Joe’s warriors were outnumbered, but the effect of his automatic rifle was devastating. Ryan saw him moving through the whirling, eddying mass of men and animals, shooting and clubbing. Again and again a Wolf Soldier who heaved a tomahawk or lance at him found a bullet in his head or chest before he could strike. Arrows missed Joe as he moved like a lithe, phantom panther.
Then the screaming wave of combat surged and spilled away from the riverbank and spread out across the smoky, flaming ground.
Ryan, Sisoka, Krysty, J.B., Mildred, Doc and Jak ran toward the nearest ring of tepees. Great scorching winds whipped and hissed behind them, flinging blinding smoke into their path. The steady crackling of the sky-high towers of flame atop the hill had grown to a steady roar. Sparks and embers whirled in corkscrew patterns through the air.
The warriors left to guard the encampment shouted excited questions at Sisoka when they caught sight of her. She answered them in Lakota, and they gave a great cry of woe.
“You must get everyone out of the camp,” Ryan said to her. “The fire will be here in an hour, Touch-the-Sky in half that.”
She repeated what Ryan had said, and the response was angry mutterings and shouts. She responded firmly and pointed to the sky over the ridge. Already the flickering, crimson glare was casting red highlights on the tepees.
“Tell them they can fight Touch-the-Sky later.”
Ryan instructed. “When the ashes cool, they and the packs can come down from the hills and attack again.”
Sisoka spoke briefly but determinedly for less than a minute. Then the Wolf Soldiers turned and went through the camp, rousing human and animal alike. Mothers with their childrenhuman and wolf moved out of the encampment in an organized exodus. Watching them, Ryan felt their fear, anger and confusion.
“Joe won’t wait for the fire to burn down the encampment before he makes his move for the cavern,” he said to his friends. “That’s where we’ll stop him.”
Sisoka looked at him with wide, shocked eyes. “You cannot enter the cavern!”
“Mebbe not. But Touch-the-Sky thinks he can. We’ll lay in wait for him outside of it.”
Sisoka nodded in resignation. “Come.”
The encampment was almost deserted now. The last stragglers were disappearing northward across the grasslands. Ash fell like a dingy snow, and the wind was so hot they felt its breath burning their skin. Behind them the flames leaped triumphant, flaring in great, twisting tongues from the treetops, roaring and dancing.
They reached the crude fence where they had corraled their horses and sprang onto their backs, Sisoka riding double with Ryan. The horses coughed and snorted from the drifting smoke and whinnied whenever a flying spark alighted on them.
Pushing their horses into a gallop, they raced up the slope toward the tumble of huge boulders at the barren base of the mountain ramparts. Between the rock tumble they saw the throbbing, pulsing light.
After they reined in their horses at the foot of a house-sized boulder, Ryan helped Sisoka down. He remained astride the pony while the others dismounted.
“Everybody find some cover,” he said.
“What’s your plan?” Krysty demanded.
“I’ll stay on the hoof,” he replied. “Fight a harassing action. That’s something he might not expect.”
“I expect Joe is expecting everything,” Doc retorted.
Ryan handed the Steyr to Mildred. “I doubt he’s expecting to be picked off by sniper fire.”
The woman’s face was an expressionless mask, smeared by gray ash. “I don’t feel good about doing that, Ryan.”
“Think I do? Give me an alternative.” He spoke more harshly than he intended.
When there was no answer, Ryan turned his mount and rode among the immense pillars of stone. He was too tense to feel awed by the Cyclopean rock formations. The gray- and dun-colored columns and out-croppings were deeply scored and eroded by aeons of exposure to the elements. They loomed bleakly above him like cold, uncaring colossi, too far gone in old age to pay the tiny humans scrambling at their feet any heed.
He picked a smear of shadow cast by an upthrusting finger of granite to lie in wait for whoever came up the slope. He didn’t have to wait long.