Chance tensed as he heard a shot.
Lucia screamed.
“Your horse is dead, Chance,” called Grawson. “Come out.”
“Get back in here,” hissed Chance to Lucia.
She obeyed him.
She was inside the soddy.
William Buckhorn lifted himself on one elbow on the table. “I will fight, too,” he said.
“Keep the boy quiet,” said Chance.
“You ain’t got a chance,” called a voice. That was Totters voice. Not smart of him to reveal his position. He was on the other side of the soddy, away from the door. Covering the window.
Chance slid the bar behind the door, and, on his hands and knees, crawled over to the window. He stood up then, inside the window, and moved about an inch of his head from the frame, to get an eye on the outside.
Two shots smashed into the soddy, the first splintering the board that framed the window on the left, the second splashing a long, thin stream, almost like water, of dust into the center of the room.
So that was where Totter was.
Chance’s cheek stung with splinters. His eyes were blinded from the shower of dust.
Lucia had screamed.
“Come out,” Grawson called.
Chance tried to clear his eyes and cut his face with the sight of his Colt.
Lucia was beside him. She had dipped the him of her skirt in the water bucket and was wiping his face and eyes.
“Thanks,” said Chance. Then, “You’ve got to get out of here.”
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Chance.
“I brought you some rattles,” said William Buckhorn, peering over the edge of the table, looking for them.
“Yes, William, yes,” said Lucia and crawled over to the table.
“There they are,” he said, pointing to the ground.
“Yes, thank you, William,” she said, and took them in her hand.
“Big ones,” said William Buckhorn.
Just then Totter’s carbine thrust through the window, poking down to find its target. Chance, under the window, grabbed the barrel with one hand and jerked the gun toward him. The weapon discharged, the bullet ripping through his shirt, creasing his wrist, the sudden burn making him drop the Colt. Trotter struggled to hold the carbine, too frightened and desperate to let go. Chance jerked him halfway through the window. The broken nose, the distorted squarish face, cursing, was almost against his. Chance twisted the carbine out of Totter’s hands, swinging the barrel against the side of his head. A line of blood as straight as the barrel creased the corporal’s head. He fell backward, off balance, and scrambled around the outside corner of the soddy. Chance foolishly stood in the window and snapped off a wild shot. Totter had already rounded the corner of the soddy. Two pistol shots whined past Chance, knocking a double handful of dust to the floor across the room. Chance leaped back. Grawson had changed his position, covering Totter at the window. Standing well back in the room, partly shielded by the frame, Chance fired once at Grawson, who had risen to one knee. He saw some fur leap away from the collar of Grawson’s coat, and then Grawson was prone again, firing at the window, once, twice. Chance supposed Totter would be around somewhere in front now, covering the door. He would still have his service revolver. Chance leaned the carbine against the wall and picked up his Colt from under the window. He rubbed his wrist. The numbness was going away. The fingers were unbroken, not sprained. Only a burn.
Now it was quiet outside.
They would not rush the soddy, or at least it would not be wise to do so. Chance didn’t figure Grawson would try that, not until dark at any rate. He was surprised that Totter had come as close as he had. He probably hadn’t known any better. It was not a mistake Grawson would have made. Then Chance smiled to himself. Grawson had had a good shot at him, when he was near the window. Maybe Grawson had encouraged Totter to make his play at the window, to draw Chance into view. Grawson was smart, Chance decided, and then he smiled, and Totter was probably not so smart. Grawson would have been ready to expend Totter. Nice fellow, Grawson. I’ll cover you, he could imagine Grawson saying to Totter, and Totter saying, all right.
Chance sat on the floor for about fifteen minutes, mostly listening. He looked out the window twice. Nothing much to see. The grass, the prairie, his dead horse.
“I’d better get you out of here,” said Chance to Lucia. “And the boy needs a doctor.”
He stood up near the window, out of sight.
“Grawson,” he called out.
“Come out,” he heard.
“There’s a woman and a sick child here,” he said. “A boy. He needs help.”
“Come out,” called Grawson.
“Let them go,” said Chance. “I’m not coming out, and they may get hurt.”
There was a long pause, and then he heard Grawson call. “All right. Send them out.”
Lucia was wrapping William Buckhorn in two blankets.
“I’m not going,” he said.
“Yes you are,” said Chance.
“All right,” said the boy.
“I’ll take him to the Grand River Camp,” said Lucia. “I can carry him there. Then we’ll get horses and take him to Fort Yates. There’s a doctor at Fort Yates.”
“I killed four of them,” said William Buckhorn, being bundled in the blankets.
“Why do you kill rattlesnakes?” asked Chance.
The boy looked at the schoolteacher and dropped his eyes. He mumbled, and spoke in Sioux. “For her,” he said, “she is afraid of rattlesnakes. I kill them so she will not be afraid, and will stay with us.”
“I know the answer to that question, Mr. Smith,” said Lucia. “I made the mistake of giving him some brown sugar once when he killed a snake, and then he kept killing them. I tried to stop giving him the sugar, but he kept killing them anyway. Outside I have a whole baking-powder can filled with rattles. Then I started giving him sugar again, not for the snakes, but to have him come here. So few of the Indians do. I told him not to hunt any more of them but he never listens. I scold him but it doesn’t do any good.”
“You don’t speak Sioux,” said Chance.
“No,” said Lucia.
“You think he kills the snakes so you will give him sugar?”