War Party (Ss) (1982) (19 page)

"Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill"; "Come Where My Love Lies Dreaming" and "Shenandoah."

Day came and found Finn McGraw in the store, ready for battle. The old lust for battle that is the birthright of the Irish had risen within him. Never, from the moment he realized that he was alone in a town about to be raided by Apaches, had he given himself a chance for survival. Yet it was the way of the Irish to fight, and the way even of old, whisky-soaked Finn.

An hour after dawn, a bullet struck him in the side. He spun half-around, fell against the flour barrels and slid to the floor. Blood flowed from the slash, and he caught up a handful of flour and slapped it against the wound. Promptly he fired a shot from the door, an aimless shot, to let them know he was still there. Then he bandaged his wound.

It was a flesh wound, and would have bled badly but for the flour. Sweat trickled into his eyes, grime and powder smoke streaked his face. But he moved and moved again, and his shotguns and rifles stopped every attempt to approach the building. Even looting was at a minimum, for he controUed most of the entrances, and the Apaches soon found they must dispose of their enemy before they could profit from the town.

Sometime in the afternoon, a bullet knocked him out, cutting a furrow in his scalp, and it was Hearing dusk when his eyes opened. His head throbbed with enormous pain, his mouth was dry. He rolled to a sitting position and took a long pull at the Irish, feeling for a shotgun. An Apache was even then fumbling at the door.

He steadied the gun against the corner of a box. His eyes blinked. He squeezed off both barrels and, hit in the belly, the Apache staggered back.

At high noon on the fourth day, Major Magruder with a troop of cavalry, rode into the streets of Sentinel. Behind him were sixty men of the town, all armed with rifles.

At the edge of town, Major Magruder lifted a hand. Jake Carter and Dennis Magoon moved up beside him. "I thought you said the town was deserted?"

His extended finger indicated a dead Apache.

Their horses walked slowly forward. Another Apache sprawled there dead . . . and then they found another.

Before the store four Apaches lay in a tight cluster, another savage was stretched at the side of the walk. Windows of the store were shattered and broken, a great hole had been blasted in the door. At the Major's order, the troops scattered to search the town. Magruder swung down before the store.

"I'd take an oath nobody was left behind," Carter said.

Magruder shoved open the store. The floor inside was littered with blackened cartridge cases and strewn with empty bottles. "No one man could fire that many shells or drink that much whisky," Magruder said positively.

He stooped, looking at the floor and some flour on the floor. "Blood," he said.

In the saloon they found another empty bottle and an empty box of cigars.

Magoon stared dismally at the empty bottle. He had been keeping count, and all but three of the bottles of his best Irish glory was gone. "Whoever it wap," he said sorrowfully, "drank up some of the best whiskey ever brewed."

Carter looked at the piano. Suddenly he grabbed Magoon's arm. "McGraw!" he yelled.

"'Twas Finn McGraw!"

They looked at each other. It couldn't be! And yet-who had seen him? Where was he now?

"Who," Magruder asked, "is McGraw?"

They explained, and the search continued. Bullets had clipped the corners of buildings, bullets had smashed water barrels along the street. Windows were broken, and there were nineteen dead Indians-but no sign of McGraw.

Then a soldier yelled from outside of town, and they went that way and gathered around.

Under the edge of a mesquite bush, a shotgun beside him, his new suit torn and blood-stained, they found Finn McGraw.

Beside him lay two empty bottles of the Irish. Another, partly gone, lay near his hand.

A rifle was propped in the forks of the bush, and a pistol had fallen from his holster. There was blood on his side and blood on his head and face.

"Dead!" Carter said. "But what a battle!" Magruder bent over the old man, then he looked up, a faint twinkle breaking the gravity of his face. "Dead, all right," he said. "Dead drunk!"