Edge: Apache Death

"Gatling improved on the design," Murray said as he gazed out across the sprawled bodies of the dead Apaches to where the survivors had rejoined the main group. "Army bought a hundred this year and we've got one."

"Maybe you ought to have upped your order," Edge said, nodding out to where a dozen braves were hauling a wagon from behind one of the saloons as others threw brushwood, planks and bed linen into the back. "Gonna make it hot for us."

"Get water!" Murray yelled. "You, you, you, you."

The colonel pointed to a dozen men who backed away from the wall and started down the stairway toward the well. A score of lamps were smashed on to the back of the wagon as it was wheeled out into the street, back toward the fort’s gates. The glazed, lidless eyes of the severed head of the Englishman looked on as flames flickered and then roared. Cochise raised his hand and dropped it and the wagon began to move, powered by a dozen braves who grasped it by the shafts and broke into a run. Reeking smoke billowed up, screening the braves as they trundled the wagon along the street, gaining speed with every step.

"Fire at will," Murray yelled as two groups of mounted Apaches rushed along at each side of the blazing wagon. Bodies sprawled and ponies went down, throwing their riders, but the wagon kept rolling, gaining momentum as if the braves behind it found new strength in the sight of their dead brothers. A few of the riders got close enough to the fort to release arrows and lances and three soldiers fell backwards off the wall, their hands clawing for the shafts buried in their flesh. A fourth man leaned out too far for a better shot and was spun by a lance piercing his shoulder. His high pitched scream was curtailed as his falling body plunged into the burning wagon the moment it crashed' into the gates. The rest of the soldiers continued to fire down upon the scattering of mounted riders and those braves who had survived the wagon run, as the men with the buckets threw the water ineffectually down on the raging inferno before the gates.

"Give 'em back their guns," Edge yelled through the choking black smoke. "You lost that round, Colonel."

But Murray was in no mood to listen or reply to Edge any more. He knew that Cochise was seeking vengeance at any price and that the Apache chief was prepared to pay part of the cost in the blood of his own braves. Once the gates were down a full scale attack would be launched and there wasn't a chance in a million of stopping a horrifying proportion of the Indians from getting inside the fort.

"Keep pouring," Murray ordered as he glanced across the compound and saw that Sawyer and his detail were in the process of climbing on the arsenal roof; each carrying a component of the rapid fire Gatling Gun.

"Mind if I go and find a better place to die?" Edge asked rhetorically as he moved toward the head of the stairway up which the buckets of water were being passed.

"Chickening out?" Murray snapped."

Edge spat. "I just figure that if you keep all your men on this wall you're going to lay an egg." He started down the stairway as the hinges of one of the gates tore free and the burning planks of pine crashed into the seat of the flames, sending up a shower of sparks. In the compound a group of civilians were grouped around the sobbing Lorna Fawcett, trying to encourage her into one of the buildings.

"They're like beasts of the jungle," a woman said to Edge.

"But it was their jungle first," he answered as he examined the buildings of the fort and decided that the roof of the bunkhouses offered the best vantage point. But he went first to the arsenal and took out a box of ammunition. He tossed it up on to the roof, then threw up the Winchester before reaching for the verandah and hauling himself aloft. Glancing across to the adjacent roof of the arsenal he could see Sawyer and his men feeding cartridges into the hopper of the wicked-looking Gatling Gun. The weapon, which was mounted on a tripod, had six barrels, each with a separate bolt, cocking and firing mechanism which were activated by a crank at the rear.

"How many rounds a minute you likely to get out of that barrel-organ?" he called across.

"Makers specify 300," Sawyer answered.

Edge grinned as the second gate crashed down. "All be over in a minute then. Can't be more than that many Apaches left alive out there."

The fire was now the only bar to the Indian attack. Murray realized this and pulled his men off the water chain and started to deploy them along the wall and down in the compound, yelling for the civilians to be issued with rifles. The commanding officer himself stayed on the wall, to the right of where the staging over the gates were now in flames. But the heart of the fire had burned out so that now it crackled rather than roared and the beating of the Apache drums could be heard again, resounding out their presage of violent death.