Part 61 (1/2)
”Of course I'm all right!” Martha's eyes were blazing too. ”I'm not going to faint on you or anything like that! Oh, I'm so glad I could bring my hen along!”
”Well, you just come right in the house! We have everything we need there and the men will be along!”
Winterson, Joe and Ellis unhitched the team and led them to the stable.
The black horse followed and crowded in as soon as the door was open.
They put the mules in one stall and two horses in each of the others.
Ellis filled the mangers with hay and Joe turned to Winterson.
”What happened?”
”They came at dawn!” Winterson said savagely. ”The hen started cackling and woke me up! I saw this one looking in the window and threw the first thing I could lay my hands on at him! Happened to be the chamber pot!
Time I got my hands on my rifle, he was gone! I took Martha with me, and time we got harnessed there were more of the skunks in the woods! They nicked me in the arm and we were gone!”
”Did they have horses?”
”Probably they had some somewhere! I suppose they left them back in the woods when they came to get us! Yes, there must have been horses! These Indians are too blasted lazy to walk anywhere! I got off one shot, but think I missed!”
”How many are there?”
”I saw anyhow six, but there are more than that! Blasted mongrels probably wouldn't fight at all unless they were anyhow fifteen to one!
Wish I'd had another rifle! I--There's three of us now! Let's go back and tear into them!”
Joe said gently, ”Leave the women and kids here unprotected?”
”You're right! Guess you're right! It's just that I'm so las.h.i.+ng mad I'd do about anything! I'm never going to like an Indian again if I live to be five hundred years old!”
”They burned your buildings. I saw the smoke.”
”That's probably why they weren't hot on our trail; they were too busy looting! I suppose they got my cow and pigs too, but I saved the horses and Martha got her hen out. That's some hen! I wouldn't swap her for a farm!”
”Better come up and get a dressing on that arm.”
”Just a scratch,” Winterson a.s.sured him. ”It doesn't amount to anything.
What are we going to do now? Send somebody to Camp Axton to bring the soldiers?”
”Too dangerous,” Joe decided. ”One man alone could be ambushed and we have four rifles now. We'd better figure on making a stand right here.”
”Who's the fourth rifle?”
”Tad, and he'll be a good one. That kid can shoot the whiskers off a cat at a hundred yards. Did you bring plenty of bullets?”
”Just what's in my pouch. We didn't have time to grab as much as we'd have liked.”
”Well, we have lead and molds. We can rig a mold to fit your rifle.
Let's go in before the womenfolk decide we've all been scalped.”
Still more angry than frightened, Martha Winterson had taken Carlyle on her lap and was relating the story of the raid. Barbara and Emma listened closely, while the three younger children stood silently near.