Free Cheyenne Saturday - Empty-Grave Extended Edition by Richard Jessup Page A

pain.
    Ellis threw the Colt to Liza and grabbed the carbine in order to reload. Still firing at the braves who were trying to circle around them, Liza slashed at the rawhide that held the horses. She swung up on the back of the nearest and shouted at Ellis. “Let's go!” 
    The tall Texan leaped on the back of a pony and then they kicked their mounts hard in the flanks and sent them racing down the draw over the dead braves. The remaining horses, free of their restraint, galloped alongside of them.
    The two riders struck straight to the west at a dead gallop. Behind them, the Cheyenne were scurrying after their ponies, and three were already riding out after them.
    They had a lead of about half a mile on the pursuing Cheyenne when Liza Reeve's horse stumbled and threw her hard to the ground.
    Ellis pulled his pony in and returned to Liza's side. She had lost a lot of blood from the shoulder wound and the arrow was still imbedded in her thigh. The Cheyenne were riding harder now. Liza's pony was dead; its heart had burst. Ellis pulled her up in his arms and helped her to his pony's back, then swung up behind her.
    The Cheyenne were only a thousand yards away now and he could hear them yelling. He spurred the broomtail with a vicious kick in the ribs and sent the exhausted beast at full gallop across the grass, eyes searching for some place where they could stop and make a stand.
    There were only three of them, but with an injured Liza on his hands, three Cheyenne born and raised in the high-grass buffalo country were more than enough to contend with. He had his belt of cartridges and the carbine and a Colt. But what he needed most now was a place to fort up and protect his rear.
    He urged the slowing pony on to greater speed, but the added weight and the full gallop from the draw had taken a heavy toll of the long-maned pinto. The Cheyenne were within seven hundred yards.
    The pony fought its way to the top of a ridge, an out-cropping of the sand-hill country of the South Platte, and Ellis saw his stand.
    A dried-out pit now in the late June summer, Ellis could see that it was a buffalo wallow and sump when the water was high with the spring rains. Wind, erosion and constant usage by the buffalo had carved out a six-foot overhang beneath the ridge that was squared off in such a manner as to provide protection on three sides and a full view of the plains in front.
    He glanced back at the Cheyenne, who saw that he was making for the wallow, and heard them yelling and screaming.
    He pushed his pony to the limit and pounded across the dry bed. He slammed to a stop, jerking Liza Reeves down after him, and shoved her in to the back of the overhang.
    Still holding the pony by the head rope, Ellis turned to fire at the pursuing braves over the back of the beast, but saw they had pulled to a stop just beyond his range.
    And he saw that he would never leave the wallow alive unless he managed in some way to kill the Indians.
    He pulled the pony into position and fired a bullet behind the animal's ear. The beast dropped like a stone across the mouth of the cut and Ellis crouched behind it. He steadied the carbine across the dead animal's belly, pulled out the Colt, checked to make sure it was loaded and put it on the ground beside him. The Cheyenne were nowhere to be seen. Ellis guessed that they had circled the wallow and were examining his position from the rear to see if there was any way to reach him from there. Ellis knew that there wasn't, and for a moment he turned his attention to Liza Reeves.
    “Stop gaping at my nakedness and get this shaft outa my leg,” she said strongly. Her face was a little drawn, beneath the heavy sunburn, but her voice was steady. She handed him the Green River knife she had taken from the dead brave and turned her head away.
    On close examination, Ellis saw that the Cheyenne arrow had not penetrated too deeply, only about an inch below the curve of the thigh. The arrowhead had broken off in their