Dust blew past them in rattling sheets, sometimes turning the drogue riders into ghosts, sometimes obscuring them completely, but the boys closed in steadily. Roland rode tense, waiting for one of the drogues to turn in his saddle and see them, but none did - none of them wanted to put his face into that cutting, grit-filled wind. Nor was there sound to warn them; there was sandy hardpack under the horses' hooves now, and it didn't give away much.
When they were just twenty yards behind the drogues, Cuthbert nodded - they were close enough for him to work. Alain handed him a ball. Bert, sitting ramrod straight in the saddle, dropped it into the cup of his slingshot, pulled, waited for the wind to drop, then released. The rider ahead on the left jerked as if stung, raised one hand a little, then toppled out of his saddle. Incredibly, neither of his two companeros seemed to notice. Roland saw what he thought was the beginning of a reaction from the one on the right when Bert drew again, and the rider in the middle collapsed forward onto his horse's neck. The horse, startled, reared up. The rider flopped bonelessly backward, his sombrero tumbling off, and fell. The wind dropped enough for Roland to hear his knee snap as his foot caught in one of his stirrups.
The third rider now began to turn. Roland caught a glimpse of a bearded face - a dangling cigarette, unlit because of the wind, one astonished eye - and then Cuthbert's sling thupped again. The astonished eye was replaced by a red socket. The rider slid from his saddle, groping for the horn and missing it.
Three gone, Roland thought.
He kicked Rusher into a gallop. The others did the same, and the boys rode forward into the dust a stirrup's width apart. The horses of the ambushed drogue riders veered off to the south in a group, and that was good. Riderless horses ordinarily didn't raise eyebrows in Mejis, but when they were saddled -
More riders up ahead: a single, then two side by side, then another single.
Roland drew his knife, and rode up beside the fellow who was now drogue and didn't know it.
"What news?" he asked conversationally, and when the man turned, Roland buried his knife in his chest. The vaq's brown eyes widened above the bandanna he'd pulled up outlaw-style over his mouth and nose, and then he tumbled from his saddle.
Cuthbert and Alain spurred past him, and Bert, not slowing, took the two riding ahead with his slingshot. The fellow beyond them heard something in spite of the wind, and swivelled in his saddle. Alain had drawn his own knife and now held it by the tip of the blade. He threw hard, in the exaggerated full-arm motion they had been taught, and although the range was long for such work - twenty feet at least, and in windy air - his aim was true. The hilt came to rest protruding from the center of the man's bandanna. The vaq groped for it, making choked gargling sounds around the knife in his throat, and then he too dropped from the saddle.
Seven now.
Like the story of the shoemaker and the flies, Roland thought. His heart was beating slow and hard in his chest as he caught up with Alain and Cuthbert. The wind gusted a lonely whine. Dust flew, swirled, then dropped with the wind. Ahead of them were three more riders, and ahead of them the main party.
Roland pointed at the next three, then mimed the slingshot. Pointed beyond them and mimed firing a revolver. Cuthbert and Alain nodded. They rode forward, once again stirrup-to-stirrup, closing in.
22
Bert got two of the three ahead of them clean, but the third jerked at the wrong moment, and the steel ball meant for the back of his head only clipped his earlobe on the way by. Roland had drawn his gun by then, however, and put a bullet in the man's temple as he turned. That made ten, a full quarter of Jonas's company before the riders even realized trouble had begun. Roland had no idea if it would be enough of an advantage, but he knew that the first part of the job was done. No more stealth; now it was a matter of raw killing.
"Hile! Hile!" he screamed in a ringing, carrying voice. "To me, gunslingers! To me! Ride them down! No prisoners!"
They spurred toward the main party, riding into battle for the first time, closing like wolves on sheep, shooting before the men ahead of them had any slight idea of who had gotten in behind them or what was happening. The three boys had been trained as gunslingers, and what they lacked in experience they made up for with the keen eyes and reflexes of the young. Under their guns, the desert east of Hanging Rock became a killing-floor.