We’re going to have enough trouble with the weather without worrying about them. If this rain gets heavy, we’re going to have limited visual contact. Get the men saddled up; we’re moving out in five minutes.”
Adrian’s group of ten men moved swiftly through the draw. Daylight would be breaking in a few minutes, but the light would be subdued by the heavy cloud cover and the light rain that was falling sporadically. A huge thunderstorm was moving in rapidly from the southwest. The booming thunder was coming closer and the lightning was nearly constant. Adrian was worried about continuing this operation with the storm rapidly approaching, and thought briefly of pulling back and waiting out the storm, but he was aware that it would be as much hindrance for Rex’s men as it would be for his. It could also give Rex cover to move his men. Under cover of heavy rain, they could disappear and be hell to find and fight without the right terrain.
When they got within a hundred yards of the raiders’ line Adrian said in a voice too soft to carry beyond his men, “Remember, our mission is to draw them together and then to run like hell, getting them to chase us. We’re going to open fire in a minute—this is one of the few times I don’t want you to carefully pick your targets. I want you to lay down a steady barrage of fire, moving back and forth frequently to make it look like there are more of us than just eleven men. We want them to think this is the main body, and that means faking them out to believe there are a lot more of us right here. Now, spread out in a line with thirty feet intervals between you, five to each side of me. When I fire, start firing, fire three or four shots, move over a few feet fire, and move back, and keep repeating until we fall back. Keep your heads down, just point and shoot. Okay, spread out.”
MARCH 28, DAWN
Adrian waited patiently for the light to improve. He watched the storm coming closer and hoped it would veer off or break up, but it didn’t look like it would. He guessed they had maybe a half-hour before it was on top of them. He had already sent his orders to all the groups to continue the operation through the storm.
Adrian sighted on a raider and squeezed off a shot, thinking, might as well make the first shot count. Then he began shooting rapidly. With his first shot, the ten men in his group opened up. It was an impressive barrage of bullets flying into the raiders. The men fired, shifted, fired again. From the raiders’ perspective, it would seem that they were being attacked by at least thirty men. The raiders quickly took cover and began sporadically firing back. The sound of rifles could easily be heard above the rolling thunder of the storm. The storm’s wind front hit at the same time, wind gusts struck like a hurricane, bending and whipping trees, tearing off tree limbs, debris flying through the air. It was a wild scene: men shooting and shouting, wind blowing, thunder rumbling and lightning flashing, muzzle flashes, screams of agony and rage as the sun gradually gained in height. The air turned cold as the wind surge died down. Adrian’s men were keeping up a steady stream of fire through it all.
The raiders were pulling into a tight center, Rex apparently falling for the bait, as well as recognizing that the storm would cause communication problems if his men were strung out and groups of them might wander into each other. They were firing back, their firing getting heavier as they settled into a line.
Adrian signaled for his men to slow down the fire, as though they might be running low on ammunition, then he slowed it down more. Then during a flash of lightning he saw Rex’s men slowly moving forward. Adrian gave his men the signal to run, stopping only occasionally to turn and fire back. As they began their retreat into the draw Rex’s men boiled out of the trees running, their bloodlust stirred up at the sight of the retreating enemy. Adrian could see that Rex had lost control of his men—at least temporarily—as they charged headlong at high speed. The trap was working, as it had thousands of times throughout history. It played on a particular primal instinct,