Magnificent Guns of Seneca 6 (30 page)

Ichante strapped the belt around her waist and checked her gun and knife.
 
She reached into her shirt and slid a long, thin dagger out from between her breasts.
 
"You missed this one, wasichu," she said.

"Sorry to disappoint you."
 
He folded his hands across his saddle horn and said, "Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Get on, then.
 
I want to make sure you ain't following us."

"I'm not following you," she laughed.
 
"I'm coming with you."

"Like hell."

She snickered at him as she rode past, heading in the preacher's direction.
 
Jem raced to catch up with her, "Hey!
 
This is an invitation only event, and you weren't asked, lady.
 
Turn around and get goin'."

"Who do you think you are to talk to me this way?
 
I should cut your tongue out of your jaw and feed it to my destrier."

"I'd like to see you try."

"Fine.
 
After we are finished with Keewassee, you and I will spend some time alone together and find out!"

"Fine!" Jem shouted, having to kick his destrier in the sides to keep up with her.
 
"I'm starting to think I should have spanked you a lot harder."

***

One of the scouts sprinted up the overgrown steps toward the dwelling, barely making it inside before she announced, "Men are coming!"

Hehewuti stabbed a crooked finger at Thathanka-Ska and said, "If you have led them to us, you will be the first to die, boy."

A dozen women and children of the Hopituh Shi-nu-mu crowded inside the ancient room, the same as the next two beside them.
 
The clay roofs were so short few of them could stand straight inside them.
 
"We will leave then, grandmother," Lakhpia-Sha said.
 
"We will lead the men away from you."

"Too late," she hissed.
 
"They might see where you ran from.
 
Everyone be quiet and do not make a sound.
 
If these men want to fight, they will find that there are still warriors of the Hopituh Shi-nu-mu who will oblige them."

"Here they come," one of the women said.
 
Each of them covered their children's mouths and bent low to the ground, trying to stay away from the windows.
 
Some of them whispered songs to content their little ones.
 
Some of them prayed.

One of the women crawled across the ground and grabbed Thathanka-Ska's arm.
 
He turned to see the girl that Haienwa'tha had spent so much time staring at.
 
It stabbed him to look at her and remember the time they'd spent together before the arrival of the snake Keewassee.
 
"What do you want?" he whispered.

Kachina said, "Where is your brother?
 
Why did he not come with you?"

Thathanka-Ska pushed her hand away and said, "He could not come."

"Why not?
 
Where is he?" she said.
 

Tell her he's dead.
 
Tell her he met someone else and ran off.
 
Tell her anything but the horrible truth,
he thought.
 
He was about to speak when the woman near the window said, "There are two men.
 
Wasichu.
 
And a woman."

The word
wasichu
spread around the room quickly and Thathanka-Ska crawled to the window and slid up alongside the wall.
 
He saw the man on the large wagon and two riders on destriers, one of them a man in a crumpled black hat that he cocked back to wipe the sweat from his face.
 
Thathanka-Ska let out an involuntary cry of joy and said, "El-Halcon!"

Jem spun around in his saddle at the sound with both of his guns cocked and aimed at the small windows carved into the cliffs above.
 
He watched in amazement as a young man emerged from inside the rocks and clambered down the hillside, racing toward him on foot with his arms wide shouting, "El-Halcon!
 
El-Halcon!"

"Bug?
 
What the hell are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere, boy?"
 
He dropped down off his destrier and embraced the boy, stepping back to admire how tall he'd grown.
 
"Look at you.
 
You sprouted up like a damn weed.
 
Where's your brother?"

Thathanka-Ska pulled him by the hand, trying to drag him up to the dwellings, chattering to him in Beothuk.
 

"Where's your brother?
 
And where's Ichabod?"

Ichabod stuck his head up from the window and waved, and Jem waved back to him.
 
He stopped moving completely as windows inside three of the dwellings suddenly filled with the silent, terrified faces of native women and children.
 
An elderly woman came to the window beside the boy and looked down at Jem with disdain, muttering something in a creaking, raspy voice.
 

"She says that she prayed to her ancestors for deliverance, and that she does not know what she could have done to anger them to cause them to mock her so," Ichante said.
 

Jem looked back at Ichante and winked, "I guess I'm just full of disappointing women these days."
     
  

He followed the boy up the hidden steps that were carved into the rocks, trying not to slip on the vines and brush spilling over them.
 
Thathanka-Ska waved for him to come inside the first dwelling and Jem ducked under the doorway and stopped.
 
"I'll be damned," he whispered.
 
He looked around the room at all of the women and children who stared at him with a mixture of terror and amazement.
 

"They've never seen a wasichu before," Ichante said from behind him.
 
"All they've heard are stories of your horrors."

Jem waved slightly, "Hello everyone.
 
No horrors to see today, sorry."
 

Lakhpia-Sha came around his side and hugged Jem briefly and spoke his name.
 
Jem patted the boy on the back and looked around the room.
 
"Where's Squawk?"
 
He looked at Ichante and put his hand on Thathanka-Ska's head, "This one has a brother.
 
Ask him where he is."

She and the boy spoke back and forth rapidly, and Bug's voice grew soft and forced as he said his father's name.
 
Ichante nodded gently and said, "Their father crossed over and sent them here to find their new Chief.
 
Something went wrong, but he won't say what."

Jem cocked his head back at Bug, "Thasuka Witko is dead?"

Father Charles was shouting something from below, loud enough and urgent enough that Jem let go of the boy and stuck his head out the window, "What the hell are you yelling about?"

"We've got company!" The old man pointed at the end of the trail at the cliffs fluvial slope where a large group of Beothuk warriors were crossing the stream and coming right for them.
 

Jem cursed and withdrew from the window, looking around in a panic, suddenly realizing they were trapped.
 
"What weapons do you all have?"

Ichante chatted with the women and said, "They have bows and arrows.
 
No rifles.
 
Some oil to set the arrows on fire or pour on their enemies if they try to come up the steps."

"No fire!" Jem said.
 
"Not with all these kids in here."
 
He looked back through the window and saw that the Beothuk had held up a hundred yards away at the sight of Father Charles and his wagon.
 
The old man was sitting in the driver's seat watching them.
 
The Beothuk warriors were carrying heavy weapons.
 
"Damn.
 
Damn, damn, damn," Jem whispered.
 
His hands were slick with sweat and he wiped them on his pants and said, "Everybody listen up.
 
Nobody makes a
sound
.
 
I'm going to go down there and tell them to beat it, but if they figure out you're up here, it's all over."

Ichante explained to the others quickly, pressing her finger to her lips to tell the children to all stay quiet.
 
Jem swallowed hard and said, "Okay.
 
Here goes nothing."

"Wasichu?" Ichante said.
 

Jem stopped at the door, "What?"

"You know this will not work."

"I know," he said.

"But you'll still try it?"

He smiled stupidly at her and said, "Yeah.
 
At least until the shooting starts."

Ichante slapped him across the rear end so hard that it stung her hand and said, "Good luck."

Jem hustled down the steps and ran to his destrier.
 
The Beothuk advanced slowly, held back by their leader's raised hand.
 
Jem took measure of the man, seeing his bald head and long curving braid like the tail of a snake dangling to his chest.
 
"Toquame Keewassee," Jem said.
 
He rode up next to the preacher, "All right, listen, old timer. Here's the plan."

"No,
you
listen," Father Charles said.
 
"I'm gonna do all the talking, and you just stay behind me."

"This is no time for craziness, padre.
 
I'm not letting you commit suicide just because you're looking for revenge.
 
You'll take the rest of us with you."

Father Charles looked back at him, his thin eyes mere slits in the sun, and said, "Have faith, Jem Clayton.
 
I didn't come alone.
 
I brought the power of God with me."

"Oh, well, why didn't you say so before…" Jem's voice fell silent as Father Charles reached under his seat and started pressing buttons.
 
He watched the old man's seat spring up hydraulically from the carriage.
 

"You better back up, son," the preacher said.
 

Gas hissed from the wagon as the hinges popped open and the wooden frame began to come apart.
 
The side panels flew off to reveal a massive construct of gears and cylinders inside.
 
The center cylinder extended upwards almost fifty feet and whined as it rotated down, forming a long, wide-mouthed canon aimed straight at the Beothuk warriors.
 
  

The words
Power of God
were painted along the barrel.
 

A control panel raised up from the floorboards to Father Charles and he keyed in a sequence that made the entire machine sparkle with energy.
 
Raindrops sizzled on the barrel, creating ripples of purple light.
 
Jem felt the hair on his body stand up and shouted, "What the hell is that thing?"