CHAPTER 7
THE GATE OF HELL
The first line of dawn cut the Texas sky like a rusted razor.
The light, a shade of pale, cold orange, showed the massive outline of the Cross Ranch at the bottom of the valley.
Morning fog crept between the timber palisades and the three watchtowers.
Up on the towers the camphene reflectors were beginning to pale against the rising brightness.
Above, on the dirt road, the tramp of the horses stopped.
Nero came down from the saddle of his black stallion.
His spurs struck the frost-covered ground with a dry ring.
He walked to the pack mule, untied the sisal cords, and took hold of the iron handle of the black coffin.
The wheels Gideon had cast in metal touched the earth.
“Elena, swing around by the rocks and take the left flank,” Nero ordered, his voice curt, cutting. “Gideon, stay up top with the horses. Keep your line of sight clear.”
Gideon slapped the bolt of his modified repeating rifle. His eyes shone behind the thick lenses of his goggles.
“She won’t jam, Nero. I spent five years setting every tooth on those gears; she wants blood as much as you do. Go on, my friend. I’ll watch your blind spots from up here. Nobody touches your back today.”
Elena only nodded. She drew her horse’s reins and went down the hillside along the flank, disappearing among the dry brush and the limestone bluffs. Her dark eyes were fixed on the windows of the main house. The vaquera’s hour had come.
Nero started walking. Alone, he went down the slope toward the main gates of the ranch, dragging the black coffin behind him.
The sound of the iron wheels crushing gravel and the rhythmic groan of the oak echoed through the valley like an executioner’s gong.
With the long coat floating about his legs and the worn hat covering his face, he looked like some mystical apparition risen straight out of the bowels of the earth.
In the main gatehouse tower, two of Vance’s hired men were passing a bottle of whiskey to drive off the chill of the small hours. One of them, a one-eyed fellow in a coyote-skin coat, frowned at the metallic noise on the road. He spat out the last of his tobacco and narrowed his eye.
“What the devil is that?” the one-eyed man muttered, taking up his repeating carbine.
The second sentry looked, wiping his gun barrel on his shirtsleeve. He let out a mocking laugh, though a sudden chill ran up his spine.
“Looks like some drifter… dragging a coffin. Fellow must have lost his mind out in the desert.”
“Hey! Stranger!” the one-eyed man shouted, leaning over the wooden rail of the tower. “Stop right there! This land has an owner. Who are you and what’s inside that box?”
Nero did not stop. He went on advancing until he stood exactly thirty paces from the main gate of solid timber.
He let go of the iron handle. The black coffin settled into the dust with a heavy thud, raising a small grey cloud.
Under the brim of his hat, his glacial blue eyes took aim at the towers.
There was no fear in them. There was only the cold arithmetic of the slaughterman.
“My name is Nero,” his voice carried, flat and cold, without the slightest tremor. “And the coffin is for you.” The two sentries froze for a second, the weight of the name and the sheer audacity of the man paralyzing their reflexes.
“It’s the son of a bitch from Bitter Creek!” the one-eyed man bellowed, spinning around to ring the ranch alarm bell. “Shoot him! Shoot!”
Before the first finger touched a trigger up in the towers, Nero took a step forward and kicked the iron latch at the head of the coffin.
The heavy oak lid fell away to the side with a crash, revealing the mechanical monstrosity inside: the circular ranks of dark steel barrels, gleaming with whale oil, and the immense crank of polished bronze.
Nero took the crank in his right hand. His left braced against the cast-iron base.
And he turned it. RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT!
Hell came down on the Cross Ranch. Gideon’s machine did not merely fire; it roared.
A storm of lead and fire crossed the space between Nero and the gate, throwing out two hundred shots a minute.
The flash of the discharge lit the hunter’s unmoved face, turning his blue eyes into two incandescent slits of destruction.
The main oak gate imploded under the impact of the first dozens of balls, becoming a cloud of splinters and flying shards.
In the left-hand tower, the one-eyed sentry was hit square before he could even raise his carbine.
The heavy lead disintegrated the wooden rail and the man’s body, throwing the remains back into the tower’s own fire.
RAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT-TAT! Nero swung the body of the gun slightly to the right, sweeping the second tower.
The sentry there tried to duck, but the balls punched through the boards of the structure as though they were writing paper.
The whole tower began to give way, its support posts shattered by the force of the mechanical impact, collapsing into a heap of wreckage and dust. From inside the ranch yard, Vance’s thirty men began pouring out of the stables and the main house, hauling their trousers on in a hurry, revolvers and rifles in their hands.
But what they found at the entrance was no band of renegades; it was an impassable wall of lead.
Five hired men who tried to run in a straight line to defend the entrance were reaped down in the middle of the yard.
The balls tore through leather coats and flesh with a frightening ease, throwing the bodies into the muddy ground.
But Vance’s bunch were experienced killers.
Seeing the devastating firepower at the entrance, a group of four mercenaries crawled along the flanks, working around the gunfire.
While Nero stayed locked on the crank, clearing the central yard, the hired men came sneaking out from behind the ruined walls, setting themselves exactly at the hunter’s back with their rifles aimed at his neck.
Nero was cornered, his blind spot completely exposed.
CRACK! The sound of a high-precision shot echoed from the top of the hill.
The mercenary who was about to pull the trigger against Nero’s back had his skull split by lead before he could fire. The body dropped heavily into the mud.
Up above, camouflaged among the rocks and guarding the horses, Gideon worked his repeating rifle with a surgeon’s composure.
Like a guardian angel made of powder and iron, he kept the lens of his field glass fixed on Nero’s rear.
CRACK! CRACK! Gideon cycled the lever of his rifle with impressive speed.
Two more shots, two more hired men dropped at distance before they could flank the hunter.
Nero did not so much as look back. He heard the crack of Gideon’s rifle echoing down from the hilltop and knew his inventor was clearing the sky above his head.
The last of Vance’s men trying to take him from behind panicked at the sight of his companions falling out of nowhere.
He hesitated for one second in the gloom. That was enough.
The thick blue smoke of black powder quickly swallowed the front of the ranch, smelling of sulphur and death.
The ground around Nero’s boots was covered with hundreds of golden brass casings that chimed as they fell on the cold stones.
Suddenly a sharp sound of striking metal rang out of the gun.
The ammunition belt had run out. The dark steel barrels smoked, ticking with the extreme heat of the firing.
The ranch yard went silent for a millisecond, the survivors hidden behind wagons and stacks of hay realizing the pause in the massacre.
“His gun has quit!” shouted one of Vance’s men, rising from behind a hay wagon. “Kill the son of a bitch now!”
Three mercenaries sprang from their hiding places, levelling their rifles at the solitary hunter in the middle of the road.
Nero let go of the bronze crank. His arms dropped to the sides of the long coat.
He did not run. He did not look for cover.
In a movement so fast that human eyes could barely follow it, both Colt Patersons leapt out of their holsters.
With a dry snap, Nero used the new mechanism Gideon had forged in the workshop: an instant tilting break that ejected the empty cylinders onto the ground and seated two full spare drums, locking them with a perfect metallic click.
Under two seconds. The three mercenaries had not even cocked the hammers of their rifles when Nero’s Patersons spoke first.
POW! POW! POW! Three surgical shots. Three bodies falling backward into the mud of the yard, with perfect holes between the eyes.
Nero stayed on his feet among the fallen casings and the smoke, the barrels of the pistols pointed forward.
CRACK! Gideon’s rifle sang from the hill one more time, blowing open the chest of the hired man coming up at Nero’s back and throwing him down into the mud.
Silence returned to the Cross Ranch, broken only by the crackle of burning wood and the chime of hundreds of brass casings on the ground.
Nero remained standing, the barrels of his pistols smoking.
He glanced up to the top of the hill, where Gideon discreetly raised the barrel of his rifle in a sign of victory.
The hunter’s back was untouched. The gate of hell had been brought down, and Vance’s house now stood entirely defenceless.
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