"Did the blue-coats come to kill us, Ethan Walker?" Whitehawk demanded, his voice trembling with the strain of battle.
Ethan dismounted, his boots hitting the red dust. He stepped directly to the chief, dropping to one knee, and offered the parchment envelope with both hands.
"No, Chief Whitehawk," Ethan said clearly, his words carrying to every warrior defending the rocks. "The blue-coats are coming to protect you. Captain Baylor has arrested Jason Vance for treason. Company C is marching under the flag of the United States to seize Thorpe’s guns."
Whitehawk took the envelope, feeling the heavy red wax seal beneath his scarred thumb. A deep, ragged breath passed through the old chief’s chest, and for a fleeting moment, his eyes closed in silent communion with the spirits of the stone.
Then, from the dark wash below the gateway, a terrible, mechanical sound ripped through the night.
CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK-CLACK!
The bronze Gatling gun opened fire.
A storm of three hundred heavy lead balls tore through the air, chewing into the sandstone breastworks, shattering rock into deadly showers of flying shale, screaming off the boulders with high-pitched ricochets that showered the defenders with sparks.
A young warrior beside Tahzay cried out, clutching his bloodied shoulder as he tumbled backward into the sand.
From down in the darkness of the wash, Ben Thorpe’s voice roared through the smoke:
"Walker! You bring that chief’s daughter out here on your knees, or I’ll blow this whole mountain to hell with fifty kegs of powder! You’ve got five minutes before I light the fuse!"
The storm of lead slammed into the sandstone barricade with the rhythmic fury of an iron triphammer.
Every rotation of the Gatling’s six rifled barrels spat heavy .45-70 slugs that tore ancient stone into blinding showers of red dust and jagged flint-shards. The air within the narrow gorge turned gray, thick with the sulfurous bite of burnt black powder and the sharp, coppery stench of pulverized rock. Boulders that had withstood desert flash floods for centuries were gouged and pitted in seconds, spraying deadly stone splinters that sliced through buckskin shirts and drew first blood from the defenders.
"Keep down!" Ethan bellowed, throwing himself flat across the gravel and grabbing the collar of a young Apache brave to drag him behind the lee of a massive granite slab.
Beside him, Tahzay was already on his stomach, his knuckles white around the grip of his ash bow, his chest heaving with murderous fury. To an Apache warrior, death in hand-to-hand combat or from an arrow loosed in fair pursuit carried sacred honor; to be pinned behind a pile of dirt and chewed to pieces by a mechanical contraption cranked by a laughing mercenary was a desecration that made his blood boil.
"He turns an iron wheel and vomits lead!" Tahzay shouted through the deafening din, spit flying from his lips. "Let me take five men through the high crevices! We drop upon their shoulders with our knives!"
"You won't make ten paces!" Ethan barked back, his voice hoarse as he gripped his Winchester carbine. "Thorpe's got six riflemen covering the high flanks with repeating Winchesters, and that bronze bastard is sweeping the whole throat of the gap. You stick your head up on those ledges, and they'll blow it off your shoulders before you can draw a bowstring!"
Chief Whitehawk crouched low beside Ethan, his back pressed against the vibrating stone. The old chief held Captain Baylor’s sealed parchment in his left hand, guarding it against the dust like a sacred relic. His dark eyes were fixed on the lower wash, where lantern light flickered behind a breastwork of heavy oak freight wagons.
"How long will the iron beast feed on lead, Ethan Walker?" Whitehawk asked, his deep voice cutting through the mechanical clatter with astonishing calm.
"Those drums hold forty rounds each," Ethan explained, his mind racing through the mechanics of the weapon. "A seasoned crew can switch hopper drums in ten seconds, but the barrels overheat after two minutes of sustained fire. If they pump too many rounds without letting the bronze cool, the cartridges will jam in the chambers or cook off prematurely. Thorpe knows that. He’s firing short, ten-second bursts to pin us down while his powder men work."
Ayana crawled along the gravel trench from the inner perimeter, her face smudged with soot, a waterskin slung over her shoulder. She moved with feline grace, staying well beneath the trajectory of the ricochets. She reached Ethan’s side and pointed toward the eastern wall of the wash.