The Black Jacks

"Miss Leah, if I have to I'll carry you down there."

"You'll do no such thing. If you lay one filthy black hand on me, you will regret it for the rest of your life."

McAllen had emerged from the house, a pair of five-shot .36-caliber Colt Patersons under his belt.

"Damn it, Leah," he growled. "You get moving. Now. Or I'll help Jeb hog-tie you."

Leah was shocked. To be spoken to in such a way was an outrage! She tried to manufacture a few tears. Her husband did not look amused, so she dispensed with tears and stood up and raised her chin to a defiant angle.

"Very well, then," she said, with a nice blend of haughtiness and wounded dignity. "I'll go, though I think it's silly ru

Stewart emerged from the house, buckling on his saber.

"Where do you think you're going?" McAllen asked him.

"With you, of course. I've had some experience fighting aborigines, you know."

McAllen sca

"Charles, please don't go," said Leah. She glanced crossly at her husband. "Really, John Henry, you can't let our guest come to harm."

Joshua arrived with Escatawpa and his own horse—for several days now McAllen had taken the precaution of keeping the horses saddled to save time in the event of a sudden raid. Now, impatient to be off, he got aboard the gray hunter. Stewart had followed him to the gate in the hedge of Cherokee rose.

"If you're coming, Major, you can ride Joshua's horse."

"Thank you." Stewart took the reins from the half-breed and swung gracefully into the saddle.

"You mustn't go," exclaimed Leah, who had pursued the Englishman off the veranda. "You simply mustn't."

Stewart smiled. "Oh, but I must, Mrs. McAllen. I wouldn't miss it for the world." He was bored, though he decided it would be tactless to say so. The conquest of the beautiful Leah Pierce McAllen had entertained him for a day or two, but it had soon become evident that she was his for the asking. He would sample her charms when it suited him. For now he was in desperate need of some other kind of excitement, and this Comanche raid, if indeed that was what this turned out to be, would fit the bill nicely.

McAllen didn't waste time waiting for his wife to demonstrate the same concern for his welfare that she had for Major Stewart's. He turned Escatawpa and started down the lane at a gallop. Stewart followed. Joshua was already sprinting for the stable again; by the time McAllen and the Englishman had reached the river road, the half-breed was in hot pursuit, riding a third horse bareback. Leah stood at the gate until the riders were out of sight.

"Don't worry, Miss Leah," said Jeb, standing nearby. "Cap'n McAllen's gotten into plenty of Injun scrapes and come out without a scratch."

She peered suspiciously at him, detecting a trace of sarcasm in his voice. But Jeb's features betrayed nothing.

Chapter Sixteen

When Gray Wolf and his Quohadi warriors made a bend in the road and came to the outskirts of Grand Cane they were greeted by thirteen men strung out across the street. Surprised, Gray Wolf checked his pony, but Red Eagle uttered a shrill war cry and urged his own pony forward. Most of the warriors followed him—straight into a murderous volley. Men and horses fell before the withering fire of the Black Jacks. Miraculously, Red Eagle was untouched, but seven Quohadis died in that instant. The Comanche charge came to an abrupt and bleeding halt. When the powder smoke cleared, Tice and his colleagues had scattered, seeking cover on both sides of the street. They began firing from the cover of corners and doorways and shuttered windows.

Gray Wolf tried to restore order among the Quohadis. Oblivious to the bullets burning the air around him, he sent Ru

Yancey Torrance, ru

Yancey took advantage of the confusion to crash through the door into the general store. A Comanche on horseback followed him in. Yancey hefted the nearest weapon, a tree ax, whirled, and drove it with all his might into the Quohadi. The ax head completely severed one of the warrior's arms and bit deeply into his side, crushing his rib cage. Yancey felt a spray of hot blood and then the Comanche's war club struck him a glancing blow on the shoulder. It was enough to send Yancey to the floor. The Comanche toppled from his pony, dying, and Yancey got up, shut the door, and dropped the bar. He knew Scayne had several brand-new rifles in the store, and he began to load them all.

Coming up on Grand Cane from the south, McAllen checked the gray hunter at the riverside cabin of Yancey Torrance. While Major Stewart and Joshua waited outside, McAllen checked the interior. Since there was no one home he could only assume that Yancey was in the thick of the fighting, and that Mary and Emily were on Cedric Cole's ferry headed for the east bank of the Brazos.

The three men continued along the river road and, as they neared the outskirts of the settlement, ran into the Comanches led by Ru

Though outnumbered seven to one, McAllen gave no thought to ru

The Comanches were on them in an instant. Major Stewart remained in the saddle, charging into the midst of the Indians with his saber held at tierce point. The saber's blade flashed in the morning sunlight as he deflected a lance and then slew the Indian who was trying to impale him with it. Another warrior came at him from the other side. Stewart ducked under the war club, which missed by scant inches smashing his skull, and as his horse carried him on by, he used the saber to cut the Quohadi open below the sternum. Pulling a pepperbox pistol from under his shell jacket, he fired point-blank at another warrior. He appeared to be having a grand old time, entirely in his element—until an arrow embedded itself in his thigh. Snarling at the pain, Stewart tried to pull the arrow out, but the barbed head was hooked behind bone, and he had to settle for snapping the shaft in two. Comanches swarmed about him, yelling like banshees, and though he tried to keep them at bay with the saber, one of the Indians struck home with his war club, and Stewart fell from his horse, his blood, as scarlet as the uniform he wore so proudly, staining the pale Texas dust.