Bounty Hunter (9781101611975) by Bill Yenne Page B

and panic among the undisciplined herd.
    Some of the renegades were in the midst of this, first trying to straighten the herd, then just trying not to be knocked off and trampled.
    Other renegades were on the outside the cyclone. One fired at Cole. The miss was so close that Cole heard the lead hiss past his head like an angry hornet. When Cole’s return shot struck the man’s chest, he knew that it was a fatal hit.
    Out of the corner of his eye, he saw three riders coming at full gallop from the woods, firing as they came. In the center was Natoya-I-nis’kim. The Colt looked like a cannon in her small hand, yet she held it as steady as if it were bolted to her horse.
    She had shed her buffalo robe, and it was obvious—at least to Cole—that her slender, bare arms were not those of a man. What would the renegades do when they saw that they were being attacked by a woman?
    The answer was a split second of disbelief on the part of the nearest horse thief as she entered the fray, a split second that cost the man his life. Cole saw the big pistol buck in her hand and the man topple awkwardly from his horse.
    Suddenly, Cole watched in unanticipated disbelief as she pointed the Colt directly at
him
! For a moment, he froze as he stared down the muzzle with her riding directly at him. She was scarcely fifteen feet away when he found himself staring down a muzzle flash.
    Almost at the same moment, he heard a horrific shriek that seemed to come from his own shoulder.
    He turned to see a man hovering in the air, almost on top of him. Blood was splattering everywhere, and the contorted expression on his face was that of the most frightening banshee imaginable.
    As Natoya and her horse raced past him like a rocket, so close that Cole could feel the heat of her sweating mount, he realized what had happened. While he was distracted by the sight of her coming into the fight, one of the renegades had come within two feet of him for a certain kill.
    Natoya-I-nis’kim had just saved his life.
    *   *   *
    T HE THUNDER OF HOOVES—BOTH PANICKED AND PURPOSEFUL , clamoring within an immense and growing cloud of dust—was punctuated by screams of anger and screams of pain—and by gunshots.
    Bladen Cole looked around. His eyes probed the choking yellow dust. He had emptied his revolver, dropping three men. He had now drawn his Winchester from its scabbard, and his eyes searched for more targets. Suddenly, he saw them, two riders who had bolted, leaving the scene and riding north at top speed.
    He raised the rifle to his shoulder, sighted, and squeezed the trigger.
    One man tumbled off his horse.
    He hated to shoot a man in the back, but there was a job to be done. Again he aimed, but this time, before he could fire, he heard the crack of another rifle.
    The rider jumped slightly, but did not fall. The dust from his horse faded and disappeared into the distance.
    Cole looked down. Ikutsikakatósi was just lowering his Trapdoor Springfield.
    As the dust settled, he saw Natoya, riding hard to round up the stragglers from the stampeded herd. Realizing that she was the one working while her companions merely gawked at the battlefield, Cole went into action, chasing some stragglers and getting them back to the group.
    Benjamin McGaugh, who had started the day with a simple horse-buying trip, sat on the ground staring at the lifeless body of his hired man and gripping a blood-soaked sleeve.
    He was uncharacteristically speechless when Bladen Cole knelt beside him, ripped off his shirt, and constructed a tourniquet.
    â€œYou seem to know what you’re doing,” he said weakly.
    â€œLearned it in the war,” Cole said succinctly.
    â€œOh yeah,” said McGaugh with a nod. “The war.”
    The two men could tell by their respective accents that they had been on opposite sides. It had been a long time, but nobody who was there would ever forget the war.
    Cole stood him up and walked