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Ja
Despite Ja
At the sound of the shot, Ty dived for cover in a shallow ditch left behind by storm water fa
Ja
Despite the heavy pack Ty wore, he was up and sprinting for the next bit of cover while the renegade reloaded. Ty halfway expected to draw more fire from the other Indians, but none came. He hit the dirt a second before Ja
Ty scrambled up and began ru
Suddenly a flash of human movement off to the side caught Ja
Five, Ty counted silently to himself. That's it. She has to reload.
The pistol in Ja
"Reload!" yelled Ty without looking away from his right, where the new attacker was hidden. Come on, come on, he silently urged the second renegade. Show yourself.
Reloading was much easier said than done for Ja
But first she had to get the bullets into the chambers.
Four hundred feet away and to the right of Ty, a thrown pebble bounced harshly on the hard ground. Knowing it was a feint, Ty fired in that direction anyway, then turned quickly toward the position of the first attacker.
Come and get it, he urged silently.
As Ty had hoped, the first renegade assumed he was facing an enemy armed with a single-shot rifle. The Indian broke cover and stood up, striving for a clean shot before his prey could reload or find better cover. Smoke puffed from Ty's carbine and the renegade died before he could even realize what had gone wrong. Ty levered another bullet into the firing chamber even as he whipped around to confront the second renegade, who had had time to reload and was taking aim.
Ty threw himself to the side, spoiling both his own shot and the renegade's. Ty's second and third shots were dead on target. He rolled to a new position of cover and waited. No more shots came. Either the other renegades hadn't had time to take position yet or the speed with which Ty could "reload" and fire his carbine had made them cautious.
"Ja
"Yes." Her voice was oddly thi
"Tell me when you've reloaded."
Swearing shockingly, Ja
An instant later Ty was on his feet and ru
"Get back," Ty said harshly, dragging Ja
Breathing hard, Ty shrugged out of his backpack and took up a position just inside the slot. He began refilling the carbine with quick, sure motions. As he worked he looked up every few instants to scan the landscape. What he saw made him swear tonelessly. There was a distant swirl of dust, which was probably a rider going off for reinforcements. One of the remaining renegades was taking up a position that would cover the mouth of the cleft.
The second Indian wasn't in sight, but he was within rifle range, as a screaming, whining, ricocheting bullet proved. Rock chips exploded, showering Ty with dust and stinging shards.
"Get farther back," he yelled as he blinked his eyes and took aim.
Ty fired several times at the most likely patches of cover from which the renegade might be shooting. Then he lowered his carbine and waited. A few moments later another shot whined past. This time he saw where it had come from. He answered instantly with closely spaced shots, sending bullets raking through the cover. There was a startled yell, then silence. Methodically Ty shoved bullets into the carbine's magazine, replacing those he had spent.
No more shots came.
"Ja
"I'm back here," she said.
The odd acoustics of the canyon made her sound close, though she was thirty feet away.
"We're going to have to get out on foot and try to steal horses from the Indians," Ty said.
Ja
"There's no moon tonight," Ty continued without looking away from the bit of cover where the Indian had hidden. "We'll go out an hour after full dark. Try to get some sleep until then."
"What about you?"
"I'll guard the entrance."
"But the ricochets-"
"If I get out of range of a ricochet," Ty interrupted impatiently, "I won't be able to see the mouth of the slot to guard it." Ty's expression softened for a moment when he looked at Ja
Ibrning back to the slot, Ty fired six times in rapid succession, stitching bullets on either side of the place where the renegade had taken cover, forcing anyone who might still be in range to get down and stay down. Ja