Kings Pinnacle (13 page)

The trail that the Iroquois
band left was leading the men west northwest toward an Iroquois
village or longhouses as the Iroquois called them. They were on the
trail for most of the afternoon when they spied fresh sign that the
warriors were near.

Alex and the Longhunter
almost rode directly into the Iroquois camp before they realized it
was there, but the Longhunter stopped them just in time, and they
back-tracked until they could work their way south to some low
hills. The band was camped in a small ravine beside a creek near
some scrubby trees. Alex and the Longhunter tied up their horses
and hiked up the highest nearby hill so that they could look down
into the camp with the sun at their backs. The hills were very
rocky and rough. There were plenty of places to hide and plenty of
cover that they could use to observe the camp. The main problem
with the location they had selected was that they were situated
almost three hundred yards from the Iroquois camp.

The Longhunter pulled out a
small spy glass that he had acquired in Williamsport and looked
into the camp. Alex’s young eyes did not need a telescope to let
him know what was going on in the camp. Some of the warriors were
just setting up camp for the night and getting the horses picketed
while another group was gathering downed wood to start a fire. The
captured girl was sitting on the ground next to some scrubby trees,
as far away from the braves as she could get. She wasn’t tied up
and appeared to be in good condition in spite of the death of her
parents, her captivity, and the long ride that followed.

“We’ll wait till nightfall
and make our move after most of the braves are asleep,” whispered
the Longhunter to Alex, who was lying beside him just below the
crest of the hill, where they had positioned themselves so that
they would not be silhouetted against the skyline.

“Sounds good to me,”
whispered Alex as he pulled up his rifle, Slayer, and sighted in on
one of the warriors down his long barrel.

“That’d be a pretty fair
shot from up here. It’s about two hundred and fifty yards,”
whispered the Longhunter. He knew that the normal accuracy of a
smooth bore musket was only about a hundred yards or maybe a little
more. He had no idea that Alex’s range was well beyond that because
of the modifications that he had made to his rifle barrel and
sights.

“Yep,” whispered Alex as he
zeroed in on the brave, looking down the rifle sights.

As the sun dropped below the
hilly skyline, the camp became cloaked in the shadow of the hills
located just to the west of the camp. Alex and the Longhunter were
lying just below the ridge, so they were in shadows, as well as
being well-concealed behind some rocks and brush. As the light was
fading, two of the young Iroquois braves walked over to where the
girl was sitting and began to paw at her. The girl fought back
bravely, but Alex and the Longhunter knew what the outcome of this
battle was going to be, and they didn’t like the prospect of
watching what was unfolding before their eyes.

“Change of plans,” whispered
Alex as he pulled his musket flintlock back to cock the weapon and
sighted his barrel toward the unfolding drama being played out
below him. Alex didn’t hesitate to enter into the fray to try to
save the girl, or into any fight for that matter. If he thought he
was right, he never looked back, regardless of the odds. He looked
at the tree tops nearby to gauge the strength and direction of the
wind. Then he calculated the effects of gravity on the musket ball
since he was shooting downward from near the crest of the
hill.

One of the Iroquois was just
standing by watching while the other one bent down and started
tearing open the buttons on the back of the girl’s dress. The girl
fought back as well as she could, but she was no match for the
greater strength of the Iroquois. As soon as the brave had
partially undressed her, he stood up next to his friend and began
to unfasten the laces on his buckskin pants. When the big Iroquois
turned to say something to his friend, Alex waited for just the
right moment in his breathing, aimed Slayer just above and slightly
to the left of the head of the Iroquois nearest to him to account
for the wind, and then he squeezed the trigger. In less than a
second, both Iroquois fell to the ground dead as the single musket
ball passed through the neck of the brave nearest to Alex and then
traveled onward through the chest of the other warrior. Alex had
killed two warriors with one musket ball, a shot for the record
books. If luck had not been on his side and the two Iroquois had
not lined up so perfectly for him, he would never have had the
chance to make a shot like that.

The Longhunter had watched
the shot through his small telescope and chuckled softly. Then he
reached over to pat Alex on the shoulder to congratulate him on the
shot, but Alex was already gone.

As the two Iroquois fell to
the ground, the sound of the gun discharge suddenly echoed back and
forth between the hills across the ravine. It was difficult for the
braves to tell exactly which direction the shot had come from in
the twilight, but Alex was already on the move. As soon as he had
fired the shot, he jumped up and ran back in a crouch over the
crest of the hill to reload Slayer. The girl had gotten up,
gathered up as much of her tattered clothing as she could, and run
toward the low hills, away from the warriors. The Iroquois had all
dived to the ground for cover as soon as they heard the shot. They
appeared to be still confused about where the shot had come
from.

Alex worked his way back
around in the direction that the girl was running and took up
another firing position about a hundred yards away from where the
Longhunter was lying. The Iroquois band was just beginning to
unravel the situation and figure out where the shot had come from.
As soon as the first Iroquois stood up and started moving in the
direction the girl had fled so that he could recover her, Alex
fired again and dropped him to the ground with a musket ball
through his chest. This shot had come from a slightly different
direction and the echo of its discharge further confused the
warriors.

The Longhunter got the idea
about what Alex was doing and pulled up his musket, aiming it
toward the Iroquois. He knew that he wasn’t even in the same league
as Alex in marksmanship or range, but his shots could keep the
braves down and make them think they were facing a greater number
enemies.

Alex dropped back over the
rise to reload Slayer and move further along the ridge toward the
young woman.

* * * *

Robert and Hugh

It was an hour before midnight, when a
ruckus in the inn downstairs instantly brought Robert fully
awake.

“
Get up Hugh and grab your
gear,” said Robert as he shook Hugh awake.

The disturbance downstairs
was getting louder and coming up the inn’s stairs toward the
sleeping rooms. Robert pushed open the single window of their room
and climbed out onto the window sill. It was full dark outside, but
the half moon lit up the landscape and buildings below. Their room
was located at the back of the inn, and the room’s window opened
onto a narrow lane behind the inn rather than onto the small inner
courtyard like most of the other rooms in the inn. Robert jumped
down from the sill onto the roof of a storage shed that had been
built behind the inn, and Hugh soon followed suit after closing the
window. No sooner had they jumped when a soldier kicked open the
door to their room.

“
Where are they?” asked
the Sheriff of Wigtown after he had surveyed the room and found the
men missing.

He turned to the fat innkeeper and gave
him a questioning look.

“They must be in a different
room. Search the whole inn,” shouted the innkeeper to the soldiers
who had kicked in the door following orders from the
sheriff.

Robert and Hugh climbed down
off the storage shed’s roof and entered the inn’s stable through
its back door. It took only a few moments to saddle up their horses
and sling their bags behind their saddles. Rather than ride out
through the courtyard and alert their pursuers, they walked their
horses out the back door of the stable and into the alley behind
the inn, where they mounted up and rode silently away.

Robert led the way on Hack
as they turned west out of Stranraer on the military road back
toward Portpatrick. In the darkness, he almost missed the trail
that forked to the right, which was the north-south trail that ran
along the west bank of Loch Ryan. But he saw it just in time and
reined Hack to the right. Robert estimated that it was not yet
midnight, so he hoped that the old fisherman might be a little
early.

* * * *

Alex

Alex and the Longhunter
were alternating taking shots at the warriors every minute or so
and Alex was moving to a new position after each shot he fired. The
alternating shots, coming from different directions, were keeping
the Iroquois down under cover and completely confused as Alex moved
closer and closer to the girl with each succeeding leap. Alex’s
shots were doing much more damage than the Longhunter’s shots, but
the Longhunter was picking big easy targets and had killed two of
the Iroquois’ ponies, which to the tribe were almost as valuable as
a warrior.

Alex finally reached a
position near the girl. He moved out away from the hills so that
she could see him. She didn’t see him at first, but after he
whistled at her, she finally saw him. He motioned for her to come
over to him, so she changed directions and ran over to where Alex
was waiting. She stood there looking at him while holding what was
left of her torn dress over her chest.

The girl was nearly
unclothed from the waist up, so Alex pulled off his shirt and
handed it to her while trying to keep his eyes averted. She turned
away from him and slipped his shirt over her head. Then she tied
her skirts up with a piece of cloth that she tore off the bottom of
her dress so that she could run without tripping or mount a horse
without worrying about her skirts. The girl was a lot smaller than
Alex had expected, and she looked to Alex like she was a bit
younger than the Longhunter had estimated. Alex also thought that
she was easily one of the prettiest girls that he had ever seen.
She evidently was a plucky fighter, enduring the Iroquois and still
having the presence of mind to escape when she got the
chance.

“Are you okay?” asked
Alex.

The girl nodded her head in a manner
that reminded Alex of his brother Robert.

“Thanks for the shirt, and
thanks for saving me,” replied the girl.

“You put up a good fight,
but they were too big, and there were too many of them. Let’s get
out of here,” replied Alex.

Together they ran back below
the hills to join the Longhunter, while stopping occasionally for
Alex to take a shot at the band, just to keep them down. It took
them a short while to work their way back to the Longhunter’s
perch. The darkness was deepening as the evening wore
on.

When they arrived back at
the Longhunter’s location, they were both out of breath. The
Longhunter nodded to the girl and noticed that she was wearing
Alex’s shirt. He thought that Alex was pretty chivalrous to give
the girl his shirt. He didn’t know if he would have thought of that
or not if he had rescued the girl.

“Are you okay now?” the
Longhunter asked the girl.

“I’m fine, Mr. Glendenning.
What are we going to do now?”

“We can’t keep this up long.
They’ll soon figure a way to come at us, and there’s too many of
them and not enough of us,” said the Longhunter.

“
Maybe we should make a
run for it,” said Alex.

“That was my thought
exactly. Ye two ride the grey, she can carry ye both and I’ll ride
the pony,” replied the Longhunter.

Alex, the girl, and the
Longhunter ran beside the horses for a distance until they were
well out of earshot of the warrior band. Then they mounted the
horses and rode off at a gallop with the Longhunter taking the
lead, followed by Alex with the girl sitting behind him. Alex was
following the Longhunter as closely as he could in the gathering
darkness.

It didn’t take the Iroquois
long to determine that no more shots were being fired at them when
they moved around, so they mounted up and rode a circuit around the
ravine ridge in order to determine how many had attacked them and
which way they had gone. They soon found the trail and determined
that it was only two horses, so they took off after them into the
night, in hot pursuit.

As Alex let the grey run,
the girl wrapped her arms around his waist with her hands locked
tightly together at his stomach, holding on for dear life as they
rode on the moonlit trail. Alex was keenly aware of her body
pressed firmly against his back. The Longhunter was riding the pony
well ahead, and Alex was pressing the grey to follow as closely as
he dared.

Just when it looked like
they would get away with taking the girl from the warriors and
escaping, the grey jumped a shallow ditch. In the dark, her front
hooves landed in a hole and both of her front fetlocks cracked like
twin shots. The horse stumbled forward, throwing Alex and the girl
over its head to the ground. Alex and the girl rolled with the fall
and got right up, but the grey did not. In addition to her
fetlocks, the hard fall had also broken the horse’s neck, and she
lay dead on her side in the middle of the trail.