundown side of thirty, with a battered face, cauliflowered ears and striking blue eyes. He wore a plain cotton workshirt beneath a wolfskin jacket, and creased cords over low-heeled, spurless cowman’s boots. Dayton also saw that he wore his sidearm in a specially moulded, low-strung holster.
The stranger tugged briefly at the brim of his tobacco-brown Stetson, a greeting Dayton acknowledged with a sharp nod.
“Somethin’ I can do for you?” Dayton asked stiffly.
“Name’s O’Brien,” said the man on the dapple grey. “Mind if I climb down for a spell? Like to have a word.”
Dayton frowned. “A word? What about?”
O’Brien said, “Comanches.”
Dayton felt the blood drain from his face. “Are you … Is this some kind of trick? Did Bohannan put you up to this? Is that it?”
O’Brien took his hat off and slapped it against his thigh. Beneath the harsh Texas sun, his close-cropped hair was the colour of salt mixed with pepper. “Who’s Bohannan?” he asked.
Dayton worried at his lower lip, wondering who this man was and how far he could be trusted. Finally, feeling the eyes of his wife and son burning into his back from inside the house, he made a nervy gesture with the barrel of the rifle. “Step down," he muttered, adding grudgingly, "I suppose you’ll, ah, coffee an’ cake with us?”
“Thanks.”
O’Brien followed Dayton into the house and through to the kitchen, where Mary was already standing at the copper-lined sink, filling the coffee pot with beans and water. Timmy, loitering by the back door, watched the newcomer with open curiosity.
Introductions made, the men took seats at the scrubbed pine table, where Dayton locked eyes with O’Brien and said, “If Bohannan did send you here - ”
“I’m here about Comanches, Dayton. I don’t even know who Bohannan is.”
“Well, speak your piece, then,” said the shepherd.
“I cut their sign this morning, about ten miles south of here,” O’Brien reported. “There’s a bunch of ’em, fifteen, twenty. And from all the busted glass I found, I’d say someone’s been selling ’em bosa-pah.”
Dayton looked blank.
“Firewater,” O’Brien explained.
“But … Christ, there hasn’t been any trouble with the Comanches for years. I thought they were all further north.”
“So did I,” said O’Brien. “I was wrong.”
Dayton fell silent then, turning O’Brien’s words over in his mind. Finally, he licked his lips and said, “Did … did it look like they was headed this way?”
O'Brien shrugged. “No sure way of telling where they’ll end up,” he replied. Glancing at the sheep-dotted pasture beyond the small kitchen window, he asked, “Do you run this place on your own?”
Dayton lost his far-away look momentarily. “Me, my wife. The boy helps out. It’s not a large spread, as you can see. This house, the barn, a couple of shelter pens.”
“Any neighbours who could send you a couple of their hands till this blows over?”
The shepherd’s short, bitter laugh told O’Brien that he’d asked a foolish question. A mutton-puncher smack in the middle of cow-country could expect little in the way of help from his neighbours, and they both knew it.
“Better forget about that coffee, then.”
“Huh?”
“You folks’ll be a heap safer in town, leastways for a night or two, and the sooner you get moving, the better. There’s a town about twelve miles east of here, isn’t there? Place called Kingfield? We’ll ride in together, if you’ve a mind.”
“Mister, I ain’t set foot off this spread in better’n twelve month, save to take my stock to market. I can’t just up an’ - ”
“Maybe you didn’t understand me,” O’Brien cut in. “There’s about twenty Comanche bucks out there somewhere, roaring drunk and like as not spoiling for a fight. And drunk or sober, they don’t come any meaner than the Comanches.
“Now, it could be that they won’t touch anywhere near your spread. Could be that they’ll sober up and ride on back to the reservation. Or it could be that they’ll come here with blood in their eyes.”
Mary came forward at last. “Link!”
“It could happen, Dayton.”
The shepherd turned his dark, flat eyes out to the scrubby pasture beyond the window. O’Brien watched his profile, the working of his jaw. “I’m beholden to you for bringin’ the news," the big man said at length. "But I reckon you can understand the position. We live a hard life out here, an’ bein’ a sheep farmer hasn’t made it any easier. Oh, we get by - just - but we’ve had to learn to do without other folk. Reckon we’ll do without ’em now.”
“But - ”
“I couldn’t just up-stakes and leave this place, even if I wanted to,” Dayton argued. “You think we’d be welcome in Kingfield? About as welcome as cholera. And anyway, I’d as soon take my chances with the Comanches as with Bohannan and them folks in town. At least I know where I stand with the Indians.”
O’Brien’s lips compressed. “Then you’re a fool, Dayton - especially if those Comanches do come a-calling. A damn’ fool.”
II
Still, Dayton wasn’t the only damn’ fool abroad that day. As he finished his coffee, O’Brien decided to do something pretty foolish himself.
“If you’re sure you won’t ride into Kingfield for the night,” he said, “I reckon you could use an extra hand here, just to be on the safe side.”
Dayton hesitated. “Well, I’d have to think about it … ”
“What is there to think about?” asked Mary. “Link, if Mr O’Brien’s right, and those Indians do decide to come out this way - ”
“They won’t!”
“But if they did - ”
Dayton slammed one big fist against the tabletop to silence her. “All right, all right!” he snapped. To O'Brien he said, “You can bed down in the barn.” And then, to Mary, “Are you happy, now?”
Night came fast to the West Texas plains. By seven the land was ink-splashed with shadow and washed silver-grey by a hunter’s moon.
After the evening meal - a thin rabbit stew - Mary took Timmy off to bed and the two men sat by the hearth, listening to the lonely wind outside.
“I apologise,” Dayton murmured at length. “For earlier, I mean. An’ I’m obliged to you, for stayin’ over. If I seemed ungrateful, it’s just that ... well, we're not used to company, out here.”
“Just being neighbourly is all,” O’Brien replied, taking out the makings.
“Don’t talk to me about neighbours,” Dayton said with a snort.
“You’re talking about this Bohannan feller, I take it?”
“I am,” the big man said stiffly. “Sumbitch owns one of the biggest cattle-outfits in the Panhandle, an’ like most of his kind, he’s got no time for sheep, nor the men who raise ’em. He always made it clear I wasn’t welcome hereabouts, him more than any of the others. Even tried to buy me out about a year ago, just to be rid of me. Said in so many words that if I didn’t accept his offer, I’d be sorry. But I got my pride, O’Brien. I told him to go to hell.”
O’Brien blew smoke. “What did he say to that?”
“Nothing,” said Mary, coming back into the room. “He didn’t say a word, Mr O’Brien, and he didn’t do a thing. He just let it ride.”
“What she means,” Dayton amended, throwing his wife a murderous look, “is that he ain’t done anythin’ yet. But it’s only a matter of time. Man like Bohannan, he’s used to gettin’ his own way, an’ if he don’t get it … well, you’ll see. One day he’ll make his move agin me - only I’ll be ready for him.”
“So now you know what Link does, besides raise sheep,” said Mary, her voice high, tired, edgy. “He waits. For twelve months he’s waited. And for twelve months we’ve shut ourselves away here, asking nothing, giving nothing - just waiting.”
An uncomfortable silence descended over the room. “Maybe you’ve called it wrong, then, Dayton,” he suggested. “I mean, if this Bohannan was going to make a move against you, he’d have done it before this, wouldn’t he?”
“That,” said Dayton, “is just what he wants me to think.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Link,” said Mary, clearly exasperated. “When will you - ”
But before she could say more, O’Brien suddenly hissed, “Turn that lamp down!”
As Mary did as he said, he crossed to the far corner of the room, where he’d left his Winchester. Snatching up the rifle, he levered a shell into the breech and opened the front door.
The excited yapping of the dogs in the barn across the yard came to him clearly as he strained his eyes to pierce the gloom. Dayton filled the doorway behind him, his wife at his side, her breathing soft and anxious.
“What is it, man?” Dayton whispered.
O’Brien was about to reply when they all heard it.
A gunshot.
“What - ?”
Another couple of gunshots punctured the chilly night air, and without taking his eyes off the moon-washed land ahead, O’Brien reached out, grabbed hold of Mary’s arm and pushed her back inside the room. “Get Timmy and the pair of you hunker right over there by the hearth,” he instructed. “Make sure you stay low.”
The woman hurried away as a new sound carried through the darkness.
War cries.
“My God,” whispered Dayton.
A heartbeat later they saw him - a single rider painted silver by the moonlight, heading towards them at a flat-out gallop. He was slumped forward over the horse’s neck, partly hidden by the animal’s flying mane.
“White man,” O’Brien said tightly. He glanced briefly at Dayton. “When he gets near enough, get him off that horse and inside. I’ll give you as much cover as I can.”
“But - ”
“Just do it, Dayton!”
O’Brien moved out onto the porch and brought the rifle up to his shoulder in one fluid motion. The rider was no more than a hundred feet away now, the air behind him full of sound. The war cries grew louder, more insistent. There was another gunshot, two more. Over in the barn, the dogs were going crazy.
Then the newcomer’s sorrel was in the front yard and the rider, more dead than alive from the look of him, hauled back on the reins.
The horse skidded to a halt, flecked with foam, an explosion of dust flying up around its stiff legs. The rider groaned and fell out of the saddle just as a bristling of arrows struck the animal’s hind-quarters. The horse rose up, screamed, fell into its side with enough force to shake the ground.
“Now, Dayton!”
The big man leapt out into the yard just as the knot of pursuing Comanches thundered into sight. He grabbed the wounded man under the arms and started dragging him back to the house as arrows sliced the air around him.
O’Brien clenched his teeth and let them have a volley of lead in return. The war cries got louder, angrier, but the Comanches reined in about seventy, eighty feet away, taken aback by the unexpected fusillade.
Without taking his eyes off the Indians, O’Brien quickly thumbed reloads into the long gun. Then, just as Dayton hauled the wounded man into the house, the Comanches surged forward again, and O’Brien straightened up, firing his rifle from the hip.
Another horse went down in a tangle, crushing its squat, bare-chested rider beneath it. More arrows hit the wall above his head. O’Brien backed up, emptied the Winchester into the confusion and then threw himself back inside the house.
Timmy stood in the far corner, watching everything through wide, scared eyes. The room was illuminated only by what little moonlight filtered through the windows, and the only sounds came from the agitated dogs in the barn.
O’Brien stood to one side of the window near the door, reloading his rifle again. Beside him, Dayton looked like he badly wanted someone to tell him what to do next. And down on her knees in the centre of the room, Mary was turning the newcomer gently onto his back.
There was blood on the right shoulder of the man’s plain cotton shirt, a lot of it.
“What are they doing?” Dayton asked in a whisper.
O’Brien shrugged. “We surprised ’em,” he replied. “So they’ve backed off to get a better look at us."
And once they've done that, he thought, and seen how weak we are, they'll hit us again.
The wounded man moaned and Mary whispered something to quieten him down. “Link,” she went on, “help me get his shirt off, so’s I can look at the wound.”
Dayton looked at O’Brien, who said, “Go on. I’ll keep watch here.”
Dayton crossed the room and knelt beside the wounded man. A moment later he let out a curse that made O’Brien turn sharply.
“What is it?”
Dayton’s face was carved in grim lines as he looked up from the body. “I knew we should’ve kept out of this!” he rasped. “Now we’re all gonna get ourselves killed, just on account of this worthless sonuver!”
O’Brien narrowed his eyes. “What? What are you talking about?”
“This here’s Pete Bohannan,” Dayton replied through gritted teeth. “My worst enemy’s damned son!”
III
Silence hung heavy in the room for a long five seconds, until the man on the floor, hearing his name mentioned, stirred briefly.
“ … wh … where am I … ?”
Dayton straightened up quickly, back-pedalled a couple of paces as if Pete Bohannan’s words might burn him. But Mary stayed where she was, told him what he wanted to know as the boy - O’Brien saw now that he was barely seventeen years old - looked at each of them in turn. Then -
“Indians!” he cried. His hazel eyes were large, feverish. “They - "
“Easy now,” O’Brien said quietly. He looked at Mary. “Get him some water, if you will, ma’am.”
As Mary got to her feet, Dayton said, “You stay right where you are.”
“Link?”
“This man isn’t welcome here,” he said.
Outside, the dogs were still barking furiously.
“Dayton - ”
“He’s a Bohannan, damn him!”
The shepherd looked down at the young man, whose sweaty face was crushed with pain. Mary looked at him too, then turned with a swish of skirts and went into the kitchen. Dayton watched her go, his mouth open slightly. He listened to the noises she made at the pump, filling a mug with water.
He seemed to deflate then, as if all the life had gone out of him. He stalked across the room, fists bunched, peered out into the night. Behind him, Mary re-entered the room, knelt by Bohannan and lifted his head carefully, so that he might drink.
Once he’d had his fill, he said, “Obliged to you … ma’am.” In the darkness, his voice sounded more like that of a small, frightened child.
“What happened, Bohannan?” O’Brien asked over one shoulder.
The boy’s eyes went wide again. “Me, Curly Jackson an’ Sid Wheeler … we ... we'd spent the day huntin’ up strays,” he breathed. “Th-then, 'long about five-thirty or so, we decided to get on back to the ranch. But … but as we topped a ridge, we saw ’em … them Indians, ’bout twenty of ’em, down in the valley below. They’d butchered a yearlin’ an’ was cookin’ ’er up.
“Well, straight off, ol’ Curly pulls iron an’ fires a couple shots over their heads. He was just aimin’ to scare 'em off, but I guess they got the wrong idea an’ thought we was after attackin’ ’em. So they comes at us, an' Curly, he fired again, hit one of ’em that time.
“M-minute later, Curly took an arrow in the chest. He was … dead by the time me an’ Sid turned-tail an’ lit out of there. Trouble was, them Comanches, they follered us, wouldn’t quit … got Sid … hit me in the arm … ”
He broke off with a sob he was barely able to stifle.
After a while he asked, “Are they still out there, mister?”
O’Brien said, “Yeah.”
“And because of you,” Dayton cut in, “we’re all gonna die.”
“Dayt - ”
“You gonna tell me I’m wrong?” demanded the shepherd. “You gonna tell me them Comanches would’ve come here even if he hadn’t led ’em to us?”
“Shhh!”
Silence filled the room again, unbroken this time, and it was what they couldn’t hear that made them go cold.
The dogs.
O’Brien turned to the window, brought the rifle up in readiness. He thought he saw a shadow moving out there beside the barn, but that could have been his imagination.
“Look alive, Dayton," he rasped. "They’re coming back. Get your rifle and help yourself to Bohannan’s Colt and ammunition. Timmy, you stay right where you are, you got that? Ma’am - ”
He didn’t get the chance to finish. At that moment a bullet shattered the window, and he had to dance back a step to avoid a shower of glass. Dayton called his wife’s name, Bohannan’s handgun all but lost in his big fist.
“We’re all right, Link!”
Then they were charging across the yard, those warriors who had dismounted and crept as far as the barn, where they'd butchered the dogs, who might otherwise have given them away. They came with bows and arrows, lances and rifles, and they were mostly small, thick-set men with bare, muscular chests and bow legs, whose faces were painted with the reds and blacks of war.
O’Brien stuck the rifle through the jagged hole in the window and fired twice. There was no time to take aim; he just had to rely on instinct. Out in the yard one of the Comanches stopped halfway through bringing his lance up and went over backwards, clutching his chest.
Then more gunshots peppered the front of the house. Glass smashed in the window on the other side of the door, and Dayton twisted away from it, slammed his back against the wall and cried out more in shock than anything else.
O’Brien pumped in another round, fired. One of the Indians on the porch, no more than four feet away, jerked and fell, his war cry turning into a death chant. But still they kept coming, a relentless tide.
“Dayton!” O’Brien roared above their war cries. “Use that damn’ gun!”
There wasn’t time to say more. The attack was becoming too fierce. But part of his mind became aware of the high, short bark of Bohannan’s Colt in the shepherd’s fist.
The fighting may have lasted a minute more. It was difficult to tell, since time lost all meaning. But then, suddenly, the attack was over, and the surviving Comanches melted back into the night.
O’Brien let out his breath, listening as Mary told Timmy not to fret, that everything was going to be all right; to Bohannan groaning through clenched teeth; to the tight, difficult breathing of Dayton at the other window. He levered another bullet into the Winchester and wondered if they could possibly last out the night.
“Will they … will they be back, do you reckon?” Dayton asked after a while.
O’Brien nearly replied. But then he heard a noise at the back of the house that could have been the wind. Or -
He crossed the room fast, got into the kitchen just as the back door burst open with a splintering of wood. Behind him Mary screamed. Timmy yelled. Dayton shouted something unintelligible.
Three Comanches spilled into the room.
The leader was a short, stocky man with a red-and-black painted face and long, greasy black hair. He brandished a long, sturdy-looking lance with a stone head above its decoration of feathers.
He yelled, “Maywaykin, sata teja!”
It was an insult-laden death-threat, and O’Brien let him have a bullet in the face by way of reply. The Comanche was thrown backwards into his two friends.
They howled in a mixture of surprise and rage, and O’Brien heard more yapping behind them. There were more of them out there, a lot more, more than he could possibly handle. But there was no time to consider the odds.
He shot the second brave in the chest, put another bullet there to make sure, then swung the rifle to cover the third Indian. This one wore red war paint and three black circles around his left eye.
“Maywaykin!” he cried, lifting his hatchet.
“Not tonight, you won’t,” O’Brien replied - then shot him between the eyes.
IV
He spent one stretched minute crouched in the kitchen doorway, waiting. Then, when it became apparent that the Comanches weren’t going to follow the attack up, he dragged the dead bodies into the house, closed the back door and piled the corpses against it to help keep it shut.
By the time he returned to the parlour, Mary was down on her knees in the far corner, arms wrapped protectively around Timmy. Dayton was peering out into the night. Bohannan had dragged himself into a sitting position. He looked pale, tired, desperate. They all did.
O’Brien took out his Hunter and checked the time. It was, incredibly, only a little past eight. He crossed the room and checked the front yard through his shattered window. Two dead horses and three Comanches littered the hard-packed earth.
Six Comanches down here, he thought, and one Bohannan’s friend Curly had shot earlier. Assuming that there had been twenty to begin with, that meant there were still thirteen of them out there now.
Unlucky for some.
A minute stretched into two, five, ten, an hour. Nothing stirred across the vast Texas plain. Mary washed the crust away from Bohannan’s wound and bound it as best she could. Then she and Timmy huddled together and dozed.
“I think I see ’em comin’ back,” Dayton whispered after a while.
O'Brien checked for himself. “It’s nothing.”
“I tell you I can see ’em! They - ”
“It’s nothing, Dayton!” O’Brien repeated sharply. “Just calm down. That’s the whole point of this little waiting game of theirs - to work on your nerves.”
Silence returned to the little ranch-house.
After a while, Dayton pointed a thick finger at Bohannan. “This is all down to you,” he muttered venomously. “Don’t forget that. You got us into this. You’re the one they’re after. Hell, they’d probably leave us alone was we to hand you over to ’em.”
“Just try it,” O’Brien said quietly.
Another minute passed slowly, after which Bohannan said, “Mister, can I ask you somethin’?”
“What?” Dayton growled impatiently.
“What is it you got against me?”
When Dayton made no reply, O’Brien prodded softly, “Well?”
The big man threw him a glare. “What the hell would you know about it, anyway?” he demanded.
O’Brien shrugged. “I know that it's a hell of a thing to be a sheepman in the middle of cattle country. With no friends and no neighbours worth a damn, what else can a man like that become, other than an outcast, a loner? What else can he have inside him, except anger and resentment? But who do you resent more, Dayton? Who is it you’re really angry at - your neighbours, or yourself?”
"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that maybe you’ve been fighting prejudice for so damn’ long that you’ve come to see things the way other folks see ’em, to see yourself as something less than the man you are.”
“You callin’ me a failure?” asked Dayton, his voice low, gruff.
“I’m calling you a proud man who’d sooner tough it out than move on and start over someplace else,” said O’Brien. “I’m calling you a man with guts, Dayton. A man other men’d admire.”
“Well, all that pride, it sure got me a long way, didn’t it?” asked the shepherd, his mouth pulling down at the corners.
“It got you this far,” countered O’Brien. “It got you this place, this land, a couple-hundred head of prime stock. A good wife and a fine son.”
Dayton laughed bitterly. “Yeah, Mary and Tim. Just look what I’ve been able to do for them.”
The words came in a torrent then, and big man couldn’t have stopped them even if he’d tried. “You think this is the life I want for my folks? You think I want to keep Mary stuck out here on her own, or the boy with no other kids to grow up around? But what the hell choice do I have? Bohannan’ll make his move, sooner or late, an’ if I’m not ready for him, that’s it. We won’t even have what we got right now. So I have to fort up, wait - ”
“Listen to yourself, Dayton. Bohannan this, Bohannan that! Christ, man, you've spent so long waiting for Bohannan to make his move that you've forgotten how to live any other way. You’ve spent twelve months waiting for a man you hardly know to make a move he’s never going to make.” He shook his head, said, quieter, “You're a man who's lost his way.”
Pete, hanging on every word, said, “He’s right, mister. We got nothin’ agin you, 'sides what your dang sheep do to the land. We hardly even know you.”
“So what’s the answer?” Dayton snarled, firing the question at O’Brien. “You tell me that.”
“I haven’t got an answer. But getting away from this place every once in a while, going into town, mixing with your neighbours, getting to know them and letting them get to know you … hell, it’s a start.”
He broke off then, as a series of sounds from the direction of the north pasture drifted in on the cool night air. The high, frightened bleating of sheep. A squeal. Silence. And then a cold, challenging war cry.
Dayton’s face went slack. “My sheep,” he murmured. “They’re butcherin’ my sheep!”
Just as the bleating of another sheep carried on the chilly air, O’Brien caught a movement out in the front yard and brought his rifle up.
“Dayton, get away from the window!”
But it was too late. Even as O’Brien fired at the partially-hidden Comanche, an arrow from the brave’s bow shot through the shattered window and punched Dayton high in the back.
It was a flint-headed arrow with a barbed tip. The flint gave it greater shocking power when it hit and the barbed tip made it impossible to remove in a hurry without causing even greater damage. As it struck him, Dayton cried out, staggered, dropped Bohannan’s Colt and hit the parlour floor face-first.
“Link!”
“Pa!”
Mary was across the room in an instant, tears hot against her rough skin. Timmy was there too, his small hands clenching and unclenching helplessly at his sides.
And suddenly, O’Brien was all that stood between them and the Comanches.
The Indians appeared as if from nowhere. From behind the bodies of the horses they came, from the shadows of the barn and the well. They seemed to rise up from the very earth itself, and as they raced toward the house, there looked to be a lot more than the thirteen O’Brien had figured on, although he knew that could not be so.
He drew a bead on the leading Comanche, tracked him a second, shifted the barrel of the Winchester slightly ahead of the target, then fired. The Comanche ran straight into the slug and it picked him up and threw him away like a leaf in a high wind.
Then they were up on the porch, and he heard them howling like demons as they threw themselves against the door, determined to get inside. He fired once into those Indians still chasing across the yard, missed, cursed, took a pace away from the window.
Bohannan was up on his feet now, left hand outstretched. “Gimme your gun!” he yelled above the chaos.
O’Brien glanced over his shoulder, beyond the young cowboy. The bodies piled at the back door were spilling over in a human landslide. The back door was slowly being pushed open.
“Damn!”
He drew his Colt and tossed it to Bohannan. It slipped through the young man’s fingers and hit the floor. Bohannan scooped it up, staggered as far as the kitchen doorway and triggered all five shots into the back door. There were a few yelps above the whoops, then the door stopped its inward swing.
“I need more ammunition!” Bohannan cried.
But a splintering of wood spun O’Brien back toward the front door. There was no time to thumb fresh rounds from his belt. The first Comanche came through the door and O’Brien blew him away with a bullet from the rifle. As the second came into the room O’Brien fired again, but the hammer clicked on empty. Before the brave could reach him, he up-ended the rifle and smashed the Indian’s face with the stock.
A third Comanche burst into the room, then a fourth and a fifth. Those out back started pushing at the kitchen door again. O’Brien swung the rifle for all it was worth, showering the room with blood and teeth. Bohannan threw the Colt across the room, snatched up his own gun from where it had fallen beside Dayton and emptied it into the marauders. When that was empty he threw that at them, too.
The din was tremendous. Mary was screaming, Timmy sobbing. A lean, dark-skinned warrior almost fell into the room, carrying a wicked-looking axe in one hand and a lance in the other. His black eyes glittered when they lit upon O’Brien. The brave’s face creased in a war cry as he raised the axe for throwing.
Before he could strike, however, a bullet hit him in the back and slammed him flat against the parlour floor.
There was no time for surprise. O’Brien stayed exactly as he was, crouched in readiness, holding the Winchester as a club as more shots peppered the night.
The startled Comanches at the front of the house stopped yapping and spun around to see where the new threat was coming from. One brave hit the outside wall and spilled down off the porch, leaving a crimson smear behind him. Another one hit the ground about two seconds later.
Time seemed to suspend itself then, and all around them the night held its breath. Then, abruptly, the Comanches broke, turning tail to disappear into the darkness before they could suffer further casualties.
It took O’Brien a while to get his breath back, but then he crossed the corpse-strewn floor and made it to the doorway just as a group of riders thundered into the yard outside. It was difficult to tell just how many of them there were. He thought perhaps as many as ten. Half at least rode straight by, to continue the chase. The rest reined in, dismounted, looking with awe at the carnage that surrounded them.
Suddenly the night was as still as the grave.
They all heard the distant rattle of gunfire.
And then O’Brien heard Mary weeping softly behind him.
He let the rifle drop to the floor, turned and stumbled to the woman. He knelt beside her, eased her fingers away from her husband's body. The room was dark, too dark to see properly, but he could feel Timmy’s eyes upon him.
“You all right, Bohannan?” he asked over his shoulder. His voice was a husky, painful rasp.
“Y … yeah … ”
“Get a lamp working, will you?”
Before Bohannan could do that, a new voice, deep and relieved, made itself heard. “Pete!”
O’Brien looked up as Bohannan almost fell into the arms of a taller, older man. The newcomer had a large belly, wore a heavy woollen jacket and had thick grey sideburns that framed a sunned, seamed face. This, he told himself, must be Pete’s father, the Bohannan he’d heard so much about today.
As he pulled his son closer to him, the rancher said, “Charlie! Get some light in here.”
Bohannan’s men filed into the room, and while one of them located and then re-lit the lamp, the rest dragged the dead Indians outside. The rancher held his son at arm’s length, then indicated the boy’s wound.
“Hurt bad?”
Pete attempted a shrug. “It’s okay. Mrs Dayton here … she patched it up some.”
“God, but you had me worried!” Bohannan said with feeling. “I’d just ’bout given up all hope on you when you an’ the others didn’t show up at the house. Then, when MacDonald found Curly an’ Sid - ”
Suddenly, and to his great surprise, O’Brien felt Dayton stir beneath his hand, and as light spread through the room, the shepherd turned his pale face toward the rancher.
Mary sucked in a deep, shocked breath. “Link!”
Dayton’s dull, bloodshot eyes remained fixed on Bohannan as he rasped, “All right… you got what you came for …. now get the hell off my land!”
But Bohannan came further into the room, and O’Brien backed away to allow him to kneel beside the shepherd.
“God, but you look a sorry state, Dayton!” the rancher declared. “But just hang on. Where doctorin’s concerned, I got me one of the best. He’ll fix you up in no time.”
If he’d had the strength, Dayton might have spat. “Get out of here!” he repeated vehemently. “I’d as soon die as be beholden to you!”
“I don’t want your gratitude,” Bohannan replied grimly. “Besides which, you got it the wrong way round. It's me who’s beholden to you.”
“How’d you … figure that?”
“I can read the sign, man!” said Bohannan. “My boy would’ve ended up dead meat if you hadn’t taken him in when you did! Don’t think I don’t ’preciate that.”
“But - ”
“That’s right, Pa,” said Pete Bohannan, coming over. His eyes met those of the shepherd. “If Dayton here hadn’t bought into it when he did, I’d be dead for sure by now.”
The rancher growled over his shoulder, “Where in hell’s Sam gone to? Man here needs some attention!”
Sam appeared a moment later. He was a big man with dark hair and a steerhorn moustache. When he took his coat off and rolled up his sleeves, muscles showed in his arms like knotted ropes, but when he cut Dayton’s shirt away, his touch was amazingly gentle.
“Just lay still a while,” Bohannan instructed while the other man began his examination. “An’ don’t worry ’bout a thing. You’ll feel more’n a mite sore by the time Sam here’s done with you, but a week or two in bed’ll soon fix you up.”
Dayton’s eyes went wide. “I can’t - ”
“Yes, you can,” the rancher insisted. “Much as it sticks in my craw to nurse sheep, I got a couple men who can keep things movin’ along here till you’re back in harness.”
Dayton's lips curled into a sneer. “You'd ... do that ... for me?” he asked sceptically.
“Ayuh,” Bohannan replied with a nod. “I’m obliged to you, Dayton. The boy … he’s all I got, since Phoebe passed away. If I lost him as well … ”
He cleared his throat noisily, squared his shoulders again. “I’ll admit, you an' me ain’t never seen eye to eye. You’re an ornery cuss, an’ I daresay you’d say as much for me. But there’s not many men that’d do what you did for my boy, not an’ risk tanglin’ with them Indians. Makes me feel that maybe I’ve misjudged you, some. An’ that bein’ the case, I’d appreciate the chance to set things right between us.”
As Dayton looked up at him, something deep inside his eyes shifted. He wasn’t used to praise, respect, friendship, and he wasn’t quite sure how to take it.
He strained to look up at O’Brien, who was holding a tearful Timmy in his arms some way away, while Mary busied herself helping Sam to prepare to remove the arrow. O’Brien gave the shepherd a tired smile of encouragement, and an almost imperceptible nod.
And at that, Dayton seemed to reach a decision.
“Think … maybe we might’ve misjudged each other … Bohannan,” he said.
And for the first time since O’Brien had met him, the big shepherd looked at peace.
Whether or not the feeling would last, no man could say. But maybe this was the start O’Brien had talked about earlier. And if it was, then Dayton was going to swallow his pride and seize it with both hands.
Copyright (c) 2006 by David Whitehead
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