CHAPTER 5
THE TRAIL OF THE LAWLESS VALLEY
The icy wind of the small hours blew mercilessly through the seams of the plain, carrying with it the characteristic smell of dry earth, stagnant dust, and the bitterness of bruised broomweed.
Behind Nero’s imposing black stallion, a rhythmic metallic sound echoed through the dark: the cast-iron wheels Gideon had forged and bolted directly to the sides of the black coffin.
They knocked and grated in a funereal cadence against the rolled pebbles of an old dry river, whose bed now served as a hidden road for the three renegades.
Just behind, mounted on a chestnut mare, Gideon rode with his eyes half closed.
He used the rare moments of calm to adjust, with a watchmaker’s precision, the screws of the breech mechanism of his modified rifle, guided by nothing but the pale silver light of the Texas moon.
Elena rode at the head of the little column.
She led the group with the assurance and surgical precision of someone who knew every fold of ground, every gully, and every hidden danger in that endless darkness.
The coarse dark wool coat over her shoulders barely managed to conceal the authority of her firm seat in the saddle.
She did not move like a courtesan; she moved like a military scout.
“You handle that mount like somebody who can read the stars on the ceiling of the world, Elena,” Gideon remarked, breaking the silence of the night with a voice roughened by foundry fumes.
“A woman who makes her living in saloons usually knows only the short road between the liquor counter and the felt tables.”
Elena drew lightly on the leather reins, easing the animal down to a controlled trot. She turned partway in the saddle, letting her dark, sharp eyes catch the Texas moonlight as she faced the inventor.
“My father was a vaquero of old blood out of Chihuahua,” she said, her voice firm and cutting over the whistle of the north wind.
“Before we came down into Texas territory, we lived on the Kansas plains. He spent more than ten years of his life escorting the great silver caravans and the mule trains along the Santa Fe Trail. I learned to read the shape of the land, to find water in stone, and to track the footprints of Indians and bandits before I could even speak English properly.”
Nero stayed in absolute silence, but his glacial blue eyes settled on the woman’s silhouette for a brief second. Kansas was rough country, harried by storms and cruel men, but the historic Santa Fe Trail had a reputation for forging men and women made of pure cast iron.
“And why in the world did you decide to come down into the hell of Texas?” Gideon asked, genuinely intrigued, putting the screwdriver away in his apron.
“Because the American settlers started getting it into their heads that the land at Santa Fe belonged to them by divine right, and the Mexican generals swore Kansas ought to be theirs,” Elena answered, letting out a bitter laugh that carried out across the valley.
“My father got tired of bleeding in rich men’s wars.
We came south with a plan to plant corn, raise a few head of cattle, and live in peace.
But we were na?ve. We didn’t know Colonel Jonathan Vance could turn out to be a great deal worse than any regular army. ”
The “Anatomy” of the Cross Ranch
Elena halted her horse exactly at the top of a rise of packed earth, hidden in the shadow of a wall of limestone rock.
Nero drew rein on the black stallion, stopping alongside her.
The oak coffin settled into the sandy ground with a dull, heavy thud, lifting a small cloud of red dust. Ahead of them, a scant two miles off, the yellow and sinister lights of the Cross Ranch were beginning to show at the bottom of the deep valley.
The property was monumental. Far from being an ordinary cattle ranch, Vance’s headquarters had been raised on the architecture of a war fortress.
Elena recited what she knew by heart, in a low voice, like someone repeating a prayer learned against her will: close to thirty mercenaries working the perimeter in shifts; a palisade of hardwood, sharpened at the tops, ringing the whole residential area and the corrals; three raised guard towers, with camphene reflectors sweeping the blind spots of the valley.
And in the middle of all of it, the main house of two storeys, built of stone and heavy timber.
“Down there is the true hell on earth,” Elena whispered, stretching out her arm and pointing her index finger toward the lit valley.
“Thirty men armed to the teeth. Three towers with reflectors ready to turn us into easy targets. And old Cross’s daughter is locked in some room of that main house.
The Colonel keeps the girl the way a man keeps stock for the fair, ever since McCready settled the price with those men from New Orleans. ”
Gideon came down off his mount with a nimble movement.
His eyes shone with anticipation behind the thick lenses of his goggles.
He walked heavily to the back of the pack mule, came up to the black coffin, and laid a callused, grease-blackened hand directly on the polished bronze crank of the rotating gun.
That reaper he and Nero had recovered from the crypt was thirsty for oil and powder.
“Well…” The inventor spread a broad grin, crooked and badly stained with coal soot. “I believe the clock is on our side. It’s time to show these Texas gentlemen what really happens when Kansas iron and Mexican blood sit down at the same table to collect an old debt.”
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