Wings of the Wind

by Credo Fitch Harris

The next move appeared in the direction of our kitchen, when several shadowy forms began to dart from tree to tree. The same plan was being adopted as that which they had used at the ditch: one man, his advance covered by a hot fire from the others, would stoop and run forward to a previously selected place, then a second, third, and so on, each beginning to shoot from the new position, as he got to it. These tactics might successfully be repeated until the last barrier of trees, not more than twenty yards from us, was gained. But now a fellow showed himself a moment too long and I thought I dropped him, because a howl of rage went up from his mates.

I was keeping the two rifles very busy by this time, and Doloria could scarcely load one before the other was being passed to her. Each side had resorted to the expediency of rising, firing and ducking down again. They were too near for me to risk an inch of head for more than the necessary fraction of a second, and sometimes, in my haste, I aimed at nothing at all. A vigorous fire, whether effective or not, would hold off their rush. But when I peeped over the next time a rifle, protruding from around a tree, showed me that one, at least, had reached the nearest point of cover. I banged at it and ducked, as several shots whizzed over me. It was rather discouraging work, this of being forced to keep down! Another brief silence on their part was suggestive of a new move, and I felt sure that they were preparing for a charge.

Calling this to Doloria, I began to bob up at different places along the wall, trying in a frenzy to check them, and for the moment was successful. Then I heard her give a cry, as a bullet split the stock of the rifle she was loading.

"Some one's in a tree shooting down at us! Look out!" she called, rolling over to get beneath the nearer wall.

Upon hearing this I gave up trying to dodge, and stood to the parapet determined to drop as many as possible before being dropped myself; for if their number were materially reduced she might be able, as a last resort, to come off victor with the automatic. And spurred by this intention I faced them so resolutely that they were compelled to hug their cover. But a second shot from the tree, slanting downward, struck the surface of the sand filling we had used between our walls; it hit a few inches directly in front of my face, knocking up a shower of grit that, for the moment, completely blinded me.

I must have wheeled around with my arm across my eyes, because the men believed that I'd been done for, and with a triumphant howl started forward. Doloria, too, thought the end had come, and gave one despairing cry that I shall remember if I live a thousand years. Through my blurred vision I got a glimpse of her face, a blending of courage and horror and purpose, as she raised the automatic to her temple.

And then by some divine insight I sprang and snatched it away. The howls of triumph had ceased; no leering enemy appeared above our parapet. The smart in my eyes was passing enough for me to see four of them running southward across the prairie with the speed of deer, and suddenly I knew that, without realizing it, I had just been hearing other rifle shots. Whirling about, I saw emerging from a near-by point in the ditch several figures, shouting and waving their hats.

"Tommy," I yelled, "Gates, Echochee, Smilax!" I did not name them all, but turned quickly as Doloria flew into my arms. "We're saved, sweetheart! The dice have rolled for us!"

She was crying a little, clinging to my neck, talking fast, but saying only one thing. And although Tommy afterwards declared that for a time there was such a silence in the fort that he believed we had been killed, I consider this but one of his verbal extravagances; for it seemed only a second after he waved before we were on the parapet waving back to him.

Yet, in the midst of my wildest cheer I stopped. It stuck in my throat, it dried up as the fountain of my gladness seemed suddenly to have gone dry, and I looked at her. There must have been a great pain in my eyes—not physical, for that was transient and had passed—because she touched them, whispering: