Wrath of the Savage Read Online Free

Sergeant Duncan, who was walking up to join Bret and Coldiron.
    Duncan looked at Coldiron, who nodded. “Yeah, go ahead,” Duncan yelled back to Copeland. Then thinking he should have checked with Bret before responding, he asked, “That all right with you, Lieutenant?” Bret nodded. The horses were due a rest before they started out again, anyway.
    Coldiron paused for a few moments to cast a long glance in the direction of the patrol. “Damned if that ain’t a sorry-lookin’ bunch of soldiers you brought with you this time, Johnny,” he commented. “Look at ’em—asses so sore they look like a bunch of cripples.” He winked at Duncan then and asked, “How ’bout you, Lieutenant? Your ass a little bit tender?”
    â€œHow about you keeping your mind on what the army’s paying you to do, and I’ll worry about my ass,” Bret retorted. He started to walk toward the barn then, but paused to respond to the big man’s attempt to provoke him. “To answer your question, no, my ass isn’t sore. I expect I can sit a saddle as long as you can, maybe a little longer.” Then he continued to the barn, leaving Coldiron at a loss for an immediate comeback, and Duncan with a wide grin on his face.
    â€œDamned if he ain’t a feisty one,” Coldiron conceded. “I’ll have to give him that.”
    â€œHe is,” Duncan agreed. “There may be somethin’ inside that fancy blouse besides a typical West Point greenhorn.”
    Bret spent only a few minutes at the barn before walking to the river to look along the bank for signs of a crossing. He was kneeling down, studying a mixed trail of both moccasin and hoof prints, when Coldiron approached. Bret got to his feet and offered his interpretation of the sign.
    â€œLooks to me like Sayers is right. They hit the other house first,” Bret said. “They came across here, leading their horses at night.”
    â€œThat so?” Coldiron asked, waiting to see for himself before commenting further. After a moment’s study, however, he couldn’t disagree. There were surely both footprints and hoofprints leading up out of the water across an open sandy stretch of bluffs. “I reckon you’re right,” he said. “What tells you it was at night?” Tom Sayers had just told them the Indians struck at night. Coldiron wanted to see if the lieutenant was pretending to be a tracker.
    â€œThis spot they picked to cross,” Bret told him. “If it had been in the daytime, they would have crossed back there where those trees come down to the bank. They figured at night they could take the easier crossing on this sandbar, thinking it was too dark to see them.”
    â€œWell, I ain’t got nothin’ to add to that,” Coldiron said. “That’s the same way I read it.” Then thinking of something he could add, he said, “You can tell by the length of their stride, and the way the toes ain’t dug into the sand, that they were sneakin’ up on ’em and not chargin’ outta the river.”
    â€œRight,” Bret agreed. “So I think there’s no need to waste extra time scouting the other farm. We just need to scout around the perimeter to see which way they headed when they left here.”
    â€œMost likely we can save some more time if we start lookin’ for their tracks north of here,” Coldiron said. “The Injuns that done this piece of business are Blackfoot, and I’m thinkin’ they headed for home. Now, if I’m leadin’ that war party, I’m not gonna wanna take on that bunch of trappers that hang around Benson’s Landin’. They’ve all got rifles, and I ain’t got nothin’ but bows and arrows—and maybe a shotgun or two I mighta got from the raid. So what I’m sayin’ is, somewhere between here and Benson’s, we’re gonna find where they