Crow Creek Crossing by Charles G. West Page A

might be waiting for them inside the cabin, but he was damn sure they were going in. With guns drawn, the five outlaws dismounted and cautiously approached the house. Slade didn’t hear any sounds coming from inside, but he could picture the terrified women and children trying to find someplace to hide. Stepping up to the stoop that served as a front porch, he slowly lifted the latch, but it was bolted on the inside. He took a step back then and motioned to Skinner.
    â€œBust it open,” he directed. The oversized brute grinned, eager to exhibit his bullish strength. He stepped forward and sized up the door, pressing one giant palm against it to get an idea of the thickness. Satisfied, he backed away a couple of steps, lowered his shoulder, and charged the door. The massive blow splintered the doorframe and the door swung open to bang against the inside wall. The simpleminded giant had a wide, self-satisfied grin on his face when he was met with a full load of buckshot from both barrels at a range of no more than six feet. The force of the shot was enough to send him staggering backward out the door to collapse in the front yard. His companions reacted instantly, pumping half a dozen shots into the defiant woman, killing her before she dropped to the floor.
    â€œHot damn!” Smiley blurted facetiously. “Reckon she’s dead?”
    Not particularly grieved by the loss of Skinner, Tom Larsen remarked caustically, “That big half-wit finally made himself useful.” Seeing no one else in the front room, he looked at Slade. “Looks like theplace is ours. The rest of ’em is hid in here somewhere. Let’s root ’em out.”
    â€œI want to see the young woman,” Sanchez said. “I hope she don’t have no shotgun.”
    â€œI expect we’ll find her and the young’uns in there,” Slade said, and they all turned toward the closed bedroom door.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    Cole looked up at a gray sky as he neared the center of the valley. It had not snowed in the last two days, but it looked as if it might soon.
    Not before I get home, anyway,
he thought.
    If he remembered correctly, the knoll he had just left behind was about four miles from the cabin he and John had built. When he got to the creek, he would be on his land. The thought made him eager to get started on his own cabin, the house where hopefully a son would be born sometime in the summer. The thought of his wife caused him to nudge Joe with his heels, asking for a little faster pace.
    Spotting a wisp of smoke in the distance, he knew that now he couldn’t be more than two miles from John and Mabel’s place. John had said that he might burn out some of those brambles and sage if it didn’t snow. He wanted to clear off enough brush for a garden, hoping to plant it in the spring. But when the wind shifted toward him, there appeared to be a little more smoke than he had first seen, and he suddenly had a cold feeling in his gut. He had no explanation for it, but something told him that the smoke was an indication that something was wrong. He nudged Joe into a lope.
    As he rode along the bank of the creek, the firstsign he saw that told him his feeling of alarm might be justified was the remains of a fairly recent campfire. He saw tracks of several horses close by, which increased his concern. As he approached the last stand of trees that blocked his view of the cabin, he kicked the Morgan into a full gallop, no longer able to contain his apprehension. And when he left the cover of the trees, he cried out involuntarily when he found the smoking ruins of the cabin. The barn was still standing, but his last desperate hope was shattered when he saw the bodies of John and Elliot lying where they had been shot down. He was almost overcome with revulsion when he saw that they had been scalped.
    Indians! They had been attacked by Indians!
    Indians had been known to take white women