Joseph frowned. “You brought ammunition?”
Lundy pointed to one of his men and ordered, “Get those sticks of bullets.”
The man brought out a pair of long, narrow metal magazines that fit into loading slots on the top of the weapon. The magazines held bullets that fed into the chambers as the barrels revolved and the gun fired.
“Once your loaders get the hang of it, the thing’ll fire four hundred rounds a minute without much problem,” Lundy said. “The gun can actually handle close to a thousand rounds a minute without jamming or overheating, but men can’t reload that fast. You’ll need three men on each gun, a couple to load and one to turn the firing crank.”
Lundy pointed out the wooden-handled crank attached to the body of the weapon.
“Set up four of them around a target, and you can pour more than fifteen hundred rounds a minute into it,” he went on. “That’ll shoot holes in just about anything and blow it to hell in a hurry. And it’ll mow down the Mounties like wheat in a field.”
Joseph’s voice was grim as he said, “They used a Gatling gun against my people the last time we tried to fight for our rights. It’s only fair that we use such weapons against them.”
“That’s none of my business,” Lundy said. He waved a hand at the gun. “Well, there it is. How about that gold?”
“Does it work? I have to see how it works.”
Lundy smiled. “Try it yourself.”
“You mean it?”
Lundy motioned Joseph toward the gun. “It’s loaded and ready to go. Just turn that crank, like I said.”
Joseph couldn’t resist the temptation. He glanced over at Charlotte. She looked apprehensive, as if she didn’t like this at all, but she didn’t shake her head to tell him he shouldn’t. Joseph approached the Gatling gun carefully, as if it were a wild animal that might attack viciously without any warning.
As he grasped the crank’s handle, he bent down and squinted along the barrels to see where the gun was pointing. It was aimed across the valley at a stand of pines. There might be some small animals and birds in those trees, he thought, but that was their misfortune.
He took a deep breath and turned the crank, hard and fast.
The noise was incredible, slamming against his ears again and again. The shots roared out, coming so close together that it was hard to tell them apart. The rear brace shuddered from the recoil. The rate of fire slowed slightly and then picked up again, depending on how fast Joseph turned the crank. Across the valley, branches jerked and chunks of bark flew as the bullets chewed into the trees with ferocious power.
Abruptly, the gun fell silent. The quiet sounded odd after that terrible racket. Lundy said, “You’re empty.”
Joseph turned toward the outlaw in amazement. He had heard stories about these weapons, of course, but he had never seen one in action until now. It was awe-inspiring in its devastation. He peered across the valley and saw the scattered branches and the huge holes that the bullets had gouged into the tree trunks.
If those trees were men, they would be lying dead on the ground now in bloody heaps, shot to pieces.
Joseph turned to his sister. Charlotte still had her hands over her ears, where she had clapped them when the shooting started.
“Do you want to try it?” he asked her.
She lowered her hands and shook her head. She was pale and looked a little sick.
“No. I don’t mind guns, but this … this is … evil.”
“Nonsense,” Joseph said. “This is exactly what we need.” He looked at Lundy. “Can we reload it and shoot it again?”
The outlaw grinned. “Sure. This time, my boys’ll show you how to load it, and you can do it yourself.”
Joseph spent a while familiarizing himself with every part of the gun’s apparatus. He found himself fascinated by it. He thought not so much about the bloody havoc it was capable of wreaking, but more about what a mechanical marvel it was. He had to learn all he could about it so he would be able to teach his comrades among the Métis how to use the weapons.
“We brought plenty of ammunition, but you don’t need to be wasting it,” Lundy cautioned.
“One more magazine,” Joseph said eagerly.
He cranked through those shells as well, watching with avid interest as several large branches fell off the pines. The hail of bullets had sawed them loose.
When the Gatling gun fell silent again, Lundy said, “All right. You’ve seen what this thing can do. It’s time for you to keep your part of the bargain, Marat. Where’s our gold?”
Before Joseph could answer, Palmer said, “That fella you sent out to scout the area is coming back, Owen.”
Joseph looked around and saw a man riding up the valley toward them. When the man reached the camp, he reined in and swung down from his horse. He wore an excited look on his face.
“What is it?” Lundy asked.
“We’ve got some spies up the valley a ways, holed up in a little box canyon,” the man reported. “They’ve pulled some brush up in front of the canyon mouth to hide it, and I might not have even seen it if I hadn’t spotted some old pelican wanderin’ around. I watched him go back through the brush and slipped up to take a closer look. I think there’s several people in there.”
Lundy frowned at Joseph. “Is that some of your bunch? You got the gold stashed in that canyon?”
“I don’t know anything about this,” Joseph answered honestly. He looked at the scout. “You say this was an old man?”
“Yeah, with a white beard and an old hat with the front pushed up.”
Joseph shook his head. “These people are not part of our group.”
Palmer spoke up, saying to the scout, “An old man with a white beard?”
“That’s right. He had on a cowhide vest, too, if that means anything to you.”
“Stevens!” Palmer said under his breath, adding a muttered curse.
“You know these folks, Joe?” Lundy asked sharply. “I was willing to let you throw in with us, but if you’re trying to pull some sort of double cross, you’ll be damned sorry you did.”
Palmer shook his head. “No double cross, Owen, I swear. But that old man’s an enemy of mine. He tried to kill me a while back, and I guess he’s followed up here into the mountains, the son of a bitch.”
Lundy rasped fingertips over his beard-stubbled jaw as he thought. “Then I reckon you don’t really care what happens to this fella, do you?”
“Not hardly. In fact, if you were to get rid of him, I’d consider it a mighty big favor.”
Lundy nodded as he reached a decision. “Come on, then. Grab hold of that gun, boys.” He gave Joseph a savage grin. “You’re about to get a real demonstration of what a Gatling can do, Marat.”
Chapter 17
Frank’s instincts, honed to a razor’s edge by decades of the dangerous life he had led, were the only thing that saved him. Nerves and muscles galvanized into action and sent him diving backward.
The horse reared up, screaming in agony as slugs pounded into its body. The animal shielded Frank as he rolled across the ground into the brush.
Then one of the bullets struck the horse in the head, ending its pain and sending it toppling over backward. Frank had to scramble to keep the horse from falling on him.
The Gatling gun still hammered out its lethal rhythm. Slugs tore through the brush.
“Get down!” Frank yelled to Salty and Meg as he broke free of the brushy barrier into the canyon.
He saw that they had already dived behind the log barricade. He joined them, vaulting over the logs and landing hard on the ground behind them. The jolt went all the way through him as his hat went flying.
A stream of profanity from Salty’s lips threatened to turn the air blue around them. He got the torrent under control and asked over the racket of the Gatling gun, “What in blazes is goin’ on? Did we wander into the middle of a dadblamed war?”