Where the devil was Rufus? Probably snoring out on the prairie alongside the empty bottle. Just as well. No matter how self-controlled, a white man took a risk, showing himself to red men in blood-rut.
So why did he, Hanno, Lugo, Cadoc, Jacques Lacy, William Sawyer, Jack Tarrant, a hundred different aliases, behave like this? He knew he couldn’t save the ranchers, and didn’t mean to try. They must perish as star-many had perished before them and would in the future, over and over, world without end. History chewed them up and spat them out and soon most rotted forgotten, might as well never have been. Maybe the Christians were right and mankind was like that, maybe it was simply in the nature of things.
His intention was practical. He hadn’t survived this long by hiding from the terrible. Rather, he kept alert, aware, so he’d know which way to jump when the sword swung. Tonight he’d observe from the fringes. If an impulse arose to wipe out his party too, he could talk it down, .given help from Peregrine and maybe even Quanah, before it got out of control. In the morning he’d start back toward Santa Fe.
The chief stood huge near the cabin, a long-helved ax on his shoulder. Torchlight guttered across painted face and body, horned headdress; it was as if he flickered in and out of hell. The braves were mostly less clear, blobs of night that swarmed, pranced, screeched, waved their brands like battle flags. Squaws capered with them, knives or sharpened sticks hi hand. The doorway gaped hollow.
They kept clear a space in front of it. Three dead men sprawled at the threshold, dragged forth. The Anglo’s left arm was splinted; someone had cut his throat before stopping to think about sport. Rib ends stuck out of a hole torn in the Negro’s back. A third seemed Mexican, though he was so slashed and pulped it was hard to be sure; he had gone down fighting.
Lucky bastards. Two squaws held fast a small boy and a smaller girl who screamed, blind with fear. A tall Anglo sat slumped. Blood matted his hair and dripped onto clothes and earth. He was stunned. Two warriors locked the arms of a young woman who writhed, kicked, cursed them and called on her God.
A man bounded from the ruck. A torch swung near him for a moment and Tarrant recognized Wahaawmaw. He had slung his rifle to free his hands. The right gripped a knife. He laughed aloud, caught the collar of the woman’s dress in his left, slashed downward. The cloth parted. Whiteness gleamed, and a sudden string of blood-beads. Her captors forced her down on her back. Wahaawmaw fumbled at his breechclout. The man prisoner stirred, croaked, struggled to regain his feet. A brave gave him a gun butt in the stomach and he sagged, retching.
A grizzly bear growl resounded. From around the cabin stormed Rufus. His Colt was drawn. He swept his hook back and forth. Two Indians stumbled aside, faces gashed open. He reached the woman. The men who pinned her sprang up. He shot one through the forehead. He hooked an eye from the other, who recoiled shrieking. His boot smashed into Wahaawmaw’s groin. That warrior tumbled, to squirm by the white man. He sought to choke down agony, but it jerked past his tips.
Flambeau flare made Rufus’-obeard its own hue. He stood with his legs on either side of the woman, hunched forward, swaying a little, flaming drunk but the Colt rock-steady before him. “Aw right,” he boomed, “you filthy swine, first o’ you makes a move, 111 plug him. She’s gonna go free, an’—”
Wahaawmaw straightened on the ground and rolled over. Rufus didn’t see. There was too much else for him to watch. “Look out!” Tarrant heard himself yell. The Indian bowls drowned his voice. Wahaawmaw unslung his rifle. Prone, be fired.
Rufus lurched back. The pistol fell. Wahaawmaw shot again. Rufus crumpled. His weight sank onto the woman and held her fast.
Wild, Tarrant shoved men aside. He sprang into the clear space and went on his knees beside Rufus. “O sodalis, amice perennis—“ Blood bubbled from the mouth and into the red beard. Rufus gasped. For an instant it seemed he grinned, but Tarrant couldn’t really know in the shifty torchlight or even by the light of the stars. He clasped the big body to him and felt life ebb away.