Short Fiction, Mack Reynolds [best book reader txt] 📗

or Horse from the east? Possibly Eagles, Crows or Dogs from Denver way. The clan couldn’t stand much more of this pressure. It was the third raid in six months. They couldn’t stand it and put in a crop, nor could the drain on the arsenal be maintained. He had heard that the Turtle clan, near Colorado Springs, the clan of his birth, had got to the point where they were using bows and arrows even for defense. If so, it wouldn’t be long before they would be losing their husband.

He was puffing somewhat by the time they reached the citadel. Helen and her four girls were coming much more slowly, watching the progress of the fight below them, keeping their eyes peeled for a possible break through of individual enemies. The stones in their hands were pathetically brave.

The rounded citadel building, stone built, loopholed for rifles, loomed before them. He swung open the door and hurried inside.

“Hello, honey,” a strange voice said pseudo-pleasantly. “Hey, you’re kind of cute.”

Alan’s eyes went from the two figures before him, automatic rifles cuddled under their arms, to the two Wolf clan sentries collapsed in their own blood on the floor. They had paid for lack of vigilance with their lives.

He could see that the strangers were of different clans by their kilts, one a Horse the other a Crow. This would mean two clans had united in order to raid the Wolves and that, in turn, would mean the Wolves were outnumbered as much as two to one.

“Relax, darling,” the second one said, a lewd quality in her voice. “Nothing’s going to happen to you.” Her eyes took in the dozen boys ranging in age from five to twelve. “Look like a bunch of sterilies to me,” she sneered. “Get them up above, and those girls too. You stay here where we can watch you, honey.”

The Crow went to a small window, stared down below. “Wanda is holding them pretty well but they’re beginning to work their way back in this direction.” She laughed harshly. “These Wolves never could fight.”

Her companion fingered the Bren gun which lay on the heavy table top in the round room’s center. Aside from four equally heavily constructed chairs the table was the large room’s sole furniture. While Alan was ushering the boys and younger girls up to the second floor where they would be safe, the Horse said musingly, “We could turn this loose on them even at this distance.”

The Crow shook her head. “No. It’ll be better to wait until they’re closer. Besides, by that time Peggy and her group’ll be coming up from the arroyo. There won’t be a Wolf left half an hour from now.”

Alan, his stomach empty, stared out the loophole nearest him.

One of the women said, grinning, “You better get away from there, honey. Make you sick. That’s a mighty pretty suit you’ve got on. Make it yourself?”

“No,” Alan said. As a matter of fact one of the sterilies had made it.

She laughed. “Well, don’t be so uppity. You’re going to have to learn how to be nice to me, you know.”

Both of them laughed, but Alan said nothing. He wondered how long the women of these clans had been without a husband.

Down below he could make out the progress of the fighting and then realized the battle plan of the aggressors. They must have planned it for months, waiting until the season was such that practically the whole Wolf clan, and particularly the fighters, would be at work in the fields. They’d sent these two scouts, probably their best warriors, to take the citadel by stealth. Only two of them, more would have been conspicuous.

They had then, with a limited force, opened fire on the field workers, pinning them down temporarily.

Meanwhile, the main body was ascending the arroyo to the left, completely hidden from the defending forces although they would have been in open sight from above had the citadel remained uncaptured.

Alan could see plainly what the next fifteen minutes would mean. The Wolf clan would draw back on the citadel, Vivian and her younger warriors bringing up the rear. When they broke into the clear and started the last dash for the safety of their fortress, they would be in the open and at the mercy of the crossfire from arroyo and citadel.

If only these two had failed in their attempt to.⁠ ⁠…

The Crow woman said, “Look at this. Five young brats with stones in their hands. What do you say?”

It was Helen and her four girls.

Alan said, “They’re only children! You can’t.⁠ ⁠…”

“You be quiet, sweetheart. We can’t be bothered with you.”

The Horse said, “Two years from now they’ll all be warriors. Here, let me turn this on them.”

Alan closed his eyes and he wanted to retch as he heard the automatic rifle speak out in five short bursts. In spite of himself he opened them again. Helen, his first born, Paula, his second. Ruth, Margo and Jenny, all his children. They were crumbled like rag dolls, fifty feet from the citadel door.

Now he was able to tell himself that he should have called out a warning. One or two of them, at least, might have escaped. Might have escaped to warn the approaching fighters of the trap behind them. Tradition had been too strong within him, the tradition that a man did not interfere in the business of the warriors, that war was a thing apart.

Jenny’s body moved, stirred again, and she tried to drag herself away. Little Jenny, twelve years old. The rifle spat just once again and she slumped forward and remained quiet.

“Little bitch,” the Crow woman said.

The heavy chair was in his hands and high above his head, he had brought it down on her before the rage of his hate had allowed him to think of what he was doing. The chair splintered but there was still a good half of it in his hands when he spun on the Horse woman. She stepped back, her