CHAPTER 12
THE FRONTIER OF DUST
The imaginary line dividing the territory of Texas from the New Mexico desert was not marked on any map, but the horses felt the change before the men did.
The sparse vegetation of Bitter Creek disappeared entirely, giving way to an immensity of red sand, limestone rock calcined by the sun, and the skeletons of cactus standing up like dead sentries against the dark blue sky.
The midday sun turned the horizon into a trembling barrier of mirages.
Fine dust rose with the hooves of the mounts, covering the faces of the three renegades with a mask of dry earth.
On the far side of that invisible border there were not days of travel but weeks — and all three of them knew it without needing to say so out loud. Between the dust of Bitter Creek and the salt air of the Pacific lay more than fifteen hundred miles of land that belonged to no law at all.
Nero rode at the front. The canvas duster was closed to the neck to protect his skin from gusts of scorching wind, and the brim of his hat threw a dense shadow over his glacial blue eyes.
On his left flank the sturdy pack horse kept an even pace.
Under the waterproof tarpaulin, the double flank mount Gideon had forged held the rotating reaper perfectly snug against the animal’s ribs.
The weight was balanced with surgical care by the bronze crate full of ammunition on the opposite flank; the horse did not limp, and the mechanism did not sway.
Gideon, coming along just behind, wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of a grease-blackened hand and looked at his creation with undisguised pride.
“Look at that…” the inventor murmured, his voice roughened by dust. “If we were still dragging that oak coffin, we’d have buried the wagon axle in the first sand dune.
Engineering saves men from their own stupidity, Nero.
But if one of those damned Apache warriors shows himself on top of that rocky ridge, you’re going to have to be quick pulling that bronze catch. ”
Elena, riding a little ahead and standing in her stirrups to read the ground, drew rein and let her horse fall back until she was level with the hunter.
“Gideon is right about one thing,” she said, pointing her leather whip at the almost invisible marks in the sand to their right.
“We’re not alone. There have been Apache scouts on our trail since we crossed the dry river.
They know every stone in this hell. If we push on carelessly, they’ll box us into a gully before the sun goes down. ”
Nero did not turn his head. His cold eyes stayed fixed on the far horizon, where the mountains of the Sierra Nevada were beginning to take shape like a grey wall.
“They won’t attack,” Nero answered, his voice measured and cold as the night wind. “At least not while we’re moving north. The Apache know who owned the Cross Ranch. They saw the smoke of that bonfire in Bitter Creek. They know the lead that killed Colonel Vance is travelling with us.”
Elena let out a harsh laugh, adjusting the kerchief protecting her neck.
“You put a great deal of faith in other men’s fear, stranger.”
“I put my faith in pragmatism,” Nero returned, glancing sidelong at her. “The Indians fight to defend what is theirs. They’re not going to spend warriors on three lunatics walking straight toward Russian bayonets.”
The Czar’s Blind Spot
By late afternoon the smothering heat gave way to a sudden, cutting cold, a merciless feature of that desert.
They set up a rough camp at the foot of a gorge of red rock, sheltered from the strong wind.
They lit no fire; the light of a fire would be an invitation to any stray bullet in the dark.
Gideon sat near the pack horse, oiling the steel barrels of the rotating gun with whale oil, while Elena spread the yellowed map on a flat stone, lit by nothing but the moon.
“I’ve been thinking about what old Vance said before you took his head off, Nero,” Elena remarked, drawing a line with her finger from the desert to the California coast. “The Russians control the Pacific. The Czar’s ships come down from Alaska loaded with soldiers and guns.
Fort Ross was built facing the sea, on top of a bluff, with the cannon aimed at the ocean.
They’re protecting themselves against pirates, against Spanish ships and against the American navy. ”
Nero, leaning against the rock and cleaning the mechanism of one of his modified Colt Patersons, raised his face. The snap of the metal closing rang out like a warning in the silence of the night.
“They’re waiting for an attack that comes off the water,” Nero concluded.
“Exactly,” Elena confirmed, her dark eyes shining with a fierce resolve.
“Commander Volkov feels safe because he has the ocean at his back and a wall of mountains and deserts protecting him by land. Nobody in their right mind would cross Indian country and the Sierra Nevada to attack a military fortress. To the Russians, the interior of this continent is dead ground, impassable.”
Gideon let out a cynical laugh from behind his goggles.
“Well… they clearly weren’t counting on a bounty hunter hauling a reaper on horseback, a vaquera thirsty for blood, and an inventor who has nothing left to lose in this world. We’ll come in through their back yard.”
Nero put the Colt Paterson away in the holster on his heavy belt, stood up, and walked to the edge of the gorge, looking out at the dark immensity stretching ahead of him.
The night wind stirred his long coat like the wings of a crow.
Thousands of miles from there, a girl of thirteen was surviving in the snow of the Pacific.
“We’re going to cross that mountain,” Nero pronounced, adjusting the brim of his hat. “And when we reach Fort Ross, their cannon will be pointing the wrong way.”
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