Free A Good Day to Die by William W. Johnstone

the woodpile.
    â€œOver here, ya derned idjit!”
    Eben straightened up, turning around with ax in hand. “Yow!”
    â€œEasy, boy,” Fisher said.
    Eben’s expression of shocked surprise might have been almost comical in its grotesque exaggeration if the situation had not been so direfully real. He cried, “Injuns! Oh Lordy!”
    â€œKeep still, boy! We can’t show weak,” Fisher hissed.
    â€œGawd!”
    â€œQuit your bawling and carrying on.”
    â€œWhat’re we gonna do, Pa?”
    Fisher trembled, agitating the pails of water he held. Water slopped over the top of a bucket, splattering on the ground. Fat droplets were soaked up by the brown dirt.
    He set the buckets down on the ground, knees creaking. He straightened, never once taking his eyes off Little Bells.
    Little Bells grimaced, baring his teeth. Seconds passed before Fisher realized the Indian was not making faces, but grinning. It was hard to tell the difference. The grin was accompanied by a dry chuckle, sounding like a barking cough.
    Little Bells glanced at Thorn beside him on his left, the turning of his head setting off a jingling of the silvery bells. Thorn smiled.
    Little Bells turned to the right, toward Greasy Grass. Grinning away, he nodded at the other, as if to encourage him. The lower half of Greasy Grass’s face split in a knife-blade smile, sharp, toothy, and mirthless.
    Little Bells beamed down at Fisher, who forced a half grin. He looked sick. Little Bells’s smile widened, laugh lines crinkling around dark eyes. His chuckling ripened into laughter.
    Exchanging glances with his sidemen, he motioned them to join in. Greasy Grass and Thorn laughed loudly. Firecloud remained aloof, stone faced.
    Little Bells gestured to Fisher, as if encouraging him to join in the merriment. Seton forced a laugh, sounding like he had a bone stuck in his throat and was trying to clear it.
    Apparently that really tickled Little Bells, who laughed out loud. Greasy Grass and Thorn laughed along with him. Firecloud’s blank-faced silence remained unbroken.
    Little Bells motioned for Seton Fisher to continue. Fisher made a show of laughing it up. If that’s what the savage wants, best play along, he thought, and made a braying jackass of himself.
    Suddenly, without warning Little Bells frowned, falling silent.
    Taking their cue from him, Greasy Grass and Thorn stopped laughing, turning it off as abruptly as though it had never been at all. The Comanches smiled no more.
    Fisher’s face was ashen. Little Bells pointed his rifle at Seton.
    â€œWhat ... what’s happening, Pa?” Eben choked.
    â€œI’m kilt.”
    Little Bells fired once, the bullet tearing through Fisher. He crumpled, falling backward.
    Firecloud burst out laughing.
    â€œPa!” Eben remembered the ax in his hands. Hefting it high above his head, he rushed Little Bells, sobbing. “Crazy murderin’ redskins!”
    Little Bells swung the rifle toward Eben and fired. Eben swayed but kept lurching forward, his big feet kicking up clouds of brown dirt.
    Another slug tore into him, knocking him down.

    Inside the west wing of the ranch house, Lydia was mending a croker sack with needle and thread. At thirteen, she was slim, coltish, with long, straight, dirty-blond hair worn in a pair of braids framing a thin, fine-featured face. Dark brown eyes contrasted with fair hair and skin. She wore a lilac-colored, cotton floral-print dress and a pair of flat-heeled, lace-up ankle boots.
    Her mother sat nearby, folding towels.
    Lydia stopped working and looked up at her ma.
    â€œQuit your daydreaming, gal.”
    â€œI’m out of thread, Ma.”
    â€œGet some more. You know where it is.”
    â€œYes, Ma.” Sighing, Lydia rose and left the room.
    Her mother watched her leave, then stood and walked past the front window on her way to put away the towels. In her early thirties, Ada looked ten years older, the