McAllister by Matt Chisholm

Author:Matt Chisholm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2013-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

15

When Gato jumped the outlaws no more than a ten minute ride from where they had camped, he knew that he and his men would not have everything their way. The men he attacked were desperate and they were accustomed to firearms. They earned their bread by shooting and being shot at.

Gato was an Apache and they were a conservative people, who generally liked the old ways better than the new. But the chief was adaptable and had even been known to go as far as defying his guardian and hostile spirits by attacking enemy at night. He hadn’t done that now because he wished to employ the most unexpected method of all. He attacked in broad daylight, not only in the open, but actually on what appeared to be flat country offering no covering whatever.

He had left two warriors guarding the horses in good cover on the plain. With them he had also left strict instructions and no doubt in their minds as to what would happen to them if they failed to carry them out. Meanwhile he and a dozen men concealed themselves in deep fissures in the land which were invisible as near as thirty yards. This arrangement of his little force had the asset of utter surprise, but it meant that Gato gambled on just where the whitemen would pass. Here the trail was broad and indefinite and it only ensured that the victims of the surprise would come within rifleshot. There was the snag. Maybe four or five of his men were really expert with the rifle. The rest were useful only in closer fighting or with the bow. However, he told himself, the whitemen were in the open and his men were invisible. The whitemen were undisciplined and his own were willing to die at the lift of his finger. This should go well.

“They are coming,” Gato said. “Do not fire till I do.”

They waited. No one raised his head to watch the approach, but their sharp, desert-trained ears quickly picked up the thud-thud of the animals’ hoofs. Gato gave the sounds his whole attention, measuring in his mind, trying to determine exactly how near they were and when the leading rider came opposite his position.

Suddenly a horse trumpeted.

Gato did not hear everything that happened after that. The whitemen were between him and his own horses, but he guessed that one of the Apache ponies replied to the horse of the White Eye.

One of the riders said loudly: “You hear that?”

Another bawled out: “They’s hosses around here.”

Gato was pleased to hear the high note of panic in the voice. His ears picked up the sound of horses bunching close together; some were halting.

A strong throaty voice shouted: “Git on, damn you.”

Now was the time.

Gato straightened his legs and thrust his Winchester repeater over the natural parapet.

There within sixty yards of him were his enemies, several of them bunched together, so close that a novice must hit one of them if he fired into them. And Gato was no novice.

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