James Axler – Cold Asylum

Mildred had once studied the social groupings of Native Americans and was vehemently taking the side of the massed groups of Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho who had ridden out over the Greasy Grass to face Long Hair and his bluecoated Seventh.

Doc was trying to make a case for Custer having been betrayed by his Crow scouts.

“No way. No way, Doc. Look.” She pointed with her finger. “He splits the command here. Already knows there’s one of the biggest camps in the history of the universe. Seen a trail a mile wide, for God’s sake! Benteen up here and Reno going down along the Little Bighorn toto about here.”

“I met Libbie Custer,” Doc said, recognizing he was on a loser and trying to change the subject. “Must’ve been some time in the early nineties. She’d already been a widow for fifteen years or more. She still turned the head of every man when she walked into the room.”

“She always blamed Reno and Benteen, didn’t she?” Mildred said. “Harried them to their graves. And beyond.”

Doc nodded. “So I believe. I visited the scene of the fight in the late eighties. Walked the ground. One of the most mysterious and haunted places I ever saw.”

Mildred nodded. “I went there in the summer before before I got ill. Local people call it the place where the ghosts walk in the midday sun. That’s about right.”

Doc stared down at their crude plan. “Nearly made it, you know, the son of a bitch. Got close to the crest of the hill and then Gall and the rest wiped them away.”

“You got a theory why so many officers were in that last stand and not with their companies, Doc?” Mildred flapped a hand at a brilliant purple butterfly that was trying to settle on her shoulder. “How come they weren’t with their men? Getting final orders from Autie?”

“Ah, now this is a particularly vexatious riddle that I have always found fascinating. One of so many about the battle. My own theory is”

“Hey!”

Michael’s voice attracted everyone.

“What is it?” Ryan called, sitting up quickly.

“I can see horsemen about two miles away, moving toward us.”

“Fast?”

“No. Spread out, like they’re looking for something. Could be hunting, I guess.”

“How many?” J.B. was looking up at the teenage boy as if he were considering climbing up to join him.

“Twenty or so. Can’t see that clearly. They keep moving in and out of the trees.”

Ryan glanced around. “We go into the brush over there.” He pointed to a dense thicket of lush ferns. “Look out across the flat land below us.”

“Want me to come down?” Michael shouted.

“Stay as long as you reckon’s safe. Best they don’t see us unless it looks like there’s no danger.”

J.B. kicked out the ashes of the fire, spreading them with his boot, cooling them. Ryan looked quickly around the clearing, scuffing his foot over Doc and Mildred’s model of the Little Bighorn.

“If they got any trackers with them, they’ll follow us easy,” he said. “Mebbe we should run.”

The Armorer ran his finger down the line of his jaw, head to one side, thinking.

“No. If they got trackers, then they’ll pick us up. Not like steep mountain country where a man on foot has the edge. Horses’ll run us down in minutes. Best we hide. Get ready for a firefight.”

Carried on the breeze, they suddenly heard the sound of a distant horn, short urgent notes, repeated a number of times. And the barking of hounds.

“Fireblast! Michael, you didn’t mention them having dogs!”

“Couldn’t see them, Ryan. Sorry.”

It changed things.

Ryan had encountered barons, particularly in frontier villes, who kept packs of dogs, often crossbred rottweilers, used to hunt down enemies. The animals were notoriously vicious and unreliable, and had been loathed by the Trader.

“Only thing worse than a baron with a dog,” he said, “is a baron with two dogs.”

Now the idea of hiding seemed much less attractive.

And the idea of running was impossible.

If the horsemen had been spotted a couple of hours ago, there might have been sufficient time to retreat to the redoubt and jump out of trouble.