Blue-Eyed Devil by Robert B. Parker Page B

said.
    “Then kill them,” Pony said.
    “Can’t fight the fire,” Virgil said. “Can’t protect all the people. Only thing we can do is kill Apaches. Too few of us to spread out. We stay together. Kill any Indian we see.”
    He looked at Pony.
    “Have to,” he said.
    Pony nodded.
    “Boston House not burning yet,” he said.
    “It will,” Virgil said.
    “I go there,” Pony said.
    Someone released two horses from the livery, and they skittered together down Slate Street and toward the open prairie.
    “Indians gonna collect them later,” Chauncey said.
    “And a lotta scalps,” I said.
    We moved in the same direction down Bow Street. At the end of the block where Bow crossed Sixth Street two Apaches with Winchesters held their excited horses hard as they stepped and turned, blocking the street. Virgil killed them both.
    “Roof,” Chauncey said, and killed an Apache straddling the ridgepole. The Indian tumbled off the ridge and rolled down the roof slant and fell to the street. His Winchester stayed halfway down the roof. Next door a building collapsed, the roof falling in with an explosion of flame, and smoke, and sparks, and debris.
    A brave came out of an alley in front of us and rode straight at us, firing a big old Navy Colt. Indians in general were not great shooters, and the fact that we were standing, and they were shooting from horseback, gave us another edge. The tight choke of eight-gauge shot hit the Indian full in the chest and knocked him backward off his horse as if he had run into a wall. Somewhere a woman screamed. We could hear a baby crying above the roar of the flames. And occasionally came the awful scream of a war cry. We moved up Sixth Street to Slate and turned the corner. Virgil and I stayed tight to the wall. Chauncey Teagarden had an ivory-handled Colt in each hand.
    “Fuck this,” he said, and stepped into the center of Slate Street, heading back toward Main. A bullet kicked up dirt in front of him and, almost negligently, he snapped off a shot with his left-hand gun and killed an Indian on a pinto horse. Main Street was full of terrified citizens milling desperately in the searing heat, under a pall of black smoke. The Indians herded them the way cowboys herded cattle. Mounted and moving among the citizens, the Apache were not easy targets. Teagarden stayed in the open street. Gunfire continued to miss him. If we got out of this we’d learn a couple of things. Teagarden could shoot. And he didn’t scare easily.
    Suddenly the shooting stopped. The flames still tossed and snarled above the buildings, and the smoke still hung low over the street. But it seemed somehow as if everything stopped when Kha-to-nay rode into the maelstrom with four warriors behind him. A young girl with her skirts pushed up high on her bare legs straddled the big bay horse in front of Kha-to-nay, clamped against him by Kha-to-nay’s arm holding the reins. It was Laurel. With his left hand Kha-to-nay pressed the edge of a bowie knife against her stomach.
    “Virgil Cole,” Kha-to-nay bellowed. “Put down your guns and show yourselves, or I will gut your little whore right here.”
    Virgil stood in the doorway of the hardware store, looking at the situation. We could not let Laurel be cut. We could not give up our guns.
    Pony Flores appeared from behind the Boston House, riding a horse with no saddle. Kha-to-nay raised a “hold your fire” hand to his troops, as Pony’s horse picked his way through the terrified crowd. He stopped beside Kha-to-nay. On Kha-to-nay’s left side. Laurel stared at him.
    “Chiquita,” he said to her. “I have come get you, again.”
    Kha-to-nay spoke to Pony in Apache. Pony answered. Kha-to-nay shook his head. Pony spoke again. Kha-to-nay spoke again, louder, shaking his head as he did so. Pony moved so quickly it was hard to follow. He took hold of Kha-to-nay’s knife hand and pulled it away from Laurel. His right leg swung over his horse’s withers and he was on