Where were Roman and the others? Had they already been murdered, too? The thought was too awful to consider.
Before I became paralyzed in fright, I pried Emily’s fingers from me and said, “Go! Go warn as many people as you can. Go to every teepee and help people get to safety.”
Her eyes shone with fear as she stared at me. “What will you do?”
“I’ve got weapons. I will fight.”
Emily looked like she was about to protest. We didn’t have time to squabble.
“Do it!” I pointed toward the other dwellings. “Go, now!”
She raced from my dwelling, slogging through the rain.
I retrieved my weapons from my thigh, exited my teepee, and rushed toward a Kiowa.
With his eyes ringed in white and feathers in his hair, he gripped a woman by her hair in one hand and held a knife to her throat with the other hand.
The woman’s eyes were wide with terror. She caught sight of me, and her pleading gaze cut me to the quick.
My legs powered toward her.
With a piercing war cry, the Kiowa slit her throat. When he spied me, an evil grin spread across his face. He took his knife and cut off her hair, scalp included. Waving it at me, he shouted words I didn’t understand, but I got their meaning.
He was no doubt indicating that I’d be next.
Without hesitation, I took aim at his forehead, pointing my Glock at him.
A quizzical expression tugged his face as he stared at my weapon. I pulled the trigger of my Glock.
With blood and brains spraying from his skull, he flew backward and collapsed on the muddy earth. The puddle beneath him grew crimson, stained by the life essence draining from what was left of his head.
A white warhorse galloped toward me with a warrior on its back. The horse’s eyes and nostrils had been ringed with red, and black handprints were all over its powerful chest.
The Kiowa on its back looked equally gruesome, painted similarly with his tomahawk held high over his head. He let out a guttural scream as he galloped toward me.
One bullet from my gun to his bare chest had him sailing off the back of the rearing horse. He collapsed in the mud. All his limbs lay akimbo while a gaping, ragged hole had been torn through his chest. His chest rose and fell, but it wouldn’t be long until he rode the river of blood bubbling from his chest to the spirit land.
Twelve bullets left.
I whipped right and left, determining who to kill next.
I spun around at the sound of pounding footsteps to find a Kiowa sprinting toward me, his spear readied to skewer me.
I barely had time to react, so my aim was off. The bullet zinged through his shoulder, and the spear flew to the ground.
He slapped his palm to the wound to stop the bleeding while I raced toward his fallen weapon.
Snatching it from the ground, I cocked back my arm and hurled it toward him.
The tip of the spear landed in the hollow of his throat.
He gave a gurgling shout and dropped to the ground, tugging the spear free from his neck. Then, his arms fell limp, and his eyes stared at the overcast sky.
Thunder rumbled from directly overhead, drowning out the screams of the Sioux. A crack of sheet lightning followed. More thunder and lightning followed in quick succession. The skies opened, heaving a torrent of rain over our heads.
I could barely see as I slogged through the deluge, my hair pasted to my face, water running down my body as if I wore no clothes. I stepped over the women’s bodies clutching their dead children to their chests as they lay in horrified silence, eyes staring at the beyond.
I cried out, enraged, as I lifted my gun and shot two more Kiowa.
