Chapter 2

This was really a recon mission, so I left my horse about a mile from where I guessed the mine to be. I did take my carbine and two of the three extra 30-round clips. I also took my canteen and the sandwich I intended to eat for lunch.

All of my reading had not prepared me for the intensity of the mid-day sun in NMT. Fortunately, I was one of those people who could adapt quickly to a change in ambient conditions, so, other than sweating profusely, I was able to cope with the heat.

As I got closer to the mine, I moved off the trail to avoid being spotted by the guards. I had walked about half a mile when I saw a man's shadow on some rocks, though I could not see the man. I probably would not have noticed the shadow if he had not moved. From the changes in the shadow, I could tell that he was wiping sweat from his brow. That's when I thanked God for the hot weather!

Now that I knew where the man was, I was able to avoid being seen. As I said, this was just a recon mission, so I didn't want to make too much noise. Of course, I was going to have to do something today because of the dead man back up the trail. Nevertheless, I wanted time to eat lunch before I did any more fighting, so I ate the sandwich while I was walking.

As I got closer to the mine, I began to hear activity around the site. There was some loud talking and an occasional shout. Suddenly, there was a gunshot, so I hurried up to see what I could find. I saw a man holding a pistol and another writhing on the ground, acting as if he had been shot in the gut.

Then I heard, "Ya're in deep shit, now, Anderson. That was a legitimate order that the foreman gave ya. Ya had no right ta shoot him."

"Shut yer trap, Smitty! I've had all I kin take of stupid orders. I want some of that gold, an' I plan ta git it."

"Shit, man, ya're really gonna git it. Ya know what the orders are. We're not supposed ta let anybody know that we've been workin' a gold mine."

"I told ya ta shut up, Smitty. Now ya're gonna git it too, just like the foreman." Anderson raised his gun and pointed it at Smitty, but a shot rang out from behind me and off to my right. Anderson crumpled onto his face with a big bloody spot in the middle of his back between his shoulder blades.

Smitty waved to someone up behind me. "Much obliged, Eddy. I think that crazy fool wuz about ta shoot me. HEY! LOOK OUT! THERE'S A SPY!" Smitty pointed right at me.

I don't know how he saw me, but it was time to act! I raised my carbine and snapped off a shot at Smitty. He ducked as I fired, so I missed, dammit! At that moment, a bullet went threw the crown of my hat. Now, that was a new hat, so Eddy really pissed me off with that shot. I looked up, and there he was, looking down at me. He must have figured that I would not have had time to reload, so there was a surprise in store for him. I turned more toward his direction and raised my carbine. This time, I took careful aim and squeezed of a shot. Shooting up like that is difficult, but I caught Eddy in the belly at a sharply rising angle. He fell face first off the rock ledge, and he may have been dead before he hit the rocks on the ground below. I could see him, and there was no question that he was dead.

I had three more guards and five or six workers to go. I was clumsy in my questioning, so I didn't know it there were five or six workers, besides the foreman. Oh, well...

Smitty had run into the mine, so I figured that all of the workers were now in there, and the only people outside were the guards. It was obvious that I had to eliminate the guards first, but I had to keep an eye on the mine opening to be sure no more ran out to join the fight. In light of that, I thought that I would confuse the issue a little bit by firing several shots into the mine, too close together to be from a reloaded weapon. That would make it seem like there were more riflemen out here and discourage the workers from running out to aid in the fight.

I moved a little bit to get a better angle for shooting into the mine and fired off three shots into the entrance. They were fired on semiautomatic, but only about 1-2 seconds apart. I hoped that sounded like there were at least three riflemen out here.

Meanwhile, I glimpsed a man trying to sneak up on me from my right. Shit, this fight was getting a bit more exciting than I really liked. My neck was on a swivel bearing as I kept looking around for the rest of the guards. Ah, there's another one! These guys must not have had any military training because they sure were sloppy about letting themselves be seen.

I had time to take a decent aim on the man to my left, so I fired one shot. I saw the bullet hit his arm and he let out a scream. I figured that would keep him out of my way for at least a little while. The man on my right was trying to line up a shot, so I switched to full automatic and gave him a three round burst. Two of the rounds caught him in the torso, so he was down for the count if not completely out of the fight.

One guard left. I switched back to semiautomatic and carefully looked around. I could be just as dead being hit by a rifle ball as I could from a nuclear warhead, so I had to keep my mind on my business. Uh-oh, there was some movement at the mine entrance, so I popped a couple of rounds in there just to keep their heads down.

Shit! I asked myself why was I trying to save ammunition? I had half a clip in the carbine and two more clips in my pocket. On top of that, I had my two pistols with plenty of extra clips, so I really didn't need to worry. I said to hell with it and flipped back to full automatic fire. Now, let's see those bastards get cute with me!

I had to wait about 10 minutes before anything else happened. That's when I saw some movement off to the left of the mine and up in the rocks. I figured to try a trick I had read about in Western novels, but had been dubious about. I found a stick and put my hat on it. I slowly moved the stick around and there it was. A bullet cut through my hat and sent it flying. I let out a scream and waited to see what would happen.

I knew where the shot had come from because of the powder smoke, so I watched that area to see what would happen. By damn, the trick did work. The fool stood up to try to see better the result of his shot. As soon as most of his chest was exposed, I fired a short burst of four rounds. From the look of surprise on the man's face, I knew that he had been hit, I just didn't know exactly how bad. When three red spots appeared on his shirt, I knew the answer to that question.

Now it was time to work on the crew in the mine. To be on the safe side, I swapped clips. That gave me 31 rounds without having to reload. I know, I should have sprayed the mine with a long burst before I swapped clips, but I didn't think about it at the time.

I dodged around, just in case, as I ran up to the mine entrance. As soon as I got there, I ducked inside and fired another short burst. This time, I heard a scream. I don't know what that proved, but I took note of the occurrence. Dammit, it was dark in there after being out in the direct sun. Well, I had rescued my hat, but I don't think that had much to do with it. I got more nervous as I had to wait nearly 15 minutes for my eyes to adjust adequately to the gloom. I had a powerful LED light that I could clip the the bottom of my carbine barrel where the bayonet clip was. I didn't need it yet, but I sure was glad to have the backup.