Chapter Thirty-six

For three hours the people in the Zachary soddy waited, ready to fight again, but no more attacks came on. Cash concluded that the enemy would hold off, now, until the last darkness before dawn. He tried to make the others get some rest. They remained fully dressed, their carbines in their hands, and either Cash or Andy prowled the ports by turns, watching the prairie by the light of the young moon. No one could more than doze. They knew the Kiowas wanted them wakeful through this part of the night, so that morning would find them fumble-handed, but they couldn’t help it. They stayed strung-up anyway, just as the enemy wanted them to.

A little after midnight a bullet came wowling from the north ridge, and broke a little pane in the blocked north lookout. Ten minutes later a rifle whanged from the creek, chugging a ball into the door. During the next couple of hours seven or eight more shots were fired, at irregular intervals, and from various directions. It was the same game, to keep them from resting when they ought to rest. Two hours after midnight, all action ceased, and the night was still. Now the Kiowas would give them every chance to go sound asleep, in time for the next assault.

Cash had them all up at their loopholes long before the first graying of the sky. And now the Kiowas fooled him again. Daylight came clear and strong. The sun came up, and the locusts began winding up again, after sleeping out the cooling of the dry land between midnight and morning. And no attack came at all.

Matthilda waked, and, though she was very weak, she seemed immeasurably improved. Georgia made her a few spoonfuls of gruel, and it stayed down. In their unbounded relief they let Matthilda lead them back to the theory that she had suffered nothing worse than a severe siege of indigestion, after all. Intent upon keeping his people up to scratch, Cassius allowed them only a cold breakfast; but the sunlight outside, and the increasing warmth of the summer morning, were favorable to the illusion that the worst was over.

Cassius seemed partly puzzled, and partly suspicious; but he was beginning to show what appeared to be a curious disappointment. Finally, turning impatient, he threw open the outer door, and stood exposed upon the stoop, his carbine in his hands. Nothing happened. He led his horse out, mounted bareback, and rode it down into the creek to let it drink. Andy and the two girls stood ready at the portholes while Cash did that; but still nothing broke loose.

One thing, at least, was strange, and wrong. The uphorses were still in their corral. Inconceivable that the Kiowas should have left them unmolested, unless they were coming back. Before he came back to the house Cash turned out all the horses but two, which he fed and watered.

“Nice big dust,” Cash reported, “strung out to the west. The near end of it is settling down; the head end of it looks about twelve miles away, and getting farther. Like as if they’re all heading back into the cap rock breaks. Only thing…That dust looks just a little bit too big and plain, to me. They don’t need to raise that much dust. It’s more like the dust you might make dragging brush behind you, in the right places.”

“And I better light out, dragging some brush behind me in the right places,” Georgia said. “Your maw’s all right now, far’s I can see. I got to get home—before my old lady runs me into the cap rock breaks, neck and neck with them Indians.”

Cassius had to think about that a while, and he was in a quandary. If he had been up against Comanches, he would have had a chance to figure out what they would do. Comanches often fought bitterly, and with suicidal courage. If a Comanche figured his medicine was right, you could expect him to strike one more blow at you after he was dead. But they were not imaginative, nor resourceful, by comparison to their Kiowa allies. They were as liable as not to quit a fight when they had you licked, for no better reason than that they thought they had fought enough.

But Kiowas were another matter; their tactics included every form of trickery known to war or crime. Two Kiowas in a party of Comanches could double its menace—and here they had nothing but Kiowas. Best thing to assume was, whatever they seemed to be doing, they weren’t doing that. That big fat trail they were laying, out there to the west, had all the look of a full scale drawoff. So it wasn’t. They would be back again in the first dusk, and tonight would see the hard attack, beside which last night’s attempted surprise was only a feelout.

The safe and sure pattern of defense was perfectly plain. Cassius knew he ought to keep Georgia right here where she was, and let old Hagar fume as she might. Now that Georgia was past her first moments of battle-impact hysteria, she was every bit as valuable as a man. They ought to fetch a few buckets of fresh water from the well by the creek, then spend the rest of the day strengthening the shutters and the door. They could brace these with heavy props, using the floor planking, if need be, and pegging fast to the joists, until no ram the Kiowas could devise would take effect. And the root cellar should be ruggedly sealed off. It had an air hole to the surface, much like a whistle-pig burrow, plainly visible and easily enlarged—a tempting entrance for the first buck who set eyes on it. Now that they were all battle-tested, and had the hang of it, the four of them could probably hold out forever, with only these simple improvements. A serious and organized job of digging might be another matter, but this was so unlikely it hardly need be considered.

Some Indians were getting hurt. At least one, and maybe three, not counting Lost Bird, had been killed in action. Tonight they would hurt a few more. The Kiowas wouldn’t stay with a losing deal like that for more than one more night; they weren’t accomplishing a thing. Cash believed they would round up as many Dancing Bird horses as they could find by the light of the moon, and be gone before tomorrow morning. Except for about one chance in a thousand of a lucky shot finding you through a porthole, they could just about assume that a good cool, wideawake defense would bring them through without harm.

And none of this suited Cassius the least bit. He had been at his best when they were beating off those first attacks, but he had solved that, now, and knew how he could get fixed to do it more easily next time. But he was no more comfortable waiting down a hole like a badger, patiently and forever, than the Kiowas themselves would have been. To him, as to the Horse Indians, the initiative was everything. A situation in which the enemy had all the choices as to when, how, and whether they should fight was intolerable to him. Every instinct Cash had was for attack—a clever attack if practical, or head-on if that were the only way. Impose the terms of battle, and you will impose the terms of peace. He didn’t remember who had said that; didn’t think it was Hood. But Cassius was no more likely to wait out an enemy than a horse is likely to take refuge in a tree.

So now he had a different idea, and he judged he had better keep it to himself. He had developed a certain amount of reticence, even secretiveness, through having too many of his schemes sat upon as chancy, and even ridiculous. Better not upset everybody, and get a lot of arguments on his hands. Just do it.

He began by agreeing with Georgia that she must get home. The house would be safe enough while he rode with her a good part of the way—far enough to be sure she would make it safely, no matter what. He would be back in the latter part of the afternoon, at the latest. Meanwhile, Andy and Rachel were to stay forted up. He showed them how he wanted them to traverse the ridges and the cutbanks of the creek with the telescope sight of the buffalo gun, maybe two-three times an hour, until he got back.

Matthilda had gone back to sleep. Cash went and took a last look at her, assuring himself that she was indeed out of trouble. His fingers gently touched her hair, careful not to disturb her. Then he saddled for Georgia and himself, and took out.