God, how I love this!
Kingsbury shouted, "Fire!"
The gun thundered, deafening him, and leaped back in its cradle of tackle. Raoul watched the woods eagerly as a white smoke cloud spread over the water. On the island, branches flew in all directions. A big tree fell. He heard a scream followed by a series of wailing cries. He almost cried aloud with pleasure.
An Indian staggered out from behind the trunk of a tall pine. He dragged one leg, a useless mass of bloody meat, and fell heavily to the ground. He held a rifle. He shook his fist at the Victory, then aimed the rifle from his prone position.
In sudden fear, Raoul was about to duck behind a hay bale when a dozen shots cracked out from the railings beside him. Bleeding from his chest and his head, the Indian collapsed and rolled into the Mississippi. Nodding happily, Raoul watched the current catch his body. It drifted slowly downstream, trailing blood.
"Keep firing!" Raoul roared. A cannoneer swabbed inside the gun barrel to cool it down for more powder. In a moment the gun boomed out again. More trees splintered, but no more Indians were flushed out.
"Raise elevation ten degrees," Kingsbury called to the gunners. "They're probably lurking farther back in the woods."
Raoul heard the clicks as the gunners used hand spikes to raise the cannon in its carriage.
After the cannon went off, dirt and broken tree limbs sprayed out of the forest, and Raoul heard shrieking sounds that he hoped were the screams of Indians.
The cannon boomed again and again. With hand signals to Captain Bill in the pilot house, Raoul had the Victory's bow swung to starboard and then to port, so that the grapeshot struck the island in a wide arc. Trees slowly toppled over, and shrieks of pain and shouts of rage and defiance pierced the silence between the roars of the cannon.