The river ran red.

At least one hundred men died on the banks or in the water of the Nemaha river that chilly autumn morning. Five score raiders who thought they had the element of surprise and stumbled into a cross-fire ambush. The Pawnee bowmen shot first, half a heart-beat later the black powder rifles thundered from the tree line and the Kansa were caught naked on the northern bank of the Nemaha river.

Some turned to run but the near constant crack of high-powered rifles filled the gap while the black powder guns reloaded. There seemed to be an extended pause of silence. The Kansa and their allies were stunned and the silence was deafening and then somebody yelled ‘Fire” and the rifles thundered again. Any surviving raiders broke for the river and the sharpshooters with their out of time weaponry made them pay. Their would be no survivors tales this day. The Pawnee had waited far too long to have their revenge for the devastation of a peaceful village a decade earlier. Many of our warriors had been part of the effort to clean up the murdered and desecrated bodies of those women and children.

The Pawnee fell upon the wounded with the wrath that accompanies a centuries-old blood feud, any who may have slipped away from the massacre found that Pawnee scouts were behind them and died a coward's death.

The bodies were stacked and burned; any bits left over were buried later. It was as if a hundred warriors had walked off of the face of the earth. The spring floods would arrive eventually and almost all evidence of the one-sided battle would be washed away. But for that morning the Big Nemaha ran red and it was all Kansa blood.

While we cleaned up the battlefield the Pawnee war parties streamed south, where they would loot and take slaves from every Kansa camp that they found. All the warriors anticipated new slaves and fresh females to be taken. It wasn’t quite genocide but the Kansa would no longer exist as a power on the plains. The math had just changed for everyone even peripherally involved, even Henry Leavenworth would be rethinking plans once the news got out. The citizens of Rulo were only involved to the extent of defending their homes, we reported it as a Pawnee/Kansa event the entire way.

Getting to that point had taken some effort and extreme coordination. It was true that there weren’t many good fords on the Big Nemaha river but it was actually less true this time of year. We let our drone show us where we had to be. Without that drone we would have had to cover at least three viable ford points, without that drone we wouldn’t have been able to silently pick off the Kansa scouts. Without that drone we wouldn’t have been able to finely position our fighters to create interlocking zones of fire.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

I was able to sit in the bunkhouse down by the stock pens with Amos and make minute adjustments via the handheld radios. We were able to point out each of the Kansa scouts on a map to Pete and he marshalled his men forward to ambush and eliminate them. When the field was set I was able to move to my sniper's nest to sharpshoot and oversee the battle.

We had trusted men embedded with each of our units, Sheriff ran the Rulo militia and he had three squads with black powder rifles. He had a hand held radio as well.

Holden had a sharpshooter with him using the 30.06 and I had one near me using Holden’s long rifle; Holden and I each carried a radio in addition to our AR15s. Pete and his scouts had already cleaned up the Kansa scouts and headed upriver to the next ford to cross over and get behind the Kansa. They were joined at the river crossing by nearly 50 additional hard-riding warriors from the main Pawnee village up on the Platte River. The devastation was to be complete and final.

The die had been cast the moment the sun went down and the drone went up; the IR told us everything we needed to know. The first pass above the southern bank of the river showed their main force hiding in the tree line at their chosen ford. We compared the IR pass to the map we had made earlier in the day and knew just where to position our troops.

From that point Amos and I spent the rest of the night searching for and overseeing the destruction of the Kansa scouts. We would crisscross the sky looking for the tale tell signature and then use the radio to direct the Pawnee teams to them.

As dawn approached I moved to my sniper spot, I was carrying my AR-15 and M1911. Amos was watching the Kansa raiding party as they prepared to ford the river at first light, there were at least one hundred in their attack group. We had all been notified via radio and all of our defenders rechecked our weapons and said our prayers.

We knew the moment the first Kansa started to ford, we could just barely see them in the early light of that autumn morn. We watched as they struggled to lead their horses across, the animals being none to happy to cross a river even when it was full light.

We watched as they assembled on the north bank of the river just dozens of yards away. Their horses were snorting and stomping their feet, the warriors assumed it was from the cold river and tried to calm their mounts. Their leaders gathered together for one final conference and somewhere off in the distance an owl softly called out signaling the end of the Kansa tribe.

The Kansa warriors knew the sound of arrows being released but the sound of the horses and the river muted that distinct noise. Moments later the arrows found flesh and the rifles roared with thunder.

Death had come to the Nemaha Valley and the river ran red.