But that wasn’t completely true, and he knew it. Sleeping on the ground might have made it worse, all right, but at his age, his muscles would be stiff and slow to loosen even if he’d spent the night in a four-poster feather bed.
Meg poured a cup of coffee and handed it to him with a smile. He thanked her, sipped the hot, strong brew, and asked, “Where’s Salty?”
“Taking a look around outside the canyon.”
Frank frowned. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. We don’t want to draw attention to this place.”
“He said he’d be careful not to be noticed.”
Frank knew the old-timer meant well. And Salty was an experienced frontiersman who knew how to not be seen when he didn’t want to be.
But it still seemed like an unnecessary chance to Frank. He was about to go looking for his friend when he saw Salty slipping into the canyon through the brush barrier across its mouth.
“Nothin’ stirrin’ out there this mornin’,” Salty reported when he came up to the small, almost smokeless fire that Meg had built.
“You didn’t see anybody?” Frank asked.
“Nope, and nobody saw me, neither, if you were worryin’ about that,” Salty replied. “It’s plumb peaceful in these parts.”
Just then, as if Fate were enjoying having a horse laugh at the old-timer’s expense, the sound of shots suddenly racketed through the early morning air. They blasted out with incredible swiftness.
Frank and Salty stiffened. Meg came to her feet in alarm. The gunfire sounded as if it was no more than half a mile from their campsite.
“That’ll teach me to open my dadblasted mouth,” Salty said during a lull in the firing. They waited to see whether the fight was over or if it would resume again.
After a couple of minutes, another round of firing began. Again, the shots pounded out with breathtaking speed.
Salty looked at Frank and said, “Them ain’t regular guns goin’ off.”
Frank had already figured out what was going on. He shook his head and said, “Not guns. Gun. Just one. I’ve heard that sound before. The last time was at Yuma Prison.”
“It’s one of them devil guns,” Salty said.
“Devil guns,” Meg repeated. “What’s that?”
“A Gatling gun,” Frank said. “A rapid-firer. It has revolving barrels and can spit out about three hundred rounds a minute.”
The distant hammering sound of the shots stopped again.
“Somebody’s trying it out or demonstrating it for somebody else,” Frank continued.
Salty said, “I thought the soldier boys were the only ones who had them guns.”
Frank shook his head. “No, other people can get their hands on them, too. Like I said, the guards at Yuma had one mounted on a wagon.”
Salty and Meg didn’t ask how he came to know about the arms possessed by the guards at the infamous territorial prison down in Arizona, and Frank didn’t offer an explanation. He had put that trip to Ambush Valley behind him.
“What do you reckon is goin’ on?” Salty asked. “Why would somebody have a Gatlin’ gun up here in the middle o’ nowhere? Ain’t no Injun fights in these parts anymore, are there?”
“No, the Indian threat is over. Anyway, the Mounties are responsible for law and order in this part of Canada, and I’m not sure if they have any Gatling guns.” Frank rubbed his jaw as he frowned in thought. “Those smugglers I saw had some heavily loaded pack mules with them. Those crates could have had some broken-down Gatling guns in them.”
Salty pounded a knobby fist into a callused palm. “Dadgum it, I’ll bet a hat you’re right, Frank! Those varmints could’a stole them devil guns somewhere, and they’ve come up here to sell ‘em.”
That sounded like a reasonable explanation to Frank. Another idea occurred to him as well, but before he could say anything about it, Meg spoke up.
“Could this have anything to do with those men who grabbed us yesterday, Frank?” she asked. “Those … what did you call them? Metis?”
“I think that’s exactly what’s going on here,” he said. This morning’s developments had jogged his memory. “The Metis have always had trouble with the Canadian government. Their leader, a man named Louis Riel, led two rebellions in hopes of gaining a separate country for the Metis, or at least more power for them in the Canadian government. Neither war amounted to much, though. Canadian troops put down the first rebellion, and the North West Mounted Police took care of the second one. Riel was arrested, tried, and hanged. I remember reading about it in the newspapers.” He frowned. “But that was more than a dozen years ago. I haven’t heard anything more about the Metis since then.”
“Some folks have mighty long memories,” Salty pointed out. “Maybe some o’ the ones who followed that Riel fella want to try again to break away from Canada.”
Frank took up the thought. “In which case, they would need arms. Like some Gatling guns.”
The three of them stood there looking at each other for a long, silent moment. Finally Meg said, “I think you’re probably right, Frank. But if all that’s true, it doesn’t have anything to do with us. There’s nothing stopping us from heading for Calgary as fast as we can and trying to find Joe Palmer so we can get Salty’s money back.”
Frank nodded slowly. “You’re right,” he said.
