Tworivers
Copyright© 2025 by Harry Carton
Chapter 9: The Gun with no Powder
This is the video that flashed through Wind Rider’s memory: The Girardoni Air Rifle
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/rifles/girardoni-air-rifle/
or
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dZLeEUE940
My thanks to >> GT Dodge << for bringing it to my attention.
And to the many, many readers who have helped me in my research.
Among the captured Spanish arquebusiers was one who spoke haltingly in Spanish. Dawson Yellow Hair heard him muttering to himself in German. Now he was no linguist, but he was born in Pennsylvania Dutch country, and his ears pricked up at the familiar-ish language. Was hast du gesagt? What did you say? he asked the prisoner.
The man was startled at being addressed in German. Ich bin Deutscher, kein Spanier in pidgin-Spanish he repeated “I am German, not Spanish.”
Dawson pulled him out of the line of prisoners. “Do you speak English?”
“Ja ... yes,” he stammered.
“How do you come to be a Spanish arquebusier?” Yellow Hair asked.
“I was a serf in a blacksmith shop in southern Bavaria when the noble who was my master needed some coin and me and about 100 others were actually sold to a Spanish noble. I was not able to practice my trade in Spain, and was impressed into the army as a rifleman.”
“What kind of work did you do?”
“Oh, we were producing Girardoni rifles for the Austrian army. Our shop made about twenty a week.”
“You produced rifles?” Dawson put his arm around the man’s shoulders. “How long since you’ve had a meal?”
“Since yesterday morning. We had the typical army breakfast: flat bread and mashed corn.”
“How does some antelope steak and fresh vegetables sound? We’re cooking some now.” The man looked up eagerly, as Yellow Hair, led him over to a campfire. “Let’s get some meat into a bowl for this man.” He nodded toward the woman who was ladling out some food into bowls for the women and children.
Dawson tapped one of the children on the shoulder and asked him to run over to Wind Rider and tell him he had a “Number one thing and could Wind Rider come over right away. You understand: Number one.” The child ran over to Nantan’s tipi and told a sentry at the entrance what he was told to say. The sentry put his head into the meeting and came out with Wind Rider.
“What is it child?” said Wind Rider with a grin. The boy said he had a Number One thing, and could Wind Rider come at once. Thomas knew that only could have come from Dawson, so he excused himself from the meeting inside, and followed the boy across the village to the farming area of the camp.
Yellow Hair was squatting down near to a prisoner and chatting. “What is your name? Your real name, not what the Spanish called you.”
He was stuffing food into his mouth as quickly as he could. He replied “Helmut der Büchsenmacher.”
Yellow Hair looked up and said, “Thomas, my good man, I’d like to introduce a former Spanish rifleman. This is Helmut the gunmaker. Helmut was making guns for the Austrian army until he was sold to a Spanish noble, who took one look at him and put him in the Spanish army. Helmut, I want you to meet Thomas Wind Rider. I think we’re going to be great friends.”
Helmut straightened to his feet, bowl still in hand, and said “Ja. With pleasure I am meeting you.”
Wind Rider was taken aback by the news that not only did he have a gunmaker in camp, but a German one at that. “Helmut, I am pleased to meet you as well. Finish your meal and then we will find you some clothes and a good place to sleep. In the morning, we have much to discuss. We have a need for experienced gunmakers in this camp.”
Helmut nodded enthusiastically. “Jawohl. I will be ready.”
Thomas felt a familiar spark – like spotting a high-value target through a sniper scope. This changed everything. He clapped Dawson’s shoulder. “Keep him fed. Get him settled in the metalworkers’ tipi tonight.”
Dawn found Helmut squinting at Thomas’s laptop screen – its solar-charged battery flickering – as schematics for an 1803 Girardoni air rifle glowed in the dim light. The rifle’s schematics had been left on the laptop all night. The German traced the compressed air reservoir with calloused fingers. “Ja ... the chamber here, pressure it holds, like a blacksmith’s bellows.” His eyes widened at the aluminum alloy metal the blacksmith were working into plows. “This metal ... it is ... wunderbar!”
Thomas explained the Apache blacksmiths’ breakthrough: melting aluminum using clay kilns, then alloying it with copper taken from captured Spanish guns. “Sharper than Spanish steel,” Dawson added, handing Helmut a newly forged arrowhead. “The tip is not stronger than iron, but it holds a sharper edge for piercing.”
The gunmaker tested its edge against his thumb. “For the pressure vessel ... this could work. Where do you get this spirit-metal? ... The others [he pointed to the three women in the tipi] gave it that name. They were very friendly last night. They made me to lie down with them.”
Dawson smiled, “Well, I’m glad you had a good sleep ... The metal comes from a device we travelled in to come here. We have a limited supply of it. Wind Rider and I are not of this time.”
Helmut said, “It does not matter. We can use any steel to make parts. It is the Federstücke ... how to say, the springs ... that are important.
Thomas looked at Dawson. “Springs? We don’t have springs.”
Dawson replied, “I’ll wager there are all kinds of metals in Santa Fe. And there are no soldiers to guard them, at the moment.”
Thomas shook his head. “No. We need the Spanish settlements intact for trade. Besides, we need springs made of tempered spring steel. That requires specialized techniques.”
Yellow Hair looked at Wind Rider, “So, let us go and trade with the Spanish merchants who have no need for Toledo steel or copper or anything else. In exchange for food and medicine.”
Thomas said, “But Dawson, they are Spaniards. They will never trade with us. Especially since we killed Vargas.”
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