Wilding In The West update

He reined up at the wreckage, circling the bonfire, his eyes quickly taking in all the flaming light revealed. The driver and shotgunner were down in the dirt, their bodies blasted and bled. Chad braved the flame to look inside the carriage, but saw no sign of passengers or expressmen. He could not fathom that the coach had taken off for no reason, so the persons the coachmen had been defending must’ve been taken.

Chad flashed on Michelle and Allie, imagining womenfolk like them in the hands of road agents. He could not abide it. His eyes scoured the ground again. There were plenty of hoofprints, but only a few footprints, and they all headed in the same direction. He drove dull rowels into his nag, driving it that way, leaning almost out of his saddle to look close ahead and see any tell of the trail changing direction.

A showcase of his tracking skills was not required.

Shortly, there was heat lightning that wasn’t.

Booms of sound and stabs of light, lancing the predawn quiet and letting it run with the noise of agitated wildlife and echoing violence. Ahead, two foothills folded together, the crevice between them collapsing down into a ravine. From out of it, the gunfire bellowed like flame from a dragon’s throat.

Chad dismounted, quickly roping his nag to one of the boulders that littered the landscape. He patted his sixgun to reassure himself it was still there on his hip, then clasped his carbine in both hands. Sparing a quick smile at the thought of himself taking the side of law and order against road agents… but he knew of the monstrosities to which some criminals descended and could not abide by the thought of some hapless innocent losing more than their scuds.

Crouched low, he saw the light of the gunbattle flashing up from the ravine ahead. Chad dropped to his belly now and proned forward, elbows and knees, until he was at the lip of the defile. Before him, the ground dropped away almost entirely in a steep slope like the riverbed below whitewater.

Three Indian-dressed men were behind the cover of boulders on the way down to where the ravine stopped short in a wall of bedrock. There was a crack in the otherwise solid stone and a man had taken refuge there, firing back with a sixshooter as a gambler will roll the dice when his chips have stopped towering into the air and started hugging the maize.

From the light that hit his face with his shooting, he was a white man or at least a Mexican.

Chad allowed that there was plenty that might justify three Indians treeing a man the way this one was and whittling away at him until they had all his blood, but he could always be someone’s husband, someone’s father… Chad could not countenance abandoning him to his fate simply because he might deserve it.

The Indians were covered from the stagecoach passenger’s fire, but there was nothing at all protecting them from Chad. He planted his carbine against his shoulder, decided where the bullets would go, and fired one-two-three.

One bullet hit the rock right by the first Indian’s face. He jerked away from it, cursing and rubbing at his stung eyes. Another bullet hit the sand the second Indian was lying down on it. He coughed and gagged, having sucked down a lungful of grit with his last breath. And the last bullet hit the bow on the third Indian’s shoulder, snapping the wood and sending the string to deliver a nasty crack to the back of the man’s thigh.

By the time any of them looked up, Chad was back behind cover, slotting three new bullets into the carbine. “You’ve killed two white men already. Let this one go and be on your way.”

One Indian started a war whoop, but another shushed him—the leader, Chad took it. He must’ve realized they were exposed, caught between Chad’s fire and that of the man from the stagecoach. And even a savage knew you couldn’t fight a war on two fronts.

He grabbed words like a magpie picking up shiny things. “It is not good to strike from shadows, like coward, instead of fighting like men.”

“It’s not good to fight a man who’s all by his lonesome when you’ve got two buddies with you!” Chad fired back. “I didn’t wake up this morning picking out a spot for three notches on my gun, but damn if I can’t get used to the idea.”

The war whoop man was next to interject. “Blue Foot, they are still only two and we are three! And this man we are paid for is no warrior!”

“I am,” Chad assured him. “The Nevada Kid, at your service.”

The war whoop man spat. “I am Fiery Cloud and I have heard of the Nevada Kid! I do not believe he is a man! I say he is a woman who does not know her place, who plays at war like the smallest of children!”

Chad made his jaw into a nutcracker—lacking only something between his teeth to crush. Here this he-squaw was, not even knowing enough English to cuss him out and still trying to get his goat after Chad had offered peace.

It made the bile rise in Chad’s stomach. A small voice told him to watch his temper, to remember what had happened with the gang, but no. He’d been patient enough. These redmen had killed white, they’d delayed Chad’s travel, which had gotten him tangled up with the Stealing Sisters, and devil knew how that would blow back on him. It was time for this Fiery Cloud to blow away.

“And I believe I can put six holes in your hide before you can think up anymore horseshit to drop out your mouth! How ‘bout we face each other at ten paces and see who’s right?”

“You will hold fire?” Blue Foot asked.

“If you will,” Chad shouted back.

“Then we settle this like men. If you win, the white man is yours. If you lose, we take your scalp.”

That sounded fair to Chad—he wouldn’t be using it. “Ahoy the cave! Quit that shooting. We're gonna try to settle this peaceable. Or at least, peaceable as can be managed.”

He stood slowly, his rifle first at the ready, then lowering as he came to his full height.

The Indians presented themselves, guns holstered.

Fiery Cloud came to the forefront, a lance in hand. The point was lowered, but Chad had no doubt that he could have it up and thrown in a moment if he broke the peace before it was time.

Chad came down the slope, not too fast, not too slow. He didn't want to embolden the Injun by being overly cautious. Neither did he want to slip and tempt the red men with ventilating him while he was down.

Fiery Cloud came up the slope, one hand hung next to his holstered sixgun, the other holding the lance. The point of it he jabbed at the ground repeatedly to show the anger he wished to vent. Chad stayed cool. He hid his gritted teeth behind placid lips.

They came within ten paces. And by unspoken agreement circled until they were perpendicular with the ravine, facing each other across its girth. The dawn was setting fire to the mountain tops and the tips of trees, but in the depths of the ravine, it was a refugee for shadows. A thin line of the day penciled down and slit one wall of the gorge into dying darkness. It made Fiery Cloud face shadows instead of blackness. His eyes had been pricked with pins to let blazing madness out.

Chad's hand waited above his pistol for the twitch of a nerve. A racehorse at the starting gate could not be readier.

The day's heat arrived ahead of its light. Sweat prickled Chad's brow. He didn't bother to wipe it away. It wouldn't get in his eyes.