Denver Run

Chapter Ten

Never in all his born days had he seen a sight like it.

Hickok stood on the rampart above the drawbridge, his hands on his hips, and gawked.

“There are so many of them!” exclaimed a young Clan woman to his left.

“That’s good,” Hickok told her.

She eyed him skeptically. “How can it be good?”

“It means you won’t have to aim as hard,” Hickok informed her, grinning.

The Civilized Zone force had parked its trucks and other vehicles in the woods bordering the cleared fields. All except the tank. It rolled from the trees and parked at the edge of the western field, its engine idling, directly across from the drawbridge. The troops had followed the tank, marching four abreast from the woods. Half of the soldiers bore to the right, half to the left, until the field near the forest was covered with green figures, all of them armed with M-16’s, all of them standing at attention. Some of them wore helmets, some didn’t.

Either their discipline was lax, Hickok deduced, or there was a shortage of helmets.

A hand fell on the gunman’s left shoulder.

“Why are they massing to the west?” Spartacus inquired. “Why haven’t they deployed their troops to surround the Home and take advantage of their numbers?”

Hickok indicated the drawbridge below them. “My guess, pard, is they intend to wallop the stuffin’ out of us on the first try. They know the only way into the Home is through the drawbridge. Their head honcho must reckon this here drawbridge is our weak link.”

“It is,” Spartacus mentioned.

“We’ll see about that,” Hickok stated grimly. He focused on a pair of men walking along the front rows of the opposing army. Was one of them the commander?

“They got here much sooner than I expected,” Spartacus remarked. “I didn’t think they’d make it until noon.”

“They’re in a hurry to die,” Hickok said.

“May the Spirit preserve us,” Spartacus commented.

Hickok found his mind straying. He thought of Sherry, his darling wife, and the night they had shared. She’d been overjoyed to see him, and had been all over his body like a bear on honey. He had tried to convince her they should get some shut-eye, to no avail. He’d even pleaded a headache, but still she’d persisted. He sighed contentedly at the pleasant memories.

When a woman was warm for your form, there was nothing to do but take the heat.

“Look at the size of that tank!” Spartacus stated.

The tank was a behemoth, a mighty metal colossus, its huge cannon fixed on the drawbridge like the baleful gaze of a steel cyclops.

“We’ll have to take out that tank,” Hickok said thoughtfully.

“How?” Spartacus demanded. “We don’t have any explosives.”

“Then we’ll improvise,” Hickok remarked.

“How?” Spartacus reitereated. “What will we use to stop a tank?”

“A pillowcase.”

“A what?” Spartacus leaned closer to the gunman, certain he had heard incorrectly.

“A pillowcase,” Hickok repeated. “Have somebody run to B Block and get me a white pillowcase.”

Spartacus started to speak, then thought better of the idea. He hurried off.

Hickok scanned the western rampart, noting the nervous state of most of the 67 men and women manning the wall. He couldn’t say as he blamed them. That blasted tank was a whopper.

Spartacus hurried up. “I’ve sent for the pillowcase.”

“Good,” Hickok said. “Now send runners to the north and south walls.

Have every other fighter report here on the double, but tell ’em to keep their heads down. I don’t want the soldiers to see them when they take their posts. Have ’em crouch below the top of the wall. Pack ’em onto this rampart.”

“On my way,” Spartacus ran off.

Hickok pondered the formidable odds they were facing. He was grateful the enemy was concentrating its initial attack on the west wall of the Home. It meant Sherry would be spared the first assault. But sooner or later, the Army bozos would completely enclose the compound. Sherry would experience her baptism of fire as a Warrior. She, and the rest of the Family and the Clan, would be overwhelmed by sheer force of numbers.

Blast!

Why had he agreed to her becoming a Warrior?

What did he have for brains? Rocks?

Why were women such contrary critters? Why did all women have this peculiar notion about doing everything their way? Why couldn’t they let the men run things? Life would be so much simpler! With the menfolk as the ramrods, everything would be—

He stopped himself, chuckling.

No, that wasn’t such a great idea. The men had been handling things before the Big Blast. Plato had once said men had dominated society before the war. The men had dictated the direction of the government and the military.

And look where it had gotten them.

Blown to kingdom come!

Maybe the best way, the only way, was to have the government and the military run along the same lines as a family: by couples. That way, every time some dipsy power-monger wanted an all-out war, his wife could slap him upside the head and tell him to go fishing until he cooled down. There was nothing like marriage to teach a man humility.

“Here’s the pillowcase.”

Hickok turned to his left.

Spartacus held a white pillowcase in his right hand.

“Thanks, pard.” Hickok took the pillowcase and held it behind his back.

“How is that going to help us take out the tank?” Spartacus inquired.

“You’ll see,” Hickok promised. “Trust me.”

There was a lot of commotion near the tank. A man in green fatigues and a taller man dressed all in brown were standing near the armored vehicle. Other soldiers were forming a column behind it.

“They’re getting ready,” Spartacus mentioned. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“It’ll be a piece of cake,” Hickok assured him.

Fighters from the north and south walls were shuffling along the western rampart, hunched over to prevent their detection by the enemy troops. They quickly filled in the open spaces on the west wall, their various weapons at the ready.

Perfect.

Hickok grinned. To the Army commander, it would appear as though there were only 69 defenders on the western wall, when in reality there were now 135.

Surprise!

Hickok glanced over his right shoulder at the four men manning the drawbridge mechanism. “Get ready to lower the drawbridge!” he shouted down to them.

“Lower the drawbridge?” Spartacus repeated in astonishment. “Are you crazy?”

“Tell everyone to fire on my order,” Hickok instructed him.

“What do you have up your sleeve?” Spartacus asked. “I thought you said you want my input on everything.”

“I have this up my sleeve,” Hickok said, displaying the pillowcase. “I aim to—”

“They’re coming!” a woman nearby screamed.

Hickok looked out over the field. Sure enough, the tank was advancing toward the Home. Two to three dozen soldiers followed behind it.

“No time now,” the gunman said to Spartacus. “Just have everbody set to fire when I give the word.” He hurried to the stairs.

Spartacus, annoyed, turned to the man on his right, a Family Blacksmith. “Pass the word along the wall. Fire on Hickok’s command.”

The Blacksmith started the message down the line of anxious defenders.

What was the gunfighter up to? Spartacus unslung his Heckler and Koch HK93 from his left shoulder and checked the magazine, his gaze on the gunman.

Hickok, armed only with his Colt Pythons, the white pillowcase in his right hand, descended the stairs to the ground. “Lower the drawbridge!”

he barked at the quartet assigned to the mechanism.

The four men exchanged puzzled expressions, but they promptly did as they had been told.

Hickok stood on the inner bank of the moat, grinning in anticipation.

He waited as the drawbridge slowly lowered toward him, thudding to a horizontal stop across the moat, its massive wooden planks mere inches from the Warrior’s toes.

The tank and its deadly entourage had reached the halfway point between the forest and the west wall of the Home. The armored titan rumbled to an unexpected halt.

Hickok deliberately backed up, placing a good ten feet between the drawbridge and himself. He raised the white pillowcase and swung the material in wide circles over his blond head.

There was a metallic clanking sound, and an opening appeared on the top of the tank as an oval hatch of some kind was pushed aside. A man wearing a green helmet popped into view, visible from his shoulders up.

He stared at the lowered drawbridge and the man waving the white flag, then twisted and yelled a few words to the men following the tank.

Hickok could readily imagine their confusion. They were wondering if the Family was surrendering. Why else would someone be signaling with a white pillowcase?

Another man in green walked around the left side of the tank. He stopped and studied the situation with a pair of binoculars.

Hickok smiled, hoping he seemed appropriately friendly enough for the occasion.

The man in green, evidently an officer, lowered the binoculars and spoke to the man on the tank.

The man on the tank nodded, and at a word from him the gargantuan engine of destruction lumbered directly for the open drawbridge.

Hickok glanced up at the rampart. Spartacus looked like he was about to lay an egg. “Get that toothpick of yours ready,” he directed his confused friend, as loudly as he dared.

Spartacus, his brow furrowed in consternation, slung the HK93 over his left shoulder and drew his broadsword.

Hickok watched the tank approach, heading straight toward him. Dear Spirit, but the blasted thing was big! He could see its titanic treads tearing up the soft soil as it neared the west wall. Clumps of brown dirt flew off to the sides.

The man with the helmet was still visible from the shoulders up, alertly scanning the drawbridge and the rampart for any indication of treachery.

Keep coming, moron! Hickok backed up some more, flapping the white pillowcase overhead.

The sound of the tank’s motor was a strident roar by the time the monster reached the other side of the drawbridge.

Hickok grinned and waved for all he was worth.

The man in the helmet cupped his hands around his mouth. “If you make one false move, I will blow you to shreds!”

Nice guy! Hickok retreated several more feet. “Don’t!” he cried in false terror. “We surrender!”

“Just like that?” the man responded skeptically.

“We can’t fight a tank!” Hickok shouted. “I don’t want any of our women and children hurt!”

Helmet-head nodded. He could understand such a motive. “I am coming across! No tricks!” he paused. “Hey! Aren’t you the one who raided our camp and stole one of our jeeps?”

“It wasn’t me!” Hickok lied. What did he mean— stole a jeep?

Helmet-head smirked and said something to whoever was inside the tank. It rolled across the drawbridge, treading carefully, inch by inch.

Helmet-head glanced up at the rampart as he passed below it, but the defenders he could see weren’t pointing their weapons in his direction.

Dozens of troopers closed in on the heels of the tank.

Hickok withdrew another eight feet or so.

The tank crawled over the drawbridge, stopping when it reached the inner bank.

Hickok found himself staring into the muzzle of the cannon. He detected a slight motion to his right, and realized a machine gun was covering him through a narrow port. He also noticed an inch or two of clear space between the barrel of the machine gun and the edges of the port.

An officer, the one with the binoculars, walked around the left side of the tank, taking care not to fall from the drawbridge into the moat. He had brown hair and an angular chin. “You are the Warrior known as Hickok, are you not?” he demanded as he halted in front of the vehicle, just to the left of the machine-gun port.

“Howdy!” Hickok beamed. “I’m right pleased to meet you.”

“Cut the prattle, you buffoon!” the officer snapped. “I am Captain Luther. All of you will lay down your arms immediately!”

“Say ‘pretty please’ first,” Hickok said.

Captain Luther scowled. “This isn’t a joke, you idiot! Your surrender will be unconditional and immediate!’”

“Surrender? No one said we were surrenderin’,” Hickok stated.

“What?” Captain Luther was turning red in the cheeks. “Then why were you waving a white flag?”

“Flies,” Hickok replied.

“There aren’t any flies at this time of year!” Captain Luther almost shrieked.

“My mistake,” Hickok admitted. “I meant to say vermin.”

In those final fleeting seconds, Captain Luther comprehended. He tried to turn, to shout a warning to his men.

He never uttered a word.

Hickok glanced up at Spartacus, nodded once, and dropped the white pillowcase as his hands flashed to his Pythons. He cleared leather and fired before the pillowcase reached the earth.

The gunman’s shots caught Luther near the right ear and exploded out his forehead, raining blood and brains on the tank.

Even as the gunfighter drew, Spartacus was in motion. He took a flying leap from the rampart, his broadsword clutched in his right fist, and sailed over the heads of the soldiers below. His feet landed on the rear of the tank, on the very lip, and he nearly lost his balance before he recovered his footing and lunged at the man with the helmet.

Helmet-head heard the pounding of a heavy object behind him and spun.

Spartacus swung his broadsword with all the power in his muscular shoulders.

Helmet-head was about to yell an order when the point of the broadsword ripped into the left side of his throat and drove out the other side in a magnificent crimson spray.

Hickok pivoted, aiming for the machine-gun port, and fired three rounds into the small open space between the barrel and the port.

There was a ghastly scream from within the truck.

“Open fire!” Hickok cried at the top of his lungs.

The defenders on the western rampart entered the fray, all 133 of them concentrating their fire on the soldiers behind the tank.

About a dozen of the hapless troopers were on the drawbridge, and they bore the brunt of the onslaught. Their bodies jerked and rocked as bullet after bullet slammed into them.

The column of soldiers on the other side of the wall suffered the same fate; they were decimated by the hail of lead.

“Raise the drawbridge!” Hickok yelled.

A few of the troopers managed to return the fire, but they were speedily downed.

The mass of soldiers in the field beyond raised their voices in a mighty whoop and charged the Home.

“Raise the drawbridge!” Hickok shouted again.

The four men handling the mechanism were doing their best, but it was difficult for them with the added weight of the dozen troopers on the drawbridge.

On the tank, Spartacus stooped and shoved Helmet-head downward.

The lifeless body dropped from sight. Spartacus swiftly sheathed his broadsword and unslung the HK93. He stuck the barrel into the hatch and pulled the trigger.

There was screaming from within the metal coffin as the slugs whined and ricocheted from one side of the tank to another.

Hickok raced past the tank to the drawbridge.

There were a dozen bloody forms sprawled on the drawbridge. Another two dozen were lying on the ground outside the wall. Dashing toward the Home, already halfway across the field beyond, was the bulk of the strike force.

They had to get the blasted drawbridge up!

Hickok bolstered the Pythons and frantically began rolling bodies from the drawbridge. The dead soldiers struck the water with a pronounced splash.

Two, three, four bodies landed in the moat.

The strike force was getting closer.

Hickok shoved two more troopers from the drawbridge. “Keep trying to raise it!” he ordered the quartet at the mechanism.

The four men were straining to their utmost, pushing on the metal lever responsible for activating the gears and chain.

“Need some help?” Spartacus joined the gunman, flinging bodies into the water as rapidly as he could.

Some of the charging soldiers began shooting. One or two bullets bit into the drawbridge near the harried Warriors.

The defenders on the west wall blasted away at the approaching soldiers.

Only one dead trooper left to go. Hickok grabbed the man’s ankles and hauled him to the edge of the drawbridge. He kicked the body with his right foot, and it toppled from sight.

The drawbridge was beginning to elevate.

“Let’s go!” Spartacus urged, running for the bank.

Hickok took three steps, and then something bit into his left thigh, wrenching his leg from under him. He fell to the wooden planks, clutching at his injury, blood flowing over his fingers.

He’d been hit!

Hickok glanced over his left shoulder.

A pair of soldiers had far outdistanced their companions. Miraculously untouched by the barrage of lead from the western rampart, they were rapidly closing on the drawbridge.

The drawbridge was still rising. It was now a foot above the inner bank.

Hickok rose to his hands and knees and made for the end of the drawbridge. He had to make it! He’d be cut to ribbons otherwise!

Spartacus, already safe on the bank, spied the gunman’s predicament and jumped onto the drawbridge.

“Go back!” Hickok prompted. “Save yourself!”

Spartacus ignored the injuction and ran to Hickok’s side. He looped his right arm under the gunman’s shoulder and hauled Hickok to his feet.

“You can take a nap later!”

A stitch work pattern of bullets bit into the wood at their feet.

Spartacus twisted, the HK93 cradled in his left arm. He leveled the barrel at the pair of nearest soldiers and let them have it.

The two soldiers reacted as if they had smacked into a wall, coming to an abrupt stop, their chests erupting in red dots, as they were brutally slammed onto their backs.

The drawbridge was now three feet above the bank.

The chattering of the M-16’s and the popping and booming of the other guns involved in the battle attained a deafening crescendo. Exposed in the open, realizing their vulnerability, the soldiers in the field had checked their headlong rush and many were retreating, leaving dozens of their fallen comrades behind.

Spartacus and Hickok reached the end of the drawbridge.

The ground was four feet below.

“Can you make it?” Spartacus yelled in Hickok’s left ear.

“I was hopin’ you’d carry me piggyback,” Hickok responded, grinning.

He stepped free and pushed off with his good leg, vaulting to the inner bank of the moat. His left leg buckled as he landed and he tumbled onto his stomach.

Spartacus sprang to the grass. He leaned over and assisted the gunman in rising.

“Thanks, pard,” Hickok said. “I owe you one.”

With the drawbridge devoid of extra weight, the four men were able to speedily lift it to a vertical position.

The firing on the western rampart was tapering off.

Spartacus knelt and examined Hickok’s left thigh. “It looks like it caught you in the fleshy part on the outside of your leg,” he informed the gunman.

“Then it ain’t nothin’ to fret about,” Hickok remarked. He began reloading the spent rounds in his Pythons.

“You should see the Healers,” Spartacus recommended.

“Not now,” Hickok said.

“But you’re bleeding!” Spartacus protested.

“Not now,” Hickok reiterated. He headed for the stairs, limping. “Come on.”

Spartacus reluctantly followed.

Hickok replaced the Pythons in their holsters and ascended the stairs, gripping the railing to retain his footing until he reached the rampart.

“They’ve turned tail!” a man yelled.

Hickok and Spartacus peered over the top of the wall.

The strike force had reassembled near the woods. A tall man attired in brown clothing was bellowing at them.

“Who’s he?” Spartacus absently asked.

“Beats me,” Hickok replied. “Check our people. Give me a tally.”

Spartacus nodded and left.

Hickok grimaced as a spasm lanced his left thigh.

Great!

Just great!

The battle had barely begun, and here he’d gone and gotten himself hit!

Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!

What a cow chip!

Hickok stopped berating himself and counted the bodies littering the field. Some of the dead soldiers were piled on top of one another, so an accurate count was difficult. As near as he could estimate, Hickok reckoned there were close to four dozen.

Plus the dozen on the bridge.

Five dozen. Not bad, he told himself. That only left about 1,940.

Only.

But at least the tank was out of commission.

The tall man in brown was lambasting the troops.

Hickok leaned on the top of the parapet, his arms extended to waist height, and prudently slid his fingers under the strands of barbed wire lining the outer edge of the wall.

“Look!” a nearby woman yelled.

The body of troops was filing into the forest.

What were they up to now? Hickok wondered.

The tall man in brown reappeared, carrying a white flag. Without hesitation, he strode toward the Home.

“One of them is coming this way!” stated a man on the gunman’s left.

What was this action? Hickok squinted, trying to clearly see the man in brown, but he was still too far off.

Spartacus trotted up to the gunfighter.

“How’d we do?” Hickok asked him.

“You won’t believe it,” Spartacus replied.

“How many did we lose?” Hickok pressed him.

Spartacus beamed. “Not one.”

“Are you serious?”

“A few nicks and scratches,” Spartacus elaborated, “but not one dead.

We were lucky.”

“We caught them by surprise,” Hickok stated. “We won’t be able to pull a stunt like that again.”

Spartacus noticed the man in brown approaching. “What’s this?”

“Beats me,” Hickok said, shrugging. “I reckon he wants to palaver.”

“It’s a trick,” Spartacus stated. “He’s doing to us what we did to them.”

“Not likely,” Hickok disagreed. “He left all his men in the trees. I think he really wants to talk.”

“I’ll go meet him,” Spartacus offered.

“Nope.”

“But you’re hurt,” Spartacus objected.

“I can still wobble with the best of ’em,” Hickok responded. “Besides, I’ll have my equalizers with me.” He patted his Pythons. “If he so much as blinks crooked, I’ll perforate his noggin’.”

“I should go along,” Spartacus protested.

“You’ll stay put,” Hickok ordered.

“Hickok—”

“Keep me covered.” Hickok walked to the stairs and descended to the ground. “Lower the drawbridge,” he told the four men.

Hickok stared at one of the dead troopers floating in the moat. Those bodies would have to be removed from the water before they polluted the stream. He gazed at the immobile tank, potentially useless unless it could be driven. How hard was it to drive a tank? Was it anything like driving a jeep or the SEAL? Somehow, he doubted it would be a piece of cake.

The drawbridge clanked to the ground.

The man in brown was waiting on the other side, about 20 yards from the west wall.

Hickok nonchalantly placed his thumbs in his gunbelt and ambled from the compound. He wended his way among the scattered bodies until he was five feet from the man in brown.

“Hello, Hickok,” the man said in a low voice.

Hickok studied the speaker. He was a big one, at least six and a half feet in height, and every square inch appeared to be solid muscle. His brown clothing, immaculately neat, served as a distinct contrast to the man’s animalistic facial features; he had a pronounced forehead terminating in excessively bushy eyebrows, thick lips, a deformed nose, and two of his upper teeth protruded over his lower lip. His nose was deformed, almost flattened at its tip, and his skin was strangely pitted. A shock of black hair added to his bizarre aspect.

“Should I know you, gruesome?” Hickok baited him.

“No,” the big man conceded. “My name is Brutus.”

“So what’s with the white flag?” Hickok inquired. In reality, it was a strip of white sheeting affixed to a branch.

“I wanted to talk to you,” Brutus revealed, his tone low and forceful, the trace of a grin touching the corners of his wide mouth.

“We have something to talk about?” Hickok retorted.

“The Doktor wants his notebooks,” Brutus declared.

“What notebooks?” Hickok answered, stalling. How had the Doktor discovered the Family had them?

“Don’t play games with me,” Brutus warned. “The Doktor’s last radio contact concerned four blue notebooks of his. They’re his journals on his research and other activities. The Doktor wants them back. He knows one of your Warriors, Yama, stole them from Cheyenne before it was nuked. He knows the Family has them. Hand them over.”

“Why don’t you stick that branch where the sun don’t shine,” Hickok told him.

“I take it you refuse to turn the notebooks over?” Brutus asked.

“Ain’t you the bright one!” Hickok stated. “You must make your momma real proud.”

Brutus abruptly clenched his brawny fists, his face reddening.

“Touchy, ain’t we?” Hickok said. Why did Brutus react so angrily to a harmless insult? Suddenly the answer hit the gunman: Brutus didn’t have a mother. Brutus was one of the Doktor’s test-tube creatures, one of his genetically engineered deviates.

“I will have those notebooks,” Brutus vowed, “one way or the other.”

“The Doktor wants them that bad, huh?” Hickok queried, an idea occurring to him.

“The Doktor wants them,” Brutis affirmed.

“Then you’d best take your tin soldiers and skedaddle,” Hickok said, “or I’ll burn the notebooks to ashes.”

Brutus smiled. “Go ahead.”

“But you just said the Doktor wants his journals back,” Hickok said in surprise.

“He does,” Brutus confirmed, “but he wants the Family destroyed even more than he wants his notebooks. Go ahead and burn them.”

Hickok didn’t respond. He knew the notebooks were invaluable to the Family. The Family Elders were close to deciphering the contents, and the information gleaned so far indicated that the cause of the premature senility affecting the older Family members was contained in those notebooks.

Brutus gazed up at the west wall. “I will demolish your Home.”

“In case you hadn’t noticed,” Hickok reminded him, “Some other idiot just tried. The Home is still standing.”

Brutus inexplicably smiled. “Captain Luther was an inexperienced dolt!

He really believed you were going to surrender. He thought you were terrified at the mere sight of our troops and the tank.” Brutus chuckled. “I knew better, of course, but I couldn’t convince him. I knew it was a trick!” he bragged. “I advised him to keep most of our men in reserve, in case it was an ambush. And the jackass fell for it!” Brutus laughed crazily.

“I take it you were rather fond of old Luther?” Hickok quipped.

“With him gone,” Brutus informed the Warrior, “I’m in charge now.”

“From a jackass to a horse’s ass,” Hickok said. “I don’t see where you’re an improvement.”

Brutus glared at the gunman.

“I must say,” Hickok went on, taunting his foe, “I’m impressed by all the fancy words you sling around. I didn’t think the Doktor’s pets were that smart.”

Brutus resembled a beet from the neck up. “I’ll make you eat those words, you bastard! I’m one of the Doktor’s favorites!”

“Whoop-de-do!”

“By this time tomorrow,” Brutus pledged, “you will be dead, you and the rest of your miserable Family. I will show no mercy!”

“I have a question for you,” Hickok stated.

Brutus, working himself into a frenzy over the gunman’s insults, was taken aback by the comment. He stared at the Warrior, flustered. “What question?”

Hickok grinned. “How are you gonna get back to them trees?”

“What do you mean?”

“How are you gonna get from here,” Hickok said, pointing to the grotesque man’s exceptionally large feet, “to there.” The gunman pointed at the forest 130 yards off.

“I’m going to walk,” Brutus said.

“Wanna bet?” Hickok’s hands hovered near the pearl grips on his Colt Pythons.

Brutus’ bug-like eyes blinked rapidly. “Touch those guns and you’re a dead man.”

“Are you gonna scare me to death?” Hickok quipped.

“I suspected you might be treacherous,” Brutus stated smugly. “That’s why I instructed our sharp-shooters to keep me covered. If you go for your guns, they’ll make a sieve out of you!”

Hickok thoughtfully chewed on his lower lip, gauging the distance to the treeline.

Brutus, plainly nervous, took a step backwards.

“Hold on there, boss,” Hickok remarked, limping forward several steps.

“Don’t even think it!” Brutus hissed.

Hickok grinned, exposing his even white teeth. “But I am thinkin’ about it. And do you know what I’m thinkin’?”

Brutus didn’t answer; his thick tongue flicked over his lips.

“I’m thinkin’ I should blow you away, ugly,” Hickok said. “I reckon those soldier boys might hightail it out of here if they don’t have anybody to lead ’em.”

“My sharpshooters will get you!” Brutus growled.

“Maybe.” Hickok nodded. “But it’s a long shot for them, and I’m only twenty yards from the Home and cover.” He winked at Brutus. “I think I’m gonna go for it.”

“Now you hold on!” Brutus exclaimed, a tinge of anxiety in his tone. “I came over here in good faith, under a white flag.”

“Nobody asked you to come.”

“I wanted to tell you how it is,” Brutus mentioned.

Hickok smiled. “I know how it is.”

“I’m not armed,” Brutus pointed out.

“So?”

“You’d kill an unarmed man?” Brutus demanded.

Hickok laughed. “You Civilized types ain’t much for brains, are you?”

He indicated the wall behind him “You’re threatening my Home, you scumbag! You want to kill my Family! I wouldn’t care if you were on your knees, beggin’ for mercy. I’d still blow you away.”

Brutus glanced over his left shoulder at the woods. “At least give me a running start.”

Hickok, overconfident, threw back his head and laughed again.

It was all the opening Brutus needed. His right foot swept up with surprising speed, catching the Warrior in his left thigh, impacting on the gunman’s wound, right on the bullet hole in his leg.

Hickok reacted instantly, his hands diving for the Pythons, and he was clearing leather when the heavy black boot struck his injury, causing an intensely excruciating wave of agony to wash over his body, doubling him over as he staggered backwards.

Brutus knew better than to try to jump the Warrior when the gunman was holding his revolvers. He whirled and raced for the forest, running a zigzag pattern, dropping the branch with the white flag.

The Family and Clan defenders on the west wall were gaping at the stunned Warrior, momentarily distracted from the fleeing Brutus.

Hickok dropped to his right knee, shaking his head to clear the pain.

He saw Brutus about 15 to 20 yards out, his sturdy legs pumping.

Something struck the ground in front of the gunman, spraying dirt over his moccasins.

The sharpshooters!

Hickok struggled to his feet and snapped off a shot from his right Python, his arm slightly unsteady from the torment in his leg.

More bullets were biting into the earth around the Warrior.

“Give him cover!” Spartacus shouted on the rampart.

The Family and Clan fighters started firing at the trees.

Hickok was furious! His first shot had apparently missed! The son of a bitch was still on his feet and making for the woods. Hickok forced his mind to ignore the anguish in his leg.

He couldn’t let Brutus get away!

The left Colt boomed and bucked in his hand.

About 40 yards away, Brutus stumbled and almost fell. He recovered and continued his mad sprint for the safety of the forest.

Blast!

Hickok hobbled to his right as the turf near him erupted in a shower of dirt and dry grass.

He had to hurry!

Both Pythons blasted.

Over 50 yards off, Brutus flung his long arms out and pitched onto his face.

Something tugged at Hickok’s right shoulder. He disregarded a fleeting twinge and limped forward, wanting to be sure, to put a few more rounds into Brutus.

More and more dirt kicked up at the gunfighter’s feet.

Brutus was on his hands and knees, wobbly, endeavoring to rise.

A squad of 15 soldiers burst from the tree line, hastening to the rescue of their leader, firing their M-16’s.

He had to nail Brutus!

Hickok managed three more shots, when strong arms encircled him from the rear and bodily lifted him from his feet.

“We can’t afford to lose you!” declared a voice in the gunman’s ear.

“Let me go!” Hickok bellowed. “I can get him, Spartacus!”

Spartacus, flanked by six other defenders, hurried toward the drawbridge, dragging the reluctant Hickok with him.

Although his arms were pinned to his side, Hickok could still move his elbows and wrists. He angled the barrels of his Pythons and fired each revolver.

Brutus, on his feet again, spun and clutched at his right side.

Dozens of troopers had emerged from the forest and were providing cover fire.

Spartacus reached the drawbridge with his squirming friend. A young woman from the Family abruptly groaned and toppled to the hard ground, not a foot away.

“Grab her!” Spartacus directed as he crossed the drawbridge.

Hickok ceased resisting once they were in the center of the drawbridge.

“Raise the drawbridge once we’re all inside!” Spartacus commanded.

He reached the inner bank and released the gunman.

The defenders on the west wall were still embroiled in their fire fight.

Hickok turned, frowning. “Why’d you butt in, pard?” he demanded. “I almost had the sucker.”

Spartacus placed his right hand on the gunman’s left shoulder. “There were too many of them. They were getting your range. Look. You’ve been hit again.”

Hickok glanced at his right shoulder. The buckskin fabric was torn, revealing a crimson patch underneath.

“I appreciate what you tried to do,” Spartacus continued, “but killing him was no guarantee the others would leave us alone.”

“It was worth a shot,” Hickok disputed him.

The drawbridge was clear, and the four men working the mechanism quickly elevated it.

The shooting on the western rampart was tapering off.

“Spartacus!” a man yelled down. “They made it to the trees!”

Hickok glanced up at the speaker, a burly Clan member with a Winchester. “And what about their leader? The guy in brown?”

“He must have been hurt real bad,” the Clansman replied. “They had to carry him the last twenty yards.”

“At least it wasn’t a total waste,” Hickok opined.

“Now we’re going to have the Healers examine you,” Spartacus informed his fellow Warrior.

“It’s too bad you’re not hitched yet, pard,” Hickok said.

“Why’s that?” Spartacus asked.

Hickok smirked. “Because someday you’re gonna make some child a terrific mother.”