The Savage American

Twenty paces from Victorio he turned and looked back; hardly discernibly, his right hand moved - Victorio caught the signal, throwing himself down and sideways into the hole. Rifle shots ripped and echoed across the meadow when a burning sensation blazed in his left shoulder. Cursing as he lay in the bottom of the hole, he knew every move by Beals had been planned.

He risked a look - Beals was sprawled, face down, across the ties, a wet, red patch glistened between his shoulders; his troops were starting a confused retreat until a tall miner turned them around.

Scrambling out of the hole, Victorio dashed to the barricade and hurled himself over the top. Congratulations and curses intermingled as Holden, Paul, Corey, Matt and other defenders gathered around him.

'You're hit.' Matt examined his shoulder.
'Not as bad as Beals, his troops shot him in the back.'
'There's a white flag--'
'Tell 'em to move out four, hands in the air and pick him up.'
'There's four of 'em, unarmed.'
The miners reached Beals, rolled him on his back, picked him up and carried the limp body until the curving walls took them out of sight.
'Think they've given up?'
'I don't think so.' Leaning on the barricade, he stared thoughtfully at the deserted right-of-way.
'Tonight, Victorio, they're waiting for cover.' Holden, out of character for him, displayed a trace of nerves.
'We'll be ready, we have floodlights zeroed in on the track. Let's get a sandwich.'
Darkness came quickly after the sun dropped behind the western range. Victorio displayed his grasp of tactics as he instructed the squad leaders.
'They'll come straight at us, full of booze and scared to death.'
They came on in darkness, a stumbling, cursing mob, and were caught in the floodlights when they reached the blast hole.
The tall, skinny Lambert, in the forefront, shouted, 'Get that bastard, Victorio.'
They were a vulnerable, close packed mob, destroying their advantage in numbers by crowding together, and trying to stay on the right-of-way. Floodlights made the ground underfoot and in front of them visible, it also blinded them to what was ahead and waiting.

Disciplined and eager, more than a hundred Willow Creek Apaches struck from the meadow.
As Beals' troops closed the interval on the run, tripping and stumbling over railroad ties and sprawled comrades, the massed force of their attack was lost when they bunched up at the barricade. They broke and ran, singly and in small groups, with Apaches in relentless pursuit.

Victorio drove a lunging miner to the ground, shrieking in pain as the impact of a pick handle smashed his shoulder. He took the next man from his blind side just as Carrol's reserve squads closed off the way into the railroad pass. It became a series of one-on-one assaults for Victorio; he was in his element, validating a reputation kindled in those angry years when frustration and law enforcement officers made him their special target.

He struck at sitting men, kneeling men, not caring where blows landed, wanting to hurt, to drive them out of his life. When fighting on the right-of-way ceased, he worked his way past the blast hole. They found him there straddling a huge man's middle; Carrol and two others dragged him off the unconscious enemy.

Bloody and raging, he was incoherent as they struggled with him to the barricade and doused him with a bucket of water. Reviving instantly, he fired three rapid shots, then repeated the pre-arranged signal to break off and reassemble. Some were out of range or too involved to respond.