The Lost Wagon Part 62

"Joe!"

There was cold fear in Emma's voice, and when Joe moved to the front of the house he saw the women looking out. Across the creek and up on the opposite slope, sixteen Indians stood in the meadow. There was something insultingly contemptuous about them as they either leaned on their long rifles or held them in their hands. They were dressed in buckskin save for one who wore a black suit that probably had been plundered from some settler. Of the rest, some wore fringed shirts and some were naked from the waist up. They stood so openly because they were out of rifle range and knew it.

Henry Winterson breathed, "There they are!"

He rested his rifle across a window sill, took an interminable time to sight, and squeezed the trigger. One of the sixteen jerked awkwardly, as though he had stepped on something that slipped beneath his foot, and sat awkwardly down. The rest ran back into the shelter of the woods, and after a moment the wounded man rose to follow. There was a savage satisfaction in Winterson's voice.

"Winged me one anyhow! Wish I'd killed him!"

"How high did you hold on him?" Joe asked.

"About a foot over his head. Still probably caught him too low down.

Wish I'd given it another foot!"

There came five quick shots from behind the cabin. Ellis took two slow forward steps, turned to smile at the others, and managed only a fatuous grin. Blood bubbled down the side of his head, giving his hair a seal-sleek look and reddening his cheek. Joe caught him as he slumped backward while Winterson plucked the rifle from his hand. Barbara gasped and knelt beside her lover.

Her face was pale and terrible fear and shock glittered in her eyes.

But there was hot anger in them too as she took Ellis's head tenderly on her lap while his blood reddened her skirt. Emma came with a cold compress and Barbara took it from her hand. Her voice was dull and trembling, but at the same time she showed her inner strength.

"Let me do it, Mother."

She applied the compress to Ellis's head while she bent tenderly over him. Barbara, who had always hidden when anything she liked was hurt, rose to the occasion when one she loved was injured. Joe said awkwardly,

"Let's move him to a bed."

And Barbara said fiercely, "Leave him alone!"

She sopped up the bubbling blood and Emma brought her a clean compress.

Joe, Winterson and Tad went to the rear, but again all they saw was the mowed area, the tall gra.s.s and the forest. Up in the forest one of the attackers shouted, probably advice to someone on the opposite hill. Joe furrowed his brow.

They were doing things wrong, with everybody rushing to wherever an Indian appeared. That left three walls unguarded all the time, and they must inject some system into their defense. Besides, there was another and very deadly peril that could be lessened. No bullet could tear through the logs, but one might penetrate the c.h.i.n.king or the windows.

Joe called, "Emma, get the kids on the floor, will you? You womenfolk had better get there, too. Lie behind the sill log and you can't get hit."

Emma said, "I'll get them down."

"We'd better do things a little differently, too. Tad, you watch the north side. Henry, do you want the front or the rear?"

"The front for me!" Winterson bit his words off and spat them out. "They might have another pow-wow and I know I can reach 'em the next time. How about the south wall?"

"One of us'll have to slide over there now and again to watch."

Barbara said steadily, "Mother, will you bring me a pillow?"

Emma brought it and, very gently, Barbara transferred Ellis's bandaged head from her lap to the pillow. She stood and for a long moment looked down at him while Ellis moaned fretfully and moved. Then she took his rifle and went to the south wall.

"Bobby!" Joe protested.

"Ellis showed me how to shoot, Daddy, and I will."

Joe looked vexedly at her but said nothing. The children lay p.r.o.ne on the living-room floor, curled tightly against the bottom log. But Emma and Martha Winterson sat quietly at the table. These women had men defending the cabin. If one of the men needed help suddenly, they did not want first to have to get up from the floor. Joe took his post at a rear window.

He had disposed his force in what he considered the wisest fashion. When the Indians came, as he was sure they would come, it would probably be out of the forest at the rear and down the slope. It was right that Joe should be there to draw at least their first fire. This was his house; he was the one to defend it. Joe worried about Barbara and Tad, but the least likelihood of attack was from either side. Winterson was well placed in front. He had already proved his ability to gauge distance and to hit what he aimed at.

Out in the mowed area, a gra.s.shopper took lazy wing and settled fifteen feet from where it had started. A robin that probably had been sitting on the house swooped on the insect and bore it away. Gophers scurried back and forth, and a crow alighted in the field. The fields hadn't changed and the day was like any day. It was hard to believe that, just beyond the mowed area, lay men who would kill everyone in the house if they were able to do so. Joe's eyes roved the tall gra.s.s farther up the slope. He concentrated on one place.

He thought he saw the gra.s.s sway there. It moved ever so slightly, then was still. Joe relaxed taut muscles. He had never shot at another man with the intent to kill and until now he had considered himself incapable of doing so. But the terrible anger still had him in its grip and he could kill these men. The gra.s.s moved again, and Joe knew without a doubt that there was something in it that should not be. He stepped back, sighted and shot. A crawling Indian threw himself upward so that his whole torso was revealed and fell back. The gra.s.s stopped moving.

"Did you get him?" Tad called excitedly. "Did you get him, Pa?"

"I don't think so."

He tried to keep his voice calm, but it was taut and strained. He felt surging joy because he had killed one of the enemies who had come to destroy them. He remained too much the civilized man to speak of that to his son.

"I thought I heard a shot!"

The b.l.o.o.d.y bandage contrasting oddly with his dark hair, Ellis was sitting up. For a moment he did not move, but stared at something that only he saw. Plowing a furrow beside his head, the bullet had shocked him into unconsciousness. Leaving her post, Barbara knelt and put her arms around him.

"Ellis! Lie down!"

"I--Bobby! Where did you come from?"

"Please lie down!"

"I--Oh! I know now!"

Her arm remained about him as he rose to shaky feet, swayed and recovered his balance. He reached up with one hand to push the bandage a little farther up his head and looked wonderingly at the blood on his fingers. He said, as though that were an astonishing thing,

"They nicked me!"

Emma and Martha Winterson hovered anxiously about, and Joe said, "Better stay down, Ellis."

"I--I'm all right now. Bobby, my rifle!"

She choked back a sob. "Ellis, no!"

"I'm all right now. I'll watch the south wall."

She said determinedly, "We'll both watch the south wall," and she stood very close beside him in the event that he needed her suddenly.

Time dragged on. Rifle cradled in his arm, Winterson came back to stand beside Joe. He peered at the tall gra.s.s.

"See anything?"

"Nothing's moved for a couple of hours. Do you think they've gone?"

"No, I don't," Winterson declared. "They don't like hot lead and they aren't going to expose themselves to it. They're out in the brush cooking up some new kind of deviltry. When they get it cooked, they'll serve it to us."