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Another one came trotting toward the bunkhouse, half bent over, also holding his pistol. There was another advantage for us: Except for herdsmen on shift, probably none of them had a rifle with him. I shot him down, too, and someone shot twice in my direction, someone I hadn't seen. One bullet hit a sod near my face and threw dirt on me, so I crawled back and rolled to my right a couple of meters, then moved back up just enough to peek over and see someone ru
It looked as if he was going to get around behind me. For just a second I thought about going back down through the trapdoor, but what good could I be there? I needed to be where I could find targets. So I stayed where I was. If someone did get around behind me, he wouldn't be able to see me from close up because of the eaves, and maybe he couldn't shoot well with a pistol.
One place I couldn't see at all was the ground close in front of the bunkhouse. Then I heard more shooting from inside. Right after that a window broke, as if someone wanted to get in that way. I knew the windows were double paned, because there was a sash at the outer end of the window hole and another one at the i
Right after that there were three quick shots from behind me, pretty far away-rifle shots, I thought. I didn't hear any bullets hit. From the corner of my eye I saw someone run from a building toward the Kazakh I'd shot near the stable. I didn't think it was a Kazakh; it was someone without a cap, someone baldheaded. He bent as he reached the Kazakh, just long enough to pull off his pistol belt and pick up his gun, then he shouted something and ran inside. I decided he must be one of the Latvians.
What happened next might have been from someone seeing my breath puff in the chilly air. There was a short burst of rifle fire, and one or more bullets hit just in front of me. One went through the sod, hit the flex below, and glanced back up through the sod again to knock off the Kazakh cap I was wearing. Then I heard feet trotting as if coming to the bunkhouse from in front, so I rolled over the top, and with someone shooting at me again, I slid down the other side feet first, to drop off the edge. It wasn't a long drop, less than two meters. My feet hadn't hit the ground yet when I saw the two Kazakhs, and when I landed, I emptied half a magazine in their direction. They both fell, and I ran to the outer door of the bunkhouse, hearing more shooting, and the dull thud of slugs hitting sod-covered flex.
I was in the cloakroom, panting as if I'd run a hundred meters, before I remembered the women. I called to them in English. "Its me! The American." But I still didn't try to go through the i
So I called out, "How many from outside did you women kill?" The answer came in Russian: "One." So there shouldn't be more than four Kazakhs left, it seemed to me. Just then there was more shooting outside, and I stood beside the door, listening for whatever would tell me anything. After awhile I heard someone, Janis, call out in English. "Indian!"
I answered without showing myself: "Yes?"
"I killed two, and I don't know where there are any more. Some of my friends have guns now. What should we do next?"
"What about the herdsmen with the horses?"
"We just shot one of them. I don't know about the other."
That might have been the one who'd been shooting at me. "Get his rifle," I called.
"We already did."
Janis said he'd killed two, and then they'd shot a horse herder, unless Janis had counted the herder as one of the two. There could hardly be more than two Kazakhs left to fight here-maybe none at all. I'd just told myself that when there was a shot from inside the bunkhouse, then screaming, and more shots. I went inside to see. It was the pregnant girl that was screaming, lying on the floor, while the other woman was swearing-it sounded like swearing-and emptying her pistol at a window in the other side of the bunkhouse.
I turned and ran out, around the corner of the bunkhouse, then around the back corner. Behind, crouched below a window but looking right at me, was a Kazakh. I don't think he knew what was happening, even then; he probably thought it was all a slave uprising. If he'd shot right away, he could have killed me. Instead I killed him with another short burst.
I stood there panting and shaking for a minute, till my mind started to work again. Then I replaced the magazine in my rifle. Was there another Kazakh? Or had we shot them all?
I went back to a front corner of the bunkhouse and called out in Navajo: "Cody! Are you all right?"
He called back to me from somewhere. "All right except for one arm. It may be broken. The blacksmith hit me with a hammer."
Another voice called in Navajo. It was Arnold, the man I gave the rifle to in the cow pasture. "Boulet! Where are the Kazakhs?"
"Most of them are dead," I called back. "Shot, anyway. Maybe all of them. Have you seen any?"
"Just one. He's dead now. He rode past me without seeing me. It was impossible to miss."
"Janis!" I called in English. "I think we've got them all. Let's be careful not to shoot each other now. But keep an eye open, in case one of them is still ru
Actually there were four still alive, all of them wounded and out of action. We dragged them into the bunkhouse to leave them there.
We had thirty-six horses and about eighty cattle. Yaks. I was only a fair horseman, but four of the five Navajos, all but one who grew up in Flagstaff, were pretty good, and had herded livestock before. Four Latvians said they wanted to come with us. Another had been killed, and the pregnant girl had been shot in the chest. She'd gone into premature labor from the shock, and her breath came in and out of the bullet hole, making bloody bubbles that smelled bad. I was pretty sure she'd die soon, and so was she. The older woman said she'd stay with her. I think she probably killed the wounded Kazakhs with her butcher knife, after we left. She really hated them.
None of the other four Latvians-one a pregnant woman-had ever ridden a horse. The Kazakh ponies were well trained, but they thought that whoever was on their backs should know now to ride. Also, the Latvians didn't know how to control them, so the ponies took advantage of them, giving them trouble. Finally Cody made them double up, two to a horse. The added weight sobered the ponies up, and also made less for us to keep track of. It would be up to the Latvians to stay with us or follow us.
We all had guns now, a rifle and two pistols each. We also put a saddle or pack saddle on all the spare horses. Three of the Navajos knew how to load a pack saddle; they loaded the spare rifles and pistols, and all the ammunition boxes and swords, on pack horses. Also we filled the waterbags and canteens we found there. Then, with Navajos ru
We went slowly. We didn't know how these cattle would act if we hurried them, and with Cody injured, and two of us not as skilled on horseback as we needed to be, there were only three men qualified to handle the herd. We'd traveled as fast earlier, on foot.