Davy Crockett 7 Page 14

Davy did not tell his friend that Elizabeth had showered many such romantic kisses on him. Rare guilt afflicted his conscience. Except for hunting trips and the like, he would never leave her alone for long spells again.

  A new sound brought the happy interlude to an end. Everyone climbed to the rim for a cautious look-see. The freebooters were in the woods, busy as bees, the steady thump-thump- thump of axes biting into wood punctuating the buzz of activity.

  “They’re chopping down trees,” Taylor said.

  “Why? For firewood?” Priscilla asked. “Maybe they have a notion to smoke us out somehow.”

  Taylor’s mouth pinched together. “No, I’m afraid Tar is much more savvy than I gave him credit for. My guess is the worst is yet to come. By late this afternoon they’ll make one last try to wipe us out. And this time we won’t be able to stop them.”

  “It’s not like you to roll over without half trying,” Farley mentioned. He gazed intently into the woods. “What is it you reckon they’re up to, anyhow?”

  “They’re making themselves bulletproof.”

  “Hell. That’s not possible, is it?”

  “We’ll have to wait and see.”

  That was the hard part. The waiting. Minute after minute of nervous tension, of emotional strain. Davy tried to relax, to snatch a few winks of sleep, but his traitor body refused to cooperate. His nerves were as raw as an open wound.

  The ring of axes never ceased, not once from the time it ' started until the hot hours of middle afternoon when the forest finally fell ominously still. A lot of yelling took place. Tar’s voice, mostly, but he was too far away for the words to be clear.

  Taylor took to pacing, a bad sign in itself. Davy had reckoned him as among the most rock steady of men. Farley and Heather were locked in each other’s arms, just lying there, cheek to shoulder. Priscilla dozed off and on.

  Only the caballeros were their usual carefree selves. They had a remarkable knack for taking everything in stride. Idly talking and joking, they acted as if they were in their favorite cantina rather than huddled in the middle of the sprawling wilderness waiting for death’s dark hand to claim them.

  By Davy’s estimation it was shortly past three when stocky Carlos gave a yell. Movement along the tree line had drawn his interest. Freebooters were everywhere, constantly bustling about.

  Flavius saw something that startled him. “What the devil are those?” he blurted. Almost forgetting himself, he began to straighten above the rim for a better view. “They look like pieces to a fence.”

  “More like portable walls,” Davy amended. “To protect them from our slugs so they can get in close to us.”

  “Oh.”

  A chill filled Flavius as the devious scheme became clear. The freebooters had chopped down dozens and dozens of saplings and long limbs and intertwined them into crude but impressive wooden barriers, or shields. Each was eight or nine feet long and six to seven feet high. Gaps afforded handholds for the renegades to hold the shields in front of them.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Flavius breathed. The barriers were thick enough to absorb most any lead thrown, just as Davy had said. “All they have to do is waltz across that field and we’re done for.”

  “Are we?” Davy said, turning his face into the wind. It was blowing from the southwest, a scorching arid breeze that parched a man’s throat and made him wish he were soaking in a cool creek.

  “Maybe we should make a run for it,” Flavius suggested. “While enough of the horses are healthy.”

  Davy motioned at the freebooters who still surrounded the basin. “How far do you figure we’d get, pard?”

  Not far at all. Flavius gulped and watched as the barriers were lined up in a long row from east to west, each practically brushing the edges of those next to it. No! He just couldn’t accept that in another ten minutes he would be a lifeless husk. “Sorry, Matilda,” he said under his breath.

  Davy raced along the bottom of the slope to Taylor. “I have a brainstorm,” he announced, and urgently imparted it. “A long shot, I know. But it might work.”

  “Even if it doesn’t, it will slow them down. Let’s try.” From the Irishman’s possibles bag he extracted a fire steel, his flint, and a small tin of punk. No woodsman worthy of the name ever went anywhere without them. They were as important to survival as a reliable knife. Next to knowing how to rustle up food, the ability to make a fire was the most essential skill a frontiersman mastered.

  Taylor bent to tear at clumps of dry grass. “Gather as much as you can!” he advised the caballeros, who diligently did so. A sizable pile was made at the top of the north rim.

  All this time the freebooters were busy. At a bellow from Blackjack Tar they practiced advancing a few steps at a time while bearing the barriers. They coordinated their efforts so they maintained a straight, even row.

  Davy observed everything they did. His timing was crucial. Too soon, and the nasty surprise would peter out before reaching them. Too late, and the renegades would reach the basin before any damage could be done.

  Tar appeared at the east end of the wooden shields. His side was bandaged, as was his shoulder, but he showed no evidence of weakness or fatigue. “I warned you!” he thundered. “Now you’ll pay, damn your souls! And for killing my mate Quint, I’ll make all of you suffer as no one has ever suffered before.”

  It was no idle boast, Davy reflected. The rogue titan had perfected torture to a fine art, if the gory tales told about Tar’s exploits were to be believed. Upending the punk, Davy shoved the tin into his leather bag, then held the flint and fire steel in either hand. Desperate straits called for desperate measures, and theirs was as desperate as could be.

  “Nothing to say, Tanner?” the giant taunted. “How about you, coon butt? No final words for posterity?”

  Farley heaved to his feet, waving his pistols. “Pay us a visit, bastard. I’ll do my talking with these.”

  “Get down!” Taylor rotated and leaped, tackling Tanner and bearing him to the slope as several rifles cracked. Slugs buzzed overhead, sounding exactly like bees in flight. “Have a care, my young friend,” Taylor said. “He did that on purpose so you would show yourself.”

  “Yet another one I owe him,” Farley said through clenched teeth.

  Davy never took his gaze off the barriers. Tar, smirking smugly, had stepped behind them again, and at a clipped order the entire line slowly moved forward. The freebooters kept step with one another, military fashion. Neatly executed, it would turn the tide in their favor.

  “What are you waiting for, Crockett?” Taylor asked.

  “Not yet,” Davy said. The wind—the most crucial factor of all—had slowed somewhat. Lowering the flint near the punk, he marked the progress of the moving wall. The freebooters were fifteen yards out from the trees, their shields tightly positioned, Tar calling cadence. Then twenty yards, but Davy didn’t move. Thirty yards, and he glanced at the punk.

  “Now!” Taylor called.

  Davy didn’t listen. At thirty-five yards he stroked the steel against the flint, producing sparks that fell on the punk. Others might take ten or twenty strokes to succeed, but the punk ignited on that first stroke. Tiny flames flared, flames he fanned with light breaths. Expanding swiftly, the flames licked at the pile of dry grass and it immediately caught.

  Once the wind took over, the fire spread with astounding speed. The pile was engulfed in moments. From there the flames spread rapidly outward, devouring whole tracts of high grass in the blink of an eye.

  Weeks before Davy ever tangled with the Comanches and wound up in Texas, he had barely survived a prairie fire caused by lightning. The conflagration had covered a front stretching across hundreds and hundreds of acres, and he would never forget how those flames leaped across the plain with dazzling, deceptive speed. He counted on that now.

  The freebooters came briskly on, Tar’s booming voice rising above the creak and rattle of their shields. A few shouts arose as smoke appeared, and the fire could be seen consuming wide swa
ths. But either Tar didn’t see the flames, which was improbable, or he had every confidence his men would reach the basin quickly enough to foil Davy’s ruse.

  The giant miscalculated. The renegades were two-thirds of the way across when waist-high flames erupted directly in front of them and hungrily licked at the saplings and branches. Some of the barriers burst into flame. Others smoldered. Thrown into a panic, fully half the freebooters tossed their shields down and fled.

  The rest, though, particularly those at the east end, held firm, buoyed by Blackjack Tar’s presence and threats. More than enough to slaughter the defenders, could they but reach the bowl without further mishap.

  “Fire at will!” Farley directed.

  The caballeros had been waiting to do just that. Slugs battered the constructs like hail, but the freebooters never slowed or swerved. A cutthroat dropped here, another there, nowhere near enough to whittle them down to where they had to abandon their assault. Most of the shots were harmlessly deflected.

  Davy Crockett gripped Liz. It had been a smart idea, but it had failed. Now it was do or die, and the devil take the hindmost. All the caballeros had moved to the north side of the basin, leaving the east, west, and south rims vulnerable. But it couldn’t be helped. The freebooters behind the barriers were the greater threat.

  In the midst of the bedlam, with the butchers sixty feet out and closing fast now, Farley Tanner turned to Heather Dugan and clasped her hands in his. “I never wanted it to be like this. If the Lord had been willing, I’d have made you the happiest woman alive.”

  “You already have.” Heather locked her lips to his as the freebooters opened fire. She went on kissing him while the ground around them was pockmarked by lead. “My lover. My life.”

  Farley looked deep into her eyes, then shoved her at his mother, grasped his pistols, and entered the fray. At that distance his .55 caliber smoothbores were powerful enough to punch through the shields, and they did, a pair of screams attending each shot.

  Davy fired and set to reloading, his fingers flying. The caballeros sent a stream of slugs at the walls and many scored, but nowhere near enough to stem the inevitable. In another minute the freebooters would reach the rim and it would all be over.

  Vaguely, Davy was aware of a lone cutthroat off to the west who had turned to flee but halted halfway to the forest. The man was screeching and jabbing a finger to the southeast. Then Davy noticed others doing the same. Puzzled, he risked a glance, and a thrill coursed clear down to his toes.

  Forty horsemen were sweeping toward the battlefield in precise order, arrayed in battle formation, their glittering lances held upright. The sun gleamed off sterling buttons and spurs, glinted from an armory of pistols and swords.

  “The lancers!” someone cried.

  Yes, the lancers. Captain José Barragan barked an order and the forty cavalrymen broke into a charge. Another crisp yell, and the Spaniards lowered the weapons for which they were famed, holding the long sturdy shafts wedged to their sides.

  A cheer was tom from the caballeros. Davy added his voice, but he didn’t leap for joy as some did. The timely arrival of the patrol was a godsend but not surefire salvation. Seventy or eighty freebooters were left—far too many.

  Captain Barragan was taking an awful chance, a chance only a man of tremendous courage would contemplate. Their charge was truly magnificent—but potentially disastrous.

  The cutthroats who were on the south side of the basin were the first to feel the sting of those lethal tips. Engrossed in the conflict, they didn’t awaken to the threat at their rear until the lancers plowed into them. Renegades were transfixed in their tracks. Without breaking stride the Spaniards sheared through the line, slanted around the corner of the basin, and bore down on the wooden breastworks.

  Davy saw Captain Barragan smile, saw the officer voice a command that resulted in the troopers urging their mounts to greater speed. Freebooters scattered before them like mice before cats. But not those behind the barriers. They stood their ground, poking rifle muzzles and pistols through random openings.

  The resultant crash was deafening. Barragan and his lancers smashed into the shields at a full gallop, splintering some, shattering others, their lances piercing through to inflict terrible carnage among the freebooters. But the cutthroats gave as good as they got. Flintlocks spat smoke and slugs. Troopers reeled in the saddle, or fell.

  “Help them, boys!” Farley bawled. “Give them cover!”

  Eagerly, the caballeros resorted to their rifles. But many of the renegades who had fled were rushing back, and a constant discharge of guns was whittling the lancers down one by one. Fifteen of the valiant cavalrymen were down or dying when Captain Barragan, who had dropped his shattered lance and was wielding a sword with ruthless efficiency, shouted a string of Spanish that resulted in the lancers wheeling their chargers and dashing toward the basin. Freebooters rushed to cut them off but were forced to retreat in the face of a brutal pounding by the Texicans’ guns.

  Davy darted to the right to permit the retreating troopers to gain sanctuary. Barragan bid two of his men keep hold of the horses while the rest lined the slopes, mingling with the caballeros.

  The capitán himself sank to his knees between Davy and Farley Tanner. His uniform was spattered with gore and his boots bore bright scarlet speckles. Winded, he grinned and said in his thickly accented English, “That was something, eh? God willing, I will live to tell my grandchildren.”

  Farley put a hand on the other man. “I take back everything I’ve ever said about you, José. You risked your life for us. I’ll never forget it.”

  “Please, don’t get maudlin,” the officer replied. “I was doing my job, nothing more, nothing less. We heard gunfire from far off and came to investigate.” Removing his hat, he wiped a sleeve across his slick brow. “Had I known it was you, I would have thought twice about rushing to the rescue.”

  The tall Texican laughed. “Poke fun all you want. The Tanner family never forgets a friend.”

  Barragan glanced at Davy. “Do you hear him, señor? A week ago I was the cow droppings he scrapes off his boots. Now I am his friend. Life is strange, is it not?”

  Flavius Harris overheard. “You don’t know the half of it.”

  The firing had tapered off while both sides licked their wounds and regrouped. The freebooters were engaged in a general withdrawal. Few of the makeshift shields were still intact, and those that were had mostly been abandoned. Twice as many bodies littered the field as before, some twitching, some convulsing, some of the fallen weeping or moaning or begging for help.

  Davy surveyed the aftermath and hung his head. The more he saw of warfare, the less he liked. War was the last resort of idiots, his grandma had once said. And she was right. “I wish I may be shot,” he remarked, “if I’m ever dumb enough to get caught up in a war again.”

  Captain Barragan replaced his hat. “A fine thing to say to a professional soldier, señor. Fighting is my stock-in-trade.” He examined his bloody sword. “A trade at which I am quite competent. Which is why I say to you now that we must decide how soon to attack these bastardos. Based on my experience, I say within a very few minutes. While they are still disorganized.”

  Flavius turned. “Did I just hear rightly. You want us to attack them?”

  “Si.”

  “I don’t see any such thing,” Flavius said. “They still outnumber us by twenty to thirty or better. We’d give a good account of ourselves, sure, but all you’d do is get us wiped out to the last man.”

  “You misjudge them, señor,” Barragan said. “These are not brave hombres we are talking about. Freebooters are killers and thieves and cowards. Men who would rather stab you in the back than in the stomach.”

  “So?”

  “So it is not necessary to slay every last one. All we need do is crush their spirit and they will turn tail like the yellow dogs they are.” The officer nodded at the battleground. “We have hurt them, señor. Hurt them severely. Another such b
eating and the day will be ours.”

  “Says you.” Flavius thought he was beginning to understand why Davy was so partial to the people here. They came up with as many crazy ideas as the Irishman did.

  Taylor had joined them. “I have no objection. Anything is better than waiting around for them to do us in. There’s only one problem.”

  “What might that be?” the officer asked.

  “We’re mighty low on ammunition. Some of the men are down to their last five balls. Baca only has three left. Mariano has one.”

  Barragan snapped a finger and a lancer snapped to attention at his side, ready to do his bidding. “We have a limited supply, too. But what we have I am willing to share with the caballeros.”

  Davy had not offered his opinion yet, preferring to weigh what everyone else said first. Sitting up, he added his two cents’ worth. “Why throw more lives away? In three or four hours the sun will go down and we can make a run for it. They’ll never catch us in the dark.”

  Heather did not surprise anyone by agreeing. “He’s right. There’s no need for anyone else to die.” The loving gaze she bestowed on Farley Tanner showed she had a particular individual in mind.

  The Spaniard sniffed. “Begging your pardon, señorita. But this is best handled by the men. Do not trouble your pretty head about it.”

  “My pretty—?” Heather said, and would have lit into him like a riled she-cat had Farley not snagged her wrist. “Why, you pompous goat. It’s men like you who give all men a bad name.”

  Captain Barragan took the abuse in stride. “Please, señorita. I understand that you are under great stress. But this is hardly the proper time or place for feminine theatrics.”

  To his dying day Davy Crockett firmly believed that if Heather Dugan had had a gun in her hands at that moment, she’d have blown José Barragan’s head clean off. She definitely looked at Farley’s as if considering helping herself to one of his. Fortunately for the Spaniard, one of the caballeros, dapper Dominguez, called from the rim, “Señors! Someone comes.”

  A lone freebooter bearing the same truce flag used by Quint was nervously approaching, taking tiny steps, as scared as a jackrabbit near a den of wolves. He held his other arm out from his side to demonstrate he was unarmed. Licking his lips every few steps, he would glance back at where Blackjack Tar stood holding a rifle.