He stalked his way back, not wanting to be surprised by some back-shooter who had dropped out. He found none. After about three hours of darkness he came across a forward camp. There was one good-sized fire tended by a single man, while the others ate and slept. There were ten men in all. They had been content to make camp for the night while the fastest runners continued the pursuit.

These guys would have followed up tomorrow, and run you down with fresh legs.

He took two hours to creep silently over 90 yards of wooded ground. By the time he was in position the men who had been eating corn and venison mash while the dude with the spiked mohawk tended the fire had mostly drifted off to sleep. He waited silently for another two hours for all of them to fall off to sleep, and then another hour for the big spiked mohawk guy to nod off.

He took a full thirty seconds drawing his eighty-pound bow back to his ear. When he exhaled and let the arrow loose it flew true and transfixed the man’s neck just under the ear, behind the jaw and in front of the spine. This knocked him out instantly. He would bleed out before regaining consciousness.

He silently knocked another arrow as the man fell back on his haunches with a roll and his legs straightened out spastically. One of the sleeping warriors stirred, and he was the one who earned an arrow through the ear. He now stood and began pumping arrows into torsos. By the time three men were moaning and rolling, waking to the nightmare of punctured lungs or pierced intestines, the remaining five began groggily arming themselves and scrambling to their feet. He aimed for the belly and took down three more before an arrow whistled in his direction. As that man knocked another arrow Jay put one through his left eye. With this the remaining warrior bolted out of camp back toward the river.

He walked to the edge of the firelight and put arrows into the necks of the remaining wounded. They did not die well. He had left the best men behind him. He then went among the bodies and took his due. With their scalps on his belt he selected the best arrows from their supply and stalked off into the night after the fleeing and heavily breathing warrior, who was scrambling through brush and bumping into trees in the night up ahead.

I’m coming boy. It will be quicker than you think.

He shouldered his bow and drew his long steel knife and stalked silently after his prey. The moon had just risen in a half-crescent, slightly illuminating the ghostly woods. His nostrils flared as he picked up the fear scent and tread silently toward the sound of a man’s fearful breathing. His prey had given up on escape and was cowering against a broad oak, clutching a knife in his right hand as he pressed his other hand to a great root for security. Jay regarded him for a while from behind a twisted dogwood. The man had not heard him, could not for the racket his own heavy breathing was making. The moon was behind Jay, so he stepped out into the silvery darkness so that the man could see his silhouette as he approached to tear the life from his quivering body…

Before dawn he made the thicket at the back of the hill where his companions had egressed. He spent an hour creeping up the trail. The sentry was a ten-year-old boy with a bow and arrows who had fallen off to sleep. Around the campfire were two wounded men, two older men, and one prime buck; a stocky fellow with a twirled topknot, all stretched out but only half asleep.

He waited until the eldest warrior stirred to relieve himself and then sent an arrow through the lower left arm of the boy, who screamed and went from his seat on the rock to his knees. The men all began to rise, even the wounded. He put arrows into the faces of the wounded and the legs of the old men. This only took seconds, and then the buck with the twirled top-knot made his location. Before he could put Jay in his sights Jay sent an arrow through his chest and stepped into camp.

The older men were reaching for weapons which he kicked away. The boy was grinding his teeth and holding his transfixed arm. The warrior was glaring at him as he tried to break off the arrow that was through his left lung. Jay decided to give him some mercy with the knife. “Nice try Alfalfa. Say high to Don Enrique.”

As the man died at his feet he looked down at the elders and the boy and saluted them. He scalped the three dead warriors and took off at a good jog toward the river and their canoes.