Bloody Trail (25 page)

She reached into the
reticule at her feet for the copy of Mister Hawthorne’s
Twice-Told Tales
that
she’d put there before leaving, in the hope that she might read
some of it along the way. The coach was rocking so much, however,
that she hadn’t tried to read for fear that she might become sick.
Now the road seemed a bit smoother, and she thought she might be
able to pass some time by dipping into one of the tales. She wasn’t
always sure that she grasped Hawthorne’s meaning, but the woman
fleeing her terrible past in “The Hollow of the Three Hills” was
someone Cora could sympathize with all too easily.

“
I see that you’re a
reader, ma’am,” Dave Benteen said as she opened the
book.

“
I am a teacher, sir, and
teachers read. Do gunsmiths?”

Benteen grinned. “I’ve been known to crack a
book now and again, though my taste runs more to Mister Poe’s tales
than to Hawthorne’s.”

Cora gave him a demure look over the top of
her glasses. “Mister Poe’s work is a bit too morbid and gruesome
for me, and while Mister Hawthorne does indeed look on the dark
side of things, he does so without excess.”

She opened her book to end the conversation,
but she found that she was still unable to read. Even on the smooth
road the coach was swaying too much for that. She closed the book
with a sigh and was about to replace it in the reticule when she
heard a distant scream so harsh and piercing that it rivaled
anything in the works of Mister Poe.

She looked out the side window and saw six
Indian warriors riding toward the coach. They seemed in no special
hurry, as if they knew the stage couldn’t possibly outrun them.
They rode as if they were one with their mounts. Cora had never
seen anything like it.

“
Oh, Jesus Christ,”
Weatherby said. He seemed to shrink within himself at the sight,
and his face turned pasty white as if he might be ill.

The coach lurched forward, and Cora heard
the driver slap the reins and yell encouragement to the horses.

“
They aren’t coming to
welcome us to Wolf Creek,” Benteen said, as the coach picked up
speed. He spoke as calmly as if he were taking tea in the family
parlor. “You have a gun, Hix?”

Hix was as imperturbable as Benteen. He
shook his head and said, “I prefer other weapons.”

Benteen didn’t ask what
those might be. He said, “But you
can
shoot.”

Hix hesitated for a moment, as if
considering his answer. “Of course,” Hix replied. “If my life
depends on it, I reckon I can.”

“
Good.”

Like Cora, Benteen also had a bag at his
feet. He bent down to it and came up with two revolvers, both Smith
& Wesson Americans. He left a third inside.

“
It’s a good thing I
brought along a few pistols to sell in my new shop.” Benteen handed
one of the guns to Hix. “It’s fully loaded, and I have more
cartridges.”

Hix took the pistol and looked at Weatherby,
who was now hiding in the floor of the coach.

“
I don’t think the drummer
will be needing one of these,” Hix said, hefting the
gun.

“
What about you, ma’am?”
Benteen asked Cora.

Cora rummaged through her bag and brought
out an old cap-and-ball Navy Colt. It felt heavier and more awkward
than she remembered, but she could hold it steady if she used both
hands. The coach was bouncing so wildly now that she wondered if it
would be possible for her to hit anything

“
I can shoot,” she said,
and as she spoke, she recalled the smell of burned powder, the
dying lawman, her brother’s capture, her own escape. She pushed
those hard memories away—that had been another life, and she was
starting a new one now. But only if she lived to do so.

“
You don’t have to worry
about me,” she said.

She heard the crack of the guard’s rifle as
he opened fire on the warriors. Their shouts and screams increased,
but Cora doubted that any of them had been hit. She turned to the
window and looked out over the muzzle of the Colt. She saw only
four men, though she’d thought there were more.

“
Two on this side now,”
Benteen said, as if reading her mind.

Hix looked out his own window, saying
nothing. Weatherby whimpered in the floor, out of sight of the
windows.

The driver exhorted the horses with shouts
and curses. The stage guard fired again, and then the Indians fired
as well. One of them had a rifle, and his first shot hit the guard.
Cora saw him fall from the coach on Benteen’s side.

An arrow thunked into the side just below
Cora’s window, and she drew back. She leaned against the seat, took
a deep breath, and told herself that she’d been in worse trouble
when the lawmen came for her brother who’d stupidly helped to rob a
bank. She’d gotten out of that; she’d get out of this. She let out
her breath and turned back to the window.

The stage lurched left and right, the horse
running almost out of control. It was all Cora could do to hold
herself in the seat, and she wondered how the driver could manage
to stay aboard. Well, that wasn’t her worry. Those savages were.
She tried to line one up with the gunsight. It was impossible. She
pulled the trigger, anyway.

The pistol kicked up and back. The noise of
the explosion almost deafened her, and the black powder smoke
filled her nose and eyes. She heard other dim explosions as Hix and
Benteen began firing.

Cora was never exactly sure just what
happened next. She heard a crash and a terrible splintering noise.
The coach seemed to leap into the air. It tilted far to the right,
and Cora knew that it was going to tip over. She tried to grab hold
of something, but there was nothing within reach. She, Hix,
Benteen, and Weatherby were all thrown together in a heap, and the
coach thudded to earth on its side.

While Cora struggled to free herself from
the tangle of bodies, the coach was dragged along the ground. Dust
and dirt flew inside. The men cursed and flailed their arms.

Finally the coach stopped moving. Cora was
still intertwined with the others. She shoved arms and legs aside
and rolled over. She got her feet planted and stood up. She had
lost her small hat, and the bun of her hair had come loose, though
it was not yet straggling. The leather seat was in front of her.
The left side of the coach had now become the top.

Benteen and Hix got unknotted and stood as
well, though they had to hunch over because the side of the coach
was now the roof. Weatherby lay in a sort of ball and didn’t move.
Cora didn’t know if he was dead or merely unconscious, but it
didn’t really matter at the moment. What mattered was that she find
her pistol. Somehow, Benteen and Hix had held onto theirs.

Cora looked down and saw the pistol on top
of her bag, which lay at Benteen’s feet. The gunsmith noticed her
glance and managed to pick up the Colt. Cora took it from him.
Space in the coach was tight in its new position, and Cora was
uncomfortably aware of the closeness of the two men.

“
Don’t step on Mister
Weatherby,” she said.

Neither Hix nor Benteen responded. Benteen
cocked his head as if listening, and Cora began to pay attention to
the sounds outside the coach. She heard the jingling of harness and
the stomping of the stage’s team.

“
They’re taking the
horses,” Hix said. “That’s probably what they were after in the
first place. Doesn’t mean they won’t come for us,
though.”

“
We’ll need those horses,”
Benteen said.

Hix smiled with his mouth but not his eyes.
“Only if we’re alive.”

“
I don’t plan to die
here,” Benteen said.

“
Nor do I,” Cora
said.

“
Nobody plans to die,
ma’am,” Hix said. “It just happens. You might want to save one of
those bullets. The Kiowa don’t treat women kindly. They’ll keep you
alive a lot longer than you want to be if they get hold of
you.”

“
I won’t allow them to get
hold of me.”

“
They don’t care what
you’ll allow,” Hix said. “They don’t have rules.”

He sounded to Cora as if he might know what
it was like to live without rules. A strange man, for a barber.

Benteen straightened and took a quick look
outside, then ducked back in. “Too late. They’ve cut the horses
loose and one man’s leading them off. That leaves five men for us
to defend ourselves against.”

Cora heard a ripping sound as knives sliced
through leather at the back of the coach.

“
They’re getting into the
boot,” Hix said. “They know we’re trapped in here, so they won’t be
in a hurry. They’ll look for anything that might be useful to them
in the parcels and mail before they have their fun with
us.”

“
If there was a strongbox,
they have that, too,” Benteen said.

Cora could hardly believe they were talking
so calmly. She was about to remark on it when Weatherby groaned and
stirred.

“
What happened?” he asked,
looking around at the cockeyed coach and trying to find a way to
sit up.

“
Can’t say,” Benteen told
him. “We’re in a fine fix, is all I know.”

“
The savages?”

“
Outside. They’ll be after
us before long, just like raccoons rooting a turtle out of the
shell.”

Weatherby slumped back down with a whimper
and had nothing more to say.

“
They are not going to
root me out,” Cora said.

“
I hope not,” Benteen
said, “but they’ll try.”

Cora heard excited talk outside. She
couldn’t understand the words, but she knew the Kiowa must have
found something of great interest in the luggage. Perhaps they’d
opened her trunk and found her dresses and her undergarments. Or
something equally titillating.

It was hot and close inside the coach. Cora
wished she could open her bodice, but that of course could never
happen, not even if she was about to be killed. She thought about
her brother. She had warned him so often about his reckless
nature—she had never dreamed it would result in her being on the
run, and on a stagecoach during an Indian attack as a consequence.
He was in prison now, as she assuredly would have been had she not
fled in time. Prison was a fate she had once considered terrible
beyond words. Now, it seemed almost attractive.

No. She would not let herself think like
that. She was still alive, still free, and so she would remain.

“
They’ll not have me,” she
said.

“
You’re right,” Benteen
said, though he didn’t sound entirely convinced. “We’ll fight them
off.”

He located his bag and opened it, pulling
out some cotton wadding. He handed some to both Hix and Cora.

“
Stuff that in your ears,
quick! Gunfire in here will be deafening.”

They did as he suggested, and he dropped the
remaining wadding on Weatherby, who was not so hopeless as to be
stupid. He put the wadding in his ears.

It grew quiet outside. Cora kept a close
watch on the windows above her head. After a few moments, she saw
something move. She recognized it. It was the top of her other hat,
the one that had been in her trunk. The hat moved up an inch.

Cora raised her pistol in both hands, and
when the hat moved again, she pulled the trigger. The explosion was
such that even with the wadding she had a fierce ringing in her
ears. The smoke was too thick for her to see the result of her
shot, and she did not hear a scream, but she was confident that the
bullet she fired had taken off the top of the Indian’s head.

Cora had never killed anyone before, though
she was wanted for the murder of a member of the posse that had
come for her brother. She had been careful not to hit anyone that
day.

She’d thought she’d feel different after
taking someone’s life—sad, perhaps, or guilty—but she felt neither
of those things. Elation was more like it. One of them was dead.
That left four.

As the smoke cleared, she could see
something resembling a smile on Hix’s face. Benteen’s lips were
moving, but she couldn’t make out the words. He seemed pleased,
however.

The Indians would not be pleased, she knew.
They would try even harder to get them out of the coach, but as
long as they came at them through the windows, she or the others
could pick them off.

“
Did I kill him?” she
asked. Her voice sounded odd to her, and she could barely hear
herself.

Benteen plucked the wadding from her right
ear. He spoke slowly and formed his words carefully, which helped
Cora to understand.

“
You might have grazed
him,” the gunsmith said. “Gave him a good surprise, for sure. I was
surprised, too. I never had a schoolteacher like you.”

Cora took back the wadding and replaced it
in her ear. She was not terribly disappointed that the Indian
wasn’t dead, as long as he’d been frightened, but she was afraid
that she’d revealed too much about herself. Determination was one
thing. Pulling the trigger to kill a man was something else. She
had hoped to play the role of a modest schoolteacher to keep people
from being too interested in her. She’d thought it would be easy,
but she hadn’t counted on finding herself in a wrecked stagecoach
fighting off Kiowas with three men she’d just met. Two men, really,
she thought. Weatherby hardly counted.

“
I was frightened,” she
said, trying to get back into her role, “and I must have pulled the
trigger by accident. I’m glad the poor fellow wasn’t hurt too
badly.”