Captain Fly-by-Night

by Johnston McCulley

Helpless to warn or aid, he crouched behind the rocks at the top of the hill and watched the drama unfold below him. Lopez and the troopers reached the crest of the hill and dashed down toward the cañon proper. Cassara saw an Indian sentinel flash a warning back to the others. A few commands, and the dancing around the fires stopped, and gentiles crept up the slope, dodging behind shrubs and rocks, weapons in their hands.

With Lopez in the lead, the little cavalcade swept around the end of the butte and into the cañon, into the midst of a swarm of half-frenzied natives, and stopped with gentiles grasping at the bridles. Cassara could hear Lopez shrieking something above the din, saw the troopers draw sabres, rein back their horses, and try to clear a space around them. The Indians crowded forward, menacing, screeching their cries, more and more of them gathering about the five riders, until only the heads of the mounted men could be seen above the horde.

Striking with their sabres, the troopers were trying to clear a space in which to wheel their horses and retreat. An arrow flew from the side of the hill—a trooper reeled in his saddle and fell over his horse’s neck, and a chorus of shrieks arose at this first blood.

The troopers drew their pistols and, firing in the faces of the savages nearest; several Indians fell; and then the riders were the centre of a maelstrom of raging, fighting, bloodthirsty gentiles and neophytes who fought with one another to pull the troopers from their horses, to lay hands on the manager of the Fernandez rancho, a man many of them had reason to hate.

“It is the beginning,” Sergeant Cassara heard himself muttering.

He closed his eyes for an instant, for it is one thing to be in the centre of a savage combat and quite another to view one at close range and yet have no part in it, and when he opened them again the Indians had scattered, the five horses were running wild with gentiles trying to capture them for the loot of silver-chased saddles they presented, and on the floor of the cañon were five mutilated things that so short a time before had been men.

Now the Indians were dancing about their fires again, this first small victory having added to their frenzy, and their shrieks could be heard a great distance. Cassara knew his duty now—to mount and ride, to reach the ranch-house and aid in saving the women there, if he could; to continue to the mission and spread the alarm, and have those soldiers seeking Captain Fly-by-Night recalled from the hills before they were cut off one by one and slaughtered.

He saw the Santa Barbara neophyte mount his mule again, and heard him shrieking at the others, though he could not catch the words. He started to slip away, back from the edge of the precipice to his horse, and as he got upon his feet he saw another horseman galloping from the ranch-house toward the cañon.

Loud curses came from the throat of Sergeant Cassara then, curses at what he considered the man’s foolishness, for the rider was Rojerio Rocha.

“The fool has left the women alone!” he gasped. “By all the saints, I’d like to run him through for the worthless, senseless thing he is! Let them alone in the ranch-house, he has, and rides toward danger like an imbecile! Can’t he hear those yells, the fool? Can’t he tell something is wrong?”