Free Webb's Posse by Ralph Cotton Page B

rifle from the rock beside him. “I will personally carve that Yankee bastard’s heart out and eat it before it cools!” Rifle fire from the soldiers below zipped past Goose’s head like mad hornets. He jacked round after round into his rifle chamber and fired until the gun barrel was too hot to touch.
    â€œGet down there and kill every damned one of them!” Goose bellowed at the men along the firing line. The men looked at one another and rose up from the ground. But Moses Peltry stopped them with a raised hand as they headed back a few feet to their horses.
    â€œWait, Goose! Damn it to hell!” shouted Moses above the exploding rifle fire. Keeping his hand raised toward the men as if holding them in place, Moses turned to his brother. “Did you even see Hirsh’s signal? Are you sure they were even carrying a Gatling machine rifle?”
    The six riflemen stood staring, anxious to get under way. Moses Peltry wouldn’t let them go until he heard something from Goose. Along the ridge, six other riflemen kept a steady barrage of gunfire onthe trail below. Goose Peltry stared back and forth wild-eyed, outraged that his brother had contradicted his order. “Yes, damn it, I saw Hirsh’s signal!” said Goose, his words broken up by the steady explosions. “He raised his hat and rubbed his forehead right before that Yankee put a hole in his belly! The Gatling gun’s there! We just got to be bold enough to get it.”
    â€œYou better be right about this!” Moses said in a threatening tone. “I ain’t risking these men for an empty wagon! We’re short of men as it is.”
    From below, one of the troopers had managed to get inside the gun wagon and swing the Gatling rifle upward along the ridgeline. Bullets ripped up a long line of dirt and rock twenty feet below the edge of the ridge. “Well there, brother Moses!” shouted Goose. “Does that tell you anything?”
    â€œAll right, men,” Moses shouted. “Let’s get down there and cut them to pieces!” The riflemen seemed to come unstuck. They bolted toward their horses. Goose growled under his breath, “Damn it to hell, I can’t stand it when he does me that way!” Then he hurried to his horse along with Moses and the six other men. “Keep us covered!” he shouted to the riflemen firing down from the ridge.
    On the narrow trail, a young trooper named Doyle Benson swung the Gatling gun back and forth, beating the rear of the mechanism with his fist. In the cover of the wagon blocking the trail, Sergeant Teasdale called out through the barrage of rifle fire raining down on them, “Damn it, man! What’s wrong now?”
    â€œSergeant, it’s jammed again!” shouted Benson. “I can’t get it angled up to where they are, and now the damn thing’s gone and jammed on me!” Hestepped back and kicked the Gatling gun stand as bullets whistled past his head.
    â€œThen get yourself down out of there and listen to Hargrove, you fool,” shouted Sergeant Teasdale from his stooped position behind the broken-down freight wagon thirty yards away, “before they shoot your eyes out!”
    The young trooper dropped from the wagon, but not before a bullet sliced through the sleeve of his blue wool shirt. “Who’s up there, Hargrove?” he asked the older trooper huddled against the side of the gun wagon beside him. “Think it’s Apaches come to steal that broken-down freight wagon?”
    â€œNo, you mallet-head!” Trooper Lyndell Hargrove replied, firing upward as he spoke. “They’re white men! Ambushers! The freight wagon isn’t broken down! It’s a trap! Didn’t you hear the sergeant say the wagon driver gave them a signal? You best start learning to pay attention if you plan on seeing your next birthday!”
    â€œHow am I suppose to see and hear everything going on at a time like