Black Hat Jack by Joe R. Lansdale Read Free Book Online Page B

sound of the shot, seen Olds on the ground, men gathering around him. Jimmy said, “Well, he’s out of it.”
    Bat scurried up the ladder without weapons, avoiding the missing rung, and when he was up there, Billy said, “Here go, Bat,” and handed him the Henry Olds had dropped.
    I glanced over to Mrs. Olds, but she wasn’t aware her husband was dead. She wasn’t aware of anything. For all she cared she was dead.
    If it seems we sort of took this all in stride, we didn’t. It wasn’t that we wasn’t caring, but we had learned to put that sort of thing in our vest pocket, or most of us had. We could save our upset feelings for when we could afford them.
    Bat yelled down, “Those two are coming Hell-Bent-For Leather, but I don’t think they’re going to beat the Indians. There’s a wad of them coming around to the side of them, on their left.”
    We heard a couple of shots then.
    “There’s ten, maybe twelve Indians on them. Oh, shit. One of their horses stumbled… Ah, hell, the other tumbled over it. I think one took a shot, and the other is up, got a broke leg way it’s standing. Those two’s scalps are good as taken.”
    “I’m going out after them,” I said. “Open them doors.”
    “Son,” Jack said. “You can’t.”
    “I can and I am.”
    “Niggers can run,” Jimmy said. “Only one of us got a chance of doing it. I only knew two niggers couldn’t run. One of them had a bad leg and the other had a wrenched back. No offense, Nat.”
    “A little taken,” I said.
    “They’re to the right of the doors, and way out there, not so far you wouldn’t be able to make it easy enough if you were on a picnic and there were no Indians,” Bat said. “I’d stick, Nat.”
    “Open the doors and keep your eyes and ears on,” I said.
    They pulled the planking and the doors came open. With rifle in hand, away I did run.

I am a fast runner, but I made a note that if me and Jimmy didn’t get killed, I was going to punch him in the mouth.
    Went for all I was worth, I can assure you of that, and it was fairly flat there, so I had a mighty smooth run, considering the circumstances. I knew that Bat wouldn’t fire at those Indians near that pair until necessary, because when he did, they might note I was coming. Right then they was concentrated on sending arrows and shots at them two out there on the ground. Soon as they noticed me, he would commence if he was thinking clear, and maybe not even then. I might be out of reasonable range. But when I started back, and with them coming after me, because I assumed they would, he could cut down on them then. I had no doubt he would.
    I could see the limping horse and the one already down, and I seen one of the men stand from behind the dead horse, grab the injured horse’s bridle, put a pistol to its head and bring it down in such a way that a V was created with the two dead animals. That was smart thinking.
    The Indians, and they looked like a small band of Kiowas, was riding up fast now, and when they seen me, an easier target than someone behind a horse, they started firing. I fired back on the run, cock-firing that Winchester until it was empty, hitting two Indians, maybe killing one, and dropping four horses, throwing their riders in the grass. About that same time Bat started shooting that Henry.
    The Kiowas dropped off their horses and left them, got behind their dead ones and started shooting arrows and gunfire. By that time I was near the V that fellow had made with the dead mounts, the person who had killed the horse turned to look at me. I had already been noticed, of course, all that gunfire had drawn attention to me.
    “I’m coming in,” I said.
    I took a leap, landed between the two horses. A series of arrows plunked into the dead animals and their hides sputtered with bullets. When I was down between the horses, I seen the survivor was a woman. She had her hair pushed up under her hat, but there was no denying she was a woman, young, in her