Then suddenly, like a plague of ravenous locusts, Onontio’s men swarmed across the hilltop. Their footsteps thundered across hoary frozen ground. Ferocious war screams like a million teeming banshees.
Joshua lifted his rifle, primed and loaded, and at full gallop he fired, hit the closest Indian square in the chest. Grabbing a pistol from his belt, he put a bullet through another’s head. No time to reload. Joshua dropped his guns, and shrieking a war cry of his own, he leapt from the stallion and ran at them, a tomahawk in one hand and a knife in the other.
With a sweep of his tomahawk he arced down on a warrior’s head, cracking and crunching his skull. Joshua pirouetted, slashed his knife across the throat of his next assailant. A geyser of blood soaked his face, tasting vinegary. In zealous numbers, they came at him, a tempest of knives and tomahawks, rasping and keening under the leaden sky. Joshua slashed and pummeled, whirled and twisted a macabre dance of death. His foes, choking in blood fell to the ground, groaning and yowling, the sodden earth beneath oily with gore.
He saw Juliet crawl from the War Chief. And seeing Joshua, Onontio stood, twitching and throbbing with rage. He looked deranged, eyes buried deep. Bared teeth, chiseled to points. His meaty left hand bunched in a fist over his tomahawk.
A trickle of blood ran from the top of Joshua’s head. Dizzy from the blows he’d received, he struggled to stay upright, his legs barely cooperating. He winced at the ragged wound a knife had left behind. Pain. Pain was good, it meant he was alive.
Onontio was six inches taller. And six inches wider. He was all bone and muscle, stronger, swollen up like a mountain. Pulse jumping in his neck. The Mohawk War Chief expected him to fear.
Joshua smiled, and then his lips drew back in a snarl. In the Haudenosaunee tongue, he bit out, “This day, you will enter the spirit world.”
Onontio beat his massive chest. “You think you will defeat me. Look at Blackberry Valley. I am invincible.”
“Onontio, the great warrior, slaughterer of old men, helpless women and children. Cowardice will be your infamy,” Joshua taunted.
“It will be a pleasure to take your scalp and your woman.”
“I defeated you. I shall do so again.”
Onontio shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His prancing less sure of victory.
Joshua waited.
Juliet screamed. “Snapes!”
Joshua looked over the mammoth’s shoulder.Snapes.The madman had a struggling and screaming Juliet in his grasp. Images of Sarah flashed.
Snapes dragged Juliet away by the hair. Onontio used the distraction to move first. Joshua hit him in the face, a colossal right, all the way up from his planted feet, as hard as he could. He caught Onontio dead on the nose, a big target, and felt his fist drive through it, and beyond it, and then his falling body weight whipped his head out from under his moving hand. Onontio went down, swung his leg out, tripped Joshua, and raised his tomahawk. On his back, Joshua clinked his tomahawk against Onontio’s, his red and black striped face glaring down at him and dripping sweat in Joshua’s face.
A wink of metal flashed and Onontio ripped their tomahawks away. With no weapon but his bare hands, Joshua crushed the warrior’s throat, his fingertips right behind his larynx, squeezing and tearing. Onontio’s face reddened, his eyes slits of rage…his right hand grasped a knife…raised it…aimed at Joshua’s heart.
Joshua kicked, threw his assailant off balance, enough for him to roll and get out from under him. Onontio rose, his knife high.
A gun blasted from behind, lighting Onontio’s face with surprise as a ball had entered from the back of his head and exited the front. Eyes wide open, blood spurting, he plummeted face first to the ground, flinging up columns of caked earth.
“I told him I would kill him.” Two Eagles kicked the War Chief, and then reached down to pull Joshua up.
Breathing hard, Joshua said. “Good to see you my friend.”
Two Eagles spat on Onontio and, handing Joshua’s rifle over, said, “Go get your wife.”
Rifle in hand, Joshua sprinted. He saw Snapes slap Juliet across the face, then planted his pistol on the side of her head, forcing her forward.
“You’ll breathe your last,” Joshua roared. A ball whizzed past his ear. Joshua halted. It was a long distance, too long. But Snapes headed to the tree line and, from there, he’d melt into the forests. No time.
Calling on his innate skills as a crack shot, Joshua raised his rifle. Eyes narrowed down the barrel, taking in all the precise silvery details. The speed of the wind and what direction it hailed from. The arc of the ball at this distance. The coward, clutched Juliet in front of his chest. Juliet, his dear sweet Juliet. What if he missed and hit her? Joshua clutched and unclutched his finger.
She stomped on Snape’s foot, twisted, dropped to the ground.
He squeezed the trigger.
Snapes crumbled. Joshua ran and ran, scooping Juliet into his arms as he reached her.
“Joshua, I thought I’d never see you again,” she said, collapsing against his chest.
Snapes breathed through a fine red mist oozing from his mouth. The whistling noise came from a hole in his chest.
