The sickness started to roar back to life inside of him at the sight of another dead body.  Before he could fully comprehend this gruesome discovery, several gunshots were heard from the other end of the trail, in the direction of the creek.

Within seconds, Troopers Ryan and Jennings appeared in a flood of excitement, spurring their horses to the front of the column.  Ryan was bleeding, the dark blue sleeve of his shirt almost completely red.  Jennings had no wounds that could be seen but was just as much in the grips of panic as he reported breathlessly:

“Apaches, sir! They’re right behind us!”

Then a flurry of piercing war cries erupted from the direction that Bradley’s horse had come.

“And up ahead of us too, from the looks of it,” said Sergeant Werner, calmly.       

“But…they can’t be ahead of us. I saw them back at the creek,” said the lieutenant.

Sergeant Werner turned to him. “Just how many did you see?”

Lieutenant Lyons realized had to think about that.  He could only remember seeing the Apaches, not counting them.  The rest was a blur.  Slowly, he ran back over the incident in his mind.  Could there have only been one?  No…impossible…maybe.

“Three or four,” he said. “I didn’t stick around to chat with them.”

Sergeant Werner’s look immediately told the lieutenant that he didn’t believe him.

“Well,” said the sergeant. “However many there are, they more than likely followed us and now they’re waiting up ahead.”

The lieutenant was frozen.  He couldn’t even look at Sergeant Werner.  To go either way would probably mean death, for him at least.  Whether he would live or not, he knew he had to give some kind of order.

All of a sudden, his horse was spurring headlong down the trail toward the waiting Apaches.  Did I do that, he asked himself.

What happened next took less than a minute to transpire but seemed to him to take an eternity.  Suddenly his Navy Colt was in his hand, cocked and aimed ahead at some unseen target.  He could only see up to the head of his horse; beyond that, everything was a confused blur.  He didn’t dare to look back at his men, afraid that they wouldn’t actually be there.  Instead, he heard himself shouting, “Charge!” at the top of his lungs.  Emboldened by his surprising zeal, he finally ventured a look to the rear.  His vision cleared as fast as if illuminated by a flash of lightning.  What he saw brought on a full-fledged panic inside of him.