Wildest Dreams - By Rosanne Bittner Page 0,51

The Indians were still coming, and an arrow landed in one of the hay bales right in front of him. He glanced up the hill at the house to see Lettie pick up Nathan and go running inside. He turned back and took aim then, realizing he had something much more precious than his horses to protect. Will had warned him that if Indians came to steal a few horses, he should let them have them rather than try to fight them, but he had two children and a pregnant wife to think about. He couldn't just sit here and let the oncoming savages get by him and possibly steal off with Lettie and the children. He leveled his rifle and took aim, waiting for them to get close enough that he was sure he could not miss.

All but one of them stopped then near the edge of the herd of horses. The one who kept coming looked as though he was built a little smaller than the others, maybe someone quite a bit younger. So be it. If he was old enough to steal horses, he was old enough to take the risks involved. If he let them get away with this the first time, they would keep coming back until he had nothing left. For all he knew this single warrior was some kind of decoy. They seemed to be playing a game, as though to tempt him, dare him. The lone warrior halted, daringly raised a bow, as though asking Luke to try to shoot him. He drew back the bow and let an arrow fly. It whirred through the air and stuck in the shed behind which Luke stood. The young man then maneuvered roughly ten of Luke's finest horses from the herd, laughing and whooping the whole time.

Luke kept his rifle level. He was one against many. Jim had gone into Billings to see about hiring more help. Had these Indians been watching him all along? Did they know he was here alone? Maybe they thought that because of that, he would behave like a coward. Maybe they thought he had run to the shed just to hide while they had their pick of his finest animals. He dared not allow any of them to get too confident or get too close. He kept the show-off warrior in his sight, then squeezed the trigger. The warrior jerked his pony to a stop, sat stiffly a moment, then crumpled and slid off his horse.

Luke felt his heart pounding as the rest of the warriors grew very silent.

"Luke!" Lettie screamed from the house.

"Stay inside!" he yelled back, keeping his eyes on the Indians. They seemed to be discussing something, and finally one of the biggest among them raised a lance with a white cloth tied to it, then rode toward the Indian man Luke had shot. He straddled a horse that looked familiar. "Red!" Luke muttered then. Was it the notorious Half Nose who rode his own stolen horse? He was too far away to get a good look at him. The man wore only a loincloth and a bone breastplate. He kept holding the lance in the air as though to signify he meant no harm, that Luke should not shoot.

Luke waited breathlessly. The warrior reached the fallen body, dismounted, and bent over it. After a moment he leaned back and let out a cry so heartwrenching that even Luke was touched. "Jesus," he whispered. Who the hell had he shot? Will had told him the one called Half Nose had a teenage son. The man picked up the body and laid it over the spotted pony that had carried it into the valley, then mounted Red. He picked up the pony's leather reins and sat staring up the hill at where Luke remained crouched behind the hay. He yelled something in the Sioux tongue, but Luke did not understand, except that the anguish in the man's voice told him he had killed someone very special. The man turned and rode off then with the other warriors.

Luke slowly rose, watching after them, glad Jim was due back tomorrow with extra men. They just might be needed in more ways than one. If the warrior who had just paid him a visit was the one called Half Nose, he would surely be back. "Damn," he muttered. His gut reaction had been to protect Lettie and the children, but now he worried he had just made things worse