FRANK LEAPT TO HIS feet, sounding a great howl as the defenders fled for their lives. The spike of triumph was in his blood, singing like moonshine. He could’ve roared the top off the mountain. He could’ve climbed a tree and kissed the sky.
Crockett reached up and hauled him back down behind the gun. “Fuck’s sake, you like to get ye head blowed off. They might of left a sniper for us.”
The miners were overrunning the abandoned trenches, holding up prizes of left-behind guns and rations and cartridge boxes. Frank slapped Crockett on the arm. “You see them sons of bitches run, Crock, did you? Snipers, hell! They didn’t have no time for that.”
The tattooed Marine grunted. He’d been kneeling behind the Gatling gun like a lineman, one eye squinted, cranking the firing handle to send rounds right over the charging miners’ heads, pouring fire into the enemy positions. Meanwhile, Frank had fed in clip after clip, handing back the empties for the ammo boys to reload. With six barrels, the gun would never overheat.
Every few seconds, the muzzle of the enemy machine gun would swing their way and the air would shriek around them, rounds crazing and swarming and cracking up the trees, trying to stamp them out same as the clubs and boots of the Baldwins except a single one of these slugs could punch a heart or brain or belly out. Then the enemy gun jammed and the defense lines broke before the charging miners.
Crockett spat a black string of tobacco between his teeth. “I seent ’em run, all right. And I know they about to squat their puckered asses down right on the next ridge and make us do it all over again.”
Frank clapped his hands on the man’s hairy shoulders and shook him. “Crock, you sweet-shooting son of a bitch. You’re just a regular Davy Goddamn Crockett, ain’t you?” Frank rose again to his full height, barreling his hands to holler all through the valley. “We got us Davy Goddamighty Crockett down here!”
High on the line, the miners lifted their rifles and cheered.
THE FORD MODEL T truck rocked and slewed down the dirt road, the driver spinning the big wood-hooped steering wheel back and forth with both hands, working to keep the overloaded rig from careering into the trees. Bad Tony rode shotgun, giving directions, his head jammed forward like a bloodied hood ornament while deputies and militiamen clung to the slat-wood bedsides and running boards, swinging with the turns, ducking as low-hanging branches whipped past their heads. A convoy of delivery trucks and paddy wagons and roadsters followed in their wake, their thin tires cutting a fine billow of dust from the valley floor.
The defenders were breathing hard, their hearts charging in their chests, their mouths full of hot dust and the sulfurous tang of spent gunpowder. The driver slung the truck around a sharp bend and one of the militiamen was thrown from the side, grasping empty fistfuls of air as he slammed into the hard pack and rolled wild-limbed in the road. The men riding in the cargo bed beat on the roof of the cab, telling the driver to pull over, but Bad Tony reached over and seized the wheel, yanking it straight.
“No time for that.”
The Rednecks had broken through the western end of the defense line, flooding into Logan County along the vein of Crooked Creek. Now Bad Tony and his men had to cut them off before they punched through the Gap itself and marched straight into town.
Tony directed the convoy to the base of a ridge overlooking the approach trail where the Rednecks were sure to soon emerge. The men dismounted, boots and loafers smacking down in the dust. They scrambled up the back side of the ridge, hunched and sweaty, clawing for handholds, grabbing stones and roots and small trees, ripping the feathery roots of weeds from the hillside. Along the sharp spine of the ridge, Tony stood small and angular beneath a film of blood and dust, like a man made with a hatchet. He pointed chop-handed, barking orders like he had in foreign wars.
“I want ten new emplacements along this line. Deputy, you form ten five-man details to cut trees and drag deadfall for new breastworks.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Trooper, you form ten five-man details to dig trenches for the emplacements.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Deputy, form three bucket brigades to unload the trucks and bring all that ammunition up the ridge. Whoever’s left, send ’em on up to me, them and your best shooters.”
“Yes, sir…”