I wasn’t too sure about this plan, but we were people of limited means faced with desperate circumstances. Some things were just going to need to be hoped for. I certainly knew that I was praying that my hopes would not be denied.
Edgar had been for the idea of me riding up the canyon with a lit stick of dynamite in hand to which I then threw at the said enemy beings before lighting a shuck the heck back out of there. Even by my standards that was a bit obvious in terms of raising suspicions.
Instead I had chosen misdirection of a more innocent nature. I was deliberately hunched over the saddle as one might expect of an old man and behind me I led a mule packed down with all the essentials needed for gold mining.
Where the dynamite ploy might fail to attract the desired response I was pretty sure that the threat of their gold discovery being found out by humans was something they wished to avoid. They’d have no choice but to chase after me and kill me. Being killed was an all too real possibility in this scenario.
Rounding the last bend in the canyon separating me from the mine I beheld the hovering vessel and several of its occupants. They stood taller than me by at two feet and just as the indian had said they had white hair that fell down past their shoulders.
I’d never been creeped out more other than having to witness the body of a woman metamorphosis into a reptilian form of dark ugliness. With a faked shout of surprise I let go the leads of the mule and wheeled the Appaloosa back the way I’d just come. He bucked forward with a will even as two electric bolts of power zipped by me to blast solid rock into crushed powder.
The Appaloosa ran hard in our attempt to escape and I prayed that it would be enough. We turned a corner and became blessedly out of range of their weapons, if only for a moment.
I heard the droning hum behind me up the canyon abruptly go high pitched and I urged the horse faster. I still had a quarter of a mile before I reached the mouth of the canyon.
I hung over the horse’s mane doing my best to aid the animal in its flight from certain death. I glanced back and gave a start at the sight of the hovercraft closing in fast.
I jerked the reins hard and the horse swerved to the right. The canyon wall off to our left exploded terrifically and rock chips slammed into me and the horse.
Glancing to the side I saw the ship right there flying sideways so that its observation window faced us. Once again I saw the faces of beings I never wished to see any closer than I already had.
Drawing my gun I fired it in rapid succession at them. Hopelessly I watched my bullets smash into the glass of its observation window to only then bounce off and go pinging off elsewhere.
My actions though impotent did seem to anger my enemies enough to the point of distracting them from realizing the narrowness of the canyon. The vessel bumped hard into the side of the canyon and then ricocheted over to my side to crash off my side of the canyon with a metallic chink of grinding metal.
The ship’s progress had slowed radically and rounding the last corner I saw the mouth of the canyon. The canyon narrowed to a narrow channel that two wagons would’ve spanned across and just where it opened up onto the plain it divided into two channels with an up-thrust remnant of stone dividing the two.
The channel to the right was higher and clear of obstruction. It had been the route used by the minors to transport supplies and gold bullion through. The other route led to a depression where runoff water collected just before where the canyon opened up onto the plain.
I reached the turn and swerved the Appaloosa down the left channel of the canyon mouth. Two power bolts slammed into the up-thrust of rock that divided the two channels.
The Appaloosa hit the stagnant water pond and sent muddy scum flying everywhere. We hogged on forward through the slop tripping the ropes holding the calcium carbide in suspension above the murky water. Several wooden crates worth of calcium carbide slid into the stagnant water and immediately a steamy vapor began to rise up.
We hauled up out of the muck and I barely had the time to duck under the wooden underside of the mirror wall that we had constructed out of the room length mirrors of the saloon.
The mirror had been in ten foot segments of which there had been three. We’d stacked the three ten foot sections of the mirror one on top the other to form a ten foot wide by twelve foot tall wall of reflection.
I rode clear of the mirror wall before pulling the Appaloosa up. I glanced back just as the enemy craft peeled around the corner into the left channel of the canyon mouth. The vessel came to a gravity defying stop over top of the stagnant pool of water at the sight of what must’ve seemed to them for a moment to be another ship.
The angel, in the form of the old indian, had possessed the ability to summon such a ship of a similar design howbeit one that was grander somehow than the one now before me. My hope was that in the rush of the chase they would mistake the reflection in the mirror as that of a ship belonging to their angelic enemies.
That seemed to have worked, but our plan for the gas to thin the air enough for the hovering craft to sink hadn’t!
A cloudy smog rose up and engulfed the craft, but still it did not sink. The bright power of its weapons pulsed and the mirror wall shattered to pieces, but that wasn’t the end of it.
The very air of the canyon channel seemed to disappear in an engulfing outburst of flame. The shockwave of flame knocked me off my horse as the Appaloosa bucked in terror.
Looking up I blinked at the sight of the hovercraft half sunk into the muddy pond of water. I hit the ground hard with my fist in jubilation!
We hadn’t thinned the air, but what we had done was create an explosion primarily rooted above the craft, which had drove it downward into the muck of the pond of water. Somehow our venture had worked, just not the way we had planned it though.
Looking to the mesa I prayed Edgar hadn’t failed on his part of the plan. With an explosion that knocked me flat again the walls of the canyon and the up-thrust of rock that had divided the two channels completely disintegrated and spewed outward to pound down on top of the vessel mired in the mud.
The longest part of our preparations of the day gone by had been taken up by drilling holes with the drill steel augers into the sides of the canyon walls. We had packed the holes full of dynamite and then we had laid the leftover boxes of dynamite all along the canyon wall’s base.
The air hung heavy with smoke and dust and coughing on it I felt a massive headache form instantly as I breathed in the cordite fumes of the exploded dynamite. The wind blew and the dust drifted back up the canyon.
Looking up I confirmed that all trace of the enemy had been buried beneath a load of rock and debris. I waited to see if it would pull free of our trap, but no movement occurred. We’d done it!
Suddenly I was mobbed by screaming people and I about passed out from the pain of the sound.
“We did it Marshal!” Edgar was screaming.
“Yeah, now easy with the noise will yah.” I said groaning, as I clutched at my head.
Fresh air was helping the headache go away and before long I could bring myself to open my eyes. When I did I beheld a town unified.