The range was long, well over a hundred yards, and probably closer to two. On dry land, braced properly, Tiana would have been confident enough in the shot, even with one of her father’s muskets. Here, sitting in a canoe braced only with her own knees . . .
But the current was smooth, so the canoe was almost steady now that James had stopped paddling. And with the rising sun behind her, she had an excellent view of the target.
She’d trust John Ross, she decided. He might be a bad shot, but by all accounts the man was a shrewd trader. He’d have bought the best rifle available.
She aimed at the lead warrior in the canoe on the left. She’d try for a belly shot, as low as she could. If she missed, at least she might damage the canoe.
As always, when the gun went off, she was a little surprised. One of the reasons Tiana was such a good shot was that she knew how to squeeze a trigger instead of jerking it. She ascribed that to the superior virtues of women, trained in such practical and patient arts as sewing. Men, hunters, always tried to do things with a swagger.
“Hoo!” she heard James bellow. “Knocked him flat!”
She looked up and saw that he was right. Her shot must have caught the Chickasaw in the bow square on.
As good a rifle as Ross would have bought, her bullet might have passed right through the first man and hit the one behind him. The whole crew of that canoe collapsed into a confused pile, and the craft itself began yawing to the side.
She glanced at the canoe next to hers, and saw that Sequoyah had already assessed the new situation. He had his own musket up, aiming it at the other canoe.
Then, he shook his head and lowered the weapon. “Still too far, with my gun. If I miss the shot, I’ll have to waste time reloading.”
“Keep paddling ahead?” Ross asked.
“No,” replied James. “Just keep the boats steady in the current, to give Sequoyah and Tiana as good a shot as possible. Let them come to us, while the sun’s still half blinding them. The longer it takes, the better. Tiana will need a lot of time to reload that rifle.”
He twisted in his seat, squinting back. “The canoe behind us is still a long way upriver. I’m sure they thought we’d go ashore. So they stayed back as far as possible. That way they wouldn’t be swept past our landing spot by the current.”
Tiana heard her brother John chuckle, even as he kept wiping his eyes. “Can you blame them? Who’d expect Cherokees to turn a simple river fight into a stupid formal duel? Good thing our father isn’t here.”
Tiana chuckled herself. Her father had fought a number of duels in his life, but not one of them had been what you could call “formal.” Hell-Fire Jack’s opinion of formality in a gunfight ranked somewhere below his opinion of worms.
Best time to shoot a man is before he’s even got a gun in his hand. Better yet, before he’s even looking at you. Best of all, when he’s drunk or asleep, or both.
“Stop pawing at your eyes!” Tiana snapped, trying to keep her mind focused. “Splash some water on your face.” Unkindly, she added: “Even blind, you ought to be able to find some water. We’re in the middle of a river.”
John leaned over and stretched out his right hand. Then, started splashing water into his eyes.
“They say white men have tender and sensitive girls for sisters,” he muttered. “Mothers, too.”
“Not that I’ve seen,” Tiana retorted. “Maybe in the East. The way Sam tells it, his mother—”
“Tiana!” James barked. “You’d better get started on your reload. That’s a rifle, not a smoothbore musket.”
The reproof was unnecessary, since Tiana had already started. But, in the time that followed—it seemed like half a day—she realized why James had spoken so sharply.
Tiana had never fired a rifle before, and had been delighted by the result. Now, reloading one, she understood why warriors tended to curse the things—and why even American or European armies rarely used them.
A smoothbore musket could be reloaded in less than a minute. A rifle . . .
At one point, she almost despaired completely. Trying to force the bullet down that long and rifled barrel with a ramrod wasn’t beyond her strength, as such. Tiana was a very big woman and had the muscles to match her size. If she’d been standing, she’d have done it readily enough. Not easily, no. But she’d have done it, since she could have leaned her weight into the task.
But sitting in a canoe! That required pure strength of arm and shoulder. Nor did she dare to use the measure of last resort, which would have been to slam the butt against the ground. As dangerous as that was on dry land—the gun could easily go off—it was impossible in a canoe. Any impact hard enough to force the bullet down past the rifling would punch right through the thin hull.
Somewhere in the middle of her labors, she heard Sequoyah’s musket go off. Again, James gave out that exultant “hoo!,” but Tiana didn’t look up.
“Just wounded him, I think,” she heard Sequoyah say apologetically.
“Who cares?” came James’s reply. “That other canoe just started moving again, and now this one will be slowed. We’ll have time for at least one more shot for both of you. For that matter, we’ve got John’s—”
Tiana shook her head. “No. I want to save John’s musket until the end.”
She glanced up quickly, then focused back on her task. “They’re still more than a hundred yards off. I probably couldn’t hit them with the musket anyway. I’m surprised Sequoyah did.”
Eventually, it was done. Tiana had barely enough strength left to bring the rifle back to her shoulders, and she worried that she might be too weak to hold the gun steady.
It didn’t matter. By now, the nearest Chickasaw canoe was within fifty yards. That was the one Sequoyah had targeted, not the one she’d shot at.
At that range, Tiana could hit practically anything, even with a smoothbore.
Two of the Chickasaws, she saw, had already fired their guns. One, a musket; the other—stupid fool!—a pistol. Vaguely, she could remember hearing the sounds of the gunshots.
That left one Chickasaw with a loaded gun, the man farthest to the rear. He was starting to bring his musket up.
Tiana blew him right out of the canoe. Ross’s rifle was a heavy caliber, with a bore well over half an inch. The bullet must have struck the man in the middle of the chest. He almost did a full back somersault before his body hit the water.
Then Sequoyah’s gun fired again. The Chickasaw with the pistol seemed to fold up and collapse into the canoe.
“Three down!” barked James. “Forget that one. We’ll go around them, Ross. Start paddling.”
A moment later, both canoes were driving through the water again. Not a moment too soon, either. Out of the corner of her eye, Tiana saw something flashing toward them.
Turning her head, she saw an arrow plunge into the river, not more than five yards away. A second later, another one did the same, even closer.
Looking up, she could see several Chickasaw warriors on the north bank of the river. They were armed with bows. The traditional weapons were too awkward to use well in a canoe, so they must have given their few guns to the men who’d be carrying the attack onto the river.
They weren’t awkward to use on land, though. And “traditional” didn’t mean the same as “ineffective.” They were within bow range, too, even if at the extreme edge of it.
Tiana had seen the results of wounds inflicted by arrows. Worse than gunshot wounds, usually, since it was impossible to draw out the barbed arrowheads. They either had to be cut out or pushed all the way through the flesh. Removing the hideous things often caused more damage than the initial wound itself. They had to be removed, too. Bullets, dull and blunt, normally did little further damage once they were lodged in a body. And they tended to work their own way out, over time.
Not arrowheads, with their sharp edges. They’d keep cutting up flesh every time a person moved—and the barbs would make them work their way still deeper.
&nbs
p; James was obviously of the same mind. Instead of staying as far away from the enemy canoe as possible, he steered directly for it. The enemy warriors on the shore wouldn’t dare fire at them, right next to one of their own canoes. Although they were still within bow range, they were far enough away that the Chickasaws on the shore couldn’t aim very carefully.
“Get ready,” he hissed. “There’s still two of them left in that canoe.”
Three, really, since the man Sequoyah had wounded wasn’t completely out of the fight. In fact, he seemed to have the only remaining unfired gun. A pistol, which he could use even with one shoulder maimed. If he was tough enough.
He was. Tiana could see him raising the pistol, grimacing like a madman. At the point-blank range James was bringing them into, he couldn’t possibly miss.
“Here!” she heard John cry out. Still blinded from the splinters, her brother had been coolheaded enough to follow the progress of the battle by hearing alone. He was holding up his musket, thrusting it in her direction, gripping it one-handed by the barrel.
Even if Tiana had had the time to reload Ross’s rifle, she wouldn’t have had the strength. But the musket was already loaded. All she had to do was shoot.
She brought it quickly to her shoulder. But then she realized that James had already brought their canoe almost even with the enemy’s.
The Chickasaw canoe was on her right. Tiana was right-handed.
She didn’t even think to shift the butt to her left shoulder. That would have made for an awkward shot, but still an easy one to make, at such close range.
Instead, from reflex and excitement, she twisted and rose to a crouch. Brought the musket up.
“Tiana!” James shouted.
She fired the gun. The Chickasaw with the pistol went over the side of his canoe, spraying blood everywhere. The bullet had struck him in the neck, just above the chestbone.
Tiana went right over the side of her own canoe, almost capsizing it. Her brother’s musket had been as heavy a caliber as Ross’s rifle. Half standing as she’d been, poorly balanced, the recoil had sent her sailing.
But she didn’t let go of the musket. Tiana was almost as good a swimmer as her brothers, so she had her head back above the water within seconds. This time she’d remembered to close her mouth, too. She shook her head vigorously, to clear her eyes.
Unfortunately, that shook loose her turban, which must have starting coming undone somewhere in the course of the fight. Tiana’s hair was long, and black—and she never tied it back when she was wearing a turban. So, at the same time that she shook water out of her eyes, she shook her hair into them.
By the time she clawed the hair aside, the two canoes were side by side. James was now standing, his legs spaced and maintaining his balance. He held his paddle as easily as a war club.
One of the two remaining Chickasaws swung his own paddle. James parried the blow easily and then batted the man off the canoe. It was almost a gentle swipe. James simply wanted to clear him aside so he could concentrate on the second warrior, and he didn’t want to risk losing his own balance.
Fighting in a canoe was . . . tricky. As Tiana had just discovered.
The Chickasaw turned his plunge off the canoe into a fairly graceful dive. He landed in the water not far from Tiana herself. But she paid him no attention, since her eyes were riveted on the battle between James and the last warrior in the canoe.
James would win it, she was sure of that. She’d been told by old warriors that James was as good with a war club as any they’d ever seen—and a paddle makes for a pretty fair improvisation.
But he never had to. Another gun went off, just as the Chickasaw was rearing up for a strike. A pistol, by the sound. That surprised Tiana, since—if she remembered everything clearly—by now Sequoyah would have had his musket reloaded.
She looked over at the other canoe and saw that the shot had been fired by Nancy Ward. There was something grim and merciless about the old woman’s eyes as she watched the last Chickasaw topple overboard.
Nancy Ward was almost eighty years old. For a moment, Tiana was frozen by the sight. Half exultant—if she could be like that, at that age!—and half petrified. It was like watching some ancient, terrible creature, rising from its lair.
The voice of John Ross broke the trance.
“Tiana! Look out!”
Startled, Tiana tore her eyes away and saw that the Chickasaw whom James had sent into the river was now swimming toward her.
The half grin, half snarl on his painted face would have been enough to make clear his intentions. Even if he hadn’t had his knife clenched between his teeth so that his hands would be free, allowing him to swim more quickly.
Tiana had been in a lot of fights, the way girls will. A couple of them had been ferocious, with Tiana leaving her opponent unconscious. In one case, the person had received a broken arm.
This had been her first real battle, however, fought with weapons and with deadly purpose. But of all the things that happened that day, this attack was the only one that made her truly furious.
Why is he doing this?
“You idiot!” she shrieked, as the man came up to her. His last breaststroke left his head completely exposed.
Tiana was six feet tall, strong for her size, and a very good swimmer. A powerful thrust of her legs sent her up. She raised the musket out of the water, holding it in one hand.
The Chickasaw’s eyes widened. He hadn’t spotted the musket.
“Idiot!” she shrieked again. Her grip on the musket butt felt like iron. So did the butt strike itself, when it came down on the warrior’s head.
His eyes rolled up. Blood spurted from the corners of his mouth as his jaws clenched on the knife between his teeth.
Tiana brought the butt up for another strike, but by the time she could kick her legs again to get into position, the Chickasaw was gone. She thought she might have felt his fingers tugging on one of her leggings, for just a moment, as he sank beneath the surface.
But she wasn’t sure. As hard as she’d hit him, he’d been too dazed to do anything that wasn’t pure reflex. He’d probably drown, unless someone fished him out.
Which Tiana had no intention of doing. She started swimming back to the canoe. Moving more awkwardly than she normally would have. Whatever else, she wasn’t going to let go of the musket. There were monsters in the river.
James hauled her aboard, none too gently. Just a powerful heave that sent her sprawling into the canoe, while he went back to paddling.
“Next time,” he growled, “don’t stand up to fight in a canoe. Unless you know what you’re doing. Which you don’t.”
Tiana made no retort. She was too busy scrabbling to get her head above the side of the vessel, so she could see what was happening with the other enemy canoe.
Nothing.
It was now at least forty yards off. The three men left in it—she must have hit two of them, after all, with that first rifle shot—were just staring. Then, as if her gaze was the trigger, they suddenly started paddling away.
Sequoyah had never fired again, she realized. She looked over and saw that the lame warrior was just sitting in his canoe, calmly and confidently, his musket ready. He’d been waiting for the enemy to come closer so he could kill one of them.
But the Chickasaws had had enough.
Shakily, but proudly, Tiana realized that this fight on the river was going to become a small legend of its own. Six Cherokees—one of them an old woman—had faced almost twice that number of enemies. And they’d left seven of them dead or badly wounded, while not suffering a single casualty of their own.
She gloated too soon. The one and only casualty they suffered that day happened two seconds later. An arrow fired from the riverbank almost maimed her. Fortunately, the wicked arrowhead left only a gash on the back of her left hand, before slicing off into the water. If it had struck her wrist squarely, she’d have lost the hand.
“You’re lucky,” Nancy Ward said to her lat
er, once they came ashore several miles farther down the river.
The old woman finished replacing Tiana’s own quick dressing with an expert bandage. “It didn’t cut any of the tendons. You’ll have a scar there, for a while. But I think it’ll eventually fade away.”
Tiana hoped it wouldn’t, although she didn’t say it aloud. Nancy Ward had been her heroine since she’d been a little girl. And now, Tiana had the visible proof that she wasn’t unfit to travel in her company.
“And don’t get too swellheaded,” Nancy murmured. “That’s a much worse kind of wound. Most people never recover from it.”
“I won’t,” Tiana promised.
Nancy patted her cheek. “Oh, yes, you will. Why shouldn’t you? You were very brave, and very good—and you can take that from a woman who knows. Just don’t let the swelling get too big, that’s all.”
Alas, James must have heard the softly spoken words. He had very good hearing.
“No chance of that,” he chuckled. “The Raven’ll shrink her head right down. Best-looking girl in John Jolly’s band, and he won’t pay any attention to her at all.”
She scowled at him. That was probably true, but . . .
Her other brother was grinning at her, too! John had finally washed the splinters out of his eyes. Luckily, there didn’t seem to be any permanent damage.
“What are you looking at?” she demanded. “Now that looking doesn’t do anybody any good.”
John’s grin just widened. “Oh, how quick with a blade she is! What you’d expect, of course, from a great warrior woman. But you still shouldn’t sneer at your brother, even if his own exploits didn’t match yours.”
Tiana glared at both of them. “The two of you are making fun of me.”
“No, we’re not,” James said. To her surprise, his tone was firm and calm, not jocular. “We’re just telling you the truth.”
“You should find a different husband,” John agreed. “Colonneh isn’t right for you.”