ROUNDS CAME SHEARING AND cracking through the trees.
“Shitfire!” cried Crock, sticking the last leg of the tripod in the dirt. “They done tripped the trigger.” The miners were supposed to wait to advance until the Gatling gun was in position, ready to provide covering fire. Crock flipped up the rear sight of the gun and squinted downrange, setting the windage with his thumb and forefinger.
“Load!”
Frank dropped the ammo bag off his shoulder, drew a long brass magazine, and thrust it into the top of the gun. One hundred rounds.
“Ready!”
Crock spat. “Git ye some, you sons of bitches.”
He began to crank the shooting handle, sending rounds into the machine-gun nest at the top of the ridge. Beneath them, miners were pushing their way up the approach trail, moving from tree to tree, while others had taken to the creek itself, crouching as rounds chipped and scored the rocks, making them spark and fume.
“Reload!” cried Crockett.
Frank rose to pull out the empty magazine and swap in a new one, dropping down just as a hail of fire tore through the woods around them. He could feel the rounds hitting the fallen chestnut against which he crouched, the blighted wood shuddering like flesh. There was a small clearing beneath them full of tall grass and wildflowers. The site of an old homestead along the creek, just the fire-scarred stone chimney left of a small cabin that once stood there. The faint outline of the structure’s foundation. Miners began sprinting across the clearing, arrowing through the belly-high grass, a pale cloud of dandelions rising in their wake.
A second wave took off and a slash of automatic fire ripped through them. They struck wild poses, lurching and rampant, turning back the way they’d come. A young miner lay heaving in their wake, slumped at the base of the ancient chimney. He was holding his belly with both hands, his blood scattering through his fingers.
THE REPORTER COULDN’T LOOK away. The wounded miner’s face was wrenched, his mouth gaped, his prayers or blasphemies inaudible, shattered by the crisscrossing hatchwork of gunfire.
Beside him, Bad Tony’s machine gun bucked and thundered, belting out long chains of fire, splintering saplings and stitching tree trunks. A round cracked the chimney-stone just above the young miner’s head and Tony sent a firm order down the line: “Nobody fire at the wounded miner.”
The reporter lowered his binoculars, wondering at this unexpected mercy. Then a band of rescuers broke from cover and Tony grunted with satisfaction, waiting until they were in the open before he hammered into them, the heart tattoo thumping wildly on his forearm. Two of them fell and the rest turned tail, dragging their wounded back into the trees.
Tony turned to the pressman and grinned. The white blister of scar shone between his eyes. “Bait and wait. Works every time.”
But as soon as the defenders eased up to survey the damage, a line of fire came streaking down from the opposing ridgeline. The Gatling gun. Precision bursts began tearing into the defense line, finding chinks and exposures. A round caromed through their nest and Tony yelped, finding a splinter driven straight through his cheek. He touched it gently. A look of wonder on his face.
“Davy Goddamn Crockett.”
When the reporter looked back to the clearing, the wounded miner lay still. A bloody star in his chest, blown ragged for all to see. An execution. On the opposite slope, shadows were moving through the trees, gathering like a storm, hundreds of shades merging amid the red flicker of bandannas. He could almost sense the ire of that massing shadow, hearts pounding like fists, as if Sid Hatfield had been shot down again, right before their very eyes.
If they all charged through the Gap at once, nothing could stop them.