"You're right! Guess you're right! It's just that I'm so lashing mad I'd
do about anything! I'm never going to like an Indian again if I live to
be five hundred years old!"
"They burned your buildings. I saw the smoke."
"That's probably why they weren't hot on our trail; they were too busy
looting! I suppose they got my cow and pigs too, but I saved the horses
and Martha got her hen out. That's some hen! I wouldn't swap her for a
farm!"
"Better come up and get a dressing on that arm."
"Just a scratch," Winterson assured him. "It doesn't amount to anything.
What are we going to do now? Send somebody to Camp Axton to bring the
soldiers?"
"Too dangerous," Joe decided. "One man alone could be ambushed and we
have four rifles now. We'd better figure on making a stand right here."
"Who's the fourth rifle?"
"Tad, and he'll be a good one. That kid can shoot the whiskers off a cat
at a hundred yards. Did you bring plenty of bullets?"
"Just what's in my pouch. We didn't have time to grab as much as we'd
have liked."
"Well, we have lead and molds. We can rig a mold to fit your rifle.
Let's go in before the womenfolk decide we've all been scalped."
Still more angry than frightened, Martha Winterson had taken Carlyle on
her lap and was relating the story of the raid. Barbara and Emma
listened closely, while the three younger children stood silently near.
Too young to appreciate exactly what had happened, they knew it was
something out of the ordinary and they digested it as such. A look of
eager excitement on his face, Tad was sitting in front of the fireplace
melting lead in a ladle and molding bullets for his rifle.
"That's enough," Joe ordered. "Leave some lead for the rest of us."
"But what if there's a whole mob of them?"
"Everybody still has to shoot."
Martha rose and, despite her swollen body, there was a supple grace
about her as she moved across the floor to her husband.
"Now I'll fix that arm, Henry," her voice was faintly apologetic. "There
wasn't time to do it before."
She unbuttoned his shirt, removed it, and bared the bloody arm. The
bullet had torn through one side, missing the big muscle and the artery,
and leaving only a flesh wound. Martha washed the dried blood away and
put a cold compress over the still-bleeding wound.
"Would you have some whisky?" she appealed to Joe. "This should really
be sterilized."
"Don't have a drop," Joe admitted. "I didn't bring any."
"I did," Emma announced. She reached into her trunk, brought out a brown
bottle, and glanced aside at Joe. "I brought it for emergencies only."
"Thank you, Emma." Martha Winterson pursed her lips, dampened one side
of her cloth with whisky, and said, "Now this may sting a little."
While her husband gritted his teeth and made a face, she applied the
antiseptic. "The bullet wasn't that bad!"
"Now don't be a baby," Martha chided. "You won't feel it in a little
while."
"Probably won't be able to feel anything," he grumbled.
Martha applied a clean bandage and Henry put his shirt back on. He
wandered restlessly to look out of a front window. Anger flared in his
face. Henry Winterson cherished his house. Nobody was going to destroy
it and go unpunished.
"Wish they'd come," he said nervously. "Wish they would. The day I left
Vermont my brother Enos said, 'Henry, what are you going to do if
Indians attack?' Those were his very words. That's exactly what he said
to me. 'If the Indians attack,' I said, 'I'm going to shoot them dead in
their tracks.' And by gosh, I didn't. But I aim to."