Chapter 10 - Blood Feud at Rattlesnake Pass
Rattlesnake Pass was a narrow, winding bottleneck flanked by perpendicular cliffs of red sandstone. It was the only route connecting the railroad depot to the interior settlements—and Vance’s hired army had entrenched themselves behind boulder barricades at the narrowest point.
Sixty hard-bitten mercenaries, armed with repeating rifles and two heavy brass Gatling guns, waited for the Apache column to walk into the slaughter pen.
From high above the canyon rim, Corvin and Tazhi crawled through the red dust, looking down upon the ambushers.
"The guns will chew our people into pieces before they reach fifty yards," Corvin whispered, watching the sunlight glint off the circular ammo drums of the Gatling weapons.
"Then we silence the guns first," Tazhi answered.
She signaled to four scouts behind them. Each man carried goatskin bladders filled with raw petroleum drained from the natural rock seeps north of the valley.
While Chief Nana led a diversionary charge down the center of the canyon—feigning a frontal assault with terrifying war cries—Corvin and Tazhi slid down a hidden goat trail behind the mercenary barricades.
Corvin pulled his Army revolver. "Take the right gun. I take the left."
They struck like sudden lightning.
Corvin fired three shots in rapid succession, dropping the gunner and two loaders before they could swing the heavy iron barrel. Tazhi hurled the oil bladder into the ammunition wagon; a flaming arrow followed an instant later.
The explosion shook the canyon walls. A deafening roar of fire and iron shrapnel tore through the rear line of Vance’s mercenaries. Panic erupted. Trapped between the inferno behind them and Chief Nana’s screaming cavalry surging through the canyon mouth, the mercenaries broke ranks, throwing down their arms and fleeing into the desert brush.
Through the clearing smoke, Corvin caught sight of a black frock coat riding hard toward Dry Creek on a blood-bay horse.
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"Vance!" Corvin roared.
"Let him run," Tazhi said, catching Corvin’s arm. Her face was smudged with black powder, her eyes shining with fierce triumph. "He runs to the town. He thinks the town will protect him. That is where we cut off the snake's head."
