The Searchers by Alan LeMay Page B

in the eye. He took a snap shot, aiming between the horns, which disappeared, and the enemy rifle slid
     unfired into the short grass.
    After that there was a letup, while the Comanches broke circle and drew off. Out in front of the cowmen lay three downed ponies,
     two dead Comanches, and two live ones, safe and dangerous behind their fallen horses. Amos was swearing softly and steadily
     to himself. Charlie MacCorry said he thought he goosed one of them up a little bit, maybe, but didn’t believe he convinced
     him.
    “Good God almighty,” Brad Mathison broke out, “there’s got to be some way to do this!”
    Mose Harper scratched his beard and said he thought they done just fine that trip. “Oncet when I was a little shaver,
     with my pa’s bull wagons, a couple hundred of ’em circled us all day long. We never did get ’em whittled down very much. They
     just fin’y went away.... You glued to the ground, Zack? Take care that horse!”
    Zack got up and took a look at his wounded horse, but didn’t seem to know what to do. He stood staring at it, until his father
     walked across and shot it.
    Mart said to Amos. “Tell me one thing. Was they hollering like that the time they killed my folks?”
    Amos seemed to have to think that over. “I wasn’t there,” he said at last. “I suppose so. Hard to get used to, ain’t it?”
    “I don’t know,” Mart said shakily, “if I’ll ever be able to get used to it.”
    Amos looked at him oddly for some moments. “Don’t you let it stop you,” he said.
    “It won’t stop me.”
    They came on again, and this time they swept past at no more than ten yards. A number of the woundedComanche ponies lagged back to the tail of the line, their riders saving them for the final spurt, but they were still in action.
     The Comanches made this run in close bunches; the attack became a smother of confusion. Both lead and arrows poured fast into
     the cowmen’s position.
    Zack whimpered, “My God—there’s a million of ’em!” and ducked down behind his dead horse.
    “Git your damn head up!” Mose yelled at his son. “Fire into ’em!” Zack raised up and went to fighting again.
    Sometime during this run Ed Newby’s horse fell, pinning Ed under it, but they had no time to go to him while this burst of
     the attack continued. An unhorsed Comanche came screaming at Amos with clubbed rifle, and so found his finish. Another
     stopped at least five bullets as a compadre tried to rescue him in a flying pickup. There should have been another; a third
     pony was down out in front of them, but nobody knew where the rider had got to. This time as they finished the run the Comanches
     pulled off again to talk it over.
    All choices lay with the Comanches for the time being. The cowmen got their backs into the job of getting nine hundred
     pounds of horse off Ed Newby. Mose Harper said, “How come you let him catch you, Ed?”
    Ed Newby answered through set teeth. “They got my leg—just as he come down—”
    Ed’s leg was not only bullet-broken, but had doubled under him, and got smashed again by the killed horse. Amos put the shaft
     of an arrow between Ed’s teeth, and the arrowwood splintered as two men put their weight into pulling the leg straight.
    A party of a dozen Comanches, mounted on thefastest of the Indian ponies, split off from the main bunch and circled out for still another sweep.
    “Hold your fire,” Amos ordered. “You hear me? Take cover—but let ’em be!”
    Zack Harper, who had fought none too well, chose this moment to harden. “Hold hell! I aim to get me another!”
    “You fire and I’ll kill you,” Amos promised him; and Zack put his rifle down.
    Most took to the ground as the Comanches swept past once more, but Amos stood up, watching from under his heavy brows, like
     a staring ox. The Indians did not attack. They picked up their dismounted and their dead; then they were gone.
    “Get them horses up!” Amos loosed the pigging string and