Chee had watched as Hollister and Dog disappeared inside the mine. The major was following Malachi and Shaniah. Unless Chee acted, and soon, Jonas Hollister was going to die. He pulled back the slide on the Gatling and loaded a new belt of wooden bullets. Hollister had found an opening in the Archaic line and made it to the entrance. But there were another twenty or thirty Archaics still standing, and they needed to be dealt with first.
He pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. This was not good. He pulled the slide open and immediately saw the problem. One of the wooden bullets had fractured into several pieces and jammed the action on the gun. He tried clearing the splinters but there were too many. The gun was momentarily useless.
The Archaics realized the shooting had stopped and slowly they ventured closer to the shed. Chee tried desperately to free the action of the gun. No time. With the butt of the Henry, he knocked open the crate of dynamite left on the cart. He removed two sticks of dynamite and lit them. There were howls and shouts coming from outside as the Archaics grew bolder. The fuses on the dynamite hissed as he stepped back to the window and was shocked to see how close they had gotten. He tossed the dynamite through the window.
The Archaics were hit full-on from twenty yards by the concussion wave of the explosion. A few of them tried to turn and run when they saw the sticks spinning through the air, but they had ventured too close to the shed and they were blown down like dead stalks of wheat. Chee poured it on, keeping the flame working over them until there was nothing left but piles of charred flesh.
Looking out through the opening in the shed wall, he could not see an Archaic standing anywhere. He picked up one of the Henry rifles and hung it on his shoulder. Monkey Pete had designed the Gatling to be released from the cart by untwisting a large screw. He took the sling from the spare Henry and fastened it to the Gatling gun so it hung at his waist. Looping a belt of ammunition around his shoulders, he left the building. He worked his way through the mass of destruction and dead bodies that lined the ground between the buildings and the mine.
At the entrance he looked behind him, making sure there were no signs of life among the bodies on the ground. Archaics could heal quickly, and he wanted to make sure no one was left alive to attack from the rear. The Archaics in the field lay still. Their weapons had reaped mass destruction on these creatures. He and Major Hollister had brought killing machines to this fight. And they had won. At least this battle.
He heard noise up ahead, coming from deep inside the mine shaft. It sounded like a fight.