Edge: Apache Death

"Get ready!" Murray called and Edge looked toward the gates as the smoke cleared, seeing a line of Apaches ranged across the main street of Rainbow. Edge sank to his knees and then pitched forward so that he was stretched out in a prone position. He used the barrel of his Colt and the point of his knife to pry up the lid of the ammunition box, then tipped it on its side so that he had easy access to the cartridges, then, as the first warcries of the braves sounded, he rested his cheek against the stock of the Winchester and lowered his left eye behind the back sight. Throughout the fort, as the leading arc of the new sun breasted the east wall, soldiers and civilians did the same. The whoops reached a crescendo, drowning out the drums and then unshod hoofs thundered, the stomping power of so many ponies at a gallop seeming to vibrate the very walls of the fort.

"Think the bastards mean it this time," Edge muttered as the men on the wall opened up, pouring a hail of hot lead down upon the advancing braves, firing again and again, as fast as their trembling hands could work the actions of their new weapons. But they were no more than twenty-five and as their fire power took out the front riders more braves increased speed to fill the gaps.

As the range narrowed the first shower of arrows swished up to the wall. Three men were hit in the chest and fell backwards into the compound. A woman who rushed out to help a man groaning through the final seconds of his life collapsed on top of him without a sound as an arrow cleared the wall and thudded between her shoulder blades. Another soldier, no more than eighteen, took a lance full in the stomach and turned before he fell. The shaft of the lance hit the ground first and the weight of the boy caused the point to burst out from his back with a great fountain of bloodied entrails. The flagpole above the gate burned through and toppled sideways,

smashing through the skull of a man who was in the process of reloading his rifle.

Then the leading group of braves leaped across the dying embers of the burned-out wagon and into the fort. A fusillade of rifle fire rang out and three braves fell, but four more jumped from their ponies and made it into cover.

"Jesus, they've got the Colonel," Sawyer yelled and Edge took out two of the second batch of braves before glancing up at the wall. He was in time to see Murray stagger across the staging, the Colonel's face masked by blood flowing from around the shaft of an arrow buried in his left eye. Another arrow penetrated his chest and Murray crumpled to the staging.

"Looks like you're in command," Edge told the lieutenant.

"Oh, my God," Sawyer yelled. "Fire, fire, fire, damn you."

He jabbed a shaking hand into the ribs of the trooper squatting behind the Gatling and the man began to crank. The six barrels started to rotate, belching smoke and spitting death, spraying the entire area of the gates with high caliber bullets, mixing the blood of Apache and pony and piling their bodies into an untidy heap. But it had been firing for less than fifteen seconds when metal screeched against metal and a loud clang signaled a jammed mechanism.

Edge sighed and shook his head. "Never trust anything a Johnny Reb made," he muttered. "Dick Gatling ought to have stuck to his planting in Carolina."

As Sawyer shouted obscenities at his men, urging them to free the tangled metal, braves streamed in through the gateway again, losing some but getting a great many into cover. The detachment of soldiers on the wall had been reduced to ten men without even a non-com to lead them. While inside the fort the Apache infiltrators ceased their warcries and crept stealthily into and over buildings to strike silently.

A trooper's head rolled out from a doorway and was kicked viciously into the center of the compound by a moccasined foot. A terrified child scooted out into the open, chased by his hysterical mother and both pitched forward with arrows growing from their backs. Knives flashed and tomahawks thudded, arrows swished and captured rifles cracked. Upon the wall four men died in as many seconds and the remaining six tried to make the foot of the stairway on the run, blasting as they went. A dozen braves spilled out their lives in blood, but only one soldier reached the compound, there to be ripped apart by the chattering fire of the Gatling as the mechanism came free.

"Cease fire!" Sawyer shrieked in terror as he realized the machine gun was no longer of use, its deadly spray not differentiating between friend and foe. It was his final command. An arcing arrow bored a course downward through his right cheek and into his throat. "Oh, mother!" he managed to sigh before he died, pitching forward off the arsenal roof.