Meanwhile away from the mystical, uncharted forest the newly born day was casting its unforgiving light across the immense desert and the massive fortress which dominated the blood stained sand which surrounded its high walls.
The merciless sun had risen less than an hour earlier above Fort Hook and its blistering light dazzled everyone inside its protective walls. The bright rays caught the covered wagon’s canvas and its matched pair of sturdy horses hitched to its traces. The unforgiving sun also bathed down upon the four troopers as they led their cavalry horses out from the large livery stable into the center of the parade ground.
Colonel Ambrose Moon stood beside Sgt. Potter in the parade ground and watched the small troop preparing. He had not wanted this to happen but a lifetime of obeying orders could not be forgotten so easily.
Voices that were unheard by anyone else apart from the colonel kept repeatedly screaming inside his mind. The voices told Ambrose not to send the Hooper girls away from Fort Hook but he was a man who had never in his long military career, knowingly disobeyed orders from his superiors. He gripped a cigar between his teeth and scratched a match on his metal belt buckle. His cupped hands shielded the flame and allowed Ambrose to fill his lungs with strong smoke. Yet he still heard the voices pleading with him to change his mind and not send the golden haired sisters out into the dangerous terrain.
‘Anything wrong, sir?’ Potter asked from the corner of his mouth as he stood beside the troubled colonel.
‘For the first time in my long cavalry career, I’m doubting the wisdom of our superiors, Tyler,’ he admitted.
As the colonel stood puffing on his fat cigar his attention was drawn by his tall kinsman walking from the livery stable leading his mustang. Ambrose adjusted his white hat to shield his eyes from the blinding sunlight as Uriah Moon led his gelded mustang toward the covered wagon.
Moon looked quite alert to the colonel even though he again not had any sleep. The tall figure’s eyes darted around the parade ground and studied everything within the fortress’ walls as he aimed his boots at the military man hidden by the smoke which billowed from his cigar.
Ambrose raised a hand to Moon but there was no response to the greeting. Moon was in no mood to be friendly as he continued to narrow the distance between them. The colonel lowered his arm and sighed heavily to Potter.
‘He’s still angry with me, Tyler,’ Ambrose said.
‘A blind man could see that, sir,’ Potter replied.
The vigilante got to within ten feet of the commanding officer and was about to speak to his cousin when the burly blacksmith marched out from the livery stable toward the smoking Ambrose at a speed which defied the size of Big Joe McGraw.
Even though the colonel could not hear the rantings clearly he instinctively knew that he was the target of the furious outburst. McGraw kept on snarling his disrespectful words as he strode across the sandy ground toward Ambrose.
Uriah Moon tilted his head and glanced over his shoulder at the powerful blacksmith. He then looked at his cousin through loose strands of his long white hair. He could see the fear in the face of his kinsman.
The sight of McGraw striding toward him made the colonel take a backward step. It was like watching a buffalo bearing down upon him and Ambrose pulled the cigar from his lips and blinked hard.
‘Are you shouting at me, soldier?’ Ambrose shouted.
‘You see anyone else worth shouting at?’ McGraw growled like a wounded grizzly. It was obvious to everyone on the parade ground that the massive blacksmith was angry and Big Joe was not a man to tangle with when he was upset.
Big Joe halted a few steps from the startled colonel and stared with hooded eyes at the well-dressed officer. Ambrose attempted to calm Big Joe McGraw down but the blacksmith just snorted furiously.
‘Why in tarnation are you sending them sweet little girls off to Cougar’s Bluff, Colonel?’ Big Joe snarled. ‘Are you loco? Don’t you know how damn dangerous it is between here and there, Colonel? Ain’t you heard about Satan’s Spell? Fully grown men with scatterguns die in that place.’
Ambrose was taken aback. ‘What?’
‘You damn well heard me, Colonel.’ Big Joe snorted like a bull about to charge. ‘Why are you risking their pretty little necks? Answer me. Why?’
Colonel Ambrose tried to out-shout the blacksmith but McGraw was in no mood to be bested by the irate officer.
‘Don’t you talk to me like that or I’ll put you on a charge and throw you into the guard house, McGraw,’ Ambrose said firmly pointing his cigar at the massive man.
Big Joe gave out a belly laugh and spat at the ground between them as he rested his huge hands on his hips defiantly.
‘Just try it, Colonel,’ he growled. ‘I’m the only bastard in this fort that can handle all the horseflesh in that stable and you know it. I’m more than happy to have myself a little holiday in the jail yonder.’
Ambrose was about to make the biggest mistake of his career and get physical with the extremely large blacksmith. McGraw had hit a raw nerve with the highly decorated officer. The colonel was angry with himself more than the burly blacksmith but clenched his fists anyway.
‘I’ll teach you it don’t pay to badmouth me, McGraw,’ Ambrose said in a fevered fit of guilt.
Not willing to see his last living kinsman make the mistake which he would regret, Uriah Moon stroked his beard and stepped between the pair and sighed heavily. His eyes flashed between both men before he turned toward the blacksmith. Moon raised his eyebrows and stared into Big Joe’s face. He patted McGraw’s muscular shoulder.
‘Easy, big boy,’ Moon said with a glint in his eye. ‘The colonel is just obeying orders from army headquarters. This ain’t his idea. Don’t fret none. I’m tagging along with the girls on this trip. Anything that tries to hurt them will have to go through me first.’
McGraw looked into Moon’s icy blue eyes.
‘You are?’ he snorted.
Uriah Moon nodded. ‘Yep, I am. You understand me, Big Joe?’
For what seemed an eternity the massive man just looked into the expressionless face of the bearded vigilante and said nothing as he drew in air through his wide nostrils. Finally, he nodded, turned and walked back to the large stable building.
The muttering and curses trailed the blacksmith.
Moon swung around on his heels and stared straight at his cousin. Neither uttered a word for the longest time but both knew that Moon had somehow managed to calm the furious man mountain down.
Ambrose realized how close he had come to joining his wounded troopers in fort hospital but was unwilling to thank his mysterious cousin.
‘They’re coming, Colonel,’ Potter said as he pointed at the young females being shepherded toward the wagon by the handsome June Marcus.
All eyes within the parade ground were on the three females.
Uriah Moon tilted his head and studied the trio of females and then stroked his beard thoughtfully. For some reason, the handsome June was not wearing her usual tailored dress. She was wearing a cotton shirt and blue denim pants held together by an inch-thick black leather belt.
For the first time since the vigilante had set eyes upon her, June Marcus had taken the pins from her hair and allowed her blonde locks to fall loosely upon her slender shoulders. To the surprised Moon, she looked at least ten years younger.
He turned to his cousin.
‘Why’s June dressed like that, Ambrose?’ Moon asked as he toyed with his mounts reins.
The colonel glanced at his kinsman. ‘She came to me a couple of hours ago and said that she was going with the girls to Cougar’s Bluff. I tried to dissuade her but she was adamant.’
‘She is willing to risk her life escorting the girls to Cougar’s Bluff?’ Moon sighed and returned his attention to the approaching females. ‘That lady has sure got some grit, Ambrose.’
Colonel Ambrose puffed on his cigar. ‘She sure has, Uriah.’
Moon touched the brim of his hat in greeting to the attractive June and the beautiful blonde girls. He bowed at them and then noticed two of the troopers standing beside their horses a few yards away from the covered wagon.
Their bruised and bloodied faces displayed to Moon that they were the same men that he had tangled with the previous evening and that troubled the tall vigilante.
‘Two of them guards are pretty beat up, Ambrose,’ Moon said to his cousin without saying that he was the one who had given them the injuries. ‘Are you sure they’re suitable for escorting the wagon to Cougar’s Bluff?’
‘They volunteered, Uriah,’ Ambrose said through a line of grey smoke as he exhaled. ‘All the guards volunteered.’
Moon nodded and then turned to the females as they looked inside the back of the well-equipped wagon. The vigilante strode toward June and towered over her.
‘Are you sure you wanna go on this outing, June?’ he drawled with more than a hint of warning in his tone. ‘It might prove to be dangerous.’
She nodded and rested her hands on the shoulders of both Josie and Betty as they paused at the wagon’s tailgate. Her beautiful face showed no hint of concern for what they were about to undertake.
‘I’m dead sure, Uriah,’ she said firmly. ‘I don’t care how dangerous it might prove to be for myself. I’m just going to try and make sure that nothing happens to Josie and Betty.’
A smile revealed itself from behind Moon’s facial hair as he touched the wide brim of his black hat. He nodded and assisted all three females into the wagon and then closed its tailgate and secured it with two six inch pins on chains.
The vigilante momentarily glanced up at the blazing sun in the morning sky. It was hotter than hell and getting hotter, he thought. It was also very early and he knew that the temperature would rise as it progressed.
This was going to be one hell of a trip, Moon reasoned. A trip which might prove lethally costly and that disturbed the normally calm vigilante.
When he hunted men to make them pay for their crimes, it was always him against the odds. Man versus man. That was something he was used to, but this was totally different. This was leading innocent people into the jaws of the unknown.
Anything could happen.
And it probably would.
Moon had no idea of who or what lay in wait for unsuspecting travelers. All he knew about the infamous Satan’s Spell was that it had become almost mythical and that worried Moon. He had never dueled with a forest full of myths before.
He wondered if it was possible to defeat myths.
His narrowed eyes peered out from beneath his hat brim and stared at the two troopers he knew should not be allowed within a hundred miles of females, especially young ones. He realized that it was not just the lethal forest which he had to be troubled about. Trouble might just be a lot closer than he cared to think about.
The brooding Uriah Moon gathered but his long leathers in his hands and strode passed the wagon driver and then the four troopers before stopping his mustang and mounting the animal in one fluid action. As the cavalrymen got on to their horses and swung them around, the vigilante waited as the fort gates were opened before them.
‘Let’s go,’ she said.
The wagon driver cracked his long reins across the backs of the horses and got the hefty vehicle moving slowly toward the gates.
Uriah Moon gathered up his long leathers and waited for the guards to trail the wagon out into the desert and turn to head for the distant forest.
The vigilante then tapped his spurs into the flesh of the gelding and steered it after the wagon and its escorts. As he trotted behind the rocking vehicle, Moon watched the females in the back of the wagon. Then his cold ice blue eyes darted to the two troopers who he had already fought with and wondered what their motives were for volunteering to escort the wagon and its precious cargo.
As Moon increased his pace, his fertile imagination could only come up with one conclusion. The sickening thought would not go away.
Some men where simply unworthy of being regarded in the same herd as others, the intrepid avenger of the innocent thought as he ate dust. The gigantic blacksmith had warned him about the troopers within Fort Hook. Moon now realized that Big Joe was right.
None of them could be trusted.
As dust kicked up off the wagons wheel rims and the hoofs of the trooper’s horses, Moon diverted his icy stare to the two other guards. Although he had not caught them lusting after the Hooper girls, as he had done with the bruised troopers, the vigilante wondered if they might be cut from the same cloth as their fellow bluecoats.
Maybe that was why the army had sent them to the remote fortress knowing that few ever survived long enough to cause any trouble in the outside world again.
He stared at them as they flanked the covered wagon.
For all Moon knew, they were even worse that the two enlisted men that he had fought with. As he rode behind them and chewed on the dust that was being kicked up, Moon knew that this might be even more dangerous than venturing into Satan’s Spell.
The vigilante would have to remain alert.
As his mane of long white hair bounced upon his wide shoulders like the wings of a ravenous vulture seeking its next meal, troublesome thoughts gnawed at his innards.
Moon was expecting trouble at Satan’s Spell but was well aware that an even greater threat might be a lot closer than that. His unblinking eyes watched the four troopers as they travelled further and further away from Fort Hook toward their distant destination.
Danger had many faces and the vigilante was beginning to doubt whether he would recognize its many forms should they present themselves to him.
They rode on.