Chapter 24 - The Hail of Lead
The sound was not like gunfire; it was like the sky being torn open by giant iron teeth.
*Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!*
A wall of lead slammed into the lower bridge half a heartbeat behind Clara. The stout six-inch oak handrails disintegrated into a cloud of splinters and sawdust. The river spray below erupted into boiling geysers where stray bullets chewed into the icy current.
Clara threw herself forward, sliding on her stomach across the frozen earth just as a second Gatling gun joined the chorus from the western flank.
The front facade of Black Ridge's general store—a structure that had stood for twenty-five years through mountain blizzards—literally dissolved under the concentrated fire. Glass shattered inward like diamond dust. The clapboard siding vanished into matchsticks, exposing the dry goods within to the torrential storm of bullets. Barrels of flour exploded in white plumes, mingling with the drifting black powder smoke to create a ghostly, choking fog along the main thoroughfare.
"Down! Stay down!" Sheriff Miller shouted from behind a low retaining wall of stacked granite boulders. He reached out, grabbed the collar of Clara’s heavy coat, and hauled her roughly behind the stone bulwark just as a burst of fire chipped an eight-inch crater from the granite face inches above their heads.
Dust and stone fragments showered Clara’s hair. Her chest heaved, her lungs burning from the cold air and the sudden burst of adrenaline. She looked down—the oilskin satchel was covered in white powder and pine splinters, but intact.
"Are they into the mine?" she gasped, shaking the debris from her eyes.
"Boone got the families out the back alley through the stables!" Miller yelled over the deafening drumbeat of the guns. "They're moving through the lower drift right now! But the cavalry is dismounting—they're advancing through the timber on foot with Spencer carbines! We can't hold this wall for five minutes!"
Down the street, two miners who had attempted to return fire from the second-story window of the saloon were caught in the crossfire. The building's second floor seemed to buckle under the endless stream of lead; the timber supports were sheared clean through, sending the entire porch roof crashing down into the street in a thunder of broken rafters and shingles.
Through the drifting haze of smoke and pulverized flour, Clara saw them: dark blue silhouettes advancing through the pine trees on both sides of the creek. They moved in disciplined skirmish squads, firing in alternating volleys. Every crack of a Spencer carbine kicked up snow at the base of the barricade.
Then, from the high bluffs overlooking the western pass, came the distinct, steady cadence of Nathaniel’s lever-action.
*Crack. Crack. Crack.*
High above the battlefield, perched on an eagle’s nest of rock where the cavalry could not easily elevate their heavy barrels, Nathaniel was working with lethal, terrifying speed.
Three hundred yards away, the soldier cranking the handle of the right-hand Gatling gun suddenly stiffened, dropped the iron arm, and pitched forward over the brass hopper. A second cavalryman stepped up to push the dead man aside and seize the crank—before his hand could touch the iron, Nathaniel’s second bullet took him through the throat.
The right Gatling fell silent, its brass mechanism jammed by the body of the fallen gunner.
"He bought us the street!" Clara cried, grasping Miller’s arm. "We fall back now! If they bring the horses across the creek, we’re cut off from the adit!"
Miller looked at the line of blue coats advancing through the smoke. The old sheriff drew his heavy Colt, his mouth set in a grim, hard line. "You go, Mrs. Dale. Run for the timber behind the livery. Follow the tracks to the Number Four portal."
"Miller, you can't hold them alone!"
"I ain't alone, Clara," Miller said, his voice dropping below the roar of the assault. "I’ve lived in this valley for thirty years. I took Bell’s dirty silver when I should have fought him, and I let your husband ride out into that blizzard alone because I was too yellow to stand up to the railroad men."
He looked at her, his eyes clear and steady for the first time since she had arrived in Black Ridge. "I owe Caleb Dale a debt. And I intend to pay it in lead."
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Before she could scream his name, Miller rose above the granite wall, both hands locked around his revolver, and began firing into the advancing cavalry vanguard.
***
