Eagle People by W.R. Benton

a jar of the alcohol. Ezra, you can drink and stay drunk as a skunk, as long as you're quiet. Start making noise and we'll gag you. Understand?”
    “You're about uncaring sonofa —”
    “I asked if you understood? It's a yes or no question. Answer me or we'll gag you now.”
    “Yes, I understand.” Ezra replied but thought, I'll kill your ass once I'm strong again and this is behind us.
    The sun was out and it would have been a great day to ride, if they weren't following a woman as dangerous as a grizzly bear with a toothache. A gentle and warm breeze blew from the west, and most of the remaining men were glad to be out of the rain. As they moved, Azra was sitting crooked in his saddle, but he'd said not a word once secured in place. Off and on he took a swig of his drink.
    For hours they tracked the women and then Nimrod, who was riding point, stopped.
    Byron rode to the point man and asked, “What's the problem?”
    “Something doesn't feel right.”
    “What in the hell is that suppose to mean?”
    “I get a feeling when something is wrong or I'm being watched. I have that feeling now.”
    “Well, dismount and lead your horse a few hundred feet and see if the feeling disappears. There may be another trap, but at ground level you'll see any cord or vines stretched across the trail. The trap will be made for a man on horseback, right?”
    “Make sense to me, but I don't like it.”
    “Move, and do it now,”  Byron said and then pulled his pistol, “or I'll shoot your ass where you stand. We're moving way to slowly to satisfy me.”
    Nimrod moved forward slowly, scanning the ground in front of him for anything that looked unnatural, but saw nothing.  
    “See, all your worry was pure foolishness and you have —”
    Nimrods right foot suddenly disappeared into the ground, he fell on his ass, and then gave a loud piercing scream. He kept jerking the right side of his body.
    His screams continued as Byron carefully stepped in his footprints and made his way to the man. Once standing over him, he saw the man's foot was in a hole and impaled by a sharp stake driven into the ground. A mat made of woven reeds was pushed under Nimrods foot.  He counted over fifteen barbed stakes before he quit counting and called out, “Ora, bring Seth, and the two of you come to me.  Bring the whiskey, too.”
    Once the men were beside the hole, Ora said, “Oldest trap in the book. Dig a hole, fill it with barbed stakes, cover it with a mat and sprinkle dirt on top of it.”
    Angry, Byron said, “I know all of that, but how in the hell do we get his foot out?” Nimrod was still screaming, and blood covered his foot.
    “These stakes might be buried a foot or more, so we're going to have pull his foot from the barb.  He's going to lose his mind when we do it too, but it's the only way I know to do the job. Seth, you take his left side and I'll take his right. On the count of three, we pull 'em up and out.”
    They both moved into position and Ora said, “One, two, three!”
    At the number three, they both pulled Nimrod straight up, and the pain was so bad he passed out. They placed his limp body on the ground and then cut his boot off. Each tribe had a cobbler, but shoe and boot quality depended on the skills of the individual shoemaker. In this case, the boot was poorly made. When Ora removed the boot, blood poured from it as he sat it aside. Looking at the foot, he said, “Right through the center of his foot, so he'll have problems with this the rest of his life, but that won't be very long anyway.”
    “Why's that? It's just a wound to his foot.” Byron asked. Hell, he'll be up and around within a month.
    “Look at the barbs in the trap. See the dried brown stains on the top half of each barb?”
    “Sure, but so what?”
    “It's dried human shit, Bryon, and Nimrod's injury will soon become infected. We have nothing to fight the contagion, so he'll die.”
    “Good God.”
    “My opinion is you cut his throat while