She stared at the floor, then quickly, remembering her duty, out a loophole. “I wouldn’t want to live. Not after—”
“Do you s’pose I’d ever turn my back on you? Reckon you don’t know me as well as I thought.”
“No, but you— I’d be without you on earth. Why not together in Heaven, at once?”
He knew the redskins wouldn’t spare his life. Unless he was lucky, he wouldn’t be a man when he died. Not that knives and fire, or being staked out under the sun with his eyelids cut off, would leave him in shape to think much about that. “Well, you might still manage to get the kids through.”
Again her head drooped. “Yes. I’m sorry. I clean forgot. Yes, I was bein’ selfish.”
“Aw, don’t you fret, sweetheart,” he said as cheerfully as he was able. “Nothin’ bad’s goin’ to happen.’Next week our biggest worry will be how we can keep from braggjn’ too loud.”
“Thank you, darlin’.” She turned her attention outward.
The night wore on. They had divided it into four watches, then all to be afoot in advance of dawn, when attack was likeliest. About three in the morning by the grandfather clock, the Langfords finished their second trick, roused the hands, and stretched themselves out, he on the floor, she beside Ed. Should the hurt man stir from the heavy sleep into which he had dropped, she’d know it and see to whatever need was his. The other men would shoot better, the more well rested they were.
A shotgun blast kicked Langford awake.
Bill thudded against the wall and fell. The lead had sleeted across the cabin and taken him in the back. By candlelight and monstrous flickery shadows the blood that gushed from him shone blacker than his skin.
Carlos crouched on the north side, rifle aimed and useless. Two broad muzzles thrust in by the west loopholes. One smoked. It withdrew. Instantly another took its place. Meanwhile the second roared.
Langford jumped to the bedside and Susie. Sick understanding billowed through him. Hostiles, just three or four, had crawled under cover of night, slowly, often stopping, shadows in the gloom, till they were among the stakes and under the eaves. When they shoved their guns through, maybe they hoped they’d fire straight into an eye.
No matter. Shooting blind, wedging the barrels to and fro, they made defense impossible.
Whoops lifted, nearer and nearer. Thunder beat on the door. No tomahawks, Langford knew; that was a regular woodcutting ax, probably his. Panels splintered. A gust blew out the candle. Langford fired and fired, but he couldn’t see anything for sure. The hammer clicked on emptiness. Where the hell were the loaded guns? Susie screamed. Maybe he should have saved a bullet for her. Too late. The door was down and the dark full of warriors.
THE RACKET brought Tarrant iwd the Herreras from their bedrolls, hands to weapons. Tumult went murky among the tipis. “El ataque,” the trader said beneath yowls and shots.
“What’re they doing?” Tarrant grated: “Another frontal assault, in the dead of night? Crazy.”
“I do not know,” Herrera said. The noise rose rapidly to crescendo. He bared teeth, a dim flash under the stars. “Victory. They are taking the house.” Tarrant bent to put on his boots. “Where do you go? Stay here. You could too easily get killed.”
“I’ve got to see if I can do anything.”
“You cannot. Myself, I stay, not out of fear but because I do not want to see what comes next.”
Tarrant’s pain lashed: “You told me you don’t care.”
“Not much,” Herrera admitted. “But it would be evil to gloat, nor have I the heart for it. No, my sons and I will pray for them.” He plucked the other man’s sleeve. You slept fully clad in such a place as this. “Do stay. You, somehow, I like.”
“I’ll be careful,” Tarrant promised, and loped off.
He skirted the Comanche camp. More and more torches came to life there, flared, bobbed, streamed sparks on their hasty way. Sight of them dimmed the stars that hi their uncountable thousands gleamed frost-bright across black. Nevertheless he had light enough to turn the soil gray for him.