On the Heels of the Wind

We gallop the horses up to the river and make our way over to Seedling, who is filling some boda bags with water. Lou dismounts and grabs Seed and spins him around, pointing to the dust trail in the desert.

Seedling looks for a moment and whistles. Ole' Bess ambles over and he takes her reigns. "Trouble" is all he says.
"Yeah, so tell the Chief. We need to get out of here and get on the defensive."
Seed seems a little catatonic, "Gotta run, gotta go, here we go, don't go slow." He repeats his little song, monotone... muttering. Lou grabs him by both shoulders and shakes him.

"SEEDLING... go tell the Chief."
Seed reels it back in, his eyes focused on the steel of Lou's stare. He drops the reigns and the two of them walk over toward the Chief who is already back on his war pony.

Andy is focused on the dust trail. He hasn't looked away since we stopped at the river. I think he feels me looking at him.
"They are going to cut us off before we get to the mountains."
"I don't know, Andy... they're back there a ways. If we ride fast for this last leg, we might get out ahead of them."

There is a moment of silence, then Chris jacks the loading lever on the Gatling gun, "Let 'em come."
Ollie grunts, "Permítanos terminar este y regresar a casa."
Chris nods, "Amen, brother."
He looks at me and sees the unaswered question. "He said Let's finish this and get home."

Lou comes back by himself. We look back at the Chief and he has already rounded up the Warriors to spread the word. Their movement is swift and sure. The whole group mobilizes quickly. It takes us quite by surprise and we are left, still assembling, when the tribe fords the river.

We wait for Mike... nature call, with paperwork. By the time he scurries back from the mound he was squatting behind, the tribe is out of the river and heading up and over the rise of the far bank.

"Jesus, Mike, what the hell took you so long?" Andy asks impatiently.
"Well, I had... "
"It wasn't a question, Mike."
"Well sure it was."
Andy tisks as Mike gives the team of horses a little nudge, leading the way into the river.

By the time we have crossed our Indian friends are no where in sight. We make the rise and scan for them, nothing.

"What the hell?" Lou shades his eyes from the mid day sun.
Ollie says something in mothertongue. Lou rides up ahead of us and makes the top of the rise. Instead of looking straight ahead he looks to the east. Without looking away he waves us up.

"They are moving fast."
We look to the east and realize that any chance of beating the cavalry to the pass is gone. Ahead of us is another rise that looks to be a half a mile away, but no Indians. It seems hard to believe that they could have ridden away from us this quickly.

"Come on... there is no time to lose." He spurs his horse and we all leave with a lurch. It seems our animals realize the urgency of the situation. Our line spreads thin, with Mike cracking the reigns over the team on the wagon to keep up. When we make the next rise we see our Indian friends off to our right about a hundred yards away. It is the warriors, most of them anyway, riding hard and fast. They seem un-daunted by the sheer number of troops riding to meet them.

Beyond the first band of Indians we see the rest of the tribe, farther off... a buffer zone between them and the bulk of the warriors. It is hard to tell, but it looks as though the Chief, a few braves, and the women and children are heading off and away from our destination.

"Do you see Seedling? We can't get home without Seedling." I shout over the galloping hooves and clattering wagon noise. It isn't until now that I think of the pack horse and the cases of dynamite. All of this motion wasn't part of the plan.

"What about the... "

Before I finish my sentence, something whizzes by my head. Another and another now followed by sounds like the cracking of a whip. It is then that I hear the Gatling gun firing. I turn in the saddle and see cavalry in hot pursuit.

"Behind us. Hey... LOU." I ride up beside him and yell, watching him as he turns in his saddle. Without as much as a nod of acknowledgement he peels off and now Ollie and I are leading. I grab a rifle from the scabboard and turn in the saddle.

Lou has fallen back to the pack horse and is galloping beside it. Chris is peeling off short bursts with the big gun, using his ammunition sparingly. Now the rifle fire from our pursuers is getting thicker. They mean to kill us. We have lost sight of the intersecting troops as we ride down and into and an arroyo. Ollie keeps us going forward, our only safety is in the range of the Gatling gun.

My horse lurches and slows, then goes down altogether. I am thrown to the ground with terrific force, feeling the air leave my lungs... the blue sky above me replaced with flickering points of light. I feel the wagon pass and slow, the big gun blazing now, Chris determined to keep them off of me. It is then that the desert floor is rocked with several explosions. I am literally lifted off the ground by one of them, close... very close. The pack horse must have been hit.

Then I am dragged by the back of my collar, hard and fast with no care of cactus or sharp rocks. One of the whistling shots hits me hard, like a stone fist, then another. It is now, with little fanfare, that I realize I am going to die.

Next to my head is a sputtering fuze, then another... and another. Rifle shot is hitting the ground around us like hard rain. The dynamite is thrown, each bundle thrown in quick succession. Chris cranks the big gun with a fury only found in desperation. He will not go down without one hell of a fight. I can see them on the wagon in the seconds before the explosion. Andy switching out the big clips within heartbeats of the next round of shots. Mike firing as quickly as he can move the cocking lever, Ollie beside him now... firing with equal speed and accuracy.

I don't know the number of men following us. I know Lou does from his time in service; a company, a squad... who knows. What I do know is that dozens of them are on the ground, some in pieces from the single sticks that Lou had thrown to deter them. But when the bundles that he had thrown went off, it was the end of all of them.

The explosion is so great that I take flight, both Lou and I in a tangle of arms and legs as the force of the blast launches us as if from a cannon. We end up on the ground, face down, a good twenty or thirty yards from where we were. There is no sound, and for a time I wonder if I am dead. In this moment I try to count the times I have been blown up with Lou, shot with Lou, shot by Lou, drunk with Lou, drugged with Lou. It is odd. Then all goes dark.

"Put pressure on it."
"I am... I am, it is a lot of blood."
"Oh... oh hell, that ain't shit. Just stuff that piece of shirt in there until it stops. Then I'll cauterize it."

I feel nothing, so the voices can't be talking about me. It isn't until I hear the gun powder ignite and I smell my own flesh sizzling that I bolt into consciousness.

"Oh SHIT that fucking hurts. GODDAMNIT."

"He's alright." Lou reports.

Before I can focus I hear single gunshots from beyond the wagon, back toward our pursuers. I look up at Lou, who's face is framed by a blast of sunlight. He sees my question.
"We got 'em." He looks back passed the wagon, the sun glares back in my eyes, then he turns back. "Ollie is puttin' holes through any of the rest of them that are still clinging to life."

I am helped to my feet. I took a couple of rounds, one on my waist just above my left hip, and one on the side of my chest just below my armpit. Both of them just seared closed by "Lou the Field Medic" here. It is going to hurt like hell for a while.

"Now what?" I wince with just about any movement.

"We gotta ride, my friend. Those warriors are completely outnumbered. They are the first line of defense for the rest of the tribe." He shades his eyes and looks out over the desert.

The advancing column of cavalry looks as though it has stopped or slowed from its feverish pace. We can see the warriors have nearly converged with them. But now the column seems to split. Half of them continue to ride to intercept the Indians. The other half are riding in our direction to meet up with a single rider that is blazing a trail through the scrub sage and desert grass.

"Sonofabitch." Chris points to the thin line of dust that marks the path, "We missed one."

Lou looks quickly for the horses. None in sight save the ones hitched to the wagon.
"He will report this little massacre and we will have a shit storm to deal with."

Ollie comes back over the hill with a couple of horses. They are cavalry horses, but they will do in a pinch. He shouts something to Lou, who makes his way to meet him. As they talk, we look back over to the approaching soldiers. They have closed the distance by half.

"They will be here in ten or fifteen minutes, don't you think?" Mike says, the worry in his voice is not disguisable.

All of us turn to the wagon and the Gatling gun. There are only two cases of cartridges left for the clips. Andy had made quick work of reloading the while Chris mowed them down. It seems as though we have enough to take on a group half the size of what is approaching. It is Ollie who comes up with the answer.

Since we have been here we have worn everyone's clothes but our own. We had donned Army uniforms before, and it looks like we are going to do it again. There are enough uniform jackets and hats to do the trick. That and the standard and staff that identify the small company of men. This will be crucial in our attempt.

Within five minutes we have all donned uniform jackets and hats. Lou has a cavalry sword and pistol belt for effect. We empty the remaining bundles of dynamite from the pack horse and separate them into smaller pairs, fused together.

"These are mighty short fuses, Lou." I tell him, holding the sticks up to examine them.
"Short is what we need, Jake, short and fast."

He outlines the rest of the plan. We ride directly at them, banner flying so they can see us coming. They will think it is the company they set at our heels, coming back to join the rest of the Battalion. We will ride slow at first, to save the final burst from the horses. When we are on them, in the confusion we will ride through their ranks. It is doubtful they will fire until we have passed through them and they can see we are imposters. As we break through we throw the dynamite in stages, taking out the bulk of them with the explosions. Then Chris can clean out the rest with the big gun.

It sounds like a good plan, the only plan. We have already eased the coming attack on the warriors by half. Now, if we can pull this off without being killed, we can continue toward the warriors and take the other company at thier flank.

It is all we have.

We are ready and head out, starting out with our horses at a fast trot. With every heave of the saddle from my beast I feel sharp pain. I must be wearing that pain on my face, because our Aztec giant rides up next to me and pulls a bottle of Red Eye from the Army saddle bag. He takes a pull and passes it to me as we head into the breach. I welcome the burn and the mellow hit that follows. I take another long pull and pass it back. Ollie rides up to the wagon and it makes the rounds there.

I feel the heat and my pain joins the aching in my joints. All I can think of is Tennyson;

Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Into the Valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.