Chapter 18
MARCH 28, PRE DAWN
LINDA’S TEAM, TIRED FROM THE long night march, arrived at the point where she had intended. They had barely sat down to rest when one of the Adrian’s scouts walked into their camp.
He said, “What the hell are you women doing here? You’re supposed to be back at the village.”
Linda replied, “Go tell Adrian we are here right behind him, and intend to help if we can. We’ll remain here until we see how the battle develops, then jump in at any weak spot if we are needed. Tell him we’re not going back.”
The scout growled an obscenity, and then silently disappeared back into the dark.
Adrian shook his head at the scout’s report. “Damn it, we’re attacking in just a few minutes. There’s no time to go back and argue with them. Look, you go back and tell them to pull back to the village. Tell Colonel Fremont I said that’s an order.”
Adrian turned to Bollinger and said, “You ever hear of such a thing? Shit. I hope they don’t get involved in this. We’re going ahead with our plan. We’re going to have enough trouble with the weather without worrying about them. If this rain gets heavy, we’re going to have limited visual contact. Get the men saddled up; we’re moving out in five minutes.”
Adrian’s group of ten men moved swiftly through the draw. Daylight would be breaking in a few minutes, but the light would be subdued by the heavy cloud cover and the light rain that was falling sporadically. A huge thunderstorm was moving in rapidly from the southwest. The booming thunder was coming closer and the lightning was nearly constant. Adrian was worried about continuing this operation with the storm rapidly approaching, and thought briefly of pulling back and waiting out the storm, but he was aware that it would be as much hindrance for Rex’s men as it would be for his. It could also give Rex cover to move his men. Under cover of heavy rain, they could disappear and be hell to find and fight without the right terrain.
When they got within a hundred yards of the raiders’ line Adrian said in a voice too soft to carry beyond his men, “Remember, our mission is to draw them together and then to run like hell, getting them to chase us. We’re going to open fire in a minute—this is one of the few times I don’t want you to carefully pick your targets. I want you to lay down a steady barrage of fire, moving back and forth frequently to make it look like there are more of us than just eleven men. We want them to think this is the main body, and that means faking them out to believe there are a lot more of us right here. Now, spread out in a line with thirty feet intervals between you, five to each side of me. When I fire, start firing, fire three or four shots, move over a few feet fire, and move back, and keep repeating until we fall back. Keep your heads down, just point and shoot. Okay, spread out.”
MARCH 28, DAWN
Adrian waited patiently for the light to improve. He watched the storm coming closer and hoped it would veer off or break up, but it didn’t look like it would. He guessed they had maybe a half-hour before it was on top of them. He had already sent his orders to all the groups to continue the operation through the storm.
Adrian sighted on a raider and squeezed off a shot, thinking, might as well make the first shot count. Then he began shooting rapidly. With his first shot, the ten men in his group opened up. It was an impressive barrage of bullets flying into the raiders. The men fired, shifted, fired again. From the raiders’ perspective, it would seem that they were being attacked by at least thirty men. The raiders quickly took cover and began sporadically firing back. The sound of rifles could easily be heard above the rolling thunder of the storm. The storm’s wind front hit at the same time, wind gusts struck like a hurricane, bending and whipping trees, tearing off tree limbs, debris flying through the air. It was a wild scene: men shooting and shouting, wind blowing, thunder rumbling and lightning flashing, muzzle flashes, screams of agony and rage as the sun gradually gained in height. The air turned cold as the wind surge died down. Adrian’s men were keeping up a steady stream of fire through it all.
The raiders were pulling into a tight center, Rex apparently falling for the bait, as well as recognizing that the storm would cause communication problems if his men were strung out and groups of them might wander into each other. They were firing back, their firing getting heavier as they settled into a line.
Adrian signaled for his men to slow down the fire, as though they might be running low on ammunition, then he slowed it down more. Then during a flash of lightning he saw Rex’s men slowly moving forward. Adrian gave his men the signal to run, stopping only occasionally to turn and fire back. As they began their retreat into the draw Rex’s men boiled out of the trees running, their bloodlust stirred up at the sight of the retreating enemy. Adrian could see that Rex had lost control of his men—at least temporarily—as they charged headlong at high speed. The trap was working, as it had thousands of times throughout history. It played on a particular primal instinct, the same instinct that all predators had: charge and attack at the sight of a weak prey fleeing.
Adrian was behind his men, closest to the enemy. He directed the men to keep moving and to zig and zag, picking up speed as they gained the midpoint between the hills. He stopped and fired back at the raiders, noting that they were gaining quickly and that they were strung out with the best runners out front. Perfect, he thought to himself, absolutely perfect. He turned to run again and saw one of his men take a hit. Adrian caught up to him and saw he had been hit in the leg. He picked the man up and continued to run. Adrian was so full of adrenaline that the man felt like he weighed no more than a child.
MARCH 28, EARLY MORNING
Linda tried to watch the battle unfold. The scout had returned with orders from Adrian to return to the village, but she wasn’t about to. Once the scout was convinced that the women weren’t going back he explained the battle tactics and the men’s locations. Linda understood the setup clearly; what she couldn’t do was see it clearly in the dim light and the increasing rain. The coming storm looked to be a bad one. She knew this could be either a blessing or a curse, but at this point, she didn’t know which one.
She drew Shirley to her side and said, “This storm changes everything. We can’t see what’s happening clearly enough. If we go in to help now, we could really screw things up. I hate sitting here and waiting as much as I hated sitting in the village and waiting. But right now, it’s the only thing to do. Spread the women out in a skirmish line. Set the pipe cannons up along the line and for God’s sake don’t forget to tie them down with the auger anchors or they’ll take off behind us like a rocket. Cut some material and stuff it in the cannons’ mouths to keep rain water out of them. Make sure the women remember to not get behind them when they’re fired. Set the elevation for hitting out at forty yards, just like we practiced. Tell them that we’re in a tricky situation. If we see men coming at us, they will probably be our own men, so no shooting unless there is positive identification of raiders. That means no shooting unless the men are right on top of us and we are absolutely certain they’re not ours. By the time we can shoot it’s going to be extremely close range. The other problem is that Adrian may not have had time to get the word to all of our men that we are out here. There’s a possibility that they’ll shoot at us until they recognize who we are. It’s dicey, but it can be controlled as long as we all keep our heads. Explain it to them so they clearly understand the situation. Spread them out, but not too far.”
Shirley left to relay the orders. Linda was alone with her thoughts when she heard the shooting start. The sound of the rifles was almost swept away when the high winds burst through, but soon came back as the storms front edge moved on. From her position, she could occasionally see the men falling back when lightning lit the sky up. The lightning wasn’t frequent enough to get a solid visual on the field, though as the storm came closer, the lightning was more frequent and brighter. Rain began to fall more heavily.
Adrian joined up with his main group on the western end of the draw. Now it was a matter of waiting for Rex’s men to fill the draw between the hills and for Clif to close the east end. This could be a long day of battle as his men sniped off Rex’s men. If they could keep Rex contained in the draw, it would end here.
Bollinger waited and watched. Rex’s men were still streaming into the draw. He would either wait until he saw no more men coming, or until he saw Rex’s men coming back out of the draw before he moved his men into position. At this range, he could make them out clearly during the lightning flashes, although the increasing rain was beginning to make that more difficult. Bollinger had not seen a raider for the past sixty seconds—time to close the hole. He waved his men into position.
MARCH 28, EARLY MORNING
Adrian chose a target, fired, and watched the man fall. He could see muzzle flashes all around the raiders, and the raiders firing back. Adrian heard a distant roaring sound. The sound was coming closer, sounding like a giant freight train. He looked to the southwest and saw it, a funnel cloud reaching to the earth, visible only when backlit by lightning. Hail began falling, small pellets at first, but swiftly growing to a crescendo of golf ball-sized missiles.
Shit! Adrian thought. He called out to the men, “Hang tight! They’re getting hit, too. Watch and wait for a good shot, then take it. Hold your positions. Spread the word!” Adrian knew that hailstorms were usually brief and hoped this one would be. The approaching tornado was a greater threat than Rex at the moment; it seemed to be heading straight for them, but there was absolutely nothing that could be done about it. He watched with growing anxiety as it roared toward them.
The wind was gaining strength by the second, trees now seeming to bend and stretch at their roots, leaves stripping off and flying away like great gusts of smoke. The hail stopped and the wind gained even more strength, then with an increased roar the tornado was almost on them. It passed by just east of the two hills, where the battle was still raggedly unfolding. The world went almost black, interrupted by frequent close-by lightning strikes and booming thunder. As it reached a crescendo Adrian saw trees swirling up and around the tornado’s cone not a quarter of a mile away. The tornado paused, seemed to head towards the battle for a second, hesitated again, and turned back to its original path, just missing the battle zone, and then the rain fell so hard that visibility was limited to a few feet. There was no sound of gunfire now; no one could see far enough to shoot. The rain was ice cold.
The roar of the tornado gradually lessened as it continued cutting its way to the northeast. Rain was still falling heavily, but beginning to diminish. Adrian knew from experience that these kinds of storms moved fast and the rain would likely be done in only minutes. He waited, watching steam coming from the ground from the cold rain hitting the warm earth, steam that was ripped to shreds by the rain and wind. It would only be a matter of minutes now. He hoped against hope that Rex’s men hadn’t gained some advantage from the storm. He yelled to his men, “Be ready! Fire as soon as you can get a target!”