Free The Long Trail Home by Stephen A. Bly Page B

meandered through the thick prairie grass toward a knoll to the north. Even before he crested the ridge, he could feel the ground begin to shake. He heard a roar like a hundred trains race straight at him.
    He sprinted to the top of the hill. To the north, a fifty-mile-deep, solid mass of buffalo stampeded his direction. From his vantage on the knoll, he could look back and see his mother, still sitting on the blanket, reading. Beside her now, a little girl, no more than three or four, plucked petals off a large white daisy.
    I’ve got to turn ’em! They’re headed right for Mama and Dacee June. Where’s Daddy? Why isn’t he here? This is his job. I can’t turn a herd this size. There’s nothin’ I can do!
    Sam knelt on one knee and raised the carbine to his shoulder, cocking the stiff hammer. He studied the ten-mile-wide herd. Slightly in the lead, a huge bull, tongue hanging out and head down, whipped his tail excitedly against his rear end.
    He sighted the .50-caliber carbine on the big bull.
    But he didn’t squeeze the trigger.
    He waited.
    Now, the buffalo pounded only a hundred yards away. The noise vibrated his eardrums. They drew close enough that he flipped down the long range sight and watched the charge from the narrow slot of the filed dime that acted as a barrel sight.
    Still, he didn’t pull the trigger.
    He could hear them breathe. Sucking in; blowing out. He could smell the musty odor of buffalo hair. He could see the panicked big eyes of the lead bull.
    Ten more steps and they would run right over the top of him.
    Then he pulled the trigger.
    And the sky turned dark.
    Hooves thundered near him. A dead horse lay no more than five feet in front of him. A barefoot Kiowa Fox was yelling something. Yellow-red flame shot out of gun barrels from out on the prairie.
    Then the shooting stopped.
    Kiowa continued to shout, only this time he was yelling at the remuda, herding them back into the corral.
    Sam Fortune tugged on his boots and joined him.
    â€œCould you see who they were?” Kiowa asked.
    â€œNo . . . I was asleep, and I . . .”
    â€œYou raised up and shot the horse out from under the lead rider. I thought you’d put the second bullet through the man, but he sprinted for the plains.”
    â€œWhat did I do? I’m still a little confused.”
    â€œI heard them run the horses out of the corral, and I sprinted out of the tent. It looked like they would stampede right over the top of you. You waited until the last second, then you raised up and shot the lead horse. The remuda panicked at the sound of the Sharps and turned right back into the corral. The leader ran into the night to join his partners. I really thought you’d bring him down.”
    â€œI’m not used to a single-shot. I couldn’t figure out what was real and what was a dream.”
    â€œWell, neither of us are goin’ to do anymore dreamin’ tonight. We better stand guard at the corral.”
    Sam stared into the dark night. “You think they were Comanches?”
    Kiowa looped the wire gate latch over the corral post. “The government claims there are no bands of Comanches out here.”
    Sam stood on the bottom rail and peered at the dark shadows of nervous horses. “They also said they finished off Captain Bill Cole’s Black Mesa gang twenty years ago, but some of them are still livin’ up there stealin’ horses. Ever’ time the government states that a problem’s solved, you can be assured it isn’t.”
    Kiowa climbed up on the rail beside Sam. “You’re a cynical Johnny Reb. But I don’t think it was Comanches. They would have killed us first and then took the horses. Are all the ponies accounted for?”
    In the moonlight, Sam surveyed the remuda nervously pace from one side of the corral to the other, like a trained dance troupe. He eased the hammer down on the carbine and stepped back to the dirt.