Dead Man's Hand by David Nix

Author:David Nix
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2022-01-27T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Certainty is often the first stage of a journey into failure. Jake had learned that lesson well, but Sally had seemingly missed some of that same education. When the attackers began their approach during the last gasp of daylight, they trotted their horses at a leisurely pace. Even from a distance, Jake could see the jubilant interplay among them as they already counted the gold they’d soon share. Good, he thought. Just how we want them. Meanwhile, he doubted everyone and everything except the Henry in his hand and the darkness in his soul. He’d always trusted the wolf to bring him through the fire and had been well rewarded for his loyalty. As if he had a choice.

Jake shaded his eyes to find the train crawling along the crown of a tiny hill overlooking a thin branch of the Platte cutting its own trail north of the main channel. Though not a spectacular rise, one side fell precipitously into the river, effectively blocking an angle of attack. They wouldn’t do better. He raced the mare toward the wagons, pointed the rifle he’d borrowed from the dead man skyward, and squeezed off a single shot. The wagon train reacted immediately by assuming the frenzied energy of a kicked-over ant hill, but a frenzy with the precision of a well-oiled steam engine. Every ox picked up a step as their owners encouraged a faster pace. As Jake watched the two groups of riders approaching, one from behind and one from ahead, every wagon made the turns with a practiced sharpness he’d not thought possible even a few days earlier. When faced with impending death, most people panicked and let chaos rule their thoughts and actions. Others, with no reasonable explanation as to why, adopted an air of cool detachment that transformed them into efficient machines intent on staving off imminent destruction. As one, the settlers had become the latter. If he hadn’t been so embedded in the clutches of the beast, and himself so coolly detached, he might have felt pride in their actions. Instead, he only saw the necessary path to survival forming into a box of bonneted wagons.

By the time the riders had approached to within six hundred yards, the box had closed. And in their swaggering confidence, Sally and his men had allowed the box to form atop the daunting ridge, ceding the settlers an excellent defensive position. Jake covered the final distance and slipped the mare between a pair of oxen and the butt of an adjacent wagon to enter the square. Because they’d had no time to unhitch the oxen, the central area had become a crush of animals jockeying for space. Women and children were still threading their way through the herd toward the central wagons. Meanwhile, Mrs. Emshoff had jumped atop one of the jockey boxes to direct movement, shouting in German but making her point clear with dramatic hand movements. Jake grimaced at her exposed position until Maddie thoughtfully jerked the woman from her perch.

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