Book The Code: Pt 4: The Retaliation

4. The Retaliation

Click-click-click-click-click-click.

Mav sat packing rounds into a stripper clip for his C96 in the storeroom of the gunstore.

In front of him lay his M-95 rifle, his shotgun, his lever action rifle, two revolvers, and his Mauser. He grabbed the C96, locked back the piston, inserted the stripper clip, and pushed the rounds down inside into the pistol. He removed the stripper clip and let the piston down, and holstered it behind him. He had loaded seven stripper clips.

He packed shells into the shotgun, cycled the lever, and pushed one more into the tube. He repeated the process with the rifle. The M-95 was already good to go. He filled the cylinders of his revolvers, holstered them, and checked that the bullet loops on his pistol belt were packed with ammunition.

Moore came into the storeroom. He had his revolver set for cross-draw and his mini shotgun on his leg sheath, and a lever action rifle strapped across his back. He popped open a case of ammunition and began topping off the rifle, and packing spare ammunition.

Peréz poked his head in. “Couple hours till nightfall, boss.”

“We’ll be out of here well before then.” Moore said. He finished and re-slung the rifle. “As soon as Mav’s finished packing up his calvary division, we’ll be on our way.”

Mav sat in silence. Moore had seen him silent before, and it was usually the attitude he had before he went on a rampage of gunfire and violence.

“I’m set.” Mav said suddenly, standing. He slung the M-95 across his back and grabbed his lever action and shotgun in one hand each.

They walked through the front of the shop, past the gun counter and the dealer behind it. There was a man in the shop, and he jumped at the sudden procession of the four men and their arsenal. They didn’t look at him.

Moore passed a note to the dealer on the way out. The dealer read it briefly and nodded. “Best of luck to you.” He called as the men left.

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The sun dipped below the horizon, and almost like a switch had been thrown, Mav could hear the thunder of hooves.

He had wrapped his Gewher in brush and was laying in an old foxes hole in the trees. The group had selected a slope with a wide opening with no other navigable trails to get around them by horse with the exception of a couple that would take the better part of a day to travel, and Victor’s group wouldn’t have that sort of time to meet their own deadline.

In Mav’s scope, finally coming around a bend in the trail, a group of twenty men on horses were approaching. Mav could see Victor in the front, atop a gray war horse, leading his small militia toward their position. They were all mounted, and one horse was pulling a wagon covered in canvas.

They stopped, some ways out, and all dismounted. They pulled a collection of rifles, shotguns, pistols, any sort of armament from their horses.

Victor himself had four pistols strapped on. Two revolvers on his thighs, and another two beneath his armpits. He had a rifle slung across his back one way, and beneath it rested a saber. Mav remembered seeing him all cannoned up for the first time like that, when he had first met him. But then he pushed the thought from his mind.

“Roy!” Victor thundered. He may have been old and graying, but his voice could carry. He was still an exceptionally fit man. "I’ll give you one last chance! Put down your guns! I may even let you leave here with your life.”

Mav selected a target and, exhaling, tightened his trigger finger. The rounds the arms dealer had made by hand for him weren’t made from cheap black powder, so there was no large muzzle flash. A man holding a break-action shotgun dropped.

Victor flinched, drawing the two pistols from beneath his arms. “So be it!” He screamed, and the space between the two groups erupted in gunfire.

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The two sheriff’s deputies had been through a long night. They dared not make camp, for fear of being attacked by Indians. They were damn near the heart of their territory, and even given that they were men of the law, Indians didn’t play nice with unwelcome travelers.

Jones raised his head sharply from his weary position, slouched in his saddle. He had heard a gunshot off in the distance. Hawes had evidently heard it too. He put it down to a late hunter, or even an Indian, before he heard multiple gunshots break out.

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Mav sent another bullet down the slope and cycled the bolt again. Then, off to his right, he heard the chattering of quick automatic fire.

The gun dealer had been keeping the Gatling gun laying around for quite some time. He had all the 45-70 ammunition to keep it running in the world, as well as the parts to fix it up, but no time or expertise. Hayde had been working with firearms since he was a toddler, and offered to get the thing running again. The note that Moore had passed to the dealer had a location and a message on it. Where they would be headed, and what they would be borrowing.

When Victor and his group had turned up outside the shop, he simply gave them the note, although the section about the Gatling gun had been cut off precisely with a hunting blade. Victor and his gang were to have no knowledge of it.

Mav selected another target. And another. And another, before he had no rounds left in the rifle. He didn’t bother to reload, simply pulling himself from the foxhole and grabbing the lever action laying on the ground next to the foxhole. He fired two quick rounds, but only one connected. He ducked off into the trees, vanishing.

Moore and Peréz continued to man the Gatling gun, while Hayde kept the enemy under pressure with his 30-06 rifle. He stopped only to either reload or toss Moore a new box of ammo, who was keeping the gun fed and shooting. Peréz was keeping the weapon’s arc of fire moving. The gun chewed up the canvas wagon and set it ablaze, and the clearing became illuminated from the fire.

Most of Victor’s men had elected to take cover in the natural defilades and keep shooting. A round ricocheted off the Gatling gun, narrowly missing Moore.

Mav chose that moment to reappear with his lever action, and pumped all six remaining rounds out, two resulting in wounds and the other four being lethal shots. He dropped it and drew both his revolvers, sliding deeper down the slope, firing four shots. Three connected.

Moore and Peréz abandoned the Gatling gun, grabbing their rifles and pushing down the slope.

Mav pushed up from behind the enemy. There were six remaining. Several of the dead had been accounted for either by Mav’s precision or the cannon’s raw rate of fire. Victor was nowhere to be seen.

Mav heard Peréz’s triple barrel shotgun fire a rifle round followed by a yell, then two rapid shotgun blasts and then silence for a moment.

A man stepped out from behind the burning wagon and Mav emptied his eight remaining rounds from his revolvers into him, rapid fire. He went down immediately.

Mav dropped the revolver and drew his C96. Another man rose from a patch of tall grass in the clearing and Mav shot him twice in the chest. He staggered, and Mav put one more through his head.

Suddenly, Victor was rising from the grass as well.

He had expended three of his four pistols and was missing his rifle. He still had the saber across his back. He was raising his remaining revolver towards Mav.

Mav pointed the Mauser and pulled the trigger a second before Victor could fire his revolver. Both pistols clicked, without firing.

Victor pulled the trigger twice more. Mav cycled the piston on the Mauser, ejecting the round that was in the chamber and cycling in a new one, and pulled the trigger again. Another click.

Victor dropped the revolver and drew the saber. Mav did likewise and reached for his Bowie as Victor charged him.

Victor swung the sword in an overhand blow, and Mav deflected it off the blade of the knife. Victor reversed the swing, and Mav got inside his form and buried the knife in Victor’s chest.

Victor stumbled back. Mav was now weaponless. Victor dropped the saber and yanked the knife out of his chest, his black jacket shining with blood in the light from the wagon. He came at Mav with the knife, who sidestepped, ducked, and spun around, catching the back of Victor’s legs with his heel and put him on the ground.

He lay on the ground, mouth open in shock, staring at the sky. His grip on the knife went limp.

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Hawes nudged Jones with his elbow. “The gunfire’s stopped.”

They lay just at the edge of the clearing, which was illuminated by the burning wagon. There was a stray horse running around, and although the two were at a distance, they could still see multiple people lying motionless on the ground.

They had just watched the two men go hand to hand. They had watched one fall to the ground, now the man dressed in brown stood over the one in black.

“We could take them both now, before the one in brown kills him.” Hawes whispered.

Jones shook his head. “Too much of a risk. There was a lot more shooting from that treeline. There’s more than just one man.”

Just as he said that, three more figures appeared behind the man in brown. All armed.

They continued to watch. Their rifles lay next to them, but there were no rounds in the chamber.

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“How...?” Victor gasped.

“Because you were too set in your righteousness.” Mav responded. “You thought that your experience and knowledge couldn’t be defeated. You believed in rules to warfare. You believed that you could limit your willingness to survive. And you lead yourself and your men to your deaths.”

Mav retrieved one of his revolvers from the ground, removing a round from his belt. He opened the latch to the cylinder and ejected an empty casing, replacing it with the loaded round.

“You were wrong.” Mav said simply. He thumbed back the hammer just enough to adjust the position of the cylinder, and twisted the loaded round into position, then cocked the hammer.

“But you believed in the Code once.” Victor whispered, obviously in pain. “You creates the damn thing, for God’s sake.”

“And I saw how wrong I was,” Mav replied, voice low, as he walked over to Victor. “when I lost what I loved most.”

He pointed the revolver and pulled the trigger.

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Hawes and Jones watched as the man in brown stepped away, crouched and reaching for something off the ground. It was a revolver. He fiddled with it for a moment. The pair of deputies could hear voices, but they couldn’t make out of the words.

Then they saw the pistol get pointed followed by a gunshot.

“Bastard.” Muttered Hawes. Jones grunted in agreement.

“Aren’t these guys supposed to follow some set of rules? I thought they weren’t supposed to kill a wounded man.” Hawes wondered aloud quietly.

“Hawes. These guys just wasted a small militia. They aren’t your run-of-the-mill bandits. They’re something else.”

They watched as the other three men grabbed a cart and pulled it out of the trees, letting it down the slope slowly. On top was a mounted Gatling gun.

“God damn.” Hawes said. Jones, a very religious man, didn’t comment on the use of the Lord’s name in vain. “These guys walked into an ambush without a care.”

“And they’ll stand judgement before the Lord knowing that.” Jones murmured. “I’d rather not risk my own life trying to nab these guys.”

They watched as the Gatling cannon rolled to a stop. Then something was shoved down a couple of the barrels, and fuses lit. Then the group of men melted away into the trees without a trace.

The Gatling cannon went up in an explosion, destroyed by sticks of dynamite. It had been placed to look like it had been hauled by the larger group of men. But the two deputies knew better.

They’d just witnessed a new kind of enemy that didn’t play nice with others. They weren’t about to press their luck.

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