Part III

Silence hung heavy in the room for a long five seconds, until the man on the floor, hearing his name mentioned, stirred briefly.

" - wh -where am I - ?"

Dayton straightened up quickly, back-pedalled a couple of paces as if Pete Bohannan's words might burn him. But Mary stayed where she was, told him what he wanted to know as the boy - O’Brien saw now that he was barely seventeen years old - looked at each of them in turn. Then -

"Indians!" he cried. His hazel eyes were large, feverish. "They - "

"Easy now," O’Brien said quietly. He looked at Mary. "Get him some water, if you will, ma'am."

As Mary got to her feet, Dayton said, "You stay right where you are."

"Link?"

"This man isn't welcome here," he said.

Outside, the dogs were still barking furiously.

"Dayton - "

"He's a Bohannan, damn him!"

The shepherd looked down at the young man, whose sweaty face was crushed with pain. Mary looked at him too, then turned with a swish of skirts and went into the kitchen. Dayton watched her go, his mouth open slightly. He listened to the noises she made at the pump, filling a mug with water.

He seemed to deflate then, as if all the life had gone out of him. He stalked across the room, fists bunched, peered out into the night. Behind him, Mary re-entered the room, knelt by Bohannan and lifted his head carefully, so that he might drink.

Once he'd had his fill, he said, "Obliged to you - ma'am." In the darkness, his voice sounded more like that of a small, frightened child.

"What happened, Bohannan?" O’Brien asked over one shoulder.

The boy's eyes went wide again. "Me, Curly Jackson an' Sid Wheeler - we ... we'd spent the day huntin' up strays," he breathed. "Th-then, 'long about five-thirty or so, we decided to get on back to the ranch. But - but as we topped a ridge, we saw 'em - them Indians, 'bout twenty of 'em, down in the valley below. They'd butchered a yearlin' an' was cookin' 'er up.

"Well, straight off, ol' Curly pulls iron an' fires a couple shots over their heads. He was just aimin' to scare 'em off, but I guess they got the wrong idea an' thought we was after attackin' 'em. So they comes at us, an' Curly, he fired again, hit one of 'em that time.

"M-minute later, Curly took an arrow in the chest. He was - dead by the time me an' Sid turned-tail an' lit out of there. Trouble was, them Comanches, they follered us, wouldn't quit - got Sid - hit me in the arm - "

He broke off with a sob.

After a while he asked, "Are they still out there, mister?"

O’Brien said, "Yeah."

"And because of you," Dayton cut in, "we're all gonna die."

"Dayt - "

"You gonna tell me I'm wrong?" demanded the shepherd. "You gonna tell me them Comanches would've come here even if he hadn't led 'em to us?"

"Shhh!"

Silence filled the room again, unbroken this time, and it was what they couldn't hear that made them go cold.

The dogs.

O’Brien turned to the window, brought the rifle up in readiness. He thought he saw a shadow moving out there beside the barn, but that could have been his imagination.

"Look alive, Dayton," he rasped. "They're coming back. Get your rifle and help yourself to Bohannan's Colt and ammunition. Timmy, you stay right where you are, you got that? Ma'am - "

He didn't get the chance to finish. At that moment a bullet shattered the window, and he had to dance back a step to avoid a shower of glass. Dayton called his wife's name, Bohannan's handgun all but lost in his big fist.

"We're all right, Link!"

Then they were charging across the yard, those warriors who had dismounted and crept as far as the barn, where they'd butchered the dogs, who might otherwise give them away. They came with bows and arrows, lances and rifles, and they were mostly small, thick-set men with bare, muscular chests and bow legs, whose faces were painted with the reds and blacks of war.

O’Brien stuck the rifle through the jagged hole in the window and fired twice. There was no time to take aim; he just had to rely on instinct. Out in the yard one of the Comanches stopped halfway through bringing his lance up and went over backwards, clutching his chest.

Then more gunshots peppered the front of the house. Glass smashed in the window on the other side of the door, and Dayton twisted away from it, slammed his back against the wall and cried out more in shock than anything else.

O’Brien pumped in another round, fired. One of the Indians on the porch, no more than four feet away, jerked and fell, his war cry turning into a death chant. But still they kept coming, a relentless tide.

"Dayton!" O’Brien roared above their war cries. "Use that damn' gun!"

There wasn't time to say more. The attack was becoming too fierce. But part of his mind became aware of the high, short bark of Bohannan's Colt in the shepherd's fist.

The fighting may have lasted a minute more. It was difficult to tell, since time lost all meaning. But then, suddenly, the attack was over, and the surviving Comanches melted back into the night.

O’Brien let out his breath, listening as Mary told Timmy not to fret, that everything was going to be all right; to Bohannan groaning through clenched teeth; to the tight, difficult breathing of Dayton at the other window. He levered another bullet into the Winchester and wondered if they could possibly last out the night.

"Will they - will they be back, do you reckon?" Dayton asked after a while.

O’Brien nearly replied. But then he heard a noise at the back of the house that could have been the wind. Or -

He crossed the room fast, got into the kitchen just as the back door burst open with a splintering of wood. Behind him Mary screamed. Timmy yelled. Dayton shouted something unintelligible.

Three Comanches spilled into the room.

The leader was a short, stocky man with a red-and-black painted face and long, greasy black hair. He brandished a long, sturdy-looking lance with a stone head above its decoration of feathers.

He yelled, "Maywaykin, sata teja!"

It was an insult-laden death-threat, and O’Brien let him have a bullet in the face by way of reply. The Comanche was thrown backwards into his two friends.

They howled in a mixture of surprise and rage, and O’Brien heard more yapping behind them. There were more of them out there, a lot more, more than he could possibly handle. But there was no time to consider the odds.

He shot the second brave in the chest, put another bullet there to make sure, then swung the rifle to cover the third Indian. This one wore red war paint and three black circles around his left eye.

"Maywaykin!" he cried, lifting his hatchet.

"Not tonight, you won't," O’Brien replied - then shot him between the eyes.